Video summary
The speaker, a cardiologist nearing the completion of his fellowship, reflects on his journey from medical school to becoming an attending physician and outlines the specific habits he wishes he had adopted earlier. He begins by identifying three critical mistakes that many students make: overloading their resumes with superficial experiences, becoming overly obsessed with grades, and neglecting the importance of personality. He argues that while a strong GPA is necessary for initial entry into medical school, it becomes less relevant as one advances in residency and fellowship, where programs assume all candidates are intelligent enough to handle the work. Instead, he emphasizes that likability, ease of working with others, and emotional intelligence become the deciding factors for competitive specialties. He illustrates this with the "3 AM test," suggesting that a program director would want someone pleasant to be around late at night rather than just another high-scoring applicant who lacks social grace.
To correct these pitfalls, the speaker advocates for shifting from "resume stuffing" to building a cohesive professional narrative or "story mode." Rather than collecting random experiences to fill a CV, he encourages students to explore various interests early on and then double down on those that genuinely light them up, such as working in an ICU or shadowing specific procedures. This approach creates a unique story where every research project, volunteer role, and clinical experience connects logically to a central passion, making the resume easier for recruiters to understand within seconds. Alongside this narrative focus, he stresses the importance of perfecting one's learning and time management systems. He notes that while grades still matter for competitiveness, the ultimate goal is patient care, which requires deep pattern recognition and information retention rather than just test-taking skills. Therefore, students should develop efficient methods for studying, collecting knowledge for long-term use, and managing their time to avoid burnout as life responsibilities grow.
Finally, the speaker highlights the underrated power of relationships and the necessity of constantly "cleaning one's lens" regarding career goals. He advises seeking out mentors who can provide guidance on practical aspects like contract negotiations, clinic scheduling, and avoiding pitfalls that only experienced physicians understand. These connections not only offer advice but also open doors to opportunities through networking. Crucially, he urges individuals to regularly reflect on what they truly want in their careers, questioning whether their reasons for pursuing a specific specialty or program are deep enough. If the answers lack depth, it is a signal to gain more experience and refine one's perspective before making major decisions. By maintaining this reflective mindset and focusing on becoming a well-rounded, likable person with a clear professional story, aspiring physicians can navigate their journey more effectively and find greater satisfaction in their chosen path.
Read the full video transcript
I graduated medical school with a 3.9
GPA, matched into my number one choice
for internal medicine residency, got
into cardiology fellowship, one fel a
year, and just shined my dream attending
contract. Now, if I had to start over,
here's exactly what I would do
differently. Hey friends, welcome back
to the channel. Today, I am going to be
breaking down everything that I wish I
did more of and less of to get to the
spot where I am now, which is just being
4 months away from graduating cardiology
fellowship and starting my Big Boy job.
It's been a long journey. It's been a
lot of ups, some downs, and so hopefully
you can learn from some of those big
wins and failures from my end. Let's get
into it. So, first let's break down the
things that I wish I didn't do, things
that you shouldn't do, things that I for
sure did to some extent. And when I work
with students more and more on the
journey, I realize that is like the
default mode. And at the end, I think
all of us realize that was just a waste
of time. Now, most of these are by no
means revolutionary. And frankly, we're
going to talk about more of how to do
them correctly. So, we're going to get
through them really, really quickly.
