 If you always remind yourself why you want it to pursue this journey, that will help you to pick yourself back up and to come back into studying with a new fresh set of eyes. Like I said, you're learning to understand, not to memorize. You just have to go in with the understanding that you have to work twice as hard, if not harder than any other medical student. You just have to look out for those opportunities to boost your application. They take students with lower statistics, whether it's your MCAT or GPA. They are open to that. Helping others is a calling. It's not a job. Hey guys, my name is Boris. I'm a physician assistant. With me today, I have a very special guest that you guys are going to get a lot of value from. This is Patrick. He is a second-year medical student. I guess I just introduced you for the audience there. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Sure. Hi guys, my name is Patrick. I'm just as Boris said, I'm a second-year medical student. And that's about it. Okay, interview over. Okay, so we're going to cover a couple of different topics that you guys we think are going to get a ton of value out of. Namely, we're going to ask Patrick why he decided to practice medicine, specifically why he decided to become an MD, a medical doctor, and not a PA, an NP. Why did he want to go all the way to the top and become a doctor? Okay. Also, I was going to ask him about his experience in medical school so far. We know it's hard, but how hard? I just want to get like a really good view of what it's like to be a medical student. And also, he is actually at a Caribbean medical school. So I wanted to ask him pros and cons why he chose a Caribbean medical school, his personal experience, if you can even be competitive as a Caribbean medical school doctor, which obviously you can. And then last but not least, for those of you that are pre-medical, you want to become a doctor just like Patrick is becoming some of his advice to pre-meds, how to get into medical school, how to best prepare yourself X, Y, and Z. So with that long introduction out of the way, I'm going to ask Patrick why you decided to practice medicine. Sure. So why medicine? That is the number one question that any medical school admissions counselor wants you to answer. So I would say why I chose medicine specifically, just the overall field of healthcare. I felt like I wanted to do something more for helping out people, but specifically with healthcare. I remember that my first like introduction into the healthcare field was when I was in high school, I had an ACL tear from a soccer match and with the orthopedic surgeon that I was communicating with on how I can recover from this injury, but also get ready for the long term to go back into competing. I had a very good relationship with my orthopedic surgeon at the time. He definitely reassured me on what it's going to take in order to get me back up to full speed. And I just enjoyed the conversations that I had there because medicine is more so than just more so than just healing the patient, but it's also being able to heal them holistically and being understanding and pathetic to them. And it was that connection that was in medicine that I couldn't find in any other field that really drew me to medicine in general. So then after that whole experience, when I went into college, I was originally going for pharmacy and so I had like a chemistry major, but then I started getting into a little bit of shadowing with some primary care doctors and shadowing them, I was able to see the same connections that I had with my orthopedic surgeon along with the primary care doctors with their patients. I could see that long lasting connection and that trusting relationship that they've developed. And I thought that was a healing aspect in itself for patients. So I chose medicine because I enjoyed helping people, but I also enjoyed being able to do more for them. And so I wanted to be able to heal them, take care of their health problems, but also do that in an understanding way, as well as empower them in order to take care of their own health themselves. So that is my general gist as to why I chose medicine. So the main thing that I think I heard you say right at the beginning, is that it was that connection with the patient that is kind of unique in the career, more than being like an engineer or an accountant or anything else that serves people and helps people. It's that connection that you have with a human being is unique to medicine. Yeah? Yeah. And so with that, why did you decide on M.D. instead of any of the other various careers in medicine that you would also have a connection with, but perhaps a different kind? Sure. So first off, all roles in healthcare are equally important. They all play a specific role when you're taking care of a patient, whether it's the whether it's like the pharmacist who's giving the medicine and making those prescriptions to the nurses that are working with, that are in close contact with the patient themselves. And the doctors and the PAs that are working together to figure out what's the best way to treat the patient. Why I chose to be a doctor, I think for one thing, the biggest thing that drew me to it was that doctors had, they were the ones that made the big decisions and they had that big responsibility of making that decision for the patient's overall treatment plan and for their health. And don't get me wrong, that nurses and PAs and other roles in healthcare, they can also provide that medical advice for for those doctors. They are just as much capable as learning about the implications of the anatomy, physiology and pharmacology and pathology. They are just as much credible in offering that information. But I think that with medicine, with being a doctor, you're you are the one that makes that big decision for the patients and you can clarify it with with all the other healthcare professionals. And so I wanted to be able to make those decisions for those patients. I think it's something that I wouldn't be able to do as a PA or a nurse or a pharmacist. And it was like I went back into why medicine, it's something unique that I would be able to do for a patient. And it's something more that I can do for them in their treatment plan and overall health. So is that your your response when you were asked in your medical school interviews? So Patrick, why do you want to practice medicine? Because you're going to get asked that in every interview I imagine. Yeah. Yeah. That was your response. That was my that was my big response. And I think it was, it was well received when I also supplemented it with some of my own personal experience with working with those healthcare professionals as well. So I remember when I was working in the hospital as a emergency room technician, everyone is working together to stabilize a patient in a traumatic situation. But we always look to the doctor on what's the best course of action for the patient. So that was that unique decision, like that ultimate decision that you have. It's something that a lot of doctors have that responsibility with. And it's something I wouldn't be able to get in any other role in healthcare. So that was a big thing as to what led me into medicine or and what led me to being a doctor. Gotcha. So the connections with patients, just that unique connection that you have as a medical provider, as opposed to a lot of other career fields. And also in your experience in your shadowing and in your kind of patient care experience before medical school, you saw that doctors are the ones that make like kind of the ultimate decisions, especially in a very, very kind of complex, very difficult situation. That's usually going to be a doctor making that decision. Very rarely will you see a PA or an nurse practitioner in that situation making a decision. It's not impossible. So like a very rural emergency room, possibly in the urgent care setting, like where I work, obviously, because I'm the only one there, I'm the sole provider, but in a place like an emergency room that's staffed with more than like five people, yeah, it's going to be an MD or a deal making that decision in the surgical setting, obviously the surgeon. So yeah, 99.99% of medical situations, it's going to be a doctor making that top decision. So that's the decision Patrick wants to make. Absolutely. Yes. That sounds