My White Coat Ceremony!

Sometimes, I still find it hard to believe that this is really real life.

I tend to get overly excited about dental school pretty frequently, like when I got my first packet of information in the mail..
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So anyway, what exactly is a white coat ceremony? What happens?

Well, a variety of things - you sit with your classmates in an auditorium full of family and friends, as you listen to the Dean speak about the wonders of the dental profession. He'll mention that this weighty 350K investment is actually one of the best decisions you've made in your life. Then, you'll get on stage and introduce yourself to the audience, walk across, and be knighted into dentistry, draped in the symbolic armor of a white coat. And once that's over, you'll stand with your fellow classmates, and recite a pledge to strive for excellence, never to harm patients, and to uphold academic pursuit to the highest standard. Parents and loved ones will flood around, cameras will flash, and all of a sudden, it's over - but now, you're a little different. You can finally remove the "pre" from "pre-dental student", and it's time to get the show on the road :)

As I sat in my chair, I thought about each of my classmates. Everyone has a story, and the white coat ceremony embraces all the deliberate, and laborious steps that came before this moment; it celebrates a journey of blood, sweat, and tears, that feels endless when tackled head first, and oddly fleeting when viewed in hindsight.

Despite all the bumps in my path to dentistry, I probably wouldn't have it any other way. When I try to count every opportunity that God has opened in my life, I'm always overwhelmed. I am grateful because everything has led me here, and I am so excited for what the future holds. Even if means a being a zombie, being sleep-deprived, and spending endless hours studying for anatomy, my other classes, and practicing lab things - I'm ready :)

A typical week in med school

When I was applying to med schools, I was always curious about what a typical school day would be like. Now that I'm in my fourth week (time flies!), I thought it'd be fun to show what a week at USC is like.

Here is my schedule for last week:

Seems pretty confusing right? We don't even really have a "typical week." Almost every week is different (like this week we had a practice exam). I miss the days of having a predictable school schedule...sigh.

So everyday we have anywhere from 1 to 4 hours of classroom lecture (usually 4), and then a 2-4 hr session - either PPM, ICM, or Anatomy lab.

[acronym explanation time]
PPM = Professionalism and the Practice of Medicine
    - Ethics, humanities, touchy-feely stuff, ya know
ICM = Introduction to Clinical Medicine
    - Tuesday mornings are spent in the hospital (almost every week)
    - Thursday afternoons are "workshops" where we learn the skills we apply on Tuesdays (only some weeks)

the blog comes back to life

"brains?"

photo source

To our scant and apathetic readers,

After a lengthy hibernation, this blog is coming back to life! Now that I am finally starting med school, I want to share my experiences. Updates may be short or inconsistent, but I'll try my best! I started school exactly 2 weeks ago and basically dove right in. Between classes, studying, and socials, I've already become dependent on daily coffee to keep me awake. The challenging part about medical school is not difficult concepts, but just the sheer amount of material we must learn. So the best advice I heard was to "hit the ground running." Of course we must also balance this advice with "don't forgot to have fun!" Will I succeed, or be a floundering failure? Stay tuned to find out! 

the highly anticipated white coat

<3 kathleen

Making the most of your AMCAS: a friendly guide

So you’re done with your MCAT, finishing up your personal statement, and securing your letters of recommendation. After all that, the AMCAS application probably seems like a piece of cake! But be careful not to rest on your laurels! Because besides your personal statement, the “Work/Activities” section of the AMCAS is the only other place to make yourself shine! Before we get there, let’s go through a brief overview of the application.

AMCAS: your best friend for the next few months.

1. Identifying Information.

Pretty straightforward. The easiest part!

2. Schools Attended.

High school and colleges. This includes community college, even if you only took 1 or 2 classes there during high school.

3. Biographic Information

Tip: It’s okay (and probably better) to use your preferred address for the “permanent address” as well. Some schools have a policy of mailing things only to the “permanent address” entered in your AMCAS. The address doesn’t affect your background check or anything important like that, so just put where you want stuff mailed.

