Most Compelling EC's/Stories You've Seen

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honestly, with the way you guys are talking about medical school, it sounds like someone matriculating is equivalent to dying or turning to a old person. Personally, the idea of being a young doctor is fun. I want to be the cocky kid who makes mistakes and learn from it. I want to put "Doctor" on my tinder profile and be a little douchy about it. I don't want to go into residency as some jaded marine veteran who is older than the teacher and unfazed by the first traumatic accident, who sees being a physician as their retirement job.

 

[LittleBrother]

Other than working, you can do all of that during medical school...

Man I would much rather "learn who I was" before committing to a career as challenging as medicine.

I think you are looking at this wrong. Its not that you can't just go straight into medicine, most do.

But you don't have to. Not only is it something you don't have to do, often times it can be advantageous not to, personally and professionally.

We have High Schoolers here stressing about how to get into NYU. We have people comparing mundane things like the difference between 1000 and 2000 hours of shadowing is. There are kids stressing about whether the time they supervised an info desk counts as leadership or not.

For anyone interested in not playing that game, we are just saying you can skip it and play a different game. And, if you push yourself really hard in whatever you choose to pursue before college or med school, you can gain tons of life experience that makes approaching college that much easier.

 

[Vivid_Quail]

honestly, with the way you guys are talking about medical school, it sounds like someone matriculating is equivalent to dying or turning to a old person. Personally, the idea of being a young doctor is fun. I want to be the cocky kid who makes mistakes and learn from it. I want to put "Doctor" on my tinder profile and be a little douchy about it. I don't want to go into residency as some jaded marine veteran who is older than the teacher and unfazed by the first traumatic accident.

Don't put that you are a doctor or medical student on your Tinder profile. The second you have a medical license, even as an intern, it is very easy to search your first name and city and find out exactly where you work. Then, one off color joke in a Tinder direct message, that person can then reach out to your PD and you have to deal with that crap on top of the stress of residency.

 

[Vivid_Quail]

Man I would much rather "learn who I was" before committing to a career as challenging as medicine.

I think you are looking at this wrong. Its not that you can't just go straight into medicine, most do.

But you don't have to. Not only is it something you don't have to do, often times it can be advantageous not to, personally and professionally.

We have High Schoolers here stressing about how to get into NYU. We have people comparing mundane things like the difference between 1000 and 2000 hours of shadowing is. There are kids stressing about whether the time they supervised an info desk counts as leadership or not.

For anyone interested in not playing that game, we are just saying you can skip it and play a different game. And, if you push yourself really hard in whatever you choose to pursue before college or med school, you can gain tons of life experience that makes approaching college that much easier.

I agree there are multiple paths to medical school but the average premed is not nearly as neurotic in real life as they are on SDN. Still very neurotic, but SDN is like borderline pathology...like you said, "1000 vs 2000 hours", "is my 523 good enough to go DO?" etc.

 

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Don't put that you are a doctor or medical student on your Tinder profile. The second you have a medical license, even as an intern, it is very easy to search your first name and city and find out exactly where you work. Then, one off color joke in a Tinder direct message, that person can then reach out to your PD and you have to deal with that crap on top of the stress of residency.

I was using it as an example. Being a doctor doesn't mean we need to live life with a stick up our ***. The mode age for matriculant is 22, they shouldn't be expected to become perfect yet. The journey matters too.

 

[LittleBrother]

honestly, with the way you guys are talking about medical school, it sounds like someone matriculating is equivalent to dying or turning to a old person. Personally, the idea of being a young doctor is fun. I want to be the cocky kid who makes mistakes and learn from it. I want to put "Doctor" on my tinder profile and be a little douchy about it. I don't want to go into residency as some jaded marine veteran who is older than the teacher and unfazed by the first traumatic accident, who sees being a physician as their retirement job.

That isn't a fair characterization of me, or my motivation for getting into medicine, and this post has some very naive things in it.

First, I've never said that you can't just go straight into medicine. However, if you are intent on going straight into medicine you are going to be competing against many fairly indistinguishable people and it is going to take an incredible amount of arbitrary effort to stand out. If you are fine playing that game then by all means play it.

What I said originally, and stand by, is that you really have more time than you think and so long as you are pursuing real experience and challenge, you really are only going to improve your application when you do decide to pursue medical school.

Also, your last point about being a "jaded Marine vet" is just ridiculous. Being able to comport one's self under stress is a virture. It's one if the reasons why these schools want clinical exposure and why they ask you questions about it. Its also why they often times blatantly ask "how do you deal with stress."

Edit: also I think we would all want to go to residency as well prepared as we can be. I'm not interested in making mistakes with actual people, and I've learned from experience that we are at our most dangerous when we start to think we know what's going on. I'm way more interested in not screwing things up than I am living in my own version of Scrubs.

 

[Vivid_Quail]

I was using it as an example. Being a doctor doesn't mean we need to live life with a stick up our ***. The mode age for matriculant is 22, they shouldn't be expected to become perfect yet. The journey matters too.

Oof, be very careful with this mentality man. Professionalism™ is a big thing in medical school and residency, whether or not we like it. Medical schools and teaching hospitals are academic places that care a lot about reputation and being "socially progressive."

I didn't say you shouldn't use Tinder. I just said don't advertise that you are a medical student/doctor. Let that come up in the DM's or on a first date. Honestly, that will work better for you anyways. Someone that likes you before they know you are a successful doctor is going to like you even more when they find out you have an MD. Better yet, not advertising that you are a med student/doctor shows a lot of self confidence--you believe in your ability to attract someone without using the doctor card. The opposite is also true. A white coat pic on Tinder and "physician" in the bio screams someone who is overcompensating and trying to use medicine as a way to impress girls. (Assuming you are a guy who likes girls), you know what girls like more than someone who is a doctor? Someone who is confident.

