Med School/resident/attending thread

Honestly just tells you how shitty EMRs really are.

 

I always tell people the reason Epic is so widely adopted is its the only EMR that doesn't suck. That's the bar, just don't suck.

 

Hey all, looking for some med school admission advice. My daughter has successfully navigated weed out classes at a state school of moderate distinction. She is on course for a 3.8-3.85 GPA after two years of the early chems, bios, and physiology classes. Org. Chem, Physics and stats next semester. MCAT a year away. She's still very interested in the medical profession. Two questions:

1. How important are things like lab internships and work? She's having a hard time here - getting lots of final round interviews, but her lack of quality lab time (horrible high school for STEM) is hurting. Any pro tips on alternatives? Should this concern me less than it does?

2. Anyone know a good site(s) for me to read up on getting accepted so I can provide quality fatherly advice? We live in the Rocky Mountain region, so we'll likely be applying to other geographies due to the low count of med schools in this region.

Epic: As an IT management pro in an Epic shop, we're getting more and more companies coming to us join our instance of Epic. Has been great for partnerships and regional influence. Agree though, as good as it is, it provides moments of immense frustration. Worked some on Saturday thanks to latest hiccups...thanks Epic. In their defense, most of the biggest healthcare orgs are complex and challenging customers to build a product for. Our org's complexity is rough.

Thanks in advance for any med school advice.

 

I don’t think lab internships matter? Unless something new has changed. it doesn’t matter what she does as long as she’s involved in something and shows dedication to it. you can be an art major and draw dicks all day and get into med school

 

Tell her not to do it. Follow in dad's footsteps. MAANG for life.

 

This shit is kind of for the birds like Leeroy Jenkins! alluded to but if she is dead set I would advise her to focus on grades/MCAT for now and supplement that with some clinical volunteering. Beyond that IMO things like research, jobs etc are all helpful but not make or break. I think it's better to do something that she is passionate about so she can spend a lot of time doing in and be able to write compellingly about it in essays/discuss in interviews. Research is cool if she really wants to do it but not a requirement. As far as sites to read about this sort of thing, I know of Student Doctor Network and a premed subreddit. I wouldn't necessity suggest those though; SDN in particular is filled with hyper neurotic types and could potentially just increase anxiety levels, there is some useful info in there though if you can dig through all the bullshit.

 

Anecdotally my wife did a lot of those extracurriculars (along with great grades/scores) and her personal story was about her high school getting wiped out by a tornado and got in first try.

My brother has like a >95 percentile MCAT score and failed to get in the first time. Then he took some one year prep course at Georgetown and now he’s waitlisted (at like position 50 so RIP). He’s done like zero extracurriculars and he’s only applying to one school because he wants to be somewhat near his kid. It seems at that flowery superfluous life experience is handy.

 

Yeah grades and test scores get you in the door but you definitely need more than that. I guess the point I'm trying to make is as far as extracurriculars go you are better off fully devoting yourself to a charitable cause/hobby you are truly passionate about than having some superficial experience in a lab that you don't really give a shit about.

 

If she can do any other profession that makes 200k or more, I’d have her consider it tbh. You don’t have to give up your 20s, become a slave to your debt, and you won’t have to constantly get bled with decreasing reimbursement and lurking private equity firms for the next 30 years. But helping people is nice

 

Granted I’m in the doldrums of a surgical residency but I would encourage people to do pretty much anything else. Medicine is pretty much bullshit and dealing with admin/insurance companies/etc while giving up your life ain’t worth it. Do something else.

I love operating but I think I could be happy elsewhere.

I’m not burned out or anything tho

 

I'm p happy in my career, love medicine, but got into it at a time just before med school admissions became an absolute life-devouring circus. Looking at what my little cousin's process has been like for med school applications, don't think I would have done it in the present day. It was dumb enough 10 years ago before it somehow got worse

 

It gets better... jk lol

 

I will tell you guys, since I made the switch to locums I am so much happier and less stressed.

 

I meannnnn it’s not boring, and you get respekt, and you get paid. someone’s gotta do it

 

Often difficult to tease out what's tough about the career vs what's tough about a job. I'm lucky, I've got a good job. I think the majority of primary care docs would be fairly happy in my job. And I've got some friends from school and residency who are like "don't go into medicine it's awful" and yeah I'd probably feel some of that if i had their jobs cuz their jobs blow.

 

I love my work, don’t love my job. (If that makes any sense).

can’t imagine doing anything else. But, if you can imagine doing anything else and being happy, don’t go into medicine.

