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- Hi, my name is Bliss Chang.
I'm a third year medical student at Harvard.
I just finished my core clinical rotations
through the integrated clerkship program here
at Cambridge Health Alliance,
which means that instead of doing block cell rotations
and doing three months of medicine,
three months of surgery, et cetera,
I do all the specialties at the same time
for the entire duration of the year.
I've currently narrowed down my specialty interests
to either neurology or orthopedics.
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So during the clinical year,
my days typically consist of waking up,
taking a shower, getting my breakfast,
and then heading over to the hospital,
getting there anywhere from six to eight a.m.
Since I am in the longitudinal program,
the one difference is that the clinics that I go to
vary from day to day.
Monday I might go to neurology,
Tuesday I might go to pediatrics,
Tuesday afternoon I might go to medicine.
So it really varies in that aspects,
and I'll head over to the gym usually
just to get a quick pump in
and then go study for a few hours,
and then if anybody wants to hang out or anything,
I'm pretty flexible with that regards.
- So tell me a little bit about your specific program
at Harvard Medical School.
- Okay, so there's two programs,
one is Health and Science Technologies
and the other one is Pathways.
I'm in the Pathways program which is the larger program
and we recently converted to having one year
of pre-clinical studies in the classroom
while also following some patients every week,
and then transitioning fully
into the core clerkship rotations our second year.
And then third year onwards, we do a combination of research
as well as doing some advanced rotations
in whatever field that we would like to pursue.
- So break that down for me a little bit more.
What does rotations mean?
- So rotations are really the essence
of how you develop your clinical skills.
In the first year you're really accumulating
the basic knowledge that you have to have
in order to take care of all the patients,
and then the second year is where you continue to build
on that knowledge but really putting all these principles
that you've learned about into action,
checking reflexes on patients,
you've learned about all the physiology first year,
second year you get to actually do it,
see what that actually means for patient care.
- Right, so it's not just in a classroom anymore,
now you're actually kind of becoming a doctor.
- Exactly.
- So how is your program different
from how it used to be done?
- So traditionally a lot of schools
as well Harvard Medical School
had a classic two years in the classroom
and then two years in the hospitals,
as well as more of a lecture-based format.
So now they've completely overhauled that
and in the pre-clinical years
we have what's called problem-based learning
where you get into small groups
and really work on applying your knowledge in the class
as opposed to learning the knowledge in class
because we like to spend valuable time in the classroom
really doing things that we couldn't do just alone
during independent study.
And then the clerkships come much earlier,
about a year earlier and I think that's excellent
for many reasons, the most prominent of which
is that you get clinical exposure earlier
and that to me is really the essence of what you're doing
as a doctor and then it also gives you
a lot more opportunity to explore different specialties
because if you're in a two plus two curriculum
that means that you finish all your core rotations
at the end of third year
and then you're applying straight into residency.
So the decision on what specialty to pursue
is a little bit rushed.
- I see, so right now you're kind of having
a longer period of time to experience
every different specialty
and decide which one you want to pursue.
- [Bliss] Yes.
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- [Interviewer] So, what is the academic culture like
at Harvard Medical School?
- Yeah, so it's very collaborative,
especially given that we have a true pass/fail curriculum,
both in the pre-clinical years
as well as during our core clinical rotations.
We do have some grading afterwards
during the advance rotations but prior to that,
it's completely pass/fail.
But on the whole, it's a very collaborative atmosphere.
- Very cool.
How would you describe the workload,
especially compared to undergrad?
- So first year when we're in the classroom
learning the basic sciences,
I'd say that the workload is a lot more
than what we have in college.
For example, one semester of biochem
usually takes us about three or four weeks to go through,
so the pace is definitely a lot more accelerated.
On the clinical side of things,
it's really hard to quantify
because the learning is so different.
A lot of the learning can be things
that are not necessarily knowledge based.
It's a lot of social interaction skills,
how to deal with certain situations while on the floor.
Somebody goes into cardiac arrest,
how to use CPR to save somebody's life.
