Today, we'll be exploring behind the scenes at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai with one of our incredible MD coaches, Dan.
Dan is currently a first-year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Bachelor of Science in Economics. After college, he worked for two years as a strategy consultant to healthcare companies. He then pursued a postbacc and spent a year conducting clinical research before starting medical school.
If you could describe your medical school in three adjectives, what would they be?
Flexible, collaborative, open-minded
What's one thing that applicants would be surprised to learn about your medical school?
Students have the opportunity to rotate through Mount Sinai (and affiliated) hospitals all over New York City when shadowing and during 3rd and 4th year rotations. As one example, Elmhurst Hospital in Queens sits in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the US (and maybe the world). I've heard that more languages are spoken there than anywhere else in the country, and the range of diseases encountered is immense.
What is something unique about the interview process at your medical school?
Interview day is structured for you to get a sense of the students and the school. The interviews themselves are a relatively minor part of the day, with much more time spent meeting current students, seeing where we learn, and getting a feel for the place.
What's a tradition at your medical school that most prospective students don't know about?
Come here and see!
What's one thing you wish you'd known when you were applying to medical school?
Schools really try their best to get to know you as an applicant, beyond numbers and words on a page. To that end, try to inject your personality into your application and show what you're passionate about wherever you can. The better they can see the person beyond the pages, the better your application will be!
What kind of doctor do you want to be?
It's still a little early for me to know for sure, but I'm leaning towards some sort of general medicine. The big decision I'm wrestling with right now is whether I want to work with adults (something like Internal Medicine) or kids (Pediatrics).
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