Worst Premed Advice You Fell For | 4 Big Mistakes

anytime you have a large group of people working tirelessly towards a goal you're bound to get some interesting suggestions on how to achieve set goal in weight loss there's silly cleanses radical diets and vibrating corsets with investing and wealth building there's too many get rich quick schemes to count and in becoming a doctor we have these four terrible pieces of pre-med advice dr jubal med schoolinsiders.com because medical school admissions is highly competitive there are some number of gunners out there who purposely sabotage their peers in hopes that by bringing down others it will elevate themselves this behavior is pathetic you'll have trouble sleeping at night and you'll forever become a scumbag steve so don't do it but gunners aren't the cause of these pre-med myths and misplace advice instead this is a phenomenon of the blind leading the blind in pre-med forums it's primarily other pre-meds who are reading posting and sometimes even impersonating those with more experience as a result it becomes an echo chamber of pre-meds repeating advice they've heard from other pre-meds these are four pieces of misplaced advice or overlooked factors amongst pre-meds the first mistake pre-meds and their advisors make is overlooking the cold hard facts and data in choosing what to believe many people resort to the confirmation bias first choosing their belief and then seeking out data and anecdotes to support said belief the problem here is that the data is generally very straightforward in medical school admissions but those with strong confirmation bias will downplay the facts and focus on rare anecdotes to prove their point one fact that doesn't get enough recognition is that if you're of south or east asian descent on average you'll need substantially higher mcat and gpa than any other population including caucasians to gain admission to medical school that's not my opinion those are facts based on multiple years of official data released by the double amc another data set that's skewed is the conversation about attending osteopathic versus allopathic medical school a pre-med advisor told me that in helping pre-meds decide whether to pursue md or do routes they would ask the student what type of physician they wanted to be oh you want to be a plastic surgeon great let's go to this do finder website and see if there are any do plastic surgeons upon finding a handful of do plastic surgeons they would use that as supposed proof that the do route is a viable path to pursue plastic surgery this is a textbook example of survivorship bias the year i matched into plastic surgery there was only one do student in the entire country who mashed into the field it was so noteworthy that everyone heard about it that means less than a fraction of a percent of medical students who successfully matched into plastics were osteopathic and over 99 were allopathic to suggest to an aspiring plastic surgeon pre-med that md and do are equal would be incredibly damaging to the odds of them being able to successfully pursue that field it's fantastic that your sister's cousin's dog's therapist went d.o and mashed into rocket surgery but the fact remains it's far more challenging to successfully match into the most competitive specialties if you go the d.o route the md vs do discussion brings us to the second point which is choosing political correctness over truth in the modern era being offended is a form of virtue signaling where you can flex on unwoke heathens and claim victory with your moral superiority when you share the cold hard facts about md versus do medical school admissions or residency matching some number of people will choose to be offended it's not because the facts are actually offensive but because people have their own stories or insecurities that are triggered by such facts if i told you that on average men are taller than women no one would bat an eye actually wait it's 20 21 so surely someone super woke would be offended by that but if i told you the average md matriculant has a higher mcat and gpa than the average do matriculant some number of people will be offended even if you followed up to emphasize that both mds and dos can make for equally great doctors to deny facts and dumb down the conversation moves us further from the truth and that's not a good thing we all have value hierarchies and what we value at the top will displace lower level values when you value political correctness and inclusion over truth you end up with dangerous situations like scope of practice creep we can all hold hands and sing kumbaya and say we're all equally qualified as healthcare providers in the name of inclusion or we can seek the truth the truth is that physicians meaning mds and do's receive more extensive training and clinical experience than any mid-level provider while med levels are highly valued members of the healthcare team it's dangerous when they claim they are just as qualified as physicians and should be able to practice independently you can both acknowledge differences in training level and still value and respect the various professions this is a matter of patient safety and if you or anyone you care about ever goes to the clinic or hospital for medical care this is something you should care deeply about don't fall for ego self-preservation traps either facts are facts and they aren't inherently good or bad it's our personal interpretation of facts that assign them meaning if you find yourself angry or upset by a fact examine what meaning you're assigning to it some nps commented on so you want to be a nurse practitioner and voice frustration that their experience as an rn makes up for the smaller fraction of time spent in np clinical training i don't agree first many np programs don't require any prior rn experience but second and more importantly the