Episode 34: Learn new tips on MCAT prep classes, study techniques, the mindmap CD, personal essays for DO applications, and a recommended flashcard tool.

In this episode, Dr. Dan breaks his usual format in order to answer listener questions.

Premed Questions and Answers

You have to listen to the podacst to get the answers, but here are the questions that he addresses:

Do you have any new tips and tricks regarding MCAT prep classes?

I got a 24 on the AAMC MCAT test #3 and have one month to study for the MCAT. Shall I go for it?

I received an F in Physics in undergrad, but then got an A later in grad school. Do you think it will seriously affect my chances of getting into medical school?

If I upgrade my subscription in the Medical Mastermind Community, what CD’s will I receive? Where is the CD shipping schedule?

I’m overwhelmed by the amount of material inside the Mastermind Community and on the Mindmap CD. Do I have to read it all?

Thank you for giving me feedback on my personal statement. Should I comment on the philosophy of osteopathic medicine in my DO application?

Here is the Flashcard Program that was mentioned on the show: ANKI srs

Episode 33: Listen to this science content review and learn its format for your own audio notes.

Hematopoietic Agents

Notice how these show notes are arranged: a list review of hematopoietic agents (that cause red blood cell production), core text review, and an audio version.

This fits into the Mastermind Study System after you have attended lecture, read the material once, and are reviewing your notes and organizing them for the first time:

MCAT Study Notes:

1.      Growth Factors

2.      Erythropoietin

3.      GCSF – granulocyte colony stimulating  factor

4.      GMCSF – granulocyte/macrophage colony stimulating      factor

5.      Thrombopoietin

6.      Folic Acid

7.      Iron

8.      Ferrous Sulfate

9.      Iron Dextran

10.    Desferoxamine

11. Cobalamin – Vit B12

 

Growth Factors

General

Initiation – Stem cell factor, IL-3, and GMCSF stimulate marrow stem cells to proliferate and form burst forming units and colony-forming units

Differentiation – stimulated by growth factors for each of the major cell lines

1.     RBCs – Erythropoietin

2.     Platelets – Thrombopoietin

3.     Granulocytes – Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF)

4.     Monocytes/Macrophages – Monocyte/Macrophage stimulating factor (CSF-1 or M-CSF)

Erythropoietin

glycoprotein produced in the kidney

acts synergistically with IL-3 and GMCSF

Hypoxia – stimulates the synthesis and secretion of erythropoietin (adenosine A2-receptor, cAMP)

Causes

1.     increase in the rate of mitosis of BFU-E and CFU-E

2.     increase in release of reticulocytes from the marrow

3.     induces hemoglobin formation

requires adequate supply of iron

Therapeutic uses

1)     progressive or chronic renal failure

2)     anemia of patients with AIDS being treated with AZT

3)     Anemia caused by cancer chemo

4)     Preoperatively to permit storage of larger volumes of bloods

5)     Anemia in myelodysplasia

Side Effects

1)     hypertension and seizures

Myeloid Growth Factors

GMCSF, GCSF, IL-3, CSF-1, M-CSF

Clinical investigations ongoing for:

1)     nonneoplastic diseases or malignancies that interfere with marrow production

2)     neutropenia caused by chemo

3)     augmentation of host defenses against infection

4)     harvesting of peripheral blood stem cells

Thrombopoietin

preliminary clinical studies now

improves the platelet count following chemo induced thrombocytopenia

IRON

General

absence of iron – microcytic, hypochromic anemia

essential forms of iron – hemoglobin, myoglobin, cytochromes, and nonheme iron-dependent enzymes

Absorption – almost exclusively in the duodenum and jejunum

Ø  enterocyte regulates the absorption based on need

Ø  DCT-1 (divalent cation transporter-1)

involved in transport of iron from the gut lumen to the enterocyte

increased in iron deficiency

Ø  HFE

control enterocyte iron and DCP-1 levels

defective in hereditary hemochromatosis

Ø  Normal absorption – 1 mg/day in male, 1.4 mg/day in female

Transport – bound in blood to transferrin

Excess storage

Ø  RE system and hepatocytes as ferritin or hemosiderin

Body store of iron is highly conserved – no active excretion of iron

Pharmacology

Oral Ferrous Sulfate – treatment of choice for iron deficiency

Ø  remember dosage based on amount of elemental iron content

Ascorbic Acid – increases the absorption of iron by reducing the iron from ferric to the ferrous form.

Optimal absorption occurs when dosage occurs in a fasting state

Side Effects

Ø  GI distress, heartburn, nausea, upper abdominal pain

Iron poisoning

rare in adults – due to “mucosal block”

children do not have mucosal block

4 distinct phases of acute iron toxicity

1)     vomiting and hemorrhagic gastritis followed by hypotension and lethargy

2)     up to 12 hr quiescent period – looks improved

3)     12-24 horus post-ingestion – life-threatening events

Ø  coma

Ø  pulmonary ede[...]

Episode 32: A different dentist weighs in this month, but wait – he’s applying to medical school! What? You’ve never heard a podcast like this before…

A Dentist Turned Pre-Med

Seriously?

You judge for yourself, but I think that the same decision factors that the last dentist we interviewed used to decide TO CHOOSE dentistry as a career, this dentist looks at them totally differently and CHOOSES NOT to stay in dentistry.

Episode 31: The content dentist. Next month will be a discontented dentist turned pre-med! Learn why they made their choice and how to make your own. Most people don’t realize that Yale is not only one of the most prestigious universities in the country for dental health, but also the #1 university to learn all the ins and outs of dental implants and oral surgery. The education requirements for becoming a dentist are completing a bachelor’s degree, passing the Dental Admissions Test (DAT), and completing four years of study to earn a Doctor of Dental Surgery or Doctor of Dental Medicine. You must obtain licensure from your state board of dentistry to practice in the profession.

