Many medical students just starting their fourth years are coping with specialty-specific electives and sub-internship rotations. What are the tricks to making a good impression during these clerkships? Here’s a piece I wrote on how to succeed in your emergency medicine rotation; many of the tips translate to other specialty rotations as well.
I had a thoughtful advisee years back who told me about an interesting plan she had made for herself: As she rotated through different specialties during medical school, she read a book appropriate to each field. For internal medicine, she read “Being Mortal,” by Atul Gawande. For neurology, she read the classic “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat,” by Oliver Sacks. For surgery, she read “When Breath Becomes Air,” a beautiful book by Paul Kalanithi. The list goes on.
I was impressed by this contemplative approach to third and fourth year. So many of us are understandably focused on Shelf Exams and letters of recommendation that we don’t give ourselves a chance to comprehensively reflect on our subject matter and patients’ experiences.
If you have a moment, please check out a few book recommendations I have for those in the medical field. Perhaps my advisee’s stellar plan can be one that other medical students adopt. (You’ll see that I strongly recommend Cutting for Stone. Dr. Abraham Verghese has a new book out that I’m reading right now called The Covenant of Water.)
I have a thoughtful advisee who told me about an interesting plan she made for herself: As she rotated through different specialties during medical school, she read a book appropriate to each field. For internal medicine, she read “Being Mortal,” by Atul Gawande. For neruology, she read the classic “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat,” by Oliver Sacks. For surgery, she read “When Breath Becomes Air,” a beautiful book by Paul Kalanithi. The list goes on.
I was impressed by this contemplative approach to third and fourth year. So many of us are understandably focused on Shelf Exams and letters of recommendation that we don’t give ourselves a chance to comprehensively reflect on our subject matter and patients’ experiences.
If you have a moment, please check out a few book recommendations I have for those in the medical field. Perhaps my advisee’s stellar plan can be one that other medical students adopt.
I’m sure many of you read last week’s news that NYU and other medical schools will be offering a three-year, accelerated medical school program to eligible applicants
I greeted this news with both encouragement and concern. On the one hand, it’s reassuring that low- and medium-income students who cannot afford the exorbitant costs of a medical education will have the option to pursue their career dreams with less (although still significant) financial burden. Shaving off $20 to $50,000 of tuition and living costs can mean opening up the medical career to those who are understandably terrified of decades of loan repayment.
On the other hand, the NYU accelerated medical students will need to choose their specialties when they apply to medical school. In return, they will be guaranteed a residency slot when they graduate, but presumably, these applicants would have matched successfully to a residency position if they had been in a traditional program. After all, they are being accepted to a strong medical school and are competitive applicants. (NYU expects these students to stay in the top half of their class academically in order to continue in the accelerated program.)
Asking students to pick a specialty prior to even completing one day of clinical rotations begs the question of whether these future physicians will be satisfied in their fields. Studies have shown that doctors who are more dissatisfied provide lesser patient care and are more likely to leave medicine, which will worsen the accelerating doctor dearth.
Take a look here to read the NYT’s article regarding NYU’s new program, and make your own conclusions.
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
