Medical Experience

00:01 Another point that students know lot a about is "Medical Experience." But here's one where I find that they trip up but I want you to listen what I have to tell you here.

00:12 The pathway to medical school is going to go a lot faster than you think it's going to.

00:17 You maybe a student starting out your freshman year.

00:21 And you see by the end you're going to a private medical school.

00:26 That's what most incoming students aspire to do.

00:29 And that's perfectly fine.

00:30 I'll say a little bit about that later.

00:32 That's perfectly fine to do.

00:33 But there are somethings that will happen along the way that's going to interfere with your ability to get the medical experience that's necessary.

00:42 What students do with this is that they don't realize how fast that clock is ticking.

00:47 They don't realize or think about the fact that the application process takes a full year.

00:53 You apply a year before you expect to start the school.

00:57 So let's imagine that you are interested in applying to medical school so that you start medical school the fall term after you graduate in the spring of your senior year.

01:07 That would mean that you're applying to medical school in the summer of your junior year.

01:13 That means that any medical experience that you need to get, will have to be obtained before that point.

01:20 All the medical experience that you're getting in your senior year is not going to go in your application.

01:25 Now if you are a person who said in your personal statement, that I wanted to go to medical school ever since I was 12.

01:32 And you get to that application point and you got a few weeks of medical experience with a physician, You going to cause some questions in the minds of the people who were evaluating you.

01:43 You need to get that experience early.

01:45 So I tell students like you.

01:47 You need to be thinking about this from the minute you start your path to medical school.

01:53 And people start their path at different places.

01:55 There are people who start with experience in high school.

01:58 I won't say it's most valuable experience but it doesn't hurt to start soon.

02:03 And what kind of experience do you look for.

02:05 The kind of experience that is the most meaningful and the most important is that which we call "Shadowing." One on one with a physician.

02:14 And that's very difficult to obtain sometimes.

02:17 Because it's increasingly difficult for students to work in hospitals because of the issues of malpractice.

02:26 It means you will need to be persistent and you need to look long and hard to find a physician who was willing to let you work with him one on one.

02:35 It's a path that is difficult and it takes planning.

02:39 So if you wait until you're junior year, to get that experience, that's kind a dangerous.

02:44 You may not get enough and you may have a hard time finding what you're after.

02:48 The reason that one on one experience is so important, is in your application to medical school, a physician's letter, testifying to their perspective of you as a future doctor is going to be the most important letter that's in that application.

03:02 Now I get to see all the letters of the students, or my students that apply.

03:07 They come from the physicians and other references and stuff like that.

03:10 So I know what's in those.

03:11 And I can tell you that the strongest letters come from the students who have worked with a physician for the longest period of time.

03:19 And the students who've come and they've tried to get a little badge by working with a professor or with a physician for that matter, by getting this star.

03:29 They don't get very good letters.

03:31 Because the physician and the professor knows that.

03:33 Well a death knell for application to medical school is a weak letter as your only letter for medical school.

03:41 I recommend students be considering in their application process getting about 6 letters of reference.

03:47 Two from people in the areas of science.

03:51 Two from people in areas away from science and two from people in areas related to medicine.

03:57 At least one of those should be a physician.

04:00 Now that takes planning and that takes a lot of work.

04:03 And that's not an absolute by the way.

04:05 But that's important to think about.

04:07 So the physicians letter is the central letter of all those and it's important for you be planning on.