 

[LittleBrother]

I agree there are multiple paths to medical school but the average premed is not nearly as neurotic in real life as they are on SDN. Still very neurotic, but SDN is like borderline pathology...like you said, "1000 vs 2000 hours", "is my 523 good enough to go DO?" etc.

Yeah, and I think I'm trying to say the pathology is rather optional and you don't have to live a single track focus from high school to med school.

It also it worthwhile for people who don't get in their first cycle. Like we all know the med student that has pretty reasonable stats that just didn't stand out enough. That student is probably looking at an SMP now and is going to ask whether they should retake the MCAT with a 512. That student didn't fail to get in because of a low GPA or bad MCAT. They might benefit from branching out a bit.

 

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That isn't a fair characterization of me, or my motivation for getting into medicine, and this post has some very naive things in it.

First, I've never said that you can't just go straight into medicine. However, if you are intent on going straight into medicine you are going to be competing against many fairly indistinguishable people and it is going to take an incredible amount of arbitrary effort to stand out. If you are fine playing that game then by all means play it.

What I said originally, and stand by, is that you really have more time than you think and so long as you are pursuing real experience and challenge, you really are only going to improve your application when you do decide to pursue medical school.

Also, your last point about being a "jaded Marine vet" is just ridiculous. Being able to comport one's self under stress is a virture. It's one if the reasons why these schools want clinical exposure and why they ask you questions about it. Its also why they often times blatantly ask "how do you deal with stress."

Edit: also I think we would all want to go to residency as well prepared as we can be. I'm not interested in making mistakes with actual people, and I've learned from experience that we are at our most dangerous when we start to think we know what's going on. I'm way more interested in not screwing things up than I am living in my own version of Scrubs.

I apologize if I made you feel bad. It wasn't my intent. Things are just the way it is. Why do you stop "living your life"? If medicine is so bad then why even go? Become a programmer and work for a remote company. Keep climbing your mountains and visit other countries whatnot.

I enjoyed the neuroticism in high school over my college application. Most of high school is just a big role play without a goal and I wouldn't call it mundane. At the end I chose my cheaper state school over more prestigious options because I knew it was the right choice, but I don't regret all the fun talking about my college applications and **** measuring contests with my classmates.

Organism's main goal is to eat, grow, and procreate. Who are you to say what side quests I should skip?

 

[Vivid_Quail]

Yeah, and I think I'm trying to say the pathology is rather optional and you don't have to live a single track focus from high school to med school.

It also it worthwhile for people who don't get in their first cycle. Like we all know the med student that has pretty reasonable stats that just didn't stand out enough. That student is probably looking at an SMP now and is going to ask whether they should retake the MCAT with a 512. That student didn't get in because of a low GPA or bad MCAT. They might benefit from branching out a bit.

Multiple students in my grad program like that. It did work out for them but no way to know if it was even needed. A year of AmeriCorps probably would have helped their app more than a master's did (you could argue either side though).

 

[LittleBrother]

Multiple students in my grad program like that. It did work out for them but no way to know if it was even needed. A year of AmeriCorps probably would have helped their app more than a master's did (you could argue either side though).

Yeah, idk I think people are are very narratively focused and get sucked into compelling stories. That is why a lot of schools love guys like the SEAL or people from disadvantaged backgrounds who defy odds. At the end of the day these applications need to stand out to real people, so pursuing different and worthwhile experiences so that you can tell a good life story is a reasonable thing to do. Especially if you come from a background that didn't wasn't all that challenging. Like, I don't think the first-gen college grad from the stix really needs to worry that much they probably have tons of things to write about and discuss. More so, if your parents were both doctors and you went to a college prep school it might be worthwhile to "pursue" a good story.

 

[LittleBrother]

I apologize if I made you feel bad. It wasn't my intent. Things are just the way it is. Why do you stop "living your life"? If medicine is so bad then why even go? Become a programmer and work for a remote company. Keep climbing your mountains and visit other countries whatnot.

I enjoyed the neuroticism in high school over my college application. Most of high school is just a big role play without a goal and I wouldn't call it mundane. At the end I chose my cheaper state school over more prestigious options because I knew it was the right choice, but I don't regret all the fun talking about my college applications and **** measuring contests with my classmates.

Organism's main goal is to eat, grow, and procreate. Who are you to say what side quests I should skip?

When did I say medicine was bad? I think it's pretty awesome. My problem isn't with medicine, my criticism is with the general self-compelled homogeny of med students. It's something I brought up frequently at interviews - I think the fact that premeds by and large have very similar and narrow experiences is alienating to many patient populations. Many med schools actively try to cultivate these same experiences I am talking about as part of their programs. I've tried to be as open as possible to the immensity of possibilities out there, be it the military, peace corps, americorps, professional work, ect. Thats because if you are a fairly typical med school aplicant from the suburbs, you can learn a lot simply by spending a season or two doing conservation work on a Native American reservation, or being a roustabout on a oil rig and rubbing elbows with people who make 40k a year.

I think I've been fairly flexible and open with doing things however you want to. I've just made it clear that you don't have to do things the way everyone else does them. That, if you were inclined, you don't need to fret about being a 30 year old med student, or working a few extra years before retirement. That, perhaps you might find some meaning and utility from pursuing your own unique path and you don't need to feel compelled to stay on a direct path. I think it's pretty reasonable.