What It Actually Takes to Get into Medical School | Dr. Ryan Gray at UC Davis Pre-Health Conference

thank you guys for coming how many people have heard about me listen to my podcast read maybe one of my books good good chunk of you good so hopefully by the end of this I'll have some more Instagram followers because that's all I really care about this is my Instagram account but honestly what I what I hope you get away from today is the understanding that no matter where you are in this process no matter what you've had to overcome in this process that you can do it that you can become a physician how many of you are here at UC Davis awesome so you know because you have good great pre-med advising here that you can do it if you want to how many have you been told that you should have a plan B he's like I know what he's gonna ask I'm raising my hand have a plan B you got a seeing or go you got a C in chemistry there's no way you can get into Medical School you should start thinking about a different thing how many people have been told that how many women in here have been told why do you want to be a doctor so much work you don't have time to have a family just go be a nurse yeah don't listen to those stupid people right it's a lot of men saying that unfortunately it's a lot of women to unfortunately don't don't let anyone else's considerations about you and your journey stop you if this is what you want do it if you continue to go through this journey and it's what you want even if you fail a class even if you bomb the MCAT welcome to the club even if you get rejected from medical school the first time you apply if this is what you want then do it it's a long journey and one year or two years at this point in your journey in the grand scheme of things has zero implications for your career as a physician so just remember that how many of you have heard from a physician not to be a doctor not a lot actually I'm surprised a lot of physicians don't like their job or if you look at burnout rates it's like 60 percent of physicians are burnt out they're not happy with their careers but being a physicians in an amazing career if you want to do it let me give you a little bit of backstory of Who I am so you can understand a little bit about my journey give you a little bit of context from from what I'm talking about so I grew up in Southern California and in Redondo Beach grew up playing baseball rights California I play baseball that's what you do and I thought I was gonna go to Arizona State be a baseball player in college the Arizona State go on and play professional baseball and Rodney King riots happened I'm your age group so a little bit young for that but Rodney King riots happened big thing in LA 90 to 93 and so my parents were like okay it's time to leave and we moved to Florida and in high school and in Florida I hurt my shoulder playing baseball and went to a physical therapist and said oh this is kind of interesting alright maybe I can't be a professional baseball player but I can help other people live their dreams and get them recovered now it's a very common story for a lot of people who want to be physicians is you get injured you get sick grandma grandpa mom dad gets injured gets sick dies and you go oh this healthcare thing is kind of cool there's this there's this woman who came into the room wearing this cool white coat and she cared for our family she gave us hope she saved mom she saved dad and you go I think I want to check that out as I was the same for me I grew up my dad was a type 1 diabetic died when I was 17 so I was around health care a bunch growing up but never really thought about medicine and tell I got hurt myself and so I started shadowing a physical therapists and Highschool and the physical therapist at that point in time this is 1997 at that point in time getting into medical school or getting into physical therapy school rather was really really hard the demand for physical therapy was was skyrocketing there weren't apparently a ton of physical therapy schools whatever the conditions were getting was really hard and the physical therapist was like you're smart enough to get into PT school you might as well be a doctor and that kind of sat with me for a little bit and around the same time I was in my senior year biology class dissecting mr. bigglesworth that was my cat and how many people know the name mr. bigglesworth was it from there you go Austin Powers good job so dissecting a cat and I was hooked so I wanted to cut people for a living and so I took my love of wanting to cut things and instead of turning into Dexter on TV I put it to good use and said I'm gonna be an orthopedic surgeon right my love of physical therapy and sports and cutting things and putting them back together I'm gonna be an orthopedic surgeon so I went to University of Florida for undergrad wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon I majored in exercise physiology applied to medical school I actually before I get to applying met with my pre-med advisor it's juniors sophomore year and she saw me this was pre MCAT I had really good grades and she said don't apply to medical school you won't get in you're a white male there's too many of you applying you won't get in so I never talked to her again I went off and try to try to to be my best self as a pre-med and this is right we have our computers in our pocket all the time now I can go and look up anything when I was in school we didn't really have it and so I had to rely on a group of friends and books and and professors and stuff and I applied to medical school didn't get in my first time ask some questions tried to figure it out