hey everybody
welcome to our um ambassadors webinar
talking about the interview process
um i can't see you but you can see me
i've never done one of these before so
this is pretty cool we're going to get
started introducing ourselves the
students we have on today
so i'll go ahead and get started my name
is marie claire papa marcos i'm a
current m2
wayne state university school of
medicine i am
from originally san francisco california
i went to miami university which is in a
small town
suburb of cincinnati ohio in the middle
of the corn fields
and i studied microbiology in spanish
i chose wayne state because of the full
cadaver dissection
i really love anatomy i think that being
able to do a dissection for the majority
of our first year
was really what drew me to the
curriculum and
um the emphasis on working together
collaboratively
to do the full dissection was really
important to me um
at wayne state i am a coordinator for
the nd ambassadors that's something that
i'm involved in
i also work with the military medicine
interest group and the plant-based
nutrition interest group
um so i'm going to have the panelists
also introduce themselves so annika do
you want to start us off
hi everyone my name is annika grupp i
grew up in lapeer michigan
and i went to oakland university in
rochester mission
michigan for undergrad where i studied
biomedical diagnostics and therapeutic
sciences
i went straight through i didn't do a
gap year and then
i decided on wayne state just because uh
a lot of my doctors growing up were
wayne grads and they all had very
positive experiences with
it as well as just not being from
michigan and knowing that detroit is
just
always where everything's happening and
i knew that i would get like the most
hands-on experience here
and at a really great time on interview
day and second look day so it all kind
of fell into place for me
um some things that i'm involved in i'm
a second year
so some things i've gotten involved in
i'm in the community engagement elective
where we get to do some more
volunteering and service learning
projects i'm
a research coordinator for the american
medical women's association
uh i was coordinator for run detroit
it's like an after school program for
like a local elementary school where we
do like um
just games and stuff get the kids active
played intramural volleyball
um and then i'm sil so like a tutor
kind of thing
awesome thanks annika uh capricia do you
want to share a little bit
yeah i'll go next so my name's capricia
bell
i'm also a second year um where i'm from
i grew up in romeoville illinois which
is right outside or right next to
naperville which is outside of chicago
and then i spent my teenage years in
in the atlanta area so kind of both
places
i went to undergrad at ohio state so go
bucks always
and i graduated in 2018 so i did take a
year off before starting at wayne
and i studied biology um so why wayne
state i really wanted to
practice in a city where they would
train their physicians to
kind of take care of minority
communities so that was something that
was important to me and wayne being in
detroit um
it was evident that that's how and where
they trained their positions
and then also the community service
aspect of the curriculum
was something that really drew me to the
program
and then some things that i'm involved
in um so annika and i were actually on
the same volleyball intramural team
and then i'm also in the community
engagement elective where we do
more community service on top of our
standard requirements for the curriculum
and then i'm also one of the presidents
for the black medical association
and then also on the executive board for
the fbi and hiv
education and prevention organization
and then the internal medicine
pediatrics interest group
awesome thanks capricia um sean do you
want to share a little bit about
yourself
yeah okay i can share stuff now now that
i'm unmuted so i'm shel mccarthy
so i'm originally from heartland
michigan it's about an hour away
small little cornfield kind of town so i
went to u of m to do my undergrad
in biochemistry and then i took a year
off for coming to medical school
and i kind of decided on wayne state
because i really like the
um the service oriented or like the
service orientation of wayne state and
getting involved in the community
and actually going out making a
difference um that was like a huge
influence to me as to choosing this
because very few medical schools can
make such an impact in so many different
populations as you can here at wayne
state
and um yeah so a few things that i'm
involved in so
i'm the leader of student admissions
here at wayne state
um i'm also part of the research
elective so i do a lot of research
and i'm a pro sector for the anatomy lab
and then i do
also some tutoring on the side it's
pretty much it about me
awesome thanks for sharing um lucas do
you want to go next
what's up everybody i'm lucas i am a
second year student as well
i believe that all of us on this call
are um
i am from originally st charles illinois
which is a suburb of chicago
it's also kind of close to naperville if
you have any idea of where that is
uh what are these other things i'm
supposed to address here i went i did my
undergraduate education at michigan