Number one, do not resume stuff. I know
particularly when I was in college, it
seemed like the thing to do to get into
medical school was to make your CV as
long as possible without the least
amount of depth. And so you would join
all the organizations, do all the
research projects, try to put in all the
clubs and volunteer experiences. And
that muscle feels like it has to
continue in medical school and residency
and in fellowship. But in reality, the
further you go, the more you realize
that you just kind of continue to do
experiences that other people are doing
on the journey. And thus, you just look
more and more like everybody else, which
is very superficial. And I'll tell you
instead of what you should do, but even
to get into a competitive specialty like
cardiology, my game plan was by no means
ré stuffing. And that worked to my
betterment where I probably had a
smaller CV, but more impressive one. So,
we'll talk about how to do that
correctly. Number two is stop being
grade obsessive. I get emails all the
time of students who want to improve
their studying and thus really their
grades because they want to get into a
competitive specialty. And the first few
years of medical school, you're so
obsessed with your GPA and your scores
on quizzes and tests. And granted, those
are important, but when you become so
obsessive, it turns you into this
personality going into medicine, going
through residency, where you're just
output focus. You just want to know what
your step one, step two scores, what
your exam scores are, what your rankings
are. And instead, I'll tell you how to
do this correctly. But when you're at my
face, when you're in residency, your
scores don't really matter. And now
being part of a few application cycles
of evaluating people for residency and
fellowship, the scores matter to some
extent for me to understand how
competitive you are. But the further and
further you go into the journey, you'll
quickly realize that people just assume
that you're smart. Because if there's
one pattern that I've picked up of
reviewing applications for residency or
a fellowship is that the further you get
into this journey, the assumption is
that you're smart enough to take on that
next phase. And so rarely am I looking
at somebody's step two score as kind of
a decision maker if I think they're
going to be a good fellow. Instead, I'm
looking at a variety of other things
again that we'll break down later in
this episode. But the more grade
obsessive you are, the more your
personality changes into this person who
is just very much focused into this kind
of gunner mentality of I just need the
grades. And that's unfortunately not the
fact of it. There are tons of
cardiologists that I work with that I
think are brilliant, but I'm sure I may
have had higher GPA than them. And
that's not like it doesn't matter. the
patients don't ask you your GPA for
medical school. And so trying to be less
grade obsessive and instead what we'll
talk about in a second is really where
you focus a lot. And number three, this
is like huge because I think that this
has helped me and my betterment when the
grades may not have always been my
favor. And that is don't ignore the
personality factor. Again, the further
and further you get into this journey,
the assumption is that you are smart
enough and capable enough to do that
phase. So when you're getting into a
residency, the assumption is you're
going to be a good physician. When
you're getting into fellowship, the
assumption is you're going to be a good
cardiologist. The question is, is that
program the best fit for you? Versus in
medical school, it makes sense where
grades like MCAT and GPA have to take a
bigger toll because you're just
evaluating sheer more amounts of
individuals who are trying to get into
that first leg of medicine. But when
you're in my shoes, you're only
competing against like a thousand other
people for significantly less spots. But
the assumption is all of us are capable.
Now, the difference when all of us have
the grades and all of us potentially
have the skills is how likable are you?
Emergency medicine has this kind of 3:00
am task, which is would you want that
person sitting next to you at 3:00 a.m.
just to kind of chat and, you know, have
conversations if if the night is quiet?
And if that person just doesn't give you
the quite the right vibe, then you may
not be getting into your dream specialty
or your dream program. And so really
understanding that the personality
aspect, frankly, how likable you are and
how easy you are to work with matters a
lot more the further and further you get
into the journey. But that is a skill
that takes many years to kind of
understand where you rub people the
wrong way, what kind of irks you, what
kind of things make you successful, what
environments you do well in. But
understanding that personality factor is
like probably number one the further and
further you get into the journey. So
those are the things that you shouldn't
do. But now let's talk about the five
things you for sure should do as much as
possible. Now number one is
understanding the concept of story mode.
If you're a gamer in any sense of the
world or if you've played any kind of
role playing game, I love Pokemon
growing up and so I'm using that as my
example, but there's a story that you
build upon where you have your
characters and you make them stronger
and you essentially move through the
journey with progress kind of being the
default setting of making it further in
the line compared to what a lot of
people do in medicine earlier on where
you're kind of just building these
superficial layers by resume stuffing
that you end up being more or less the
same person. So instead, focus on
building depth through experiences and
not just through the resume stuffing.
