More helpful sites not run by medical schools
www.bio.com According to its mission statement, "Bio.com exists to create a distributed, online community of scientists, professionals, businesses and organizations supporting the life sciences for the purpose of facilitating communications and disseminating information within that community." Even though not a vocational guidance site, if you're interested in bioinformatics, proteomics, biotech and so on, this is a thoughtful place to find cutting-edge info. Bio.com is the commercial successor to BRNI, an Internet project dating back to 1992.
PreMed Checklist. Here's a concise list of the steps to medical school, beginning in high school.
Basic Science Online: More than 100 links to sites about anatomy, biochemistry, pathology, physiology, pharmacology and more. Emanates from the University of Health Sciences in Kansas City, MO, an osteopathic school.
medworld.stanford.edu. Exhibit one for how creative and enjoyable a student-run premed web site can be, although updates stopped around 1999. Had the DocTalk radio show via Real Audio, an ancient version of RealPlayer. Was able to display results from up to four database searches on one page with MedBot. This feature does not work well now.
Brad's Premed Resource Center. A good site, but rapidly becoming outdated. Small print states it was last updated in June 1998. The link to Greg Chronowski's ChronoNet is dead. Headings for links include: general, advice, MCAT preparation, schools, interviews, discussions, homepages and chat.
Pre Med Source. General information, health news for premeds, some scholarship info.
Applicant's Guide to Medical School. A lengthy two-part guide: "Some Thoughts on Applying to Medical School," by David Presser, UCSF, 1999, with Iris Castaneda, UCSD, 1998; and "Advice on Writing Your Statement of Purpose,"
by Jose Fuentes.
College and Medical School Admission guide from Latinomed. A general guide that encourages Latinos to serve their growing communities. Includes links for undergraduate summer research and enrichment opportunities, as well as minority scholarships. Some information may be out of date.
Scutwork. Anonymous ratings of residencies.
MedHelper. A well-organized site of links for premeds and professionals. I wish they had an "about" button, so we could learn about the publisher or author. Formerly known as the Ultimate Medical School Page.
ChronoNet. Another venerable premed site. Greg Chronowski's story about how he became a medical student despite being advised against it remains inspiring.
Of special interest is his article on problem-based learning curricula.
Premed.edu. An outdated hodgepodge of premed info. Not recommended.
Student Doctor Network grew out of the University of Kansas as a resource for its med students. Promoting communication among health-care students is central to its mission (see forums description under Discussion Lists), but it also offers good content such as e-books in the basic sciences, clinical science and MCAT prep. As always, buyer beware of free information! Especially considering that the MCAT prep books that we buy often contain errors! FAQ for osteopathic premed students. Many good links. The Big Guide to Medical School promises a lot of content but links often lead nowhere or are dead. Despite these shortcomings, an excellent pre-med web site with potential to become much better.
Discussion Lists
Student Doctor Network Lounge. Better dialogue than misc.education.medical list. Boards for all stripes of medical students, including those preparing for dental, osteopathic, allopathic and optometry schools; those who are in school; residents; students at international schools; physician assistants; and nursing. Content quality in rest of site is uneven, with many links to ether. Warning: Any content or ideas--such as new services or products--you post on the Student Doctor Network can be used by the company just about any way it wants.
Old PreMeds. This appears to be the list for geezer premeds. Posters appear to be mature, helpful and good spellers. You can get postings individually, in a daily digest or can just visit the site.
Medical Organizations
American Association of Medical Colleges. The people that bring you the MCAT, and MCAT prep materials such as the MCAT Student Manual and MCAT Practice Test 1. Register for the MCAT test online at this site.
With over 44,000 members nationwide, this group is "dedicated to representing medical students, improving medical education, developing leadership, and promoting activism for the health of America." Try medical student JAMA Online.
Premed Advisors for Hire
Dr. Sandy Brown specializes in advising nontraditional premeds. His email is sbrown@mcn.org.
Experience, Painful and Otherwise
Student Sites
Canadian Students
Traditional Students
Dave Sacco, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, internal medicine, has a page called the Applicant's Advocate, which focuses on successfully getting in to med school.
Pre-med Depo. A brief site by C. Lucas with links to medical sites, some medical schools and brief advice. Last updated in December 1997.
Eric Wang, M.D. from UCLA, 2002. A thoughtful site on getting in.
Medical Gold, by Jason Welch, currently a student at the Medical College of Georgia. Clear, concise outline of the premed process. Extensive links. Last update: July 2000.
Kevin Day, University of Oklahoma Medical School student.
Nontraditional Students
Paula Goldenberg talks about being a multiple mom, married to a chiropracter, and medical student at Oregon Health Sciences University. Very upbeat and observant.
Michael A. Grasso, computer science PhD now a med student at George Washington University, interested in medical informatics.
Dr. Bruce Stafford, former electrical engineer and Army reservist, May 2000 graduate of the Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine in May 2000 (yes, at the age of 52!). He will resume his PGY-1 year at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center Department of Family Medicine in July 2001.