state university
uh go green give me a go white if you're
out there i can't hear you but that's
okay
i majored in biochemistry and political
science
uh so i have those two degrees i took a
year off after undergrad
spent some time scribing doing a little
bit of clinical research a couple
different things worked in a restaurant
you know it was all over the place
uh why did i end up deciding to come to
wayne
uh wayne has an excellent uh clinical
excellent clinical reputation uh in
terms of the training that it gives
us which is something that's obviously
valuable to me being here and
i knew after going to michigan state
that i want to end up living in the
state of michigan
and wayne produces almost a majority of
the physicians
for the state of michigan so i was like
no there's a good chance that i could
end up here if i go to wayne
uh then some of the things that i'm
involved in here
i am uh just like sean i'm a pro sector
uh which means that i am down in the
anatomy labs doing some extra dissecting
stuff
uh for the first year students um i am
also part of the case studies
organization
i sit on the board of the american
medical association chapter here at
wayne state
and i also uh let's see
one other thing that i do trying to
decide uh
i'm also on the board of the infectious
disease
interest group there you have it awesome
thanks for sharing
just like medical students forget what
they're involved in
because there's so many things to list
off um
so we'll go ahead and get started um
just i want to start off by sharing a
little bit about
our interview information um obviously
with
kovid it's been changing all the time
and it still is evolving as we learn
more and as more
information comes out so keep all that
in mind as we're talking today
this is all the information we have up
into this point and so
knowing that there is possibility for
change later on the things that we're
gonna share now
are you know our perspectives the
student perspectives
um sean obviously can speak more from
the admissions perspective but
annika capricia myself and lucas are
part of the ambassadors organization
so we're not actually working for like
the admissions committee
um we're here to share our perspectives
to help you get a better
better idea of what it means to have an
interview at wayne
and how you want to present yourself at
your interview so just keep that in mind
um so to start off um a couple of the
most like
common questions um we don't use casper
so you don't need to do
casper for um wayne we do
use double amc's vita system um and that
needs to be submitted before your
interview
the format for our interviews has
changed because they're online
um so it's a half day interview they're
all going to be virtually through zoom
and the amp application portal which is
your application portal for wayne um the
interviews will consist of a faculty
interview
a med student interview and then up to
five multiple mini interviews so an mmi
station um
all of that's virtual again in terms of
dates our earliest date is september 2nd
and the interview day is roughly like
monday wednesday friday
um until the cycle's over
so that's just to get us started
um we'll start with a couple of the
pre-submitted questions that were sent
out um and collected
um when you guys registered for this um
so and then we'll get to the q a
so the first question is with such a
large
shift in this year's application cycle
do you anticipate interviews focusing
more on how covet 19 has affected us as
applicants or still reviewing our
applications
separate from kobit 19. does anyone want
to talk about this
i can i can talk um so um
basically something you should be
prepared to talk about
because it's affecting everything right
now so be prepared to speak about
covid um and how it's affecting you as
an applicant
as a future physician as you know in
every aspect
but that doesn't mean that you should
you know neglect preparing for talking
about other things
um you're still going to be interviewed
for your whole application it's a
holistic review
and they want to hear we want to hear
all about
what you've done up into this point and
that does include covid but it's not
limited to covet
so be prepared to talk about your
application and everything else
um does anyone have anything they want
to add to that
i will say that with how kovit is
changing everything that we do
it is important to know like um what
covitt is and you know how it's like
affecting you
affecting health care but um i wouldn't
say that that's one of the most
important things that you do for your
interview i think
so like marie said it's more important
with the other aspects of your interview
because we're still
trying to figure out who you are as a
person in the interview and there's a
lot more to you than kovit
exactly thanks john um
so the next question is how should we
address
extenuating circumstances that you may
have faced
um does anyone talk about this i can uh
i can answer that
so um at least for the student interview
we're not gonna
we don't know like all your
circumstances we just know what's on
your application right
so when you're applying and when you're
in the
finally in the interview um you should
just be ready to talk about that if
