How do you document your ECs?

[Verum]

How do you guys document your extra curricular activities? Do you list every minute detail in a notebook or just time and date? What about when it comes time to write about them in the med school essays etc are you allowed to talk about how a patient changed your view in medicine etc without violating HIPAA?

Thanks

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[semicharmed]

I think it's helpful to keep an evolving, updated CV with a short description of each activity (~1-2 sentences). Having the list in CV/resume form makes it easy to work with when you need to hand it over to someone in the future or convert it into an application (say, AMCAS!). I keep a "cumulative" CV and then, when I am applying for something, I save an extra copy of this, edit it down (deleting information to make it more specific to whatever I am applying for), then save as a separate, more specific resume.

If you do something so minute that you'll forget you even did it a year, then it probably isn't too important. Keep track of awards-you'd be surprised how you'll forget these quickly (speaking from experience...)

 

[Verum]

Makes sense, instead of recording every minute detail make it into a CV at the same time so you can just copy and paste instead of summarizing.

What's the general consensus on writing how patients illnesses affected your path to/during medicine? (Strictly on medical school applications. I would never write about any patients on any publicly view-able medium) Does this violate any acts and such? I don't want to be that guy who got sued because he blogged about someone.

 

[Oxygen206]

Makes sense, instead of recording every minute detail make it into a CV at the same time so you can just copy and paste instead of summarizing.

What's the general consensus on writing how patients illnesses affected your path to/during medicine? (Strictly on medical school applications. I would never write about any patients on any publicly view-able medium) Does this violate any acts and such? I don't want to be that guy who got sued because he blogged about someone.

My understanding is that as long as you omit any personally identifiable information, it's fine. I talked about some pretty specific cases in my PS and secondaries but always changed the name to something random.