stressful. It's stressful. But like I said, it's something that I would be willing to do for patients. Yes. And for the world. Yes. And for the world. Because I mean, think about that like, I mean, one, like I said, like in the urgent care setting, yeah, the PA makes the ultimate decision in a lot of things, but it's going to be much usually lower acuity than what Patrick's going to be doing in the ER, in the OR, in any kind of setting like that. So definitely much harder decisions MDs make than PAs. So just the level of decision, I guess, to lack of better words, is going to be why you kind of chose MD, the top dog, as opposed to a lot of other careers in medicine, which are also all very important, all good, but someone's got to make that decision. And, you know, very few people can. I just said it sounds stressful because for me personally, I chose PA, I don't want that much stress. I don't want that much responsibility that sounds very difficult, maybe one day, but it's not what I was choosing. And it just sounds stressful. And I'm very glad that some people want to kind of take that challenge and take that responsibility and all the training that goes along with being able to make that decision, which has, you know, four years of medical school, three to seven years of residency, fellowship, the whole nine yards, there's a lock that goes into becoming a doctor. So speaking of experience in becoming a doctor, you're a medical student year two, you're an MS, how's your experience in training been so far? Yeah, I really enjoy my medical education right now. A lot of my first year was just going into the books and trying to understand the normal anatomy and physiology of each system from MSK, your cardiovascular respiratory systems and all of that. And then coming into your second year, now they start to integrate the clinical information. So we learn more about pathology, microbiology and pharmacology and how you're comparing the, you're comparing like what's abnormal with the normal anatomy and physiology. And that's how you start to learn that medical information. In addition to that, starting in August of last year, we started doing more clinical skills. So that greatly aided in my medical knowledge because now it's putting together why I'm learning this information. For me personally, I learned better when I'm doing something with my hands and applying as opposed to just reading it and memorizing in a textbook or Anki flashcards. And by learning those clinical skills, learning how to take a history from a patient or how to evaluate a patient's lungs, how to evaluate their heart, learning those skills and understanding why you're doing it and what does it mean when you see, when you hear or see something that's wrong. I feel like that information sticks with you and you make those connections with your, with the medical knowledge that you're learning in textbooks. So that's why I personally enjoy it. And now where we are at in my medical education, I'm not only just starting to review for step one, but I'm also doing some hospital work. So at the school that I'm at, we're doing one hospital session once a week and we're working with physicians and doing some, we're also evaluating patients, figuring out what might be going on with the patient and present that advice to our, the attendees that are working there. So it's starting to come together now that we're, we've gone to this point in my medical education. And I'm really enjoying the knowledge and the experience that I'm getting just by doing some of these things. I love how everything you said about like, so I asked you, how's medical school? And instead of going, oh, it's so hard. You went immediately like, no, I enjoyed this. You were like straight up positive about it, which I really enjoyed. What you of course didn't talk about was the fact that you're studying 17 hours a day, seven days a week, you know, et cetera. But I really, really appreciated that you were positive about it because it is especially that second year tremendously gratifying to see things come together. Yeah. You know, because year one, it's more about the normals, the anatomy, the physiology, how things work. And then you learn some pathophysiology, but it always kind of seems separate. And then year two, when you kind of see more normals and more abnormals, you start to pick like, you start to kind of put them together, you know, and especially with fine. Yeah. And especially with the clinical integration to, I think that's what presents the connection between the normal and the abnormal. And you mean like being in the hospital? Yes, being in the hospital or even just like talking with standardized patients that we would standardize patients are like the, I would say that they're not their actors and what might happen in a clinical setting, but they're there to also help you on not only to practice your clinical skills, but also how to respond to patients and talk with them as well. That? Okay. So when they do that, when they actually test that, it's called oskies, I'm assuming they call it the same for you. Yep. I forgot what the heck it is. Something scenario clinical. Objectively scenario clinical exam. There you go. Okay. Something like that. So when they test you on those scenarios, that's what it's like. It's like a mock patient, a professor acting like a patient. But when you're practicing, that's when you get to find out who in your class has a drama major or a minor because like some people just like are straight monotone by the book, like they're reading from their little flashcard. My chest hurts. How long does it hurt? Two days. Two days. Some people are like, oh God, my chest. Oh, doctor, my chest really hurts. And you're like, dang, okay. We didn't know you were an actress. So it's like, it's really fun to like see that and actually know a little bit about what to do about it. So yeah, that's when things get pretty fun. I would definitely say. So, okay. So that's second year for you as a medical student. What was first year? Was it like all book learning or did you get some hands on to that? There was it was a lot of book learning. And they did emphasize on that, especially with having a few more written exams. But they did introduce the physical exam skills. So like how to, like I said, with how to assess a patient's heart, how to assess their lungs, their head, doing a psych, like a psychiatric exam, they introduced those physical exam skills in there, but they didn't heavily stress it until our second year when we actually started to interact with the standardized patients and real patients as well. And it was just based on what were they emphasizing more in their first year compared to the second year. Now it's starting to be more clinical integration and introducing ourselves to the clinical setting. And they're getting you ready for year three, which I think is a straight clinical, right? There's not a lot of didactic left. Yes, it's a lot more. So year three is a lot more clinical integration. You're of course working shifts in the hospital under the supervision of attending. And when you do go home, that's where you're learning more information. You might have some lectures specifically relating to the specialty that is with your core rotation, whether it's internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, OB, GYN, and family medicine and psychiatry, you'll have like more lectures on what the NBME exam might have as a high yield information, as well as what you would might see more often for your patients in that specialty. So are those those are the core rotations as a medical student as well, those seven, I believe? It's I counted six, I think. OB, GYN, psychiatry, emergency medicine, or is that not one of them for you? Emergency is not a core rotation. Very similar to PA then. So like your core rotations, your clinical portion, your your last two years for you or the last one year for us. Yeah, that's interesting how similar the models work. Yeah. You know, so that's kind of cool. Did you guys use Bates by chance for a physical exam or what would you guys do? Or was it Bates? I have that physical exam book that I thought everybody used. Um, it's I think they I think they reference Bates a lot for the physical exam skills, but they actually made like their own workbooks. It'd be like a yes, yes, we just never used the textbook