what I did wrong how I could do better and eventually reapply to medical school got in went to New York Medical College in New York just north of the city and I went on an airforce scholarship so as soon as i got in i went to uncle sam and said hey mr. airforce can you can you pay for medical school for me and they they accepted the scholarship application and they paid for medical school and when it came to applying for orthopedic surgery the Air Force said nope you can't be an orthopedic surgeon so that kind of sucked so I went and did an internship year in Boston my wife who I met in medical school was doing her residency in neurology in Boston so we both moved from New York to Boston and then I went and started my active-duty career in Dover Delaware as an active-duty flight surgeon now as cool as it sounds a flight surgeon does not cut things so I wasn't happy right I wanted to cut things I as a flight surgeon take care of pilots and their families and firefighters doing firefighter physicals and police officers sometimes and air traffic controllers and I got to go around and make sure that the maintenance shops where they paint them airplanes and cleaning the airplanes and do things with airplanes making sure everyone's healthy in those places there's a really cool job I really liked it that was 2010 I started doing that in 2012 having gone through the process understanding that there was a lot of negativity in this world as a pre-med with lots of misinformation telling you that you can't get into medical school if you have a C or B minus or B or to B's or not to B's yeah I started my website medical school HQ net and started my podcasts in 2012 and then in 2014 had some health issues decided to get out of the military and I've been doing this full-time now since 2015 writing books doing podcasts talking to students helping students as much as possible overcome their doubts overcome their fears overcome their obstacles and really show them that if this is what they want that you can do it so with that let's talk about the the general process of a premed a bunch of you raised your hand applying next year more a couple years out the process is typically looked at from students as a giant checklist how many people think it's just a checklist you check off all the boxes and you'll be good you'll get into Medical School there's some hands alright in other hands that are like yeah I'm too scared to raise my hand but it's there so it may seem that way right it may seem like there are all of these things that you have to do to get into Medical School and if you do them right if you get some clinical experience if you get good grades if you get do well on the MCAT you shadow you volunteer right you you check off all those boxes then you're good to go and unfortunately when a student applies if you apply with your application that looks like a giant checklist that you just went down the list and said oh yep I did this I did this I did this I did this without any real meaning behind why you were doing it except the fact that you thought you had to do it those students don't get into medical school typically because there's so many applications to medical schools the medical schools are looking for the passion behind why you are doing things and so I highly encourage you right this minute to stop looking at this process as what do I have to do what should I do to stand out to the admissions committee what will help my application rise to the top I can guarantee you that short of curing cancer the thing that you think is unique and will help you stand out has been done a thousand times before and that may make you upset it may make you sad and mommy told you you were special and so how dare Ryan say this but trust me nothing you are going to do is going to stand out so much that medical schools are to freak out and say holy crap I want this students look at what they did and so if you understand that then what should happen in your mind is that you are more at ease because now you're not walking around thinking what do I have to do what do I have to do what do I have to do you're now thinking what do I want to do and it's your choice now if you love soccer and you want to be a soccer coach go be a soccer coach enjoy that what is being a soccer coach teach you Oh teaches you leadership skills communication skills organizational skills guess what you need to be as a doctor leadership skills communication skills organizational skills go follow your passions through this process and don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't do something because it's not related to medicine this whole process needs students that are coming from different backgrounds coming from different passions coming from different experiences right you can't you can't have an orchestra only full of people who play the flute you need people who play every instrument to create an orchestra to have that beautiful sound and so as you go through this process don't ask anyone what should I do what will help me in my application continue to look at your life look at your experiences what are you passionate about what brings you joy because at the end of the day it's the joy that continues to get knocked down over and over and over again with tests classes professors classmates MCAT MCAT MCAT applications right it's a hard process and you're just getting started right you look up at that that I love the the little owe me more the image of a little hiker going up the hill going okay I made it and then the next the next little box of the cartoon it's it's like no best just one top the hill keeps going up you're like darn Medical School