While Kim Lundeen was serving as a resident doctor in the Minneapolis area early in the pandemic, a patient asked her about a remedy rumored to cure COVID. The patient, who had tested positive for the virus, said she had heard advice circulating through her community that collecting and drinking her own urine would help her recover. The patient wanted to know whether Lundeen recommended the treatment.   

Lundeen was prepared for this sort of conversation and the balancing act of accuracy and openness it would require. She had taken one of the University of Minnesota’s first classes on misinformation. It taught her to spot, research, and counter false advice and faulty sources.

Dr Kim Lundeen

Misinformation courses, like the one Lundeen took, have been popping up in medical schools since the pandemic, which ushered in a myriad of conspiracy theories challenging doctors’ reputations as trusted health experts. Equipping young doctors to spot misinformation and effectively educating the public and their patients is now integral to a successful medical practice, several medical educators told Medscape Medical News.

The two primary functions of medical school are to teach doctors what they must know and how to look everything else up, said Kristina Krohn, MD, a hospitalist and Lundeen’s misinformation instructor at University of Minnesota. “If you can’t do the latter well, you will be persuaded that safe things are inappropriate and inappropriate things are something you should do…You’ll cause more harm.”

Funding for Electives

Demonstrating its commitment to countering misinformation, the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) teamed up this year with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to award $29,000 grants to five academic medical centers to revamp their curricula. The grants are for “kickstarting” classes that teach how to mitigate health misinformation and provide vaccine education. Some grant recipients are pioneering workshops on the topics; others are revamping apps to help physicians respond to vaccine hesitancy.

“This is a natural evolution of medical education,” said Andrea Anderson, MD, a professor at George Washington University School of Medicine, who helped choose the recipients of the AAMC grants. It has always been a clinician’s job to accurately present health information to help patients make the best decision, she said. The difference is that now more than ever patients are inundated with more information from outside sources — some of it false and dangerous.

Dr Vineet Arora

“There’s an infodemic and I believe it’s not going away,” said Vineet Arora, MD, co-instructor of the misinformation course and dean for medical education at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, one of the five AAMC grant recipients. “All our graduates should be well versed in communicating science to the public,” she said, adding that UChicago is revamping its curriculum to include science communication. 

UChicago’s program was born out of a need for online curriculum and Arora’s own experience as a physician treating COVID-19 and navigating social media. She was seeing patients refuse to be vaccinated because they held so tightly to myths circulating about infertility and DNA damage.

Meanwhile, Arora said she realized more of her colleagues were experiencing burnout because of the numbers of patients who were victims of disinformation. “I had this ‘aha’ moment,” she said. We are not training people to deal with misinformation, and it could be causing burnout.

At UChicago, the course is a 10-week-long elective for medical students and emphasizes the ability to discern misinformation, locate better sources of information, and communicate medical facts. Arora said the course also pulls from students’ experiences.

Soon after starting medical school, students start having to address health questions from their community, Arora said. And in those conversations, family and friends will often disclose the myths they believe as truth.

The same is true for the doctors and nurse practitioners that take Arora’s abbreviated misinformation training. They come to the course with examples of myths from their unique context and patient cohort, whether that be from rural or urban settings, a different country, or an underserved population. Arora and her co-instructors teach students at UChicago to understand the culture and context in which a myth originates. Understanding how a myth started is the first step to helping replace it with more accurate information, she said.

The goal of the programs and courses funded by the AAMC and the CDC is not to change people’s minds and have them immediately think differently, Anderson said, but rather “it’s to open the conversation and offer information they may not have” gained otherwise.

Addressing Myths

Because of her misinformation training, Lundeen told Medscape she was able to be curious about the urine advice and respectful in her response, focused on making and maintaining a connection with her patient. She told the patient she hadn’t heard of that treatment in her training. And while the urine approach wasn’t likely to be very harmful, it could be dangerous and wasn’t prescribed as a COVID-19 treatment by the broader medical community. But there were other remedies she could offer, she told the patient.

Battling patient misinformation may not be accomplished in a single visit, Krohn said. “Sometimes establishing a relationship and providing care is more important” than correcting a patient, she said. And over time that care can open a channel of communication, she added.

Arora explained that if patient trust is lacking, a physician’s attempts at myth busting can do more harm than good. You can end up cementing the myth or perpetuating it before it’s widespread, she added.

Both instructors say they teach students to respect patients’ experience and lead conversations with phrases such as: “I understand you might have heard that because…” and explain the source of the myth. For instance, they teach students to explain that a myth such as “the flu shot gives you the flu” started because the flu shot can cause an immune reaction.

The goal of the AAMC’s kickstarter funding is to arm students to reach reluctant populations with accurate information and ultimately improve health outcomes, according to the organization’s website. There’s no one way to counter misinformation, but the grant should help uncover and test new strategies, Anderson said.

The addition of a new elective, however, raises the question of whether students have time to fit misinformation lessons into their already crammed schedule. The scope of medical education is ever-expanding to include a plethora of social issues and science relevant to medical practice on top of clinical courses, according to both Anderson and Arora.

As long as information continues to develop and spread at such a fast rate, Arora said, physicians need to be able to interpret it and communicate it well. “This is an area we believe strongly is not going to be a fad.”

Donavyn Coffey is a Kentucky-based journalist reporting on healthcare, the environment, and anything that affects the way we eat. She has a master’s degree from NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and a master’s in molecular nutrition from Aarhus University in Denmark. You can see more of her work in Wired, Scientific American, Popular Science, and elsewhere.

Source: medscape.com

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Being in medical school literally takes up my whole entire life. Monday through Friday I’m in classes all day. I come home, make some dinner and play with my pup, then it’s back to reviewing the day’s material until I fall asleep. Occasionally I’ll have a free weekend to hang out with friends or take a trip, but by the time we have a ‘free weekend,’ oftentimes we are all too exhausted physically and mentally to do anything but sleep, clean, or be lazy around the house. Sometimes I forget what it’s like to have free time. My boyfriend and I will go out for dinner and have a date night when we can. But in the blink of an eye, 2 months has gone by and we haven’t had hardly any time to spend together.

How can you manage to still have a life outside of medical school? Very diligent planning and time management is key.

One thing I try to do is make sure I’m in bed or getting sleepy around 10:30 pm every night (which is not hard for me!). Since I have to be in class by 8 am every day, I try to make sure I get enough sleep so I am able to make it through the day. I try to stay well-rested during the week so when I do get a free weekend or evening, I’m able to go out with friends for a drink, or go on a date night with my boyfriend without being completely drained. I know what you’re thinking, “How am I supposed to go to sleep early when a hurricane of information is coming at me everyday?!” Just think how much better you feel when you’re well-rested. On your days off, you’ll be able to do things you want to do instead of spending it in bed catching up on sleep. You also focus much better when you’re well-rested!

