Tag Archives: med school interviews

“Preference Signaling” –the Future of Applications?

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Preference Signaling Tokens may be a way to combat over-applying for residencies, but the schemes have a ways to go yet before they’re ready for prime time.

Dear Residency Program: I love you. Do you love me? Check YES or NO!!!

Dave noticed something he’d never heard of before: a company offering ‘tokens’ (for a fee) that could be used by residency program applicants to signal their love for particular programs.  The general idea is to combat the common applicant strategy of applying to as many residency programs as possible to be sure  the applicant gets a match.  While this strategy is quite reasonable from the individual applicant’s perspective, it causes problems for both programs and the general body of applicants because those extra applications flood programs with candidates that may not actually be interested. 

Then he found out that the Otolaryngology Program
Directors Organization will be doing something similar, and Aline Sandouk, Eric Boeshart, Emma Barr, and Nicole Lacina explore a analysis of who wins and who looses in such a scheme.  

Plus Dave creates an educational game to help students plan how they’ll react to common odd situations.  And by educational, he clearly meant “educational.”

We Want to Hear From You

Do you think Preference Signalling is a good idea? What if medical schools adopts the idea?  Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a kick to hear from you!

More Signs that Med School Will Be Different This Fall

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Photo by lauralizzy13

[This episode is brought to you by Pattern. We hope you’ll check out their disability insurance offerings for docs at http://patternlife.com/partner/shortcoat.]

As many of us are, The Short Coats–including this week’s M1 co-hosts Nathen Spitz, Maddie Wahlen, and Caitlin Matteson–have been gazing into their cracked crystal ball to discover the new shape of medical school amid the pandemic. In a previous episode, the crew prognosticated on how interviews would change (and how you can be sure those changes won’t scuttle your chances for interview success), for instance…and it turns out we were right! Adding some certainty to that, the Association of American Medical Colleges has cancelled all its conferences until July of 2021. So yeah.

Sandgroper Largemun, an anonymous listener from Australia, wants to know some ways that he can stand out in medical school to land that choice residency. Good thing you wrote to us at theshortcoats@gmail.com, Sandgroper, because we have ideas for that!


This Week in Medical News

Dave thinks heartthrob Dr. Fauci’s sun is setting as a leading member of the President’s COVID-19 task force. What do you think?

We Want to Hear From You

Has your outlook changed at all since the lockdowns began? Are you feeling optimistic? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  

Crush It In Your Zoom Interview

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Your future could include video conference interviews. Avoid (at all costs) giving interviewers a reason to say no.

Photo by hang_in_there

This episode is brought to you by Pattern. We hope you’ll check out their disability insurance offerings for docs at http://patternlife.com/partner/shortcoat.

Are Zoom interviews the future? They could be, if some sort of magic doesn’t intervene in the course of the pandemic. Meanwhile, everyone has a love-hate relationship with video conferencing, and Dave fears that those on the sharp end of the interview may not have the technology and skills to shine brightly.

So, with the help of Brandon Bacalzo, Sahaana Arumugam, Nathan Spitz, and Claire Carmichael (all M1s who, like you, are in the thick of virtual everything right now), we collect our thoughts on how you can remove the distractions and subconscious biases that could sink your interview.

We Want to Hear From You

What advice would you give for virtual interviews? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime or email theshortcoats@gmail.com! We need to hear from YOU!


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You care about others, or you wouldn’t be into this medicine thing. Our #merchforgood program lets you to give to our charity of the semester and get something for yourself at the same time!

Continue reading Crush It In Your Zoom Interview

Listeners Revolt!

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We love listener feedback…even when it’s negative 🙂

And this whole obesity thing is really great for generating negative listener feedback.  For instance, Marlene thought our comments on nutrition were mostly wrong.  And Laura didn’t seem happy with what we thought was our neutral stance on keto, either, as she’s having some success with it…although a lack of carbs looks just as bad as a bunch of carbs.  We could ride this obesity gravy train all the way…but Dave is le tired.

Fortunately for our egos, a while back we managed to give some good advice to Victoria on interviewing , who called back to give Irisa Mahaparn, Aline Sandouk, and newbs Justin Hababag and Annee Rempel some GREAT news!  Go, Victoria!

This Week in Medical News

Are you ready to share your brains with other people?  Are you ready to drink your own urine?  Are you ready to not choose a medical school based on it’s ranking in US News & World Reports?  We think hard about those important questions.

We Want to Hear From You

Have we stepped on your sacred cow?  Are you happy with our advice? Have we done anything useful today? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Listeners Revolt!

Questions Abound.

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Don’t Panic, but It’s Interview Season!

job interview photo
Photo by David Blackwell.

Interview season begins soon, which means it’s time to worry about the weird questions you’ll be asked during med school interviews.  Kayla joined our new Facebook Group, The Short Coat Student Lounge, and asked what strange or difficult questions Lisa Wehr, Liza Mann, Irisa Mahaparn, and new co-host Mackenzie Walhof had been asked when it was their turn.  Kayla’s question, of course, inspires Dave to have them try to play a game of Questions, at which all the co-hosts fail miserably.

This Week in Medical News

The FDA announced that it’s seeking public comment on plans to reduce nicotine in cigarettes to sub-addictive levels.  Interesting idea…but we have questions.   Google is trying to give US mobile users who search for info about depression a link to a screening tool for the disease…but we have questions.  One thing we don’t question: our old friend Martin Shkreli’s securities fraud trial jury selection transcripts were released, and let’s just say the jury of his peers don’t give a rat’s butt about what he’s actually on trial for…they hate him for the drug thing.

We want to hear from you.

What questions do you have for us?  We’d love to hear your thoughts.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, visit our Facbook group, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Questions Abound.

Recess Rehash: Nick’s Post Apocalyptic Harem

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end of the world photo
Nick cranes his head around to look into the back seat at his little group. “Ladies, we’re almost at the compound.” Photo by Nico Time

 

 

 

 

 

[Today’s episode is a rerun, brought to you by Dave’s vacation.  Enjoy!]

This time, Mark Toral, John Pienta, Kaci McCleary and Nick Sparr discuss Medical Student Performance Evaluations and Dave’s problem: if you’re looking for it to be a recommendation, that’s not going to happen; but the good news is that when you start your clinical rotations, you are already starting to write your own MSPE through the comments you get, so we discuss how to get good comments and how to learn from the formative ones. We debate Mt. Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine ongoing program that guarantees admission to college sophomores who have good grades and are humanities majors, no MCAT required. And Nick describes one of his medschool interviews in which he laid out his plans for an end-of-the-world harem.

Won’t you leave us a review? iTunes | Stitcher

Continue reading Recess Rehash: Nick’s Post Apocalyptic Harem

Nick’s Post Apocalyptic Harem

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end of the world photo
Nick cranes his head around to look into the back seat at his little group. “Ladies, we’re almost at the compound.” Photo by Nico Time

This time, Mark Toral, John Pienta, Kaci McCleary and Nick Sparr discuss Medical Student Performance Evaluations and Dave’s problem: if you’re looking for it to be a recommendation, that’s not going to happen; but the good news is that when you start your clinical rotations, you are already starting to write your own MSPE through the comments you get, so we discuss how to get good comments and how to learn from the formative ones. We debate Mt. Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine ongoing program that guarantees admission to college sophomores who have good grades and are humanities majors, no MCAT required. And Nick describes one of his medschool interviews in which he laid out his plans for an end-of-the-world harem.

Won’t you leave us a review? iTunes | Stitcher

Continue reading Nick’s Post Apocalyptic Harem