Mom, M.D., Sethina Edwards talks about mothering and medicine, whether you're a premed or professional.
.
Commercial
Premed Advisor. Sample interview questions and answers from Medplaza, a health sciences consulting company.
The Last Minute MCAT Crammer. For $8.99, Behzad B. Ourmazdi, MD,MS, offers an outline of basic ideas in physics, biology, inorganic and organic chemistry, along with advice for the verbal reasoning section. You can view sample outlines. Accessed through Internet or Palm Pilot/Visor.
medsn.com, formerly known as medschool.com, bills itself as a healthcare e-learning company and offers pharmaceutical and medical device companies online media services and CD ROM training.
Premed411.com, MCAT prep. instruction for students in the Miami, Fla., area.
Premededge.com. This site focuses on helping students prepare for secondary application and interview questions. Access to the premium content requires a $10 charge on your credit card to view "actual secondary application questions from over 30 different schools." Specific schools are not named. I have not seen this premium content and wouldn't recommend buying it. Similar, free information should be available at your local library, by asking questions on the Student Doctor Network Lounge bulletin board or by contacting the schools you're interested in.
Medical Scholars Honor Society. This web site exists to sell a $10.95 interview preparation package which supposedly funds scholarships, which you can't learn more about unless you're a member. The vague nature of this "society" and lack of a list of any names of members or chapters makes me wonder if it's legit. Good medical-school interview preparation material is available at your library or bookstore.
Ten Excellent Premed Web Sites
Medical Education FAQ Part 1 and Part 2. The place for a premed to start exploring medicine, allopathic or osteopathic. This excellent FAQ is derived from Usenet's misc.education.medical newsgroup. Subjects covered include:
preparing for medical school MCAT
the application process interviews
residencies
Not strong on additional sources of information, although the hyperlink version will take you to a lot of institutional sites. Endorsement comes with a caveat: if your question is important to you, don't stop researching it here. This source is not perfect or comprehensive. Credentials of the authors are not listed, and only two are MDs. Sample problems: the response to "How old is too old?" was scanty and uninspiring in my view--no reference to the many supportive materials and Web sites out there for people who weren't undergrad gunners heck-bent on med school admission at 22.
Pfizer Medical School Manual. Despite the prominent corporate sponsorship, this is a decidedly uncommercial and well-done site. Thoughtfully, succinctly and cheaply (The on-line version is free.) outlines process of preparing for medical school. Unique quality content includes, "10 Common Mistakes," a section on the beliefs of incoming medical students, basic statistics for the medical schools in the 50 states. I continue to be baffled by the absence of any mention of Examkrackers MCAT test preparation materials in the manual's MCAT section. I think Examkrackers materials are better than Kaplan or Princeton Review--although Kaplan does have more in-person prep course locations. I urge you to at least check out whatever Examkrackers materials are available at your local library and decide for yourself.
Student Doctor Network Lounge. Moderated discussion lists for students wanting admission to, or who have matriculated at, regular medical, osteopathic, dental, optometry, nursing or physician assistant schools. A good nationwide bull session for premeds, but you'll have to wade through lots of anxious, boastful or arrogant posts to glean the occasional grain of useful information.
American Medical Association. Offers health-care career info and an introducation to the AMA Medical Student Section, which has 50,000 members. Check out the news and events link under the "Med School & Residency" tab. There used to be a student version of JAMA called msJAMA, but that has been discontinued. Instead, there is Medical Student Insider, an online newsletter that looks at health-care politics from a student's view--very helpful if you want to keep an eye on your ability to pay back those gargantuan loans. Free online access to some excellent articles. Also has content regarding "Becoming a Doctor," "Medical Specialties," PDAs, "Financing Your Medical Education."
MomMD. A commercial site with discussion lists for female and male doctors or doctors-to-be concerned with work-family balance. Perhaps its greatest value is in the personal stories of women thinking and talking about careers in medicine, especially in the on-line diaries and blogs.
Answers to health questions
References and abstracts from 4300 biomedical journals
Information for patients about clinical research
studies
Directory of health organizations
NLM's catalog of books, journals, and audiovisuals
A single Web interface that searches multiple NLM retrieval systems
Also, info on medical informatics training. If you want to be among the finest of doctors, or have an interest in evidence-based medicine and informatics, you'll learn all you can about searching the NLM site.
Old PreMeds. This is the list for those with a lot of life experience. A mature, humorous and helpful group. You can get postings individually, in a daily digest or can just visit the site.
www.amsa.org. The American Medical Student Association is the alternative to AMA's Medical Student Section. Committed to universal health care and better working conditions, this idealistic group works for change. The New Physician is more of a magazine than MSJAMA. Offers many listserves.
BMJ: British Medical Journal. Why is this British journal listed? 'Cause a family/Evidence-Based Medicine doc I shadowed said he uses it a lot. Not only is the current issue available free online in full, but the archives are searchable for free, too. The Lancet and JAMA allow free access to just part of an issue's contents. Tis a good thing to be exposed to more than one country's medical literature.