socks but it's amazing medical school is really really hard but it's awesome how many people are questioning whether or not you're smart enough for medical school yeah welcome to the club but guess what I guarantee you that you're all smart enough you don't have to be smart to do well in medical school you just have to work really really really hard there's nothing magical about learning medicine it's just a lot of information so get that doubt out of your head cuz I guarantee you you're smart enough so there's this little thing called the medical school application and in your application the whole goal of that application is to tell your story you have a personal statement all right fifty three hundred characters to tell your story and then you have your extracurriculars your activities section talking about everything that you've done from pre-med clubs to not curing cancer to to volunteering at the soup kitchen to shadowing doctors and working in the emergency department stocking the shelves and then you have your secondary applications when schools get your primary application they send you more essays more work more writing and you tell your story even more I've seen students I've talked to students with five 20s on the MCAT do people know the MCAT score range so 472 is the lowest 528 the highest so 520 is like 96 97 percentile roughly really really good 3.9 GPA is really really good zero interviews because it's more than your stats herstory didn't line up I looked at her application I had no idea why she wanted to be a doctor she had no idea why she wanted to be a doctor she didn't do any shadowing didn't have any clinical experience how many people think shadowing and clinical experience is for the medical schools I was a leading question shadowing clinical experience right going back to the the check boxes those are for you to prove to yourself that this is what you want how many people grew up taking care of like a ill family member yeah kind of cool right to be there for a loved one taking care of someone else's ill family member kind of sucks right it's their family yelling at you now instead of your family yelling at you now you can tolerate one more than another there smells are a little bit different than your family and so taking care of your own grandma Gertrude much different than someone else's and so you need to go out you need a shadow you need to get clinical experience to prove to yourself that this is what you want who wants to get $250,000 in debt going through Medical School only to come out on the other side going holy crap I don't like this that would suck a lot so you go through this journey getting these experiences proving to yourself and then when it comes to the application cycle then you write about it and you tell your story now I'm not saying you can get into medical school with a terrible GPA and a terrible catskil right you have to have some baseline level of scores I'm not I'm not telling you to to go back to your school and said dr. gray said my grades don't matter right I shouldn't have another me my like it's always on Fridays I come out the student throwing all the papers up in the air it's Friday next why just kidding I'm a pre-med I have taken about I still gotta study how many of you are worried that being a doctor is too stressful so the constant worry of other people's well-being is in your hands right oh my god if I screw up they're gonna die that sucks that doesn't go away right there's there's this this thought this imposter syndrome right like I shouldn't be here I'm not good enough to be here that doesn't go away either sorry but you get you do better dealing with it because you know you should be there right the first time you get an email and your Inbox going congratulations we want to invite you for an interview you go woohoo I get any of you wait is that for me but then you get that interview invite and you're there and you show up on interview day you're and you look at everyone else going oh my god they look so much smarter than I do they're dressed so much nicer I shouldn't be here I don't think I should be here and then you show up your first day of medical school and you're like oh my god all of these people are brilliant I shouldn't be here then you show up your first day of internship oh my god I I'm not smart enough to take care of patients I'm gonna kill them all it never ends but it's an amazing career you have so much impact on people's lives so I acknowledge you all for being here wanting to go down this path even knowing right knowing that there's a lot of physician burnout knowing that it's hard knowing that every step of the way you're questioning yourself you're doubting yourself it's so much easier to go to your plan B and I encourage you not to have a plan B because with that pant with that plan B hanging out there you are more distracted not going to your plan a and so you're only proving to yourself by having a plan B that you can't get your plan a so all of your Plan B's should be continuing to support plan a obviously everyone's life situation is different you have to feed a family you have to put a roof over your head you have to pay your bills whatever it is do that all in support of planning so family life how did I manage family life and medicine and residency so luckily I didn't have a family during that time so I met my wife we we met she stalked me like the first couple weeks of medical school and we started dating first year medical school and we got married during our internship year and we purposefully decided not to have a family until after she was done with residency but there's no right or wrong that was our decision