Ask DocEspana Anything

Getting into Med School is Hard? Not with BeMo.
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DocEspana said:
It will come naturally as the pressure rises.... you'll just find your way to become a zen studying machine. And once you unlock it, its like riding a bike. You can meander and do lazy studying whenever you want. But at a whim you can turn it on and power study too.

clinical years are a bit easier, so I tend to power study to get my daily education reading in, and then enjoy more free time than I had in the pre-clinicals.
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This is very true. At first when you are trying to study you are like, "$**t I'm an idiot NONE of this information is sticking" but after a couple weeks your brain starts to understand how to take these beatings better and it's not as bad. Not that it is any easier to do, you just become more efficient at it.
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dntke1518 said:
This is very true. At first when you are trying to study you are like, "$**t I'm an idiot NONE of this information is sticking" but after a couple weeks your brain starts to understand how to take these beatings better and it's not as bad. Not that it is any easier to do, you just become more efficient at it.
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And then somewhere around the middle of second year.... it just pops. You go rag doll and they sweep you into a bin and put you into a refrigerator in hopes that your brain will re solidify
 
TriagePreMed said:
Did you try putting the ñ before you made your screenname?
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Yes I did. But I am not exactly sure 1. if it would allow that (I think i actually tried and its not a legal character) and 2. if I would ever learn how to make the ñ rather than just copying and pasting it from other places on the internet. Which would make logging in a pain.
 
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TheTasMan said:
As a future urologist, what would you say to a med school professor who is a dick?
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Yes sir. What can I do for you sir? What portions of the assigned chapter are the most vital to know sir?

Why do people insist on being a pain in the ass to professors who are a pain in the ass. You get much farther by simply being damn good at anything they throw your way rather than trying to undermine them because they have flaws.

Should the AOA be overthrown? Or would it be against some kind of Smith Act?
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Will it be? Not for a long time, so don't get your hopes up. I'm talking decades.

Should it be? "Insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties." - Marquis de Lafayette
 
Is all of NY underwater? How much would a parent see their two kids in med school?
 
NontradCA said:
Is all of NY underwater? How much would a parent see their two kids in med school?
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The parts near the water are. Take that as you wish. NJ is much much much worse.

In all honesty? Manhattan is nearly totally cut off from Brooklyn/Queens due to tunnel closures. The subway system is flooded. The southern 1/3 of NY is without power and expected to be without it for another few days. The Rockaways (where all of NY's nursing homes are, in far south queens) is basically destroyed and Staten Island appears to have floated out to sea. :laugh:

But structurally, NY/manhattan is fine just incredibly slowed down and Brooklyn+Queens pretty much made it out unscathed.

It is Jersey that is a state of disaster. Thankfully I'm living in the JC heights right now, so I am geographically above the flooding by many many yards.
 
Poliscidoc said:
What kind of Salary are you looking to make after residency and or fellowship is all said and done?
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Salary does seem to hover around the 300K mark for urology.

Which is better for doctors/medicine in your opinion Romney or Obama?
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You'll pay more in taxes either way so thats a wash. Obama has at least shown a consistent wish to work with physicians and get our input on things, even if the final product isnt cookie cutter of our requests. No clue with romney, but he wants to destabilize a program that has already taken half effect. I'd suggest Obama by a tiny bit, but on the topic of medicine it isnt clear. I can tell you that republicans (not necessarily romney) have really screwed over physicians in the last 2 years, likely as payback for the AMA backing PPACA.

Look up the utilization of the overseas operations funds for more on that. The basic idea is that by ending one of the wars, a huge sum of money that had been pre-pledged into the budget was now no longer needed. A sum of money that was almost identical to the amount that physicians "owe" the government under the Sustainable Growth Rate system. Democrats suggested the money be used for social projects. The physicians caucus (which is mostly republicans) suggested it be used to neutralize the SGR debt... which would allow the actual payment changes and (gasp) medical education funding for physicians to be discussed, something that doctors desperately wanted. Democrats came back and said they would consider it if they could garner some larger support across the aisle.

Republicans came back and said that any usage of this money would be giving obama a win and that they would rather simply let the money (which was pre-withdrawn from foreign lenders and couldnt just be "not spent") sit for two years and collect interest and would be used AFTER the election only. In two years that amount of money would not be enough to cover the physician debt. The physicians caucus met with the republican caucus and was told to STFU and get in line.

My representative is on the physicians caucus. I got to meet with her literally 60-90 minutes after that meeting where she was told to STFU and pick up the republican line on the operation funds. She did. Which I will hold against her. But she was fuming about it and basically requested I speak with her aide about how that specifically went and the aid was able to tell me this all explicitly (which later on other people from physician caucus areas would confirm). Choosing to let a major national issue get worse so that obama would not have a political victory is bull****.
 
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what would you say the main reason is for significant salary decrease, pretty much everywhere in medicine? 10 years ago, derms could make millions, anesthesiologists/pain physicians were making tons more..and now everything seems to be dwindling.

tl;dr: why is the cost of medical school increasing every year, and yet salary going down. If the future needs docs, shouldn't tuition be a little cheaper, or salaries be a little more? We want to be docs of course, but we also need to put food on the table and pay of the massive debt incurred while in indentured servitude

* i just noticed my tl;dr was actually longer. lol
 
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wjs010 said:
what would you say the main reason is for significant salary decrease, pretty much everywhere in medicine? 10 years ago, derms could make millions, anesthesiologists/pain physicians were making tons more..and now everything seems to be dwindling.
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Lies and exaggeration, mostly. The stats back up the fact that physician incomes haven't decreased at all in the last 15-20 years. Though there is the tiniest nugget of truth that physicians may be working harder to earn the same pay, but they are earning it.