Another thing I like to do is make plans ahead of time. I love making plans in advance and having something to look forward to…a spa appointment, a day trip with friends, or dinner with my boyfriend –it is something to work hard towards. If I’ve been studying all week and managing my time, I’m more likely to willingly take a break for the event that I’ve been planning to reward myself. I oftentimes find myself feeling guilty for taking a ‘personal day,’ but I have to remember it’s for my sanity and well-being just as much as studying is.

Another thing that I like doing is scheduling a breakfast or lunch date with friends and turning it into a study session afterwards. Bring your study materials to your favorite coffee shop or restaurant, share a meal, and then study together. Not only do you get to spend time with your friends and study, but you get delicious food and coffee with them! Win-win. To save some money, you and your friends can have a potluck. Each make a dish, bring some drinks, and study afterwards!

Don’t forget you’re still a person outside of medical school. It’s way too easy to get caught up in the rush of studying, exams, and stress. In the blink of an eye you realize a year has gone by. Don’t forget to take a break and relax every once in awhile–it will help keep you sane and reduce your stress in the long run! One piece of advice I’ve gotten from current physicians and other medical professionals was not to let myself get burnt out, and to relax and have some fun every once in awhile!

https://medstudentstories.merckmanuals.com/

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When Arjun Arya, MD, mingles socially with people he doesn’t know, he doesn’t usually say he’s a doctor when careers come up. “My go-to answer tends to be, ‘I work in healthcare,’ and I just leave it at that,” he said. That’s not because he doesn’t love his job — he does — but it’s only been 6 months since Arya became an attending physician in emergency medicine at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, Illinois.

“It doesn’t feel quite real yet,” he says. He feels very confident and competent as a physician, but he’s still figuring out what it means to be a doctor in his new post-residency life.

Arya is part of a generation of doctors who came of age professionally during the pandemic, a time when the field of medicine has been changing rapidly and dramatically. The importance of social determinants of health has begun to receive more attention; the repercussions of burnout have become clearer; and work-life balance and maintaining an identity outside of work have become non-negotiable priorities.

Some physicians who spoke with Medscape were residents or attendings when the pandemic began. Others have spent most of their residency in the pandemic. However, all feel that working with patients is the best part of their jobs.

That sentiment is echoed in the Medscape Young Physician Compensation Report 2022, in which 27% of new doctors said the most rewarding part of their job was their relationships with patients or the knowledge that they’re making the world a better place by helping others.

The newest generation of physicians has enthusiastically decided to be the change they want to see in the field, even when it’s harder than they expected or the field hasn’t lived up to their expectations.

A Meaningful Chance to Make a Difference

Arya sees being a doctor as an honor and privilege; if he had it to do over, he would still choose emergency medicine.

“It became very clear early on that I loved the fast-paced environment,” said Arya, who worked briefly in finance before medical school and loved the excitement of the trading floors. The rapid, high-stakes decision-making of trading floors is not unlike the emergency department environment.

But his love for his specialty isn’t just about the adrenaline rush. “Every single day, every shift, every patient is a meaningful chance to make a real difference in someone’s life, and that’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” Arya said. But he acknowledges the flip side of that, too: Every shift, he sees someone die or who is in the process of dying.

He’s learning to develop the tools to manage that heartache, and it’s a reminder that no one’s time is guaranteed.

Coming Up in the Age of Medical Misinformation

Joseph S. Thomas, MD, an internal medicine hospitalist at Buffalo Medical Group in New York, is in his third year as an attending and finds similar fulfillment in helping patients understand their disease. “Medicine is about empowering a patient to take an active role in their health, and my job is to help them do that as best as possible, even when there are a lot of things that aren’t in their control,” Thomas said.

But a major challenge for Thomas is what interferes with that: confronting rampant misinformation. As misinformation has grown during the pandemic, so has Thomas’s appreciation for the importance of public health and the need to push back against it. Like others of his generation, Thomas has embraced the opportunities that social media provides in pushing back against false information — and for broader change in medicine overall.

“More people are coming through and wanting to shake up the status quo and entering positions of leadership, slowly but surely,” Thomas said.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Moves Front and Center

Nearly every doctor who spoke with Medscape mentioned recognizing care disparities and improving diversity, equity, and inclusion in medicine. Several have even made that a central part of their career.

Angela Y. Zhang, MD, a second-year pediatrics resident at Seattle Children’s, has observed several changes in medicine since the pandemic. “Before that year, everything felt really strict and hierarchal.” For example, white coats and business casual were required during inpatient shifts.

But when she returned after a year working in her school’s Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, everyone was in scrubs because of the infection risk, and many past formalities had fallen by the wayside. Meanwhile, funding and initiatives for improving equity and inclusion became higher priorities.

“It was easier to push through efforts that had been really hard battles before,” said Zhang, who has a strong interest in dismantling race-based medicine and gets much of her joy from her health equity work.

Zhang is grateful for getting a medical education when healthcare is catching up to other fields by realizing that social determinants are “really what guide a patient’s health, outcomes, and wellness as opposed to what we diagnose them with.”

Yet she worries that the boost in funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives will be short-lived, especially as people see what it takes to fix disparities.

Today’s Challenges for Women Physicians

Chidimma J. Acholonu, MD, MPH, a chief resident in pediatrics at the University of Chicago, noted that African American women like her make up only about 2% of the physician workforce, so the experience of being “othered” adds another lens to the already challenging experience of getting through medical training.

“Having to navigate that on top of the general challenges of medicine can be hard,” Acholonu said. “If there were more diverse representations of what a physician looked like, it wouldn’t be such an anomaly to see me in the spaces I occupy as a physician.”

She also noted the obstacles in medicine for women, particularly if they want children, because their most fertile years usually overlap residency and early career. In addition, although Medscape’s report found that more younger women are entering medicine, it also found that gender pay disparities remain substantial.

One of the most significant drawbacks to medicine for Acholonu is the stress, even when she enjoys the work. “People try to explain to you the wear and tear on your mind, body, and soul, but no amount of explaining can make it tangible except going through it,” Acholonu said.

The pandemic has given new life to conversations about physician wellness and the need to take burnout seriously. “The generation that has come of age as clinicians in this time has a different language and different priorities in the way they think about work and life and how those two things should tie together,” she said.