 

Yeah, if I ever go back full time I'm doing hospital employed rvu based. I think I just hated private practice.

 

Oh I couldn't imagine what my life in private practice would be like. I know I'd hate it

 

Purely out of curiosity, any of you have a career at all before going into medicine?

 

Need to figure out how to scale the DPC model to surgery

 

Nope straight in from college

 

that's a fun little experiment. How would that even work?

 

So there is a guy about my age, orthopod, in Colorado who does house calls and cash pay surgery. He has a podcast I think. Let me find it.

 

Don’t get me wrong, radiology is dope but I’m not sure I can recommend the medical path to anybody coming out right now. It’s bad news as far as the eye can see

 

Easyorthopedics.com

 

I took three years, worked in healthcare the whole time in a couple capacities (EMR implementation, care coordination, clinical research). I really hated the culture of premed kids in my college, so initially thought no way I'd wanna go do med school

Most days at work now I reflect back on how much it would fucking suck to be punching a timecard

 

Love my job, wouldn’t do anything else.

never, EVER go on Student Doctor Network. EVER.

 

35/3.8/trad *~wHaT r My ChAnCeS~*

 

Also found a small niche doing side work as a physician “coach” aka EMR efficiency. Love it. Save physicians hours of their lives back. Hate traveling though.

 

Hello doctors and future doctors,

I’ve had a dull/aching pain in my left flank/kidney area for about two weeks now, the only other symptom I had has been a noticeable loss of appetite - I get hungry on a set schedule 5x a day, now I might get hungry once a day. It’s not painful to the touch or with pressure or even now as I’m sitting typing this, but if I twist or torque my torso I def feel it, almost like a pulled muscle from working out, but feels deeper/inside my body like if you ever took a hit in the kidney playing sports. That said I didn’t have any trauma incidents to that area, like I’ve pulled a muscle working out before and knew then and there. This kind of appeared out of nowhere. I haven’t worked out in the last two weeks and have been trying to take it easy, but still get that “oof” pain when I roll over in my sleep or twist/torque at the waist. No history of kidney stones. No blood in urine.

I went to an urgent care on Saturday and they tested my urine - came back fine, took an X-ray of my midsection and didn’t see anything. The NP gave me an antibiotic and muscle relaxers. The antibiotic will run out tomorrow and once the muscle relaxer wears off the pain is the same as it was on Saturday (I’ve read on google if it were an kidney infection antibiotics usually make people feel better in a day or two - so guessing it’s not an infection).

Anyway they called me today and their radiology dept recommends I get a Renal Colic CT for further evaluation - my GP wasn’t in today, so I’ll try tomorrow, but in the meantime I’m wondering if this is a normal follow up or if I should be worried?

 

How old are you? They’re just doing the CT to look for stones, renal masses don’t typically cause pain until they’re very large

 

38yo

Is it common for stones to not show up in the initial x-rays?

 

Not all stones are radiopaque (more of a problem with gallstones than renal stones however), plus small stones (less than 3 mm) are very hard to see on radiograph, especially if there’s a lot of stool/gas overlying the kidneys. CT is the definitive test for stones 1 mm or greater plus much more sensitive for a stone in the ureter (the tube that drains urine to the bladder).

 

Thank you for the info.

 

"The NP put me on an antibiotic." A story as old as time.

 

Literally about to post this exact same thing. Fucking urgent care NPs and antibiotics for literally every single thing.

 

Got a scholarship offer that will cover 3/4ths of my tuition. Needless to say I feel through the roof and I'm pretty damn grateful. The cost of education was one of the biggest reasons I hesitated to pursue this career in the first place so this is a real game changer.

 

Congrats and fuck you but mostly congrats.

 

(My monthly student loan payment is $4300)

 

As someone who literally just went through the process and applied twice I would say the most important thing is clinical experience and specifically patient interactions. The research/publications etc all nice and looks good but like 90% of the secondary questions and interview questions revolve around your personal experiences in a clinical setting/ volunteering. You'll get 100 different ways asking you about your personal motivations as to why you're pursuing this career and if you don't have enough experience doing those things it's a lot tougher to answer some of those questions authentically. The box checking gpa mcat etc. is necessary to get the interview but you have to be able to articulate your motivations with pointed examples from your experience.

 

Congrats getting accpeted and on the scholarship offer, esp. in light of Mr Mortisay's post about monthly payments from hell.

