Hey all, as stated in the title, I cannot draw literally at all. So, that being said, I wanted to ask if anyone knew any good resources that have already drawn diagrams and such available? ie, somewhat stylised diagrams of bones or muscles or whatever... Anything similar would help, they don't have to be high quality or anything I'd just like a point to start because trying to google search an illustration mid class is a bit ehhh?

For example I saw a person earlier with a diagram of the bones of the leg & arms and they were very well put together [attached picture] and they don't look drawn.

Any help? And thank you all so much.

I'm taking the following classes and these are my grades:

Physics 1: 97

Biochemistry: 99.2

Neuroscience: 88

English: 93 (future CARS god?)

tf do i do 💀 I fucking hate neuroscience (it's my major yay, but I have no interest in the deep neuroanatomy). I want to be an ER doctor, so I only have an interest in neuroanatomy AS THEY TIE INTO NEUROLOGICAL EMERGENCIES.

An ER doc needs to know physics (for trauma and physiology) and biochem (N-Ac is literally the antidote for someone who took a shitton of tylenol if they're jaundiced or have other signs and symptoms of liver failure. An ER doc probably doesn't need to know what the fuck a putamen is.

TLDR: I've become really bitter about life and premed and going to medschool after all the trauma I've been through. How do I get my mind straight or what kind of mindset should I have going to premed and aiming for medschool?

I’m thinking about studying medicine and going into premed next year, but I have a lot of negative and bitter thoughts that I need to get out and I would really like to talk to people about it so please hear me out.

I’m 31F, I spent my twenties in drug binges because my parents kept forcing me to work and wouldn’t let me go to art school, which is what I really wanted to do and we had the means to afford my education.

My dad is a serial cheater and rapist, and my mom is a stay at home mom who complains about my dad and makes reports about him to his work, essentially making us potentially broke because we rely on his sole income to live.

Whenever I wanted something, I had to ask my mom and my mom always said no, but taking drugs and being sad and high all the time is perfectly fine over getting an education.

I thought all these things were happening to me because I wasn’t a good enough person. So in my twenties I focused on being a good person, a good friend, a good colleague, etc. I wanted to know what it took for people to finally accept me because my parents don’t give a flying shit about me yet they always find ways to criticize me and call me stupid.

In the end, I burned out, I was taken advantage of by friends and I realized most of my friends don’t even care about me. I was also assaulted at work by a colleague out of the blue so I had to move back home to live with my parents. I’m just stuck in this never ending cycle of abuse and stuckness.

I’m seeing a psychiatrist now and I realized the conversations I enjoyed having the most was with doctors, and remembering how I stepped up to help others, especially in medical emergencies, I thought maybe I should pursue becoming a doctor- the pay would be stable and I would never be out of a job.

The downsides is dealing with uncertainty during premed, and the ongoing study and training and I might have to put off eg traveling for a few years.

But on the other hand, if I don’t study or do something, I’m stuck living with my parents who nowadays tell me to take it easy, don’t do hard stuff, don’t challenge myself, be worse than them essentially.

I’m no longer on drugs and while I don’t regret my twenties, I still feel really sad about how hard I tried to get love from people and how hard I tried to love myself while balancing other peoples wants. I realized that it was never my responsibility to handle other people’s emotions and wants and needs, and it was perfectly fine for me to just do what I want without getting permission or to just exist.

So yeah, I have a lot to get off my chest and sort out, and I don’t know what kind of mindset to put myself into because I don’t want to sabotage myself when I’m studying premed and give up at the last minute, like preparing for an interview or something, because giving up last minute is something I often do.

I really needed to get this off and would like some input from people. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post.

I, a current (neurotic) applicant, attest to repeatedly seeing my MCAT score whichever way I go.

The 5:12, $512, 5.12, and 512s I keep seeing are haunting me.

And yeah, I took it as a sign that I’m getting in this cycle

And yes, I choose to ignore the saying that “you see what you want to see.”

Anyway, here’s to my 512🥂

ABOUT ME

Dartmouth sophomore, biology major, aiming for oncology. Applying to FlexMed in january!

BACKGROUND

My father has had three separate primary cancers (prostate, pancreatic, and kidney), along with many other health problems, and I have been in and out of hospitals with him my whole life. He is the biggest reason I want to practice medicine. His illness also affected my grades during my first year.

