Judging from my blog stats, it would look like a lot of folks who come here are still premeds and interested in going to med school.  My most popular article thus far is a guide on how to not be a premed douchebag, and right below that are all other premed-related articles.  So, in the interests of boosting my traffic here a little bit now that I’m back from a long hiatus, I’d like to pander to my premed readers a little bit.

So, you think you’re ready for med school, huh?  You’ve aced all your pre-reqs, you scored really well on the MCAT.  You got your AMCAS in with a Pulitzer prize-winning essay.  By all standard, objective measures available, it would appear that you’re ready for med school.  But as I recently realized, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you’re ready for med school.  Just because you can get in doesn’t mean you can stay in–or even should be in in the first place.

What follows is a little quiz for you premeds out there to determine if you’re really ready for med school.  I think it should go without saying that anything written henceforth is coming from the same guy who wrote an article with the word “douchebag” in its title, so this is by no means a scientifically valid assessment.  But it should be fun nonetheless.

So, here we go.

ARE YOU READY FOR MED SCHOOL?

1.  You were up until 3:00a.m. studying for a test, and this morning you woke up at 6:00 in order to cram in a few more hours of studying.  With three hours of sleep, you:

a) don’t wake up.  The alarm is going off, but you can’t hear it because you’re not accustomed to functioning on such little sleep.  When you finally do wake up, the test is over.

b) are a zombie.  There’s no way to you’ll be able to do well on the test unless you get 8 or more hours of sleep nestled snugly in bed cuddled up next to your teddy bear.

c) pound cup after cup of coffee, pop a few vitamin pills, take a cold shower, and review your flashcards one more time.  Sure, it sucks to not get enough sleep, but sometimes you have to sacrifice to get good grades.

d) feel like a million dollars.  Three hours of sleep is more than enough!  You routinely stay up all night memorizing passages of arcane physiology textbooks and reproducing plates from medieval anatomy atlases just because you can.

2.  You studied 60 hours per week for three weeks preparing for yesterday’s exam.  Yet when then exam results come in, it turns out your hard work is all for naught–you FAILED!  Your immediate reaction:

a) “Eh, I failed the last twelve as well.  Might as well make it a baker’s dozen!”

b) You feel the tears well up in your eyes.  You reach for your cellphone and immediately begin dialing your mom.  Maybe she can talk to your professor and convince him to let you retake the exam.

c) You feel like shit.  You can’t tell if you did something wrong in preparing, or if one of your professors just hates med students.  Nevertheless, the test is over, and now it’s time to grab some beers and relax.  You’ll just have to do better next time.

d) You laugh.  There was clearly some mistake.  You’ve never failed before, and it’s impossible that you’ve failed this time.  After all, the professor asked you to write all the questions.

3.  You’ve just completed the last test before the Christmas break of your first year of med school.  What is the first thing you do?

a)  Crack out all the books from the first semester and start reviewing them.  Your classmates peg you as a gunner, but in actuality, you’re 99% sure you’re going to have to repeat the first semester.

b)  Breathe a sigh of relief.  You’re 1/8 of the way through medical school!  This is the most momentous occasion of your life!  Before heading home for the holidays you hold a tea party with your stuffed animals who are all so very proud of you.

c) Get amazingly drunk with a handful of your classmates.  Who needed to remember any of that info from first semester anyway?

d) Polish up your best pair of shoes.  The medical school is throwing a party in your honor tonight for being the most amazing student in the history of the institution ever.

4.  It’s the first day of Gross Anatomy.  Describe your state of mind.

a) Absent.  Not absent-minded.  Literally absent.  You slept in through anatomy lab because you were out late the night before.  The bars don’t close themselves, you know!

b)  Scared.  You’ve never seen a dead body before, and you’re afraid you might puke when it comes time to cut one open.

c) Mixed feelings.  You’re excited for this milestone in your education, but you’re nervous because it comes with a lot of responsibility.

d) Super excited.  Finally, a cadaver you are legally allowed to dissect.  You’ve come a long way from the “good old days” in your basement.

5.  Finals are around the corner.  Describe your study methods.

a) You crack open a textbook the night before the test and read the words in bold.  They’re the most important ones, right?

b) You read, and reread, each assigned chapter from the textbook, review the powerpoint slides from lecture, do 100 study questions from a review book, transcribe your class notes into a word document, highlight pertinent info from a review book, and go over flashcards.  In the meantime, you forget to eat, sleep, or defecate.

c) Find a review book, and memorize as much as you can.  You study in discrete blocks and remember to take breaks as needed in order to stay sane.

d) This shit is so easy, you don’t even need to study.  What is this, kindergarten?

6.  It’s time for the first genital exam clinic in your Clinical Medicine class.  How do you feel?

a) So excited!  This will definitely be the first class you attend–you can’t wait to see some wang/vag!

b) So nervous!  You’ve never seen the genitals of the opposite sex before, let alone palpated them.  You can’t tell if it’s a sin to touch the genitals of someone who isn’t your spouse, even if it’s for school.

c) Completely indifferent.  With all the schoolwork, this is really just another class.  You still giggle when your professor says “testicles” though.

d) Disinterested.  You’ve seen so many genitals in your conquests of the opposite sex, this is all old news.

7.  You have to buy a stethoscope for class.  What do you buy?

a)  Buy?  A stethoscope?  Are you kidding?  If you ever actually need one of those, you’ll borrow it from a classmate.

b)  A Littman Cardiology III, even though you can’t really afford it, because the Clinical Medicine course director recommended it.

c)  Whatever you can buy off an upperclassman for cheap.

d)  A Littman Master Cardiology, mostly because it was the most expensive one you could find, and also, because it has the word “master” in it, which seems fitting.

8.  Your best friend from college visits unexpectedly.  You haven’t seen each other in months, and you’d like to hang out.  The only problem is that you have a test coming up.  What do you do?

a) Hang out!  Studying is for squares, chumps, and losers!  C equals MD, man!

b)  Tell your friend that you’ll have to see them another time.  Even though you realize it might be a year or more before you have the chance to see your friend, you also know that you need to study–and getting good grades is the single most important thing in the world.  Ever.  Period.

c)  Tell your friend that you can hang out for a couple hours.  While you really need to study, you also need to have a life.  You’ll figure out a way to make it work, even if it means getting less sleep, or biting the bullet and getting a lower grade on this test.

d)  This is a completely implausible scenario.  You have no friends.

