Hi, happy thanksgiving! Thanks for offering to answer our questions! I have a few that I've listed below
1. As an URM, what advice would you give to other URMs who will be applying to medical school soon?
2. Do you feel as though you are supported at your institution?
3. How important is research experience?
4. What is your favorite thing about being a medical student?
5. Most challenging thing about being a medical student?
Hi.
1. Get a mentor, the mentor doesn't have to be an URM, just got a dependable mentor. Hell, get several mentors if one isn't enough. They don't have to be a physician, but they should at least be involved in the hard sciences at the doctoral level. They'll know a lot about how academia works, getting into medical school is a whole lot less mysterious if you know how academia works. We had premed advisors, but word on the street was that they sucked so having a mentor was a lot more helpful — especially since my mentor successfully applied to medical school and decided to do a PhD instead, they already knew what the schools wanted from personal experience.
2. At my undergraduate institution, not at all. But, at my medical school very much yes.
3. Very, but I'm biased because that was one of my main reasons for attending my medical school, and I have a background in it. But, it's very great for interviews, teaches you how to find funding in medschool (I've paid for half of my living expenses with research grant money, it's Boston so it takes quite a bit), you'll learn how to get things approved (IRB/ACUC).
At the interview, nothing is better than being able to fluently talk about the subjects you love and (because its your niche) possibly teach your interviewer something. Anytime you teach the interviewers something they didn't know, and it doesn't do you a disservice, it's a good thing as it shows that you really are enamored with science as much as you kept repeating it in your application.
The better you are at knowing how/what to do a project from start to finish the easier it is if you care about research to join/complete a project. There's a lot of hurdles to research, so just being able to say you get that gives you a lot of "street cred". Practically, already having research experience (coPI on several projects in undergrad/postgrad) made it possible that I'm now completed my second research project (funded for both).
4. One of my favorite things is pretty cliche, but working with patients (we have done so since first year). I spent all summer talking to people about their heart conditions and explaining it to them, things like that are especially rewarding. I've even gotten hugs from patients, I'm a favorite with grandmas.
5. Adjusting to the change of medical school was the hardest part. I was intending to do a PhD, and my recent work prior to medical school had been a lot more about what I could imagine: thinking of an experiment and how to test it, helping people improve their research projects etc. So, 1st year medical school, a place that favors rote memory alone was a hard transition. If you're into memorizing lists out of the phone book then this won't be that much of a shock to you. The first year of medical school doesn't necessarily reward the type of intelligence you used to get into medical school, so it's an adjustment. Not everyone does adjust, so be weary about waiting for things to fall into place by themselves.