Medical Thread

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Barakzai, why did you ignore me?

Did not ignore. At work. Promise, will answer later when I get home from the hospital. wanted to answer the question well and not just give you a bad answer.

[darwezkhail]

Did not ignore. At work. Promise, will answer later when I get home from the hospital. wanted to answer the question well and not just give you a bad answer.

Sure thank you wror jana

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Sure thank you wror jana

Wrorre,

Give me your profile.. are you living in the US, Europe, or back home in Afghanistan/Pakistan? Are you in Pakistan and applying as you mention Khybar? Then I can shed some light on your answer because you note interviews start in February (in the US they always start in September). I am leaving the hospital now and will go eat and then be able to sufficiently answer you with some of the details above.

[darwezkhail]

Wrorre,

Give me your profile.. are you living in the US, Europe, or back home in Afghanistan/Pakistan? Are you in Pakistan and applying as you mention Khybar? Then I can shed some light on your answer because you note interviews start in February (in the US they always start in September). I am leaving the hospital now and will go eat and then be able to sufficiently answer you with some of the details above.

I applied to a European school in the middle east. KMC looks appealing as a backup due to its being cheaper and its location but RCSI is my first choice. I am not looking forward to coming back to the US ever again. I am fed up with it and want to get out as soon as possible ..

[kakargirl]

Barakzai, why did you ignore me?

salam darwezkhail please never be impatient barakzai wror works very long hours in hospital and in these days due to holidays hes covering extra work ,he always replys, just be patient everyone gets a reply from barakzai wror. bless him

[darwezkhail]

salam darwezkhail please never be impatient barakzai wror works very long hours in hospital and in these days due to holidays hes covering extra work ,he always replys, just be patient everyone gets a reply from barakzai wror. bless him

walaikum salam khore

the only reason i asked him that was because he replied to someone else after me but not me..

[kakargirl]

walaikum salam khore

the only reason i asked him that was because he replied to someone else after me but not me..

wrora i know, but now you know he comes on very tiny time slots hes working in a very busy unit ,so always wait for his reply he will reply inshallah always

[darwezkhail]

wrora i know, but now you know he comes on very tiny time slots hes working in a very busy unit ,so always wait for his reply he will reply inshallah always

okay thank you khore lol

[Admin Khan]

Barakzai mashra,
I am still waiting for your response as well. No rush.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I applied to a European school in the middle east. KMC looks appealing as a backup due to its being cheaper and its location but RCSI is my first choice. I am not looking forward to coming back to the US ever again. I am fed up with it and want to get out as soon as possible ..

Brother, I only delayed because the answer to your question requires more thought.

So here is the deal regarding what I think is best for you. You have to balance it versus what you think is best for you.

In my opinion, if you are a US citizen, then you ought to try your best to stay within the US and attend school here. Even if you are not a US citizen, the pathway into a US medical school is not as bad if you attend a US undergraduate institution (if you are young enough). There are medical schools here in the states that are open to folks without citizenship, or even green cards, who are meritorious. I had two girls in my class, one from Japan and one from India, without green cards, who went to an American undergraduate school, did all the right things, and ended up getting the MD through an American school.

If your concern is the criteria the US generally sets up for admission (GPA, MCAT, extra curriculars, research accolades) then there are other avenues as well. For instance, if you think that you can improve your CV with a year's worth of post bacclaureate work in a good research project (I can provide a good list of these) and either take or retake the MCAT, some schools may very well be willing to give you an interview and then a shot.

The reason for this stems in some earlier posts where I explained why this is so. Your long term economic advantage and training advantage lie in the US where the protocols are tested and devised. By going through the system fully as an American, you will have many more options open to you here within the mainland US for advanced training. I can give you a practical real world example I just witnessed today. There is a Labenese Christian fellow who graduated from American University of Beirut, an excellent foreign grad school. He went on to go to a local hospital residency, not really renowned for its standing in the US, but he still became chief resident and is very sharp. I was talking to the pulmonary critical care specialist today regarding that individual's matching into the program at the hospital where I work. Her answer was blunt; she said she fought hard for this guy to be there because he is very clinically capable and had saved hundreds of lives as a hospitalist. However, he was up against American grads with research that they had accumulated on their CVs throughout the years and he lost out.

