Dear Alex, As you realize your destiny, I want to share the lessons I have learned in my 45 years on the front lines of health care. I am hoping they will serve you well on your journey. First and foremost, love what you do. Have fun with the people wh…
Whether you’re hoping to become the first doctor in your family or you hail from a long line of physicians, navigating the path to medical school can be a daunting experience that takes years of preparation. Providing a peek inside the mind of an admis…
A little background before I set off: I study in a medical school in India whose attached public hospital is as busy as it can get. It serves its people absolutely free of cost and is often a refuge for the poor of the society. We often run out of res…
The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) should be abolished. This single test — which ranks students by the science they’ve learned before going to medical school — prevents the physician population in the U.S. from looking like the population …
“90 percent of what you will learn over the next four years will be wrong in a couple of decades from now.” Speaking to a lecture hall of 120 first-year medical students, our professor’s prophecy seemed to fall on deaf ears. Looking a…
Students’ time in medical school should help them grow and become insightful, caring doctors. Instead, medical education is somehow turning smart, gifted, enthusiastic applicants into exhausted and unhappy students who become interns, residents, and ph…
Job shadowing is a long-standing tradition. High schools often have dedicated shadowing days, during which students can come and spend time with people working in careers that the students find interesting. While a few hours isn’t really enough to kn…
Interleveling strategy Interleveling is the process of studying/learning multiple unrelated concepts across different subjects during the same study session. This can make studying appear difficult and more disjointed. However, research shows it yields…
The definition of pimping in the medical field is different than the colloquial usage by artists like Jay-Z, Snoop, and Kendrick Lamar. Although most people are aware of pimping in the vernacular language (which will not be discussed further, I would s…
The first two years of medical school are geared towards learning enough so you can pass your first round of Boards. All the sleepless nights and the tears can be overwhelming, but to finally get to the finish line is an incredible achievement. It rein…
