MD/PhD Wannabe; Advice Wanted

Hello everyone, I'm not really new to SDN, I've been a lurker for years, but I figured since I'm applying this year for 2003 I'd actually jump info the fray

I'd like to get some advice on a few things, but this post is really long. So I?ve broken the 3 questions down into #ed paragraphs. The first is looking for something to do on my senior year off, the second is looking for non-MSTP MD/PhD programs with funding, and the third is asking what my chances are of actually getting in.

1) I'm applying from my senior year at U of Delaware. I'd love to use the year off to do something that would improve myself (yeah and looking better on my app wouldn't hurt), but I'm having a hard time finding something. I worked in a lab (more on this later), but they cannot get the funding they need to pay an undergraduate assistant. That's the way it seems here at Udel, they're happy for you to volunteer, but there's not many paying spots available. I have to get paid something cause I'm pretty broke

So anyways, my mind is really open to whatever opportunities I can find. My biggest issue is that Udel is screwing me by making me sit here another semester to take a required class that wasn't offered this semester. So I can't really go far from Delaware for more than about 6 months. Everything I find wants you to commit for a year or more. Also, I don't think I could go out of the country for that 6 months, considering I will be interviewing this Fall/next Spring. If anyone has any ideas for research opportunities or otherwise good pre-med experience that will pay me something and fits all my other requirements, please let me know! My counselors at Udel have been no help on this one, other than tell me to go find a job at one of the local biotech companies (we have a lot in Delaware), but I don?t know how helpful they would be or how likely I would be to get an interesting research related job.

2) Ever since I learned about MSTP, the MSTP program has been my dream. However, I?m open to non-MSTP MD/PhD opportunities as well as long as they are funded. Like I said before, I?m pretty broke and if I?m not going to be making that money back after med school (I want to be a relatively low-paid researcher or clinician-researcher if I can help it) I won?t be able to afford otherwise. Does anyone have a list of non-MSTP MD/PhD programs? Maybe another thread or something dealt with this? If not, if people could just slip me some non-MSTP MD/PhD programs that would be nifty.

3) What are my chances of getting into a MSTP or MD/PhD program? My Udel counselors don?t make it seem so bad, but the MSTP thread scares me. I will give a bit about me so you can answer the question. I?m a Udel senior, but I started college early (whole story behind that) so I?m still pretty young. My GPA is 3.89 (science GPA is actually higher), I?m a dual Biology + Psychology major, and I took my MCAT last August and got a 12,13,O,12. I have an interesting and screwed up background, spent a lot of time growing up in an urban area (well Wilmington, DE), but yes I am still a white male. I know it shouldn?t matter, but it sure seems like it does. I have a few years of experience in the computer industry (that?s how I paid for my first 2 years of college and make spare money now). I volunteered once a week at a local emergency department (level 1 trauma center) for 3 years, posting a bit over 500 total hours. I might resume my volunteer job there if I am able in the future, because on some nights it really got interesting. But, that?s it for my extracurriculars, except for my research. I tried to get into some other things at Udel, but none of it worked out, and I always sort of viewed a lot of other stuff people have as resume padding so I never got into them.

I did one and half years of research, some of it part-time, some of it full-time in a non-traditional psychology lab. Partially because it was non-traditional and partially because our experiments required a lot of investment and did not work out, I never published. I am happy to tell you, or an interviewer for that matter, all about what we did and why I liked doing it, but I?m concerned this bit of experience is not going to impress them a whole lot. I could also write abstracts and/or a senior thesis for a ?Degree with Distinction? if that would help, but I don?t know if that would be worth the time investment. I wish I could continue in the lab, since maybe someday I might be able to publish there, but he is unable to pay me any more. I was paid for a short period during one particular grant, but most of the time I was not paid, and now the money is not there and I will have to get paid during my time off since I will not have all my student loan money anymore.

My goal is to be an experimental surgeon. I?m interested the most in making paraplegics walk again and do other related neuro-research. Of course I?m open to other bioengineering research, but I don?t have an engineering background, so I?m mostly interested in the biological and application side of things. My parents are both medical miracles, so that?s one of the things that really pushed me in this direction. I think also that I could certainly get into this kind of work from an MD program at a top school (top 25?), but even getting in there seems near impossible. I?ve been told it?s easier to get into many schools on MD/PhD. What do you think about my chances and where I should apply?

Thanks to anyone who waded through all that! Good luck to everyone trying to get in this year!

Thanks for all the props. I think this thread is so old it won't even come up in my UserCP. But it's really this kind of thanks and recognition that are a big part of keeping me going to do the things that I do.

I am writing a novel. Also, I'm writing a blog entry right now about graduate school, though it'll be so revealing and damning I don't think I can publish it under my own screenname.

I think one of the themes in my own life is that good things in life don't necessarily happen to good people. You can change your own life, but you can't make others like or love you. Yet, our relationships with others is the primary thing that creates happiness. The great literary works, at least in my mind, come from this angst and the unsettled emotions of struggle with others and with yourself. It is this sense of triumph that gives us the human spirit, and that makes for good reading. In any case, there's good and bad about everything and I'm here to sort of tell it all.

Wait..there's an SDN IRC channel?

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Yeah, I'm in charge of that We have our own IRC server at irc.studentdoctor.net which is accessible through java chat, a little Chat button up in the top right corner. A few users also hang out on Efnet on #sdn. I don't hang out much on SDN Chat these days because I'm so busy with other things.

wow, to think, at one point in time neuronix was a neurotic, information seeking pre-med as well...hehe...nice find dude

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I was the MOST neurotic Everyone sort of made me that way. I had my step-grandmother who was a high school advisor who constantly reminded me my undergrad was not a big name and would be a hinderance in life. She would typically suggest transferring every holiday. My undergrad advisors were so anti-MD/PhD it clouded everything they told me. I was told frankly that I would never get into Penn without a couple of publications. I was so happy I had SDN to give me the straight dope, and that's why I still contribute today. Though, I had to tone it down a bit. A lot of people thought I was a real dick because I used to say things in the MCAT forum like "LISTEN TO ME I GOT A HIGH SCORE THESE OTHER PEOPLE ARE WRONG". I've figured things out a little better than that these days.

I'm not always right, but I'm always straightforward and tell things how I see them. Not everyone appreciates that straightforwardness, but that's ok. I wouldn't have it any other way.

This thread is 6 years old.

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Has it really been that long?! It's strange sometimes to say, yes, I am a CD6. But, yes, actually I am a CD6. I have a PhD. But, what you realize is what makes you, you, really doesn't change that much over the years. In that way it doesn't feel like 6 years. Have I really changed and grown in 6 years? But when I think about it... Yeah, I really have. So thanks for pointing out the obvious