Regarding the European schools; I think you can see from brother Dreamer and his posts that they graduate very competent and capable physicians. Once again though, it comes down to where you want to end up. The issue with going to a UK or Irish school as an American is that you are limited in how high in the ranks you can climb. Brother Dreamer has the advantage because he is a UK born citizen and can eventually become an attending within their system. Their system is beginning to clamp down on foreign grads entering the workforce and the climb to reach the rank of attending is rendered impossible for folks that are not British citizens. I may be wrong there, but I have personal friends that went to Dublin and realized that they had to come back to the states. They would not be able to break through the new "glass ceiling."

In reference to the western schools that are based in the East, the best option out of these for devout Muslims and US citizens is the prestigious Cornell University program in the middle east. You get an American certified degree and can sit for the USMLE board exams (this is what I heard from colleagues at least, I need to confirm this myself).

I assume that the European schools that are middle east based will once again put you at a disadvantage compared to your British born or Irish born collegues should they choose to return to the UK.

If, at the end of the day you decide you want to return to the US, but that your heart is set on the school you noted above as your first choice, then the the European based model will probably prepare you better for the USMLE exams and give you a better chance than other foreign grads.

Regarding Khybar: In every generation there are many devout US brothers that decide that their kids are going to turn out to be "bad people" if they grow up here in the US (I guess that makes me a bad person). Then there are others also do not want to deal with interest and that is why they go to Khybar. The latter issue is a commendable one. They seek only to make Allah (S) happy with them and value akhiraah more than the world. I truly truly love these people with all my heart because they are far better people than me. However, if you decide to go to Pakistan, Aga Khan will prepare you better from what I understand. If you decide to go to Afghanistan, unfortunately, Kabul may prepare you better than Nangrahar. These institutions like Aga Khan have a foot in the door in the West. The US is also starting to create hurdles for returning for those wonderful brothers from Khybar due to the US relationship deteriorating with Pakistan.

The brothers from Khybar are some of the smartest and most capable doctors in the world. They are truly hard working and are like hafizaan of Harrison's Text Book of Medicine. However, their curriculum does not prepare one for the USMLE and their school has yet to integrate the way Aga Khan has, in order to give its students a head up into entering the US market. It has been because of the hard work of some brothers and sisters from there, who have setup networks in the US, that there is an underground railroad type system being built to help these folks (boys and girls) make their way here. Nonetheless, if they lack US citizenship, advancing into the ranks of fellows is like climbing Mt Everest for them and it does not work out except for a select few (however trust me these boys are like the fighters of Waziristan they will eat two pieces of bread and sit in the ward for the whole day until they get their goal accomplished).

American citizens that go abroad to Khybar versus the UK based schools end up limiting themselves in the ways I have posted on previously. They save a few years and a few dollars, but their capabilities to get into competitive residencies and this land strong fellowships is hamstrung. However, if their motivation was for the sake of Allah, I see barakah coming their way as well and I always tell them that Allah runs the world as he wishes. One day, Allah may make them my boss, so I shall never think I am better than they.

Bottom line, here should be your way of doing this: 1) If you can go to an Americans chool. If this is out of the question for either religious reasons or economic or scholastic then 2) Go to the european system you mention and then 3) Go to Khybar if you cannot go to Aghan Khan.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Sure, we can discuss it here wrora.

Salaam Mishr Admin Khan lala, this is the last post I saw from you. I did not see the imbedded question. Do you want me to start off by asking you a few questions in regard to applying? If there was another question that was asked, then can you guide me to it because this was the last post from you that I saw.

[Admin Khan]

Salaam Mishr Admin Khan lala, this is the last post I saw from you. I did not see the imbedded question. Do you want me to start off by asking you a few questions in regard to applying? If there was another question that was asked, then can you guide me to it because this was the last post from you that I saw.

Oh, my question was what are some great classes[including prereqs]to have to impress MedSchool.

Since you said all majors can apply to Med School, I am sure there at least has to be a list of Prereqs.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Oh, my question was what are some great classes[including prereqs]to have to impress MedSchool.

Since you said all majors can apply to Med School, I am sure there at least has to be a list of Prereqs.