Battling Burnout

In Medscape’s report, the challenge most commonly cited by new doctors was dealing with difficult patients. Still, none of the doctors Medscape spoke with mentioned difficult patients or even working long hours, the second challenge in Medscape’s survey.

For Linh Ngo, DO, a rheumatologist and an assistant professor of medicine at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, the near-impossibility of maintaining a work-life balance has been the biggest downside to being a doctor. Ngo has changed jobs twice in his 5 years as an attending because of burnout.

“I just want to find a place where the organization is not trying to kill me,” Ngo said. Medical school teaches that everything is about the patient, he said, but your mental health matters too.

Would You Choose Medicine Again?

Ngo started at an academic center, working in clinical trials while seeing patients and getting pulled into more committees and meetings because of COVID. Eventually, it was too much, so he moved to a private multispecialty group, but he found the “worried well” draining his energy.

“I don’t want to just see a person every 15 minutes and just try to get them in and out the door,” Ngo said. “I want to do the right thing. I want to practice medicine, not just practice the ‘business of medicine.'”

If he had it to do over, he would still choose rheumatology if he were going into medicine, but Ngo is part of the 32% in Medscape’s report who would not choose medicine again.

“Even if the pandemic did not happen, I would definitely steer my younger self way the heck away from medicine,” Ngo said. “I would have been like, ‘Hey, you know how you want to take care of people and fix the world and everything?’ I would slap myself and say, ‘Well, you can’t, because there are insurance companies, there are bureaucrats, there are people above you who have nothing to do with patient care but will say no to you because they think they know better than you.”

John Trinidad, MD, MPH, an attending dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and core faculty with the Harvard Combined Dermatology Residency Training Program, has similarly found the most frustrating aspects of medicine to be problems in the healthcare system that prevent him from doing a good job, including fights with insurance companies over what medications his patients need and reimbursement not keeping pace with inflation.

But Trinidad wouldn’t trade his career for any other. Like 68% of young physicians in Medscape’s report, he would choose the same specialty again. Trinidad’s eyes lit up with excitement when he says he gets to see thousands of moles in a day. He also loves how problem-oriented his work is.

In his sixth year as an attending, Trinidad is the furthest along as a physician among those who spoke to Medscape. After saying yes to any opportunity that came his way at the start of his career, during 5 years at Ohio State University, he made his move to Boston last year a chance to choose the hats he’d wear more deliberately. They include inpatient consultations, working in a dermatology clinic at a community health center, at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, and in a sexual health clinic, and developing a specialty clinic for patients with HIV and patients undergoing gender-affirming care.

“I’m very, very happy that on my personal statement to apply to medical school, I said that I want to work in community health centers, I want to work in health disparities, I want to take care of LGBT patients and patients who are historically underserved, and I’m doing that to this day,” Trinidad said.

Arya, Thomas, Zhang, Acholonu, Ngo, and Trinidad have reported no relevant financial relationships.

https://www.medscape.com/

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Now that you’re committed to going to medical school, finances are on your mind more than ever. Earning a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree is a significant investment, which is why many may be tempted to only consider the cheapest medical schools.

But before you make a decision based solely on medical school tuition, you should know there’s much more to consider. There are many criteria you should evaluate for each MD program you’re considering. Furthermore, a program’s expenses might not be what you’d expect due to a number of factors.

Join us as we explore the various factors you should be aware of when considering the cost of medical school.

Considering the cheapest medical schools? Remember these 5 things

As you start comparing programs, it’s natural to think about medical school tuition. But before you get wrapped up in the numbers, make sure you’re looking at the bigger picture.

Read on to find out what else should be in the back of your mind if you’re hoping to find cheap medical schools.

1. Fixating on cost ignores quality

Medical school is expensive, but so are many of the other major purchases you’ll make throughout your life. When you think of buying a car or a house, cost is only one factor you consider. Why should an MD degree be any different?

Remaining hyper-focused on the price could result in overlooking some of the most important selection criteria for choosing a medical school. Significant elements to evaluate in addition to an MD program’s tuition include the student support services the school provides, its graduate success rate, the esteem of its faculty, and the quality of its facilities.

Remember that medical school is just the first step in your journey toward becoming a physician. Obtaining an MD doesn’t mean much if you’re unable to secure a postgraduate training position or pass the required licensing exams.

You can get a solid idea of how different medical schools equip their students by investigating the residency placement rate and the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 1 pass rate for each program you’re considering.

2. Tuition can vary depending on where you live

If you’ve done any research on the cheapest medical schools, you’ve probably encountered some tuition costs that seem too good to be true. And in most cases, it’s wise to be skeptical. It’s also important to keep in mind that there are some external factors to account for.

For example, many online lists focus on in-state tuition, which doesn’t apply to out-of-state students. Data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) indicates those two numbers can be significantly different for some schools.

Though attending an in-state school seems like an easy fix, a majority of medical students attend school away from home. According to the AAMC, more than 77 percent of US students who started medical school in the 2021–2022 school year went out of state for their education.

Finally, it’s worth noting that applying to too few schools is one of the biggest mistakes applicants make. It often results in failing to gain acceptance to medical school.

3. Certain costs have nothing to do with tuition

The cost difference between attending one program over another is often less substantial than it first seems. Some expenses are unavoidable, regardless of which institution you choose. Medical students need a fair number of supplies.

“You must buy books, instruments such as a stethoscope, and more,” explains Dr. Kim Langdon, retired OB/GYN.

Cost of living is another factor you should consider. Housing is simply more expensive in certain areas. You might end up saving on tuition by attending a certain school but pay significantly more for rent. Housing costs can even vary within a city.

“Keep in mind that living near campus and the hospital is more expensive than other places in most communities,” Dr. Langdon points out. With so many variables, it’s easy to see that these unrelated costs must also be considered.

4. Medical school is a serious, long-term investment

Obtaining a medical education builds a foundation that will stick with you for the rest of your life. If you’re considering the cheapest medical schools, make sure you’re truly committed to a career as a physician.

Those seriously questioning the cost or time commitment up front might want to look into other options. “I tell those people to consider becoming a physician assistant or nurse practitioner instead,” Dr. Langdon says.

But if you know you’re destined for a career in medicine, keep in mind that you have plenty of time to tackle cost. Some medical school graduates even postpone loan payments through deferment or forbearance until after they’ve completed residency. Either way, paying for medical school is a long-term strategy.

5. Some institutions offer students more than others

You’ve probably heard countless people say, “You get what you pay for.” This is truer than ever when it comes to medical school. Some programs have slightly higher tuition rates due to taking extra measures that ensure student success.

