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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Resident Swap Site

www.ResidentSwap.org allows residency programs to post notices of unexpected vacancies. There is no fee or sign-up required to post, and the website can instantly send alerts to dozens of residents who have previously indicated interest in your specialty and geographical location.

According to the website,
"ResidentSwap.org works in four ways
  1. Lists currently vacant residency spots.
  2. Anonymously lists spots currently filled by residents who would like to swap places with you.
  3. Frequently monitors websites that publicly advertise residency vacancies and immediately sends alerts to your email or cell phone whenever new spots open.
  4. "Together Anywhere" mode, designed for couples, locates two spots in close geographical proximity to each other."

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

NY Emergency Medicine

NY Emergency Medicine
"Adam Rosh, MD, is a big believer in the power of the Web for enhancing medical education. As an emergency medicine resident in New York City, he collects and shares information on a site titled simply, New York Emergency Medicine. The content of the site is anything but simple, however. It includes more than a dozen columns by different authors, as well as cartoons and interviews with pioneers in the field. Another popular feature is the weekly quiz, which offers a cash prize for the first correct answer. I recently spoke with Dr. Rosh about his efforts." (from MedScape.)

There are cool videos on how to perform some medical procedures.

Monday, October 08, 2007

SDN

I'm sure any premed would know SDN forum. If not, you are lucky and I suggest you remain that way. It's an effective way of communicating between fellow premeds. You can get suggestions about interview processes, what to wear, letters of rec, or any strange thing related to medical school you can think of.

When I didn't do well in my last MCAT, first thing I think of is "will I get into med school with this? what do others get" I made the worst mistake of checking SDN. You'll see many posts full of complaints about MCAT score, but they are not bitching about getting below 30. They bitch about getting 37, instead of 40. Come on, if you are achieving that much, be considerate.

We need suggestions when we are confused, uncertain or insecured about MCAT score. SDN is great but don't check out that website unless you feel secured about yourself.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Osteopathic Medicine Philosophies

With realities such as longevity, chronic diseases, and high costs of care driving the dynamics of today's health care delivery system, there is increasing interest in osteopathic medicine and its complete approach to maintaining health and preventing disease.

Osteopathic physicians provide the most comprehensive and complete medical care available today, because osteopathic medicine uses all of the high-tech aspects of modern medicine -- x-rays, surgery, medication, and diagnostic testing -- and more in its distinctive focus on the whole person.


Osteopathic medicine sees the human body as a unified organism and uses a whole- person approach to wellness and disease prevention.

The fundamental philosophy of osteopathic medicine is that all the systems of the body are interrelated and are interdependent, and that disturbances in one system can -- and do -- affect the others.

Although a specific organ or area of the body may manifest disorder or disease, the effects resonate throughout the body. Stated simply, if the body is sick, it is sick all over. Similarly, when responding to a disorder or disease, one organ or system does not respond alone; the entire body is mobilized and is involved in the return to health and balance.

The body's musculoskeletal system -- the bones, muscles, tissues, and nerves -- is the key to a person's well-being.

The musculoskeletal system, one of the most easily accessible systems of the body, comprises about 2/3 of the body mass. But its importance goes well beyond providing structural support.

Osteopathic medicine maintains that the musculoskeletal system reflects many internal illnesses and may aggravate or accelerate disease in the circulatory, lymphatic, nervous, and other systems of the body. The musculoskeletal system, therefore, plays a key role in the body's effort to regulate itself and resist illness or disease.

The body has a natural tendency toward health and has the capacity to resist disease and to heal itself.

This principle -- first promulgated many centuries ago by the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, and now gaining new attention -- is at the core of the osteopathic medicine philosophy and is central to its diagnostic and treatment approach.

Osteopathic medicine considers the person as a whole, including external factors such as environment, stress, exercise, and diet in an overall approach to achieving and maintaining good health.

While applying the appropriate medical diagnosis and treatment for a particular illness or disease, the osteopathic physician does more -- acting as a guide and teacher to help the person take responsibility for his or her well-being.

