Baylor Debakey Summer Surgery Program

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The program is for anyone interested in a career in medicine.

There were participants who were rising sophomores in college and there were people who were doing masters degrees. I don't think they have a specific age or degree-seeking status in mind for applicants.

I also wanted to mention that there weren't just pre-meds participating. I know there were other participants in my year who were pre-PA and pre-<insert professional school here>.

As far as a % acceptance rate... I'm not really sure. As I said before, there were 24 of us in 2009 and they were talking about perhaps cutting that down by as many as 10 spots. We heard a lot of varying numbers about the applicant pool - somewhere between 280 and like 700 people applied.... yeah I dunno what up with the discrepancy there either.

Feel free to PM with any additional or more specific questions. Good luck to anyone applying in the future - the program is truly incredible.

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I was just notified of my acceptance into the 2012 DeBakey Summer Program! Has anybody else heard back? :oops:
 
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I applied for this program. haven't heard anything either.
 
I participated in the program in '06. I actually had no prior science experience (was an english major in college), so I was at a disadvantage because I was the one who knew nothing about anything, as opposed to everyone else in the program who were seniors in hard science majors. Sorry, just venting... :)

Moving on - I found pros and cons. The program is supposedly really hard to get into, so I was really excited when I found out I made it. The experience itself did not live up to those expectations. I may be the exception - I was put in the pediatric surgery program, where we were not assigned a specific "mentor" (attending surgeon) during our time. Everyone else (Ben Taub, Methodist, etc.) was assigned to a specific surgeon that they worked with almost exclusively. This was good for me, because I got to work with a lot of surgeons..but bad, because I didn't get to work with any of them enough to get involved in anything really important - some people at other hospitals did research, etc. On the plus side, you get an all-access pass to go wherever you want - you go on rounds with the residents and fellows, watch surgeries, etc. You can go as much or as little as you want (at least at Texas Children's, where you're not assigned to a specific surgeon and no one seems to really notice you're not there - but I probably averaged 7-10 hours a day or so, sometimes more if there was a cool surgery. I also stayed for night call a few times. Overall, I'd say I got around 400 hours over the 10 weeks.)

My first fellow was great, but he left halfway through the program, and I got a new one. I can't blame her, 'cause she was starting a new, very difficult job, but it made it hard for us in the program to get a good experience when she showed up. Also, those at other places (especially Ben Taub, which is the county general hospital) got to actually do some real, actual work in the OR, while at Texas Children's we got to stand in the back and watch - I probably only scrubbed in on 5 or so surgeries or so the whole 2 months.

Overall, I'd say it was a good, not great, experience. If I had been in another surgery service, it might have been much different - I don't know. I did learn A LOT about surgery and medicine in general, and got to see first-hand what it's like to be a resident - so I'd recommed it, if you're interested.

Sorry about the length of this post, but I wanted to share the whole experience. If you have any other questions, just PM me.
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Just curious, what was your personal statement like? I guess what I'm asking is: if you were at a bit of a disadvantage, what do you think set you apart? I am trying to apply, but find myself at a similar disadvantage and am just wondering if you had thoughts on it.
thanks!
 
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