9.  Spring Break time!  Describe your week off.

a)  You left school a week before the “official” spring break and drove to the beach, where you drank margaritas by the bucketful until your next test, three weeks later.

b)  You go home to stay with your parents.  You know it would be good for your grades to study, but you can’t bring yourself to actually hit the books.  Instead, you spend the entirety of your break stressing out about the fact that you aren’t studying for your next test.

c)  It doesn’t so much matter where you go–what really matters is the fact that your mind is free for a week.  It’s awesome to not have to think about the innervation of the head all the time.

d)  You spend your time in the anatomy lab.  The cadavers are the only people who understand you.

10.  At the end of the first year, you begin to consider your summer plans.  What sorts of things are you thinking about doing for the break between your first and second years?

a) Review Gross Anatomy.  You’ll be taking it again next year.

b) You’ve got a ton of things lined up.  Research, clinical experiences, volunteering on mission trips to Africa.  It all sounds really great–you just wish there was some time in there to relax.

c)  You’re definitely planning on doing something productive–maybe research, maybe a clinical rotation at the hospital–but you want to make sure you have time to decompress before starting second year.

d)  Preparing your Nobel Prize acceptance speech.  It’s only a matter of time before your genius is recognized.

Scoring yourself:

If you answered mostly A’s:  God only knows how you even got into medical school, but here you are.  There’s no doubt that you’re smart; you probably breezed through college without ever having to study.  But medical school is different.  Unless you shape up, there’s a good chance that you will have to repeat a year or two.  You might even get kicked out because you’re simply not ready for the responsibility of medical school.

If you answered mostly B’s:  Academically speaking, you’re probably ready for school.  But emotionally, you need to mature a little bit.  Medical school is a trying time.  Just stick with it.  You’ll be okay.  Just don’t tell any of your classmates that you have tea parties with your stuffed animals.

If you answered mostly C’s: Are you sure you aren’t already in medical school?  You sound like 90% of my classmates.

If you answered mostly D’s:  You have narcissistic personality disorder and no one likes you.  I’m sure you’ll be a great plastic surgeon one day.

Shame on you.

Now, I’m not going to lie and suggest that Gross Anatomy is the best movie of all time. Hell, I don’t even think I can honestly say it was the best film of 1989. (I mean, 1989 was the year that Look Who’s Talking came out… I’m just saying.)

So, what’s so special about Gross Anatomy? Well, if you’re visiting this blog, I assume you have at least some interest in med school, and Gross Anatomy is easily the best movie about med school that I’ve ever seen.

Now, at one point, this movie was required watching for pretty much all pre-meds. That was a long time ago, however. Considering that this movie is older than the youngest batch of pre-meds out there now, it’s not hard to imagine why this movie has fallen out of fashion. Nowadays, pre-meds have Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs and House to watch and fantasize about how awesome it is to be a doctor. (Despite reality suggesting the exact opposite… but I digress.) Why would they need some cheesy movie from–gasp!–the 80’s?

Because it’s awesome–in that wholly earnest and embarrassingly heart-warming way that only movies from the 80’s are capable of being. The film follows Joe Slovak, a rebellious and passionate student making his way through his first year of medical school. Centered around the dissecting group in Joe’s anatomy lab, the film has all the classic med student stereotypes–there’s a neurotic guy who studies all the time, a status-minded douchebag, a student so focused on her education that she doesn’t have time for a personal life, and a married student who gets pregnant during first year. Also present is the intense-yet-compassionate anatomy professor who catalyzes Joe’s transformation from a flippant med student to a caring doctor-to-be. Here’s a youtube clip of that professor’s potent commentary during orientation:

One of the reasons that I like Gross Anatomy so much is that it doesn’t romanticize or glorify medical school. Instead, it strives to present a realistic take on the med school experience. The students are shown studying all the time and struggling to keep up with the breakneck pace of their classes. Unlike the current crop of shows that portray the medical profession as glitzy and glamorous, Gross Anatomy tries to show just how hard medical school is. The characters are tired, cranky, and stressed-out–a far cry from the over-sexed physicians on Grey’s Anatomy or the doofuses on Scrubs who seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time goofing off.

I won’t go into too much detail, because if you’ve seen the film, you don’t want me to rehash it here, and if you haven’t seen it, you really should just add it to your Netflix queue, STAT.

I’m here to give a few pointers that I wish I had known last year when I filled out my AMCAS. I’ll admit, I didn’t have any idea what I was getting myself into when I started the application last summer. It took a whole lot longer, and required a lot more attention to detail than I had ever expected. I’m sharing this in the hope that I can make someone else’s experience just a tad bit brighter than mine was.