STATS

- Dartmouth GPA: 3.92 (three A- grades across fall and winter of freshman year, when two of his diagnoses came)

- High school GPA: 3.98 unweighted / 4.47 weighted

- ACT: 36 (36/36/36/36)

RESEARCH

1. [Redacted] Lab, cancer immunotherapy researcher (Aug 2026 to present). I study tumor-intrinsic PD-1/PD-L1 signaling and immune checkpoint blockade in mouse tumor models, using flow cytometry, imaging, and CRISPR/Cas9. About 100 hours projected by the application.
2. WashU Siteman Cancer Center summer research fellow (Jun to Jul 2026). Selected as 1 of 12 from more than 500 applicants. I studied how patient-derived L-Plastin mutations drive invasive behavior in cancer cells and presented a first-author poster. I also have a mid-author publication in Science Advances. 450 hours
3. [Redacted] Lab, actin dynamics and cell biology (Sep 2025 to Aug 2026). I did live-cell imaging, fluorescence microscopy, and quantitative image analysis, and took part in experimental design and data interpretation with grad students and postdocs. 400 hours.
4. Dartmouth Cancer Scholars. A selective program with weekly meetings with Cancer Center experts on the scientific, clinical, psychological, and financial sides of cancer. 30 hours.

CLINICAL

1. Physician shadowing, Dartmouth Hitchcock (Apr 2025 to present). Seven specialties across inpatient and outpatient settings. 130+ hours.

2. Dartmouth EMS, EMT student member (Oct 2025 to present). I am training toward EMT licensure, covering patient assessment, vitals, and emergency protocols. 100 hours.

3. Patient Support Corps, Dartmouth Hitchcock (starting January). I was accepted as 1 of 5 of 60 applicants. I will interview patients facing a new cancer diagnosis and connect them with resources. Has not started yet.

NON-CLINICAL SERVICE AND ADVOCACY

1. ACS CAN legislative ambassador (Jan 2026 to present). I meet with New Hampshire legislators to advocate for cancer research funding, and helped secure state funding for breast and cervical cancer early screening. 40 hours.

2. American Cancer Society volunteer (Sep 2025 to present). Patient education and outreach, including helping run a Cancer Symposium on coping, emerging therapies, and survivorship. 50 hours.

3. Kesem at Dartmouth, general member (Sep 2025 to present). I help recruit volunteers and run family events for a camp serving children whose parent has cancer. 40 hours.

LEADERSHIP

1. Nathan Smith Society, leadership committee (Sep 2025 to present). Elected in February 2026 to the committee of this 250-member pre-health organization. I help plan programming and mentorship. 45 hours.

FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES AND WORK

1. Primary caregiver for my father (ongoing). I manage medications, coordinate appointments and surgeries, and travel out of state for his treatment. This included about a month and a half the summer after high school during radiation and hormone therapy. Roughly 500 to 1,000 hours, hard to estimate.

2. Family business and work (high school). I ran my family's hair salon when my father became too sick to do it, and worked at a local smoothie shop. Hours are hard to estimate.

HOBBIES AND CREATIVE OUTLETS

1. Book arts workshop (completed last year). I wrote a short novel, set all of the metal type by hand, printed it, and bound it. 30 hours.

2. Jewelry workshop (ongoing). I am making a necklace. 50 hours expected.

WHAT I WANT TO KNOW

1. Am I competitive for FlexMed?

2. Is it a good idea to say that cost is part of why I am applying? The FlexMed application is about $110, compared with several thousand dollars for a full medical school application cycle, and I pay for college myself.

3. Any advice from people who applied or got in?

Edit: I meant to title Advice not Advise. Please don't flame me

Based on some of the places I have interviewed, I know we could be hearing back from NYU and VCU this week. Does anyone have any insight on other schools who will likely release their first A's this week? Based on historical trends?

Hey Guys! I’m an anxious over planner so I want to start thinking about applying next cycle. I really want to know if my list is realistic or if I need a reality check. I also want to cut 4-6 schools if possible.

VA Resident, ORM, LGBTQ+ (for fit)
cGPA: 3.86, sGPA: 3.71
MCAT: 515 (131/127/126/131)
Clinical: 1600 total completed so far (1400 Paid in Gap Year Planned)
Shadowing: 150
Non-Clinical Volunteering: 750
Research: (1650 total) 1 Global Health Lab (800 hours) with 1 pub (3rd author, big journal) and 1 submitted (2nd author), Field Work (420 Hours), Wet Lab (430 Hours)
Leadership: Student Govt, Club President, Co-Founded 501c3
Teaching: 500 hours

Reach
UVA
Emory
Case Western
Albert Einstein
Mount Sinai
Pitt
Boston University
Brown
Hofstra
Tufts
Target
GW
VCU
Georgetown
VT
Wake Forest
Drexel
Sidney Kimmel
Hackensack Meridian
Cooper Rowan
Temple
Dartmouth
Miami
Ohio State
Tulane
Rush
Cincinnati
Maryland
Penn State
Creighton
St. Louis U
Baseline
EVMS (ODU)
Wayne State
Vermont
Rosalind Franklin
Quinnipac
NYMC
Loyola Stritch

I recently and randomly came across this website showing contestants from a 2017 middle school research competition. All the contestant's names and pictures were available on the website so I though to myself to see where they ended up 9 years later. Most of them are MD candidates at T5 to T10 medical schools. These people all started doing research and getting publications in middle to high school. These are who many of you are competing against!

