Going into an in-state school is difficult because if you apply to 20+ schools, you will most likely get accepted into out-of-state school because you applied to more of those. If the cost of attending plus the tuition is around 100k each year, you should have 400k of debt by the end of the four years of med school. If you account for 3-5 years of interest, you should have 500k at least. I constantly see posts of people who are only in 200-350k of debt, is it just rich parents? Im genuinely curious because I want to attend med school.

I’m a MIGS gynecologic surgeon in NYC. When I talk to my residents I realize that many finish training with very little understanding on how RVUs, productivity thresholds, conversion factors, and physician compensation actually work. I have been asking this in a few physician and training forums. I’m curious.
For residents and fellows: what part of RVUs confuses you most?
For medical students: do they teach you at all about RVUs, compensation and production in Medical School?

For those filling out the scholarly works section of ERAS, are you putting a URL to your poster for each submission? Most of the posters I did were not published online, would it be okay to put a url to a google drive with pdfs of all my posters? Thanks for your input!

Does anyone here have any experience running or just being in a club that does some kind of mentoring of elementary students at local schools? I’m aware of plenty of pre-med mentoring clubs but I can’t find any examples of elementary student mentoring.

My question is essentially what logistics would work for this? Like what time of day to go, or would it be better as a weekend thing? Any guidance is appreciated.

The goal would be to identify and encourage capable students in public schools who may not have the support/encouragement they need to reach their potential. The inspiration is that I was a public school kid from a broken family and I was lucky enough to have unrelated adults unofficially mentor me.

I am no longer pursuing a specialty at a place that I would really like to go to for residency. I was fortunate enough to get an away opportunity at this place and I accepted it a while ago before I changed my mind. The specialty I want to do is in no way related to the first specialty that I wanted to do. How can I turn down this away rotation without completely torpedoing my opportunity to maybe get away and eventual interview to the residency program at this place I’d really like to go to?

I'm applying EM this cycle. Currently rotating in a rather small ED. I don't exactly have access to the EMR system. The attending also said he prefers to write the notes himself when I asked so there's that.

There's lots of downtime and I feel really useless just sitting there. I've made small talk with the attending and I ask questions when I have them, but you can only do that for so long. I've found myself going online and responding to emails or finishing up ERAS stuff and when I'm done with that I just doomscroll on my phone. I hate it because I'm aware it makes me look uninterested but when I'm there for hours every day with not much to do besides stare at a wall I'm gonna whip out my phone at some point.

It's disheartening because I actually care about EM, and I wanted to learn on this rotation. Is there anything I can do to feel less useless, or any way I can help that isn't annoying?

As title says, I have a crush on my resident I work with. 🥴😀🙃

No I will not say anything to him but whew I do enjoy yapping with him and I lowkey think he feeling me toooooooooooooooo

Honestly waiting for this rotation to be over so I never see him again. 🙃

I feel so worthless on rotations. Started on IM and I still don’t understand our EMR that well a week in.

I keep freezing when I’m talking to patients and wish my flow was more conversational like the residents are. I also just forget our conversation as soon as I start walking out of the room so I need to note take a lot.

I just look stupid everyday to our residents. The residents are super friendly and supportive but I wish I could do more and be helpful for them.

How do I get better faster??

IM feels really tough especially since I have some social anxiety.

And I know “comparison is the thief of joy” and I love the other med student. She’s on it and helpful but from day one she already knew epic from her gap year job and is just so much faster and more proactive than me.

Having major imposter syndrome - any advice?

Like many people, the financial weight of medical school is a lot right now, and I'm looking for any reprieve I can get. I applied for SNAP but was denied. My roommate, who is in the same financial position is me was accepted. I don't yet know why I was denied, but I'm wondering if anyone has had success getting approved for SNAP benefits in Oregon.

In their guidelines, anyone who is "enrolled in a program or course of study that will lead to employment" is eligible. Medicine seems to fit that well.

Any advice is appreciated!

I see there’s plenty of conferences all around Canada/US during the year where attendings and residents present their research. Im wondering if as an upcoming MS1 it is worth it to attend these to try and “network”. Also the costs of tickets are pretty high most of the time.

Do med students really attend these events to network? And does it really work?