• Start now! Pretty much all med schools say that they review and consider all applications with an equal amount of weight. If this is true, then according to them, applications that arrive an hour before their deadline are considered with equal gravity as applications that arrive an hour after applications start being accepted. Since this is their official stance, we’re expected to assume that it’s true, but I’ve collected enough anecdotal evidence from MDapps and the forums at SDN to see that this probably isn’t the whole story. It seems that people who apply earlier tend to have better luck getting interviews, and really, it makes sense; early on in the application cycle, you still have a chance to stand out amongst the piles of other applicants. As time wears on, however, you must be truly unique to get noticed. If you have a 4.0/40, then you might not need to worry about it, but if your stats are marginal, you might receive a bit of a boost from applying early. At any rate, getting it done sooner than later won’t hurt anything. I suggest you do it now. That leaves you free to not worry about it anymore and enjoy your summer.
• Start now! Seriously. I say this again, because it can take a long time to complete the AMCAS. If you want to have it submited early, you really need to go get started now. It took me a couple months before I had refined mine to a point where I was comfortable submitting it, and I really wish I had started earlier. Don’t put it off. This is especially true if you are applying to schools with “rolling” admission deadlines. If your AMCAS isn’t submitted until September or October, you are likely to get overlooked. GET STARTED NOW!
• Take your time. Entering all your classes and grades is a frustratingly tedious process. But you have to take it seriously. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass, but if you don’t enter your courses and grades as accurately as possible, you will regret it. I advocate double, then triple, then quadruple checking your classes to make sure you’ve entered everything 100% accurately. This is not a joke. If your classes aren’t entered properly, and the grades you entered on your application don’t match the grades on your transcript, the final approval of your application will be delayed. That means the people who applied after you who took the time to carefully ensure that their applications were correct will get to cut ahead of you in the admissions process, all because you were too lazy or inattentive to make sure everything was right. Don’t let that happen.
• Use your “work/activities” section to highlight unique accomplishments. A whole lot of pre-meds have very similar things to put in the “work/activities” section. It almost always goes without saying that you were a member of the pre-med club–so unless you did something more than show up for free pizza, DON’T LIST IT. Instead, use that spot to highlight something unique about yourself. You only have 15 spots, so use them wisely. Instead of using one of your precious “work/activity” slots for highlighting that you did the same activity that 95% of other pre-meds engage in, why not highlight the fact that you are a talented musician or a recognized blogger, or a successful athlete? It goes without saying that you should enter all your academic awards, volunteering experiences, and medically-related work activities here. But, in addition, you really have to stand out in the application process, so if you can add one or two truly unique “personality” items, you will be rewarded by sticking out in the minds of the adcoms.
• Get personal with the personal statement. The personal statement is easily the most intimidating section on the AMCAS–and arguably the most important. Do not take this lightly. You are faced with the practically impossible mission of selling yourself, while simultaneously explaining why you’d be a good doctor–all in elegant prose, no less–and you only 5300 or fewer characters to express yourself. Unless you’re a supernaturally gifted writer, you will need to spend a lot of time preparing your essay. I went through three or four different versions of mine over the course of a couple months, and in the end, I was still dissatisfied with it. One of the keys to success on the personal statements is to avoid clichés. Use your own personal experiences–volunteering, working in a hospital, whatever–and spin it into a tale about why you want to be a doctor. The more unique, the better, as long as you can make it relate to medicine. So, if you can write honestly about why being an gold-medal winning astronaut has influenced your decision to become a doctor, by all means, do it. By the same token, don’t assume that your experiences won’t be interesting to an admissions committee just because they aren’t extraordinary by an everyday standard. Remember, most pre-meds are younger college students with relatively little work experience, so if, for example, you spent several years as a truck driver before deciding to switch to medicine, your story will be unique and compelling–as long as you can justify your decision to become a doctor. The main objective of the personal statement is to speak with authority and convince your reader that you understand the mess you’re getting yourself into with a career in medicine. If you can do this, you should be okay.
• Get some help. The “work/activities” section, as well as your personal statement, are two areas where a lot of applicants go astray. These are two of the most important places for your personality to shine. In order to do that, your writing must be clear, concise, and completely error-free. I’ve heard horror stories about adcoms who will reject an application if even one word is misspelled. Remember, med school admissions are brutally competitive, and they are looking for any reason they can find to reject you. Do yourself a favor and get a friend who isn’t afraid to be honest with you to proofread and critique your essays.
• Let it settle. This is probably going to sound weird, considering the emphasis I’ve placed on getting your application in early, but once you think you’ve completed it, I suggest you set it aside for a few days or a week, and just not think about it. Then, come back to it with a fresh perspective and honestly re-evaluate the writing in you work/activities section and your personal statement. You might be surprised how much different it seems when you approach it after having not thought about it for some time. With this new clarity of perspective, you will be better able to spot things that sound weird or things that are out of context; this will let you polish up that final draft and submit your application in confidence.
• Think positive. This is really important. Don’t think of the AMCAS as an annoying hurdle to overcome on the road to med school. That kind of negativity can creep its way into your application. Instead, think of it as your platform–and your one chance, really–to tell the world why you want to be a doctor, and prove why you’d be the best one out there. I promise you that if you approach the AMCAS with this enthusiastic, do-or-die mindset, it will be evident in your essays. As long as you don’t take it too far and come off as an egomaniacal a-hole, your positivity will find its way into your application, and the adcoms will notice.

The AMCAS is not a fun thing. But in order to do well in the application process, you have to take it very seriously. I hope I’ve shed some light on what it takes to successfully complete this application. I won’t guarantee any results, because med school applications are such a random and perplexing process. But I will say that if you read and follow my advice, the AMCAS won’t seem like a never-ending slog through one meaningless form after another, as it often did for me. If you keep in mind that your application serves a greater purpose, and approach it with the right attitude, a successfully completed AMCAS might just be your ticket to medical school.

Best of luck!

Now I realize I was just taking it all too personally.

The article was right. I accept that now.

The truth of the matter is that I actually gave up on my dream of med school for a while–a couple years, actually–largely because I was annoyed by so many of my pre-med classmates. I couldn’t bear the thought of being stuck in a classroom/hospital with them for the better part of the next decade. They were easily the most obnoxious, irritating, and infuriating classmates I have encountered at any point in my education. While I somehow managed to make it through my pre-med curriculum without succumbing to the douche-laden pitfalls that plague so many pre-meds, I feel that perhaps I was lucky. Med school admissions is a cut-throat process, so I understand why so many pre-meds turn out the way they do. In a lot of ways, they can’t help it. They’re the human carnage from an inherently (and massively) flawed train-wreck of a system.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m living proof that you can get into medical school without devolving into a feminine hygiene product.

So, if you’re one of my two or three readers, and you happen to be a pre-med, I’m pleading with you: don’t be a douchebag. Sure, you want to get into medical school, but there’s no reason you have to become less than human in the process.

In an effort to help you retain your dignity, and to perhaps stem the rising tide of pre-med douchebags, I’ve created this handy guide.

What’s a douchebag?

I’m glad you asked that question. Douchebags are common in contemporary society, owing largely to the fact that they are universal facets of all social groups. As such, douchebags are not unique to any one gender, race, religion, or socio-economic background. Some groups may have a higher concentration of douchebags than others, but make no mistake–they’re everywhere. You’re just as likely to spot a douchebag at a string quartet recital as at a Poison reunion show. Due to their ubiquity, it is necessary to define what exactly unites all douchebags across the spectrum of douchebaggery, from the pretentious van-dyke -sporting philosophy douche at the local coffee shop to that greasy sleazebag at the bar who wears his shirt unbuttoned to the navel. A douchebag is defined on UrbanDictionary.com as:

An individual who has an over-inflated sense of self worth, compounded by a low level of intellegence, behaving ridiculously in front of colleagues, with no sense of how moronic he appears.

That definition works for me. Douchebags are common, in part, because they are only moderately awful. While they’re more offensive than, say, losers or posers, they aren’t offensive enough to be full-on assholes or motherfuckers either.