And how do you do that? When you find
things that you enjoy earlier on in
college, you should explore as many
things as possible, including
non-medical things. But let's say you
decide that you want to go into medicine
or you're early medical student and you
decide that these are the specialties
that you're interested in. Get as much
exposure through all of them as much as
possible. Try your best initially not to
pigeon hole yourself that I'm going to
be a plastic surgeon and instead explore
all the specialties that may seem like
they may be related or are on the table
of interest for you. Then as you do
experiences, evaluate, does this feel
like I should do more of this experience
or did I get anything from this
experience that I'm like, man, wow, like
I really wish I could do that even more.
And I realized when I would work with
cardiologist or do anything cardiology
related, I found that to be a repeat
interest to the fact that my last
rotation of residency actually rotated
to work in the ICU of the cardiology
service versus another service that I
was not interested in. That was a big
indicator to me that this was a
specialty that I was actually interested
in versus something, you know, that
didn't really kind of peique my
interest. And so looking for those
experiences, saying like where do I
light up? Where do I enjoy going to
work? What type of things do I enjoy
doing? doubling down on those and
looking for more experiences very
similar to those. And every time you do
something slightly different, ask is
that something that I would actually do
on a Saturday morning in my own valition
if it wouldn't show up on my resume? If
the answer is yes, perfect. You're
starting to find your story of what
interests you, what piqus your interest.
And the more you do that, you'll start
to see that your resume becomes this
kind of story mode and flow that if
somebody is reading through it, and
granted, people who are reading through
your resume are glancing for maybe like
10 seconds tops. And so you really want
to have a resume that's like started
here. These are the interests I came
from this and then I kind of developed
my area towards this. And further
further you go, the more and more you'll
start to kind of find an area you'll
park yourself in. If it's plastic
surgery, maybe it's doing research in a
very particular spot. If it's
cardiology, maybe you really enjoy
preventative work because like you're a
former athlete and you enjoy working
with athletes or people with really bad
heart disease and you start developing a
story there. And thus your research,
your volunteer experience, all kind of
surround experiences there. That's a
story that's very easy to tell. It's
very easy to sell yourself without being
like overly egotistic. And so ask
yourself, does your resume, if you just
looked at it compared to your peers that
you work with, does it look the same or
does it look like I have something a
little bit unique to offer? Because I've
constantly focused on what really perks
my interest. Now, before we get into tip
number two, if so far you're finding a
lot of benefit from these tips and you
want more, check out the med school
success guide where I have like a 100
plus tips of things that I wish somebody
told me on my first day of medical
school absolutely free. I'll link it
down below. Number two is to perfect
your learning and time system. Now, we
talked about don't be grade obsessive,
but grades still matter. I by no means
could have gotten to this phase if my
step one, step two scores, GPA were like
not high enough because that would have
dictated my competitiveness for the next
step. And so grades by 100% still do
matter. But in reality, again, either my
attendees or my patients asking what my
GPA was after I got to that phase. And
so the expectation is is that you need
to be a good learner and not necessarily
just a decent test taker. And even more
importantly now being just 4 months away
from graduating fellowship. For me, it's
about making sure I have a strong
foundation and take care of patients
because again, they don't care how I do
on an A through D exam. They really want
to make sure that I'm just very good at
pulling information, pattern
recognition, and taking care of
patients. And so, the best way to do
that is ask yourself, how do I learn and
how do I do this as fast as possible to
get the most amount of reps as possible?
I teach as extensively in some of our
programs. So, again, if you want any
access to those, the Med School
Blueprint is probably the one that I
would go to the most. But the bottom
line is you want to ask yourself how can
you get information that you get from
your lectures, your PDFs, wherever it
is, flashcards, AI, and do as much
repetition of those through question
answers. Whether that's flashcards,
practice questions, you pick your mode
and doing as much of those as much as as
quickly as possible. That was my system.
Um, I talk about an if you're
interested, I'll link down below a video
that's now been checked out by like a
million people plus on the system I used
for majority of medical school. And
since then, I've now converted to using
Ramenode for a majority of my residency
and fellowship. And so, I'll link that
down below, too. But either of those two
systems are great starters to figure out
how to improve your learning system.