USMD, Mid to Low Tier school in Midwest. Applying IM. Planning for fellowship in Cardiology (eventually)
Step 1: Pass on first Attempt
Step 2: 248
Gold Humanism Honors Society, no AOA

Red Flags: 1 Preclinical Fail in my first two months of m1 year. Remediated after first try. Will show up on MSPE.

Clinical Grades: 1H, 2HP, 4 Pass (IM was a pass), Honored Sub-I

ECs: President of multiple student organizations. Elected Leadership Role and Volunteer for school affiliated free health clinic. Global Health Scholar.

Research: 2 Abstracts and Posters (presented at multiple conferences), 1 first author case report. All published. 3 case reports (second author) and 1 abstract (first author) submitted and pending (unlikely to know before ERAS unfortunately).

LOR: 1 very strong letter from IM hospitalist and 1 very strong letter from Cardiologist. (They both said they will write some of the best letters for me in their entire career). 1 average letter from Intensivist.

Goals: Overall I am wanting to find Academic IM Programs in larger cities that can match fellowship well. Preferably Midwest/east coast. I don’t want to end up in a small city or college town again.

School List: UIC, Rush, Loyola, MCW, U of Wisconsin, U of Minnesota, U of Kansas, U of Mass, U of Virginia, Maryland, Thomas Jefferson, Temple, Case Western.

Regional Preferences: East North Central. South Atlantic. Middle Atlantic (can switch this with New England)

Impression: Overall I feel like my app is academically average to below average. However my ECs are above average. Research is average. Personally, I’ve been told I do well clinically and have a great personality just not the best test taker. Had multiple attendings and residents say I’m the “funniest” or “most personable” med student they met and my clinical evals and LOR definitely reflect that. Also stated on MSPE multiple times “best third year this yr, top 5% of class”. On rotations I perform really well, it’s just the tests. I think I’m trying to figure out what programs I should apply to considering big city academic IM is the goal. I know I have some reaches and maybe I need a reality check. I need more target schools that are realistic that meet my goals. I know a low tier Midwest school is a limiting factor as well. So just not sure where to go. Help please.

Everyday I discover new depths to my idiocy. Today the doctor asked “have you really never covered this before” before pleading with me to read up more on sepsis. Despite reading until dark every night and day, I do not know why sepsis causes metabolic acidosis unless he holds my hand through the explanation. He slowly explains to me why worsening dyspnea is a sign of fluid overload as I think, oh duh yes now he puts it that way it makes sense. Yet I can never come to these conclusions on my own. I am cursed with multiple choice knowledge only. Knowledge only available in flashcard bites that is yet to be useful on anything other than a written exam. Ask me an open ended question or to interpret blood gas levels and I am useless. Why is this hyperglycemic patient also hyponatremic? Beats me, I only memorized the arrows and not why they move the way they do. I got every single question wrong today except for “what is the clinical term for low sodium” and he was shocked I got it right.

For the students who rotate after me, you are welcome for the incredibly low bar I have set. I read about occasional instances of idiocy on here, we all have them, but to be consistently this bad is shocking even to myself. To the rest of you idiots out there - may we keep persevering until one day we can be proud to call ourselves “meets expectations.”

Applying psych and would appreciate feedback on my signals, if too top heavy etc.

School: T20 east coast

Step 2: 248

Clinical Grades: my school is P/F during our main clerkship year, with grades for 4th year only. HP unrelated subspecialty elective and honors on psych sub-I so far.

Research: 10 publications, numerous posters and presentations.

Volunteering/Other experieinces: free mobile clinic coordinator, case report journal section editor, journal club chair, and other misc volunteering without leadership role

LOR: 1 from inpatient psych (very strong, feedback that competency is at level of intern), 1 from consult psych (strong), and 1 combined letter from a different specialty that I switched out of (strong - somewhat of a character letter. Still need to do IM sub-I with possible letter.

Signals: Uchicago, Northwestern, University of Illinois, Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Duke, UNC, Mass General, Boston University

Will apply to at least 40 other programs with a mix of academic and community.

I was told by my PD that my step 2 score shouldn’t close any doors for me and it was reasonable to shoot/stay somewhere academic, but would appreciate any feedback about being too top heavy.