How do I know if I’m a pre-med douchebag?

Another good question. Unfortunately, most douchebags are unaware that they are douchebags. For some reason, self-reflection is not a skill that most douchebags posess, which means that a pre-med douchebag can be accepted to medical school, become a medical student douchebag, then an intern douchebag, a resident douchebag, and an attending douchebag–and get this–he (or she) might never know that he is a douchebag! The general rule, however, is that if you have to ask, you’re probably a douchebag.

What’s wrong with being a pre-med douchebag, if I get into medical school in the end?

Last time I checked, being a douchebag wasn’t a crime–so nothing, technically. Aside from the fact that you’re obnoxious, whiny, devoid of all personality, and contagiously neurotic, you’ve done nothing wrong. If you’re okay with this, then by all means, run with it.

Perhaps the biggest offense perpetrated by the douchiest of pre-meds has been to give the rest of us a bad name. Pre-med d-bags are a prime example of the 40/60 rule: it’s 40% of all pre-meds who give the remaining 60% an undeserved bad reputation. That, perhaps, is the true crime of the pre-med douchebag.

How can I avoid becoming a pre-med douchebag?

Easy. Just follow these rules:

• Don’t wear scrubs to class. Ever. I don’t care if you just came from performing cardiac bypass surgery on the pope. There’s no need to wear scrubs in organic chemistry class, period. You look like a jerk, and you make me embarrassed to be tangentially affiliated with you through shared professional ambitions. Just pack a change of clothes in your backpack and slap on a sweat shirt before class. Seriously.
• Never utter the phrase “is this going to be on the test?” If it’s covered in class, chances are, it will be on the test, genius. If it doesn’t make it to the test, consider yourself blessed with a free piece of knowledge, and move on.
• Never utter the phrase “I’m a pre-med.” Being a pre-med is not a bad thing, but the arrogance with which many pre-meds flaunt this simple fact is nauseating. This is kind of like buying a telescope and proudly declaring that “I’m a pre-astronaut,” or nuking a packet of ramen and bragging, “I’m a pre-chef.” So you’re in college, taking some science classes that are remotely related to the practice of medicine. Congratulations. But remember, most pre-meds don’t make it to medical school, so being a pre-med really isn’t a distinguished badge of honor. If someone asks you what you’re doing in school, just state your major (which is NOT pre-med) and move on. If you REAAALY can’t help yourself, tell them that you’re going to apply to medical school. Avoiding self-aggrandizing remarks that boast about your pre-med status will go a long way towards preventing you from being a pre-med douchebag.
• Don’t talk about grades. You know who I’m talking about. You might not know his name, but you recognize him as an alpha douchebag pre-med. Worse yet, he recognizes you as a pre-med as well, and comes up after a test and asks how you did. You tell him you did okay. He smirks as he asks, “how okay? Because I got a 95%.” Fucking pre-med grade whores. Why do they get off on telling everyone their grades? I mean, I understand being excited about winning that hard-earned mark; if you ace a test, I salute you. But there’s no need to brag if you did well–it only makes you look like a douchebag. If you really need to share with someone, call your mom. She’s the only one who cares.
• Think before haggling for points. Too many times throughout college, I can remember seeing the same handful of douchebags standing in line outside a professor’s office after a test. Without fail, they were there to gain an extra percentage point, even though they had already gotten A’s. This practice is annoying at best, and counterproductive, at worst. Do you think a professor wants to write you a letter of recommendation after you barged into his office and demanded he raise your grade three-tenths of a percentage point, time and time again? Of course not. The professor would probably prefer write a glowing LOR for this lady than spend another minute thinking about you, you greedy douchebag. Grade haggling is a tricky subject, however, because very, very occasionally, it is warranted. If you were inaccurately or unfairly graded, by all means, request a re-grade. If you are half a percentage point away from a better letter grade, I can see how you might make a case to a professor. Exercise due caution when trying to improve your grade. It could always backfire in the long run.
• Get a hobby. One of the character traits common to almost all pre-med douchebags is a lack of any defined or well-developed personality. Most are just carbon-copy clones of one another. They all got it in their heads at some point that one must be a biology major, join the pre-med club, and volunteer at the hospital, among other things, to get into medical school. Very few pre-meds ever do these things because they actually want to, or because they’re interested in them. This leads to an army of lookalike applicants who all blur together in the minds of the admission committees. My advice: get a hobby. Do something (or several things) because you like them. Be passionate about something that isn’t medicine or medically related. Do you like rock climbing? Good–go do it until your fingers bleed. Are you into music? Cool. Start a band or join the student radio. Do you have a passion for the mating habits of geckos? Neat-O! Get licensed as a gecko breeder then. Whatever it is, just do it. Anything that makes you stand out and appear more unique will be of great service to you when you apply to med school, and it will have the added bonus of making you less of a douchebag. (Unless your interest involves spray-tanning.)
• Don’t talk about medical school and/or the MCAT all the time. For reasons that are related to the fact that they have no other interests, pre-med douchebags can’t seem to talk about anything except medical school and/or the MCAT. Without fail, whenever two pre-med douchebags share a class together, they will inevitably flock to the front row and yammer on about MCAT test taking strategies before and after class. I’d rather hear you talk about your pus-oozing ass wounds than hear your about your MCAT flash cards or what schools you’re applying to. Do everyone in the class a favor and pick a new topic of conversation, or STFU.
• Learn to accept the fact that you may or may not actually become a doctor. Remember, more than half of all medical school applicants don’t get into medical school. Furthermore, a whole lot of pre-meds are weeded out of the process before ever even applying. So, for the love of God, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, Darwin, or whatever/whoever–please, please, please don’t act like you’re already a doctor. It’s perfectly okay to want to be a doctor. But telling people that you are, without a doubt, going to be an orthopedic surgeon when you’re still at a point in your education where you haven’t even passed General Chemistry is being a bit premature, douchebag. When an 8-year-old confidently declares he’s going to be a doctor, it’s cute. When a 18-year-old does it, it’s pretentious and a bit ill-informed. Learn to live with the fact that even with the best possible stats, you might not get into medical school. Have a little humility, and figure out a back-up plan. Besides, humility is like anti-douchebag serum, with the added bonus that you’ll be all the more grateful if/when you get accepted.

What if I do all these things, and I’m still a douchebag?