that's something that you wish to talk
about
it's not required that you talk about it
but you know
if it's something we like if it's on the
application we may end up asking about
it because we're curious
but it's not something that you should
be super like oh
worried about you should be worried
about everything else in your
application worried about making sure
you know that you can talk about
everything else now you're ready to talk
about everything else but because if
you're not ready to talk about whatever
it is
that you want don't want to talk about
it then you don't have to bring it up
for sure thanks um yeah so kind of going
off of that
if there's extenuating circumstances
that you want to address that haven't
been addressed
the interview is a good place to address
that um
but if you've already addressed it and
it doesn't come up and you don't want to
speak more to it
you feel like your application has
addressed it then
just kind of go from there um
so the next question is
what do interviewees usually struggle to
answer during interviews
personally i feel like everyone
struggles with something different
it's kind of an individual thing but
does anyone else want to speak about
this
yeah everybody everybody has their their
things that they struggle with
whether it be you know talking about
yourself talking about like
um what what things you have to overcome
um but
really there's nothing in particular
that people struggle with it's probably
actually it's probably just being
yourself and trying to be a more natural
person
because we're just trying to get to know
you we we don't want to know the fake
person you are we want to know who you
really are and we want to know if you'll
fit into wayne state
and that's probably something that
people struggle the most with is just
being relaxed
is just a conversation at least with the
students you're just talking to another
basically peer type of person
who just wants to know who you are
annika did you want to add anything no i
think he answered it
okay awesome um okay
the next question
oh do you think this kind of virtual
interview may take place the next
application cycle
i think sean or don is more equipped to
answer this question than i am
we we don't have a crystal ball we
cannot answer that
um it we'll just see where everything
takes us
um we know that for the rest of this
interview season we're going to be doing
online stuff
but where it goes after that we have no
idea so
i i would worry about this application
season right now and then
if it comes up next year then you can
think about it then
um this question is a little more
open-ended what qualities do you look
for in applicants during interviews
i personally think that
the most yeah lucas do you want to say
something uh
for me i think some of the important
things and this is just from my
my estimation of meeting people here
seeing what kind of people are here
the things that things that i think are
important uh and and what wayne is
looking for
is number one a commitment to
some kind of commitment and caring about
detroit caring about
the state of michigan caring about this
place like you have a reason that you
want to be here
number two caring about uh about
community service service learning
and about like not just specifically
detroit like detroit can definitely
you know definitely should be a part of
it in my opinion but like
having a community service focus and
having that be something that's
important
and number three being kind of a being
what we would say a
self-directed learner like somebody who
is going to take
uh take ownership of their own education
and someone who's shown that they're
interested in learning about things
interested in reading about things
interested in doing those kinds of
things i
i think that those things are important
yeah
i totally agree i think that just going
off of the people that you meet here as
a student
you can tell a lot about the school and
i don't think that
there's any of our colleagues or peers
that um
aren't invested in the
detroit community the wayne community
the surrounding
um suburb communities in some way shape
or form
um we have you know over 15 student-run
free clinics
and that's just the medical nature of
our community involvement
and on top of that wayne students are
responsible for completing hundreds of
hours
each semester each month really
in um in the community and doing all
that service so i think yeah
lucas that's a really good point um
involvement in your community is really
important
i don't necessarily know like how you
portray that as a quality about yourself
but it's something that is like highly
ingrained in a lot of students here
does anyone else have anything they want
to add to this
i think you both hit the big points of
stuff that gets looked at
there's other stuff but i can't really
talk you know that much about it
but i think it is good to um to do what
they say you know follow your community
be it because i will say that pretty
much everybody at wayne state we all
have
very similar characteristics for what we
do and how we act
in the community so it's very it's very
good and i think wayne state
is good at finding those kinds of people
for sure okay so our next question is do
