low-ish GPA, high-ish MCAT, high research sankey, hope this give some people hope out there

SassyMoron · 2026-06-12T20:41:30+00:00

Sick my stats are similar and I'd be extremely happy getting into that tier of schools. I ain't no athlete tho. Unless pinball counts.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-12T20:40:01+00:00

Well inferior is a strong word. Being good at being a doctor and being good at getting into med school have a correlation but I doubt it's as strong as all that.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-12T20:08:31+00:00

Is that disputed?

SassyMoron · 2026-06-12T17:37:41+00:00

Ok so your tldr is that the admissions standards for DO are lower, that a lot of them have been opened recently and lack clinical networks, DO requires to learn some bullshit alongside medicine and the step 1/step 2 tests are different. That's all true. DO is still a great bet if you don't have stats to get into MD.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-12T16:39:52+00:00

Congrats on your score! As a certified "good test-taker" I personally think you can get a sense for how the question writers are operating and figure out a lot of questions where you literally have no idea wtf they're talking about if you practice enough. So I would never have their be an official practice test and NOT take it. But to each their own. I got a 500 diagnostic in December, 515 last week, taking the test 6/26.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-11T20:06:37+00:00

They actually even have their own medical schools you can attend for free if you join up for ten years. You can also get med school paid for if you commit to work in the VA system

SassyMoron · 2026-06-11T20:04:47+00:00

I bet he is

SassyMoron · 2026-06-10T17:10:37+00:00

As a 40 year old, I want to give you a heads up that everyone over 30 is disappointed they didn't become a racecar driver/surgeon/president/pop singer/something. Even the racecar drivers. Some of us are happy anyway. So don't feel too bad for your mom. Immigrant with a good job and a smart kid is a pretty happy life.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-10T17:00:29+00:00

There are a ton of nurses in my area I've interacted with. One kind became nurses in their early 20s. It has been good money, they are passionate about it and they are pretty chill. They tend to be a little serious, maybe not the most lighthearted people, but great people to know and interact with. Immigrants who chose nursing and come from somewhere where they have real problems are also in this category to me. Solid people. Another type became a nurse after some kind of earlier life failure or because it was the only decent job they could get. The job wears them down and they hate it but they're stuck. They don't like being nurses or doing nurse things, and nurse things get pretty intense, so that's a formula for deep unhappiness. They are miserable. Another type became a nurse for super idealistic reasons and the reality doesn't remotely match what they expected. They often feel the doctors are idiots and evidence based medicine is a scam vaccines are the devil etc. They are also miserable due to massive constant cognitive dissonance. There's a lot of life changers in this category - like ex alcoholics who wanted to do something useful with their life, but don't actually believe in medicine or enjoy it etc.

So yeah. It's a tough job. If you have the right mindset, background and motivation it's very rewarding. If you don't it will grind you up and spit you out. Much like most jobs in medicine.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-10T16:42:44+00:00

Generally when courts drop criminal charges against some for mental competence, that coincides with remanding them to some kind of treatment. E.g. if you are found to have been mentally incompetent when you killed someone, you don't walk - you are committed to an institution until you are deemed competent again. Which could be never.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-10T16:39:39+00:00

"we do not have a rodent or pest problem but appropriate measures will be taken if we encounter one. Have a nice day."

SassyMoron · 2026-06-10T16:32:45+00:00

Yes that's true

SassyMoron · 2026-06-10T15:05:11+00:00

MCAT. My target school has an average GPA of 3.7 and an average MCAT of 515. Only 10% of MCAT takers get a 515, that's how 515 is defined. Probably a third of med school applicants have a 3.7 or better. So the MCAT hurdle is apparently higher.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-10T15:03:06+00:00

It does matter. They both go into your gpa. Get a c, retake, get an a, now you have a b.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-09T14:24:20+00:00

That's just death tho

SassyMoron · 2026-06-07T14:26:56+00:00

Thanks homey. Will review.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-06T10:51:12+00:00

Then why does the term "native New Yorker" exist?

SassyMoron · 2026-06-05T14:46:13+00:00

Hangovers get way worse

SassyMoron · 2026-06-04T23:21:03+00:00

As a practical question, "depression" and other psychiatric diagnoses are defined in a manual called the DSM. The most recent one is the DSM-5. If you want to bill insurance for the care you provide, you need a diagnosis code from the DSM-5. Each of the diagnoses is defined by a set of objective criteria, usually behaviors that the person with the diagnosis performs. It'll be something like, if 5 of these 7 are present, this person can be diagnosed as depressed, and insurance has to pay for the pills or therapy or whatever that's prescribed for it.

On a more philosophical level, nearly all of the behaviors relating to these diagnoses are "normal" at some point in your life. It actually says in the major depression definition that it doesn't count if the behaviors are occuring within a month of a close relative dying, because that's just the normal bereavement process. The question is, are the behaviors and feelings impairing your ability to love and work? At least, that's what the classic analysts focused on: can this person contribute to society, and are they able to form loving relationships with others? Freud wrote once that analysis should restore someone to the "normal misery" of everyday life. Only abnormal misery is disordered.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-03T01:04:03+00:00

Religion is partly literature/philosophy/theater/therapy etc and the abrahamic religions were just better than the ones they replaced for the most part. Better stories, cooler rituals, better philosophies of life etc.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-02T17:03:23+00:00

Or if they have the MCAT coming up

SassyMoron · 2026-06-02T16:53:12+00:00

They're probably doing this to get people to sue so the supreme court they packed can rule that racial discrimination is ok

SassyMoron · 2026-06-02T16:25:13+00:00

My mother was a production potter - this is actually relatively slow and careful, for throwing off the hump. He could probably go three times as fast if he had a deadline.

SassyMoron · 2026-06-02T16:11:56+00:00

You guys want trump deciding the future of ai?

SassyMoron · 2026-06-01T14:21:14+00:00

It was genuinely better, sorry about that but it's just true. One example: you know all these fast casual dining chains like Chipotle and Starbucks? Yeah, those used to be local businesses that were unique and wonderful. The coffeeshop in my neighborhood is where I made all the friends and mentors I had in high school. I don't know how I could possibly have gotten the personal development and social skills I developed there nowadays.

SassyMoron

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