Appreciate the answer. What is the best way for an undergrad to build clinical experience? Sounds particularly challenging in the last couple years - our campus (Level 1 academic facility) has been locked down for volunteers and programs that are non-essential for much of the pandemic. My daughter has found volunteer chances opening back up to some degree. Her motivation has a lot to do with my oncology battles and she's good with those types of questions generally, but my concern has been the lack of relevant work experience. She has picked up a pair of TA jobs (Bio and Physiology) since then, but not sure how valuable those are - they certainly aren't clinical setting experience.

 

Thanks for the reply. She can't be reasoned with - it's what she wants to do. What types of organizations offer clinical volunteering? I work for a Level 1 Academic, and we've had volunteer programs on ice since the pandemic started, but I'm wondering if there are volunteer opps I'm not thinking of. Personality-wise, she has a chill personality, and the combination of looks/personality that have me convinced there was a baby swap at the nursery when she was born. She would mock me if I referred her to hyper-neurotic type sites.

 

I volunteered at a cancer support home, didn’t have any clinical experience really. I know others that did various volunteer or paying jobs like phlebotomist or even patient transport at the hospital. I think just getting in somewhere so that you have some experiences to share is helpful

 

Holy fuck

 

You should see my wife’s! Hoping PSLF comes through on that one

 

Had two full ride offers, 1 was an MD/phd route. Dodged bullet by skipping the phd years.

Scholarship was contingent on grades, so I hard core gunner’d it up first year, ranked in top 5 and kept it. Got so burned out that I figured it wasn’t worth my mental health (and I knew I was going into primary care so my grades weren’t going to matter). Anywho, got half of schooling paid for and then remained on a smaller but substantial scholarship, so it allowed me to not care at all about salary/offers leaving residency, which was a really nice perk. I know classmates that really picked their job offers solely based on money, and some definitely regret it.

wife worked while I was in med school and residency so I left with 0 debt.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your cancer battles and hope you're doing better. It's very tough with the pandemic but I spoke to a couple of dean's of admissions about that very same thing and they told me flat out while they try to take into account the fact that there are less opportunities for those type of experiences they still have plenty of applicants that still managed to do them despite the circumstances so they will favor them . It's bullshit. But that's what happens when residency spots and by extension acceptance spots remain stagnant for 20 + years while the number of applicants continues to rise. AAMC released data showing that in 2002 the number of medical school applicants nationwide was 23,000 for 17,000 spots. 2021 had 65,000 applicants for 20,000 spots. And it's only getting worse. This leads to insane qualifiers and hoop jumping to arbitrarily separate an extremely competitive pool. They've included things like a casper exam which is a "moral judgement" assessment that is now a requirement at a majority of schools . Again it's pure bullshit but as I learned the hard way you just have to play their game as unfair as it is. I'm not sure where you live or what opportunities your daughter has available but what I ended up doing was legit cold calling local doctors from various specialties to ask if I could shadow and got about 1 yes for every 50 no's. I reached out to all my local hospitals and was actually volunteering in the ER when the pandemic hit. They sent volunteers away for a few months but then called us back for different departments within the hospital. They're still not allowing them in the ER. Another possible option is nonprofit charities. One that I did was leukemia and lymphoma society that holds a walk every year to raise money for cancer research so just helping them set up with their events and various other things. Because again the first question is why do you want to do this but the the follow up question is always what have you done to demonstrate your commitment to doing this? If you have any questions about the process feel free to pm me at any time I'd be glad to help because I know it's a nightmare and there really is no guide or process that tells you what you're supposed to be doing.

Edit: Forgot some other options but will likely involve taking a gap year because they'll require a year long commitment like scribing jobs(which pay minimum wage) and EMT.

 

Thanks, I'm doing much better now. From 2009-2013, my daughter's age 6-10 years of age, I had a Whipple Procedure, spent over 125 days in the hospital over two years, and just missed a lot of my daughter's life either in the hospital or constantly under the effects of heavy pain medication. That had a huge impact on her that still drives her. I'm much better off now (back to my hobbies like skiing, backpacking, etc.), and my pancreas/liver NETs have been manageable. We live near Denver, so we have a major population center with numerous types of opportunities you described. Going to discuss your recommendations with her. She has mentioned some of these, but not others. Really appreciate you taking the time, I can see how you got yourself to where you want to be based on your approach you described - understanding a process is key to getting what you want from it. The gap year is something she is braced for. She doesn't turn 19 until later this month, so a year working could be helpful. She is determined, she spent the last four months looking for work, getting 2nd interviews, never getting chosen, but refined her process and got four jobs in the last week (some for summer, some for her Junior year).

 

Sorry to hear that. I have a lot of experience in this arena in case you ever need anything, feel free to PM. Sounds like they’ve got a good handle on it though if you’re at that level of activity