Hi guys, glad to have found this forum. It looks like there is a lot of great information here. I would love to pick your brains a bit and hopefully get some advice/suggestions from you guys as I’m debating whether to take the MCAT exam again.
I’m in graduate school right now (year 2 of 3 of my DPhil). I have been interested in medicine for some time but my decision to go to medical school has only recently come together.
When I started college I was really keen to study medicine. During my last year in high school I had started volunteering at a local rescue squad, which I enjoyed a lot. I spent the summer before college taking an EMT course. And after I got my license I continued helping out around the squad for a while. Gradually though the work lost its appeal. I can’t point and say exactly why. It became tedious I guess, and I think I realized there were other disciplines and career paths I wanted to explore.
I went on to study physics and eventually got my bachelors in that.
During the last semester of college I did an internship with a medical physics group. I had spent the previous 2 years doing biophysics research, which I liked a lot. I figured medical physics would be similar.
This internship in medical physics was a turning point for me. I really enjoyed it’s applicative nature, straddling both medicine and physics. I was graduating around then so I became interested in graduate programs of that subject area.
At the time, I looked mostly at phd programs in medical physics, though I did also come to learn about md-phd programs. But whether medical school was something I needed I wasn’t sure. I didn’t apply to any md-phd programs. But, since I did take the full range of premedical science courses during my studies. I took the mcats the summer right before grad school. It could only help, I thought. I got an 30 (12 physics, 10 bio , 8 verbal).
I’m currently in the UK pursuing a DPhil in magnetic resonance physics.
Now, being involved in MR physics research for almost 2 years now, I realize how powerful a medical background can be. We work with clinicians constantly. They come in and we talk about what sort of a scan they want (what sources of contrast they want to see, in which parts of the body) and we engineer the pulse sequences for the mri scanner to obtain those images. To be able to hold both sets of knowledge in one head would be absolutely balling. There’s a few MD-Phds in this field who are dominating it because they know exactly how and when to apply their technical expertise to clinical problems. I guess I look towards them as inspiration
All this is to say that I now believe that going back to medical school is be the right thing for my career.
So which program? Yale’s MD program looks extremely appealing. It is research-oriented and their radiology department has a strong focus on MR physics. I want to apply there early-decision next year.
My concern is my MCAT score, which is on low side. My question to myself is whether I should take my them again before next June.
I would love to get hear some comments (pros and cons) from you guys. I’ll list one ‘con’ right off the bat. I have try really hard to squeeze out time. DPhils in England are 3 years so they expect a lot done over a short time. Finding that time to prepare will be difficult.
Another option I am also considering, though I don’t want to, if this Yale-EDP thing doesn’t work out is this: I work for a year or two after my degree, save some money, find the time to take this exam again, then go to med school. But I’m not too keen on waiting for another 2 years.
I’ve briefly outlined below what the rest of my application would look like more or less. Many thanks in advance SDN!
===
Research Interests: computational physics, magnetic resonance physics, biomedical physics
Education:
Grad: Top 2 school in the UK. Named scholarship, in full. DPhil in MR Physics.
Undergrad: Top 30 school in the US. Attended on 100% tuition remission.
Degree in Physics. GPA 3.81
Some awards from undergrad
1. Goldwater Scholarship Nominee.
2. Full scholarship for a summer research program in Vienna, Austria
3. College grants for independent biophysics research
4. sigma pi sigma physics award.
Work experience:
1. Executive committee member for the Global Scholars Network (the student body for Churchill, Oxford-Clarendon, Marshall, Rhodes, Gates-Cambridge, and Commonwealth scholars)
2. Graduate MRI Physics tutor.
Publications:
1. first author of a biophysical journal paper (undergrad)
2. editor for an undergraduate text in general relativity
Clinical experience: volunteered as an EMT-basic for 2 years
Programming Languages: Python, Matlab, Mathematica, Latex
Extracurricular: Middle distance track (mile & half-mile)
1600 m, mile PR, 4:43.7
800 m, half-mile PR, 2:07
I’m in graduate school right now (year 2 of 3 of my DPhil). I have been interested in medicine for some time but my decision to go to medical school has only recently come together.
