And to add to this fine post- which jives with my observation- yes, there are wrong answers to the question “why do you want to be a physician”. So any closeup, granular exposure to actual patients (not the glamourous new mom’s on TV med shows; not the adorable gap grinned children on the fundraising ads for pediatric cancer; not the energetic “young in spirit” elderly neighbor who rakes his own leaves and cleans out his own gutters) is going to help answer the question the right way (or any one of 50 right ways) and not the wrong ways.
Many HS kids have no clue what it looks like when a homeless diabetic takes off his socks. Or what it smells like when someone with a feeding tube is dying. Or the various fluids (and their technicolor hues) that emerge from someone who has had a stroke.
PLME admissions does not expect a HS kid to have taken anatomy, organic chemistry, etc. But they do expect a HS kid to have seen at least at some point-- and even in small measures-- the myriad ways in which the body goes south or falls apart.
Why any 17 year old wants to become anything is something I believe should be discussed with sensitivity.
To be fair, no one asks the legion of 17 year olds who are going to work in “finance” how that jives with their inner spirit or personal quest to grease the wheels of the world’s money supply. Yet many not only continue on with this path but also succeed in that pursuit.
Drilling down for definite answers about why a 17 year old is committed to be a future gastroenterologist will yield answers that are ill-informed, contrived and / or prone to radical re-thinking when the 17 year old is an 19 or 21 year old. And that radical re-rethinking would be absolutely appropriate. Who wouldn’t want a future doctor to re-evaluate their choice of actual career when faced with a much more real experience than any high school student could have had?
I agree many here that evidence of empathy, high EQ, science aptitude and not fainting at the sight of blood are good things to elicit. If all those other questions are “just in case you get a high pressure interviewer” type prep questions, again probably savvy to have something thoughtful to say. Questioning OP’s sincerity because they don’t have ready answers to the questions - in my mind that’s OOB.
Just so applicants know…some of these questions DO get asked if a student gets to the interview stage of the application process. So…any student who wants to become a doctor should be prepared to answer them.
PLME is a different animal. A kid can decide they want to major in finance, teach Spanish, become an oceanographer, or study sustainable architectural practices.
Kid figures out after freshman year- “no, not for me” and the kid finds another major. No harm, no foul, and the switching behaviors are built into the system at each college.
Kid gets accepted to an academic/vocational/apprenticeship program for a medical degree-- then the college is going to want something besides “I like helping people” as evidence that the kid isn’t going to decide after freshman year “I’d rather work for a hedge fund than treat stroke victims, thanks for the laughs this year, I’m out”.
I have no issue with a kid with limited patient exposure deciding they are “pre-med” (whatever that means- it’s an intention, not a major). Sometimes Organic chemistry does them in. Sometimes the kid falls in love with ethnomusicology and that’s the end of med school.
But a PLME program is a different animal. My roommate was in the program (which at the time, at Brown, was called “7 year Med”.) There was limited exploration of other subjects (there was some, but not a lot of flexibility). It was academically intense (so anyone who thought “hey, I’ll already be accepted to med school so I won’t have to work hard” would have their head handed to them by midterms). And the nature of the program and the scheduling made “normal” college EC’s tough (she was an athlete who dropped her sport-- there was no way to manage the travel schedule let alone the training requirements).
So I don’t think it’s off-base for the Adcom’s who evaluate these “direct to med school” applicants to need more than a cursory “yeah, I’ll make a great doctor” one liner. Kids in these programs don’t have the luxury of time to figure out “Do I really want to practice medicine- maybe I should get a master’s in public health and work on Medicaid reform?”
The goal of these programs- as small as they are- is to produce functioning physicians. Seats are limited. They like to give them to kids with the greatest likelihood of becoming functioning physicians…
And Applicants should also know that not knowing exactly why you will be a pediatric orthopedist and not an adolescent psychiatrist won’t be a deal breaker. Frankly, any applicant who is too dogmatic about this is just going to come across as a bit weird. It’s always the best look in interviews to know what you should know and not try to bluster past what you can’t know based on shadowing sessions or riding in an ambulance.
And if an interviewer asked why you can’t be just as fulfilled as a geriatric NP as a geriatrician MD, applicants should know they’ve run into someone who is into McKinsey-style high pressure interviewing or is on some kind of power trip as in most states the job responsibilities are identical.
Who is suggesting that a kid know the difference between interventional cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology? Nobody. That’s not the same thing as having NO practical experience.
Well actually many would say that EP is a subset of interventional cardiology unless you’re thinking of the EP guys only doing ablations and the interventional folks only doing stents.