This proactive, preventive, and personalized approach clearly differentiates osteopathic medicine from all other forms of medicine.

Reference: Tucson Osteopathic Medical Foundation

Friday, August 31, 2007

Anyone interested in MD/MBA program?

I've been thinking a lot lately about MD/MBA program, despite the difficulty to get accepted. Would I need to have experience in business? What field would I go into? etc.

If you have been wondering about the same thing, check out http://www.md-mba.org
The author is a md/mba student, and he organizes every aspect of the field you need to know. I like his Advice section, and he answered some FAQs.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Princeton's suggested supplemental reading list for MCAT verbal

Here are some of the suggested reading list by Princeton.

Barth, J. (1984). The Friday book: essays and other nonfiction. New York: Putnam. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10456859

Booth, W. C. (2006). The Knowledge most worth having. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/79634412&tab=editions

Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Putnam.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/30780083

Freud, S. (1962). Civilization and its discontents. New York: W.W. Norton.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/187758

Karlsen, C. F. (1987). The devil in the shape of a woman: witchcraft in colonial New England. New York: Norton.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/16226547

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Top 10 List: Pieces of Advice for Premed students

If you just read my previous post, don't get depressed. Here is another post written on the same day, at Vitum Medicine blog.



Vitum Medicinus


Top 10 List: Pieces of advice for pre-med students


Posted: 30 Jul 2007 01:35 PM CDT



Overheard during the interviewer lunch break at my med school's interview weekend: one old doctor to another - "The very first student we interviewed blew us away. She'd summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, competed in the Olympics, and was an honours student with incredible research experience and publications. You know, if applying to medical school was like this back when I applied, I don't think I'd be admitted." Getting in to medical school is tough. In Canada, less than 30% of students who apply each year are admitted to a school, and on an individual basis Canadian schools accept as little as 3% of the people who apply (that's more competitive than some Ivy League schools in the USA!) (source). That's not counting the thousands of students who wanted to be doctors when they started their undergrad degree, and had to face the realization that thanks to things like the MCAT and the competitiveness of the pre-med world, and perhaps the odd slack semester or difficult year, they would never even make it to the point of applying for medical school. Here's some advice I would give to any pre-med student applying to medical school, though non-pre-meds might find it interesting as well as it might give you a unique perspective into the mind of a pre-med student. I wrote this list assuming you know all the basic info - what the MCAT stands for, what an application involves, and the like, though keeners at any level of their training - high school, college, or university - might find this useful as well. Given that, what I've written below something I hope every pre-med could have the chance to read before they apply to med school.


10. Have a backup plan... This is one of the hardest thing for pre-meds to do: plan what you'll do with your life should you not 'get in' this year (or ever). Why's it so hard? It just sucks to think about the fact that you might not be accepted. But, you can't put your eggs all in one basket... you need to be realistic and know that even some applicants with the highest marks aren't accepted anywhere. Nothing is for certain. So, have a backup plan if you don't get in this year... and also consider what you could do with your life should you not get in at all. This might even mean considering taking a 'pre-med' degreee other than biology, since you don't need a biology degree to apply; if the only job you'd be interested in doing that you can get with a biology degree is medicine, you might want to do something else.


9. ...but don't give up if you don't get in your first time. It's turning out more and more now that getting into medical school is more about learning how to "play the game;" because it's such a crap shoot, anybody who doesn't get in their first time applying would be stupid to throw in the towel right away. Even if you didn't get an interview, go to an advising session if any of the schools you applied to offer one, and give it another go.


8. If you do get in, don't do anything the summer before you start classes. Seriously - don't work. Travel, but only for part of your summer, since travelling around can be stressful and you want to have time to veg. Give yourself at least a few weeks to sit around like a bum and do nothing, maybe see some friends that you won't be able to hang out with when things get busy. Let me put it this way: you now only have a couple of summers left (unless you chose to apply to a 3-year program!).


