anytime you have a large group of people
working tirelessly towards a goal
you're bound to get some interesting
suggestions on how to achieve
set goal in weight loss there's silly
cleanses
radical diets and vibrating corsets with
investing and wealth building
there's too many get rich quick schemes
to count and in becoming a doctor
we have these four terrible pieces of
pre-med
advice dr jubal med schoolinsiders.com
because medical school admissions is
highly competitive
there are some number of gunners out
there who purposely sabotage their peers
in hopes that by bringing down others
it will elevate themselves this behavior
is pathetic
you'll have trouble sleeping at night
and you'll forever become a scumbag
steve
so don't do it but gunners aren't the
cause of these pre-med myths and
misplace advice
instead this is a phenomenon of the
blind leading the blind
in pre-med forums it's primarily other
pre-meds who are
reading posting and sometimes even
impersonating those with more experience
as a result it becomes an echo chamber
of pre-meds repeating advice they've
heard from
other pre-meds these are four pieces of
misplaced advice
or overlooked factors amongst pre-meds
the first mistake pre-meds and their
advisors make
is overlooking the cold hard facts and
data
in choosing what to believe many people
resort to the confirmation bias
first choosing their belief and then
seeking out data and anecdotes to
support
said belief the problem here is that the
data is generally
very straightforward in medical school
admissions but those with strong
confirmation bias will
downplay the facts and focus on rare
anecdotes to prove their point
one fact that doesn't get enough
recognition is that if you're of south
or east asian descent
on average you'll need substantially
higher mcat and gpa than any other
population
including caucasians to gain admission
to medical school
that's not my opinion those are facts
based on multiple years of
official data released by the double amc
another data set that's skewed is
the conversation about attending
osteopathic versus allopathic medical
school
a pre-med advisor told me that in
helping pre-meds decide whether to
pursue
md or do routes they would ask the
student what type of physician they
wanted to be
oh you want to be a plastic surgeon
great let's go to this do finder website
and see if there are any do plastic
surgeons upon finding a
handful of do plastic surgeons they
would use that as supposed proof
that the do route is a viable path to
pursue plastic surgery
this is a textbook example of
survivorship bias
the year i matched into plastic surgery
there was only one do student in the
entire country
who mashed into the field it was so
noteworthy that everyone heard about it
that means less than a fraction of a
percent of medical students who
successfully matched into plastics were
osteopathic and over 99
were allopathic to suggest to an
aspiring plastic surgeon pre-med
that md and do are equal would be
incredibly damaging to the odds of them
being able to successfully pursue that
field
it's fantastic that your sister's
cousin's dog's therapist went d.o
and mashed into rocket surgery but the
fact remains it's far more challenging
to
successfully match into the most
competitive specialties if you go the
d.o route
the md vs do discussion brings us to the
second point
which is choosing political correctness
over truth in the modern era
being offended is a form of virtue
signaling where you can flex on
unwoke heathens and claim victory with
your moral superiority
when you share the cold hard facts about
md versus do medical school admissions
or
residency matching some number of people
will choose to be offended
it's not because the facts are actually
offensive but because people have their
own stories or insecurities that are
triggered by such facts
if i told you that on average men are
taller than women
no one would bat an eye actually wait
it's 20 21
so surely someone super woke would be
offended by that
but if i told you the average md
matriculant has a higher mcat and gpa
than the average do matriculant
some number of people will be offended
even if you followed up to emphasize
that both
mds and dos can make for equally great
doctors
to deny facts and dumb down the
conversation moves us further from the
truth
and that's not a good thing we all have
value hierarchies
and what we value at the top will
displace lower level values
when you value political correctness and
inclusion over truth
you end up with dangerous situations
like scope of practice creep
we can all hold hands and sing kumbaya
and say we're all equally qualified as
healthcare providers in the name of
inclusion
or we can seek the truth the truth is
that physicians
meaning mds and do's receive more
extensive training and clinical
experience than any mid-level provider
while med levels are highly valued
members of the healthcare team
it's dangerous when they claim they are
just as qualified as physicians
and should be able to practice
independently you can both acknowledge
differences in training level and still
value and respect the various
professions this is a matter of patient
safety
and if you or anyone you care about ever
goes to the clinic or hospital for
medical care
this is something you should care deeply
about don't fall for
ego self-preservation traps either facts
are facts
and they aren't inherently good or bad
it's our personal interpretation of
facts that assign them meaning
if you find yourself angry or upset by a
fact examine what meaning you're
