half-baked idea: mentored day off per week

I threw out a half-baked idea last week about taking a mandatory gap year between undergrad and med school. Part of the motivation for the gap year would be to help med students develop passions. Here's a second half-baked idea to go along with it. 

Half-baked idea: Mentored day off per week. 

I'm sure I don't need to sell med students on a day off every week, but hear me out. 

the hub

Stanford, probably the best at innovative med education is already on this train. They give their students every Wednesday completely off from med school obligations. sidenote - Palo Alto would be one of my top career destinations if not for the cost of living. Absolutely insane. One of my friends did an away rotation there, and he told me his attending rented a house there because he couldn't afford to buy. I can't remember what specialty he was in, but the average doctor makes six figures easily. Probably looking at $200,000+ per year. And he couldn't buy a house... Durham or St. Louis it is.

Anyways, back to Stanford. When I unsuccessfully interviewed there, I met a student working on an Immunology PhD, another that tutored undergrads in anatomy lab, and I heard of others that took literature courses at Stanford undergrad. sidenote - Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone, Tennis Partner, My Own Country) teaches undergrad writing courses at Stanford. Would love to take those classes.

can I just hang out with you?

I love this idea of giving students free time, but let's face it. Do I have time for this? No. I have to figure out what the hell a uterus is. I have IP assignments to do. 

Med students are busy. If I had one day off from class I'd definitely just study more. So here's the added caveat for the day off -  meeting with a mentor. sidenote - Atul Gawande wrote this great article about the need for coaches in medicine. 

At MUSC there are 280 faculty members in the dept of general medicine, 100 in the dept of surgery, 160 in the dept of peds, 240 in neuro/psych, and 30 in ob/gyn. Between those 800 diverse faculty members, we could assign each med student to a faculty mentor. Every incoming student would choose one of these specialties, undecided students will get thrown into general med, because statistically the most students will end up there. 

We could even add niches like doctors interested in working with minorities, teaching on the wards, writing and interweaving humanities, using social media to reach the uninsured, being pregnant while in med school, you can use your imagination. 

So every Wednesday during the school year, the student and faculty mentor would meet for 30 minutes to chat over coffee and break down life. They'd mainly focus on what they're doing with their Wednesdays. It would double as career mentoring and therapy. The faculty mentor would decide if the student was doing a satisfactory job of meeting the 'Wednesday' requirement, which would be a given. 

rosie

And what would students do on these Wednesdays? Well, here's one half-baked idea within a half-baked idea. Rosie Taam, from my small group, took a gap year and became a yoga instructor. Wouldn't it be a cool way to develop as a doctor to teach something 'alternative' as yoga? I always wondered how she could work this into her life as a physician, and on Wednesdays she could keep teaching yoga one day a week and develop a vision to weave yoga into her practice. What if she ran a private practice where she taught a yoga class to her patients? I guarantee there would be a patient population and investors interested in backing that practice. Why shouldn't med schools be helping students come up with ideas like this? 

If nothing else, it just seems like a good idea because a lot of us young med students are confused. I bounce between interests in specialties every five minutes. I also want to have a family, and would love some advice from older doctors. Doesn't it just make sense for us young confused people to have contact with established slightly less confused older people?

See you on the other side,

from ken

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