you have any books or resources that you
recommend for students to use to prepare
for interviews
yeah so i was thinking about when i was
preparing
my undergrad has career services as well
as like a
pre-med advising office and both of
those
offered like free mock interviews
so i would go into your undergrad
website even if you're an alumni they
can still offer you these types of
services and then just go through and do
a mock interview with a stranger
it's the best thing you can do because
it's the best like replication of
talking to making someone that you don't
know
get to know you and you kind of get to
work through all your different quirks
so
if you're saying um or if you're a hand
person which i was so i needed to cut
that out beforehand but you got
get like all those kinks out before
yeah for sure i don't i don't think i
like read anything specifically to
prepare for interviews i know there are
like some books that like
people use to prepare for interviews but
i personally found that
a lot of the resources at my school were
more directed for the business school
um so i ended up practicing with a lot
of my pre-med friends i was in
a student organization called society of
women in medicine
we bounced ideas off each other all the
time about
you know what we were thinking was going
to be questions and
how to you know talk about yourself in a
way that sounds like
you know you're proud of your
accomplishments without sounding like
you're boasting um there's a lot of
nuances to an interview that really just
require
practicing talking a bunch of times
um so practice with your parents
practice with your dog
practice with the camera um you know
maybe for this season it would be good
to
zoom a friend who goes to another school
and
practice bouncing off some questions off
each other and giving some feedback
um i personally didn't do that but i
think maybe because of the virtual
nature of these interviews it might be a
good idea
um does anyone else want to answer this
question
okay great um so going back to one of
our previous questions
about community engagement one of our
attendees asked in the chat
if an applicant doesn't have ties to
detroit how should they portray that in
a way
that isn't negative in the interview
i don't personally think that not having
any ties to detroit
would be negative i think we were more
talking about just being engaged in your
community
so like for me i was in ohio
um when i was applying so i didn't have
any you know direct involvement
in the detroit community but i was
really involved in cincinnati
um i'm sure that you know i i don't
think any of us went to school in
detroit any of the five of us here
yeah so we didn't have any ties to
detroit when we were applying
um at least being active in this
community i don't think that
like just show ties to your community is
kind of what we were talking about with
that question i hope
that answers your question um
the next question that we got from
before was
what kind of questions can we expect
from our interviews with faculty members
and current medical students
uh so so i'm so i do a lot of interviews
and i can't i'm not going to say
directly what we ask but
i will say just um know about yourself
and know like
some things you want to highlight
because in the interviews you're trying
to
sell yourself essentially to the school
and show that you're a good fit
so you won't want to be ready to just
talk about anything in your application
or anything about yourself that you
think is
unique interesting stuff that you know
makes you stand out that you would want
somebody like me to know about because
maybe
you know it wasn't like very clear in
your um in your application i want to
talk about it
um stuff like that so there's no it's
not directly like you need to know
these 10 questions in order to pass the
interview it's nothing like that
but it's knowing it's knowing everything
else about you
and more as a holistic vision of
yourself and being ready to
discuss any part of that um and i have
no idea what the faculty talk about so
i can't help there but i'd imagine that
it's a similar idea of trying just
trying to be ready for
whatever it is that you are like to talk
about who you are as a person
from my uh experience and recollections
i the faculty member
that i spoke to uh relied heavily on
my application and and really just asked
me about a lot of like
a lot of the experiences i had listed a
lot of things about my personal
statement so on and so they
they really relied on the application to
ask me starting questions and then it
just really became a conversation after
that i mean it was it was only at the
beginning that it was just like hey talk
about this thing and then we
talked about almost nothing that had
anything to do with my application for
the rest of the time
so that was that was that's how it
worked for me but it was definitely like
whatever you write down be ready to talk
about that
yeah definitely there was a lot of
questions we received about how to best
prepare for your interview my biggest
advice is to re-read your application
that is it is a huge part of
any interview um and i think that
sorry my air conditioner just went on if
you can hear it um
but if be ready to talk about yourself