assigning to it
some nps commented on so you want to be
a nurse practitioner
and voice frustration that their
experience as an rn makes up for the
smaller fraction of time
spent in np clinical training i don't
agree
first many np programs don't require any
prior rn experience
but second and more importantly the job
of an rn
is fundamentally different to that of a
physician a flight attendant flying
hundreds of flights
doesn't necessarily make them more
qualified as a pilot
but they can still be incredibly
valuable and amazing as flight
attendants
the only way for mid-levels to be
equally qualified as physicians
in clinical ability despite receiving a
small fraction in clinical training
hours
is if medical school is far less
efficient and medical students far less
intelligent or capable
or if these alternative training paths
are far more efficient
and their students far more intelligent
or capable as i put on my millennial cap
of wokeness
i find myself deeply offended by such
assumptions
the third fatal mistake is not
appreciating nuance simplification
and approximations of reality are
necessary tools for
humans to comprehend the world a map by
definition
is a simplified representation of
reality if it weren't
it would have to be full scale and it
wouldn't be a map it would be an exact
indistinguishable mirror of reality
to more readily understand complex
systems we as humans must create
simplified mental models
while this is great for introducing
oneself to a new topic or understanding
complex systems
it lacks the granularity in
distinguishing these subtleties that
matter
for example because the mcat and gpa are
the two
most important and easily comparable
objective measurements used in medical
school admissions
many over-emphasize their relative
importance don't get me wrong
the mcat and gpa are incredibly
important as they are useful indicators
to medical school admissions committees
on whether or not you can handle the
medical school curriculum rigor
but they're not the end-all be-all i've
seen several students that
despite scoring in the 99th percentile
on the mcat
and having a near perfect gpa came to me
for help as re-applicants
that's right despite having near-perfect
numbers they still didn't get into
medical school
i've also helped several students with
seemingly prohibitively poor mcat and
gpa
gain admission to top tier programs
while the numbers help
they aren't everything data is useful
but data does not account for all the
nuances or factors that are not easily
quantifiable
in medical school admissions there are
several factors beyond objective scores
that you must consider
namely the soft components of your
application meaning your personal
statement
working activity section secondaries and
interview
overall you want the various elements of
your application to tell
a cohesive story and narrative as to why
you want to attend medical school and
become a physician this is why i
constantly emphasize the importance of a
cohesive narrative-based application
the fourth and final mistake is not
being selective with your inputs
we often hear about how important the
company we keep is or how we're the
average of the five people we associate
with most
the same can be said about your inputs
meaning the media and information you
consume
just think about how your life view and
perspective change depending on which
news sites or channels you frequent
if you get all of your pre-med tips and
advice from other pre-meds you'll have a
different level of understanding
compared to
if you seek out experts who have gone
through the process and
served on medical school admissions
committees but there are so many
supposed experts out there
who sometimes give conflicting advice
how do you know who you can trust
first look at their credentials for
starters they need to at least have
attended medical school and served on
medical school admissions committees
and when someone calls themselves a
doctor don't just assume they attended
medical school
there are companies out there headed by
phds or other
non-physician doctors who never went to
medical school
and never served on admissions
committees they proclaim their
doctor-led however
because they want to mislead you in
thinking they attended medical school
and know the ins and outs of the process
second look at their track record both
in the students they've worked with and
their personal success simply getting
into medical school
does not make you a medical school
admissions expert ensure they have a
proven track record of repeatable
success across
hundreds of clients if they tried
getting into orthopedic surgery but
couldn't match and had to settle on
something less competitive instead
they probably aren't the best person to
give you advice on how to excel in
medical school
crush your boards or secure dozens of
publications to match into the most
desirable residencies
at med school insiders you'll work with
the best in the industry
we specialize in helping students craft
effective narrative-based applications
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that's because not only did we gain
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but we've also mentored thousands of
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learn more and elevate your application
at medschoolinsiders.com
thank you all so much for watching if
you enjoyed this video check out my
video on six
medical school application deal breakers
or give us a visit on
medschoolinsiders.com much love and i'll
see you guys there