The Pre-Med Podcast

Episode 3: Take the premed quiz, formulate notes for your personal essay, learn the factors that affect medical student choices This material comes directly from my book, Diary of a Pre-Med Student which you can get emailed to you for FREE. Simply sign up for automatic updates in the upper right corner of www.MedicalMastery.com
Contents of this episode:

• Words of advice
• Questions that identify your preparedness for a career in medicine
• Importance of life experiences
• QUICK TIP: Things you can do right now do help you decide if medicine is right for you
• QUICK REFERENCE:
  • Stimulating research papers on US, UK, and Canadian medical students’ career choices
  • 3 career questionnaires

Let me preface my remarks by saying that from now on you should avoid career advice from anyone that has no experience with medical school. This includes family, friends, professors, and sometimes Pre-Med Advisors. What many notice is that people often project their own impression and reasons that they chickened out and didn’t follow their dreams onto the enthusiastic Pre-Med student.

Word of advice: Ignore the crotchety old doctor that tells you not to do it because of the influence of insurance and governmental regulations of recent decades. Not that you would listen to them, but if you educate yourself on the market you’re entering and still want to do it, you won’t have to.

When you account for the diversity of people entering into the medical profession, the reasons that they site for becoming interested vary widely. Some have people have always known they wanted to practice medicine, others are not so sure, and still others decided a little (or a lot) later in life. Whatever your background, I support you! None of these approaches will hinder you from reaching your goals.

So consider your sources carefully! This is all the more reason to plug into Medical Mastery.com and read our insiders advice and get automatic email updates!

So, how in the world are you supposed to know if medicine is right for you? Open a new text document or grab a pen and answer these questions:

• Are you the type of person that gives of yourself to help others?
• Do you receive satisfaction in helping someone when they’re down? How do you really know? Have you done it?
• Would you consider yourself a concrete, logical thinker or an abstract thinker?
• Have you had any exposure to the medical field, either through family or volunteering?
• Do you complain a lot when you’re tired? Have you ever really worked hard before?
• Have you ever been challenged academically? To the point that you weren’t sure if you could survive?
• Have you ever had a life challenge that lasted months or longer? (financial, stress, family illness…)
• Have you ever been financially challenged, or have you always had a stable life?
• Do you know what it feels like to be a helpless patient?

These questions should stimulate your mind and, if so, take notes! How did you react when you read them? Did you have quick, pat answers for every one? Did you think that some of them were irrelevant? Your reaction is important, no matter what it is because you can learn something about yourself!

You may notice that many of these important factors don’t illicit the warm and fuzzy feeling that you may have had when thinking about the nobility of the medical profession. That is because the practice of medicine, though it is noble, focuses on helping people in their greatest need.

If you haven’t had any of the down-and-dirty experiences of life, you’re at a disadvantage to knowing how well you’ll like medicine. You have no way of knowing either how to relate to the patients or how you’ll react when you’re around them all the time. That doesn’t mean that it’s not right for you, only that your ability to know how well you’ll like it ahead of time is impaired. The best you can do is volunteer in shelters, emergency rooms, shadow doctors, and the like. This is adequate for most people, but you should be at least mentally prepared for what you’re getting yourself into. (which is why you’re reading this, isn’t it?)

THINGS YOU CAN DO NOW:

Write a draft of your life goals

Decide what your ideal lifestyle is

Read articles

Shadow physicians

Volunteer

Research

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QUICK TIP:

Career decisons are more about clarifying who YOU are rather than learning about the career itself. So as you begin exploring the references I’m about to give you, make notes of character descriptions or epiphanies that you have. You will learn how to better articulate what motivates you as you resonate with some of the personality descriptions that you’ll see. Keep these notes in a file. No matter what career you choose, you can find some good phrases to swipe for resumes, cover letters, and personal essays. In fact this is the first step in writing your personal essay - brainstorming and articulating who you are!

QUICK REFERENCE:

USA medical students: http://www.stfm.org/fmhub/fm2004/February/Janet123.pdf

Canadian med students: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1930324&blobtype=pdf

UK medical students: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1239861&blobtype=pdf

Career Questionnaires:

http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2006/08/msoc1-0608.html

http://www.aamc.org/students/considering/decision.htm

http://www.free-career-test.com/tfct.asp

http://www.projectcareer.com/?code=G71-CPC50701-Career&gclid=CPLI5KWolpICFT00FQod9gMA_g

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Charity Highlight: Overcomers

Charity Mission Statement

“Overcomers exist to bring hope to hurting people and equip those who care with the knowledge needed to make a difference in other’s lives. Founded on the conviction that no matter how desperate life’s challenges may be, in Jesus Christ there is always solid reason to be optimistic.

We are a teaching ministry: educating people how to encourage each other in the love of Jesus Christ when facing life’s onslaught’s. Imparting the tools needed to comfort and help others with what to say and not to say. We formulate DVD courses to teach lay people across the world how to bring comfort and encouragement and the love of Jesus Christ to all.” http://www.overcomers.org/index.html

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Pre-Med Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.