This NYT article regarding college students’ recruitment to Wall Street is compelling. The author highlights the financial incentives that direct students to financial careers – and away from graduate degrees like medicine.
Blog Archives
Changing Medical School Curriculum
Here‘s a NYT piece by Pauline Chen, MD regarding changes in medical school training at Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Minnesota, among other institutions. I’ll also add to Dr. Chen’s point: Not only does the current system of third-year rotation blocks reinforce fragmented care, but it also does not allow students adequate time to make informed decisions about their future specialties.
Happiness: Be All That You Can Be
Medical school and residency training usually decrease one’s happiness for several reasons. Happiness researchers have demonstrated that a feeling of control and the amount of spare time one has both correlate with happiness. Both of those factors are limited during med school and residency. Relationships are also correlated with happiness, and those can be squashed during medical training as well.
I’m not trying to be a downer here! I want to encourage applicants to consider this happiness quotient when selecting an institution and training program. If you are able, maximizing your contentment by choosing an institution that fosters your greatest happiness is key. Geography; proximity to family, friends and community; and a location that provides an opportunity to enjoy hobbies during limited free time is significant.
Excellent training is important, but, in the end, many programs turn out equally qualified clinicians. At least consider your well-being as a factor in selecting where you might be for the next three plus years of your life.
Acceptances
It’s early in the season, but some of my clients have already been accepted to
UCSD
University of Chicago
Vanderbilt
Case Western
USC (Keck)
Mayo
UCI
Rosalind Franklin and
Wake Forest!
Most medical school applicants are still early in the interview process. Consider hiring me for mock interviews to improve your chances of success.
Ranking Schools
There’s an interesting Malcolm Gladwell article in the latest New Yorker on the pitfalls of U.S. News and World Report’s college rankings. Gladwell’s points regarding the deficiencies of a system that tries to be “comprehensive and heterogeneous” and the flimsiness of quality proxies can be applied to medical school rankings as well.
Despite their many shortcomings, however, I do use U.S. News and World Report’s medical school rankings on my website because they are more descriptive than alphabetic order in listing where my clients have been accepted.
Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to
stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital.
She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated
Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more
