We are on March Break now, and taking a very much deserved break. We took the time to make this video with our friend, Andrew Chin.
Enjoy!
March Break
Categories: Fun
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Feeling burned out? I used to be too.
Categories: Personal Development
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Disclaimer: This is a humorous semi-humorous post. Please don’t use this post to judge my understanding of healthiness. I concur that I inappropriately make some unhealthy behaviours seem healthy.
Two years ago, at one of my medical school interviews, I was asked, “How do you plan on dealing with burnout in medical school?” I remember mumbling something along the lines of ‘oh, I’m going to make sure to do stuff outside of school and balance my time’. The interviewers nodded their heads and I realized that the answer was good enough. It was sort of ironic that I got asked that question because around the time, I was the most burned out I had ever been in my life.
As we approach burnout period (late winter/early spring of the year), I thought I’d write a post with regards to this topic. Burning out is something every student hears about, but few act on. I know I always brushed it off, thinking that it wouldn’t happen to me or I’d deal with it easily. You know, it’s sort of like eating healthy, sleeping enough, exercising more often, …blah blah. I don’t really do all those things, yet I haven’t had a heart attack. But no, seriously, burnouts are something very important. See the end of this post for a P.S. about my burnout two years ago.
What is ‘burning out’ exactly?
A List of Med Student Awesome
Categories: Fun
Recently, I found myself waiting for someone at Mount Sinai Hospital. To my joy, there was a Chapters bookstore on the main floor (a bookstore in a hospital! How awesome is that?) So there I was, in all my frazzled med student glory, with my coat and backpack on, wearing sweatpants and Uggs, as I picked up the closest book to me and started reading it.
I happened to pick up The Book of Awesome. It was truly the most awesome book. It’s essentially a laundry list of all these priceless life pleasures that make you smile and feel great. Examples? Walking into a bakery and deeply inhaling warm bakery air, finding unexpected money in your pocket, and actually fixing electronics by smacking them. Even though I was standing there with my coat and a 20 lb backpack on, with 3 hours of sleep the night before, I just couldn’t stop myself from chuckling out loud. After all, you have to get a dose of happiness once in a while.
Inspired, I decided to put together a list of 5 little life pleasures that make me, as a medical student, smile. So here it is! Enjoy!
1. A Skipped Lecture on the Exam
This one is where you get to finally beat the system- instead of the system beating you. This is the story of that one 1-hr lecture you skipped, with the intention of relistening to it and studying it later.
Continue Reading →
How To Get That A+ In Every Course
Categories: Academics
Shelly here. Hello medhopeful readers…! First of all, I apologize for not posting at all this summer. To make up for it, I promise to post regularly, starting now.
School has started up again, and seeing the first year medical students in our building definitely makes me feel like an old school veteran. Next year will be the start of clerkship for me and I am very excited to be out of the classroom. As this will be my last year in full-time classroom and lecture (hurray), I wanted to summarize a few lessons I’ve learnt through my many years of class, from high school to university to medical school. In this post, I will share with you a mish-mash of all the things that, I think, helped me get the 90+ (A+) in my courses. Hopefully everyone will gain at least something from reading this post and be able to use any of my strategies/tips to improve their grades, if that is what they wish to do.
First off, you might ask: in which courses did I get the A+, or more importantly, which ones did I fail to do so? The simple answer is that I was able to pull off the 90 throughout high school till now, with a few important exceptions such as grade 9 gym and art (I like to blame it on the facts that I’m short and artistically challenged, respectively, haha), three courses in the second term of third year (I think I was too busy with medical school interviews and burnt out from school), and more recently, a couple of tests in first year medical school (the material was too much for me to handle and I have to admit that didn’t allocate my time properly).
Time, time, time
Examples of Marked MCAT Essays
Categories: MCAT
In case you weren’t familiar with the MCAT Writing Sample, here’s a quick rundown. You are required to write two essays, with 30 minutes each, and you are given a score from 1 – 6 on each. The possible total score of the two combined then makes 2 – 12, which is converted to a letter. 12 = T, 11 = S, … and so on. What is a solid score? I would say that a “R” or higher (total score of 10) is solid and competitive.
