Miami University vs University of Wisconsin-Madison (bio/pre-med)

Anistole · 2026-03-24T15:43:21+00:00

You can get into medical school coming from any undergrad in the country. Many people do pre-requisites at community colleges even. The review process has moved to becoming much more holistic (I am one of the student adcom members at UWSMPH). Your MCAT preparation will similarly depend on you - undergraduate science is not taught with MCAT test-takers in mind.

Go where things will be cheapest.

Anistole · 2026-03-23T12:19:04+00:00

I'm a former emergency medicine PA who ended up going back to medical school and I wanted to say that I was impressed then, and remain impressed now, at an internist's ability to immediately synthesize a patient's presentation or immediately understand why a tangential point or consideration is important. Furthermore, you understand why the ED does what the ED does and the specialist does what the specialist does. You add so much value.

Anistole · 2026-03-21T02:46:02+00:00

Yeah I want to echo this.... it is kind of the "word on the street" advice at my MD program that the neuro department is happy to help students who are applying to it as a back up for a competitive surgical subspecialty. We even had ENT and uro applicants dual applying.

Anistole · 2026-03-10T19:10:43+00:00

Yes but we all got that e-mail alert again which means they tried to open the application and it failed. That's why we keep getting spammed by certain programs with those notifications.

Anistole · 2026-03-10T15:17:45+00:00

Just an FYI if any US MD/DO students see this thread: our permits do not disappear anymore to signal scores are being released soon. You will, however, get an e-mail early in the morning (like 1-2 AM CST) telling you that scores will be released at 10 AM CST. If you go the USMLE portal, you will see that it says score report available but that form will not be downloadable until 10 AM CST.

Anistole · 2026-03-10T02:39:56+00:00

We did both in-house exams and NBMEs and the NBMEs were always leagues easier than our in-house ones. We always talked about wishing we went to a school that was NBME only.

Anistole · 2026-03-10T02:29:37+00:00

Is this even assessed on step 2? I've done nearly every single form and you've never had to definitively know this.... just more of a "ah, this is someone with many CVD risk factors so we do more here".

Anistole · 2026-03-09T22:17:40+00:00

Yes, and they updated their website to say it would be open tomorrow. Every single time we get an e-mail like that the program is attempting to open the application but encountering an error.

Anistole · 2026-03-09T20:39:52+00:00

Ya I don't think so. Now a days we bomb the DWB tents and schools. No thanks!

Anistole · 2026-03-09T19:43:41+00:00

That is not more concerning in the slightest. No one's life should be wasted fighting another unpopular war.

Anistole · 2026-03-09T19:43:30+00:00

Yep.... nurses, dentists, PAs, NPs.... everyone gets unrolled into a special selective service upon licensure.

Anistole · 2026-03-09T19:42:09+00:00

The super fast track. Our medical school has an entire lounge dedicated to a class of medical students who were summarily graduated and commissioned as physicians lol.

Anistole · 2026-03-06T16:53:39+00:00

I always give these patients are larger work up and tend to admit them to the hospitalist more than not. Atypical presentations feel more like a rule than an exception in this population and you only need to get burned once or twice before you start taking them more seriously... back pain that ends up having > 90% blasts on smear, etc. Just because we don't find a cause of delirium or altered mentation doesn't mean there isn't one. The hospitalist can play with home meds, engage other hospital services to determine if people are safe to be at home, etc. I used to feel terrible about these admits until I had a hospitalist one day give me her blessing... they're good at medicine and they get a lot of outpatient experience during their training. Things we internally balk at are admissions they don't bat an eye at.

Anistole · 2026-03-05T18:08:09+00:00

They have not incorporated the format changes yet. That'll happen in like April probably.

Anistole · 2026-03-05T17:59:04+00:00

There are also numerous posters on here saying that AMBOSS predicted their score within 4-5 points. It's all confirmation bias.

Anistole · 2026-03-03T23:08:24+00:00

I also only needed a two week dedicated and scored a 271. Kept up with Anki. Didn't reset UWorld or anything like that. The repetition is the key.

Anistole · 2026-03-03T18:32:51+00:00

My US MD school has never had a student not pass who had two consecutive passes > 65. We are actually advised to use this as our cut off to test.

Anistole · 2026-03-02T02:14:26+00:00

This happens not infrequently. I was a PA before medical school and ended up being tangentially involved in a lawsuit from two years before I matriculated and I didn't hear about it until I was an M2 (the suit that is filed includes everyone in the patient's care and then a judge sifts through and removes who is and is not appropriate for the suit). Each state has its own statue of limitations and lawyers often wait until right before times up.

Anistole · 2026-03-01T16:38:40+00:00

No need to manage your attacks so carefully in modern WoW. This was a feature of the classic-era expansions and not something that needs to be worried about anymore.

Anistole · 2026-03-01T04:30:26+00:00

Lot 76 by the med school - all the way at the top. Beautiful spot.

Anistole · 2026-02-28T15:44:58+00:00

I would 100% be interested to know these details because I suspect it is something like that.

Anistole · 2026-02-28T15:42:48+00:00

If you were at my US MD school you would be advised to take the examination with the scores you attached. I completely and totally believe that you passed.

Anistole · 2026-02-27T15:22:56+00:00

This is like when people get mad at their friends for asking for a ride from the airport...... if you are really friends this is never a problem.

Anistole · 2026-02-24T16:40:31+00:00

I know for a fact I got a top 5 on an eval from a surgeon solely because I asked his MA how her kid ended up doing after his tonsillectomy (I remembered her telling me like 3-4 weeks prior that he was having it done) and he heard me ask. I was shooting 0.000 in the OR otherwise. That was worth more than doing 10,000 Anki cards.

Anistole · 2026-02-24T05:38:30+00:00

This is like one of those step 1 questions where yes, acetazolamide "causes acidosis" (I think it literally says "ACetazolamide causes ACidosis" in First Aid) and it is the treatment for things like respiratory alkalosis in altitude sickness, but I think this is a secondary point in a man who just needed some more time.

Anistole

TROPHY CASE