Salaam wrorre, the good news is that you, as an engineer, have a leg up on most folks. The work that you have done, when viewed by the right people on the admissions comittee will already impress them. They will see courses like circuit design and physics and be pretty intimidated.

However, you are right in that there is a certain level of prereq coursework that is required. For example, though the medical school says that they require a year of Physics, it is crucial to take the Physics that either the engineers or the premeds take because that is what they are looking for. Sometimes I noted that the bio major version of a course was easier than the version we had to take. For example, there was the joke about "Physics for poets" meaning that Physics course that all the art majors took that was an easier A and then there was the Physics for the premeds which was a notch above the one for the "Poets" in difficulty... and then we engineers got it the worst with our physics courses that incorporated Circuit design and device development. Some biomedical engineers were sly and took the Premed one because it satisifed both curriculums and they ended up with easier As.

In general though the classes I took were as follows:

Engineering Physics x 1 year + associated lab
Engineering General Chemistry x 1 year + associated lab
Organic Chem x 1 year + associated lab
Biological Sciences x 1 year + associated lab

Let me pause here to note that the Bio course you should take should teach you molecular bio as well as general bio. Once again, try to avoid taking the easy Bio course that the :"poets/philosophy majors" take. Take the course that the premeds are taking. This course will cover everything from the Citric Acid cycle to molecular clocks in evolutionary biology to gene therapy and plasmids. The reason for this is that it at last preps you somewhat for the MCAT.

Ok let me go on:

I took
Calculus x 1 year and avoided any accessory Mathematica labs because I had already dabbled in it as a high schooler and the med schools did not require such labs (this single year satisifed the requirement)

Beyond this for my engineering degree I took the additional third semester of Calculus that covers surface integrals etc and the semester of differential equations but the latter are not required for medical school admissions and really do not matter in their eyes when they compare you to others. However, if you ace them, of course they make you stand out because they think: wow he aced diffEQ.

For the humanities portion of the requirements I had to take about a year of WRITING based english courses. So I took:

Introduction to Poetry: Close Study and Criticisms of Poems x 1 semester

and

Advanced Poetry Workship x 1 semester

This covered a years worth of English writing credits that are required and made me seem more well rounded to the committees.

By the time I started medical school, a few schools started to require Biochemistry x 1 semester (which is a good deal because you gotta do it again in medical school anyway).

Then, your other coursework, whether you are an engineer or a sociology major or a Political Science major is how you craft your application. For example, if a Political Science Major takes those above prereqs and supplements that with some electives in the Politics of Healthcare he can use that in his interviews.

As an engineer, you do not want to hurt yourself by taking unnecessary bioengineering courses with kids that were born premed in the cradle and are going to be deeply involved in the Biomedical Engineering Curriculum. Instead, take the basic prereqs I noted above and supplement that with electives in your own field and then utilize your skills in research work. These imaging radiologists/scientists all want a guy like you that can program in C++ and utilize Visual Basic etc. You need not hurt yourself by trying to craft a curriculum that you think medical schools will fancy. They generally gloss over your transcript. As an engineer they will already know you worked your ass off.

As an example, I did not go out of my way to take biomechanics etc or bioimaging... instead I utilized Federal Work Study funds to do research and applied AP high school credits toward some of the required social sciences electives some engineering schools demand now to be ABET accredited. It was hard though man, I was putting in about 15-20 hours or so a week into a lab doing research work and then doing all the engineering course work as well. But it balances out because I was not having to take some irrelevent coursework that mattered little to either my engineering or medical work. I used to fall asleep in random places because it wore me out. It turned out to be invaluable because I gained research experience and was easily able to gain more research positions in medical school to craft my CV.

[Admin Khan]

BarakzaiAbdali,
I mean it when I say this, I highly appreciate your time. Where would we be without you?


Oh, I might annoy you later on with more questions.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

BarakzaiAbdali,
I mean it when I say this, I highly appreciate your time. Where would we be without you?


Oh, I might annoy you later on with more questions.

No annoyance at all! These things are here for posterity and for my sisters and brothers. He in whose hands is the soul of Muhammad (S) gave much to me, if I were to hoard it up, why then I would be a base person.