Choosing the right medical school will equally make you a great medical practitioner. Some decide based on their parent’s advice while others select a medical school just because it is in the top 5 list in the annual ranking. There are various elements in which you could select a medical school; so, being wise would involve checking out subjective and objective factors in the selection process. The best criteria in choosing a medical school include appropriate education and things that come with it. To help out your decision-making, some notes are written for you below:
* Academic curriculum
The topmost factor to assess the medical school’s education system is its academic curriculum. Make quality education your ultimate goal in medical school. There are various methods in which teaching can be done and in the modern world, various schemes should be considered to cope with the ever changing medical behavior. A combination modern and traditional teaching tools and methods can create the most output from students. This also makes the quality of education more superior and creative. Attend a medical school that offers multi-faceted methods of teaching and where learning from experience is maximized by exposures.
* Faculty members
Teachers are in effect role models. What you will be in medical practice is greatly influenced by who taught you. Just the same, a medical school’s reputation is composed of the sum of its faculty’s performance – having brilliant faculty and staff members would then make a great medical school. Teachers with great minds will create greatness in you. Great teaching methods make the minds of teachers great. A combination of your great teacher’s mind and great teaching methods will make a great medical practitioner out of you. Along with checking out the medical school’s curriculum and teaching methods, also check out the profiles of their faculty and professors. It is easy to browse these details through their website.
* Physical location
What matters most while studying in medical school is a friendly ambiance and peaceful environment to study as well as live in. To make this happen, choosing the vicinity of a medical school will help. Especially for people who have stayed close to their family and close connection with friends, choosing a medical school that offers you comfort and convenience can avoid homesickness. This is necessary to ensure as it affects your learning motivation.
* Financial support
Before attaining successful medical education, money or financial support will always be around the corner. Not only will you need high rates of tuition but also everything needed for your medical education entails large amounts of money. Going to medical school will definitely be expensive and you will definitely need to be prepared as well. As an option, list down medical schools that offer various schemes of financial assistance and scholarships. Lack of this support will eventually affect your concentration and may lead you to low grades as well as frustration. Don’t allow this to happen, make use of every opportunity there is to ensure you are well funded for the whole four years in medical school.
* Extracurricular offerings
Stress and pressure are definite ingredients in medical school’s menu. You need to master the art of balancing stress brought about by stress and personal commitments. Schools that offer various extra-curricular activities allow you to build balancing skills between school and personal affairs. To offer journalism, arts, sports, community service, music and other areas of interest in medical schools are worth attending.
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Having a baby gives you more the reason to put more discipline to yourself to effectively juggle motherhood and medical school. In fact, mothers can be more effective in medical practice since they actually passed through the experience of being a medical patient and having to survive life’s challenges. When after your sacrifices being a mom and a student has given you an MD title, you can also become a role model and can actually counsel mothers or even single classmates who enroll in medical school. The key is to be determined and persevere to finally reach your medical ambition.
Balance medical school and motherhood
Mothers have an innate character of patience and perseverance due to the nature of their responsibilities. The challenge comes in however when additional task or objective of attending medical school arise. Here you will encounter difficulties but what is important is to gradually learn how to balance motherhood and medical school work. Both responsibilities require full attention and total commitment thus you have to take it step by step. There will be times that you will need to be a step ahead in order to avoid possible complications and be able to determine how to balance your time. Whatever it takes you have to move on find the best strategy to pay attention each detail of all the tasks at hand.
Avoid constant worrying about your child
The biggest challenge in medical school for mothers is divided attention. Worrying about every little detail at home while you are not there to actually face it is very exhausting and stressful. Once attention is distracted and divided, no work will be done or no lesson will be understood. This state of mind will leave you static and cannot move on which eventually will affect your child’s future. Planning ahead will help you give a considerable peace of mind in school. Being able to list down what is needed for the next day and even the week can aid you determine what you can do and cannot and further identify how to solve it. This practice can also be done with your school work and compare to your tasks listed as a mother, then you can find the formula on how to balance your tasks. The formula of course will include what help you need and who to get it from.