and what you've already said
but be ready to expand on it you know
you've already written
what you've written try not to repeat
yourself
you know expand on it and give more
information so that you can really fill
out that story about yourself
um for me personally i was a competitive
collegiate boxer
so a lot of the questions were about
boxing
um and i i wasn't really expecting it
but luckily i spent enough time in the
gym to be able to answer the questions
without much
preparation specifically about my sport
but
because of that i say read your
application and know what you've said
already because i'm i'm sure i
repeated myself um does anyone else have
anything they want to add on this
um great so
another question which i'm seeing in the
chat is um
more about the virtual interviews how
can we make our background and our
attire
fit well for a virtual interview
so for the interviews it's just pretend
it's like a regular
traditional interview um i would say
that you should make sure that you're
dressed professionally
you know if it's a guy's suit and tie or
if it's a female then just wear
something
like of a similar appropriateness um but
other than that there's nothing specific
in terms of a tire that you would
need to wear in terms of the background
i would say try to make sure you're in a
generally neutral background don't have
a lot of things popping on the back
don't have a tv in the background or
something
and try to stay in a place that's a
little bit more distraction free so that
way
if i ask you a question you're able to
actually come up with the answer and not
feel like you have other things around
you
whether it be kids brothers sisters
parents
other family pets just make sure that
you're able to
fully dedicate yourself to the interview
when your interview is happening
definitely and we had a question from
before
about like if your
living environment isn't conducive to
that
how would you like what public spaces
are available now for
you to have that background
so i would talk to your pre-health
advisor so that way they may have some
guidance as to where you can um
set up some sort of interview like that
whether it be like a
room in the in whatever university
you're at or college
maybe a public library um there might be
some place like that where you can
reach out and find something but i think
your pre-health advisor would have
probably
the best information as to where how to
proceed with that kind of thing
and i believe that anc also has some
stuff
along those lines as far as virtual
interviews and what to expect so i would
check out that
as well yeah thanks i think
there is a lot of information coming out
all the time about
virtual interviews and obviously for
medical specific for med school um
double amc and your pre-health advisors
are your best bet
um but definitely you can do your own
research and
you know try different spots in your
house you know zoom
your siblings zoom your parents when
you're like in your house and find the
best spot
because you know maybe you might not
notice something in the background but
right now my name takes up you know a
quarter of my screen so
maybe i can't see something that's
really distracting on the other end
so you know just practice try it out you
know see if maybe you're really loud
neighbors
let them know you have an interview so
that maybe they're
quiet and respectful just little things
like that to just start paying attention
to um the next question
we have is from the chat it says how can
you ascertain the culture within the
program of wayne state
um so in parentheses says presence or
lack of microaggressions amongst the
class or faculty support presence
and whether an i think nurturing
environment exists especially for people
of color
yeah so i can go ahead and answer that
one so um
of course in all the spaces that you're
going to be in if you have
any sort of minority identity there's
going to be microaggressions
and so the good thing about wayne is
that there are supportive staff and
counselors that you can talk to if you
ever feel this way
um and then also the the administration
is really supportive right now and
really receptive to change
so um there are great things about our
curriculum there's great things about
the culture and the support i think is
amazing but
i mean there's always going to be ways
of improvement and the good thing about
the administration is that for students
you can submit these grievances and you
can tell them like hey i would like this
to change or hey i would like to
be better and they're really receptive
to that they're willing to meet with you
and they're willing to change that
aspect of the frequent aspect of the
culture
and then also the students we support
each other greatly especially
in the minority organizations so
that's a good thing too
thanks capricio does anyone else want to
talk about this one
okay um the next question from the chat
is um what advice would you have for an
ols
student who is interested in wayne i
think that's out of state
how do you show your interest in
attending a school in a new state
where you might not have connections so
i'm from california like i said before
i'm from san francisco
then i went to college in ohio in
cincinnati
