Summary: Episode 47: A long episode about 21 characteristics of the ultimate and worst premed advisers. See if you already do this… Download transcript: 21 Tips for Discerning Bad Premed Advisors In this episode, I’m going to be teaching twenty-one tips for how you can discern good pre-med advising from bad. Believe it or not, I get a lot of questions where people that—at least, I don’t know who they are—but they contact me for the first time, baring their souls in emails, telling me their personal stories, and I do not take that lightly. They ask questions about their career advice and when I study their questions, I kind of categorize them and I organize a whole file-folder of course. You know me, right? On all the questions that they asked, there are a few things that these questions have in common, and in many ways, I feel like they’re asking the wrong question. Specifically, why are they asking me? Why me? Is it because I podcast? Is it because they’ve heard me share my personal story? If you’re skeptical, you’re going to like this episode, because I’ve held onto it for a long time. I pulled it out of my files for future podcasts. As you know, I’m back on track doing a lot of podcasts, and I’m having what I call Mastermind Mondays, where I’ll schedule them every Monday. Make sure your subscriptions and your emails and all that are up to date with the Mastermind Community, so that you can keep up with podcasts. Today, let’s turn our attention to twenty-one tips for how to discern good pre-med advising from bad. Let’s get started. To put this in context, imagine the kind of questions that I get. I’ve got a list of them here in front of me. Like, “What should I do to prepare for my MCAT strategy?” “What can I do in undergrad coursework that would best set me up for medical school as well as the MCAT?” “How do I make a study plan?” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I’m telling you that in some cases, people are asking everybody they can find the same kind of questions. How do you determine who is going to be an authority in your life, and be able to answer that question for you? 1. Number one question to ask yourself before you go and seek pre-medical advice relating to your undergraduate coursework, GPA, preparatory experiences, the application, and the MCAT. Number one, “Is this person I’m asking experienced with the struggle, or have they always been successful in kind of everything they’ve touched?” This works a little bit on this idea of a non-traditional applicant. A traditional applicant would be one that does high school and does well, at least not failing, right? Maybe some C’s, but probably not too many D’s. A good childhood is very very important, and family that stick together and provide you the emotional nourishment you need so people aren’t acting out and behaving badly. Trust me, if you’re like me, and that wasn’t the case, you can still learn these skills and become a good physician. The non-traditional one has struggled a bit, whether it’s they didn’t go to college right away, or they went to college and either quit or graduated and went on and did something else for a while and later decided they wanted to do medical school. That’s what I’m talking about non-traditional. If you’re going to ask someone for pre-medical advice, you need to know if they’ve been a traditional versus non-traditional applicant and see if that matches up with your experience. If you are taking advice from someone that’s non-traditional but you’re traditional, it may not fit. I think that’s why the pre-med podcast appeals to people with something in their background like a C that bothers them or some failing classes or a lower GPA or something, because that is most of the questions that I get, and I get that and understand it. I’m good at it. I have personally struggled with that, and my whole academic career has not always been successful on paper. That’s one thing you need to[...]
