Thread: Any doctors here?

Im currently studying for my MCAT and while I received sage advice from a current med school student telling me not to give so much power to the MCAT, I cant help but be terrified by it at certain times and imagine the worst happening, getting a low score. I take it September 1 an I'm spending my summer days studying 5-7 hours for this thing. Any doctors on here that can give me some advice other than find another career which most doctors tell me? Anybody else who's taken a test that determines their future career?

From what I hear, med school like most graduate programs look at the whole picture, not just your test score. For instance, I have a friend who's daughter, 4.0 gpa, scored extremely high on the MCAT only to not be accepted into the med schools to which she applied. After a couple of years of trying, she gave up and got a business degree just to get on with her life. When it comes down to it, I think your gpa, community involvment, volunteer experiences, letters of recommendation, and how well you do on your interview, will speak volumes to being successful, more so than just a high test result. I am not a doctor, I just have experience playing the game.

I hear you Rearden. While I have hundreds of volunteer hours at a hospital, years of experience in leadership/community programs, lots of unique extracurriculars, and great letters of rec, I screwed up badly in one class (dam Organic Chemistry) which hurt my GPA, so that's definitely not my strong point which means my MCAT is the redeeming factor for that and I can't help but feel like my whole future is on the line in just this one test. While I do have a long time to take it over should need be, I want to nail it the first time so I don't have to worry about I again.

That's something I never understood about the US educaiton system: what is the significance of volunteering for your education?
I would expect schools to screen prospective science students on their knowledge, hobby projects and relevant achievements. I don't see how volunteering at a soup kitchen or shelter has any bearing on that. Mind you, they are valuable contributions to be sure, but I don't see how that is relevant for e.g. getting a masters degree in physics.

Originally Posted by Bruno

That's something I never understood about the US educaiton system: what is the significance of volunteering for your education?
I would expect schools to screen prospective science students on their knowledge, hobby projects and relevant achievements. I don't see how volunteering at a soup kitchen or shelter has any bearing on that. Mind you, they are valuable contributions to be sure, but I don't see how that is relevant for e.g. getting a masters degree in physics.

couldent agree more bruno, i think that its total bs, most highschools require so many hrs of time volentered (mandatory voleenteered) in a community project or service.

Originally Posted by animalwithin

Im currently studying for my MCAT and while I received sage advice from a current med school student telling me not to give so much power to the MCAT, I cant help but be terrified by it at certain times and imagine the worst happening, getting a low score. I take it September 1 an I'm spending my summer days studying 5-7 hours for this thing. Any doctors on here that can give me some advice other than find another career which most doctors tell me? Anybody else who's taken a test that determines their future career?

animalwithin,

I'm not an MD, but I am a university professor who has sat on graduate admission committees.

ReardenSteel is correct. Graduate and professional schools do look at a student's whole picture, not just your MCAT or GRE test score. That includes standardized test scores, academic performance in undergraduate courses, extracurricular/volunteer activities, and letters of recommendation.

That being said, the standardized test score (ie. MCAT) becomes important as a filter. Admission committees often use them as a filter to winnow the number of applicants down to a reasonable number of applicants for serious consideration. They will set a minimum combined score and any applicant who fails to meet that minimum is eliminated from consideration. Then they look at other parts of the applicant's record as well as letters of recommendation, and based on those factors begin to select students for the entering class. Extracurricular/volunteer activities are only a factor when measured against the student's undergraduate GPA. A student with a 4.0 GPA who also participated in extracurricular/volunteer activities can be viewed as a stronger candidate than one who has a 4.0 without any such activities as part of their record.

How badly do you want to be an MD? In addition to studying hard for your MCAT, where you apply to Medical School can be a factor. Your better known or more prestigious professional/graduate programs get hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants. That is especially true during periods of economic downturn like currently, when students usually try to postpone their entry into the job market by applying to graduate/professional schools.

You may want to consider creating a list of schools (approx. 7) that represent the schools you really want to go to, a first tier of schools that are your first choice, second tier of schools that are your second choice and a third group that are acceptable, but not your first or second choice. Additionally, if the school you are applying to requires three letters of recommendation, get six. Finally, in the personal statement of your application address the issue of your poor grade in organic chemistry head-on. If it was due to illness or some other factor beyond your control, then perhaps the admission committee's members will take that into consideration. As a last resort, consider retaking organic chemistry during the summer at another university and get a higher grade in that subject. That will provide any admissions committee with concrete proof of your true academic ability in that subject as well as your tenacity to be the best medical student and physician you can possibly be.

I hope that this advice helps.

Originally Posted by Bruno

That's something I never understood about the US educaiton system: what is the significance of volunteering for your education?
I would expect schools to screen prospective science students on their knowledge, hobby projects and relevant achievements. I don't see how volunteering at a soup kitchen or shelter has any bearing on that. Mind you, they are valuable contributions to be sure, but I don't see how that is relevant for e.g. getting a masters degree in physics.

The significance is that it separates people who probably have similar achievements in a certain field. Graduate programs are competitive and the schools can only accept so many students per semester, so once you're dealing with a field of applicants who are all academically qualified to enter the master's program, the school will then look at things that are more indicative of a person's character as a member of the school and community. It's similar to how the job hiring process can be here when you have multiple applicants qualified for one open position.

