Sometimes, I ask myself what it means to be a “premed”.
One might say that the label connotes a desire to become a physician, as its root, pre-MD, would suggest. We strive to matriculate into medical schools the best way we know how, which is to say, how our exemplars did before us. We’re told of medical missionaries, like Mother Theresa or Florence Nightingale, who dedicated their lives to service. We read of research geniuses, both new, like Craig Venter, and old, like Semmelweis, who brought about paradigm shifts in medicine.
And so, we college premeds volunteer, research, and strive for good grades. We have our individual motivations for doing each, each of which is worthy and noble in its own right, but the pattern is consistent; we gain experiences based on the model of a 20th century doctor who practices at the lab bench and clinic.
We live in a digital age, where computing technology is on the verge of making greater, and more frequent, impacts on health and its care than the average volunteer or researcher could in a lifetime. Before people get up in arms about their traditional experiences, let me clarify by saying that they are still necessary. They provide a certain value central to being a doctor. Where would medicine be without its pioneering researchers and volunteers?
But as culture changes, so do its accepted practices and expected competencies. Though digital culture is just taking hold in medicine, we can see the beginnings of new norms – online personas for physicians, blogs to chronicle thoughts for patients and professionals, or the notion that EHRs are not only inevitable, but needed, however troublesome the transition, to translate data into meaningful clinical support. To keep up, doctors will need to learn additional Internet-based and technological competencies fast.
These, however, are all modalities for which many premeds today are not expected to prepare for. How often do we hear about premeds who take courses in online ethics, mass communications, or computer-centric courses? Considering that the large majority of premed applicants come from traditional science backgrounds, we can assume relatively few. Our educational structure saves those competencies for physicians in training, making medical schooling a dual study in physiological science and digital orienteering. How much easier would it be if we premeds already knew the latter half of that combination?
When premeds apply to medical school, we are taught a liberally scrub our internet breadcrumbs. The only information schools should find on us are the tidbits we provide on our application. If you’re a premed, you’ve probably already witnessed this. Gripped by the fear of discovery, Facebook names get changed and profile privacy tightens up. Twitter is silenced and Instagrams instantly deleted. Tumblrs are de-listed and un-indexed. We want to transform into the perfect analog age applicant instead of embracing what the new digital premed can, and should, become.
In job applications for almost any field outside of medicine, there are dedicated spaces for social profiles, websites, or other digital proofs of person that recruiters not only want, but expect. Last I checked, the AMCAS application contains an essay and 15 slots to somehow distill ourselves into, but no outbound digital links. Sure, we can include descriptions of our digital lives in those activity slots, but that’s not the point. The fact that AMCAS is designed for applicants who don’t have digital portfolios is what’s relevant. We become static applicants to a world that touts continual learning.
Going forward, I believe the very definition of “premed” will change as radically as the field of medicine itself. As I said before, “premed” is usually associated with “pre-MD”, but given the influx of medical outsiders who are contributing significantly to medicine’s rapid modernization, that connotation is bound to broaden. Budding tech entrepreneurs with a single idea, effectively implemented, could possibly improve more patients’ health in a week than a single doctor could in a month. Could they not be considered “premed” too?
Whilst the digital revolution disrupts medicine’s status quo, I think the intelligent route would be to teach premeds how to thrive in this new environment. If we want these innovations to last, we’re going to need to cultivate younger minds to embrace, adapt, and promulgate them quickly and professionally. Given the immense pressure during medical school, it only makes sense that this education be available to premeds earlier to lighten the load.
Moreover, it will be critical for premeds to embrace the power of social and digital movements in medicine. By promoting our dynamic selves through responsibly curated and connected online personas, we can better demonstrate to medical schools how passionate we really are about medicine in its entirety. By pursuing nontraditional tech-related activities, we can learn skills and competencies that will help us in the new culture and environment of medicine. And, lastly, by appreciating the value outsiders bring to the medical field, we will learn to collaborate across disciplines to build a more robust health care system for the challenges of the future.
Then, we will truly become premeds for a digital age.
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