Now, again, if you want more help,
there's tons of free videos and episodes
that we've made here on YouTube. So,
I'll link down below those playlists as
well. But you have to get your learning
system down and it is a work in progress
because how you learn your first year in
medical school will be significantly
different to how you learn where you are
at where I am now, which is a cardiology
fellow. really just acquiring knowledge
as you go and retaining them. The second
part of that learning system is
collecting things that you've learned.
While you think that you may only have
to learn for tests, again, you have to
learn for patient care. And to assume
that your brain is going to remember
everything all the time is like it's
very silly. And I've come to the fact
that like my memory is not as good as I
gave myself credit for when I was taking
the MCAT 10 plus years ago. And so it is
good to have a system where you can just
collect things as you learn them. I
personally for the time being use
RemNote where if I'm reading a PDF or a
new paper or listening to a lecture, I
will take those main takeaways and
epiphies that I have during that moment,
put them in a RemNote folder and then in
the future if I'm ever taking care of a
patient or I want to reference something
or like think back to what I had
learned, I can quickly search that up
without feeling like I have to just
store it in here. So the second brain
concept is super important for your
long-term learning and understanding.
And then finally, your time system. If
you want to be in any competitive
specialty, you do have to get more done
than the majority of your classmates. So
that includes the research, the
volunteering while still getting the
grades, still being happy, and avoiding
burnout. And that requires you to be a
master of your time, understanding where
each hour of your day is allocated to,
whether it is school, whether it's
homework and learning and studying for
your test, whether it's going to be time
dedicated to working on your next
research project or your
extracurriculars. But you can't just
figure it out or hope that it's going to
continue to sustain you for all, you
know, these 10 plus years because now
speaking as a dad, married, owning a
home and all the other responsibilities
that come with it, your life just gets
busier. I am by no means what I thought
I would be as a medical student, which
is like this is going to be much simpler
as a fellow. You just show up, do
clinical stuff, and come home and enjoy
time with your family. But life just has
its ways of just filling every crevice
of all the hours you have available. And
it is your job to have systems in place
of saying, "Nope, this time is for my
workouts. This time is for studying.
This time is for clinical stuff. This
time is for family and practicing that
earlier on when you're a medical student
in training and now even as a fellow is
going to help you for sure. It's going
to help me when I was in attending. I'm
going to have to readjust at that point.
But definitely re-evaluating how you
learn, how you study, how you retain,
and then finally how you manage your
time and those systems that go into
them. But understanding the systems that
you have for learning and time
management and constantly working on
them has been such an undervalued skill
and for me has been one of like the
lowhanging fruits for me constantly to
level up every time I move to the next
phase of my journey. And number three,
we talked about how personality matters
so much. And so really you should want
to focus on becoming personally better
on the first phase is like just be a
likable person. And that can be hard
because sometimes you may just be an
introvert where you just want to talk to
people and that's okay. Being as a
physician, you do have to interact with
individuals. And so, you don't have to
be the most popular person in the room.
You just have to be easy to get along
with. And that starts with sometimes
just being interested in other people
more than you are interested in
yourself. Asking people how they are,
asking the nurses how you can just make
their lives easier, and just being a
little bit conscientious, having that
social and emotional intelligence of
working with people over time. And I
frankly have learned this by just
evaluating how the most likable doctors
interact with those around them and
trying to instill just a bit of those in
myself. You don't have to be exactly
like your attendings. Add your own
flavor to it. But on the flip side, I've
also paid attention to those
interactions from attendings and peers
and vet students where I'm like probably
didn't do that right boss. And
understanding that like I don't want to
do that or be like that individual. And
so working on that personally, some of
those skills that I think are super
underrated but again have helped me are
just being very calm and level-headed.