My New Job, and a Glimpse into Esthetic Dentistry

In the past month, I started working at a dental lab where dental work - crowns, implants, veneers, bridges, etc. - is fabricated so dentists can place them in patient's mouths.

I'm not doing any of the CDT (ceramic dental technician) stuff just yet (though I get to start wax-ups next week! hooray!!), but I've been helping my boss work on a presentation for these big esthetic dentistry conferences in Germany and Poland. It's great, because I get to help design his presentation and the yearbook nerd in me is certainly rejoicing. I've been using (and trying to get better at) Photoshop and Illustrator.. Now if I could just figure out Lightroom..

As I've been helping him prep, I've begun to learn a lot about the ideas behind esthetic dentistry as well (I'll be spelling esthetic with an "e", so if that bothers you, I'm sorry.. lol). Dental students always tell me that school whizzes by you in a flash, and that when they get out of school, they barely feel ready to take on real patients, in a real practice. I've always wondered if there's enough time to develop a trained hand for the detailed work in dental school, and whether the curriculum trains your eye for esthetically pleasing work. Since my boss is a CDT, he focuses heavily on the artistic component of dentistry, and tells me that often times, dentists aren't even aware when there's an esthetic issue with the labwork because they haven't learned how to see these problems yet.

Pre-med and bioengineering: my perspective

Being a bioengineering major and pre-med at Berkeley has been quite the interesting ride. Although I loved my major, it definitely wasn’t the easiest path to med school, and I have many mixed feelings about it. I was recently asked to answer some questions for an event for BioE pre-meds. If you’re pre-med and considering an engineering major, I hope you’ll find these questions helpful!

1. How/when did you decide to pursue both bioengineering and medicine?

I entered college as Undeclared in the College of Engineering, and was only considering medicine a little bit. I was interested in medical devices, so I narrowed my major down to mechanical engineering or bioengineering. I finally chose bioengineering when I realized how dry everything seemed to me when it didn’t have a biological or medical application. Then, by the end of my sophomore year, I realized that my heart really pulled me toward medicine. I sought experiences to expose me to the field of medicine, and that how I became a BioE pre-med!

2. What did you enjoy most about your major (and being pre-med)?

Bioengineering is such a broad discipline. There is a lot of room for designing your own curriculum to get you where you want to go. Since I knew I wanted to pursue medicine, I chose more classes that were geared towards biology/medicine and less tech-heavy classes. I enjoyed my engineering classes because they were either very conceptual with little memorization, or they were focused on new technologies with direct clinical applications.

Interview Tips

For the 2012-2013 cycle, I got 9 interview invites and attended 5 of them (UoP, Michigan, NYU, UPenn, UCLA).

Now that interviews are completely, 100%, glorifyingly over, I'm proud to say I was 5 for 5 interviews, aka I got accepted anywhere I interviewed! woot.

I would attribute my success to three factors, and I'll list them for you below (Interview Prep Checklist below as well!).

1. Being genuine.

• On my UCLA interview, they asked me what I'd been doing over my gap year. I started listing being like, "It's been a pretty busy year.. I have several part time jobs as a dental assistant, teacher, tutor...and a waitress.. to make rent by the end of the month.. haha" At that, both my interviewers jumped at my sheepish last response, and said "Being a server is probably one of the most valuable experiences you coulda gotten out of all the jobs you listed. Being in a service position blah blah blah" etc. They knew that being a server doesn't sound fancy, but the life experience is invaluable. 

How to Survive the Interviewer from Hell

Before my NYU interview (this was around.. late November?) I obviously prepared through SDN, read up on the school, and gathered info from friends who had interviewed before me. What did I size up the NYU monster to be?

• Gigantic class size of like.. 300+ (more seats = more acceptances)
• Interviews are generally 15-30 minutes long and very casual (or so I thought..)
• NYU is $$$ from my pocket. 
• Still worth it to go to an interview because it was a pre-Dec. interview, and I wanted to maximize chances of getting into any dental school by the first deadline. Plus, its NY - who wouldn't love the chance to check out NY?! 

