HCSC

A long, long time ago I made an old school website (don’t know how long it will be up) for HCSC, and our awesome LC alum Joey Alsberge wrote a book review for Unhealthy Health Policy. I encourage you to check the book out, and also consider writing a book review for this site if you recently read something very good.

cheers

Isaac Holeman

Unhealthy Health Policy presents a variety of studies that investigate the unintended consequences of health policies across the globe.  Using data derived from ethnographic research methods such as participant-observation and open-ended interviews, in addition to epidemiological and historical data, the contributors show how “health-related policies, which have the ostensive goal of improving and protecting the health of the general public or sectors thereof, may, in their service of other masters, harm rather than enhance public health” (xiv).  The studies address a wide range of topics and geographical regions, including: HIV treatment in Africa, Medicaid managed care in New Mexico, disaster relief in post-Soviet Tajikistan, alternative medicine in the United States, and many others.  This book is a great introduction for anyone who would like to know more about global and domestic health issues, the policies that are employed to address these issues, and how qualitative research methods can be used to evaluate and critique these policies.

- Joey Alsberge

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Hi Everyone, I know no one posted much this last semester, but I decided I wanted to try to get this HCSC site going again.

This slide show was my final project for a photo journalism study that I did while studying in Havana, Cuba last fall. My focus was on primary care doctors and how they perceive the Cuban health care system. I conducted interviews with about ten doctors, most extensively with two women who worked at a walk-in community clinic in down town Havana. This little clinic wasn’t very well equipped, but the doctors were very caring and interesting.

As an American, the macro organization of their primary health care system was fascinating. Primary care doctors are assigned a geographic area - two city blocks in this case. They had the name and address of each person in their area (from government tax info), and they were expected to care for all those people. From 8:00AM to about noon each week day they would see patients in the clinic, and after that they would go from house to house to try to find people who might need their services but that hadn’t made it to the clinic. In Cuba, it is the doctors responsibility, rather than the patient’s, to see that everyone gets cared for. Ultimately, I think this take on community medicine, where responsibility shifts towards those who are most likely to be able to cope with it, is the reason Cuba has better health indicators than the US despite drastic resource shortages.

I hope the pictures are interesting, and I’ve posted a few more to our flickr account if you’d like to look deeper. You are also welcome to read my imperfect paper or contact me at isaac.holeman [at] gmail [dot] com if you would like more of the juicy details.

cheers

Isaac

I first thought of becoming a doctor when I was fifteen. To be honest, I don’t think I really knew what that would entail until pretty recently. But most alarming was my lack of knowledge about how to go about the process of getting into medical school. At Lewis and Clark College, the pre-med community is short of activities, guidance and, well, a sense of community. In working with others to create HCSC, I hoped that it would help to facilitate these things for pre-med or pre-health students. Joey Alsberge, who graduated from LC this past May, successfully completed the process of applying to medical school and was accepted to the Weill Cornell School of Medicine. Throughout his last year, he provided me with endless guidance and advice for the activities I have recently completed: the MCAT, the AMCAS, and secondary applications. Since Joey isn’t around anymore, I thought I would post some of the things that he told me and some of the things that I have learned about these processes.

1. The MCAT. There are a lot of prep courses for the MCAT. However, neither Joey nor I decided to take one. I am unsure of his reasons, but mine was mainly the giant sum of money that it would have cost me. This approach might not work for everyone, but it was successful for both of us. Joey used the ExamKrackers books; I used his old books plus a big giant Kaplan book. Whichever study method or materials you use, make sure to take a couple of official practice exams from www.e-mcat.com. They provide material from actual MCATs and diagnostic tools to help you determine your weak areas. My final score on the MCAT was the same as the highest of the eight official practice exams I took. And in relation to timing: I took the exam on August 9^th, which was tooooooo late. I’ll cover this more in regards to the AMCAS, but seriously, don’t take it this late even though you can technically take it until September.

2. The AMCAS. This is the primary application which is sent out to all participating schools (which is most schools). The earliest date that you can submit the AMCAS is generally around the end of June. If possible, submit it on this date. If not, submit it as soon as possible without sacrificing the quality of your MCAT score and personal statement. You can technically submit it until mid-October, but, as Joey can attest, this is a bad idea. I submitted my application on August 29^th, which is still too late, in my opinion. Why all the focus on application dates? Well, two reasons: rolling schools and stress. In terms of the former, many schools admit people on a rolling basis, starting in mid-October, which is the earliest date when a medical school can issue acceptances. The later in the cycle you are, the less chance you have of getting accepted at one of these schools. Secondly, if you submit your primary by late-June, your application should be verified by late-July, at which point you will start receiving secondary applications. If all goes well, you should be complete at all schools and just waiting to hear about interviews during fall semester instead of trying to write about how you will contribute to diversity on campus as you study for a bio exam or write your thesis. This will significantly decrease your stress level during your final year of college.

3. Secondary applications. It might not seem like fun to spend your summer writing essays for medical school, but it will be worth it. Many schools have very similar essays, so you can write on the same general themes. Most of the essays I was asked to write related to: a) how I would contribute to diversity on campus; b) what motivated me to pursue a career in medicine; c) a challenge that I have faced and how I dealt with it; or d) the most significant activity in which I have participated. I hesitate to mention the following resource, but I will do so with the warning that you should ONLY consult it in regards to preparing for essays and interviews. With that said, www.studentdoctor.net is a forum where pre-medical students discuss the process of applying to medical school. There is a thread on the premedical forum where others in the application process will post the essay topics for schools once they are released. If you fall behind in the process and aren’t among the first to receive a secondary, many times the prompts will be posted so you can start working on them while you wait the extra long time for your primary application to be verified once the application season really starts going. However, you should NOT get sucked in to reading this forum regularly. The people who post on here are incredibly neurotic and often very very competitive. It can make you feel like you are inadequate if you don’t have a 4.0 from Harvard with a 44 MCAT and three summers spent saving children in Africa. It can lead to a distorted perception of the types of people who apply to medical school and who you are competing with for a spot. Stay away from here unless you need the resources or the motivation that comes from thinking you are already 100 steps behind everyone else who is applying.

Well, that is all I have for now. I have my first set of interviews right after Thanksgiving, so I will hopefully post again about my experiences once I have turned my thesis in on December 17^th! Best of luck to all of you with the remainder of the semester. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at selena@lclark.edu

-Selena