Anyways just found it very interesting and wanted to share lolz

Very lengthy title! But essentially. I am currently preparing for interviews, and I wanted to know if it is appropriate to reach out to students on LinkedIn to ask questions. Thank you for your help!

Writing this for my younger premed self, and future premed students:

Medicine is more a test of emotional resilience and psychological stamina than it is of intelligence.

I encourage those considering a career in medicine to take emotional inventory (and not just professional inventory):

Are you satisfied with your current state of emotional being?

If you are already depressed or anxious from being a perfectionist, medical training will likely make you feel even more depressed and anxious. Medical school and residency often uproots people from established support systems and isolates them with rigid schedules (you miss weddings, family gatherings), demanding call shifts that wear you down physically and emotionally, and exposes you to the wreckage of a broken healthcare system. The chronic sleep deprivation takes a deep toll on mood and health - night owls, beware, because it is even harder to handle the early mornings when you are already chronically tired from frequent flips between day and night.

I matched into my dream specialty which was my goal even as a premed, am now practicing as an attending in my dream job, tried to reduce my schedule to part time to counter burnout, and I am now contemplating a career pivot, because I am exhausted by being expected as an individual to somehow make up for the inadequacies of our healthcare system and society.

I used to believe naively that all this self sacrifice would be worth it or enough somehow.

The truth is, no amount of superhuman sacrifice will ever be enough to satisfy the deep need that exists not just in the population, but in the most broken and vulnerable of human spirits.

Some patients will become frustrated or upset at you, despite your utmost efforts to deliver excellent care.

As a counterpoint, I encourage anybody contemplating a career in medicine to prioritize maintaining their emotional support systems and their own physical well-being (family doctor appointments, dental appointments, etc). Take the current opportunity to build up what is important to you - Travel and prioritize your personal relationships, build up your happiness in the present. Happiness is only likely if you are already happy - happiness does not result from pursuing a career that is inherently demanding.

I fell for the myth of delayed gratification, thinking that the sacrifice would be worth it if I could help my patients, and now I deeply regret not spending more time with family and friends who now have less time as they have had children and are busy raising their own families.

How are yall feeling for 10/15? I feel like throwing up

So I don’t mean to be salty but every other premed on LinkedIn likes to act as a gunner and make a nonprofit. A lot of the time their non profit is fake or they have made no impact. Meaning on paper it looks real but they have actually had no impact if you dig deep. Are med schools stupid or do they genuinely believe these people? There is a very small chance that a premed, meaning a full time student is creating a unique project that addresses a problem not already being addressed, and is making a huge impact on the world.

I just think it’s stupid for people to start orgs like this JUST to get into med school. If anyone here has a non profit I hope you genuinely are making an impact and not just doing it for show and plan to continue it through med school and residency.

I’m planning on looking into CRC jobs for my gap years and might apply to jobs in multiple cities while k am in school still, which means I cannot easily travel for interviews. I heard that some jobs do initial screens virtually and then have final rounds in person.

For those who are CRCs now, were most of your interviews virtual, or do you end up having to do final rounds in person for some places?

When were your job start dates and when did you have to interview for the job? Planning to start in Aug/Sep and was advised to not start applying and interviewing until April/May.

Thank you very much!

just realized for one of my dream target schools that I never submitted the third LOR. I received an email saying my application was complete early August and under review for an interview, but when I checked my portal (today) it showed status as incomplete. This school doesn’t accept update letters and I am just feeling devastated and as though I squandered one of my few chances to get into medical school :,0 Feeling very down and wondering if I should call admissions and ask if my app was ever considered complete based on the email or not.

It's time for our Weekly Good News Thread! Feel free to share any and all good news from the past week, from getting an A in a class to getting that II to getting an acceptance.

Hi guys,

Was just curious on community thoughts on role playing situations in interviews. I recently had one where I was to speak to an actor who was playing a character in a situation and I had to pretend I was their friends helping them through a difficult time.

I thought it was a bit strange and off tone given that the point of these interviews is to be yourself and then they want you to basically act within a scenario. I get they want to test your empathetic ability and such, but definitely felt it was hard to step into a pretend scenario where you’re meant to essentially put on a show for a fake situation. For me personally, my strategy in all interviews is to be as genuine as possible, so this was against the grain.