St. George’s University (SGU), for example, offers a robust array of support services for students. Every week, the Department of Educational Services (DES) runs hundreds of workshops that focus on everything from specific subjects to more general skills like time management.

SGU also has a track record of graduate success due to its commitment to preparing medical students for residency with hands-on clinical training from the very start of their time in the MD program. As such, SGU boasts a 93 percent US residency placement rate for eligible graduates over the past three years.¹

SGU Pulse School of Medicine Blog

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A lot of people considering attending medical school are curious about what the process is like in various countries, so I’d like to talk about two regions that I get a lot of questions about.

As a graduate of medical school in Europe, but having grown up in the United States, I have a little knowledge about both: let’s start with Europe first, which I know a lot of my American readers are rather unfamiliar with.

I will only be discussing medical degree programs that teach in English. Most countries have medical schools for their own citizens, in which case the language of teaching is the local language.

Medical School in Europe

Europe is made up for so many countries, many with their own medical education intricacies, so this post might not be completely accurate in the smallest details. I hope to explain what medical education in general looks like in most European countries, including the country where I attended med school.

There are a few countries that teach in English, including (but not limited to): Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Romania. There is also of course the UK and Ireland which offer medical education in English, but it’s a little different than the rest of Europe and I have no experience with it, so I’ll focus more on the mainland countries.

Length & Curriculum

Medical school in Europe is generally 6 years.

Wow, right? This surprised a lot of my American followers. The reasoning is that the traditional path to medicine in Europe is high school –> medical school. That means that you apply for medical school while you’re still in high school, and you begin your studies when you’re about 18/19 (if you take no gap years).

The typical curriculum for a European medical school will be the following:

• Years 1-3: basic sciences (biophysics, chemistry, biochemistry, anatomy, histology, biostatistics, ethics, pathology, pharmacology, etc.)
• Years 4-5: clinical courses (internal subspecialties like cardiology, nephrology, etc.; surgery; ENT; neurology; dermatology, and so on)
• Year 6: rotations (working on the wards – no more lectures, just clinical rotations)

Your European university might differ in a few things, but this gives you a general idea. For us, we had clinical lectures and then bedside learning in years 4-5, and our final year was meant to be like an intern year, during which we did rotations in the six core subjects (internal, pediatrics, OBGYN, psychiatry, neurology, surgery).

Admission Exam

I can’t speak for admission requirements at all universities, but for my school, you needed to take an entrance exam that covered high school level biology, chemistry and physics. The university admissions page had sample questions to give students an idea of the level of knowledge required.

Additionally, there was an interview, which was an important aspect of admission. This was done in-person in previous years; I don’t know if that has/will change.

*Note: in general, admission to the English program at these universities is easier than admission into medical schools in the US, based on my experience. It has gotten more competitive in recent years, but the focus on volunteering, extracurriculars, shadowing, research experience, etc. is a lot less than in the States. Furthermore, my university (and likely some others) has a higher rate of attrition than most medical schools in the US. This means that while admission is easier, it can be a bit more challenging to stay in medical school and graduate – a lot of students end up repeating a year, and there are certainly those that drop out entirely.

Cost (Approximate)

Tuition for my medical school, when I started in 2015, was $9000 USD/semester. I am a US citizen, but this university didn’t participate in FAFSA (the federal aid given to US citizens), and I don’t know of any scholarship opportunities, so we paid out of pocket for medical school.

For the 12 semesters, tuition came out to $108,000. That does not include room&board, as the US ‘cost of attendance’ estimates generally include. For me, I lived in an apartment in the city with my boyfriend, and cost of living in this city is generally lower than in the US, so it was a bit better in that sense.

I’m not familiar with the cost of other medical schools around Europe, but I believe they are around this, perhaps a bit cheaper if they are in the countryside or more east. Many of my European classmates received scholarships from their home countries, as well as loans from their government, but it varies by country. The other students could take out private loans or, alternatively, pay out of pocket.

Exams during Medical School

In my European medical school, a good chunk of our exams were ORAL. That meant that we prepared for exams from predetermined topic lists, which a topic might be something like, “diagnosis and management type 1 diabetes,” and our exams were mainly a conversation, in which the examiner had you to present on the topic and then asked questions.

A select few of our classes had written tests, mostly with multiple choice questions, but these were more uncommon.

We didn’t have any standardized tests, until the final year, when at the end of our medical education, all med students across the country took the same exam. This exam was meant to cover topics from all core subjects and was multiple choice.

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An important consideration: in most European countries, although the language of education is English, the patients will likely speak only the local language.

If you are studying medicine in Europe and plan to go to the US, I have some blog posts on my website dedicated to applying as an international medical graduate (IMG), linked here (Step 1 as an IMG) and here (the Match process). The average match rate for foreign-trained graduates is 57.2%, based on the 2021 Match Data.

Medical School in the US

The path to medical school in the United States is a bit different, let me explain.

Mandatory Pre-med

In the US, students get an undergraduate (bachelor’s) degree in something (generally, anything, even things unrelated to medicine) with a ‘pre-med’ focus. This is usually a four-year degree (rarely, it can be done in three years), and the premed focus allows you to fulfill the requirements that are required for entering medical school. Pre-med classes include biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, biochemistry, etc., each which a different length. This means that while you are fulfilling your requirements for an art history degree, you take these additional classes.

Entrance Exam to Medical School

There is a standardized entrance exam that most schools required, called the MCAT (medical college admission test). This exam covers: Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems; Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems; Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior; and Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills, and the score is an important factor in your acceptance to medical school.

NOTE: In the US, there are two types of medical degrees – medical doctor (MD) and doctor of osteopathy (DO). While the curriculums are very similar, with the exception of added information in DO school related to osteopathy, the Match rates are (unfortunately) not quite equivalent. The system is changing in an effort to decrease the discrepancy, but it’s not quite there just yet (as you can see in the 2021 Match data).

Besides the MCAT, admission committees rely on other aspects of your application to see if you’d be a qualified applicant. From my experience with undergrad in the US, as well as following many premed/US medical students, I have garnered the following information:

• MCAT scores are important, but not the only determinant
• volunteering and extra-curricular activities are helpful (being a leader of a club, part of an organization, etc.)
• shadowing doctors is very beneficial
• grades from undergraduate matter (your GPA or grade point average can be a cutoff at more competitive schools)
• personal statement (like a motivation letter) which supports your interest in medicine

That being said, there are lots of resources out there on how to put together a strong application. you can learn from YouTube/Instagram accounts who’ve been there, done that, as well as more official sources, like AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service).

