Ryan Gray - The Premed Playbook Guide to the Medical School Interview: Be Prepared, Perform Well, Get Accepted

Guide to the Medical School Interview

Dr. Gray has compiled a very detailed, comprehensive, and practical book on the medical school interview. What makes this book so unique is his emphasis on the introspective process. Instead of simply providing a checklist of dos and donts, he challenges the reader to examine their strengths and weaknesses and gives them a blueprint on how to put their best foot forward. His advice is real-world and compiled by many interviewers, including myself, who have years of experience interviewing medical school applicants. I highly recommend this book as a fundamental preparation tool for the application process.

Gregory M. Polites, MD
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
Chairman of the Central Subcommittee on Admissions
Washington University School of Medicine

The Premed Playbook is a must-have for every future doctors collection. Great advice, comprehensive, and to the point. Dr. Gray breaks it down, play by play.

Sujay Kansagra, MD
Author of The Medical School Manual , Everything I Learned in Medical School , and Why Medicine

Dr. Gray offers a simple and concise guide to having a successful medical school interview. Having been through the medical school process three times while applying and then serving on the admissions committee during my last year of medical school, I know what it takes to have a successful interview. I highly recommend this book for every student to read and have available for reference during the medical school interview season.

Antonio J. Webb, MD
Author of Overcoming the Odds

Guide to the Medical School Interview

Be Prepared, Perform Well, Get Accepted

Ryan Gray, MD

NEW YORK

NASHVILLEMELBOURNEVANCOUVER

The Premed Playbook Guide to the Medical School Interview

Be Prepared, Perform Well, Get Accepted

2017 Ryan Gray, MD

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in New York, New York, by Morgan James Publishing. Morgan James is a trademark of Morgan James, LLC. www.MorganJamesPublishing.com

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ISBN 9781683502159 paperback

ISBN 9781683502166 eBook

ISBN 9781683502173 hardcover

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016914310

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Interior Design by:

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To my amazing wife, Allison, for supporting me on this journey.

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L ittle did I know, when I was interviewing for medical school many years ago, that I would now be teaching other students how to successfully prepare for their own medical school interviews.

Like some of you, I went to a large state schoolthe University of Florida. Even though the majority of premed advisors are working hard to give you the best guidance available, I was just another number on my advisors roster. This led to her not knowing me very well, if at all. I was told by my advisor not to apply to medical school. Her advice was not based on my GPA (I finished with a 3.73 science GPA), and it was not based on my Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) (I hadnt taken it yet). I was told not to apply to medical school because I was a white male. She said that there were too many of us applying.

Hopefully, your school (assuming you are in school) has a great premed advising office. While my experience was definitely rough, these advisors are working hard to make sure that they are making you as successful as possible. Please use them as your first stop in gathering information. They know you, your school, and are there to give you feedback specific to you.

Needless to say, I didnt seek out much more advice from her and was left to navigate the last two years of my undergraduate studies on my own. Luckily, I was surrounded by a group of amazing friends and classmates who were also premed, and we collectively sought out as much information as we could find that could help us prepare for medical school.

The first time I applied to medical school, it was the first year the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) process was online. All the students applying that year were unluckily blessed with using software that probably wasnt ready for release. It took multiple attempts to enter in information, only to be left with a blank screen and nothing saved at the end. Finally, after the grueling process, I submitted my application, only to learn that the computer system transmitting the application to the schools had its own glitches.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) had to print out all of the applications and mail them to each of the schools that had been applied to. Unfortunately, this was during the anthrax scare in 2001, which shut down the mail service in D.C.where the AAMC is located. Even after all of that, I was still a strong enough applicant to have received two interviews, one at the University of Florida where I was an undergrad, and the other at the University of Colorado.

I remember how nervous I was on each of the interview days. I remember going in thinking that I didnt belong there, that there must have been a mistake; the staff was going to find out when I checked in that I really didnt have an interview. It wasnt a mistake. I had my interviews, and the days went as smoothly as I could have hoped for. I remember walking around the campus during the tour in awe of my surroundings, giddy that one day I was going to be a student here, just like all of the medical students I saw roaming the halls. I thought the interviews went well, but I guess they werent good enough. I wasnt accepted at either school. I didnt even make a waitlist. I was crushed and didnt think I was going to be able to become a physician.

After doing some research, I found out that, to be a more competitive applicant, there were some items lacking in my application. For starters, I needed formal shadowing experience, which I hadnt had before. I mostly had done traditional volunteer work at the hospitalworking at the information desk showing people where the elevators were, and transporting patients to and from different tests and procedures.