Choosing a Specialty and a Life

During the winter season, I spend time talking to a lot of residency applicants about their future specialty choices: Want the majority of your time to be in the operating room or in the clinic? Like procedures?

But another fair and reasonable approach is to consider lifestyle. A recent New York Times piece noted that 50% of physicians are burned out. Burnout is particularly severe among emergency physicians and critical care doctors.

As you go through your third-year clinical rotations ask yourself if you can find a role model who fits - not just your professional goals - but your personal ones. Ask to meet individually with faculty members for their opinions on their fields' pros and cons.

Considering the growth in patient volume and the continued dearth of physicians, it's critical to determine whether you can see yourself happy in a busy, lifelong career in a particular field.

Match Ranking is (Strategically, but Not Emotionally) Easy Peasy

Getting into residency is hard. Understanding how to rank programs for the Match is easy. Thanks to a Nobel Prize winning economist and his colleagues, the current Match algorithm ensures that your desires are the priority over the residency programs'. What this means practically is that you should rank your first choice first, your second second, etc. There is no need to try to play the system.

I've had applicants tell me that they plan to rank a less preferred institution higher because that program has more residency slots. That's a huge no-no. The applicant will actually be harming him/herself with that strategy!

Please see my Guru on the Go® video "NRMP Ranking to Avoid a Spanking" below for a fun summary and the NRMP® website here for more details about how the algorithm works.

Improve Your Medical School Candidacy: Prove you can Handle the Heat

Getting into medical school has gotten so competitive that it's important to have a strong candidacy with excellent grades and robust extracurricular activities starting early in your college career.

One mistake I see pre-meds make is that they are so focused on leadership and research that they forget a critical component - clinical experience. No one wants to hire a cook who hasn't worked in the kitchen. If you want to prove that you want to be a doctor, it's essential that you obtain clinical experience for a significant period of time - not just a health fair or two. Good grades will not make up for a lack of clinical experience.

Working as an EMT, in a good clinical care extender program, or in a low-income clinic are just some ideas for obtaining excellent clinical exposure. Although you might think free clinics would be thrilled to have a pre-med volunteer, many understandably require one-year commitments.

To create a plan for your medical school candidacy, secure a Strategy Session with me here.

How Do I Evaluate My Score from the New MCAT?

Assessing your score on the new MCAT is not easy. The AAMC has no plans to release an MCAT conversation table from old to new scores, as their position is that the tests are not comparable.

With the old test, the conventional wisdom was that getting a 30 or 31 (approximately the 85th percentile) was the threshold to aim for, as it represented the allopathic medical school new matriculant average. Until we see who gets into medical school this year and what their corresponding scores are, it's hard to know what the "new 30" is.

Having said all of that, using last year's MSAR should still help you decide whether you need to re-test. An option for those committed to medicine who don't score at or above the "new 30" is osteopathic medical school, an institution that shows a great commitment to primary and holistic care and a (limited) leniency with MCAT scores. (Students entering osteopathic medical schools in 2013 had an MCAT score of 27. Their average GPA was 3.5 compared to 3.69 for incoming allopathic students.) Here is a great New York Times piece about DO schools.)

We have to take a wait and see approach to assess scores from the new MCAT, but it is key that you ensure you give yourself enough time to study and that you prepare effectively.