Length & Curriculum

Once accepted into medical school, you will have four years of study ahead of you. The first two years are generally the ‘basic science’ years, and the last two are the clinical years. Depending on the school, you might receive grades (like in college/high school) or your courses might be pass/fail.

After your basic science years (i.e. at the end of the 2nd year), you take the USMLE Step 1 exam (US Medical Licensing Exam), and then from third year, you hit the wards.

You rotate in different specialties in your third and fourth year, spending weeks at a time being a part of the team in various hospitals or departments. You must complete core rotations, which are required, and then you have the opportunity to experience some more unique specialties via elective rotations.

Most students take the second USMLE, the Step 2 CK (Clinical Knowledge) exam at the end of their third year, right before fourth year.

Cost (Approximate)

This is a tricky question to answer, because there’s a lot of variety between schools. (Fun fact: it’s also a little bit challenging to find the information on certain websites, hmm).

One of the key differences in tuition is whether you are an in-state student, or out-of-state (OOS). OOS costs are generally a bit higher – I took the random example of the University of Iowa School of Medicine (resident vs. non-resident prices):

Those students who are unable to pay out of pocket usually take out loans to cover the cost of attending med school. A July 2021 study found that the average medical school debt is $215,900. If your family qualifies, you are eligible for FAFSA (the federal loan), and there are scholarship opportunities as well, although to my knowledge, there are fewer scholarships available for medical school than for undergraduate degrees [for instance, I got a “full ride” to college when I was 18, but I wouldn’t have gotten much help for medical school].

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Application to Residency

If you are studying in the US, you will likely be applying to residency in the beginning of your fourth year. The average match rate for US medical students is 92.8% (based on the 2021 Match data), but of course there are some specialties that are more challenging than others.

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In conclusion, the journeys are a little bit different (or quite a bit different). I hope this was informative – good luck with your journey!

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Sometimes the simplest questions are also the most difficult to answer. On the surface, the “why medicine” question may seem like a straightforward question with an equally straightforward answer; however, this isn’t the case.

Simple as it is, this question forces you to deeply examine your own motivations for pursuing medicine. As such, it is one of the most important questions you have to answer – not only for medical school applications and interviews but also for yourself.

Let’s break down how to answer this common interview question.

Medical school is not for the faint of heart. Regardless of how intelligent you are or how hard you work, you will face numerous challenges and obstacles on your way to becoming a doctor. Understanding your true motivations will help you push through difficult times and remind you of why you’re pursuing medicine in the first place.

One of the worst things you can do is fabricate a response in an attempt to present yourself in the best possible light. Not only will you be lying to your interviewer, and make yourself more susceptible to any curveballs they might throw at you, but you’ll also be lying to yourself.

When thinking about how you want to answer this question, it is important to look inward. This is your chance to think about yourself, your life, and why you want to pursue medicine, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

With that out of the way, let’s dive deeper and talk about what interviewers are looking for in your response.

What Interviewers Are Looking For

First and foremost, admissions committees use this question to get to know you better as a person. They have already seen your application and read through your personal statement. Now, they want to get to know the person behind it all.

The “why do you want to be a doctor” question should not be a regurgitation of your primary application or personal statement, but rather a genuine discussion about what led you to pursue medicine and why it’s the career for you.

A well-thought-out answer shows that you have put considerable thought into your reasons for pursuing medicine and weighed the pros and cons of this career field. It also shows that you know what you’re in for and are prepared for the challenges ahead of you.

This is also the perfect opportunity for admissions committees to assess your in-person communication skills – something they can’t do at any other point in the application process. Although admissions committees can get a feel for your written communication skills through your essays and personal statement, the interview is where they get to see how you interact with others.

Communication skills are fundamental for aspiring physicians. You want to make sure to communicate your reasons for pursuing medicine as clearly and effectively as possible. If you can’t explain to someone why you want to go into medicine, you will likely have trouble communicating a difficult diagnosis to a patient.

Another thing that interviewers are looking for is your commitment to medicine. Becoming a physician is one of the longest and most challenging career paths that you can choose. Admissions committees want to make sure that you are committed to becoming a physician and are willing to overcome the challenges ahead of you.

Part of the reason that medical school admissions are so rigorous is that medical schools want to make sure that they’re accepting students who will ultimately graduate and become practicing physicians. Although getting into medical school is no easy feat, there are still some students who don’t end up completing medical school.

Some drop out due to health issues, family circumstances, or other unforeseen events. Others drop out because they are unable to handle the rigors of medical school or decide that they no longer want to become a doctor.

This affects medical schools in two ways. First, it’s bad from a financial perspective. Once a student matriculates into medical school and begins classes, their spot is locked in and is not easily replaced.

If a student drops out of medical school during their second year, the school can’t just replace their spot with another second-year medical student. Instead, they lose out on the tuition that the student would have provided over the next two years of their training.

In addition, a high attrition rate can affect the academic reputation of a medical school. Schools with high dropout rates may deter students from applying or attending that school.

For these reasons, medical schools are incentivized to be cautious when choosing students. The “why do you want to be a doctor” question is one way that schools can determine which students are driven and motivated enough to make it through medical school.

How to Approach the “Why Medicine” Question

Now that you know why this question is so important, how should you approach it?

Much like with your medical school application, you want to build a narrative around the “why medicine” question. You should follow the same approach that you would if you were writing a good story.

First, you want to have a beginning, middle, and end to your response. This will allow you to organize your ideas in such a way that they flow seamlessly together. Remember, this is your chance to show admissions committees your stellar communication skills. If you jump around from point to point haphazardly, your response can be confusing and difficult to follow.

We recommend formatting your response in the following way.

Start by discussing how you were first introduced to the field of medicine. If possible, incorporate specific experiences and follow the “show don’t tell” principle. This will make your response much more engaging and grab your interviewer’s attention.

Next, discuss how you learned more about the field. What did you do to educate yourself about the world of medicine and the realities of being a doctor? This is your chance to discuss any stand-out experiences that you had and what they taught you about medicine.

Lastly, you should talk about why you are committed to medicine. What does becoming a doctor offer you that other careers, especially other careers in healthcare, don’t? Be specific here.

A great way to approach this part of your response is to think about the impact you want to have on your patients. What can you offer your patients as a physician that you can’t offer in other careers and why are these things important to you?

For example, you might discuss the fact that physicians possess deep knowledge and understanding of medicine which provides them with a level of problem-solving ability and intellectual stimulation that you don’t get in other fields of healthcare. By possessing this level of knowledge yourself, you’ll be able to provide more nuanced care to your future patients.