While I agree that mandatory volunteering is somewhat oxymoronic and self-contradictory, there is plenty to be said for volunteering in the community and the people who do it because they are concerned and they care. I would hope medical schools see that as an important criterion in the selection process. In my office, we find volunteering very important in terms of defining character and value it in the hiring and selection process.

I have seen too much life and death to be other than a cynic, who was once an idealist. Please take what I say with a grain of salt as I realize I'm likely to start an argument. I am entirely prepared to defend my position, so those of you who may be offended, you should heed this warning and preparatory apology. The result of my attitude is that I am not in administration or education and so I have already paid for my sin.

I went to med school when I was 41. After several undergraduate excursions, a whole bunch of graduate school finding myself, then being asked during the ritual oral exam abuse why I wasn't going to med school. But I've put 35 years into health care, starting out as a wheel chair motor and immodestly bootstrapping myself up through the system to this point.

The MCAT is just as has been said, a screening tool. Med school is a life of testing. One damn test after another, every week, twice a week. If you think you are putting in the time to study now, you have no idea what you are getting into. You will not have enough time to prepare for any test. You will fail tests. One of my other classmates who'd attended the graduate education program same as me and I agreed that the only point to med school is not learning anything about medicine, but learning how to take tests. If you're good at tests, you'll do well on the MCAT despite what you know, not because of it. The other thing to be taught by taking tests a lot, is that every patient is a test. You will pass some and you will not pass others, and the only thing that is certain is there will be another exam five minutes after you finish the one in front of you. An exam is nothing compared to failing a patient. The consequences are much more expensive.

The most important new wrinkle in the MCAT is the 30 minute portion of writing skills. That is a big score to do well on. Why? Because medicine is a world of keeping records. If you can't write well (or ignore it in the US) lawyers will render your corpse for it's valuable oils to be sold on the open market. 60% of my daily time is spend fiddling with records of some kind. A badly written report can mean the difference between a fatal and non fatal mistake.

As to the subject of volunteerism...and why I suggest that experience is helpful...I have seen over my career, many physicians who should not have ever been allowed into medical school and many who wish they had never gone. The reasons are many. Their families wanted them to be a doctor "just like mom or dad," but they all wanted to be lumberjacks or barbers. They probably would have been better off if they had a choice. As a result their bedside manner was crap despite having good technical or intellectual skills. They had no idea that disgusting bodily secretions and the simple grunt work of health care would take it's toll on their durability. When it's obvious that your doctor hates the work, you will not have confidence in their work and this produces a negative situation for all of us.

If you can show that you've been working at the bedside, handling body parts and human discharge, being puked on, yelled at by the unhappy or those in pain, dealing with the misery and suffering of the human condition and you still want to do this job...you'll probably get in. Experience is that important, and if I were allowed anywhere near an admissions committee, I would value that above nearly all else. I had far more respect for my med school classmates who worked the night shift in the local nursing home than the grinds who topped the class every test.

Having letters of recommendation from an ordinary college professor can be helpful in regard to the opinion of the admission committee to determine your academic ability to survive medical school, but IMO they don't give a damn about asking if you will be a good physician. One of the admissions committee dared to ask me what value a PhD in Education would have for a doctor, as in setting the stage for his not wanting to put me on the list as a potential candidate having wasted all that important time doing something not related directly to medicine. I reminded him that the root definition of physician is teacher (in both Greek and Latin). We moved along to the next question, but he never forgot my smartass, and very correct, response to his idiotic question. The reality of medicine is that someday you will be required to teach and you will not be taught one iota of how to during medical school. Learn that as well when you have the time.

Perhaps more important will be a letter from someone who works in health care who can describe your ability to survive the world of work. Someone who has seen the results of you working the wards and can measure your true potential for success in a very strange world. One of my favorite aphorisms is the following paraphrase, written by a professor of medicine from a now defunct med school in Missouri somewhere back in 1967. "It is not possible to teach all there is to know about medicine. By the time a student graduates, half of what we taught will be obsolete and half of what they need to know will not have been discovered yet. What we must do is teach them how to teach themselves because once they are gone from here, they will not have us to give them the information they need to survive the future." That statement is true for just about every job I can think of. Remember, I did say no one will teach you how to teach. It's up to you to solve this contradiction.

The rest is a matter of luck, or faith depending on your cosmology, and persistence in living up to your potential.

I spent nine years in the trenches, teaching biology labs at a Big 10 university, and also worked for a couple of years as a test editor on the MCAT. Here's the secret: Learn your biology, learn to read and write well, and always trust your first answer. Be confident that the first thing your memory pushed up was the correct thing.

I taught a few semesters in a course for nonmajors, and it was SO FUN not to have any premeds. My students were truly curious about the anatomy, the physiology, why the small intestine was narrow and long while the large intestine was wide and short. In review sessions they asked questions about biology.

In the majors/premed course, I was tortured by variations of "What's on the test?" Premeds were the worst. Most of them had forgotten what curiosity was, and a grade was their goal, not the knowledge. I'd answer "Well, I suspect there will be a lot of biology on the test. Does anybody have a question about biology?" Roomful of blank faces. If you master the knowledge, you'll earn the grade. If you focus on grades, you'll diminish your ability to build a cumulative body of knowledge. If you value the knowledge over the grade, your instructors will be quite fond of you.

In my opinion, the very best thing that you can do for your MCAT is to quit studying for it at least three days before the actual testing date, chill out, sleep well, then go into the test calm and well-rested and trust your first answer every time.

Best wishes to you.