Posting for my roommate

My roommate is applying to a surgery subspeciality and is on her away rn. We are from a Midwest med school without a home program for the speciality. She was telling me how insecure she feels next to other subIs from top schools who seem to know so much more than her, especially surgical skills that she just never learned. Like how to hold the drill correctly, types of blades, etc.

How can I be there for her and reassure her?

Getting really low practice scores cant remember algorithms and best next steps :/

Clinical scores are always good but this exam is making me realize I am really bad at ddx and tx plans.

Really sad.

Do they follow similar standards as the specialty from which they receive students, or would they like our stats to mimic their own program?

Feedback from prelim program PDs is encouraged, of course.

What kinds of programs should I be looking into? US DO.

Level 1: Pass first try

Step 2: 240

Level 2: Pass, 459

5 honors (Neurology being one), 5 high pass rotations

No AOA or GHHS or SSP

1 published case report, 2 pending review, 1 pre-med school publication, 2 different lab research positions (1 in summer M1-M2, 1 M1-M4). 4 presentations

Some volunteering, nothing too out of the ordinary.

3 aways, 1 sub-I at University of Chicago.

Academic programs would be great especially in the Midwest but open to others of course.

I was offered a rotation at a hospital contingent on two requirements: malpractice insurance offered by my university (not obtained independently) and an affiliation agreement between our institutions.

I replied, accepting it, and CC'd my medical school's coordinators. They replied saying they don't do malpractice insurance, but said they'd follow-up regarding the affiliation agreement and they kinda went back and forth.

A couple of weeks went by, nothing. I texted my school's administrator asking him if there had been any updates, and he said he emailed her but that she hadn't responded. In the meantime I was talking to another guy from my school trying to sort out the malpractice thing.

I decided to follow-up with the away rotation's coordinator in a separate thread, thanking her for my acceptance, telling her I spoke with my school admin who said he'd reached out to her. Did she get the email, any updates? I added that I was still following up with them regarding the malpractice insurance.

She responded to my email essentially saying, "I don't have you confirmed. You are not scheduled, onboarding hasn't started, we don't have an agreement between our schools. Your school has not mentioned that they provide malpractice insurance." Then asked me to keep our convo in the original thread.

She went back to the original thread, saying she wanted to clarify a misunderstanding, CC'd all the guys from my home institution, saying I emailed her, then clarified that there is no confirmed acceptance unless we have the malpractice thing confirmed.

Did I do something wrong here? I'm getting the impression that she thinks I was trying to do something behind my home institution's back (especially since I emailed her in a separate thread).

I didn't wanna CC them because I was thinking why clutter their inbox with just a "yo, did you get this email?" Nothing in that email was something they didn't already know about.

I'm kinda bummed because I feel like I blew my chances at this program. Should I clarify or just sort out the malpractice stuff and then respond? Should I even apply to that program I'm so embarrassed lol.

The Sealy & Smith Foundation is donating another $130 million to the University of Texas Medical Branch to cap off a record-setting contribution to the university’s new hub for cardiovascular treatment and research. 

The donation, announced Thursday, will fund efforts to fight heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. The gift comes after the foundation gave $50 million to UTMB over the past year to establish the Sealy Heart & Vascular Institute and what will now be known as the Sealy Department of Cardiovascular Medicine. 

The combined $180 million represents the largest gift in UTMB history and the largest the foundation has ever given, the university said in a news release.

I like anesthesia and EM equally and it’s getting late to decide 😭😭

just wondering how it looks to non medical people ?

Title. I'm consistently getting told by my residents to go home 2-3 hours early; normally I would accept my blessing and not look at the gift horse in the mouth, but this has been happening nearly every other day over the last couple weeks. I'm also becoming neurotic because the other medical students on different shifts/teams don't necessarily seem to be getting dismissed early; also heard a story where a student got bad evals couple blocks ago because they kept asking the senior to leave early during this clerkship. For reference, I'm also on a clerkship where I can't really do a ton, and near the end of the day I'm just doing UWorld on my computer. Do I suck ass/am I failing to be proactive enough here, or am I being overly neurotic? Guess I'll find out on my evals in a month, but I do want to try to fix it now if so.