This is just one example to get you thinking. It is important for you to reflect on your specific reasons for pursuing medicine. Your response should be genuine and true to yourself.

Mistakes to Avoid

Now, let’s talk about some mistakes to avoid.

Although it is important to prepare for this question by organizing your thoughts, you should avoid trying to memorize a “perfect response.” Interviewers are trying to assess your communication skills and this approach often feels rehearsed – which can come across as disingenuous.

Remember, you won’t have a script when you’re talking to patients. Instead, you will have knowledge in your head that you need to communicate effectively to the person sitting in front of you. This is no different. You want to show the interviewer who you are as a person, and let your personality shine through. This is often difficult to do when you’re reading from a script.

Next, avoid responses like “I like helping people” or “I love learning about the human body.” These are some of the most common answers that premeds give to interviewers. If you give a similarly generic answer, you will have a difficult time standing out from the hundreds of other premeds who said the exact same thing.

In addition, these responses aren’t specific to becoming a doctor. You can help people and learn about the human body in many different career fields, so why become a doctor instead of a nurse, physician assistant, or physical therapist? You want your answer to reflect why you want to become a doctor specifically and why it’s the best career for you.

Next, avoid answers that involve money, power, or respect. These responses indicate that your reasons for pursuing medicine are extrinsic – meaning they come from external sources instead of internal ones. Although these reasons may be involved in your decision to become a physician, they can come across as selfish and lead interviewers to question your commitment to medicine.

Being a doctor is a field focused on helping people. Your response shouldn’t be focused on what medicine can offer you, but on what you can offer the field of medicine — and ultimately your future patients.

In addition, research has shown that intrinsic motivations for becoming a doctor, such as enjoying the intellectual challenge of medicine, are correlated with increased academic performance, whereas extrinsic motivations had no significant association with a medical student’s academic performance.

This last point should be obvious, but don’t say you’re going into medicine because your parents are doctors or because they want you to go into medicine. Although having family members in medicine can be a great motivator and provide you with firsthand perspectives of what it’s like to be a doctor, this should not be your primary reason.

Similar to the previous point, this response suggests that your motivations for pursuing medicine are extrinsic. They are influenced by what others want for you instead of what you want for yourself – which is often a red flag for interviewers.

Although the “why medicine” question is one of the more difficult questions you will have to answer when applying to medical school, it is just one aspect of the medical school interview. In addition to practicing what to say, you also need to practice how to say it–which is often difficult to do on your own.

While your friends and family can help you sound good, they won’t have the nuanced understanding of what medical school admissions committees are looking for. The best way to prepare is by completing mock interviews with doctors or instructors who have served on actual medical school admissions committees.

In a Med School Insiders mock interview, you’ll work with a former admissions committee physician who knows firsthand what interviewers are looking for and how to present yourself in the best light. Together, our team has conducted thousands of interviews and we know the process inside and out.

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I knew I wanted to be a doctor when I was seven years old. I excelled in school, attended a good college, scored well on the MCAT, and was accepted into medical school just as I always knew I would be. It was only as I progressed in my career as a physician that I realized that being a white, middle-class individual had given me an advantage—I had access that others did not.

There has been considerable talk about admitting more diverse students to U.S. medical schools, but not enough progress. In 2021-2022, U.S. medical school matriculants were 11.3% Black and 12.7% Latinx, not yet mirroring the total U.S. population at 14.2% and 18.7%, respectively.

Medical school admissions committees evaluate a medical school applicant’s academic credentials and life experiences. Often, they strive for fairness by establishing scoring mechanisms applied evenly to all applicants. Fair, perhaps, but just – not even close. “Fair” forgets that opportunity has not been equally distributed up to the point of a medical school application.

The MCAT, as used by most medical schools, is a major contributor to the educational injustice of the medical school application process. There remains an unexplained gap in average MCAT scores between white (503.1), Black (494.9), and Latinx (497.1) test-takers. This gap matters as 29% of applicants with a score of 502-505 are accepted compared to 10% with a score of 494-499. If we are serious about diversifying the physician workforce, we must rethink the way in which this examination is currently being used. Why? Because the unspoken MCAT line drawn by the majority of medical schools is keeping potential Latinx, Black, indigenous, and other BIPOC students from attending; maybe even keeping potential students from applying.

The MCAT score, largely touted as the best predictor of success in medical school, is just that – a measure of readiness for medical school and the ability to pass a multiple-choice test. It is not a measure of intelligence, ability, or character. Yes, higher percentages of students with higher MCAT scores pass the USMLE, Step 1 on the first attempt: 502-505 (94%) v. 494-497 (83%). Why have we as a profession chosen to deny admission to BIPOC applicants who present with lower MCAT scores rather than improving our educational programs to meet them where they are?

Despite the Association of American Medical Colleges’ (AAMC) efforts to encourage medical schools to use a more holistic approach to admissions and U.S. medical schools’ insistence that they do, the average MCAT of accepted students is not changing. “Holistic admission” has come to mean taking students with higher MCAT scores and looking for additional selective qualities. This version of holistic admissions will not fix the problem and may make it worse.

Surely holistic admissions is a step in the right direction? It depends. Suppose a “progressive medical school” is now willing to accept students who score at the 50th percentile (96% chance of success, and still well above the average score of a Black or Latinx applicant) instead of the 80th percentile (99% chance of success). What do they use to differentiate that larger applicant pool? According to AAMC, schools look for experiences with community service and physician shadowing—things that are infinitely easier for applicants who don’t have to work to support themselves (or their extended family) and for those whose network reaches someone in health care. Lower importance is given to paid employment – yet another form of the poverty tax.

With undeniable evidence supporting this, the faculty and admissions representatives at the medical school where I am the dean have made it our mission to do all we can to look beyond MCAT scores to better understand the social factors impacting applicants to not only provide equitable admissions but to come alongside our future physicians and put the right supports in place along their journey, so they are successful. We offer additional pathways to medical education both via partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), inclusive scholarship programs, and a medical education program that readies aspiring medical students for the rigor of medical school. Both are examples of programs offering pathways and equitable education access to those who may have otherwise been shut out of medical school.

As a medical school dean, it is my duty to prepare our current students to handle the challenges that come with a medical career and help them thrive in every way possible. I’m excited to see how the steps we’re taking to improve our admissions process and support student success today will impact the future of health care education and the health care industry in the years to come.

In addition to the success of our students, it’s our responsibility to combat the systemic barriers to health care education. We work to make health care education accessible and equitable, which creates positive social impacts in our communities. We also look to improve health equity while working to combat critical health care workforce shortages by training diverse cohorts of students who accurately represent the populations we serve.

