My Five Year Anniversary with the White Coat Investor Podcast

Looking for a podcast episode for today's drive to work? Check out my take on entrepreneurship, creating autonomy and flexibility, and balancing clinical practice with raising a family on the White Coat Investor (WCI) podcast. The interview initially ran in March 2019, but the content is still highly relevant for those considering alternatives or enhancements to clinical careers.

For those of you who aren't familiar with WCI, it's a website/blog/podcast founded by James Dahle MD, an emergency physician whose interest in personal finance and the FIRE (financial independence - retire early) movement sparked a slew of devotees. Check out my podcast episode here (where you can also read the full transcript) or listen on your favorite podcast app. 

Leverage the MSAR for Your Benefit

The Medical School Admission Requirements database (MSAR) is an online resource that allows users to search, sort and compare information about U.S. and Canadian medical schools. (I hate to date myself, but when I was applying, the MSAR was a hard copy book.) The annual MSAR usually comes out this month or next; if you're applying to medical school, I'd recommend purchasing the 2024 version when it's here because it provides so much information about institutions and their admissions statistics. The MSAR allows you to compare schools by median MCAT scores, AMCAS GPAs, and other criteria. (Of course, how institutions utilize the MCAT score is variable, which contributes to the shameful opaqueness of the medical school admissions process.)

You should use the MSAR to help determine which schools are in your range and which are "reach" schools. While it's fine to have a lot of "reach" schools (if you can afford it), it's critical to ensure you are applying wisely to schools that match your numbers. The advantage of the MSAR is that you can make evidence-based decisions. I've found some applicants have eye-opening experiences when they thoroughly review schools' statistics and either realize that their numbers are low and that they should apply accordingly or, happily, that they have numbers that match with top schools. Either way, reviewing the data is critical to good decision making.

 

The Medical School Admissions Process is Totally Broken - From Start to End

The medical school admissions process is cruel. I recently told that to a strong applicant who was "ghosted" by five institutions this cycle. Poor or absent communication is only one of the problems. The lack of clarity about selection criteria causes confusion, and expensive supplementary applications that generate money for schools are sometimes exploitative.

Check out my Doximity op-ed piece "The Medical School Admissions Process is Falling Short," and feel free to leave a comment on the site about your experiences and opinions.

One Billion Dollars

I was super impressed with the news that Albert Einstein College of Medicine Professor Ruth Gottesman is donating $1 billion to her institution to make tuition free for all medical students going forward.

In 2019 NYU made medical school tuition free. Subsequently, the demand to go to their institution skyrocketed, as did their matriculants' median MCAT and AMCAS GPAs. According to the most recently published MSAR, NYU's median total and BCPM GPAs were both 3.96, and their median MCAT was 522. A similar phenomenon will occur with Albert Einstein School of Medicine.

The tremendously generous donation by Professor Gottesman allows earnest individuals interested in caring for our communities to become physicians without excessive debt. Of note, Albert Einstein offered to rename their school to include "Gottesman," but the professor declined, a choice which adds to her stature in my mind.