because they took the information for like the relevant system on and then they made it into like a little packet that we would use for back to. And it was more that was more so just to learn how to do the skills, but it did it. But and it had like very minimal information on like what did those what did those skills mean? So if I was to auscultate the heart and I was to hear a murmur, it's not going to the packet's not going to give me like a 10 page lecture on like every single heart murmur possible. It would just be more so just okay, how to auscultate the heart here, here, here and here. And this is what a normal heart sound looks like. And then maybe this is what some of the other heart murmurs look like, but it never went into huge detail onto what did those things mean. Gotcha. That's pretty cool. Okay, it was nice. It was nice to have all that information just condensed into one source. Yeah, it seems like they're really like trying to set you guys up for success. Definitely. They're not just giving you a book and being like, all right, have at it, go for it. Really trying to help you out. So that's very encouraging. You know, and actually that I was going to move on, but that's one kind of big difference between PA education physician assistant and MD education, even though they're both based on the same model. Okay, I guess I kind of also just got an epiphany that I didn't have before. So physician assistant versus nurse practitioner, one big difference they always say, even though professionally we're interchangeable, we do a lot of the same jobs. What they say the the NP education is based on the nursing model and PA on the medical model. I think that just clicked in my mind for the first time in my life, having been out of PA school for three years and having practiced medicine for two and a half is we literally are educated on the medical model as in similarly to how you're educated, just not nearly as long. Like everything you just said is everything that we do, we just do less of it. Okay. What NPs do I have no idea, but I don't know the way we're educated here. I don't think anyway, we're going to leave that where it is. But but the way that you just said you're educated, that's exactly what we did. We just did less of it and quicker. So that's for those of you out there trying to answer the question, what is the medical model? Patrick literally just laid it out. Okay, so thank you for that. You just taught me something that I should have known all along. I mean, I guess I'm calling my supervising physician even right now. And my supervising physician is Patrick. So I love that. That's one. Two, I forgot. What were we just talking about? It was the education thing. Yes, clinical skills. If it's important, it'll pop back up anyway. So that's very important. So let's move on to our next topic. So anything else you want to really kind of share with perspective medical students or anybody about your experience as a medical student? Sure. I think I think when you mentioned it earlier that I talked a lot about the positives of medical school, don't get me wrong. Medical school is hard. It's like, I should, I should preface that in there that medical school is it is hard and it is draining. It's a lot of information that you're consuming at all at one time. And you're expected to know that information for your entire medical career. You're, you're not just learning to memorize, you're learning to understand and to be able to apply that information to actual settings. So and I think that's, that was one realization that I had early on in my first year. I'm glad I called on to that, that this information that we're learning, we're not just learning it to pass exams. You have to learn it to for the long term in order to best care for your patients. So that was a very humbling realization. And I think once I learned about that, that's when I was more receptive to understanding the medical information. It can get really easy to be lost in the details and to get swamped with all the information. But if you always remind yourself why you start, why you wanted to pursue this journey, that will help you to pick yourself back up and to come back into studying with like a new fresh set of eyes. And you're, like I said, you're learning to understand not to memorize. And that will probably go more into study habits that I would explain later. Gotcha. So whenever things are getting hard, you're on, I don't know, three hours of sleep, you're studying for your fourth exam that week. How do you motivate yourself? Is there like a scene that you imagine yourself as a doctor wearing a white coat, you know, doing compressions? What is it that you remember or what is it that you visualize that makes yourself motivated? Let's see. I think for me personally, it's that I do try to always remember that I am doing this for a reason. And just reattaching the information that I'm learning, like, and I always remind myself, if I don't learn this now, this is going to hurt somebody. God forbid, can cause death. This is going to hurt somebody in the future. So, and this is what the job entails. And this is what I chose to do for my career. So I need to be able to embrace that and and also try and realize why I am doing this. Another reason or another thing that really brings back the motivation is we have these small groups where we'll have a lot of the clinical information and interacting with our standardized patients and being able to practice that information. Like I said, being able to apply that information and using those skills to gather all of that information from a patient is what helps the learning better. You're able to have that human connection as opposed to just being in the books 24 seven and seven cups of coffee and trying to figure out why the information isn't sticking. I think you need to have that human connection. So I always try to remind myself of that every time I'm starting to doubt myself in studying. That's another good point is the group activities, whether it be just like learning stuff together, just in didactic or practicing, you know, mock patients or even real patients, working with real people does serve to re motivate you and remind you why you're doing what you're doing. Yes, definitely. That's why I'm not a big fan of distance learning. You know, everything being on zoom, you're sitting in your house, you're not necessarily even paying attention. When you're in the classroom, even though yes, your your butt is glued to that one chair, you're kind of miserable just because like you can't get up or you'll miss something, you can't go to the bathroom because you miss something. It's just I feel that even if you don't feel like it's sticking, it's just the information sticking better. You're remembering it better because you're with other people. Yes, definitely. We're social creatures, even if some of us are not super duper social, we're social creatures, which is how we're designed to work. Yeah. So yeah, are you guys doing mostly distance learning out there or are you doing like everything classroom? We're doing everything classroom. I just came back from lecture like two hours ago. So yeah, yeah. So we just had the lecture two lectures on genetics and bleeding disorders, just more pathophysiology and then great idea genetics and bleeding disorders at the same time. They got like the how many things are in the clouding cascade, freaking like 12. And then yeah, you have a whole different clotting factors and you have to know the was it really 12? Yeah, because there's because there's goes like, like for the pathways, it's two. It's like that's a cascade. Yeah. There's the intrinsic intrinsic pathway. Yep. I did not. I think I just guessed 12 or maybe I was making an educated guess because I learned them back in the day. Yeah, I can't believe there's actually 12. That's kind of funny. But it's just funny because they there's so much intricacy and so many things to just rotally memorize in bleeding. And then they're going to give you genetics, which is even worse at the same time. It's it's not it's not like purely genetics. It's just it was more of like understanding pedigrees. And then yeah, understanding pedigrees and yeah, basic genetics just to remind ourselves because we didn't cover that until September of 2022. And it's been a while. So it's just a quick refresher. Okay. Yeah. I