If we want to achieve a physician workforce that mirrors our population, medical schools must collectively understand that we have created an admissions system that selects against Latinx and BIPOC students. We need a new system. But a new admission system will not be enough. More medical students of color, while a start, is not the complete answer: We need more doctors of color.

Heidi Chumley is dean, Ross University School of Medicine.

https://www.kevinmd.com/

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While you might have always dreamed of becoming a doctor, you might not have foreseen the high costs of medical school. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the average out-of-state tuition at a private school in 2019-2020 was $56,946 per year. To afford this steep price tag, it’s crucial to learn how to pay for medical school without taking on massive debt.

Fortunately, there are ways to finance your medical education without breaking the bank. You just have to know where to look.

How to pay for medical school

Here’s our guide on how to pay for medical school without completely going broke.

1. Look for local scholarship opportunities
2. Apply for federal financial aid
3. Consider private student loans
4. Become a TA or RA
5. Enroll in a service program

1. Look for local scholarship opportunities

When it comes to scholarships, the conversation tends to be around undergraduate education. But there are plenty of scholarships for medical students as well. Even better, there are scholarships available for every step of the medical school process from being a pre-med undergrad student to heading off into your residency.

For example, some medical schools will provide full merit scholarships, such as the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Meanwhile, the American Medical Association Foundation has the Physicians of Tomorrow Award, which gives students in their final year of medical school $10,000. So, it’s important to research scholarship options throughout your time in medical school.

Also, don’t forget to look up scholarships that have nothing to do with your medical pursuits. You could score some scholarship money based on an outside interest, your heritage or your volunteer work. Even smaller ones for a few hundred dollars could add up to big savings if you get a bunch.

To find scholarships, you can look in a few places. Ask your school what scholarships they have available, reach out to local organizations, research what possibilities hospitals have, and use a website like CollegeBoard’s scholarship search to look up options based on your interests and background.

2. Apply for federal financial aid

When figuring out how to pay for medical school, filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) might not come to mind. Sure, it’s something you did for undergrad, but it should also be the first step in securing financial aid for your post-graduate degree too.

Medical schools use the FAFSA to determine how much aid you’re eligible for based on your financial needs. Even if you haven’t been accepted to a school yet, send an application for each school you’ve applied to. This will ensure you’re getting as much financial aid as possible.

Through the FAFSA, you could also be offered a federal loan. There are several types of federal loans available to medical students, including Direct Unsubsidized, Direct PLUS and HRSA Primary Care. These loans tend to have lower interest rates and more flexible repayment terms, making it easier to pay them back once you graduate.

The process is the same as when you filed the FAFSA for undergrad — just make sure you check to see if the medical schools have any deadline requirements. You may need a parent to fill out the form as well, so have all your paperwork in order before applying by the due date.

3. Consider private student loans

Even if you received some scholarships and financial aid from your medical school or the government, you still might not have enough money to cover your education costs. That’s where private student loans come in.

Unlike federal loans, which are regulated by the government, private student loans for medical school are issued by private lenders such as Citizens Bank or College Ave. That means the eligibility requirements, interest rates and repayment terms can vary depending on the financial institution offering the loan.

While there are fewer regulations, private loans tend to have higher borrowing caps, which could help cover all of your expenses federal aid couldn’t. They may also have lower interest rates compared to federal loans meaning you will pay less overall.

That said, you need to pass a credit check to qualify for private student loans, and you might need a cosigner if you can’t meet a lender’s underwriting requirements on your own.

Before borrowing, make sure you understand all the terms of the loan, so you don’t get stuck not being able to pay. The lack of regulation leaves you with fewer options if you find yourself struggling financially.

4. Become a TA or RA

Trying to take on a part-time job while going through the rigors of medical school might seem impossible. But there is a way you can put in some work on campus that will go directly toward your tuition.

Many medical schools offer both research and teaching aid opportunities where you can assist professors or lead small group discussions for underclassmen in exchange for tuition credits.

The Stanford School of Medicine, for example, lets students reduce their tuition by over $13,000 for putting in 20 hours per week as a teaching aid (TA) or research assistant (RA) and provides a quarterly salary of around $11,000.

This option is not typically available to first-year medical students as it requires some experience in the field. But be sure to start the conversation with your school early so you’re prepared to meet any application deadlines and complete prerequisites that might be necessary.

5. Enroll in a service program

A great answer for how to pay for medical school is enrolling in a service program with the government or military. Basically, in exchange for working a certain number of years for one of the institutions, you will have some or all of your medical school costs covered.

Here are some programs to consider:

• National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Scholarship: With this scholarship, the Department of Health & Human Services will pay for up to four years of your medical school tuition and living expense if you agree to work for at least two years in an approved “underserved community.”
• Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP): Funded by the military, you can have all of your tuition and fees covered in addition to a living stipend and sign-on bonus if you serve time in the armed forces. You will be required to commit to one year of active duty for every year of your scholarship, with a three-year minimum.
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF): While this program won’t cover your costs upfront, it can help you pay back any loans you took out for medical school. Through PSLF, you might be eligible to have your loans forgiven if you work for an approved institution such as a nonprofit or the government after you’ve made 120 loan payments. It’s not an option that is guaranteed, so be sure to do your research and use a Public Service Loan Forgiveness calculator to determine if it’s worth it.
• State-run loan repayment assistance program (LRAP): Many states offer student loan assistance to medical professionals in exchange for two to three years of work in a shortage or high-need area. Check out our database of LRAPs to find out if your state could help you repay your medical school loans.

All of these options are great for figuring out how to pay for medical school. Medical school costs can seem overwhelming at first, but doing some research on different opportunities can help alleviate some of the anxiety and have you well on your way toward helping others.

https://studentloanhero.com/

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What is summer, really, but a collection of memories, sounds, sights, and feelings that we bottle up when young and return to on the first warm day to sniff like an emptied perfume bottle.

Last week my friend, late to respond to an email, wrote that summer always seems like there will be more time, and somehow there is always less. The longing returns in crushing waves: to be let out from school, from our bodies, from these full and suffocating lives.

It comes in flashes, like flipping from one slide to the next on a carousel projector. I liked the sound of the projector machine, the auditory cue that we were moving on. Summer slips into the spaces between signing up for health benefits, wandering the new corridors of my hospital, and struggling through my first central line while the mannequin gaps at me, wide-mouthed.

