Recent content by otterxavier

There's a private FB group for trans premeds/med students/residents that's fairly active. PM me if you're interested and I can send you the info :)

Iirc, ERAS automatically imports your legal name from your AAMC account (which specifically requires legal name). That name also has to match what's in your USMLE records in order to import your test scores. edit: not sure whether you're thinking about changing your name, but one piece to...

Makes sense. Thanks for your input!

I've given some invited talks, workshops, sat on panels, etc. related to LGBTQ health, which is a major clinical interest of mine. Some were at professional/academic conferences; others were for community organizations, hospital departments, conferences that are geared toward community members...

If it's had a significant impact on your life and perspective -- and it sounds like it has -- then yeah, I think it's something that you can meaningfully bring up on your application. Coming into your identity as part of a marginalized group can be a big part of who you are, even if it's not...

I've been one of the co-chairs of my school's LGBTQ group -- here are some of the kinds of things we've done: - March in the local Pride parade: we wear white coats and hand out apples! - Outreach with admissions: in early spring we do a phone bank to call admitted students who have identified...

Agree with this 1000%. I applied several years after transitioning (and was out on my med school applications, and am happy to talk about that) -- but even that is really different from the experience of someone who's applying early- to mid-transition, or has a nonbinary identity, or just isn't...

It's totally appropriate to write about being gay in your diversity essay. Whether it's a good fit for "adversity" prompts depends, I guess, on what your specific experiences have been, and whether you've faced other forms of adversity that may make for a more compelling essay. If a school asks...

First of all, sorry you had to deal with that during your interview. I didn’t see what you said or how you said it, and I know that sometimes people express things differently when they’re venting in an anonymous forum vs. actually speaking in an interview, so I’ll resist the temptation to play...

Honestly, the deficit that I feel most acutely is a lack of out faculty/attendings. My institution has a reputation for being quite LGBTQ-friendly and has a lot of queer students, but I can count the number of faculty who are publicly out on one hand. This means that queer students struggle to...

@harkas Transgender Health and LGBT Health are also good journals to keep an eye on :)

I would strongly, strongly encourage people not to engage with posters whom they think are trolling (in this thread or in other threads). This subforum does not exist for debate about the validity of LGBTQ identity and related topics. The easiest way to prevent productive conversations from...

Just going to put it out there that by definition microaggressions are often unintentional (e.g., assuming that a patient is straight when they are not), and are so subtle that they are easy to dismiss as unrelated to bias. Any one of these incidents could be explained away, but when a person...

Hey cugatron! If you'd like someone to read over your essay who has no religious objections to being gay/lesbian/bi and doesn't think that being transgender is a mental illness or an affront to the rest of the LGBQ community, I'm happy to take a look (assuming you haven't submitted your...

I do still use Anki in med school. During my first year I made Anki cards for my classes much the same way that I did in undergrad. That earned me good grades, but it took a ton of time, and I ended up with decks that were closely tailored to lecture content but not necessarily reflective of...