MedEx Day 2 - May 17, 2022

To start today, all of Tier IV had health screenings provided by Prisma Health's Employee Health Department. I was happy with my lab results.

For a lot of the day, we spent time looking at the AMCAS and other professional school applications and analyzing strategies on how to complete them. Our first presentation regarding this was from our Tier interns and Program Advisors who discussed the basics of the AMCAS application and what a medical school wants from each section. As we went through, I learned that an application can be submitted before all the letters of recommendation are received. I also continued to learn about the personal statement and received some helpful tips on how to approach this daunting challenge.

Later in the day, we had a presentation regarding social media do's and don'ts. In this, our tier discussed what social media posts are appropriate, since our social media brands can tell more of our story than our applications to an admissions committee. Next, we discussed health insurance. I found this discussion very helpful, as I know that health insurance is a MAJOR barrier for many patients. Since health insurance can dictate the treatment options available to a patient, as has happened with my father's transplant medications, it is very important to know about the health insurance system. It is also important to know about due to the fact that all of us will eventually have our own health insurance, if we do not already. In discussing the history of health insurance, I learned how things have evolved over time from "sickness" insurance (insurance that covered the loss of pay from not being able to go to work) to the system that we see today. We also were assigned a research project to complete with a team of our peers so that we could learn about different types of healthcare and how they work in practice. My team was assigned VA Healthcare, and I look forward to investigating this system.

To conclude the day, we had a lecture from Mr. Al about the Top 10 things that get people into medical school and keep them from getting into medical school, and we had a discussion on implicit biases. In Mr. Al's talk, I felt that I was once again affirmed in my decision to become a physician. During the implicit biases lecture, I was able to discuss and learn about the importance of understanding one's personal implicit biases as this can play a huge effect in one's treatment of someone else. This is especially important within healthcare due to the fact that even a small implicit bias (that one doesn't perceive) can have life-altering consequences for a patient.