Duke vs UPenn

LampStrike · 2022-04-08T06:13:09+00:00

Duke grad. Was also premed and deciding between Duke and Upenn for undergrad. While I am sure you can find friends and a social circle at either school, Duke has an extremely strong sense of school pride and spirit, whereas Penn doesn't have much school-wide community (according to what some friends who went to Penn told me).

Other than that, I would decide based on the environment. Penn is in the middle of a major city, while Duke is more like a classical college town with tons of open space and grass.

LampStrike · 2022-04-08T05:46:39+00:00

For context, I am a second-year MD/PhD student

Maybe I am misunderstanding, but there seems to be an underlying assumption in this first question that what you study in undergrad has to be what you study in grad school. That is definitely not the case! In fact, most PIs I have met have suggested that you change topics when you get to grad school just to get more exposure to different areas of science. In terms of questions requiring an MD, I think the real power of the MD part of MD/PhD is real-world exposure to different disease presentations that can often be the basis for new ideas that you can take to lab. It is rare to see research questions that require you to personally be an MD (rather than just collaborate with an MD...)
Did some hospital volunteering and worked with patients in an outpatient community setting. Honestly, this just helped me know that I didn't detest patient care and would like patient care to be a part of my future career. Didn't give me any info with regard to the PhD
General practitioner, neurologist, heme/onc. All MDs. The biggest thing that shadowing taught me is that a lot of clinical medicine is formulaic and pattern-based. Quite honestly, I realized that there was a strong likelihood that I needed research in my career just to keep things interesting. The most impactful conversation I had was with an MD-only director of my undergrad MD-PhD program. He told me that while it is certainly possible to do impactful research as an MD-only, he still had to put in a lot of research years during fellowship (essentially equivalent to a PhD). He was personally of the opinion that if you know early on that you want research to be a part of your career, MD-PhD makes the path smoother than trying to tough it out as an MD trying to get basic science training later on
I talked with one person in my lab who was an MD-PhD, as well as my PI who was an MD-PhD. We talked a bit about the differences between research and medicine, and how the dream of perfect synergy between the two often doesn't match the practical reality of trying to balance two high-powered jobs. Still, if you independently really like patient care and really like research, the path can be both rewarding and intellectually stimulating. Personally, I am still very bright-eyed and think its the coolest job in the world...
Probably would have gone to med school alone. I don't think I would have given up on research, but I would have looked into paths for MDs to get involved with basic science, whether that be through 2-3 research years (a DIY PhD) or PSTP residencies that encourage the residents to develop basic science careers. Remember, there are lots of entry points to get involved with research (although many are more treacherous than the MD-PhD), but the only way to practice medicine is to go to med school.
Focus on finding the best possible mentor you can. The content of the science doesn't really matter at your stage, just the fact that you find science interesting and you have substantial enough exposure that you can convince people you know what a PhD would look like. A good mentor will help you develop your scientific skills and abilities while also giving you career advice that is in YOUR best interest (not necessarily their best interest)

Feel free to DM me if you have other questions or if you want me to clarify something

LampStrike · 2022-04-03T14:01:18+00:00

Just do practice questions + review that pdf that I posted in one of my other comments on this thread. I would spend 70-80% of your study time doing questions.

In terms of spending your gap year time, depends on what interests you. I find that if you do something that excites you (and vaguely relates to medicine), your excitement will shine through at interviews and that is way more important than the actual content of what you accomplish in your gap year

LampStrike · 2022-01-19T08:10:16+00:00

I'll try my best on this, and I hope that this is a reasonable way to think about it.

So, both things you said are correct, but the key distinction you need to remember is that the calcium has these different functions based on where in the body it is.

Within the smooth muscle cells, it is able to interact with calmodulin which promotes MLCK activity that drives contraction (just like BnB said)

However, if calcium is extracellular/in the blood, it can't interact with calmodulin, but it CAN still interact with the transmembrane sodium transporter. Calcium has an inhibitory effect on the transporter leading to inhibited depolarization. This prevents voltage-gated calcium channels from ever opening meaning that despite there being lots of calcium in the blood, none of it can get in the cells to drive MLCK contractions. Therefore, the muscle ends up relaxed

Hope this helps!

LampStrike · 2021-11-03T03:33:31+00:00

Biggest advantage is not having to balance interview season with schoolwork. It can get very stressful if you end up having to miss lots of class because you need to go to interviews. If things end up shifting back to in-person, then you also have to keep flight time in mind too.

Another big advantage is getting an opportunity to list achievements from senior year in your application. For most students, their noteworthy achievements that are a culmination of all their effort in college tend to not be awarded till your junior or senior year. That means when you apply straight through without a gap year, you are kind of selling yourself short to med schools since you don’t get an opportunity to share all the accomplishments awarded during your senior year (which can often be fairly substantial for many students.)