Well, if you follow my list above, and you’re still a pre-med douchebag, then it’s likely that you’re just a douchebag in general, and there’s no hope for you. Sorry.

But I don’t have that problem, since I only got one acceptance. I’m not about to complain though. I still get to be a doctor, in the end, and I will say that not having to stress about making the “right” decision has left me at ease to think about things aside from med school applications. For me, the grueling, seemingly never-ending application process effectively came to an end in January. I can imagine that if I were still contemplating medical school applications at this point in time, almost a year after the application season began, I would be fully sapped of any will to live.

With that said, my thoughts and sympathies go out to anyone who has the unenviable task of deciding between Harvard, Hopkins, and Mayo today. Or whatever. You catch my drift. Best wishes.

So, it’s now May 13th. That means I’m less than three months away from the first day of classes. I can’t really describe the feeling I have as these last several weeks crawl by. I’m excited to finally begin my medical education. As I await the beginning of classes, I pass the time by filling my mind with all things med school. I check my Facebook account about 15 times a day to see if anyone else has joined our class group. I mentally map out how I will deal with a study load the likes of which I’ve never seen before. I try to stash away enough sleep to last me for the next eight or so years. I go to the gym 3-4 times a week, if only to preemptively combat the lack of exercise that I’ll get in school. I try to make as many delicious home-cooked meals as possible, as I’m afraid I won’t have much time to cook for myself for the better part of the next decade. So yeah, I’m excited. But I’m also a little scared, if you hadn’t noticed.

See, I’m fully expecting to undergo a massive lifestyle change. The last few years have been pretty easy. After I graduated college, I bummed around as a musician for a year or so, then got a “real” job where I’ve worked 40 hours a week in a slow-paced lab. My life, while not too glamorous, has been relaxed and leisurely.

And that’s all about to change.

So, until the first day of classes, I’m going to do my damnedest to remain idle. I want to stockpile all the rest and relaxation I can get. I hope to spend as many of these beautiful summer evenings as I can on the decks and patios of my local drinking establishments. I plan on reconnecting with old friends by sharing a few pints before I leave. There are things I might not have the time to do again for a long time, and people I’m likely to lose touch with unless I make an effort to see them before I leave. It’s important to me that I wrap things up with a nice, shiny bow before heading off to school. And I’m trying to do just that. A side-effect of this laid-back mindset, however, has been that I’ve been slacking off at work. I’ll admit that the part of me that pushed me to work so hard in preparation for the MCAT last year feels guilty about not giving 100% in my job, but since no one at work has said anything, I’d imagine that I’m going to keep it up until I’m outta here.

Oh well. C’est la vie.

What is everyone else planning on doing before starting med school?

5. They haggle with their teachers for extra points.
As a teaching assistant, I would have been rich if my pre-med students gave me a dime every time they nagged me for partial credit on questions that they had gotten completely wrong.
4. They use questionable tactics to get good grades.
Some of them may turn to study drugs like adderall, dexedrine, provigil, and ritalin. Others will beg upperclassmen for copies of old exams, which give them an unfair advantage over their classmates.
3. They horde leadership positions and then run organizations into the ground.
To pad their résumés, they run for the presidency of science clubs and volunteer organizations, and then fail to fulfill their responsibilities because they are too busy studying.
2. They game the system to get good grades.
By strategically dropping any class that is not going well and carefully picking courses taught by the easiest professors they ensure themselves a good grade point average.
1. They are not motivated by curiosity.
If they ask a question in class, it’s often to find out what will be on an upcoming exam. Some of them volunteer to work in a lab on real research projects, but they don’t give it their all because they have no passion for scientific inquiry — it’s just another line on their résumés.

-from wired.com

Okay, I realize that this list is supposed to apply generally to pre-meds as a group, and not specifically describe any one person. But at the same time, this kind of stereotyping is detrimental to the way people see not only pre-meds, but doctors as well, and I think these negative perceptions of future doctors might play a small part in the increasingly negative view that the general public has of the medical profession. Therefore, I’m going to use this list to make an honest self-evaluation for the purposes of showing that not all pre-meds are as terrible and neurotic as Wired would have us believe.

5. They haggle with their teachers for extra points.

I actually never did this. Not in elementary school, not in high school, and definitely not in college. I went to a relatively large university where the majority of my pre-med requirements were taken in large classes of 100+ students. Aside from the fact that I’ve never felt inclined to barter for grades to begin with, I always figured that grade negotiation was a rather futile task in this type of setting. I did occasionally spot a few super-obnoxious pre-meds who would scrape for every last point they could get, but I’m pretty sure the professors found them every bit as annoying as I did. While they may have managed to marginally improve their grades here and there, I guarantee you that when the time for letters of recommendation arrived, these types of pre-meds did not have an easy time finding profs to back them up with solid endorsements. Grade grubbing is bad karma, and these kids eventually got what was coming to them.

4. They use questionable tactics to get good grades.

I’m actually a little offended by this, because I worked really hard to learn everything I did as an undergrad, and I see this common misconception as a way for the haters to discredit all the work that pre-meds put in. Unless you call going to the library for 4-5 hours a day and studying my ass off a “questionable tactic,” then I never used any questionable tactics to do well in school. The most questionable study tactics I ever used involved drinking a couple pots of coffee to stay up for an all-night Latin cram session. The massive caffeine surge made my teeth shake in my gums, and after spending the night worried that my heart might pound out of my chest, I decided against ever doing that again. The truth is, I didn’t even know another pre-med who used Ritalin or Adderall, or any of those “performance-enhancing” study drugs. That’s not to suggest that there aren’t closet speed-freaks tearing through the pages of their O-Chem textbook right now, but I sure don’t know any, and I would call them the exception to the rule.

As for pre-meds who use old exams, I’d argue that this is a fairly common dilemma in universities across the spectrum of majors and professional interests, and it is in no way unique to pre-meds. And while I knew a few people who did this, I never once even contemplated it. That’s cheating. And my school was deadly fucking serious about cheating–get caught, and you’re expelled, i.e. done with academic life forever. The reward was simply not worth the risk to me.