When I started college I was really keen to study medicine. During my last year in high school I had started volunteering at a local rescue squad, which I enjoyed a lot. I spent the summer before college taking an EMT course. And after I got my license I continued helping out around the squad for a while. Gradually though the work lost its appeal. I can’t point and say exactly why. It became tedious I guess, and I think I realized there were other disciplines and career paths I wanted to explore.
I went on to study physics and eventually got my bachelors in that.
During the last semester of college I did an internship with a medical physics group. I had spent the previous 2 years doing biophysics research, which I liked a lot. I figured medical physics would be similar.
This internship in medical physics was a turning point for me. I really enjoyed it’s applicative nature, straddling both medicine and physics. I was graduating around then so I became interested in graduate programs of that subject area.
At the time, I looked mostly at phd programs in medical physics, though I did also come to learn about md-phd programs. But whether medical school was something I needed I wasn’t sure. I didn’t apply to any md-phd programs. But, since I did take the full range of premedical science courses during my studies. I took the mcats the summer right before grad school. It could only help, I thought. I got an 30 (12 physics, 10 bio , 8 verbal).
I’m currently in the UK pursuing a DPhil in magnetic resonance physics.
Now, being involved in MR physics research for almost 2 years now, I realize how powerful a medical background can be. We work with clinicians constantly. They come in and we talk about what sort of a scan they want (what sources of contrast they want to see, in which parts of the body) and we engineer the pulse sequences for the mri scanner to obtain those images. To be able to hold both sets of knowledge in one head would be absolutely balling. There’s a few MD-Phds in this field who are dominating it because they know exactly how and when to apply their technical expertise to clinical problems. I guess I look towards them as inspiration
All this is to say that I now believe that going back to medical school is be the right thing for my career.
So which program? Yale’s MD program looks extremely appealing. It is research-oriented and their radiology department has a strong focus on MR physics. I want to apply there early-decision next year.
My concern is my MCAT score, which is on low side. My question to myself is whether I should take my them again before next June.
I would love to get hear some comments (pros and cons) from you guys. I’ll list one ‘con’ right off the bat. I have try really hard to squeeze out time. DPhils in England are 3 years so they expect a lot done over a short time. Finding that time to prepare will be difficult.
Another option I am also considering, though I don’t want to, if this Yale-EDP thing doesn’t work out is this: I work for a year or two after my degree, save some money, find the time to take this exam again, then go to med school. But I’m not too keen on waiting for another 2 years.
I’ve briefly outlined below what the rest of my application would look like more or less. Many thanks in advance SDN!
===
Research Interests: computational physics, magnetic resonance physics, biomedical physics
Education:
Grad: Top 2 school in the UK. Named scholarship, in full. DPhil in MR Physics.
Undergrad: Top 30 school in the US. Attended on 100% tuition remission.
Degree in Physics. GPA 3.81
Some awards from undergrad
1. Goldwater Scholarship Nominee.
2. Full scholarship for a summer research program in Vienna, Austria
3. College grants for independent biophysics research
4. sigma pi sigma physics award.
Work experience:
1. Executive committee member for the Global Scholars Network (the student body for Churchill, Oxford-Clarendon, Marshall, Rhodes, Gates-Cambridge, and Commonwealth scholars)
2. Graduate MRI Physics tutor.
Publications:
1. first author of a biophysical journal paper (undergrad)
2. editor for an undergraduate text in general relativity
Clinical experience: volunteered as an EMT-basic for 2 years
Programming Languages: Python, Matlab, Mathematica, Latex
Extracurricular: Middle distance track (mile & half-mile)
1600 m, mile PR, 4:43.7
800 m, half-mile PR, 2:07