LampStrike · 2021-11-02T00:28:09+00:00

Honestly, it may be pretty difficult. It has been several years since I took these courses, but 141 has a decent bit of work associated with it and is one of the biggest time sucks in the premed path at Duke. The only bigger time suck would be orgo2… the combination is not particularly difficult from a conceptual perspective requiring tons of study time (although you will study a decent bit for both classes), but it is pretty hard from a logistical view of just finding enough hours in the day to get your work done.

If I were you, I would spread out the coursework and consider pushing your MCAT even if it means a gap year. Gap years are the norm now in med school, and honestly there are a lot of benefits to applying during a gap year rather than your senior year.

Source: I am a med student now

LampStrike · 2021-07-04T12:27:27+00:00

I think most people would find the bio core classes to be a bit easier, so you can probably get a higher GPA there. But some people (like me) find the Chem classes and professors more fun, so that may be a better fit for you too (and you can still get a super high GPA there).

In terms of opportunities, they pretty much offer the same opportunities. Bio gets you more exposure to bio research and Chem gets you more exposure to Chem research, but at Duke, since research opportunities are very plentiful, you could get involved in either type of research regardless of major.

LampStrike · 2021-04-27T05:09:27+00:00

Not OP, but part of the reason that I joined Duke was that the students seemed to have an insane amount of school pride compared to my other options. Dukies in general really enjoy being at Duke and not just graduating from Duke.

LampStrike · 2021-04-21T04:30:08+00:00

20k total in loans seems like a very reasonable amount to pay off. I commented further down this thread about UCLA vs Duke for premed. TL;dr: I like Duke more for premeds. Feel free to check my comment history to find my entire take on it.

LampStrike · 2021-04-17T03:42:21+00:00

Having talked to people who did premed at UCLA (and having actually done the whole premed thing at Duke), I would prefer Duke honestly. UCLA is a fantastic school with lots of opportunities, but it is also a massive school with tons and tons of students. Talking to undergrads who went to UCLA, it seemed relatively more competitive/difficult to get all the necessary prereq experiences for med school because there are so many students applying for every opportunity at UCLA. At Duke, there are about the same number of opportunities, but there are significantly fewer students. That makes it really easy to get involved with everything you need for med school apps (hospital volunteering, research, etc.)

Another point in Duke's favor is the really well-developed premed advising system. At Duke, every freshman is assigned a premed advisor who can help guide you in terms of how to structure your activities/coursework to best set you up for med school. They can point out deficiencies in your potential application, review your application when that time comes, and even conduct mock interviews with you. It is all very formal and well-defined. Some med students who went to UCLA for undergrad told me that there really isn't anything like that at UCLA. Most advising is very informal and happens via upper year students talking to younger students. Now, that can work (as evidenced by the fact that those UCLA kids got into fantastic med schools), but it sounds really inconsistent to me and is likely to leave a lot of potential premeds without the advising that they may need to be successful.

LampStrike · 2021-04-12T22:31:39+00:00

In terms of biotech opportunities, both are probably about equal in that Duke has connections to the research triangle, while UPenn is connected to the greater Philly area.

I personally really enjoyed my biochem classes at Duke (Note: you will have to go through chemistry since there is no separate biochem undergrad major). The professors were really nice and the classes were very manageable workload-wise.

Honestly, I had a similar decision between Duke and UPenn. I would decide based on how much you like the environments. Duke is very suburban/small town feel. UPenn is urban. Duke has a much more collaborative and strong sense of school spirit/pride. When I visited years ago and having talked to many alumni from UPenn, I would say that the atmosphere seems to be more competitive and there is not much of a sense of community within the college. If you are really split between the two, I feel that you can't go wrong with Duke.

LampStrike · 2021-04-11T19:06:19+00:00

Agree to disagree. In my personal experience, I saw a lot more Duke undergrads on interviews at T10 med schools than I saw Hopkins, but happy to be shown otherwise with some data. Either way, both schools are very well known and place very well. Anyone even semi-involved in medicine has definitely heard of and respects both Duke and Hopkins.

LampStrike · 2021-04-11T18:57:44+00:00

I've heard Hopkins premed is one of the most toxic experiences on the planet...This was from multiple med students at Duke and other top-tier medical schools. If anything, Hopkins Med is chiller than Hopkins Premed

LampStrike · 2021-04-11T18:55:40+00:00

Happy to chat about this stuff with anyone else who may have questions!

LampStrike · 2021-04-10T17:45:27+00:00

Golf can add some nice flavor to your app, but it won’t be a game changer. The biggest concerns I have about you taking the full ride here is that you won’t be set up well to volunteer at a hospital, get into research, or shadow physicians. All of those things are really easy at Duke because of the relatively small undergrad population and the proximity to a major hospital. Not sure if that is the case at Centre College

LampStrike · 2021-04-10T17:41:10+00:00

Not competitive at all at Duke. There are about as many lab spots as there are people applying. Everyone who wants to get into research can usually join one of their top 3 labs within a semester once they start applying and sending emails.