7. Know what doctors do before you decide you want to be one. It would be devestating sacrifice so much energy, effort and free time just to keep up in the pre-med rat race and realize later on that medicine isn't for you, so learn what a doctor does - not just daily, but learn what the lifestyle is like, the stress level, the impact on family life. How? A few ways: you can read books and biographies about physicians, you can shadow physicians where you live, or you can go to a developing nation and volunteer your services at a medical clinic or hospital. The third one shows commitment and could have much better opportunity for clinical exposure, thanks to different policies on liability; though if you do that, please make sure you're going to a place where you can actually contribute and not just be watching or being a pain, and remember that some med schools actually use the length of time you spend away as a 'filter' for resume padding; a former dean of admissions in Canada, as quoted in a newspaper article: "only the affluent can spend six months in Africa volunteering at an AIDS clinic. ... it's become sexy to put stuff like that on an application.... but they're not necessarily going to get extra points for it."


6. Know what other health care professionals do before you decide on medicine. What does a perfusionist do? What's within a Respiratory Therapist's scope of patient care? Did you know that there are nurse anesthetists? How do you know that you want to be a doctor, not a nurse? As well, getting to know other health professions will help you respect other health care professionals once you start working with them. Finally, it will add depth to your understanding of your own motivations if you can be positive that you want to be a doctor, and not some other type of health care provider. Following #4 (below) can play a huge role in satisfying this, but make sure you still get the chance to see what these people do in real life as well. From my experience, anyone in these professions is more than happy to tell a future doctor what their job involves, if they're approached with interest and respect.


5. Don't kid yourself: Training to become a doctor is one of the most difficult things you can do. Even though it may appear easy at first, when finals come around (even in first year) you will realize that you've never done anything more difficult, more demanding mentally, intellectually, and emotionally. It will take over every minute of your free time and you will have to set aside time usually devoted to family, friends, and yourself; literally my entire days the month before finals was wake/study/sleep, even though in undergrad I never had to study very much for most courses. The only people who don't feel this way around finals are the ones who have spent their entire semester studying, literally every day and weekend, or are exceptionally brilliant - and there will only be 1 person of the latter kind in your class so chances are it won't be you. And that's just first year. For third year, add all that stress to being on call, having to deal with patients, nurses and doctors daily, having a pager go off while you're sleeping, and having to study for finals in the midst of all that. In all honesty, I've always said that the only thing I can think of that is more demanding and draining than becoming a doctor is boot camp, and boot camp only lasts 12 weeks. However, that was until I read about a U.S. Marine turned doctor, who discusses "How Residency is Different from the Marines" (scroll down to find it). Even though he says the Marines was harder, training to be a doctor must be pretty hard in order to even deserve the comparison.


4. There is much value in reading the online medical blogosphere. See my posts titled 'why pre-meds should read medical blogs' or 'medical blogs for beginners' which I'll write someday. For now, I'll just list a couple of the several reasons. You'll see from jaded residents and medical students just how hard med school can be (try reading the Don't Become a Doctor series on iFindings' blog, as an example). You'll learn what being pimped means and how med students react to it and the subtle, unspoken rules involved. You'll hear about the most exciting moments in the OR, what it's like to be sued and sued again, learn from the mistakes of medical students and read what residents wish they had done differently. As well, you'll learn more about different health care professions if you take the time to read their blogs, fulfilling piece of advice #6. Beyond that, medblogs can give you a perspective on how these different professions work together in the same problem - see, for example, the story Perspectives, written in three parts: part I by a cop, II by a paramedic, and III by a nurse. And, you'll get involved with the profession in a unique way - by engaging in discussion, leaving comments and e-mailing blogging doctors, you can get 'face time' and advice from physicians that you might not get elsewhere.


3. Make sure that going into medicine is your own decision. Are you doing this because an expectation has been imposed on you by your friends or family? Is this a dream you once had that has now faded, but it's just too hard to tell everyone that you are switching career plans? If you do go into medicine just to satisfy someone else's plan for your life, you are going to hate yourself, and you'll have nothing to keep you going when you have to give up everything for medicine.