was scared for you. I was going to say genetics. Not not like super heavy genetics. Good. That would have been so mean. But good. Do you think overall the way the program is laid out, it like, it makes sense? Is it module based or is it just kind of like random, you know, modules kind of thrown at you? Module based isn't like you're doing pathophysiology, anatomy and physiology and like physical exam in the same body system at the same time. Yeah. So the way that my medical education is based is it's system space for each module. So the first module was like MSK back in year one. And then we did cardiovascular. And then we did respiratory and renal together because there is a connection between those two systems. There is. They're both endocrine organs. Yes. And then we did more endocrine ER and then the whole digestive system. And within each of those systems you're learning, you're learning the note that this is back in year one, the normal, the anatomy, the physiology and then some of the physical examination skills. So we would do that all for year one. When we get into year two, we learn the pathology, the microbiology, the pharmacology. And then you're learning the, we're combining it more with the patient interactions and the more physical exam skills that we would use. And we would connect that, like those skills with like heart murmurs or breweries and the arteries or pneumonia, things like that. And now where we're at in our, where we're at in my medical curriculum, we're just in like the step one review modules now. So it's three modules except now they're combining four different systems. So the module that I'm in, it's cardio, respiratory, renal and hematology. And it's, it's just more of a very like broad overview because at this point now we're not learning anything new. It's just what the, what the faculty thinks is most likely high yield for step one. Of course you have to review everything, but this is just what they think might show up on step one and what would be better to have extra reinforcing. So that's what we're doing now in the step prep modules. And then we're combining it with hospital visits and more simulations in like outpatient or emergency situations. And just get ready to pass step one and get out there into the real world. Get out there into the real world. Yeah. I love that. Any study tips? Study tips, sure. Yeah. So I'm actually one of the worst studyers there. This is the, this is the like something just the preface, but I would say that the, I have like two basic tips that I always approach myself for studying. One is to really know yourself and what's, know what study techniques work for you specifically. A lot of students in, you know, any medical school and they're always posting about what their study habits are and how they're able to get the high grades, that's great. That works for them. It might not work for you. And I know that there are plenty of times I've tried certain study habits, whether it's blocking out time like 30 minutes to focus on this one technique or using Anki flashcards or whiteboarding everything. There's a combination of study habits that will work for you. And it's important for you to identify that. So that's tip number one, know yourself and what works for you. Number two is get ready to change how you study because the way you study in medical school is completely different than how I studied back in college. This time in college, you could probably get away with just like reading the textbook or like cramming, don't cram, do not cram in medical school. Now you're trying to understand the information and like I said before, you're trying to keep that information into your head for the longer. You're not doing it for the short term, just the past exam. You have to put into perspective that I'm going to use this information to best take care of my patients in the future. So I really want to learn this information now because now's the time to learn. And then when in the future, when you are an attending physician, you have that, when you are an attending physician, you're able to apply that information for the patient. Now, when you're learning the information in medical school, what you might have done for like learning pathology might not work for drugs or pharmacology. What might work for microbiology might not work for learning anatomy and physiology. So you have, so I would say ask your, ask any upperclassmen that would provide some of those tips and see how you do with those study habits that they've provided. And then if it works for you, great, you can use that for studying for the module and learning that information. If it doesn't, try and find something new. And yeah, I'm really glad you said that. Yeah. Don't be too rigid in your studying. I think that's kind of why the first year can be a bit of a struggle. But thankfully, like I took that information pretty early on and was able to be flexible in my studying habits and learn information in new ways. I'm still figuring it out now, especially in this step prep review modules now. But we're still going to figure out what to do just by asking upperclassmen applying and doing a lot of trial and error. Yeah. I think that's, if there was two big study tips that I would give anybody, and I'm glad that you just gave those completely, one is be flexible. As in like what you did in undergrad may not work in med school, what you do in one class may not work in another class, etc, etc, keep changing to asking upperclassmen exactly like Patrick just said. So I don't know, perfect, not perfect, an imperfect example would be they say in bodybuilding pick a physique that you like and do exactly what that bodybuilder did. And that is what you will look like, you know, more or less, pick a medical student that you like as in someone who passed and had a high, you know, step one score, step two score and do exactly what they did. And maybe it'll work for you. So it's not perfect, but you know, you don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. Humans are basically humans. We've been the same for thousands of years. Studying is different for everybody, but we're not that different. If somebody who is successful does something a certain way, at least try it. And it might work for you. You know, and also, this is more for like schools rather than than step one, step two. But classes, professors are very peculiar. Everybody is a little different. So if there's something that a certain professor just really does a lot of an upperclassmen can tell you that and kind of set you up for success more than just like trying it yourself. Ask everybody, you know, ask people who have succeeded previously. Absolutely. Yeah. And even even more so than your upperclassmen, there's plenty of academic advisors to with the school. And they can they can give you not only information and advice on how to succeed and past the semester, but also how to they work with you, they structure your studying schedule, they structure what topics you should cover. They can even offer like extra question banks and extra practice. So really utilize the resources that are available to you. It seems like your school really really sets you up for success. They they really do. And it's a lot. It is a lot. And medical school is hard, but they're there to support you as long as you're willing to put in the work and to ask around and ask for that advice. Based on your experience and like maybe your friends in other medical schools, is that pretty much across the board or medical school is pretty pretty supportive of their students or is it kind of hit and miss depending on which one? I I can't speak for all medical schools in America, but I would say that they do try to support their students. And like I said, they're not support. They're not trying to support you for passing the exam. They're supporting you for lifelong learning. Gotcha. That's that's very important because a lot of programs don't do that or don't do that well. It sounds like your program does that very well. Yeah, definitely. And I think, like, of course, there's a few things that need to be fixed. There's a few flaws. But we're learning to work with that. And we're constantly improving every day. Excellent. I mean, there's not much more you can do. Nothing's perfect. I'm actually glad you said that because it reminded me of that thing