when i was in cincinnati my family moved
to wisconsin
and so when i applied to med school i
actually had no home state
because i hadn't been in wisconsin long
enough to account for insane residency
in wisconsin
but i'd already changed my residency
from my permanent address in california
so i guess
i'm pretty equipped to answer this
question um
for wayne and for being an out-of-state
student
we have a lot of students that are from
california like i have a lot of friends
that are from you know where i'm from
um or from l.a um capricious is also out
of state so
we have a good amount of out-of-state
students um i don't think there's any
disadvantage in being out of state
i think that there is something to be
said for
knowing about michigan i have had lived
in the midwest for four years
so i knew a little bit more about the
midwest um
and felt comfortable coming to michigan
and being involved in detroit and you
know showing my interest in
being involved in things that happen in
the midwest
like snow and that just doesn't happen
where
i grew up um i think
really what it comes down to is if
you're an out-of-state student
show your commitment to your new state
like show that you want to be involved i
got here and i was ready to ready to you
know put my boots to the ground in
michigan and
make it make a home for myself here um
and i think if you show that
and if you're ready to be committed and
to
to show that you know you want detroit
you want to make detroit your home
talk about that in your interview um
talk about all the things you want to
get involved in in detroit
there are so many things for us to do as
students as medical students as people
um that you know just get excited about
it and
i don't think you'll have a problem
being an athlete student
capricia do you want to add anything or
yeah so basically just echo what you
said
i think and during my interview one of
my questions that i was kind of
surprised by
they had asked me they're like could you
see yourself practicing here in detroit
and i hadn't thought about that but i
was like well yeah i mean i'm applying
here and i want to be here for the next
four years and
if all goes well to me i could see
myself staying here so basically it's
just what you said is
making a commitment to like laying down
some roots in the potential of staying
here because
wayne does breed a lot of physicians
that stay in michigan especially in
detroit
awesome i hope we answered your question
um the next one from the chat
is um from rt any advice on how to stand
out
and still act natural slash show your
personality over zoom
for interviews
so one of the things that like i i not
granted i have not conducted an
interview i haven't interviewed for
anything over zoom
uh in my life but i've been on a lot of
zoom calls
recently uh doing a lot of talking and
one of the things that i would say for
interviews and this is kind of like a
this is a thing from the
from i guess the sports world running
world whatever
uh is everyone is like everyone is kind
of
everyone is going through the same
challenge with like with zoom there's no
one who's interviewing in person
so everyone is undergoing the zoom
platform so the same like challenges
that you're working with
like everybody else is working with when
it comes to interfacing with people over
zoom so you can't expect it to be the
same but
in terms of and i would say that that is
probably the the biggest advice that i
would give is you cannot expect to
create
the same connection with somebody via
like via this platform as you would
uh face to face so just recognize that
work with it and continue obviously like
try to make eye contact smile you know
be like you utilize your facial
expressions because you're not
generally getting the full body you're
probably not sitting all the way back
like that you're probably up here a
little bit like i am so
it becomes even even more important to
do those things in my opinion but
for me it's just like recognize that
kind of everybody is going through the
same thing so you're not alone in that
concern
so last year i did conduct a few um
interviews like um screen to screen not
in person
and i will say that the most important
thing is probably just making sure
you're comfortable with what you're
using
um because if you're comfortable with
using the computer you know not worried
about like
the screen knows how and you know where
your like little window is so like you
know you're going to like right here
then it makes it a lot easier for you to
actually be comfortable in the interview
and i think that's
really important there's nothing in
particular about trying to
act any different it's still i mean
we're all going to be
uh interviewing you exactly the same way
so it's not like you're going to stand
out any less than somebody else who's
also on
a zoom call so i wouldn't worry about
that as much because it's going to be
the same
you're going to get the same treatment
as everybody else so it should be fair
go fairly smoothly as long as you're
comfortable
with it and i think just doing a few
practice zoom interviews with like a
friend or something i think that would
go a long ways
awesome um i see a question in the chat
about wayne state's affiliation with dmc
