MedHopeful @ Premed101HD: Why Don’t More Doctors Do House Calls?
Just wanted to quickly promote an article from HealthyDebate called: Why Don’t More Doctors Do House Calls?
In the middle of the article, it mentioned a survey:
…Akhtar’s sentiment is backed by a recent survey she sent to the family medicine residents at the University of Toronto about the perceived barriers to doing house calls in their future practices. In her survey, lack of experience and mentorship were among the most frequent responses…
I actually worked with Dr. Akhtar on a research study this past year, and the survey mentioned was one of the pieces of our project (I’m hoping to write the paper up for this soon). It’s nice to see our work highlighted, but it’s even more important that the oft-forgotten topic of physician house calls (which I believe is a necessary component for our health care system for certain patients) is being more and more brought into the discussion.
It’s a good article and I encourage everyone to check it out =)
P.S. I’m also happy to answer any questions people have about physician house calls if anyone was interested.
The Evolution of MedHopeful
It’s now been just over 3 years since I first started this blog. It’s amazing not only to see how much this blog has grown and evolved over the years, but also in reflecting, I’m fascinated by how much I have changed as well. I’ve written or thought things several years ago that I do not believe at all anymore. Most of these changes in thought are related to my views on medicine, health care and where I see my future in medicine. It’s funny to look back and see how much I have grown. Perhaps the funnier thing is that as I learn more and more, my views are only going to continue to shift. I wonder where they will settle?
The statistics for this blog suggest that it’s reaching quite a few people (we’re average about 400 unique visitors a day), but the cooler thing to me are the funny stories I hear. One of my friends from undergrad mentioned hearing someone talk about this blog at his McMaster MMI interview. Another undergrad friend of mine recently told me how she was at her UofT interview this year, asked one of the 2nd year med students if they knew me, and another applicant piped up saying “of course, everyone knows Josh!”. Apparently my friend had to explain that she actually knew me in real life. Haha. It’s crazy how access to the Internet has not only revolutionized access to information, but revolutionized the impact we can have on people miles away. If this blog has helped you in any way over the past 3 years, that’s awesome, and I’m really glad.
Now that the 3 year anniversary of MedHopeful has just passed, I thought it would be fun to look at how this blog as evolved. Before I get into these key moments and milestones in our short history, I want to thank you, the readers, for being a part of this experience and journey with us. I hope you continue to stick with us no matter if you are a “medhopeful” or not. It’s been a great ride, let’s keep the fantastic journey going!
The Beginning – July 2008
I started this blog just over 3 years ago because I just felt like I needed a place to write. I wrote random notes on Facebook when I figured I might as well have been blogging instead. I was planning to apply to medical school that fall, so I decided I might as well keep a bit of a journal for myself on my progress. I also had many ideas on undergrad admissions and scholarships that I believe worked for me, and I wanted to share them with other students. I really enjoy teaching, mentoring and sharing what I know. I didn’t really have a plan for this blog, I just said what the heck, let’s try this.
York University Strike – November 2008
10 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Medical School Application
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Applying to medical school is tough. Really tough. There are more qualified applicants than there are spots. The number of applicants is increasing every year (and subsequently, the number of qualified applicants) while the number of medical school spots isn’t keeping pace.
But if you want it bad enough, with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck, you will get there. No matter how good an applicant you think you are, there is always room to be better, and ways to increase your chances of getting that medical school acceptance.
Feel that you’ve done everything you can? Looking for the next thing you could work on? Then this article is for you. I present to you: 10 things you can do right here right now to make yourself a better applicant to medical school.
1. Study
Whether it’s for tomorrow’s exam, the MCAT, or for a quiz five days from now, studying a bit more can’t hurt – it can only help. The truth is GPA and MCAT are the two most important factors for getting your foot into the door of a medical school, so academic excellence should be at the top of your list of priorities.
Are you succeeding? If not, maybe you’re measuring success the wrong way
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Every action you undertake begins with three things:
- Motivation – Why are you doing this? What’s driving you? What’s the point?
- Goal – What do you hope to achieve? What does success look like?
- Action plan – How will you achieve your goal? What do you need to do?
Most of us understand this template and have learned it at some point or another. However, one key component of success that is commonly forgotten is measuring success.
Measuring success: how do we know we’re getting there?
2 Years Down, 2 Years to Go – A Long and Much Needed Update
It’s been almost a month since I last blogged. It must seem strange to some of you, since it’s true, I am on “summer vacation” right now. It’s even hard for me to believe that I’m almost three weeks into the start of the summer. It really doesn’t feel like it.
Blog Changes
I’m sure you have seen by now the changes at the top menu of the blog. I’ve decided to re-organize the blog with categories for the various posts. I hope this makes the blog more organized and easier for you guys to navigate. It’s a change we were planning for a while, but somehow tonight, I realized a simple way to do it in the span of less than half an hour.
What do you think? Like? Dislike? How could we make it better? Please, let us know!