3. They horde leadership positions and then run organizations into the ground.

I can see where Wired is coming from on this one. I sat on the music board of my college radio station for about three years as an undergrad. When I started to see my studying time eat into the time I was able to devote to the station, I was faced with a tough decision. I could either give up my spot at the radio, and lose all the awesome perks that came with the job in order to squeeze a little free-time into a schedule that was packed with studying and classes, or I could stay at the station and neglect my duties. I eventually resigned, and I’ll admit that I didn’t bow out as soon as I should have, mainly because I wanted to make it work. In the end, the station was in no way “run into the ground” by my actions. In fact, it’s still going strong, years later.

I think there is some merit to this claim, but I think it’s a little hysterical to say that pre-meds run campus organizations into the ground significantly faster than any other group of students. From my experience, newly-formed student organizations generally have a pretty short lifetime, regardless of who is running them. On the other hand, the more well-established organizations tend to have safeguards erected to keep this type of thing from happening. So blaming pre-meds for ruining campus organizations is perhaps a little extreme, even if the sentiment being expressed is fitting. It’s true that med schools seek applicants who can claim lots of “leadership positions,” which gives incentive to pre-meds to stretch themselves too thin at the cost of the organizations they’re supposed to be serving. But any campus organization that could be “run into the ground” by a pre-med was likely to fail to begin with.

2. They game the system to get good grades.

I’ll be the first to admit that I dropped my fair share of classes as an undergrad, but never in an attempt to game the system. If I didn’t like a class, I would drop it (I dropped an English Lit class, and a Survey of Cal course after the day because it was below my level). If a class ended up not working with my schedule, I would drop it (7:00 am Physics? Yeah, stupid mistake… dropped after 1 week). But I never dropped a class just to get a better grade later. I never picked classes based on the professor, either, except for a few English classes taught by renowned instructors.

I do think that certain lower-caliber pre-meds do try to game the system to keep their GPA up, but I’d imagine that it rarely works to their favor in the end. If you have a 3.75 GPA, that may be pretty good, but if you add to that a dozen withdrawals on your transcript, you’ve immediately flagged yourself as questionable to med school admission committees. Gaming the system is bad pre-med Karma, just like grade-haggling, and it all comes back to you in the end.

1. They are not motivated by curiosity.

I think this is a pretty ridiculous criticism. As it pertains to me, it’s utterly false. What, aside from curiosity, could have driven me to change my major from English, to Biology, and then ultimately to Chemistry? My curiosity about the natural world led me to explore deeper into natural phenomena, and by letting my curiosity guide me, I eventually realized that Chemistry truly fascinated me. When I asked questions about Le Chatelier’s principle, for example, it wasn’t because I was hedging my bets for a test question. It was because I wanted to be clear on the concept. When I took a job in a research lab after college, it wasn’t just to be “another line on my résumé,” it was because I was genuinely interested in the research that was going on. Curiosity motivated me, and I believe it motivates a great number of pre-meds.

Lets assume for a moment that no pre-med is motivated by curiosity during their pre-med years, as the article suggests. Okay… so what? Without a doubt, scientific inquiry is important to the advancement of medical knowledge and technology, but is it necessary that all pre-meds have an innate curiosity about pre-med science? No! Some of the pre-med requirements (biology, general chemistry) are mere background for the basic sciences covered in medical school. Others (organic chemistry, physics) are only tangentially related. It is a false parallel to suggest that a pre-med who is incurious about physics will also be incurious about anatomy. Many pre-meds slog through four years of college studying science that they find only merely interesting knowing that the stuff they’re really passionate and curious about awaits them in med school.

Furthermore, I find it somewhat insulting to imply that:

a.) curiosity is the only “right” reason to pursue a career in medicine.

and

b.) all pre-meds are going into medicine for the “wrong” reason. (i.e., not curiosity.)

I don’t think there is one “right” reason to go into medicine. There are plenty of good reasons, and sure, curiosity is one. So is a passion for the art/science of medicine. An innate fascination of the human body would be another good reason. A desire to heal the sick would seem like a good reason as well. There are lots of good reasons. Curiosity doesn’t need to be a driving factor in a student’s education to be a good physician, though I agree that it helps. And while I agree that a lot of students aren’t driven by curiosity, I just don’t see the harm in a lack of curiosity about physics or organic chemistry, or many of the other pre-med prerequisites that have little bearing on the actual practice of medicine.

It seems pretty obvious to me that the author of the original article at Wired has had some bad experiences with pre-meds. And that’s understandable, since I’ve had plenty of bad experiences with pre-meds myself. But it’s also worth noting that most pre-meds never make it to medical school. Less than half of all med school applicants get accepted, but the story is even bigger than that. A lot of pre-meds cease to be pre-meds after a few semesters of tough science classes. So while a lot of pre-meds may fit into one or more of these five categories, I’d be willing to bet that the majority of those who matriculate to med-school are not as easily lumped into these categories as the article suggests.

Opportunity cost is the cost (sacrifice) incurred by choosing one option over an alternative one that may be equally desired. Thus, opportunity cost is the cost of pursuing one choice instead of another. Every action has an opportunity cost.

I’ve read tons of blog posts and message board debates about whether or not going to med school is worth it. In a world where diminishing respect and declining salaries for physicians appear likely to continue into the foreseeable future, a new generation of nervous pre-meds, disillusioned med students, and jaded residents all seem to be asking themselves the same question at one time or another: is going into medicine worth the time, effort, and financial burden? Here’s just one example of the type of thread I’m talking about. If that’s not enough for you, you can click on over to the forums at the Student Doctor Network and do a search for “opportunity cost;” you’ll find plenty of discussion from people of varied backgrounds debating this question.

These debates seem to take the same form time and time again. Someone will point out that once student loans are paid for and you factor in all the time spent earning nothing in medical school, followed by a relatively modest salary throughout residency, the plain fact of the matter is that medicine is not the highest paying job out there. And–GASP!–other jobs can actually pay better–get this–while requiring far less education and training. It has even been suggested that a UPS man has a lifetime earning potential which is comparable to that of a doctor, if you get creative with the numbers.

Is this actually shocking to anyone? Does anyone know of a family practitioner with a garage full of gold-plated Land Rovers and a swimming pool filled with Cristal? While medicine is higher-paying than many professions, it is by no means a gateway to extreme wealth, largely due to the fact that training for a career in medicine is both long and costly.