Overcome physical and mental stress
Motherhood and medical are both as stressful as it can get, these combined together would be physical and mental fatigue that can be unbearable. Learn to appreciate small things and moral support can be easing. High examination rating after studying and baby sitting in the evening until the wee hours of dawn is rewarding. Coming home for dinner and a kiss from your husband can remove stress from the pressure of school work. Thinking positive and bearing in mind that all sacrifices have their rewards is the way to move on. After all, it is stress relieving when your baby smiles at you after a tiring day at medical school.
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There comes a time when one needs to reflect and re-assess. What happens if after graduating medical school you suddenly realize you are not willing to spend more sleepless nights and sacrifice your only time to rest for emergency calls? Your parents or family will not definitely like that at all having spent much of their savings on your tuition. But you might probably regret it for the rest of your life if you have not considered any alternative career. Find a more convenient career where at the same time your medical knowledge will not become a waste. Below are some alternative careers for graduates of medical school:
Pursue teaching career as a science professor
There are various options available for you in the teaching profession. You can join the medical school and teach gross anatomy, or molecular genetics in college and even general biology in high school. This would be one opportunity for you to solve your greatest learning challenge when once you could not understand the theory of natural selection by Charles Darwin and other scientific principles. Becoming a thesis adviser can be fun, because you can learn further from your students as they learn from you. To add more excitement, you can also serve as a consultant online in various web-based classes. All you need is to pick your area of interest and head on for it!
Pursue medical journalism
Medical journalism entails writing medical case articles or scientific documents from studies of other scientists or medical practitioners. These cases or documents featured in medical journals are sometimes written by medical professionals. If your interest follows writing and medicine, try pursuing a career on medical journalism. Writing medical journals requires familiarity to various medical jargons and terms that is an advantage for writers coming from the medical field. For this requirement, your previous setting in medical studies will be a plus factor that enables you to easily decipher various scientific theories and concepts. These skills are necessary for you to write cases in layman’s terms as medical journals are equally important to ordinary people as well as medical practitioners.
Pursue a biomedical scientist vocation
Being a medical scientist is equally an important vocation in the medical field as it involves the development of treatment methods as well as investigation of medical conditions. This is necessary part for a patient’s treatment process. Without biochemical research and experimentation, drugs and other medical facilities necessary to improve the practice of medicine may not be discovered. Medical research may include studies on the fields of reproduction, growth, health, reproduction, new diseases, and overall development of organisms.
What matters in medical practice is that the vocation you pursue contributes to the development of the medical field. In whichever way it is done, you still have fulfilled your dream of helping people through medical service, only it is done in a different manner but leads to the same purpose.
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Presenting the right letters of recommendation remain an essential factor towards admission to medical schools. What then does it take for you to produce the right letters of recommendation? Selecting the right person is the key to getting the right formula for a letter to expound your personality in addition to what you yourself have already stated in your application form. Submitting letters of recommendation from various fields can present your totality as a person. Here are some pointers to consider when choosing people for letters of recommendation.
Former professors
The main criteria in choosing professors to request for your letter of recommendation is making sure that he or she knows you well. It is true that professors become famous when so many acronyms follow after their surnames or have authored several books, so approaching these persons may seem a good idea. In the end, it is of your best interest to pick those professors who can tell admissions committee members about your personality and potential to succeed in medical school.
Professionals in related fields
It is worth submitting a letter of recommendation from professionals in related fields. A close field of practice you can consider is availing of a recommendation from a practicing physician. Aside from being a practitioner, he or she is one of the best persons who can tell admissions committee members that you have what it takes to belong to the medical profession. But to get to the heart of the letter of recommendation, make sure that the physician knows you well enough to be able to give an objective analysis of your potentials, personality, skills and capabilities.
Organization, club, sports and civic leaders
If you are involved in any extracurricular activities, it is but proper to seek for letters of recommendation from your leaders. College admissions evaluators read thousands of applications everyday and it would be a plus if you get someone who can write a stand-out letter of recommendation.
The letters of recommendation are just one of the requirements of medical school. You will also be asked to write a medical school admission essay which need to be well written. To come up with excellent essays, you may want to check out sample personal statement medical school.
