Blog Archives

FREIDA Rocks

If you’re applying for residency, make sure to check out FREIDA, which has a lot of improvements. As a reminder, FREIDA Online® is a database with over 9,400 graduate medical education programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), plus 100 combined specialty programs.

General information about programs – percentage of residents who are international medical graduates (IMGs), percentage who are doctors of osteopathy (DOs), and minimum Step scores (to name a few) – are all useful in deciding where to assign your application in September. But now that we’re into November, you can search the system for other factors that might affect how you rank programs – work schedule, salary, whether a night float system exists, etc.

FREIDA is an amazing, free resource that you should not overlook.

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Can’t Get Enough of those Med School and Residency Interview Tips

For more useful medical school and residency interview tips, check out my latest Varsity Tutors guest blog here.

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Medical School and Residency Interview Thank You Note Etiquette

medical school interview and residency applicationSee my last blog on the low cost and high potential gain of writing thank you notes after your interviews.
I get asked by clients what the best way to send post-interview thank you notes is – email or snail mail. I strongly advise sending your thank you note by good old USPS. The reasons are:

1) Email may be viewed as lazy. Hand-written notes demonstrate you’ve put some time into being appreciative.

2) Email can be deleted without much thought. Emotionally, it’s harder to throw someone’s hand written note in the trash.

Get your handwritten thank you notes in quickly. The night after you’ve completed your interview or the next day is a good time to write and send.

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Medical School and Residency Interview Thank You Notes – So Easy for You to Do

medical school interview and residency interviewTwo years ago a medical school applicant wrote me to say that the dean of the school at which she had recently interviewed called her to tell her that he was impressed with her candidacy and the hand-written thank you note she had sent. The client thanked me for my help and the thank you note tip I had given her. As you might have guessed, she was admitted to that med school.

Writing a thank you note after a medical school or residency interview is so easy for you to do, and it can go a long way. More on thank you notes in future posts.

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Online, Free Practice MCAT Questions

medical school applicationFor those looking for MCAT practice, Varsity Tutors recently launched a suite of free practice tests, digital flashcards, and questions-of-the-day for standardized tests, including the MCAT. (Disclosure: I am an invited monthly guest blogger for Varsity Tutors, but I have no financial affiliation with them.) The site looks like an interesting addition to your armamentarium of study options.

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About Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital. She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more

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Listen to Dr. Finkel’s interview on The Visible Voices podcast: 

 

Listen to Dr. Finkel’s interview on the White Coat Investor podcast:

Listen to Dr. Finkel’s interview on the FeminEm podcast: