MD’24
Fourth-year medical students successfully submitted their residency applications to the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) on September 27, 2023. Some students have already received several interview offers, others have completed first interviews, while many others eagerly await their first offers on designated interview offer dates based on their chosen specialty. While the majority of specialities continue to offer virtual interviews, there are a handful of highly competitive specialities that are offering in-person interviews for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to mock interviews with faculty and the career advising team, students were also introduced to Big Interview, an online training system that features a new and innovative way to help students prepare more effectively for residency interviews through a combination of training and practice to help improve interview technique and build confidence. The program offers a variety of tools including: challenging virtual mock interviews for all experience levels; a database of thousands of interview questions with tips on how to answer them; the ability the rate and share interview answers for subsequent feedback; a comprehensive video training curriculum that covers all aspects of securing a residency position; and a step-by-step interview Answer Builder that assists with the creation of answers to behavioral questions which have become increasingly more common during the interview season.
MD’25
Third-year medical students are fully engaged in clinical rotations and have just reached the official half-way point in their academic year, with the conclusion of Block 6 in Quarter 2. They have earned a well-deserved week-long vacation from October 21, 2023 through October 29, 2023. They will return to start Semester 2 of Year 3 on Monday October 30, 2023. In the upcoming months, students will begin to narrow down their specialty selection, some opting to participate in optional Advanced Clinical Mentorships to gain additional exposure to various disciplines in medicine and to build longitudinal relationships with faculty. The third-year poses unique challenges for students to consistently engage in mental health care due to varying clinical hours and competing demands on their time. However, given the important emphasis on the prioritization of wellness and self-care throughout medical training and beyond,, the University has recently partnered with TimelyCare, a student-centered platform that is designed to provide Brown students with on-demand access to mental health care and an array of diverse, culturally competent providers. This resource is an extension of the existing mental health services at Brown’s Health and Wellness Center and provides students with teletherapy on nights, weekends, and holidays across all 50 states. In addition to teletherapy, students have unlimited access to a self-care library with a host of resources including, but not limited to, virtual yoga classes, guided meditation activities, and wellness videos on important topics such as sleep hygiene, nutrition, and managing stress.
MD’26
Second-year medical students are at the half-way point of their first semester and are currently engaged in the Renal block. They are also in full throttle with the Doctoring clinical skills course and completed Part 1 and 2 of their Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) on Thursday October 19, 2023. Students also attended a class meeting on October 12, 2023, which provided a general overview for the USMLE Step 1 licensing examination which they will take at the conclusion of Year 2. In the coming months, students will complete the registration process for Step 1 and will begin to have 1:1 meetings with their Step 1 advising team to develop a study schedule and plan for completing the exam. While Step 1 is now Pass/Fail, the academic rigor and preparation required for the exam has not diminished and this remains a high stakes exam for students that is both a requirement for graduation from The Warren Alpert Medical School and residency applications.
MD’27
First-year medical students are fully engaged in both classroom learning alongside participating in the clinical skills component of the curriculum through the Doctoring course. They will complete Exam#4 of the Integrated Medical Sciences course in conjunction with their Anatomy practical on Friday October, 27, 2023. At this point in the semester, students are also engaging in a full range of extracurricular activities including but not limited to, preclinical electives, student interest groups, and the Medical Student Senate who just announced seven newly appointed Class Senators in the first year class. Students were also recently introduced to the year long Careers in Medicine Specialty Series, which opened with Pediatrics on October 16, 2023. This highly popular specialty series introduces first-year medical students to several career disciplines in medicine. The format for each event is a panel discussion followed by a Q&A session. Panelists typically include the department chair, the residency program director, a community provider, a hospital-based attending, a resident, and a current fourth-year student applying in the field. Attendees have the opportunity to engage in a robust discussion about the specialty, including what program directors look for in a potential medical student candidate; as well as information on salary, work hours, work-life balance, daily activities in the field, and other aspects that are of interest to medical students. This is also an important opportunity for students to gain exposure to shadowing and research opportunities within our various clinical departments.
PLME
Students had a busy October, as they were preparing for and taking their first round of midterms for this semester. The advising deans hosted lunches with their first-year advisees and Meiklejohns to check in about how the semester is going and allow students to de-stress from midterms. The FURM (First-Generation and Underrepresented in Medicine) Committee hosted a meet and greet event for new and returning members. The PLME Senate has also been busy with weekly meetings and recently elected the new first-year representatives.
First-year PLME students are settling into their first semester on campus and recently attended the first in a series of PLME Whole Patient Program events of the year. This particular event featured Dr. Patrick McGann, a pediatric hematologist, whose team discussed the doctor-patient relationship and its impact on health outcomes. Second-year students will soon meet with their PLME advising deans to plan their remaining years of undergraduate study as part of their PLME Educational Plan. At that time, those students will begin to formulate their goals for their academic pursuits and will choose their concentrations.
On October 18, awardees of the 2023 PLME Summer Research Assistantships (SRA) presented their findings during the annual SRA poster presentation. Students who were awarded one of these competitive SRAs dedicated 40 hours per week for 10 weeks from June to August to studying one of the following areas: emerging infectious diseases, social/behavioral sciences, clinical medicine, biomedical sciences, or emergency medicine. The SRA poster session also acted as an informational session for other PLME students interested in the summer research program for 2024.