From witnessing, and occasionally participating in these debates, I have noticed that there are two general schools of thought on the subject. On one side, there are the big-hearted optimists who insist that they are only going into medicine to help people, and therefore they would be happy to do the job for a teacher’s salary, as long as it still meant they could help make a difference in the lives of others. That’s a great sentiment, but I have doubts as to how long this outlook can be maintained in the face of the realities of medical education and practice. As a result, this side of the debate is often accused of being naive–after you perform enough pelvic exams of HIV/HepC+ patients, the argument often goes, and you’ll change your tune.

On the other side of the debate are the selfish pessimists who see the writing on the wall and know that they’ll never make as much money as their college buddies who went into investment banking if they match into a family practice residency. These are the ones who, while still taking Gen. Chem in undergrad, are already gunning for residencies in dermatology or plastic surgery because they can’t possibly imagine a future in which they would be forced to scrape by on less than $250,000 per year. Considering that the median household income in the USA is around $48,000–less than half of what even the lowest-paying specialties earn on average–this side of the debate is often called out for being greedy and for “going into medicine for the wrong reasons.”

Well, I think both sides have good points, but overall, I think the whole debate has been framed wrong. The debate can’t be solved by consensus or by universal prescriptions. I have seen message board arguments devolve into accounting lessons where people argue over the minutest details related to the financial costs of medical school; from this, people hope to prove, conclusively, that medical school isn’t “worth it.” I don’t think it’s possible to make blanket statements that can apply to the entire spectrum of pre-meds, as too many intangible and unquantifiable elements are excluded from these calculations. Rather, the answer is specific to each individual. Everyone has different expectations for medical school and their careers, and while one person might not consider the time and sacrifice that is required of medical school to be worth the ultimate rewards, you can bet your ass that there is another person who would stab their grandmother in the eye for the opportunity to become a physician.

The biggest problem with these opportunity cost debates is that they’re generally framed as economic decisions, but I don’t feel that money should be the primary motivation for entering the field. But not for the same reasons you’ve hear 1,000,000 naive pre-meds preach about. I would never insist that all doctors be motivated purely by compassion, because, frankly, a lot of what doctors do is difficult, and anyone who puts themselves through the rigorous ordeal of becoming a physician deserves to get paid well for it. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to expect decent compensation upon completion of your residency–but I don’t think that the desire for said compensation alone is reason enough to go after it. Said differently, it’s okay to want to make money as a physician, but wanting that money isn’t sufficient reason to become a physician. A bit of a Catch-22, I know. But hear me out.

Face it, you don’t start making the “big bucks” until many, many years after you begin your training, and the distant prospect of money on the horizon will not likely be sufficient to motivate you through close to a decade of extreme studying and never-ending work.

Look at it this way: after college, you’re still at least four years away from any salary at all, whereas your friend who got an IT job is already making $40-50,000 per year, which he uses to buy a new super-sized plasma screen TV. Meanwhile, you’re nuking ramen night after night as you cram for Biochem or Pathophysiology exams while hoping/praying that someday this will all pay off. At graduation you tell your friend about how you matched into a really good IM residency where you’ll probably pull down about $35,000 per year. He congratulates you right before speeding off in his new Lexus. Three years of residency later, you decide you’re a glutton for punishment, and decide to go for that cardiology fellowship. You call up your old college buddy to tell him the news, and he congratulates you right before telling you about the pool he’s putting in.

Simply put, you won’t make a significant salary until at least seven years after college. And then, if you’re like most students, you’re burdened with so much debt that it severely diminishes any income you actually see for the next several years. While you’re going through all this, money will not be sufficient motivation to keep you going. If you go into medicine solely for the dollar signs flashing their golden light at the end of that long tunnel, you will be frustrated and disappointed, and you will likely end up regretting your decision.

As a physician, you’ll never make enough money to get that diamond-encrusted yacht. If you still want to become a doctor after hearing that bad news, you need to honestly assess the reality of the current situation; it is well known that physician reimbursement has been declining in the last decade (or two), and there is nothing to indicate that this trend will reverse any time soon. If you plan on going into a field like Family Practice or Pediatrics, you’d be well advised to have a pretty thorough plan that outlines how you will manage your debt in the face of diminishing earning potential. Acknowledging early on that your debt will play a significant role in your lifestyle for the next decade (or more) is certainly a wise move for any medical student, but it is especially true for students who plan on going into the lower-paying fields. Furthermore, I disagree strongly with those who suggest that one’s specialty should be chosen principally by the income it can generate. The bottom line is that medicine, while rewarding, will also be a job–so, if you really, really like family practice, but are perhaps tempted to match into radiology for financial reasons, even though you’re not too fond of scanning films, keep in mind that no salary, no matter how big, can justify the decision to spend the rest of your life in a job that you hate.

It all boils down to the fact that there are hidden costs to medical school that a lot of people don’t think about. Many people see the six figure salaries that come with an MD, and assume that the big bucks are only a few years of school away. The truth is that the vast majority of doctors don’t earn much money fresh out of medical school, and many still find themselves burdened with heavy amounts of debt after residency.

As a pre-med, you should be absolutely certain that medical school is worth your time and effort before deciding to go down that road. If you can imagine yourself doing anything besides medicine, you would be wise to examine it and compare your options. Personally, I wanted to be a doctor from a very early age, but as I grew older, I started to become more aware of the vast effort required of medical training. At that point, I started to explore other careers. At one point or another, I considered being a musician, a writer, a chemist, a chef, a teacher, a small business owner, plus about a dozen other things. Eventually I realized that while I am interested in all those things, medicine was still my true calling. While these career explorations took a couple years, I’m extremely thankful that I allowed myself the opportunity to explore a little bit. Now I feel absolutely ready to begin medical school without wondering “what if?” about other career options.

Possibly the grand bitch-mother of all admissions tests, this exam stands alone in its complexity and ability to crack even the most able student. Now, as a full disclosure, I should admit that I haven’t taken the LSAT or the GMAT, but I can still say with confidence that by comparison to the MCAT, all the others at least appear to be a walk in the park.

Why?

Well, the MCAT is the only admissions test you have to study for. With the LSAT and the GMAT, common is the story about the guy who, hungover, wandered into his testing site and knocked out a super score without having ever cracked a book. Most admissions tests are more about aptitude, and less about specific knowledge. The LSAT, the GMAT, the GRE–they really only test whether or not you’re capable of doing the mental gymnastics required for grad/professional school. And generally, you’ve got it or you don’t. Studying won’t significantly improve your chances on these tests.