I forgot about 10 minutes ago. And that is so, for instance, my experience just in PA school, not a medical school, it's not competitive within the program, because we don't rank, we don't really take steps, we don't have to compete for residency or nothing. Once you're out, you're out, you're a PA, the end, get a job, and that that's easy to do. With medical school, it's different. You guys compete within your class and within all the other students of your cohort throughout all the medical schools. Can you speak on that a little bit because you're in constant competition throughout your entire education, which sounds even more stressful. Yeah. I think with regards to competition, it's really hard, especially in competitive specialties like surgery or emergency medicine, orthopedic surgery, all of those really attractive specialties. Heck, any specialty is really competitive, especially for a Caribbean medical student, just like myself. I'm not just competing with, as Boris said, I'm not just competing with my class, but I'm competing with everybody in other medical schools too for residency positions. And it's really hard, but I would say that the best way to set yourself up for success is you want to know what kind of doctor that you want to be, not just in terms of specialty, but also what is the kind of doctor that you want to embody? Where are the kind of traits and personalities that you want to be a role model for, for your future patients? And what are some of the activities, not just studying, but also like the extracurricular activities that you're willing to do in order to boost your application in order to show that you're a well-rounded student and not a robot? Those are a lot of the things that come into your application, and you're kind of already doing the same thing when you're doing a medical school. You did it before in college, and now you're applying to medical school. It's just a little bit of a different process now. We're in medical school, we're trying to apply to residency, so it's almost like the same process again. You're just choosing different opportunities as you will in order to make yourself the best applicant for this specialty. I didn't realize emergency medicine was competitive. I knew it was more competitive than like pediatrics or family med, but I thought it was one of the lesser competitive ones. Is it super competitive now? I would say it is one of the competitive specialties. I was also really surprised too that, I remember from last year's match, there were like over 200 emergency medicine residency positions that were completely open. No one wanted it, and I was very surprised. I didn't know what led to that, but I do remember that emergency medicine was a very competitive specialty to get into. I think it was just the overall appeal and just a bigger application pool for that. A bigger application pool compared to other specialties, but it's also just a very attractive field for medical students as well. I think that was the overall reason why it's competitive and can be pretty hard to get into if you don't have the statistics for it. I guess I can see that because I always thought not that I'm really thinking about it if I ever were to decide to go back and do med school and everything, that would be the one that I would go for. One, because it doesn't take that long. It takes three years as opposed to six, seven. There's no fellowship. I don't think there's even a lot of fellowships for emergency physicians. I'm sure there's something, but traditionally they don't really need it. You can basically get there quick. The salaries are fantastic. The schedule is fantastic. It's unique as far as being a doctor where you leave your work at work. It's shift work the end. Almost every other specialty, I want to say even not almost every other specialty, it's not like that. I could see why it's tremendously attractive. I just didn't realize it was so competitive. I think there's just a overall larger application pool, which is why it is a competitive specialty and should be given consideration for such. Yeah, definitely. Can I ask you what you're aiming at or do you do not know yet? I do not know. When I went into medicine, especially from my experience before going to medicine, it's like I'm in this clinical setting and I'm like, oh cool. This is a really cool field. I like to be a family medicine physician or I was working in the emergency department. I'm like, oh, I really like this. I think emergency is something cool or I was in the OR. Surgery is a lot of fun too. But then going into the medical knowledge and all of that information and being involved with clubs, I set myself that I've been involved in so many specialties and just dipping my toe into the pool that I can't make a decision yet until I've experienced it in clinical rotations and said I set myself that I wouldn't make a final decision until I've experienced that clinical rotation for that specialty. So we're going to see what happens and just hope for the best in the future. That's such an interesting perspective. I don't know if it's the majority, but I feel like there's a very large segment of medical students that have kind of known their specialty since they were nine. Yeah, definitely. They've been like, I want to be a neurosurgeon. Oh, isn't that cute? And then like 15 years later, they're sure enough now they're getting a neurosurgical residency. They've been like, you know, planning for it for years and years. It's interesting to hear from your perspective that you, one, you just like all of it. So you generally like medicine, which is good to hear their future doctor, Patrick, that's very interesting to hear that you like medicine. Two, that you're being open-minded and also you realize and you know yourself enough to where you just want to. I like that you're kind of putting it off by saying I want to experience everything, but I think what you're waiting for is just kind of a sign. Yeah, I think, I think so too. You're waiting for it to be obvious. And I mean, yeah. And I think like with medicine, when you, especially with like the rotations that I'm doing now, once a week in different specialties, it's there to introduce the door, but it's not there to say like, I definitely want to do this. It's just really weighing what are like the pros and cons for those specialties. What are you willing to do? Are you more passionate for doing more hands on work or are you more passionate for community healthcare? Something like that. And I think all of those aspects are just equally important in medicine. It's just, I don't know exactly what I want to do for practicing medicine and how to best take care of patients. So we're going to see what happens and see what I like more hopefully in the near future, but I'm going to be patient with the process. I don't want to rush it completely or at least until it's like two months before the match process starts taking applications for residency, but I'm going to be patient with it and just keep an open mind and see what I really like. How choosing a specialty, you're not sure yet you want to experience everything. You just kind of wait for God to give you a sign. Like what is it I'm supposed to do, right? So I think that's a really interesting way to go about it. I really appreciate that. And I'm sure that you're going to get that sign exactly when you're supposed to. Hopefully. That's going to be an exciting day. Okay, so let us move on. There's your messages saying, did I lose you? Yeah, just for a second. I'm just looking back at our topics list. So you briefly mentioned that we were talking about how competitive match is and how you're competing with everybody in your class and also everybody in every other class of the same cohort. And then you briefly mentioned that you're a Caribbean medical student at one of the Caribbean medical schools. I'm not going to ask you which one just for privacy's sake. But can you talk a little bit about being a Caribbean medical student? One, why you chose the school that you chose, pros and cons of being a Caribbean medical student and just your personal experience in general? Sure. So Caribbean medical schools, to be honest, it's not the option that a lot of medical students particularly like. If anything, it's like a last resort choice if they can't get into a U.S. medical school. I was one of them. I