Any actual doctors in the house (especially med school docs)? | Page 4 | FerrariChat

Any actual doctors in the house (especially med school docs)?

Discussion in 'Health & Fitness' started by Huskymaniac, Aug 24, 2021.

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  1. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

    Jul 9, 2020
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    Tony
    You are good. I will ask him. If I were to speculate, his response will be something like this. A better fit would be to become an athletic trainer for a professional sports team or a college team and he has seriously considered that. But he feels like it would get boring between the rare cases where he would be truly needed and wants something more demanding and more rewarding, personally.
     
  2. italiafan

    italiafan F1 World Champ
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    They are seeking genuine.

    Everything else you wrote are paper tiger arguments.
    You asked advice, I gave it.
     
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  3. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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    I know what you are saying is true. I just find it unfortunate. I think a lot of non-genuine people end up sneaking in.
     
  4. IloveGT

    IloveGT Formula 3
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    If he really answers the way you said, he is very likely done for that school. I will let his counselor that you are hiring and other physicians chime in.
     
  5. IloveGT

    IloveGT Formula 3
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    now you are officially alienating the exact audience you are seeking pro bono advice from. what is the point? You are not the one applying for med school, he is.

    Anyway, good luck with your son, and if those really are the tenets you create for your son's mentality, it won't be good for medical school ad com eyes.
     
  6. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

    Jul 9, 2020
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    Tony
    That is not my intent. My perspective is based on some things I have read and some personal experiences. I have seen parents that were basically programming their kids into going into medicine from first grade on and everything they told their kid to do was with an eye toward that goal. And I think I posted this earlier but this article was really revealing:

    https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/924457#:~:text=The%20medical%20school%20%22arms%20race,things%20simply%20to%20experience%20them.

    Beyond this current discussion, I am genuinely concerned about the future of medical care. I hope that these things can be revealed in the interviews but, like undergrad admissions, it feels like the system is being overwhelmed with applicants. Are the number of interviews granted increasing with the number of applicants?

    My eyes are jaded. I know that. I don't know how my son will answer the question you asked but I do know that he is an independent thinker so his answer could very well differ from my guess. In fact, it probably will. Not only are our kids encouraged to openly disagree with us but he is more like his mother. That is a whole different can of worms. I'm sure I would not have done well in the med school interview. Out of curiosity, what were the issues with my response to your question?
     
  7. IloveGT

    IloveGT Formula 3
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    #82 IloveGT, Sep 9, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2021
    I think my best advice for you is to back off from your son's medical school application and just pay for a consultant. You are biased and cynical about healthcare system overall, as you stated yourself. Your views will likely affect your son's answers in interviews. Being inquisitive is one thing, forgetting one's place and challenging another person's expert view and advice when the advice was sought to begin with is a completely different matter. You obviously have a pretty fixed mind what makes a good physician yourself as you disagreed with other physician's opinions about what you wrote - how strength and physical wellness can make him a better doctor. It is not about your view being different per se as you are not a physician, of course you would not know. All you can say with basis is what you think a better doctor should be based on your experiences as a patient. But I think you forgot about that limitation of yours and our backgrounds. Of course, in a regular conversation anyone can say anything. But the premise of this thread is different. You specifically asked for physician's help for your son's medical school application, and we offered advice. We are not here to argue or defend our views. So again what is the point? Right?

    So this is my last advice for you. Last thing, in medicine is an art and the tradition of apprenticeship is fundamental. If your son is how you are presenting yourself in this thread, your son will have to wake up every night when being on call to decide whether a sleeping pill need to be given to a sleeping patient.
     
  8. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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    Tony
    I apologize if I came off as combative or argumentative. Really, I am just trying to understand why things, that don't make sense to me, are the way they are. I would say I am more skeptical than cynical. Engineers are worriers by nature. I am going to try and back off my son's med school application as much as possible because, you are right, I don't know what I don't know. Believe it or not, it has become my default modus operandi. The boys have gotten older and wiser and have pretty good instincts so I tend to let them set their own path.

    You guys have provided a ton of great advice and insight in this thread and, honestly, I do appreciate it. Not sure if I can ever return the favor but, if you ever have any questions about lasers or optics, let me know. I occasionally work on medically related optics projects.
     
  9. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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  10. italiafan

    italiafan F1 World Champ
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    I’m not familiar with that score, they must have changed the MCAT since I took it.
    What percentile is that?
    I presume CONGRATS! are in order. :D
     
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  11. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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    I think it is equivalent to a 37 or 98th percentile.
     
  12. italiafan

    italiafan F1 World Champ
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    Excellent! IIRC that is what I got...36 or 37...so many years ago. :)
     
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  13. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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  14. BMW.SauberF1Team

    BMW.SauberF1Team F1 World Champ

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    Nice! Send my congratulations to him!
     