My intern class practices putting a chest tube through a row of ribs bought from the grocery store down the block. You make an incision and then blunt-force your way through, diving above one rib and below another until you reach the cavity, and you can hook your fingers back around to feel the other side of the rib. I think of how terrifying this would be — my finger plugging the hole in a human chest like the hull of a sinking ship — and of grilling in the backyard, the ribs with their charred scales.

I like walking by those window AC units. They remind me of coming home from camp, walking up the front steps to my house, hearing the promise of respite in the hum of the fans, and seeing my mom in her floral summer dress. How do memories attach themselves? How do they choose where to land and when?

I hear summer in the flip-flops of patients who are in the waiting room for hours, hours. Impatient from waiting, they get up to pace, call home (“Yes, we’re still here,” “No, she hasn’t been seen by anyone”), or find the bathroom. You can hear the slappity slap slap of their flimsy sandals.

Because I am new to the city, new to this career, and new to this life, really, this summer makes no promises to be carefree or easy. I do new-city things like getting flat tires on curbs that I’ve never seen before and clearly still haven’t seen. I lose a key, I get a replacement that doesn’t work, leave before checking because why not, and wait for a locksmith to jam twin blood pressure cuffs between my door to pry it open, which is both fascinating and infuriating when I pay $200 for his 20 minutes.

While I am locked out on no particular Tuesday, I sit on a curb, and a man walks by me, and takes one look: “Whatever it is, it’s going to be alright.”

While I am locked out on no particular Friday, I sit on the marbled front steps of a derelict church, and a parade of preschoolers walk by, reaching out their hands to touch me like I’m a fence whose stakes you would run your fingers against. One of them wishes me a happy Wednesday with such conviction that I believe.

Statistically, there are higher rates of crime in the summertime. It’s hard not to metaphorize the human condition as blood boiling over. It’s so palpable in the emergency department, where emotions are already stretched to their extremes. The waiting room is a sea of angry patients, still angry when we see them. There is no patience left in the building. I want to say it’s like oxygen all breathed up, or money spent, some commodity so necessary and valuable that we pry it from another’s hands. It’s so much easier to take than give.

I work on the 4th of July. I see a woman with a small-bowel obstruction, her stomach bloated and taut against the twisted air expanding like a firehose inside it, a man with gallstones in his bile duct and still some tumbling around in his gallbladder. We don’t talk about what plans they had for today, and when I finally get home that night and hear fireworks, I don’t assume they’re not gunshots.

I miss the ennui of summer, the childish impatience for anything to happen, trapped as you are between the slow paces of time.

One night, there’s a thunderstorm, with flash flood warnings late into the early hours. The patients arrive in triage with their hair still dripping. This isn’t the summer I grew up with, but then again, neither is the one in California, now, where the ground cracks its brittle face and the golden hillsides burn bright then black.

On another day back at the hospital, a man is brought in. Sometimes paramedics have a story for us, and sometimes it’s just a few lines, like the weakest plotline you’ve ever heard — the man at the convenience store saw the attack and called, they picked him up from an alley — delivered with a rueful shake of the head. A bruise is already cresting his cheekbone, and when we open the man’s mouth to intubate, several teeth fall out. His belly heaves, the wings of his ribs rising fast like a dog laboring in the sun.

https://www.medscape.com/

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I am a second-year medical student at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, Texas. In 2018, I graduated from Westwood High School in Austin, Texas. My experience at Westwood was harder than my first year of medical school at UTMB. I wrote this piece to provide some context to students like myself who struggled or are struggling with public school in Texas.

When I was 17 years old, I received conditional acceptance to medical school. As a high school senior, I applied to a 7-year combined BS/MD program with the University of Houston and two University of Texas medical schools. After three rounds of applications and two medical school interviews, the program offered me a guaranteed spot at one of the two medical schools as long as I met certain GPA and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) requirements. In my program, out of the eight students from the entire U.S., three of us were from Westwood.

My family moved from Lake Tapps, Washington to Austin, Texas in 2009 to be closer to relatives. Of all the cities in Texas, Austin caught my parents’ attention because of the quality of its public education system. I attended Laurel Mountain Elementary School for 4th and 5th grade before attending Canyon Vista Middle School. When I subsequently started at Westwood, I followed in my older sister’s footsteps and enrolled in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. I played on the varsity tennis team and was team captain my senior year.

Commonly known as “Stress-wood” to students, Westwood is an academic powerhouse. Though I say this, it’s hard to gauge how “competitive” or “hard” a school truly is. Each school has different GPA scales, ranking systems, and Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and dual-credit courses. One imperfect way to quantify a school’s competitiveness is to look at the number of National Merit semifinalists produced relative to the student body population. High school students take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®) each year. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation selects semifinalists based on the highest scoring students in each state. Texas has one of the highest cutoff scores. My graduating class at Westwood had 63 semifinalists out of approximately 650 students, accounting for 70 percent of the National Merit semifinalists in my school district that included six other high schools. Only a few other schools in Texas boast similar stats, including Plano West Senior High School and the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science (TAMS). (Unsurprisingly, a number of students in my BS/MD program also came from Plano West and TAMS.)

I missed the cutoff by one point. I wasn’t included in the 63 National Merit semifinalists from my year. Still, on paper, I was a successful student. I graduated in the Top 10 percent from Westwood, received an IB diploma, and entered college with 69 credit hours from my AP and IB tests. Westwood prepared me well for college and medical school. At the time, I didn’t fully realize how rigorous and competitive my high school was compared to other schools. For example, I’m one of a few medical students at UTMB who learned organic chemistry in high school. However, I still struggled a lot in high school. I dealt with imposter syndrome and stress that gave me insomnia and gray hairs. The quality of education at Westwood was stellar, but at what cost? During the weeks of AP and IB exams, my classmates and I would write so much that it felt like our hands were going to fall off. It was common for students to use ADHD medications to focus and benzodiazepines to relieve test anxiety. Two of my classmates committed suicide.

Now, as a second-year medical student, I want younger high school students and their families to know this: It gets better. High school was one of my most challenging experiences. It was brutal. There’s no other way to describe it. Still, I’m grateful for my education at Westwood because it helped me build resilience and good habits. I took to heart my pre-calculus teacher’s motto: Think smarter, not harder!

I wish someone had told me it gets better. I finished college in 2.5 years. I drove 9,000 miles across the U.S. on a road trip with my best friend in our gap semester before medical school. I believe it’s important to provide my personal perspective to younger students and their families so that they don’t feel lost in their own journeys. I encourage students to lean into the challenges they face. Seek out discomfort, but still show yourself grace.

Leonard Wang is a medical student.

https://www.kevinmd.com/

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