So it's a good mixture of practical
as well as more foundational knowledge for yourself.
- Was there anything that you did before HMS
that you think really kinda prepped you for this
or gave you the skills that you need to succeed here?
- Really it's the whole experience that I went through
that really prepared me well.
I think academically I was a biochem major in undergrad
and I think that really helped me first year
to transition in as opposed to some people
who hadn't had any biochem at all.
- I can imagine that'd be a rough transition.
- I think for clinical rotations,
it's really something
that nobody can really prepare you for.
There's nothing you can really do.
The one thing that HMS does very well
to help us prepare for the wards
is having us in what's called Practicing Medicine,
which is a once a week course during the first year
where we get exposure to patients
and standardized patient actors
so that we feel more comfortable
before delving into the actual clinical scene.
- [Interviewer] Right, sort of training you
for those interpersonal parts of it.
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So tell me a little bit more about
the longitudinal style clerkship program.
- Yeah, so traditionally for tons of years,
we've had the block cell rotations
which means that we do a specialty
for a fixed period of time.
For example, three months of medicine,
one month of neurology, et cetera.
- Okay.
- And then when you're done with that block,
you're totally done with it,
you move on to the next specialty.
In the longitudinal style,
what we do is we do all the specialties,
so neurology, pediatrics, psychiatry, medicine,
surgery, radiology, we do all of these specialties
at the same time.
So most of the students end up doing the block cell rotation
because there's only 12 spots
for the longitudinal program here.
For me, I got lucky obviously to be selected
and the reason why I opted into the lottery
were mainly twofold.
One is about the longitudinal aspect
and two is about the types of patients that you meet.
This longitudinal program takes place
at Cambridge Health Alliance
and so the patients that come to Cambridge Health Alliance
are of a lower socio-economic class,
of different racial ethnicities, et cetera,
and so I really wanted to challenge myself
to make sure that by the time I graduated medical school,
I had a very good comfort working with this type of patient.
So that was one, and then two is the longitudinal aspect
which means that you're really able to not only keep fresh
on all the different specialties throughout the entire year,
but also really see the interconnections
and how they fit together amongst each other.
Probably my favorite part
as well as the favorite part of everybody
in this longitudinal program
is the ability to follow our patients for such a long time.
It really develops this strong relationship
between the med student and the patient.
- That sounds really unique
compared to every other program I've heard of.
- So the patients really open up to you
and start telling you things
that you may not otherwise elicit,
and that's both helpful from a person-to-person connection
but also from a medical standpoint.
- [Interviewer] Of course, yeah.
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So what would you say is the most unexpected part
of medical school?
- So I'd always heard that medicine is something
where you sell your soul to,
where you really have nothing but the books
to be your friends.
I think I found that completely not the case.
- [Interviewer] Oh good. - There's so many
wonderful people and medicine is,
if not more about the social interactions
that you have with your peers or colleagues, the patients,
as it is about the book knowledge,
and so that's been a very pleasant surprise.
I was supposed to do a PhD actually,
and I actually dropped that after my clinical year,
and that's just a testimony to how much I enjoyed
my interactions with patients in medical school.
- What advice would you give
to either a younger version of yourself
or anyone else who is considering
going into the medical field?
- Yeah, I think really just try to figure out
what your passions are.
If it's not medicine, then that's great.
Find something else that you're really passionate about.
I think whatever you do,
you have to have that burning fire within you
or you're just gonna burn out later, at some point.
I think if you're considering applying to the top colleges,
it's really nice if you're very passionate and dedicated
to something that's non-academic.
Kind of think about it as proud parents
trying to choose who they want their future kids to be.
They're always gonna choose the person
who has the academics and something really nice
that's non-academic as opposed to the super-genius
who got a perfect MKAT.
So really try to focus on something that distinguishes you,
something that you're passionate about.
It could be underwater basket-weaving,
it could be basketball, playing the flute.
Whatever it is, just make sure that it's one or two things
you're really passionate about and take that a long way,
as opposed to doing a few things and being good at them.
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