I have students I talked to and worked with a lot of non-traditional students who have families going into medical school and how do you handle that with lots of planning and lots of support and lots of communication so communicating with your partner communicating with your family what do you need what support do you need so it's it's everything is possible it's just a matter of what you want to to deal with through the process all six in what way so explain that yeah and then you put that on your activity list and you apply and the person goes oh my god how could you support that person right so that's your concern yeah so ideally personal bias remains out of the process in reality we're all humans right and statistically speaking if I mention our presidents name fifty percent of you will cringe and fifty percent of you will cheer right and that's just the way it is and so as you go through this process there's a little bit of luck involved with who's reading your application whether or not their own personal biases will come into play the best thing that you can do when you go through this process is have empathy when you're interviewing specifically that comes up right so let's say that you have an interview question what are your thoughts on abortion and your your answer is I believe that life begins at conception anyone who has an abortion should rot in hell right is that empathetic no not at all and so that's not a good answer right I I hate to say there are good answers and bad answers but that's not a good answer a good answer would be well I am pro-life I believe life begins at conception I can understand that there are women out there who will want an abortion because of X Y Z and that's their right to do so and I will support them in that right there's your stance there's your empathy for the other side and so if you're talking about supporting a campaign where maybe someone's far left far right wherever they are and it comes off more like person is the best and everyone who disagrees with him or her is terrible then that's wrong now right do you get health care you should understand how it works our health care system sucks we're the best USA number one no we have a lot of amazing innovation we have a lot of amazing technology we have amazing physicians our our medical schools are amazing our health care system not so not so great learn about it now so I recommend a podcast by my friends another podcast I'm a podcast addict if you haven't noticed by now so my friends Jenn briny she does the Congressional dish podcast she's has had a bunch of amazing podcasts about the Affordable Care Act about the American Health Care Act which is the program that the current administration tried to implement so I would go get smart about it now congressional dish there's a book called the health care handbook that I would recommend it gives you a lot of great information I think you need to understand what our health care system is why do we have it why do we have an employer-based health care system right you have to have a job to get health care for the most part why do we have that why did that start what do other countries have right what what does Canada's universal health care look like compared to to Great Britain right UK what does that look like how are they different how are they the same why don't we have that here yeah so for md/phd the the biggest misconception around md/phd is that you have to have an md/phd to do research and that's 100% false one of my best friends from medical school dr. maureen leonard she runs the celiac clinic at MGH Harvard write Mass General man's greatest hospital she's quote just an MD and she does research like four four and a half days a week doing clinical research bench research a little bit everything so you don't have to have the PhD to do research if that's what you want an MD PhD is someone who kind of knows what they want right it has this kind of idea what they want to study and have an interest in carrying some form of cancer or something right and you know that your career you want to be mostly bench research with a small little dabble of patients and so for those students it's all the same right you still need to be a doctor so you still need to know what it's like to take care of patients and want to impact their lives but you're also getting a ton of research the applications just a little bit different there's a whole MD ph.d essay ten thousand character essay where you talk about your research and what it is you're passionate about research wise the interview day is a little bit different it's a two-day interview typically instead of one day one day doing the research interviews and one day doing the MD interviews or do interviews there's a there's do PhDs as well but really it's it's just a matter of envisioning your life if you're like I want research that's what drives me great we need we need researchers but just to understand that you can be a huge researcher with quote just an MD or a do the balance between clinical experience shadowing volunteering if you have a lot more of one and out of another I think they're all important shadowing I think at some point starts to get a little boring how many of you have a lot of shadowing hours it gets boring after a while right for like real shadowing you're just standing there alright okay I've heard this same conversation over and over again so at some point like shadowing is just it's useless after a while right yeah I know what a doctor's life is like I I know I want this I'm bored out of my mind I recommend consistency in everything and so at some point as you go through this journey don't go okay