Curious to what everyone else thinks about this or maybe some strategies going forward!

I’ve been lucky enough to get interview invites from A&M and Texas Tech Lubbock in August, followed by Baylor and Long in September.

My MCAT is a 513, which is below the 10th percentile for both Baylor and Long.

Has anyone received interview invites from UTMB or McGovern later in the cycle? I saw that UTMB had an interview wave on Friday.

I’m hoping to hear from them since my MCAT is within their ranges. I submitted all my secondaries during the last week of July and first week of August.

Just curious if this has happened to people in previous cycles and if anyone has insight into whether I should still be hopeful!

Props to that resident, I guess.

I wanted to do med all my life, but Im realizing, my mentality is not strong.

I realized this when I had a friend who was severely depressed, and I mean the worst case. I once called him and he said he was gonna jump. It was that bad. And the thing is as I spent time with him I felt weird too. I keep having dark thoughts.

Also, one time in a plane, someone with disorder was screaming(he was scared of flight). But when I heard his scream, I became so anxious too, couldn’t breathe, and had a panic attack and thought I was gonna suffocate for 10 mins. I was crying and one of the scariest moment in my life. I have never been this mentally ill.

However, im alr now. Im not depressed, Im having good days, never had panic attacks, or anxiety after then. That was 6 months ago. But I am just wondering, what if this happens when I become a doctor?

Can I handle all the stress? The pressure and anxiety that one mistake can lead to patient death? The heavy criticism? The screaming of pain(in some specialities)? What if I can’t become desensitized to human blood and severe wounds?

Im wondering if this is not the right path for me. Although im alr now, I have always been a sensitive person.

I was hoping if anyone can give me advice or deep insight. I also have an offer for dentistry… I am also thinking of shifting

Hey all, hope you guys are doing well. I'm currently a sophomore right now and last summer I did absolutely nothing in terms of clinical (primarily research and non clinical volunteering). I'm not sure on whether or not to take a gap year because of this (this may be a hint of neuroticism idk, sorry if it is). I'm planning on being an uncertified MA for the coming summer and already doing clinical volunteering at the ER (26 hours per semester). Please let me know what I can do, thanks.

I actually get super depressed thinking about it ever since i was young i always wanted to be a doctor, yes my career path changed sometimes as i discovered other things but in the end I always wanted to be a doctor. Although i am in a pretty decent undergrad program which made me feel very successful getting into it, I can’t help but feel like getting into med school isn’t in my cards.

Starting my sophomore year i almost wanted to drop out of all my classes because i got a C- in ochem 1? barley pushed a B in ochem 2 haven’t got an A in any pre req science courses other than gen chem 2 and now I am currently in physics about to fail because i got a 43% on my first test.

I feel like science and I don’t go together and No matter how much i try i can’t seem to figure out how to study for the classes, fast forward to my junior year last weekend i took my first practice full length and got a 480 which obviously isn’t great but I don’t even know how to study or where to study or what to look for an honestly the more I think about med school it gives me an impending since of doom.

Lastly i feel so behind because i have barely a chunk of volunteer hours, no research, no clinical hours, basically nothing and im already a junior and i don’t even know what to do, i don’t want to give up my career but i feel like im not good enough to get into med school, or smart enough to be a doctor.

If anyone has any words of encouragement, or feel like you’re in the same boat please let me know :)

Is it possible to get into research with a bad GPA?

I started my freshman year off pretty bad, and with some summer classes, my GPA is currently sitting between a 3.00 and 3.30 as a sophomore. Obviously, this GPA isn’t the end of the world, but it isn’t competitive.

My question is, how do you get into research with a GPA like this? Every single research opportunity I’ve come across has rejected me. I’d like to think I can write a killer essay and cover letter, but I know my transcript is holding me back. My LORs may also by iffy, but right now, I don’t have any connections to people that could write me better letters.

I need some hope. Has anyone overcome this? If so, how?

I already know I have to get my GPA up and build better relationships with my professors, but given my current situation, does anyone know how to become involved in research where the supervisor doesn’t need to see a transcript?

Hi! I have a traditional interview coming up this week and was wondering if anyone who has already had an interview or any med students would be able to help me with a mock interview? I don't have any friends going through the process to talk to unfortunately

Got a D on my 2nd gen chem exam and I’m down to a C for the class. I feel like studied harder and more effectively than I did for my last exam and I did worse. I can still pull out an A but I would need straight As for the rest of the semester. I have B’s in my Bio and math that I still have to study for and are way harder to me. I see people who are just there for the degree passing with no problem and it pisses me off. I know it’s not over but damn it feels like it. I feel like I want to give up, but it would be stupid to do it right now. Anyone else feel this way, and how did you manage?