P.S. I know I have quite a few emails and comments to respond to, I’m on it guys!
Reflection on Year 2 of Medical School
5 Tips for a Successful Elevator Pitch
This past Monday and this morning, I was at the 2011 Canada-Wide Science Fair encouraging this year’s participants to try out the brand new SMARTS website. (When I started SMARTS in 2004, it was a plain website with information on a couple of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) opportunities myself and a few peers has been to. Over the next several years, we became a part of Youth Science Canada and grew into a network of over 200 schools and student volunteers. This week, we launched SMARTS 2.0 – an online community to connect and support young Canadians interested in science)
We had a display booth in the science fair exhibit hall, and our goal was to provide demos to the science fair participants walking around and encourage them to join. While I didn’t start with a particular spiel, I had a well-refined elevator pitch about SMARTS by the end. For those of you unfamiliar, an elevator pitch is basically a very brief summary that you present to people to capture interest when you don’t have much time.
At some point or another, all of us need to be able to deliver an elevator pitch, or at the very least, be able to describe something in as few words as possible, but still be highly valuable in content. Maybe you are marketing a product to a potential customer. Perhaps you run into a legendary researcher in your field and you only have a few seconds to share your idea. Or maybe you are trying to convince people to donate to a cause you are fighting so hard for.
Based on my experiences, I’d like to share with you 5 thing I’ve learned about making a successful elevator pitch.
1. Introduce yourself – create a connection
Stanford Admissions Video – Medicine, Business, Education and Law
Thanks to Gagan, one of our readers, who suggested sharing the following video:
“February 8, 2011 – The deans of four Stanford graduate schools discussed the values of a liberal arts major and how that might impact a student who is interested in applying to professional school. They also talked about how their admission process searches for a diverse range of students with differing experiences.”
NOTE: The medical school part starts at 13:30
Enjoy, and thanks Gagan!
Speaking Engagements!
I really enjoy speaking. A lot. I’m bitten by the bug and I’d love to do more of it.
If you are a student, teacher, conference organizer or event planner interested in hearing me talk and share my experiences, about anything ranging from leadership to volunteerism to medical school, let me know! I’m happy to do anything from keynote talks to panel discussions.
I’ve created a Speaking page which has some more information on what I do, what I’ve done, and how to reach me if you’re interested.
I will also be actively developing presentations for new topics (and modifying old topics to make them better and more exciting) and applying for speaking opportunities beginning this summer. I’m looking forward to sharing new ideas, meeting new people, and improving my speaking skills!
Video: Science Expo 2011 Talk
On Saturday, May 11, I delivered a keynote talk at Science Expo: a conference aimed at encouraging youth to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) opportunities.
At first I had the talk recorded as a video, but I wasn’t happy with the quality of how it turned out, both in my speech and in the quality of the video. So I decided to record the talk on my own and show it here.
I hope to keep producing some more videos like this in the future, including both full length talks as well as short, random thoughts on my mind. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
Interested in hearing me speak?
I’d love to do more speaking and I’m open to sharing my experiences and doing talks on a variety of topics. If you’re interested in having my speak at a conference, workshop, school or anything of that nature, send me an email at medhopeful@gmail.com and let me know!
Why do we fail and how do we move forward from it?
On March 20, 2011 I challenged myself to make 30 posts in 30 days. Today is April 24, 2011, and I posted 11 times in that 30 day span. I failed in the challenge I set for myself. I apologized if I disappointed some of you who were looking forward to more frequent posting.
No matter how much we wish we could go back in time and change something, the reality is that the only we can do is make the best decision going forward. We all have mistakes, shortcomings, and failures, and we cannot change them. No one is immune to them. But we can only move forward. And we can learn from them. In today’s post I plan to dissect why we fail at the goals we set for ourselves and what we can learn from them using forward, using my recent challenge failure as an example.
Unrealistic goals
Above all, goals must be realistic. If your goals aren’t at all reasonable for you, then you’re running a race that you can’t win (sorry Usain Bolt, I’m never going to set a goal of running faster than you!). Of course, this does not mean goals must be something you are guaranteed to achieve. Being reasonable is different from being certain. It can certainly be reasonable for you to get into medical school, but there’s never a guarantee you will.
How do you know if it’s reasonable? Ask yourself – have there been people in my position that have achieved something like this before? If there has, then perhaps it’s reasonable. But even if no one has, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It might mean you just need to work harder than anyone has before. But if you need to work 1,000 times harder or grow 10 inches in height to achieve something that someone else like you can’t do, then you might need to rethink things.
Was 30 posts in 30 days unrealistic? It wasn’t impossible. But was it reasonable? Over the last 12 months, I have averaged 4.25 posts per month. I think expecting myself to increase my blogging productivity by 7 was a bit too much to expect of myself. A more realistic goal would probably be to double my average blogging frequency, so something like 8 posts/month or 2 posts/week.
Picking the right goal but the wrong plan