LECOM Early Acceptance Advice

[meowthmeister]

Hi!
I’m honestly super confused about LECOM and med school in general, so I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
I‘m a 24 year old non-traditional Pre-Med (so bio) major anout to finish my first semester of my sophomore year. I have ~700 hours of “shadowing”, but this was completed when I was around 17-18 years old at a Veterans‘ Affairs hospital during the summers. My question is, is this significant enough clinical shadowing experience, or does the amount of time that has passed make it useless? I ask because I am struggling to set up any type of clinical shadowing due to covid. I applied to LECOMs EAP program on November 5th due to a miscommunication with my advisor (he basically told me to just wait and take the MCAT) and my portal currently says “We received your application, it will be reviewed by the Admissions Committee and you will be contacted within 60 days.”. My advisor reached out to Mr. Murphy and Mr. Murphy emailed me to let me know they received my application, but I’m worried because I don’t have any other information on my portal. I’m a typical neurotic pre-med student with pretty severe anxiety, so please go easy on me for my ignorance. I’m also unsure if I should include my “adversity” because I don’t want sympathy, but maybe someone can let me know.
-severe abuse/neglect throughout childhood
-mom died from a PE at 18
-i had a daughter at 19 years old who passed away at 22 days old
-father currently battling stage 3 pancreatic cancer
I am not the type to want sympathy or be given opportunities based on my circumstances, but I don’t know what to say when they ask why I’m a non-traditional student,
I’m also unsure of my “chances” for an interview because the EAP application was pretty cut and dry.
STATS:
cGPA: 3.92
sGPA: 3.86
Clinical Experience: ~700 hours in VA hospital, worked as vet tech for 2 years, end of life care for family member (medication, vitals), stabilized family member after head injury from seizure while waiting for EMS, etc
ACT: 26
New SAT converted from 2012 score: 1270
Research: worked with biology professor from current school to construct saltwater terrarium (which I’m sure doesn’t count),
run a small wildlife rescue that helps amphibians, rodents, small birds, cats/kittens

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[TragicalDrFaust]

For your shadowing, since you were around college age when you started and medicine hasn't changed much in the past 6 years (barring COVID), I think the time passed is acceptable. It would probably be preferable if you could find a more recent experience but 700 hours as an adult must be worth something.

I've heard adcoms here define adversity as circumstances during childhood that made it difficult to succeed academically and pursue higher education. I don't believe circumstances in adulthood can be included, because a person has much greater control over their life by that point.

Your childhood experiences definitely qualify as adversity but in my personal experience, it's difficult to articulate those circumstances in a professional, essay appropriate manner. Sorry I can't be of more help. I chose to leave out my experiences as a child and focus on things I did to better my circumstances as an adult: learning to support myself at a relatively young age and putting myself through school. It seems like you have compelling adult experiences like caring for relative and running a rescue organization.

 

[meowthmeister]

For your shadowing, since you were around college age when you started and medicine hasn't changed much in the past 6 years (barring COVID), I think the time passed is acceptable. It would probably be preferable if you could find a more recent experience but 700 hours as an adult must be worth something.

I've heard adcoms here define adversity as circumstances during childhood that made it difficult to succeed academically and pursue higher education. I don't believe circumstances in adulthood can be included, because a person has much greater control over their life by that point.

Your childhood experiences definitely qualify as adversity but in my personal experience, it's difficult to articulate those circumstances in a professional, essay appropriate manner. Sorry I can't be of more help. I chose to leave out my experiences as a child and focus on things I did to better my circumstances as an adult: learning to support myself at a relatively young age and putting myself through school. It seems like you have compelling adult experiences like caring for relative and running a rescue organization.

thank you so much for your reply. I am a first generation college student, much less a med school applicant and I am trying my best to navigate the process to the best of my ability. do you feel including my veterinary experience would somehow be taken offensively if I chose to discuss it? It ultimately led me to make the final decision to pursue human medicine, but I don’t want to seem like I’m comparing the two disciplines in any way. The veterinarian I worked for used acupuncture, laser therapy, TCVM practices, etc. and I wondered why these things weren’t more widely used in human medicine, which got me even more motivated to become a D.O. I’m attempting to get a shadowing opportunity with a urologist, though he is an M.D, not D.O. Thank you so much for your help/advice

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

thank you so much for your reply. I am a first generation college student, much less a med school applicant and I am trying my best to navigate the process to the best of my ability. do you feel including my veterinary experience would somehow be taken offensively if I chose to discuss it? It ultimately led me to make the final decision to pursue human medicine, but I don’t want to seem like I’m comparing the two disciplines in any way. The veterinarian I worked for used acupuncture, laser therapy, TCVM practices, etc. and I wondered why these things weren’t more widely used in human medicine, which got me even more motivated to become a D.O. I’m attempting to get a shadowing opportunity with a urologist, though he is an M.D, not D.O. Thank you so much for your help/advice

Sure thing! I'm lucky to have advantages in understanding the process because a lot of my family is in healthcare. I think it would be great to discuss vet experience and how it shaped your interest in DO. Just make sure to frame things as why you like DO rather than what you maybe didn't like about the veterinary field to keep the tone positive and professional. You don't have to compare them but you can emphasize skills you learned in the vet field that apply to human medicine. I worked in the food service industry for a decade and used some of those experiences to explain how I learned about communication, patience and working as part of team. For the record, I tried to discuss my healthcare experiences more (working as a medical assistant, scribe & pharmacy technician) but any career or passion can be translated to app-relevant skills if you grew and challenged yourself during the experience.