definitely applied for two cycles and like even with my grades and with my experience, I just wasn't chosen for an American medical school. So then choosing a Caribbean medical school, I would say it's a great option if, but you have to consider two things. One, you have to really consider after like applying for medicine for a few cycles already, you have to consider, do you still want to consider practicing medicine? Do you still want to be a doctor? That was something that I had to do a deep dive on and see if I was open to other specialties. So I did a bit more advice and more like soul searching and talking with other healthcare professionals and I still realized that I wanted to be a doctor still. Going back to, I wanted to take care of patients. I wanted to have that decision making. I still wanted to do all of that. So that was the first thing. I was still set on being a doctor. The second thing is Caribbean medical students or Caribbean medical schools, it's a bit of a double-edged sword because they give you that option of going into medical school and they do give you the education like in any other medical school. It's just as capable and I feel that I am pretty competent in the medical knowledge, not 100%, but I still feel confident in my abilities to review information and assess a patient. You just have to go in with the understanding that you have to work twice as hard, if not harder than any other medical student in America or here in the Caribbean. You just have to look out for those opportunities to boost your application and you have to look for those connections that you're willing to support and use all of this in order to make yourself a well-rounded applicant for residency. So there's that. For the education itself, at least for the school that I'm at, I feel very prepared with the physical exam skills and the clinical skills that they've taught us. They really hammer it into you, especially since that's what you're going to be doing for the rest of your medical career. But I appreciate that education and now it's gotten to the point where I feel I don't have to necessarily go back to that one compiled resource with all the physical exam skills. It's more so if a physician asked me to evaluate the heart, I would know what to do for the whole cardiovascular system to evaluate. So I really appreciate the clinical skills that they try to teach you and the information. For the didactic and medical knowledge, I do appreciate their lectures, but a lot of it is a lot of self-directed learning. So yes, they're giving you the information and presenting it to you, but because you're trying to learn this for the long term, you have to be able to put it into your own words and your own understanding. So I would say with that, it's more self-directed and putting it into your own words. That's the best way to learn the information. I would say some of the pros and cons for a Caribbean medical school education, some pros would be that they take students with lower statistics, whether it's your MCAT, your GPA, they are open to that. You would just have to look up on the website what they're willing to accept and if you fit those requirements or are even above that. So that's one pro, that it's very open and can even take a lot of non-traditional students as well. The second, from my own personal experience, like I said, they do a very good job of teaching the clinical information and really preparing you to know those skills so that when you go out and do clinicals, you're prepared to assess a patient. So I appreciate that. And I had a third pro, but I can't remember it too well. Oh, the weather and the fact that you're on the beach would be a third pro. That's fair. It's always sunny here. You don't get a vitamin D deficiency in there. Did you have another one besides that? Not necessarily, I don't think, but it is a nice study environment. I'm sure it will come back to me. It always does. Yeah, definitely. I'll figure it out somewhere. For cons, like I said before, you are at a significant, you have to be willing to accept that you're at a significant disadvantage in terms of being a US or non-US international medical graduate or IMG. Generally, US American schools, I don't know what the stigma is with IMGs. I think they generally think that they're not as prepared or as not as prepared compared to students that are in US medical schools. I think that, and there's a whole stigma behind it. I'm not sure why, but I think you're at a significant disadvantage and that you have to work really hard to put yourself out there. Oh, okay. No, I know what the third pro was. It was the fact that Caribbean medical schools also do rotations in the US, which is what I'm going to do once I'm out of the second year. You still get that experience in the US, like you would at any US medical school. It's there to prepare you. It's just that for an international school like in the Caribbean, they do also open it up to other countries, other countries, especially depending on where you as a medical student are from. You can go to the UK if you were from the UK. If you were from Canada, you can go to Canada, things like that. It's just very open, but you do have the opportunity to go to a US hospital for your clinical rotations. Wait, the Caribbean schools allow you to do your residency in other countries? Your clinical rotations, not your residency. Oh, your clinical rotations. Yeah, yes, yes. That's cool. Did I say residency? No, no, no. I think I just understood that. So you can do your clinical rotations in other countries, but then you could still match into a US program, into a US residency. You could, but I think if you wanted to set yourself up for the highest chances of getting into a US residency, do your clinical rotations in the US, especially if you're from there. What if you did one in London just for the fun of it and everything else in the US? I think the school that I'm at has a mixed US UK rotation program. Nice. I think so. I think the duration is like 12 weeks, but that's like internal medicine or surgery for your core rotations. So there's that. And it certainly is an option if I wanted to do it. I don't know. I want to do it. I think it'd be a lot of fun, but yeah. Well, you got to think about your future, but it would be fun. True. True. True. Yeah. Okay. Understood. I think you were doing cons. Yes, cons. So I explained that you have to work significantly harder if you want to make yourself like a very competitive applicant for medical school or not for medical school, for residency, especially for whatever specialty that you're looking towards, you have to be able to seek out those opportunities, whether it's research, extracurriculars, community service, all of those things are there. And then most importantly, your grades. You have to work really hard to keep your grades up high and competitive, as well as prepare yourself to take your board exams. So step one, step two, and then your NBME exams that are at the end of your core rotations, those ones will take those exams take priority and you want to perform very high and very well in, but you should also still look for the time to try and find research opportunities if you can or do community service. If you can even do those things before you apply to medical school, then that's also setting you up for success. So being prepared before you even hit the start line, that's that'll boost your application even before you start medical school and we'll prepare you for residency. So glad you said that. So let's say somebody wants to be a surgeon. Let's be more specific. Let's say they want to be a general surgeon. Sure. If they have a whole bunch of general surgery experience as a surgical tech, as just even shadowing before medical school, all that counts when they apply for that surgical residency. Yeah. That's always good. Yeah. So that's like great experience that can lead you into that specialty. And then if you can continue it on with some like continue on with some surgical interest in medical school, when you go to apply for a surgical residency, I think your admissions counselors will really see that passion and enthusiasm and they would consider you for an interview. If that interview goes well, then you probably be in a categorical position for a surgical residency. So things like that, you want to really prepare yourself for those opportunities. So that's the first con, working a lot harder than you should. The second con and this is like everyone in the Caribbean medical schools are under it. The amount of debt that is going to compile. So you have to be willing to accept that you're going to be paying a lot more into your medical education. So I think the average U.S. medical like education is like 200,000 and that's just tuition in the Caribbean, depending on where you go, at least for my place, if you like for the four years, you're spending like around 300 to 400,000. Wow. So instead of 50k a year tuition, it's close to 100. Yes. And also keep in mind, too, you have to find the expenses for your living conditions, for food, laundry, like things like that. You have at least like in America, there's like those places there. You're just paying for your tuition and then you can figure out everything else with your apartment and everything here. And for here at the Caribbean, they kind of put everything together. So the tuition, the living expenses, your personal expenses, whether it's like school supplies or food, it's going to be a lot more. And I don't know how much I'm in depth right now, but it's definitely going to be a lot by the time I'm finished with my four years. And at least it's definitely going to be a lot more than a US medical student. Is it considered student debt? I know you're at a school, but you're not at a US school. Is it considered student debt, which is not being profitable? Yes, it is. Okay. It is because I think like when you're filling out the FAFSA form and then you're filling out the loans, you have to, you take out the loan and I think it doesn't start to accrue interest and or at least you don't have to start making payments until you're done with your medical education, like six months after. So while you're in residency? Yeah, while you're in residency. So like when you're done with medical school, you have a six month grace period and you'd be in residency by then. You don't have to make payments, but I think the interest does accrue, so which is a lot, which is a lot. And you'll have to start making monthly payments, depending on how much you do take out. So that's just that's an inevitable fact. I was already going to have to take out a lot of loans in order to, you know, in order to support my medical education. It's not like I would have had all of the tuition like set and ready for medical school before I would have gone in. It's just never enough. So it's something that you're willing that you would have to be willing to deal with, living in debt and willing to live within your means. And then you have to be able to push yourself in order to set yourself up for success when you do go into residency and be able to pay off that debt later on. So that's just something that I have to deal with and I'll figure that out when I do have to start making payments. But for now, that's just the option that I have at the moment. Right. So that's con number two is the cost is much higher than a US based medical significantly higher. And you'll just have to see what Caribbean medical school you're willing to apply to and what you're willing to do that. Like even the scholarships that I have for it, it's never enough. So I'm still just going to have to pay like, I don't know, maybe like $50,000 a semester or something. But the scholarship of course doesn't cover all of it. So that's that's con number two. Caribbean school, Caribbean med school pros and cons. Your personal experience has obviously been quite good so far. You seem to really like how structured they are, how much they help you. And then the last thing on our list to talk about was advice to pre meds, to pre medical students. One thing I remember you saying is that somebody even with my grades and experience, you know, still was not able to, at least this year get into a US based medical school. So I decided to just not waste any more time and just start my medical education, go the Caribbean route, which is definitely very respectable. Would you mind sharing those stats? What's your GPA, patient care experience, all the other details? Sure. So I don't remember my MCAT score. That's been a while. All I remember was that my college GPA for undergrad was like a 3.7 overall. And then I think my science, my basic science GPAs or at least my basic science grades like for your prereqs, biology, chemistry, organic, cell and molecular biology, all of those things were like generally within the A to B range, nothing below a C. So those were my stats. Like I said, I don't remember my MCAT exactly, but I think I was like percentile, was it? I think I was like a 504, 505. And generally like a US allopathic medical school likes a like a 508 at the minimum. DOs like 504, but I still didn't get in. So that's what my MCAT was like. What else? So I think those were the majority of my stats. Any other ones that I'm missing? No, that's generally it for med school is this MCAT GPA. And then everything else is just kind of like person by person, whether you do some sort of patient care experience, whether you do community service, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, that's generally it. Sure. But any advice to pre-medical students? What they could do to try to secure a spot in medical school? Yeah, okay. So general advice for if you want to go into medical school, of course, know your why. And if you can convey that why in your personal statement, that is, and it shows how authentic you are as a person. And the earlier you create that personal statement as well and telling your story as to what brought you into medicine, that'll be very important. And it'll set yourself up for success in terms of how you perform in the interviews and showing that you are a capable applicant of getting through medical school. That's the first important thing. And so like, even if you like I know Boris, you're working with PA students for and you're helping out with PA personal statements, it's like the same process doing it with medicine and why you want to be a doctor. If you can create that personal statement early, it saves you so much time when you're applying for medical school. So get that reason get that why down and get that personal statement drafted proof read and just get ready to submit that. So that's how you express how your authenticity and who you are as a person. Number two is there's no getting away around this one, but you got to keep your grades up high. It's because that they because medical school admissions like numbers. But I also say like, if you approach your if you approach those statistics with the mindset that it shows that not like it's a number that you have to reach in order to get into the school, it you want to show that you are capable of handling the curriculum. That's why those numbers are set there. It's there to show that you are a capable individual in order to handle the amount of information that they're going to throw at you. And you're able to integrate it and understand it in order to best take care of your patients. So it's there to handle it's there to show admissions counselors that you're willing to handle the rigor of their education. So get those grades up. If you if you have like a subject that you're lacking in, you could take maybe like a post back and take some courses to boost up that GPA or even go for a master's program. And that will help to show that like, even though you didn't do as well during this time, now that you're showing that progression and you're taking on even more challenging courses, that progression can be very attractive and popular for admissions counselors. So definitely do that. That it's a great opportunity and also just a great way to accrue more experience for your medical school application. So there's an interject right there for a minute. That was very important. So I did a pre medical post back. I was the only PA. There was one dental students or pre dental and literally everybody else was pre met. Everybody wanted to be a doctor. The other 15 students were pre met. I can tell you one piece of advice. If you're going to do the post back route or the master's route, any sort of a separate structured program after undergrad before med school, please for goodness sake take it seriously. Because those things you do not really get student loans for them. So you're