The post I originally responded to listed questions including a description of what a day in the life of a “physician” is, and why OP wants to be a physician rather than other careers in healthcare. So someone is asking that. And OP told everyone up front that they have been involved with HOSA. That is not NO experience. For every reason you can imagine, there is minimal practical experience we let high schoolers get in medicine. Aside from basic resuscitation and triage similar to what lifeguards should be able to do, we let grown ups take care of the patients.
I think most 17 year old’s with even a modest amount of hospital/health care volunteering can make the distinction between becoming an occupational therapist, an RN, and a physician. I think you’re making this extremely complicated when it doesn’t need to be.
Kids who are serious about the PLME type programs usually have worked as EMT’s (not a physician), done various volunteer roles with vulnerable medical populations (again, not as physicians), or have experience shadowing physicians. It shouldn’t be a stretch to answer the question about what doctors do if you’ve done CPR on a heart attack victim while in the ambulance en route to the ER.
I’m just trying to be fair to OP. Volunteer advice not question sincerity.
CC is a crazy place sometimes. You have a kid who wants to be an engineer, wants to self study some math and there is a chorus of people who tell her that is detrimental and that they need to get broad and explore and that student “would not have been expected” to learn anything outside of their high school. Then you have a kid who wants to be a doctor and they did all that “explored art, music, art etc and then we question their sincerity because they didn’t get take the EMT course. Is that offered at their HS?
No one questioned OP’s sincerity, and no one has suggested OP not apply to PLME or other combined programs.
Clearly, OP also has a sense that they might not be competitive for these programs based on their post/title of their post. Posters who have various experiences with these programs know that lacking patient facing experience can be a disadvantage. (HOSA typically does not include patient facing experience)
It is appropriate to ask a combined program applicant how they are sure they want to be a physician without having worked with patients (because OP is applying to a combined BSMD/DO program…OP did not ask about applying to undergrad with a premed intent). AOs/medical school staff will ask that in the interview process at some/many of these programs, so OP has to prepare for and be ready for that.
A student who has worked with patients has a better understanding of what physicians do, how physician roles fit in the world of healthcare, and if that job fits with their strengths and desires. IME, students who have worked with patients are generally able to put together a stronger app for combined programs, and better able to answer the various interview questions that they may be asked by admissions and/or medical school staff.
I hope OP becomes a physician (which is a new goal for them, based on previous posts), and I noted above the vast majority of physicians were not in a combined BSMD/DO program. Taking the time in undergrad to figure out what one wants to do can be highly beneficial for many students.
It is not likely that a prospective medical student will be queried about specific specialties. Mostly because medical schools expect students to be open minded about these while doing all of their rotations.
But being asked about being a doctor, and why…I believe is standard.
But if this student wants to apply to PLME, they should do so. If not accepted, there will always be the option of regular undergrad and medical school applications.
If accepted, I believe there also is the option of leaving the program and not pursuing a degree in medicine.
I think we can all agree that “why do you want to be a doctor” is very fair.
I think we’re leaning way in on the medical piece and missing what is in my mind the principal benefit of these programs which is true academic freedom. Isn’t one of the awesome things about these programs that if you take the required courses and maintain an acceptable GPA, then you don’t have to worry that the subjective grading in … relevant to OP here … that advanced creative writing seminar will damage your GPA?
Actually most BA/MD/DO programs do NOT guarantee an automatic admission to medical school based solely on maintaining a certain GPA. There are almost always other requirements, like earning a certain minimum MCAT score, and completing X hours of clinical experiences and Y hours of community service.
And many BA/MD/DO program only guarantee a med school interview at the end of the program–not an admission.
Actually PLME does not require the MCAT for students in good standing.
And Actually PLME is an admission to both Brown Medical School and Brown Undergraduate.
So that’s the actually’s as to OP’s program.
As to other combined MD programs Actually there are some that require the MCAT and some require certain curriculum requirements (consistent with a usual premed education) and even letters of recommendation but to say that a full application as would be needed coming from an outside undergraduate institution is “expected” would be misleading at best.
And lastly actually, one of the main draws for these programs for students is some modicum of certainty. Why else lock themselves in for such a long time especially in a non-accelerated program like Brown? That is the actual quid pro quo.
@chocolatecherrymint apply to PLME if you want to. Without knowing the other things in your application, no one here can really tell you if it’s a good idea…or not. We don’t know your courses in HS, your weighted and unweighted GPA, SAT or ACT scores, who will do your LOR, etc.
So…if you think you have a shot at any of the colleges you mentioned in all your posts (Brown, Harvard, Penn), then apply and see.
I would suggest you have some alternate choices that are less selective in case this doesn’t work out.