University/ MED Students I need your advice

Quote from Yunjinwhatever

I'm not sure how things work in us. But i can help you with the study material. I have completed my graduation in medicine (bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery) and currently pursuing residency in paediatrics. I prepared for USMLE as well but it was all too unaffordable for me to. As of now we here don't need any extra curricular activity specific for med school except for good score in biology in senior year

ps I'm an old user. some might recognise based on what i do.

I would really appreciate that!!

Right now it’s almost midnight, so if it’s okay w/ you, can I DM you in regards to this tomorrow?

Quote from YouChanDoThis

Neither did I once upon a time, but it’s very useful and a real lifesaver. Sounds great!

Also, I missed it earlier, but I do have some studying tips.

1) I’ve heard that the best way to learn something and learn it well is to teach it to someone else. Find another willing classmate and offer to teach each other a recap lesson based on what was learned. Feel free and make it fun too. Studies show that you remember stuff better if you make it fun.

2) Take breaks every once in a while. Burnout isn’t good. Studying is a marathon, not a sprint, so work hard, but don’t push yourself to your absolute limits either.

3) I can’t stress this enough: ALWAYS go to office hours or schedule them, even if you don’t think you need to. It’s extra practice from the teacher or TA’s for free, which will be helpful. They won’t judge you for it. If anything, it’ll show them how dedicated to learning you are and they’ll probably love it.

4) Motivate yourself. Tell yourself: “If I finish X, I can do this fun activity!” and then do it.

5) Form a study group or partner if you can.

6) Take practice tests if you get any.

7) Make to do lists or mark down due dates so you don’t turn in things late.

Always turn stuff in, even if it’s not the best. Anything is better than a 0%, even a 1%, so it’s best to turn it in on time but unfinished than late but complete (unless you get partial credit for late work, in which case, you’ll need to make that call on your own).

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Time to screenshot this as well, thank you!

Quote from Yunjinwhatever

sounds great. It's actually afternoon here and we have a BLS training session going on! I'm sneaking akp in between so it would be more suitable to do it later only!

Oh I see, I can dm you tomorrow, whenever you get the time you can reply to it. Once again, thank you!

Quote from tetetete

damn med school people have to do extracurriculars too

i thought everyone just studied 24/7 there

Yeah, imagine getting in but then realizing you still have to keep it up in order to get into residency program

Quote from mygsbeat

im not in either of those my system is closest to the one at the uk. we basically go into med school straight out of high-school. im 21 and in my fourth year so just a little over a year to go 😭🤲🏻

but i have an aunt who did medicine from johns hopkins and is now a practicing neurosurgeon and she has guided me quite a bit so i might be able to offer some helpful advice. first off it's great that you're already so driven from your first year at uni. most students just throw in random extracurriculars towards the end of their uni to get in and that shows badly on their application. i would suggest shadowing a doctor for a few weeks. write emails and send them out to any doctor you know or any that's in your area who would be willing to let you shadow them and give good letters of recommendation towards the end of your shadowing. also research work is extremely important!!! maybe you could ask around in your uni to see if there's a professor related to the medical field who has lots of publications to see if they would be your mentor and help you publish some work even before you've entered med school. its extremely hard getting published but you could try to get help in some other persons project and get your name up there in the credits. i literally cannot emphasize just how important research is 😭😭

as for my aunt, she was super hard working so she had a really really really high mcat score and she's not only shadowed doctors in the states but she also came to pakistan and did a summer internship at a hospital in peshawar which back then was heavily affected by the us-afghanistan war. her father also ran his own clinic so she would regularly work there as well, interacting with patients or just working at the register. i think this set her application different from others so she got in. the thing is that almost everyone you are competing with will have incredible scores and sometimes scores that are even better than yours so you really need to get into research work or some high-profile internship that will really make your application unique and set you apart.

once you're in medschool, you'll have to follow the same process of research work and electives to get into residency. also there's a lot of helpful videos on youtube of people sharing their experiences. if my words didn't help, im sure those would clear out a few things for you. good luck 💞

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Thank you, this was very informative!!

Definitely gonna come back to this over and over again, it made me think of certain activities that I could do too that could look unique on my application.

You guys are literally the best!

Quote from Noemi

I don't know if this helps but a friend of mine, who is currently at UofT med school started volunteering at sickkids in high school. They are usually looking for volunteers, and from there she was able to connect with doctors and nurses, who helped her get in contact with medical professionals at other hospitals too. It helped her get a summer job and eventually an internship. I don't know the full details of her thing because honestly complicated but since you are in Canada, I thought this might help.

Thank you, I think this is a sign that I should really start looking around then.

Though, I do wanna ask, how do you get internships at a hospital in Canada? Do you possibly know?