If you're applying DO especially, I recommend shadowing a primary care doctor because it's within many DO schools' mission statements to train PCPs first. It is great to shadow a urologist as well but if you only shadow a urologist, it may give adcoms the impression that you only see yourself going into a competitive specialty or you don't know what the majority of docs (PCPs and family medicine docs) do. What did your VA shadowing experience consist of?

 

[meowthmeister]

I decided DO over MD based on my personal experiences with health issues, and found that osteopathic medicine aligned more with my own philosophies.
things I completed at the VA (some may have been illegal, to be honest)
-working in “eye clinic”
-cleaning/sterilizing optometry equipment
-observation of minor surgical procedures, one specifically I remember involved removal/adjustment of extrinsic eye muscles
-mom was transplant coordinator, so I was allowed to do the following
-viewing of liver transplant surgeries in OR
-sitting in on patient consults, post op appointments
-learning about transplant list
-one doc physically took me with him for removal of a donor organ (liver)
ORTHO
-sitting in for post op appointments
-patient transport, when appropriate
-retrieval of records/lab results from lab
-cleaning/making beds
-docs allowed me to view X-rays and explained what went wrong

ECHO/LAB
-manager of wing had me reorganize all patient files that were older than x number of years
-sat in during echo, when patients were okay with it
-running results from echo to certain docs
-ran bloodwork to lab from various floors
PATIENT SERVICES
- started a “coffee cart” where I made coffee and went from floor to floor, offering to appropriate patients and families
-again, patient transport when appropriate, especially to restrooms or exam rooms
- spent down time with patients in patient lounge (retrieving food/water), playing pool, reading books, etc

we also had a very famous person in the ICU during my stay, so one doctor I shadowed explained patient privacy, which taught me a lot about ethically approaching this situation and the implications of mishandling patient privacy.
some of the specific details of my shadowing experience are fuzzy as it was 7 years ago, but I definitely learned a lot and was allowed to do way more than I should have been.
I won an award for the service hours as well as volunteering for the Wheelchair Olympics

 

[meowthmeister]

Sure thing! I'm lucky to have advantages in understanding the process because a lot of my family is in healthcare. I think it would be great to discuss vet experience and how it shaped your interest in DO. Just make sure to frame things as why you like DO rather than what you maybe didn't like about the veterinary field to keep the tone positive and professional. You don't have to compare them but you can emphasize skills you learned in the vet field that apply to human medicine. I worked in the food service industry for a decade and used some of those experiences to explain how I learned about communication, patience and working as part of team. For the record, I tried to discuss my healthcare experiences more (working as a medical assistant, scribe & pharmacy technician) but any career or passion can be translated to app-relevant skills if you grew and challenged yourself during the experience.

If you're applying DO especially, I recommend shadowing a primary care doctor because it's within many DO schools' mission statements to train PCPs first. It is great to shadow a urologist as well but if you only shadow a urologist, it may give adcoms the impression that you only see yourself going into a competitive specialty or you don't know what the majority of docs (PCPs and family medicine docs) do. What did your VA shadowing experience consist of?

I decided DO over MD based on my personal experiences with health issues, and found that osteopathic medicine aligned more with my own philosophies.
things I completed at the VA (some may have been illegal, to be honest)
-working in “eye clinic”
-cleaning/sterilizing optometry equipment
-observation of minor surgical procedures, one specifically I remember involved removal/adjustment of extrinsic eye muscles
-mom was transplant coordinator, so I was allowed to do the following
-viewing of liver transplant surgeries in OR
-sitting in on patient consults, post op appointments
-learning about transplant list
-one doc physically took me with him for removal of a donor organ (liver)
ORTHO
-sitting in for post op appointments
-patient transport, when appropriate
-retrieval of records/lab results from lab
-cleaning/making beds
-docs allowed me to view X-rays and explained what went wrong

ECHO/LAB
-manager of wing had me reorganize all patient files that were older than x number of years
-sat in during echo, when patients were okay with it
-running results from echo to certain docs
-ran bloodwork to lab from various floors
PATIENT SERVICES
- started a “coffee cart” where I made coffee and went from floor to floor, offering to appropriate patients and families
-again, patient transport when appropriate, especially to restrooms or exam rooms
- spent down time with patients in patient lounge (retrieving food/water), playing pool, reading books, etc

we also had a very famous person in the ICU during my stay, so one doctor I shadowed explained patient privacy, which taught me a lot about ethically approaching this situation and the implications of mishandling patient privacy.
some of the specific details of my shadowing experience are fuzzy as it was 7 years ago, but I definitely learned a lot and was allowed to do way more than I should have been.
I won an award for the service hours as well as volunteering for the Wheelchair Olympics