Buy or Rent: Choosing a Living Arrangement That Makes Sense

Choosing a Living Arrangement That Makes Fiscal Sense(We’re republishing some of our articles that were released prior to our format change. This article was originally published December 2006.)

There’s a lot to consider besides location when it comes to your living accommodations. For instance, is it better to buy a home (if you can afford it) and rent out rooms to other students, or rent a place yourself (maybe with roommates, maybe without)? Well, both circumstances have their pros and cons, and both are worth considering before you make the leap from your current living situation into the great unknown.

Owning up to Ownership

The benefits of homeownership are many. Not only do you have a place that’s truly yours, but you can also paint the walls, decorate however you like, and even, depending on where you buy, landscape however you please. First-time home buyers can even invest as little as 3 percent (or less) of the home’s sales price to get in the door. Read more »

20 Questions: Charles Vega, MD [Family Medicine]

Charles Vega, MDRecently, we were able to talk to Charles Vega, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor and Residency Program Director at the University of California, Irvine, Department of Family Medicine, and Clinical Co-Director of the University of California, Irvine, Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (also known as PRIME LC).

Dr. Vega specializes in family medicine and wanted to set the record straight about his specialty—among other things.

SDN: Describe a typical day at work.

V: First of all, there is no typical day! I’m involved in academics, so I do everything from see patients, to write grants, to meet with residents and students about their performance. As for PRIME LC, I help train physicians who are focused on healthcare for Latinos. It’s a parallel curriculum, five-year program that covers, among other things, medical issues, culture, language and economics. We’re training future leaders in the community.

Read more »

Member Profile: Dave Swafford

Dave SwaffordDave Swafford, a second year medical student at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) in Kansas City, attended the University of Kansas for his undergrad degree, where he studied biology.

Although he had an interest in the biomedical field, Swafford says he was not sure whether to go into research. After working for the KUMC Department of Pharmacology, Swafford says he realized he didn’t like it quite as much as clinical work (he was also volunteering at an emergency room doing clinical work at the time).

Currently, Swafford has his eye on an emergency room specialty. Read more »

Debated Studies: Animal labs for medical students

We present this article to highlight the debate currently in progress over use of animal labs in student education. SDN has no formal or informal position on animal labs. Our volunteer members have a diverse view on this topic and have worked together in an attempt to cover this topic fairly and evenly.

Animal labs for medical students

Jeff Tomasini likes dogs. That was one of the reasons that prompted the first-year student at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) to opt out of a course he considers barbaric and unnecessary. During the three-day class that took place last month, Jeff’s classmates anesthetized 60 dogs obtained from the local pounds, opened up their chest cavities, examined their hearts, and then euthanized the animals.

“Killing an innocent animal is unethical,” Jeff says. “The top medical schools produce some of the country’s best physicians without ever harming an animal.”

And he is not the only one to protest the course that is fueling heated debates among students, physicians, and medical school educators across the country: do live animal labs have educational merit for medical students, or are they relics of the past? Read more »

SDN Volunteers Donate $5000 to Make-A-Wish

Make-A-WishLast year the SDN volunteer members designated that each Winter they will make a donation to a healthcare related charity. For the 2006-2007 Winter season, the volunteer members donated $5000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The members chose Make-A-Wish because of its longstanding tradition of providing service to ill children throughout the world. Each year the Make-A-Wish Foundation provides hope, strength and joy to nearly 13,000 children and their families.

Match Day 2007

NRMP Match Day 2007We wish the best of luck to our members that have completed the Match. We congratulate them on arriving at the end of one chapter in their education and embarking upon a new one!

Discuss Match results in the Residency Forums.

To help our members and handle additional traffic for the Match, we’ve made some changes on the Forums:

Borrow Less, Save More

Save More - Borrow Less(We’re republishing some of our articles from early 2007, before we modified our content format. This article was originally published Jan 7.)

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the cost of private medical schools has risen 165 percent and the cost of public medical schools has gone up 312 percent over the last 20 years.

Unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, chances are you’re going to have to take out a loan or loans to get through medical school. And you’re not alone–according to the AAMC, the average educational debt of graduates of the class of 2006 (including pre-med borrowing) was $130,500, with 86.6 percent of graduating medical students carry outstanding loans, and 33 percent of students with educational debt reporting principle in excess of $150,000 and a significant minority reporting debt as high as $350,000. Read more »

20 Questions: Andrew Beckwith, MD [OB/Gyn]

Andrew Beckwith, MDThis time around, Andrew Beckwith, MD, played 20 questions (19, if you want to get technical) with the Student Doctor Network via telephone interview.

Dr. Beckwith is an OB/Gyn physician in private practice in Berkshire County, Mass., and had plenty of insight into both his specialty and private practice.

SDN: Describe a typical day at work.

B: Most days I operate in the mornings, usually one or two surgeries. I see patients from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., more or less, and many times I do surgeries at noon. Also I take care of patients in labor, and, when I’m on call, the other doctors’ patients.

Read more »

Beware the Ides of Match

Think of one of the most important matches you will ever make, the one that may impact the rest of your life. Think about the anticipation, the build-up of the expectation, and finally the discovery of what the future holds for you.

No, it’s not marriage, though in a sense this particular coupling has all the makings of a long-term relationship – if it is compatible, it will be very rewarding; if it is not, well, it will probably be a learning experience nevertheless.

You might have guessed, the event is the National Resident Match Program (NRMP) Match Day, when students across America find out which residency programs they will attend once they complete their final requirements at medical school. If you are a graduating senior, you no doubt feel the mounting excitement, possibly mixed with just a tad of apprehension, about this moment. You are not alone: it is the day more than 15,000 U.S. graduating medical students across the country – and approximately 9,000 foreigners who study medicine in the United States – are waiting for with bated breath and pounding hearts. Read more »

Psychology School Interview Feedback

Now available:

We have added psychology schools to our interview feedback resource.

keep looking »

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