job of an rn is fundamentally different to that of a physician a flight attendant flying hundreds of flights doesn't necessarily make them more qualified as a pilot but they can still be incredibly valuable and amazing as flight attendants the only way for mid-levels to be equally qualified as physicians in clinical ability despite receiving a small fraction in clinical training hours is if medical school is far less efficient and medical students far less intelligent or capable or if these alternative training paths are far more efficient and their students far more intelligent or capable as i put on my millennial cap of wokeness i find myself deeply offended by such assumptions the third fatal mistake is not appreciating nuance simplification and approximations of reality are necessary tools for humans to comprehend the world a map by definition is a simplified representation of reality if it weren't it would have to be full scale and it wouldn't be a map it would be an exact indistinguishable mirror of reality to more readily understand complex systems we as humans must create simplified mental models while this is great for introducing oneself to a new topic or understanding complex systems it lacks the granularity in distinguishing these subtleties that matter for example because the mcat and gpa are the two most important and easily comparable objective measurements used in medical school admissions many over-emphasize their relative importance don't get me wrong the mcat and gpa are incredibly important as they are useful indicators to medical school admissions committees on whether or not you can handle the medical school curriculum rigor but they're not the end-all be-all i've seen several students that despite scoring in the 99th percentile on the mcat and having a near perfect gpa came to me for help as re-applicants that's right despite having near-perfect numbers they still didn't get into medical school i've also helped several students with seemingly prohibitively poor mcat and gpa gain admission to top tier programs while the numbers help they aren't everything data is useful but data does not account for all the nuances or factors that are not easily quantifiable in medical school admissions there are several factors beyond objective scores that you must consider namely the soft components of your application meaning your personal statement working activity section secondaries and interview overall you want the various elements of your application to tell a cohesive story and narrative as to why you want to attend medical school and become a physician this is why i constantly emphasize the importance of a cohesive narrative-based application the fourth and final mistake is not being selective with your inputs we often hear about how important the company we keep is or how we're the average of the five people we associate with most the same can be said about your inputs meaning the media and information you consume just think about how your life view and perspective change depending on which news sites or channels you frequent if you get all of your pre-med tips and advice from other pre-meds you'll have a different level of understanding compared to if you seek out experts who have gone through the process and served on medical school admissions committees but there are so many supposed experts out there who sometimes give conflicting advice how do you know who you can trust first look at their credentials for starters they need to at least have attended medical school and served on medical school admissions committees and when someone calls themselves a doctor don't just assume they attended medical school there are companies out there headed by phds or other non-physician doctors who never went to medical school and never served on admissions committees they proclaim their doctor-led however because they want to mislead you in thinking they attended medical school and know the ins and outs of the process second look at their track record both in the students they've worked with and their personal success simply getting into medical school does not make you a medical school admissions expert ensure they have a proven track record of repeatable success across hundreds of clients if they tried getting into orthopedic surgery but couldn't match and had to settle on something less competitive instead they probably aren't the best person to give you advice on how to excel in medical school crush your boards or secure dozens of publications to match into the most desirable residencies at med school insiders you'll work with the best in the industry we specialize in helping students craft effective narrative-based applications and secure acceptances to top medical school and residency programs that's because not only did we gain admission to top medical schools with full tuition scholarships and match into the most competitive residencies but we've also mentored thousands of other students in doing the same through our innovative and proprietary systems we've had an over 99 satisfaction rating across more than 3 500 customers learn more and elevate your application at medschoolinsiders.com thank you all so much for watching if you enjoyed this video check out my video on six medical school application deal breakers or give us a visit on medschoolinsiders.com much love and i'll see you guys there

Channel: Med School Insiders

Views: 62,719

Keywords: Pre-med, Premed, Med Student, Medical School, Med School, Medical Student, medical school application, med school application mistakes, how to get into medical school, med school dealbreakers, red flag application, med school matriculant data, med school admissions data, premed subreddit, sdn, what is a good mcat score, gpa for medical school, aamc data, md vs do, scope creep

Id: HctENsc72Sc

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021