um i'll just answer it really quickly
but basically
um i was on a call with dr steffies he
said that um
every you know and this is common every
few years this comes up in the media and
every few years nothing really changes
so i wouldn't worry about um wayne state
and dmc
it's not something that affects us as
students currently at the school and
it's not something that will affect us
for
dr stephens basically said that you know
don't expect your clerkships to change
he's our third and fourth year
coordinator
um so i i just want to address that
it doesn't affect the medical students
the affiliation isn't changing
um and so i hope that answers your
question um the next question from the
chat is
is there a correct way of answering the
tell us about yourself
question
i can go ahead and answer um no
there's no correct way i think the best
advice or the
advantage that you guys have because
your interviews are virtual
is that you can record yourself and
practice that way
so you can ask yourself you can you can
answer the question tell us about
yourself and record and if you like your
response if you would accept yourself to
medical school
then that's great but if you wouldn't
then maybe try again and change your
response
but no there's no correct answer because
everyone's different and especially at
lane people come from different
backgrounds from different areas
of the united states from the world and
so everyone has a different background
and i think the the best thing about
that question is that
you can kind of you can shine your
strengths and
it's really important to be genuine and
honest don't say something that's not
true because your
interviewer will probably be able to
tell
yeah so be honest about it and also um
when you do practice don't practice like
a hundred times to try to get every
single word right because it
we can tell and it just doesn't look uh
quite right so i would avoid doing that
right to that extent but again just make
sure that you are comfortable with it
and that you know some things because
that's going to be like the first thing
that we hear so make sure it's stuff
that you
want somebody to know about you make
sure it's you know if you did a mission
trip
to some place in south america that
would be that sounds really cool you
know maybe you can start off with that
maybe talk a little about it if you're
really passionate about it that would be
something cool to hear about
um but just start with something that
you know that you really enjoy and that
you think
would make yourself stand out as a
person even if
it's just some something small just make
make sure that you can say something
that is you know unique to you so that
way we can start talking about something
yeah awesome thanks um so
kind of going off of like making
yourself stand out as an applicant
i want to take some time and talk about
what makes wayne stand out as a school
so a couple questions from before are
um they kind of go together it's what
makes wayne stand out from other med
schools in michigan
and then the second question is what do
you believe are the strongest aspects of
the md program and curriculum
so i feel like they kind of go together
um
as to like why does wayne stand out and
then what are the strongest curricular
aspects
uh i think one of the one of the things
for me
is uh i don't believe that wayne has
any like extensions really outside of
detroit someone someone can correct me
on this if i'm wrong but we don't have
like
we don't have anything like kalamazoo
west michigan like
anything like that and but almost every
other medical school in the state
has some kind of extension here in
detroit and that's because detroit has
just an excellent patient population
and an excellent place to be trained to
be a great clinician
so we have the advantage of we are right
here for all four years
every other school in the state of
michigan doesn't really have that innate
advantage
because they're not right here so that
is the biggest thing for me
annika i know you were typing on this
question earlier do you want to speak a
little bit
yeah i mean so many things come to mind
lucas kind of touched on
like being in detroit and all the
opportunities available to us
um when i was applying i was like
applying all over michigan and something
that really
kind of came together for me about wayne
was just
um like how ingrained and how
long they've been in detroit and how
it's just present in like
any aspect of detroit like the amount of
opportunities we have to volunteer
just everywhere if there's some any
type of like minuscule interest you have
there's someone that
went to wayne that has a connection that
you can just easily access
it's just awesome um
kind of another thing it wasn't um
i guess like we're gonna bring up kovid
but
like through the pandemic like our
medical students were the ones like
doing testing and stuff like that
we were volunteering to do it we weren't
forced to do it obviously but
like we had the opportunity to be
like there like while it was happening
and get that experience while like
other schools that aren't in like the
big cities they're not having those
different opportunities
um yeah so i guess
uh one more thing it's probably not as
talked about as much but like