Just being very chameleonike where you
can just work with any personality. If
somebody's a very type A individual,
there's tons of those in medicine. And
so instead of saying I don't like
working with those individuals,
understand how you can best accommodate
to work and with that personality. If
somebody is more reserved and needs a
leader, then like ask how you can
confidently in a friendly manner step up
and do that. And so I've been in
situations where I can be the calm head
when there's tons of voices and just
kind of get things done. But I've also
been in situations where like no one is
taking charge and I have to just raise
my voice, be a little bit more assertive
and people understand like now he means
business. But rarely have I found that
anyone's considered me to be be rude or
disrespectful. And again, that comes
with a skill that builds over time. But
being personally likable is something
that is just as important to work on as
it is to understand cardiology or pick
your specialty of interest over time. So
ask yourself kind of what your
interactions are with your peers, your
attendings, and what kind of skills you
want to take from those individuals who
are probably doing those a little bit
better than you at the time being and
work on those. And hopefully that will
make you pass the 3 a.m. test when
you're at your next kind of application
phase, whether it's residency or a
fellowship or trying to get a job. You
want to be likable. You want people to
enjoy your company. And hopefully that
means that you enjoy their company and
then because you've learned how to
adapt. Number four, super underrated.
you hear about all this time, but
relationships really do matter to be
competitive in your future specialties.
And so finding these mentors and
relationships that can be used to help
and improve your understanding of what
to do next is super important. The
silliest part of my medical journey is
that I thought I understood what I had
to do to get to the next phase. And then
the more and more I talk with mentors
that naturally have kind of come into my
life and this been like I want to learn
more from you is that you have no idea
what you're doing. And the more I
understand now, the more I understand
how ignorant I was coming in as a first
year fellow, as a resident, as a med
student. And so really having somebody
that you can just ask those stupid
questions to of like what type of things
should I consider now is like signing a
big boy contract. What do I need to know
in the financial aspects of my contract?
What type of things should I not agree
to or like look for? How should I
arrange my clinic schedule? How do I get
patients to see me? How do I make sure
that like my schedule is flowing well
where I'm not burning out? still can be
attentive to my family. These are
important things that people only
understand after experience and thus you
should ask those with experience and
especially if you're earlier on
experience and the journey. Your goal is
to use those mentors who can ideally
guide you to opportunities and guide you
to do more of this to become
competitive. If you want to do plastic
surgery as example we've been using for
this episode. You want to find somebody
who is willing to take you under their
belt or probably ideally a few people
who can then say here's a research
project or you can follow me for some
shadowing. follow them shadowing and
saying, "I enjoy doing this. Is there
somebody else that you could think of
that I could also follow?" And kind of
having more people that can support you
when it's time to just kind of push you
ahead and saying, "Look at this
applicant." And I found that to be very
helpful in my journey, especially
applying to fellowship where I could
just say, "I am interested in A, B, and
C. Could you use your connections and
potentially reach out to somebody?" and
within a day or two getting responses
from that other party that I had no
connections with just because the worlds
get smaller and smaller in the field of
medicine the further you go and so using
your connections your relationships to
one help kind of clear out this phase of
like this is what you actually should be
doing versus what you think and then two
just opening those doors of opportunity
which has been very helpful. So do not
ignore networking and mentorship. Don't
assume that everyone's going to be okay
being your mentor. Um, everyone is busy,
but constantly looking for those sources
of guidance and direction and getting as
creative as possible. And sometimes that
means that we just have to give a little
bit back to those mentors as well. By no
means is a free relationship. Not
everyone can just offer their time and
guidance, but sometimes that just may
mean somebody who is paying attention to
when they talk about their kids or when
they talk about their lives. Again, it's
that personality factor of being
likable. You're much more likely to be
mentored by somebody who enjoys your
presence versus somebody who's just
there for the advice and the guidance.