So, I ventured on, bought plane tickets (for you CA people, don't make the mistake that I did for my first interview and buy tix on Southwest.. Check priceline and then Yapta to get good prices for flights, that are hopefully direct. Transfers are the worst.), reserved a spot on super shuttle (I WILL NOT POST THEIR LINK BECAUSE I HATE SUPER SHUTTLE), and made sure I had warm clothes. 

Okay, now to the good part. I get to the admissions office 15 minutes early, to find 8 other applicants already waiting. I sign in at the desk, and get assigned the number 9 - turns out they conducted interviews in order of who showed up first. Filled out some paperwork, and before I knew it, my interviewer called me to the room. 

Enter, the Interviewer from Hell (IFH)..

Goodbye 305

Warning: Cheese ahead.

Apartment 305 is home to many of my favorite memories - nights where we refused to go out and stayed up to hours that grandmas wouldn't dare, crafting away and crocheting patchwork blankets endlessly. Nights where we would sit around eating cereal (this happened so often we deemed these occasions "cereal parties") laughing about things, both silly and serious. That moment we decided that a pen club really was necessary, and that we had to be the ones to start it (and then convince others that it was not only cool, but that they wanted to join it). The nights of buzzing worry and anticipation before our half marathon, Half Dome hike, 5K, and our respective grad school tests. Our champagne and "strawberry shortcake" cake night to celebrate acceptances to schools and the beginning of our lives' dreams. The time Annie impressed us by cooking an omelet.

A Year Well Spent

I have been working at the Clinical Research Center at the School of Optometry for almost 3 years now and in my time here, I have developed close friendships with my co-workers, a couple of which are now first year optometry students at the UC Berkeley School of Optometry! I would be lying if I said I didn't wish I could be them. I see them drop by between lectures to squeeze in a couple hours of journal reading or office work and then head off to pre-clinic. Seeing them together and sharing their first year experience with one another has definitely made me think about whether or not I should have taken a year off between graduation and the start of optometry school. Was I just being lazy or did I really need this year off to strengthen my life experiences and application?

Now, almost an entire year after graduating, I can confidently say that taking a gap year was one of the best decisions I have ever made. :) I wanted to take the year off to focus on myself for once and try new things that I never had time to try during undergrad. This past year was all about personal and professional growth, stepping out of my comfort zone, and making new memories. 

How I Studied for the DAT

This is just what I did to prepare for the DAT. I had a not-pretty GPA (both science and overall), and figured the DAT was my one chance to prove to adcoms that I'm actually very smart! lol. Some encouragement - I had a low GPA but a pretty high DAT and received enough interview invites to choose a school that really fits me. In my experience, a high DAT can open doors that were previously closed. Moral of the story? If you study hard, this score can really make or break you. 

Also, I started out being HORRIBLE at OChem, pretty good at Gchem, and pretty decent at bio (I'm a bio major). That in mind, these resources served me very well. 

RESOURCES

• Kathleen and Annie. Seriously, study buddies make life sooo much better. All three of us will tell you that our summer studying for our MCAT/DAT/OAT was actually really fun.. It sounds so nerdy, but being with your friends, asking each other questions, and encouraging each other will really help you through studying that could otherwise be extremely dull/stressful. 
• DAT Destroyer (I swear, worth its weight in GOLD. I literally learned ochem from the ground up using this book.)
• Crack DAT PAT 
• TopScore tests (8 tests, but you need windows for this I think)
• Kaplan class - Kaplan online materials (5 tests, math review, online class support, Kaplan Blue Book)
• Kaplan Blue Book
• Princeton Review MCAT Biological Sciences Review Book
• My college bio book
• Freelanceteach on youtube (love this guy! so cute and nerdy)
• Sample DAT from ADA website
• **Resources I didn't use, but people liked: Chad's videos, Cliff Notes AP Biology, DAT Achiever, this link (seems to have lots of helpful stuff.. but it's kind of weird ahha)

Do You Fit? Factors to Consider at Interviews

factors to consider when you go to your interviews:

here are some things to look out for, or ask about at your interviews. 