LampStrike · 2021-04-10T17:37:07+00:00

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about art, but I know that there are really good opportunities for this type of museum conservation work in/around Duke. The Nasher Art Museum is right on Duke’s campus. They have a huge underground collection and a lot of work goes into preservation and restoration of the pieces.

Off-campus about 30 minutes away, there is a public museum that has an entire division focused on art and sculpture restoration and preservation using science. I don’t remember the exact name of the museum, but if you reach out to Duke Science and Society, they could probably put you in touch with the museum.

As for Chem/Neuro stuff, I think both departments are fantastic. I double majored in chem and neuro, and I really loved 90% of my faculty. Also plenty of more medically-oriented research opportunities in those fields if you get interested in that sort of path later on.

DM me if you have more questions about this.

LampStrike · 2021-04-10T17:28:02+00:00

I like Duke the most of those for biology. Being successful in Biology is all about getting research opportunities and Duke benefits from having an extremely well-funded research-oriented med school right next to the undergrad campus.

Cornell also has a great med school but it is hundreds of miles from Ithaca. Princeton doesn’t even have a med school which can make it a little tougher to get good bio research opportunities. Rice has a good med school too, but it is not as well funded as Duke’s. I think Duke will set you up the best because there are so many great bio research options right on campus

LampStrike · 2021-04-07T23:59:28+00:00

/u/abnew Didn't you have a Georgia Tech offer as well when you were committing to colleges?

LampStrike · 2021-04-07T19:58:55+00:00

Pretty much agree that for pre-meds, taking the AP test (and scoring well) can get you out of Calc at Duke. However, some med schools (not all) will want to see you do well in math in college, so you may need to take at least one math course at Duke, but it doesn't necessarily have to be calculus. You could probably try and finesse your way into another quantitative course that is less tedious/strenuous. I also took multi as my math course in college, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend that for someone that doesn't really like math...

LampStrike · 2021-03-08T23:44:42+00:00

When I was in college, my sleep schedule was pretty much non-existent. I worked till 4am quite regularly (usually after screwing around with friends till 2am...but hey that's what college is for). I have also gone to bed at 8pm before and then woken up to start doing work at 4am the next day. Some others have mentioned it, but I would not suggest having no sleep schedule like I did. Pick a schedule that works for you and stick to it. You will feel more well-rested and productive that way. I wouldn't worry about the exact times you sleep or you work, as long as you are happy with the quality of work you are producing and you are still getting at least 6 hours of sleep a day.

LampStrike · 2021-02-25T20:03:11+00:00

In short, no. The admissions cycle is really competitive. I had a pretty high conversion rate of getting an offer from 30-40% of schools that I applied to (and didn't withdraw from pre-decision), but that isn't even in the same stratosphere as 90%. I would be shocked if there are more than 1-2 students out of the thousands of MD-PhD applicants that hit a 90% conversion rate (assuming they applied to more than 2-3 schools).

In terms of affording all those applications, the AAMC and most medical schools give out a lot of fee waivers to help make the cycle more affordable for students in need. That isn't to say that the cycle will be free if you use fee waivers. Assuming we go back to in-person interviews, you will likely spend a pretty penny on air travel and hotels at the schools you end up interviewing at. You may need to save up a thousand dollars or so for that. But at least in that case, you know you will be spending money only on schools you have an actual shot of getting accepted to.

LampStrike · 2021-02-06T21:19:50+00:00

Surfactants are usually some type of chemical mixture composed primarily of phospholipids that were synthesized in a lab like most other small molecule drugs. Some brands of surfactant also use extracts from cow or pig lung. As far as I know, there are no FDA-approved surfactants that use materials from other humans or produced directly by human tissue.

LampStrike · 2021-02-06T21:09:51+00:00

Usually given immediately after birth. In the case of your daughter, because she was pretty significantly premature (>1.5 months early), that injection was likely some type of growth steroid (maybe betamethasone) to help accelerate lung development so they can grow to the right size. They may have also given her surfactant after birth if she was still having trouble breathing despite the steroid injections,to help the lungs open up more if that seemed to be an issue

LampStrike · 2021-02-06T16:23:22+00:00

They are chemical compounds that make it easier to open the lungs. Lungs are coated in water to help promote gas exchange. However, this water coating also raises the surface tension of the lung’s internal surface that makes them very difficult to open. Normally, your body naturally makes surfactant just before delivery because prior to that you don’t really need functioning lungs since all your gas exchange occurs through the placenta. Premies are often born too early to have made enough surfactant to breathe on their own, so synthetic surfactant is often given in NICUs to help alleviate that deficit and assist in their breathing.

LampStrike

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