And then finally, clean the lens. Again,
the further and further you get into the
journey, the more and more you realize
how silly and stupid you were earlier on
of what you thought you wanted. And so
having a better idea as you go of like
this one question, what do I really want
is super important because the further
you get into it when you're applying for
residency, when you're applying for
fellowship, the real question that we
ask when somebody leaves our room, when
we're interviewing, is like, does this
person feel like they have a good feel
of what they want to do? And often the
answer is no. Because again, you've been
resume stuffing for the longest time,
great obsessive, and your resume looks
more or less like the applicant I just
talked to who also doesn't understand
what they want. And that's why exploring
experiences and saying this is what I I
realize I've enjoyed. I knew I liked
cardiology, but I worked like working
with my hands and so I did a few shadow
experience in the Kath lab and I enjoy
what they do even despite that they come
in at 3:00 a.m. to put a stent in. I
actually think that's cool. My
colleagues may not think so. When you
walk out of the room with those stories
and those experiences, I'm like, cool.
That person knows what they want to do.
And so cleaning this lens of always
asking what do you want to do? I knew I
wanted to do cardiology but that answer
has changed even within fellowship which
makes sense. And so now when somebody
asks me well what do you want to do as
an attending? What do you want your
clinics to look like? What patients do
you want to take care of? When do you
want your clinics? When do you want to
do procedures? And I'm thinking about
that and I'm like okay like I have to
keep evaluating cleaning this lens. Some
of that requires me to go back to my
mentors to clear up this horizon of like
what did you actually find to be
important? Because they may say
something that I didn't consider. But
don't go through the journey of just
assuming things and then realizing in
the hindsight that you actually had no
idea what you were kind of exploring. So
ask yourself what specialty do you
really want? What does that look like?
Why do you want it? If your answer is
not very deep, need more experiences.
Ask yourself kind of why you want to go
to a specific program. If your answer is
not very deep, you need to clean the
lens. When you're picking your first
kind of jobs, when I was a hospitalist,
I had a good reason of why I wanted to
go to the specific hospital. Maybe not
why I wanted to be a hospitalist. So,
that lens needed to be cleaner because
it woke me up to a new world of medicine
that I wasn't ready for. If you want to
know why I left that job, I will link a
few of the videos that kind of break
down the pros and cons. Keep cleaning
the lens will allow you to be more
satisfied next time you have to make a
decision. Cuz the worst thing is when
you go further and further down
something that because you think that
that's the only route that you're
supposed to and you realize that if I
had just asked myself these few
questions, I would have just been happy
diverting here or stopping here. And I
think because I've been so reflective
often just at the default of making
these episodes and for YouTube that I
have to think about what I want. This
kind of journalistic mindset has helped
me understand like where the lens needs
more clearing. But I feel like a lot of
my colleagues don't do that enough. And
so for you to get the most out of it is
to be competitive but then constantly
ask what you want because there's no
point of trying to run a 50-mi race if
you knew that at mile 26 the destination
is exactly what you wanted. But
hopefully that running metaphor helps at
least just one of you. Now, these are
some of the big breakdowns of things
that I wish that I did more of or I'm
glad that I did. By no means are this
kind of the end of all the tips and
tricks that I have to offer. So, if you
want all the free stuff, the 200 plus
tips and advice, plus all the emails
with all these kind of breakdowns of
tips that I constantly am wishing that I
gave myself on the first day of medical
school, check out the med school success
guide. Again, absolutely free. And if
you want all of kind of the structured
programs, how to study better, how to
manage your time, how to be competitive
in med school and residency going into
fellowship, then the med school
blueprint and all the programs that
we've ever created will be included in
one package. And every time we add
something in the future, you don't pay
anything extra. It just gets included.
So check either of those two out. All of
the videos and kind of episodes that I
refer to will be linked down below. If
you enjoy this, add your comments down
below. Frankly, you don't even have to
hit like and subscribe, but if you do,
that'd be awesome. But I enjoy
interacting with the comments and just
understanding what questions you have on
your journey. That's where I find the
most benefit personally for this
channel. And so let me know what
questions you have, how how it can help
you best on your journey. Thank you for
making it to the end if you did. And as
always, my friends, thank you so much
for being a part of my journey.
Hopefully as a little help to you guys
on yours. I'll catch you guys in the
next one. Peace.