Pre-Dentistry

I’ve had numerous questions about other health fields besides pre-medicine. So, in this 2-part podcast series we will hear from two dentists:

Five Reasons To Become A Dentist

Listen to the podcast and discover the top reasons why Dr. John made his career choice to become a dentist.

What I’ve always found fascinating is that these same decision factors can be used to justify the opposite – listen to next month’s podcast to see exactly how that can happen…

Episode 30: Doctor Dan explains the average MCAT for allopathic matriculates in the United States.

The Average MCAT

In 2010, the Association of American Medical Colleges (no affiliation) reported the following numbers from the entering class of allopathic medical students:

Mean Total MCAT Score = 31.1, with a standard deviation of 4.1

 

Reviewing our MCAT average graph, this means that 15.9% of the 2010 entering class scored at or under 27.

MCAT Verbal Reasoning Scores

2010 average was 9.9

MCAT Biology Scores

2010 average was 10.8

MCAT Physics Scores

2010 average was 10.4

MCAT Writing Sample Scores

In 2010, a score of R was in the 75th percentile, Q was median, and a score of N was in the 25th percentile.

Episode 29: Harvard advice on the medical school personal statement. 6 Don’ts & 6 Do’s

Personal Essay Help

www.InsiderMedicalAdmissions.com

6 Don’ts of Writing Personal Essays:

Don’t be generic.

Don’t use personal medical experiences.

Don’t be vague.

Don’t write more than one page.

Don’t use flowery language.

Don’t use quotations.

6 Do’s of Writing Personal Essays:

Do start early, say during the winter before your application cycle.

Do make an outline.

Do show, don’t tell.

Do start with a zinger and end with a clencher.

Do be proud.

Do address severe deficiencies in the essay. (learn how to do this yourself here)

Episode 28: This is where I ask him the big question – you don’t want to miss his answer and the reason he gives for it!

Caribbean Medical Schools

This is the final reveal!

Take a listen and see exactly why people complain about the quality of medical students coming from “some” Caribbean medical schools.

In summary, this two-part series on “Do Caribbean Medical Schools Suck” has addressed the following points:

The quality of medical training is on par with US Medical Schools

The standard of care is often not based on American culture

The content for licensing in the US is often outdated

What do YOU think? Do they suck?

 

The opinions expressed in this interview are solely those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of Premedical Solutions, LLC or The Medical Mastermind Community and its members.

Episode 27: You have NEVER heard this stuff before – I promise or your money back…

The opinions expressed in this interview are solely those of the interviewee and do not reflect the opinions of Premedical Solutions, LLC. yada yada yada

Episode 26: Learn the “Master Key” to taking notes and converting them for the Free Recall Study Method. Dr. Dan discovered it independently and, years later, found that he was not alone.

In this episode, I’m going to tell you exactly how to prepare your notes from class and employ the free recall method. You can also look up sites that sell study notes to save up on your time. Something like one or two weeks before your exams to give you a serious boost to your exams scores. Now this is no BS, this is no hype. I’m just excited about it. Apollo audio books actually uses this exact same format which I discovered on my own as a pre med in all of their professional medical school audio courses. And right now, I’m in negotiations with Princeton review for you guys, to get them to create a full blown MCAT version.

Highlight only notes or passages that you DON”T ALREADY KNOW

Record these high yield notes in a Question-Pause-Answer format

Listen to them throughout the day

But you do not have to wait one or two years. By then you may already be in medical school. I truly hope you are. I’m going to teach you right now, exactly how to use the wisdom behind this study method in your daily operations of undergrad courses. And for your MCAT review. You do not have to wait. Let’s get started now.

I want to start of explaining this format by exactly what kind of pressures and needs triggered me to discover this secret on my own. Going back to the time when I got out of the army and took on a job as a phlebotomist, for two years straight, as a full time student in pre med I worked from Friday afternoon at five until Sunday at midnight on call to be a phlebotomist and drive around a tri-state area covering hundreds of miles and drawing blood in nursing homes usually stat orders that didn’t necessarily qualify these elderly people to go to the hospital but couldn’t wait until Monday. I sort of cover these places on the weekend. Which meant I drove hundreds of miles every weekend, the troll truck I was in used to hurt my back, the whole story, you get the idea.

MCAT STUDY TECHNIQUE

The challenge as a pre med though, was I really needed study time. That was a problem because starting Friday afternoon, my pager would start going off and I couldn’t sit in front of the book. So that was a big pressure situation. I made decent money back then, and this was around 2000 when I got out and was a pre med and for the next two years before medical school. And while I was actually driving, I got paid mileage too on top of $9 an hour. It worked out to something like $17 an hour if I was on the road. It wasn’t bad money at all. And with my military benefits, I could afford to live on my own in an apartment and things like that, you know.

So I was kind of strived for cash, totally strived for time, yet I need to ace my courses. And I did pretty much ace my courses. I did graduate with 3.85 magna cum laude at MI University in Biology. So that was pretty good. I figured out a way, to study without sitting in front of books. It did require some preparation during the week. But let me go through that process of the things I tried and what worked and what didn’t. First of all, the funny thing, and fun thing about this is, my portable recording device was a cassette tape recorder. This was only 11 years ago from the time of this recording. Now I’m using a – several hundred dollar digital device with best microphone for YouTube and a podcasting studio at my home. Things have changed a lot. And there are some specific advantages to the digital voice recorders that are out there in Wall Mart and Best Buy and everything right now.

MCAT MP3s

Okay. So when I first decided that, “Hey, recording my notes and reading them on to a recorder and then hitting the road and driving around, and doing the blood draws that I had to do was a great idea. That’s exactly what I did. I[...]