Abstract: Dr. Varnel Antoine, the 2025 Advisor of the Year (Private Institution), talks about his career journey and role as a urologist. A urologist and Harvard resident tutor, Dr. Antoine discusses his early exposure to medicine through a high school program and his pre-med studies at Harvard, where he benefited ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated December 3, 2025 by Emil Chuck, PhD
Abstract: Faculty serve three to four year terms on admissions committees, so they can vary significantly year-to-year with shifting priorities over time. Committee members filter applications through their experiences with past students, including both successful ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated October 27, 2025 by Emil Chuck, PhD
The path to health professions is challenging for all students, but for immigrants and first-generation (first-gen) prehealth students, it can feel like navigating uncharted territory without a map. These students often enter higher education with ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated April 23, 2025 by Emil Chuck, PhD
Transcripts are essential for graduate or professional school applications, and their delivery determines how smoothly the process begins. This article outlines basic steps to ensure your application avoids unnecessary processing delays. While I write from ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated April 17, 2025 by Emil Chuck, PhD
We willingly chose the Black coat to remind us that our approach to medicine and healing and our reasons for selecting our field of study and future practice are fundamentally different than others. For us, ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated February 12, 2025 by Emil Chuck, PhD
Generally, most health professionals thrive on being problem-solvers. When meeting patients, many professionals take on the role of sleuth to diagnose the problems that address the chief complaints. With a toolkit of therapies and therapeutics, ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated December 5, 2024 by Emil Chuck, PhD
The Greatest Common Factor (GCF) between two numbers is the largest positive integer that can divide both numbers evenly (without remainders). Prime factorization of the two numbers can reveal the GCF. This SDN Forums discussion ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated April 17, 2025 by Emil Chuck, PhD
The 2024 summer blockbuster film Inside Out 2 explores the complex emotions that first hit teenagers during puberty. Briefly, the five original emotions (from the first movie in 2015) that define the behavior of childhood ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated July 9, 2024 by Emil Chuck, PhD
Whether it is an internship or a graduate school application, letters of recommendation are generally expected or required for all applicants to affirm your fit with the program and potential as a professional. Here are ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated July 3, 2024 by Emil Chuck, PhD
Over a decade ago, I wrote a series of articles (here is Part 1) that heralded the growing importance of understanding “competency.” Over the last decade, I developed rubrics for academic and pre-professional competencies to ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated April 17, 2025 by Emil Chuck, PhD
Premeds dream of reciting the Hippocratic Oath dressed in their new white coat embroidered with the crest of their medical school. The White Coat Ceremony, encouraged by the Gold Foundation to emphasize the importance of ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated March 6, 2024 by Emil Chuck, PhD
For over 40 years, medical and dental school applicants have been asked to provide an institutional “committee letter” packet of recommendations if their prehealth offices provide a supportive evaluation. SDN has fielded questions about committee ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated September 27, 2023 by Emil Chuck, PhD
Kevin Perez, a rising OMS-III at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harlem, took some time out from his studies to share his journey. When did you decide to pursue becoming a physician? Kevin Perez: ... Read more
Barbara Franklin
Updated July 27, 2023 by Barbara Franklin
Most advice to applicants focuses on the personal statement and description of work or activities required to complete the initial centralized application service (CAS) application. In contrast, I urge you to write your school-specific “secondary” ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated April 19, 2023 by Emil Chuck, PhD
Most rural Americans face significant challenges accessing healthcare. There are major shortages of physicians, dentists, psychologists, and other health professionals in rural locations across the United States. As hospital systems recruit providers to work in ... Read more
Emil Chuck, PhD
Updated November 24, 2022 by Emil Chuck, PhD
Dr. Robin Kuriakose is a physician resident completing his surgical residency in Ophthalmology at Loma Linda University Health in Southern California. Prior to this, he attended a combined BS/MD program at Virginia Commonwealth University in ... Read more
Student Doctor Network
Updated August 2, 2022 by Student Doctor Network
Many students start out their academic careers with dreams of attending medical school and becoming a physician. However, according to a large study out of the University of Minnesota, only 16.5 percent of students that ... Read more
Laura Turner
Updated June 22, 2022 by Laura Turner
You’re concerned about medical school requirements. Different medical school programs are on your radar, but they’re all fiercely competitive. You fear that you’ve chosen the wrong major. You may feel that your path to medicine ... Read more
Student Doctor Network
Updated August 18, 2022 by Student Doctor Network
Getting into medical school is a great accomplishment, but it is easy to become inundated with various resources and well-intentioned advice once you get there. However, the right resources will serve as good guides along ... Read more
Student Doctor Network
Updated October 18, 2023 by Student Doctor Network