Dec
6
More Medical School Admission Advice: Addressing the Diversity Puzzle (Real Questions from Real Readers)
December 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(Once again I dig deep into the archives to answer questions about the medical school admissions process-PB) Dear Panda, In order to take advantage of affirmative action, I lied about my race. Good move or not? Sincerely, Plain Vanilla Pre-med (Eating a Baloney Sandwich, on White Bread, With Mayonaise, somewhere in Minnesota) Dear Vanilla, I [...]
Nov
30
Navigating the Medical School Admission Obstacle Course. (Real Questions from Real Readers)
November 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(I have received quite a few emails over the past two years asking for advice as well as anwering a lot of questions about the medical school admission process on The Student Doctor Network. I thought I’d publish some of them along with my replies. -PB) Dear Panda, I said I spoke Spanish on my [...]
Apr
16
Don’t Tell the Spartans
April 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(Many of you are about to start third year and are looking forward to it with feelings of both anticipation and dread. You know that it’s going to be the real start of your medical career where you finally get to see what all the fuss is about. At the same time, despite the propaganda, [...]
Jan
25
Clinical Evaluations
January 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Actual Evaluation by My Residents and Attendings (Just for old time’s sake I reviewed my Dean’s letter. Man, those were the days! -PB) OB/Gyn: Student is on time and does everything asked of him willingly and with good humor but seemed uninterested in assisting in any more vaginal deliveries than were required to pass the [...]
Dec
12
Barking Mad
December 12, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Psychiatric Ward Inpatient psychiatry wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. The people locked up on the tenth floor of our hospital were just a little too crazy to really be interesting. A little insanity, like a little spice, adds flavor to a patient’s personality. Too much of it and it overpowers everything. [...]
Nov
20
Hell on Earth
November 20, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Problem Based Learning Lecture is a pleasant, drowsy picnic where you nod in and out of sleep while listening to the far-away drone of bees and the faint ringing of goat-bells as the local peasant girls herd them to the high alpine pastures. Problem Based Learning is like being sodomized in prison by a big [...]
Nov
18
No Solution
November 18, 2006 | Leave a Comment
It Sucks to be You My post on my first day of third year seems to have struck a nerve and a few of you have asked some variation of the question, “What can we do to end the abuses which are so much a part of medical training?” The short answer is, “nothing.” As [...]
Sep
29
How Do You Like It So Far?
September 29, 2006 | Leave a Comment
It’s Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better Many of you have just started medical school and I want to congratulate you and remind you that no matter how bleak it looks during the first few months of first year, the time will pass and one day you will look back and wonder where [...]
Apr
26
Welcome Aboard
April 26, 2006 | Leave a Comment
What to Expect Now that You’re Accepted One of the greatest days of my life was when I was accepted to medical school. It ranks up there with my marriage to my lovely wife, the birth of our children, the day I graduated Marine Corps boot camp and the day I was honorably discharged. I’m [...]
Feb
26
Things You May or May Not Need: Part 2
February 26, 2006 | Leave a Comment
The Two Week Rule Eventually you will fill all of the pockets of your white coat with various pocket reference books, tools, and pens the wieght of which will suprise you. These things will accumulate on you like barnacles on a whale and you will be reluctant to scrape them off against the possibility that [...]