I got a hundred hours of shadowing I'm done I don't need any more I can go focus on the next thing alright that's it that's a checkbox okay so consistency would be hey let's maintain like five hours a month right instead of five hours a week or ten hours a week whatever it is they get five hours a month so you're consistent with it I recommend probably more clinical experience which is great which is what you have but have that shadowing as well so app expenses comm app expenses comm is a website it's my website it's a it's an application calculator and it's got a little slider you you estimate how many MD schools you're gonna apply to how many do schools how many Texas schools where you live like where where what Airport you're gonna fly out of and then it'll estimate kind of how expensive applications costs unfortunately the medical school application process is expensive very expensive and it limits students from disadvantaged backgrounds I highly encourage you to look into and apply for the fee assistance program as soon as you are thinking of applying the fee assistance program from the double-a MC is good for two years it helps with the MCAT and it helps with your application costs so I would highly encourage you to look into it it's a long process questions about f AP no alright has just going up quick but use the calculator and and write just normal budgeting bank okay I have a year this is my estimated cost so I'm gonna save X number of dollars every month until then a lot of students sign up for 0% interest credit cards around that time and that's like a little 18-month usually the 18 month kind of free money for a little bit postback before medical school what are my thoughts how many people know what a postback is how many people don't know what a postback is so post back so as as you're in undergrad right this is your baccalaureate degree a post back is after your baccalaureate degree it's post baccalaureate so there are a few different ways to do a post back you can do what's called to do it yourself where you just continue here at UC Davis and say hey UC Davis I know I graduated but I love you so much I want to keep taking classes can you take my money there are formal post bacc programs where you apply for a post bacc program UC Davis has won lots of lots of schools have them they're becoming more and more popular post bacc programs again going back to like do you want to do it do you think you should do it a lot of students are like they think that post bacc programs are like the norm like this is what I have to do to get into Medical School know right if you have a 3.9 GPA you don't need a postback program if you have a 3.7 GPA you don't need a postback program if your grades don't adequately tell the story that you are going to be successful in medical school then you may need a postback program and so it's not should you do one to look good to medical schools it should you do one because you have to show that you can handle the curriculum that's that's the decision for a postback program some students are like I'm going to apply even though I know I'm not going to get in I'm gonna apply on the last day I'm gonna apply with my terrible grades because medical schools want sorry applicants how many of you have heard that like medical schools want to see you reapply in a few of you that's a terrible idea hey let me go spend $3,000 to submit my application just so when I apply for real I'm a reapplication and they're gonna like that they're gonna look at my determination my resiliency tell everyone tell everyone rights human nature we want to help right we want to help unfortunately being a physician means you're busy and being a physician means maybe they don't answer your email the first time or second time or third time but until you get a no it doesn't mean anything just means keep bothering them so I'm working on a website unfortunately it's not ready yet you can check it out it's called fine shadowing calm because I know shadowing is really hard for students to find to put yourself out there to call physicians to call offices to find shadowing and so I have a team working on building this website and and building a database of physicians that are that are putting their hands up and saying yes I'll allow students to shadow me so just keep checking that out retaking the MCAT so it's just like reapplying right oh if I retake them guys it's gonna show how determined I am so I'm just gonna walk in and take it I'm prepared i I would highly encourage all of you not to retake the MCAT the MCAT sucks it's a terrible test understand that the school that you go to has no bearing on whether or not you're going to be a great physician it's your work your effort your ability to go out and to communicate with others and network that is going to build your career as a physician so don't pick schools based on their reputation pick schools based on their ability to make you great okay find a good fit for you not because you want their name on your diploma

Channel: Medical School HQ

Views: 130,408

Rating: 4.9460697 out of 5

Keywords: how to get into medical school, medical school, med school, premed, premed advice, uc davis pre med, uc davis pre health conference, ted talk premed, premed speech, premed motivation, dr. ryan gray, meded media, medicalschoolhq, medical school headquarters, the premed years, smart enough to be a doctor, premed what to do, premed path, premed tips, how to become a doctor, how to become a physician, how to get accepted to medical school, mcat, gpa, premed students

Id: U4K5YXpgykE

Length: 33min 31sec (2011 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 19 2019