2. Marks come first. You can always add volunteer activities after you graduate; you can't go back and increase your undergraduate GPA. You don't want to look back on a year or a degree and say, "Those marks don't reflect my true potential...I wish I would have worked harder." My dad has told me over and over again of a man he knows who wanted to get into medicine, but when it came down to applying, his GPA was too low because he'd had more fun than study time in his first year of university. More than a few times I've been having conversations with people who say "My brother / cousin / friend tried to get into medical school, but couldn't..." and often it ends up being a GPA issue. Some people end up having to take a master's degree just so that their undergrad marks aren't considered... they have to work extra hard to make up a first semester where they played more billiards and pranks than studied, or a year when they didn't figure out that they understand organic chemistry until the last week.


1. Be 1000% sure that medicine is what you want to do. ...and make sure that you've completed #7 so that you are making an informed decision. Please do not go into this profession if you aren't completely and utterly sure that this is what you want to do. You'll only end up hating yourself for it, and if you stay in the profession, everyone around you will hate you, too.


Seven Reasons to Become a Doctor

Read this post written Ali Tabatabaey at The Differential: MedScape Med Students. It's so funny. He is a resident in Iran (i think).

***************************************************

Seven Reasons to Become a Doctor

Alitabatabaeyhat72x723Ali Tabatabaey -- I’m home and everything is back to its old boring self again, so boring that I can’t stand it. I’m just coming out of a “loud conversation” with the department head and the faculty dean, who literally fined me for going to the congress “without their permission”! They didn’t raise a finger for me in the process and now they are punishing me?!?! I just don’t understand.

So I’ve been thinking about what to write in this post. Well, maybe you’ll like this message that I just received from a friend who graduated last year and is now practicing in a remote area of central Iran.

Seven reasons why I want to be a doctor:

1. I hate to sleep.

2. I want to stay in school forever.

3. Nobody can read my hand writing.

4. I have too much money.

5. I think I’ve enjoyed my life enough.

6. I can’t live without tension.

7. I want to pay for my sins!

To that I would like to add:

8. I love spending time with snobby self-centered people who feel they own everyone and everything, and I don’t mind turning into one!

Anyway, I know there is room for a few positive points on that list too, but since I don’t feel very positive right now I’ll leave them to you guys. So feel free to complete the list.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Good Medicine Blogs

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/559669?src=mp
Medscape is my first encounter into causal medical students' journal. It's full of insights from nurses, physicians, med students, etc. Topics they discussed are amazing.

Incidental Findings (Don't Become a Doctor If Series)
http://ifinding.blogspot.com/
A Korean med student writing about his med school life. Fun to read.

Vitum Medicine
http://blog.vitummedicinus.com/
The writer of Vitum Medicine inspires me to change my blog title. He's the one I was talking about in my previous post, 22, 2nd yr med student.

The Angry Medic
Haven't read it, but there are lots of pics.

Fingers and Tubes in Every Office

Adventures in Medical School

Unsuccessful First Attempt

I have applied to 24 med schools, got rejected by all after secondary except Stanford which later rejected me after interview. Wasted $3000. I was depressed, disappointed, you know stuffs like that for awhile. But I decided to face it. Life is full of challenges after all..right? So keep rowing.

My turning point would be going to Masters for 2 years, improving my MCAT and reapplying to medical school. If you were in the boat and wondering if you should just shoot those overachievers, or sink your head in a pool, let's come up with strategies together.

Changing Blog title

I've changed my blog title from Productive PreMed to PreMed Journey. The word productive sounds so bitter that I wanna throw up. That's typically a word used by our kind.

Let me tell you a little about how I change my title. I was reading www.webMD.com posts and this guy who's 22, 2nd year med student, was telling how much time he wasted. Considering his entrance into med school, it doesn't come as a surprise. Anyways, I somehow got an idea that I should keep track of my journey to medical school. (I'm gonna post good Medicine websites for those of you wanting to inspire yourself more.)