But not so with the MCAT. The MCAT tests specific content and your ability to think critically about it. With the MCAT, it’s never enough to simply know that PV=nRT. No. You will be expected to apply that knowledge to some demoniacally elaborate passage about the methane emissions of Brazilian cattle. The subjects that are fair game for testing on the MCAT are vast and diverse, and you will be expected to be intimately familiar with all of them. Therefore, there’s simply no excuse–if you want to go to med school, you have to study for the MCAT. Unless you were that kid who “accidentally” derived Newton’s fundamental laws in your junior high pre-cal class, expect to spend AT LEAST three months in preparation. If the content isn’t fresh in your mind, you will need even more time.

So what’s the best way to study for the MCAT? Well, everyone’s different, but here are some things that helped me score in the 90th percentile and land an acceptance to med school.

• Buy a review book–I’ve heard stories about people just going over old class notes to prepare for the MCAT content, or reviewing their old textbooks with great results. That can work, I suppose, but you run the risk of studying the wrong stuff. Face it, you have a finite amount of time, and you’ve got to optimize your study time. I say buy a review book–there are several available that are focused on the content necessary for the MCAT, and while they might run you $100 or so, I say that cost is easily justified when considering how much time and wasted effort you would spend flipping through all your old texts trying to target the right content. Kaplan makes a very thorough and helpful review book, but be warned: it weighs only slightly less than Donkeylips after a burrito binge, and therefore it is not the most portable study material for people who like to cram on the go. Exam Krackers also makes a good series of books that are broken down by MCAT content area. I used both Kaplan and EK, and I’m glad I did. Review books may not be enough however, so keep your old textbooks around for reference if/when you need a more serious review of any content you struggle with in your review books.
• Flashcards–The thing about the MCAT is that the content they expect you to know is really superficial–but there’s a lot of it. This means that flashcards can be a very useful way to absorb much of the content. While there are some flashcards that are commercially available, I suggest making your own, as you can tailor the cards to fit your own needs that way. Plus, the simple act of making flashcards is good review as well. Once you’ve got a nice stack of flashcards made up, you can then use them in every spare moment between now and test day. If you don’t, you should.
• Practice, Practice, Practice–I know this is going to sound a bit redundant, but hear me out: the trickiest part of the MCAT is the test itself. The content really isn’t tricky; the way the test makers expect you to utilize your knowledge, however, is a bitch. The last thing you want to do is go into the exam without understanding the mindset of the test, and to get into the mindset of the test, you have to take practice tests. There are plenty of them out there, but for my money, the best place to start is the AAMC, the makers of the MCAT. At e-mcat.com, you can access a free online practice test with explanations for all the questions and answers. Even better, for a very reasonable fee, you can buy access to more official practice tests, and trust me, they’re worth it. After that, if you still need practice, there are other practice tests available through Kaplan and Princeton Review. There’s no magic number for how many practice tests one should take; I think I took about 10, and I saw my score go up by about 10 points from my first practice. Anyone who says you can take the MCAT without taking practice tests is either a superhuman test taker, or a naive jerk. Either way, most people would benefit from at least five practice tests. Just do it. You’ll be glad you did.
• Motivate yourself–In the months before I took the MCAT, I was studying hours a day, every day, with weekends full of practice tests and, that’s right–more studying. The only thing that kept me going was one simple image. Every time I wanted to throw in the towel and start studying for a real estate license (okay, that never actually happened), I just imagined myself with a white coat and a stethoscope. Sure, it’s super cheesy, but it worked–every time I imagined myself in full doctor garb, I effectively motivated myself to keep going, because I knew that without a good MCAT score, I would never get to see that dream become a reality. Find your motivation, and keep it in mind when you feel discouraged.
• Aim high–They say that the average MCAT score is around a 27, I believe. The average score for admitted students is something like 30-31. That means you probably need at least a 30 to get into medical school. And I knew plenty of people who were shooting for just that–the good old “balanced” 30 with 10’s in each of the subject sections. But why aim so low? If you look at the data, there are plenty of people who don’t get in, even with a 30. Therefore, if you’re gonna do something, do it all the way. Push yourself to be the best you can be. After I took several practice tests, I realized that I could reasonably expect a 36 from myself, so I made that my target score. In the end, I fell slightly short, but you know what? I’m not disappointed in myself for trying!

The MCAT. It’s not easy. If it were, everyone would be going to medical school. If you want to do well, you have to study. Sadly, there are no shortcuts here. Hopefully, I’ve given some insight into what might work for you when preparing for the MCAT. If anyone has any suggestions or would like to share what worked for them, please feel free to leave a comment.

When I saw that bulky package peeking out of my mailbox, I think my heart skipped a beat. I knew immediately that it probably wasn’t a rejection, because rejections hadn’t gone out yet–but at the same time, I was doubtful that it could be an acceptance either. After all, the majority of acceptances for my school wouldn’t be out for another month. So it was with some nervous anticipation that I tore it open. I slid the top sheet out, and there it was, the sentence I had dreamed of reading for years: “I take great pleasure in offering you a position in the 2008-2009 entering Freshman medical class.”

Holy crap.

I’m not too proud to admit that I cried a little bit. Sure, I was ecstatic–but there was more to it than that. It had been a long road getting to this point, filled with self-doubt, worry, waiting. After all those pre-requisites, the chemistry and physics and biology, then the MCAT, then the stress of perfecting my AMCAS application, followed by the thousands of dollars spent on secondaries–despite all that, despite all the hard work and perserverance, I had been assured of nothing.

But all that uncertainty evaporated upon reading that one sentence. Years of effort finally paid off. Years of insecurity finally laid to rest. I am going to be a doctor. Even now, almost a month later, I couldn’t be more excited. This will be my med school blog. On this website, I will chronicle my voyage through med school, and then residency after that. Along the way, I hope to address some issues pertinent to medical students and pre-meds alike.

I don’t start medical school until August. Between now and then, I’ll be talking a little about my unique voyage up to this point, and I’ll also touch upon some larger issues concerning the medical profession. But for now, I’ll continue to wait. I’ve got several more applications out there–and I’m hoping to get at least one more acceptance. (But let’s just say I won’t be holding my breath–I know I’m lucky just to have gotten one!) In the meantime, feel free to comment on the site!

Additionally, if you have comments about the site itself, you can also me an e-mail.

Thanks for reading!