going to be out 50 100 K extra on your loans just to do this program. And I can't just I can't emphasize that enough. If you're going to do that, you're going to take a whole year of your life that much money, at least take it seriously. Like go as hard as you can on studying, go as little as you can on sleep. Don't worry about your health. Don't worry about, you know, work life balance. Don't worry about finding yourself as a human being. Don't worry about anything except for putting those numbers on the board and getting the highest possible grades that is the only purpose of that year. It sounds cold. It sounds harsh. I just I really want to drill that into people's heads. If you're going to do a post back, take it serious. Yeah, and that yeah, yeah. And that that's super important. It's just that the numbers don't lie when you're doing or when you're showing those statistics. And like I said, if if you approach it with the mindset that this is this isn't a standard that I'm trying to reach, but more so, I'm going to perform as well as I can in order to show that I am capable, not necessarily it's a requirement, but that I'm capable of doing this and you're you create a plan and you're gunning for it. That's how you can try and set yourself up for success and achieving those high grades or achieving us achieving something even above that standard that medical school admissions are asking you for. So that's that's just something that we have to do if you're considering going into a career of medicine. And then the third thing is that number three is find like like I said before, find your study habits, know yourself as a student, how do you best study and use those study techniques, but also be flexible in your studying approach because one thing that one way that you're able to learn this subject isn't going to work for this other subject. And then you're you also want to even if you go in undergrad right now and you spend that time to understand the information instead of memorizing, it makes it so much easier for you to learn information in medical school and integrate it for the for lifelong learning and using that information for taking care of your patients. So if you're a pre-med now, use that time to understand don't memorize and you have that time now to learn. This is the time to learn now because if you're out in the real world and you're taking care of a patient and you didn't learn this information, they could get injured or even worse die under your care. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm going to take my study seriously now in order to do that. So that's number three know your study habits and be willing to change. And the number four is make sure that you find time to outside of studying in order to present yourself as a well rounded individual. Be involved with research, be involved with community service. If you have a hobby that you like, find some way that you can do it that you can continue to do that even while you're studying or even do something for your community with that. And especially if you have community service opportunities that you've been involved in for the longest time by the time you get into medical school or you apply for medical school, it shows that you have dedication to this cause. So that's why I think it's really important to seek out those opportunities outside of studying and as well as seeking out opportunities for shadowing or anything medically related. You want to find those opportunities to present yourself as an individual who is capable, competent, but also can talk with people and is empathetic and trustworthy. So all of these tips are there for your benefit in order to present yourself with the best chance of getting into a medical school, whether it's in America or here in the Caribbean. I think they're very solid tips. Obviously, I can't speak on getting into medical school. I've never tried it and I've never succeeded at it. So I'm just going to say everything Patrick said sounds very, very solid. But yeah, and that was definitely our last topic. So two questions. One, and obviously if this is a no, I'll just erase it from the video, but do you mind if I share your email in the information for the video in case any prospective pre-medical students have any questions for you personally? Sure. Yeah, definitely. I'm more than willing to answer those questions. Just send it to that email and I'll try to get back to you within a 24-hour response time, but I'm also studying too. So if I don't see your email, be willing to just send it again and I'll take note of it. Yeah, no promises. Sometimes people get busy. You know, if it's a week, don't be offended. Patrick, we'll get to you. You know, maybe you're in his span box. Try again. But either way, thank you very much for helping pre-medical students because I know when you're when you're trying to do something that gargantuan as in like trying to apply to something as difficult as gay school or even way more difficult as in med school, you're just so lost unless dad's a doctor, then you're less lost. But most of those people do not have like a family member or a friend that knows how to guide them through the process. So they're just they're so lost and they just love to have even a little bit of help from somebody else. So thank you for doing that. And then to just kind of any parting words for YouTube, for anybody that might be watching, what do you think? Any parting words? Okay, so I think that I think the career of medicine in general, whether you're choosing to be a doctor or a PA, nurse practitioner, pharmacist, I think all of these fields are equally important in taking care of patients. So what one field might have and what one field might entail might not work for you, but really take the time to explore those career possibilities if you consider a career in medicine, be open to what each role entails, and remind yourself why you're doing this, you're doing this to take care of patients, and you're working with a team in order to provide the best possible care. So take those roles seriously and just be open to what you're willing to work with and what role you are willing to accept in order to best take care of your patients. All right, you guys hear that? Some words of wisdom right there from a medical school student year two. All right, y'all. So hopefully you guys enjoyed that. Thank you, Patrick, very much for spending almost 90 minutes just basically educating the public. Oh, wow. I didn't even realize. Yeah, we're going on 81 minutes, almost 82 minutes. So one, time flies when you're having fun. Two, when you share your knowledge, it just feels good. It's nice to educate people. You've gone through all these struggles to get to where you are now, and it's just kind of good to give back, right? Yes, definitely. You know, yeah. So being a mentor is hard work, especially if you're really taking it seriously, but it's also extraordinarily rewarding. So if any of y'all have questions for Patrick, we're going to put the email in the information for this video unless he gets absolutely inundated, then we'll probably have to remove it. But until that happens, go ahead and ask him questions. If y'all have any questions about PA school or getting into PA school, obviously ask me, forestthepa.com. You know what, I forgot I got this before, so I'm going to plug it here at the end. I was meeting to plug it before. When Patrick was talking about kind of doing some self-reflection is in writing your medical school essay, but also just kind of, just what motivates you. A good resource. I know it says PA right on the front, but the book I wrote, step-by-step physician assistant school, personal statement, writing and other application secrets. I go step-by-step on how to write your personal statement in here. Basically, just like if you're not very self-reflective or you just don't know what to write or how to get started, you're intimidated. It's a good way to just kind of step-by-step write your essay from the ground up and ask yourself the important questions. So that's also going to be a link in the description for the video. Otherwise, Patrick, thank you again. Boris, thank you so much. It's a pleasure being here. Yeah, and I'm going to end the recording. I'll chat with you in just a little bit. Sure. Guys, thank you for watching. We'll see you in the next video.