How does a strong business background contribute to the medical field?

[ch0sen1]

Being a leader of a large profit business (that involves buying and selling products, and no not drugs lol) that my father started (and I have worked alongside him for a long time), I have learned a lot about business and money management/making. Hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of money has been made in profit in our business in the last 2 years.

And of course, I do not enjoy this for a living and would rather be a physician. I have eyed medical school since day 1 of college, and thats what I want to do as a career.

I am still a junior, however I still always think how I am going to connect this experience to how this may benefit me in medicine; just incase if i were asked this in an interview or even chose to write about my business success in my personal statement and conclude about how this experience will make me stronger than the average applicant (with average stats).

Any ideas?

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[TMP-SMX]

Leadership, working as a team, and hardworking. Then go on to say that you couldn't see yourself doing it as a career and say why medicine and the traits you have that would make you a good physician.

 

[TheElement]

I would definitely connect your experience with your essays and the such if you feel that it's made a big impact on you.

As a Finance major myself, I wrote about how having good business sense could be really beneficial in a healthcare setting in a couple of my secondaries, and a little bit in my personal statement. I also brought it up my interviews. Some of my interviewers were really receptive to my majoring in business. A couple of them even said that they thought it was the best undergrad major for medical school.

You could talk about the differences between the two fields and how you feel medicine suits you much better. You have the relevant experience to back this up.

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

Leadership, working as a team, and hardworking. Then go on to say that you couldn't see yourself doing it as a career and say why medicine and the traits you have that would make you a good physician.

I agree in mentioning these things in the PS,

My experience was neutral to negative about having very strong staff management, P&L, project management, negotiation, and analytical experiences + substantial teamwork experience in a non-medical environment. I thought that these would be enough to make up for limited clinical experience, but was a reapplicant this year due to these weaknesses, despite business strengths/experiences.

What I found was that med school admissions offices want high GPA, MCAT section scores, and substantial clinical experience. After this, they'll start looking at extracurricular activities like business leadership. Even here, two schools (University of Chicago and Louisville) told me, respectively, that success in one non-medical field means a HIGHER bar to leap over in order to prove to the adcomm that the applicant is serious about medicine, and that med schools don't know how to compare a person with business success to other med school applicants.

My opinion is that a business background is a good one to have as a physician, and it sounds like some interviewers agree, but also don't forget to focus on the basics first.

 

[ch0sen1]

I would definitely connect your experience with your essays and the such if you feel that it's made a big impact on you.

As a Finance major myself, I wrote about how having good business sense could be really beneficial in a healthcare setting in a couple of my secondaries, and a little bit in my personal statement. I also brought it up my interviews. Some of my interviewers were really receptive to my majoring in business. A couple of them even said that they thought it was the best undergrad major for medical school.

You could talk about the differences between the two fields and how you feel medicine suits you much better. You have the relevant experience to back this up.

What exactly did you say for comparing a business sense to the healthcare setting?

 

[greatdoctor]

What exactly did you say for comparing a business sense to the healthcare setting?

.

 

[odieoh]

Being a leader of a large profit business (that involves buying and selling products, and no not drugs lol) that my father started (and I have worked alongside him for a long time), I have learned a lot about business and money management/making. Hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of money has been made in profit in our business in the last 2 years.

I would also be very careful about exaggerating your involvement with the company. If you were actually a top player in the company I would imagine you should know whether the company made hundreds of thousands vs millions "of money." People are pretty good at sniffing out the BS in applications and its not terribly uncommon for people to exaggerate.

I could be way off, but my impression of your first post is that Daddy owns a big company and gave son/daughter a job and a title and now son/daughter thinks they are a business hotshot. Like I said I could be wrong but that was my first impression and if your word your PS similarly it may give others the same impression.

Edit: Bah, just noticed the original post is from 1/09. . . why'd this get bumped?

 

[MOHS_01]

You would determine how f'ed we truly are quicker than the next guy.