I recently had the privilege of spending
several days with a group of pre-med
advisors what I learned from the
experience surprised me doctor jabal med
school insiders calm most medical school
admissions experts would tell you that
pre-med advisors rarely give good advice
but what surprised me was not just how
bad the advice was but also how
confident they were in said advice truly
the dunning-kruger effect at play I was
inspired to make this video after
spending time with them because to be
frank I found myself quite uncomfortable
by the fact pre-meds
were being given such misleading
information I'm committed to providing
pre-meds with the most accurate unbiased
and honest guidance it's simply the
right thing to do I'll be the first to
admit however that they do have utility
every University has nuances with
schedule and courses including which
courses are impacted and therefore how
to navigate the class enrollment process
most effectively for this reason pre-med
advisors are an important resource in
making sure you graduate on time and
complete your degree requirements and
pre-med prerequisite courses but beyond
that they are unqualified to provide
accurate or meaningful pre-med advice
you'd be far more knowledgeable just by
watching the free YouTube videos on this
channel or reading the free blog post on
our website that's not an exaggeration
cream it advisors may say don't major in
biology because it's too common I say
it's more complicated than that and
there's pros and cons ultimately making
for a highly personal decision I have a
video on that with data supporting my
conclusions they say Caribbean isn't a
bad option but that's because they don't
understand the nuance pros and cons
they're easily swayed by a few
presentations and an all-expenses-paid
trip to a tropical island which I spoke
about on my other channel it seems like
a relatively simple job for prima
advisors help their pre-med students get
into medical school so where does it all
go wrong
to be a prima advizr you don't receive
any formal training turns out it's just
on-the-job training no formal degree no
comprehensive training no need for a
science or statistics or education
background majored in art history
fantastic you can be a pre-med advisor a
bachelor's degree is all that's
necessary
something like a master's in education
is optional but from my experience this
does not necessarily improve the quality
of advice for example one advisor
informed me that every student she met
with she tried to steer them away from
biology after all she said it's far too
common and she wants her students to
stand out from the rest this overly
simplistic interpretation is ultimately
harmful there are some students who
should pursue biology or similar life
science majors and others who should not
pre-med advisors don't have experience
with pre-med coursework they weren't
pre-med themselves they didn't apply to
medical school I asked one of the
pre-med advisors about how he advises
students when going to osteopathic
medical schools he focuses on two
aspects first what specialty does the
pre-med want to pursue and second are
there any deals in that specialty this
advisor pulls up find a do.com to look
up specialties and see if there are any
deals in that field look we found a do
plastic surgeon if you want to be a
plastic surgeon you can do it through a
do program again this is concerning for
a few reasons
first over 50% of first-year medical
students will change their intended
specialty by the time they graduate I
was one of them
initially planning on Pediatric
Gastroenterology and changing gears
completely to reconstructive plastic
surgery basing application decisions off
of what specialty you think you want to
pursue as a pre-med is premature second
just because there are a few osteopathic
Plastic Surgeons
does not mean that an aspiring future
plastic surgeon should choose an
osteopathic medical school this is the
survivorship bias at play it's not
impossible but it's much more difficult
to go into plastics and several other
competitive fields going the do route
over the MD route to most effectively
guide pre mats on their various options
and what would be the best fit for them
it's important to provide evidence-based
guidance and doing so requires at least
understanding certain statistics
principles unfortunately there's no
statistics education requirement to be a
pre-med advisor the decision of where to
go to medical school
whether USMD do or carribean in large
part is a function of what options
you'll have when you graduate medical
school your goal isn't just to get into
Medical School it's also to become a
practicing doctor in
you chose rather than a specialty you
were forced into that relies on you
being able to match into a residency
program for this specialty you are
interested in some pre-med advisors
believe that getting into a competitive
specialty such as neurosurgery or
plastic surgery is competitive for
everyone regardless of whether they are
at a US or Caribbean program therefore
it shouldn't matter whether you go
Caribbean or US if you're focusing on
something highly competitive right
obviously that's shaky logic it's
significantly more difficult to match
into those specialties if one attends a
Caribbean School just look at the data
and matchless or speak with someone with
residency admissions committee
experience like our team at med school
insiders to further prove the point
the average step scores to match into
any of these specialties from a
Caribbean school are higher than the
average step scores from students
graduating from US schools by a
substantial margin a pre-med advisor
objected to this line of reasoning and
informed me that perhaps the tiny
percentage of students matching into
competitive specialties is just due to
varying interests maybe the thousands of
graduating medical students from this
particular medical school were simply
not interested in such competitive
specialties denying the fact that it is
significantly more challenging to match
into certain specialties from do or
Caribbean schools would be very
dangerous advice to give a pre-med as
this is often a major contributor in
limiting them from successfully matching
into more competitive specialties
Caribbean medical schools often invite
pre-med advisors to their campus they
fly them out wine and dine them put them
in a nice beachfront hotel give them
tours and try to impress them with their
program with the hope that these pre-med
advisors will promote their program to
their students at one Caribbean medical
school they do these visits four to five
times per year and despite it costing
several thousands of dollars per advisor
it's still highly profitable
why because pre-med advisors are easily
convinced because of their minimal
understanding of the medical training
process and lack of education in
statistics pre-med advisors are easy to
trick when the data doesn't quite add up
when I asked a pre-med advisor how she
decides between suggesting Caribbean
versus do programs to her students she
said she's not sure because all her
doctor colleagues say do is better but
she has visited several Caribbean
programs and she's really impressed
some of her own personal doctors are
Caribbean trained and she likes them so
that's more reason in her mind to
promote these programs these are not
valid considerations when choosing the
various medical school paths in medical
school it's drilled into our heads that
you should not take free gifts from
pharmaceutical companies as Cal Dean II
talks about in his widely acclaimed book
influence the reciprocity rule acts
subconsciously and can influence
treatment decisions for example
doctors are more likely to prescribe the
medication from the drug company that's
providing them with the free gifts in a
previous video on my other channel I
outlined these specific instances from
my recent trip to a Caribbean Medical
School where the presented numbers
didn't add up and how the program was
able to fool pre-med advisors link in
the description I seek to provide as
much free value and guidance to pre-meds
on this YouTube channel and on our blog
if you want to dive deeper we have
courses and services on the medical
insider's website that will actually
help you become the doctor you've always
wanted to be no ignorance or foolish
thinking to cloud our judgment we're a
company created by physicians and run by
physicians like me who have gone through
the process served on medical school
admissions committees and understand all
the nuances in the ins and outs of the
process check out our pre-med roadmap to
medical school acceptance course for a
highly comprehensive a-to-z guide for
pre-meds or work one-on-one with a top
physician for more personalized help
visit med school insider's calm to learn
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I will see you guys in that next one
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you