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Portraying real life stories is the basis of some movies. These films depict experiences about one’s sacrifices amidst armed conflict, endearing love relations, growing up adventures, stories on becoming a famous painter, and even facing challenges to succeed in a chosen career, such as becoming a doctor. True enough, attending medical school is quite challenging. To choose a medical vocation requires sufficient readiness and sufficient discipline. Check out these top five movies about medical school.
In 1934, Of Human Bondage
Phillip Carey returns to London to pursue medical studies after discovering his weakness in painting. He then falls deeply in love with an uneducated and controlling tearoom waitress Mildred who dislikes club-footed men. This experience leaves him to realize yet another distraction in his yet unperfected profession. Witness how Phillip endures medical school and overcomes the obstacles in building his career while confronting his obsession to her beloved Mildred.
In 1985, Bad Medicine
Jeffrey Marx applies into each medical school in the United States but is always turned down. Determined to dedicate his life to medical vocation, Jeffrey finds his way to a medical school somewhere in Central America. Aided by his fellow medical students from Madera Universidad de Medicina, they serve the entire impoverished village with medical assistance even prior to finishing medical school and being allowed to practice medicine.
In 1989, Gross Anatomy
Watch Joe Slovak, a character who never plays by the rules, as he makes use of his brilliance to outwit Dr. Woodruff and pass human dissections class even as his teacher maintains to question Joe’s presence in medical school. Also, because of Slovak’s persistent nature, his lab partner offers him enduring love.
In 1990, Vital Signs
The third year medical students from LA Central learn the facts of life as they compete among each other for the required internship. In the core of this perseverance, each one realizes that hospital life is not just a stage drama but real cases that require not just pure intelligence but also every beat of endurance to save lives including their own.
In 2000, Anatomy
Paula Henning dreamed for a place in the special summer course at the University of Heidelberg Medical School. Paula however starts to investigate why suspicious cadavers end up in dissection tables for anatomy class. Then she gets double survival challenge to end up finishing medical course and not to end up her own life by not being the subject of her own dissecting table.
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One of the toughest decisions you have to make during your medical career is to choose between pursuing medical specialization or continuing general practice. Deciding on which career path to follow requires a lot of time and consideration. To help you make your decision, here are the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a medical specialist:
Advantages of becoming a medical specialist
One of the advantages of being a medical specialist is that your colleagues find you more credible than your general practitioner counterparts. Thoroughly studying a specific branch of medicine such as neurosurgery or cardiology will not only help you gain more medical knowledge but it will also give you better professional leverage.
Another advantage of becoming a medical specialist is the prestigious title associated with your name. Becoming an internist, for one thing, will earn you not only your colleagues’ regards but also their respect. They will see you as the go-to person whenever they encounter patients with rare medical conditions. In addition to that, you also get to be involved in solving one-of-a-kind medical cases that will put you up on a pedestal upon succeeding.
In terms of salary, medical specialists earn more than other types of doctors. A diagnostic specialist, an internist, a surgeon, and a neurologist earn at least $20,000 more than general practitioners. Another advantage of being a medical specialist over being a general practitioner? You have higher chances of qualifying for higher job positions in a hospital.
Disadvantages of becoming a medical specialist
Becoming a medical specialist comes with its share of downsides too. For one thing, it takes longer to be a medical specialist than a general practitioner. You have to spend four years as a medical student, spend one year as an intern, and spend more years as a medical resident. If you want to be a medical specialist, you still need to spend additional years in gaining expertise in your chosen field.
Another disadvantage of becoming a medical specialist is that you will be exposed only to medical cases within the scope your specialization. If you are neurosurgeon, you will only be allowed to accept patients with nervous system-related disorders. Most general practitioners favored general practice over medical specialization because they look forward to helping many people with varying medical conditions.
Your decision in choosing between medical specialization and general practice must always be based on your personal interests – may it be financial stability or self-fulfillment. Choose a career path where you think you can find a balance between work and personal life because that’s the only way you can be happy in the long run.
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