Med School Dreams

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im 20 just finished 2nd year of my degree (medical and health sciences) my GPA stands at about 6.75 on a 7 scale, I'm working on getting more volunteering experience, i have 2 years of undergrad left because i decided to split up 3rd year which is very medically focussed (neuroscience, cardiorespiratory, regional anatomy and nutrients&metabolism) and i have to take 2 extra 1st year subjects because i changed from medical biotechnology to medical and health sciences (psych101 and pub health) I'm at university of wollongong at the moment and i intend to go to university of wollongong for med school because living away from home is not really feasible for me. Im sitting the GAMSAT in march 2013 and march 2014 (if i don't get above 65 in 2013). in order to score an interview at UOW med school you have to have a good GPA and GAMSAT score and a good portfolio (its a specific format that you have to follow from the web site). The interview is in the multiple mini interview format :/ which is a bit worrying though I'm quite good at talking about ethics and stuff with people i don't know and I'm really good at faking social butterflyness. After the interview the students are offered places based on only the interview and portfolio, this concerns me as mine isn't strong, though I'm working on it (I've done starlight foundation, 40 hr famine, impact at UOW program where we did a fundraising event for green acres disability services) (going to volunteer for the cancer care centre near my house, going on a medical delegation on 2013 with ISLP, going to do the AIME program working with aboriginal teenagers) i have achievements in the arts (having my major film project featured at my high schools prestigious film night, having art at an artists with autism exhibition, having performed in school musicals, performing in a variety of places with my school jazz band as the lead violinist) i have played teams sports (lawn bowls at a local, regional and state level) i also was awarded the prestigious achievement despite adversity award in 2011 (its a wollongong/illawarra thing) I'm also committed to being a rural doctor (neurologist) if my services are required, and keen to participate in the online doctor thing australia has now where you can essentially "Skype" with a specialist doctor if you are in a rural area and medicare pays for it

Im getting jitters about getting in to UOW med school i hope I'm competitive enough

anyone have any experiences they'd like to share about getting into med (particularly in australia) or tips for MMIs?

No idea personally, but is there an advisor at that school you could talk to for advice and direction?

i went to med school at pitt, USA. you sound like you will be a very competitive applicant. best of luck to you.

I don't know about Australian med schools, but you would be extremely competitive in the US. My strategy was to apply to a school I did not care about and interview there first as practice. Made all my mistakes there and in spite of that accepted there.

thankyou for the reassurance

Hi, one thing, it's a little off beat, working with clients at H&R Block was one of the things which convinced me that I would have been a good doctor.

I took the client interaction seriously, I treated our clients as equals, and I was very good at distilling information down. For example, "[Lifetime Learning Credit] even with a student loan?"

"Sure, as long as you're responsible for the loan and as long as you otherwise qualify."

====================

I even developed the theory: The hard clients are the good clients.

One co-worker directly challenged me, saying "You're too nice to these people."

Oh, well. Now, I do believe in going fast. Afterall, clients don't want to be bogged down with lectures.

So, in areas where you're good, it's likely you'll be quite a bit better than colleagues, and as highly competitive people, they might be jealous. So, don't brag. Be humble and realize there's a lot of medicine you will only now skimmingly and that's okay, because you'll know how to look it up and know which colleagues to ask.

And then, a lot of medicine really does have a trial and error aspect in a respectful sense. For example, if someone has a nasty bronchitis, hit it with one broad-spectrum antibiotic and if that doesn't work, hit it with another. And it is itself diagnostic whether the infection responds to a particular antibiotic. I used to think this was terrible medicine, but now I favor this active approach.

As another example, I'm guessing Legionnaire's disease (Legionella pneumophila) must be pretty hard to diagnose, but it responds to erythromycin. So, if a patient is struggling with pneumonia and may not make it, trying something beats the hell out of doing nothing.

(Yeah, I thought about medical school before, but approaching age 50. It really probably is, too late.)

(At H&R Block, I also worked at matter-of-factly disclosing negatives of the company's bank and loan products.)