That being said, here are some examples of writing sample essays that were scored by my MCAT prep course instructor. Essays with scores of 3 – 6 are included. I hope that it’s a good resource, allowing you to gauge what level of writing is required for a good score. Comments (in italics) from my instructor are also included.
A 3/6 – Bare Pass
We’re on Twitter!!
Categories: Life
How to study for the MCAT (and do well) – Part 1
Categories: MCAT
On the first class of my MCAT prep course, the course instructor wrote on the board:
“The MCAT exists to _________ me.”
He then asked us to fill in the blank. There was silence at first, and then one student bravely said “to screw me”. Funny chaos ensued for a few minutes as others piped in “to kill me”, “to ruin me”, and so forth.
The instructor stopped our laughter by shouting “Wrong!”, and then said, “The MCAT exists to help you.” He explained that since it was May, we only had one summer before med school applications were due. Extracurricular activities and good reference letters often require long-term commitments, so there’s not much you can do in these last few months. The school year is over, so is any chance of changing your GPA. The only thing left that you can use to improve your application at this point is the MCAT.
This post is the first of two personal heart-to-hearts on how to prepare for the MCAT. I admit that the downfall of this article is the fact that it is derived from the experience of a sample size of just one. I managed a 37R with this advice though, so I hope it helps!
Psyching yourself
May to May – a year in the pursuit of happiness
Categories: Life, Med Admissions
Sometimes people ask me what my goals are in life, to which I answer, “To be happy.” I know it’s a cheap answer because it lets me avoid saying anything concrete and specific. The real truth is that I don’t know exactly what I want in life. I know I want to be happy, and I do have some ideas about what can get me there.
That being said, getting into medical school (May 15 2009) was possibly one of the happiest days of my life. I still remember the morning, almost one year ago, where heart pounding, I clicked on an email with a subject title of “University of Toronto – Co…”
May 7 2010
One year later, last Friday night, I was studying with one of my best buddies from class and we often study together on campus. Since the undergrad students were off school, no campus libraries were open past 6 pm on Fridays.
Unphased, we decide to set up shop at the Medical Sciences Building cafeteria for the night. To say the least, it turned out to be a funny but sad situation. Here were two burned out students, with huge coffees and highlighters sprawled over the table, studying a thick pile of neurology notes. To top it off, there was no one else there, save for occasional loud partygoers who walked through the building (and gave us stares) and the janitor who noisily cleaned around our feet. The thunderstorm flashed at us every so often, and, of course, we both had headaches. I chuckled every time that he sighed and said “This is so sad.”
The question now is – how did I get from extreme happiness one year ago to this?
Winning the lottery
First post and first impressions
Categories: Personal Development
Hello World! Since this is my first ever post, I figured that I’ll keep it light, telling you guys a bit more about myself (stuff that wasn’t already covered in About), along with a tangent, and some of my plans with MedHopeful.
Being ‘serious’
Josh and I recently had a discussion about first impressions, and as the topic shifted to our first impressions of each other – we first met at O-Week – he told me that his first impression of me was “serious”. I responded with a “what?!”, but to be fair, I had already known that I had given off that vibe.
On the first day of O-Week, we had a welcome talk delivered by the Associate Dean, where he said something along the lines of: “It’s traditional for the Associate Dean to present statistics about the entering class…This year, we have one 19-year-old student…” A small buzz in the auditorium arose, and I simply shrunk in my seat, thinking to myself, “No one will know it’s me.”
I had gone through the whole medical school application process without disclosing my age, and had no intention of doing so in medical school either. In undergrad, I realized that letting people know that you are younger than your peers is a double-edged sword. On one edge, you felt ahead of the game, but on the other, some will question your capabilities and maturity level.
It turns out that a good friend from high school, who was also in my class, had literally squealed in excitement, saying, “Oh! Oh! I know who it is!” By the end of the day, my cover was blown, and I spent the rest of week overcompensating by pretending to be an overly mature and incredibly serious person, before I couldn’t keep it up anymore.