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  15. IloveGT

    IloveGT Formula 3
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    great! one milestone done. Now go hire a counselor service.
     
  16. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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    I know...I am going to.
     
  17. plastique999

    plastique999 F1 Veteran
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    Congratulations!
    Did much better than I did… I remember getting low 30’s, of course that led to a mediocre med school for me


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  18. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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    Thanks! He was very happy. Floating on air all day.
     
  19. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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    I would like to thank you again for the brutal honesty and suggestion in this post. I didn't like it but it was honest and I know you are right. In the end, reality doesn't always align with our own personal beliefs so we need to adapt. Your suggestion here is a perfect example.

    It is raining (pouring) again here in upstate NY. I bet you don't miss THAT! I am so done with this. I need to move to a sunny place!!!
     
  20. italiafan

    italiafan F1 World Champ
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    Move to sunny Florida! Past President of UR is retiring to Sarasota I believe—smart man! :)
    I wish your son every success!
     
  21. QtrItalian

    QtrItalian Karting

    Jan 22, 2021
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    I'm late to the party but I thought I would chime in to give another perspective. I'm close to 2 decades in practice, currently at an academic center and program director for a subspecialty. I am currently reviewing applications and interviewing for fellowship training now. I principally agree with the comments. I would agree it's a numbers game. Even for subspecialty applications we received over 430 for perhaps 40 interviews for 4 slots. So basically one in a hundred or slightly worse. My colleague is doing the same for an even smaller subspecialty which takes one trainee per year and she received 120 or 130 applications. She's interviewing 30 I think (arghh). I look at applications by the dozens and have so many e-mails of solicitations it pains me to remove people from the list. Certain parameters must guide this. Grades/scores are a base filter. From there I look at letters of recommendation (but have been fooled in that some claim to make really strong recommendations and yet year after year I see the same author with a slight twist to the letter - tailored to a new individual). After this I put quite a bit of reliance on the essay. For me it is the person ringing through. What I can't stand (but I understand since it is so natural) is the commonly written personal story of how a medical disease affected the applicant, for example: "my father [had this disease]", "my grandmother had [that]" and "this stimulated me to go into medicine." I can tolerate it but yesterday an applicant kept going on for 5 paragraphs in their essay and then basically summarized that that is why she'd be good at this....What applicants don't realize is that 4-5 paragraphs describing a family's plight doesn't prove the point. It should be more logical. Better to say "my father had......I found it sad because....I was fascinated when....It thus stimulated an interest of....." Again describing how many times an applicant visited the bedside or went to help someone do something..."but then one day finally..." makes me drift off immediately. Also there's so much molecular, genetic, immune research going on in the past decade or so that bringing up a fascination of how the body works microscopically is (to me) paramount in showing interest - even at the medical school application level. Discussing that shows insight, maturity, drive, a call to action on behalf of the profession. I know this is just my personal point. Other reviewers may want to see applicants who want to serve communities, to volunteer in the public health arena or underserved. One can never guess the reviewer's bent. All I would say is make the essay less common but logical. Give, if he must, one small anecdote of a personal/family medical moment and then move on and draw larger arguments. I don't care where/when the idea of being a doctor started. What I more care about is what draws the applicant to it and how they want to contribute. Don't quote famous people although a saying, theme or concept could work if tied into the application's theme. Don't go into the "nobility" of the profession, etc....Right now I wouldn't worry about the quality of the school. More important is choosing the right residency. A few MDs go to small residencies that are easy and don't provide a lot of experiences and then want to do subspecialty work but will be at a competitive disadvantage. I could go on but there's probably too much here to digest. Best of luck!
     
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  22. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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  23. IloveGT

    IloveGT Formula 3
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    bingo! I always asked why should I rank you higher than next person? No attending needs a Harvard grad who did not want to do guaic and lie about it. At the end of the day, high vs low risk resident and future department chief material? show me.
     
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  24. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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    Yes, a lot to digest but I am glad you did jump in! Thanks for the perspective. At some point I will need to go back through this whole thread and boil it all down.

    The numbers issue is really unfortunate. It has to make it really hard to dig deep into each candidate. I know the percent of accepted students has always been low but it seems crazy now. And the situation is even worse for undergrad admissions at top schools. They don't even interview all the applicants any more. I am talking about Yale. Our area didn't have enough alumni to interview everyone. There are just too many. So, like many have said here, standing out is often what makes the difference. The top undergrad schools now say things like, "we build a well rounded class" whereas they used to look for a class of well rounded individuals. It was a main focus of "Holistic Admissions". Times are changing for sure.
     
  25. Huskymaniac

    Huskymaniac Formula Junior

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    I had to look that up. Is that how Cologuard works? I hate to admit that I have avoided the dreaded colonoscopy. I have been considering the alternative test.
     

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