• weather - dress appropriately. i went to university of michigan in a skirt instead of pants (i never thought to buy a pair.. -.-) and literally froze my ass off. it started raining and wind chill made it around 30 degrees outside. im a california girl, so this was not smart. 
• cost of tuition AND cost of living - some schools will wayyy underestimate COL, while others overestimate a bit. make sure your figures are right. in the end, dental school debt is daunting for everyone (unless you live in texas..)
• how much time do students spend in clinic? do D1's/D2's get phased into clinic slowly, or do you just go blind in your 3rd year? do you spend 4-5 days a week in clinic, or 2-3? 
• what are clinic requirements like? what do people dislike about them/find unrealistic?
• are the students happy? do they feel like they're learning things that are necessary?
• what's the board pass rate like?
• grading system? is the school P/F or H/P/F (fake P/F lol..) or graded?
• are students ranked?
• are there places to blow off steam nearby, aka yummy food, jack in the box, bars, clubs.
• do you want to live near your family? i think this is a big factor that people underestimate.. DS is stressful, it's good to unwind and go home every once in a while.

Why I Decided to Take a Gap Year

For Berkeley students, its pretty typical to take a gap year before plunging into a health professional school. I think its becoming more and more common, as people begin to realize the amount of debt they will be in as soon as they finish med/dental/opto/whatever school, and see that there's significantly less room for simply enjoying life. Plus, Berkeley kids are usually burned out from 4 years (or more) or camping out at the library, being constantly caffeinated, and just getting too little sleep.

So why take a gap year? Here were my reasons:

Sleep, play, and learn. 

Becoming a doctor, fully explained

In high school and early college years, I've met many pre-meds who only think about getting into medical school. But what about after that? Med school is really only the first step. It's important to think about the entire process of becoming a doctor, before committing yourself to the long and arduous journey.

The path to medicine in the U.S. requires...

1. Undergraduate education (BS/BA). 4 years.

2. Gap year, post-bac program, or master's program *if necessary*. 1-2 years. I only add this is because it's increasingly common these days for pre-med students to take time off between college and med school in order to improve their competitiveness for med school. Most people I know took a gap year.

3. Medical school (MD). 4 years - 2 years in the classroom, 2 years clinical (in hospitals/clinics).

4. Residency. 3-5 years, depending on the residency. A residency is where you receive the training to specialize in the specialty of your choice. You pretty much need to complete a residency in order to practice clinical medicine. Those who don't do one might go into research, teaching, or working for some biotech company. *Note: sometimes people get confused about an intern year. An internship refers to the first year of post-med school education, but this is usually incorporated into residency. In other words, "intern year" = "first year of residency".

MCAT: choosing a prep class

*Disclaimer: these are my own opinions, but hopefully they are useful if you're making these decisions. I took Princeton Review for 10 weeks during the summer before my senior year, and am happy with my decision.

To take a prep class or not...
This depends on three things: money, time, and self-motivation.
1) Money: A prep class costs anywhere from $1000-$2000. Honestly, this is not that much money compared to the total cost of med school applications/interviews. But if you really have trouble affording this, then it's not worth it. Anything you learn from class you can learn from books that you can borrow from friends for free, or buy online.
2) Time: Lectures are not time efficient. You'll end up reviewing any material you learned in class anyway, unless you are the type of person who only needs to see something once to know it forever. I  devoted most of my summer to MCAT-ing, so many hours a day to spare. However, if you are are studying during the school year, I would recommend NOT taking a prep class. I believe your limited time is better spent self-studying.
3) Self-motivation: I ultimately decided to take a prep class because I knew I needed the extra motivation to keep me going all summer long. If you are very self-motivated and can stick to a schedule, then you'll be fine without a class (again, just buy/borrow books). Looking back, this is the sole reason that I am happy with my decision to take a prep class. I stuck with the class homework/study schedule and it helped pace me for the whole 10 weeks.