It's that time of year again!

So, lots of my friends who were previously un-admitted (as well as the slew of posters on pre-med101!) are all going through the interview phase of med school admissions now.

For all those non-medical people out there, this time of year is perhaps one of the most stressful times of a pre-meds life, but it's also a pretty unique time of the year. I'm going to dedicate this post to describing the process and the "fun" that you actually experience (although of course it's a very stressful process as well).

One of the biggest perks of interviewing was getting to travel around and seeing some of the cities and schools. Many of them were quite a bit different than my school and it was really enjoyable to walk about the campus or the city. I had already decided on my first choice prior to interviews but I took a look around these other campuses to know what my ranking of the other schools were, in the event I was not admitted to number 1 and had a choice between the others.

The other really enjoyable experience was to meet the other applicants. There were always a lot of social events around interviews and I went out to some of these (although I never did any of the drinking, thought it would be a bad idea to show up to an interview hung over). Talking to other pre-meds you'd realize that everyone was actually pretty cool and I made friends that I ended up going to school with this year and also friends who made it elsewhere. It's pretty cool because you often introduce yourself to someone at an interview earlier in the year and you end up bumping into them again in some random other school later in the interview cycle.

Of course the entire experience was also a very stressful experience and the interviews are among some of the most important you will ever have, but also try and enjoy yourselves!

Recent Articles on Med School Admissions

http://www.cbc.ca/news/citizenbytes/2009/12/doctor_shortage_a_medical_stud.html
[In a nutshell: Girl thinks it's too competitive to get into a Canadian med school, goes off overseas to go to med school. Worries about not being able to come back to Canada to practice. B***hes about it.]

http://www.globecampus.ca/in-the-news/globecampusreport/perfectly-qualified-but-cant-get-in/
[In a nutshell: The Globe and Mail talks about how hard it is to get into medicine nowadays. How you have to be super smart as well as really well-rounded. They cite an example of a World Champion Jump-Rope Skipper in Dalhousie.]

My thoughts: Yes, they are both correct that med school is actually insanely difficult to get into nowadays. There is more than certainly a balance of luck, academic intelligence, charisma, and extra-academic qualities that must be fulfilled. People miss admissions by a sliver every year.

The upside to all this: Yes it is ridiculous to get in; however, once you make it in, you get to work with and learn from a group of amazing peers. Working with each other for the next 4 years will give you an opportunity to learn all that your colleagues have learned and thus make you a better doctor. When you pack in 100-200 of people like this into a classroom and allow them to work closely with each other for 3-4 years, you'll be surprised as to the amount you will learn from each other and the things that you will achieve. For example, in every med school throughout Canada, not only do the students learn how to be doctor, but if you check it out, med students are really well involved. They run ridiculous amounts of charity work and extra-curricular activities.

I really have been noticing that my classmates are very well-rounded people. I mean this in the sense that, had they not gone into medicine but rather into business, or law, or research, they would also have led very successful careers. I think that med school admissions have become more-so like this since the late 90s and it will truly be interesting to see what these people will bring into the world. Many of these doctors are finishing up their residencies now and beginning to become fully fledged doctors, it will be a wonder to see what these emerging doctors will do in our society. (You can see much evidence of it now already, for my fellow med students out there, I'm sure you've noticed a lot of the people involved in your medical education are actually fairly young and were admitted around that time frame. Many of them go onto do research, or fight for policies, etc).