It should be noted that the same pay, without reference to inflation, is not a good thing. BUT your comment is more referential to the gross lies and exaggerations present within the minds of pre-meds and the words of old senile doctors.
 
Poliscidoc said:
Would you still advise others to go into medicine after 4 years of medical school?
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If it is truly what drives you and you can honestly believe that you can sacrifice almost anything to become a physician... then yes.

if you have other priorities, no. But I would definitely recommend medicine to those cut out for it.
 
How difficult would it have been for you to have attended one of your allopathic choices in an undesirable location? Looking back, do you think you overestimated the importance of location on your own personal happiness?
 
If you make a C in any part of organic chemistry, will you not get into MD ( yes, i may get a c )

Sorry.. i meant MD ( MD/DO)
 
wjs010 said:
If you make a C in any part of organic chemistry, will you not get into MD ( yes, i may get a c )
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I had a C- in orgo I, C- in Physics I and a C in physics II. I got into MD schools. All these hard and fast rules are ridiculous because they aren't true, just "more often than not"

CityLights said:
How difficult would it have been for you to have attended one of your allopathic choices in an undesirable location? Looking back, do you think you overestimated the importance of location on your own personal happiness?
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I overestimated the importance of location in my own personal happiness in that I might have been happy in *some* of the locations I got into and labeled as undesirable. But having been to other locations during my clinical travels (and own personal travels) I realize that I was also correct about other areas. I could have been a midwesterner easily. I could never be a southerner. And thats not politics (though i often talk politics). Its just a lifestyle/comfort/society thing. I would have felt totally out of place in the south.
 
You got into MD schools in the states? Why did you pick a DO school over it (I remember you mentioning something about being happy in a location)?
 
Did you ever have to travel far for rotation sites as in 1 to 1.5 hours of driving?

If so, how early did you have wake up to make those rotations or did you simply find a place to temporarily live that was closer?


Tell us some funny stories about your time in school as well as on rotations.
 
GypsyHummus said:
You got into MD schools in the states? Why did you pick a DO school over it (I remember you mentioning something about being happy in a location)?
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I would be much happier in NYC near my entire family (I am close to my family) than far away in areas I was not happy to go to. As noted before, I may have overestimated my dismay with certain areas, but i was definitely correct about others. I had nothing in the entire north east section of the US, and location mattered so much to me at that time.
 
DocEspana said:
I would be much happier in NYC near my entire family (I am close to my family) than far away in areas I was not happy to go to. As noted before, I may have overestimated my dismay with certain areas, but i was definitely correct about others. I had nothing in the entire north east section of the US, and location mattered so much to me at that time.
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Do you regret your decision to stay in NY at the DO school when you could have gone MD elsewhere?
 
Ost3oclast said:
Do you regret your decision to stay in NY at the DO school when you could have gone MD elsewhere?
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Not that much. Occasionally I think about it, but I think about it the same way I regret going to X college instead of Y. Life changing decisions that I dont regret in the least because they turned out well, but I always sit around and am curious how it would be different the other way.
 
DocEspana said:
Not that much. Occasionally I think about it, but I think about it the same way I regret going to X college instead of Y. Life changing decisions that I dont regret in the least because they turned out well, but I always sit around and am curious how it would be different the other way.
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Yea good way to put it. I've only been accepted for about 6 weeks but I've already been having to explain to random people what DO is. Any tips on going about that explanation? How often do you get that question?
 
Ost3oclast said:
Yea good way to put it. I've only been accepted for about 6 weeks but I've already been having to explain to random people what DO is. Any tips on going about that explanation? How often do you get that question?
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It's an MD with a happy ending.

:troll:
 
johnnydrama said:
It's an MD with a happy ending.

:troll:
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angry-john-cena.gif
 
johnnydrama said:
Just remember to keep a firm grip and don't ignore the testicles, k?

This is important to pass the COMLEX.

:smuggrin:
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So THATS the biggest Difference between the USMLE and COMLEX. The truth comes out.
 
DocEspana said:
Yes I did. But I am not exactly sure 1. if it would allow that (I think i actually tried and its not a legal character) and 2. if I would ever learn how to make the ñ rather than just copying and pasting it from other places on the internet. Which would make logging in a pain.
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It's actually really easy. Hold the "Alt" key while typing "164" on the keypad. violà!

Source:
Spanish major who wrote many, many papers in Spanish using the "ALT" + digits thing until finally learning how to change the default keyboard to Spanish.
 
What MD schools did you get into?
 
You've mentioned that the name of the institution matters. Are you referring to students attending DO schools applying to MD residency?
 
Should I attend ccom or nsu?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using SDN Mobile
 
zoner said:
Should I attend ccom or nsu?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using SDN Mobile
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You should attend to a psychology clinic first, then to medical school, IMHO... sick of reading your posts already..
 
DrBumblebee said:
You should attend to a psychology clinic first, then to medical school, IMHO... sick of reading your posts already..
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I'm sorry about that, but I do feel that i have just as much right to post my problems as you do, and it is perfectly ok to put me in your ignore list. Why don't you use it?:idea:
 
zoner said:
I'm sorry about that, but I do feel that i have just as much right to post my problems as you do, and it is perfectly ok to put me in your ignore list. Why don't you use it?:idea:
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will you guarantee that you won't pop up from nowhere under a different username and continue with your annoying posts on SDN, I'd definitely do it.. deal?
 
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