price wise if you're in state like
it's a good deal compared to a lot of
the other schools like what you're
getting you're getting like an
awesome alumni base like good education
you're in detroit all this stuff
and you're getting it for less than
other schools and the less that you're
in
even better right
yeah for sure i think there's a ton of
stuff um
that is really unique because we're the
largest single campus med school
um and because we're in detroit and so
you know just the the alumni network
it's it's a network of people that like
you go to school with and you see you
know there are plenty of
plenty of places that have
you know similar numbers of students but
you don't actually get to work with them
and for our first year we were face to
face with
300 people or almost 300 i don't know
the exact number
um and that sounds kind of scary and i
honestly was intimidated because it
seems like so many students but at the
end of the day
the learning community system that's in
place puts you in a group with
six your five closest anatomy buddies
for all of year one and then that group
of six
expands to a group of 24 or something
and then you work with them in your
bigger groups you're
more like lab settings
and that group extends more for the
people that you're assigned service
learning sites with
so it really the
bigger community feels small which i
think
wayne does a really good job of setting
up and having this like logistic
in place of you know i'm i'm really
close with my anatomy group they're like
my five best friends in med school
and i don't know if i would have met
them had we not been in the same
group orange 32. um
and it's great so i think that is really
important to talk about just like the
learning community aspect
of wayne and then the last thing i
already spoke about it but the
cadaver dissection there is no holograms
there is no like technology like
and if you're gonna work on real people
you need to
work with real people and
i think it really there's a precedent
for respect
there's a precedent for how
how incredible it is that someone
is donating themselves for your
education
um and and the work that gets put in
and the learning that gets put in for
that education i think
makes the anatomy experience and
learning
all of those pieces so so much more
impactful
and so much more easy to learn
and easy to remember um that's just my
opinion about
the things that make wayne special lucas
were you gonna say something
oh i was gonna i wanted to touch on the
anatomy curriculum because nobody had
yet
uh and and i think that it's a is one of
the most valuable things uh that wayne
does for the
for the incoming students for for
first-year students i didn't see a
question though in the chat that popped
up that says
how's anatomy been adapted this year for
incoming m1s
uh it based basically what's happening
um
is the students are still doing the
anatomy lab at this point however it's
being
split up a little bit so there will be
no more than three students on a on a
cadaver at a time there will be
temperature checks and then there will
be uh
you know mask wearing so on and so forth
but the curriculum is still at this
point it is moving forward as
normally scheduled
awesome thanks um
so there's another question in the chat
which is
um should our answer to why medicine
why why medicine i think that's the
question yeah should our answer to why
medicine
match exactly with what is on a personal
statement is it better to add new
information
so we already read your that probably
the part of the application where you
say
why you want to go into medicine so it's
good to probably try to branch out a
little bit
but don't like totally change everything
just expand on like why you want to go
into medicine like maybe
explain some parts that you felt like
you know you didn't have room for in
your personal statements so you want to
add in a little bit of extra stuff to it
um it doesn't have to be totally
different but it would be
good to help clarify that and then maybe
expand to like you know to other parts
of your app of your
application if you feel like you can do
that
i'm looking at the questions from before
i don't know if we've talked about it
yet but what's the format for
the interview day i'm not personally
aware of how that format goes i know how
our format was but
sean do you do you know like the changes
for how it's gonna happen
uh so as far as i know that it's
currently planned it's gonna be like a
half day
it's gonna be about two and a half to
three ish hours
and you're basically going to have um
three different interview sessions
that are all um where everybody's doing
their interviews at the same time and
you're going to be rotating around
between
your student interview the mmi and then
the faculty interview
and each one of those is going to be
roughly 35 minutes
and you're going to also get a chance in
the student interview to at least
ask questions to us about whatever you
want to ask questions about the school
how covet is affecting us whatever else
you want to talk about you can have
you can ask those there um but it's far
but beyond that um i do not know of the
details of how interview day is going to
look
i think it's going to be a lot more just
interviews and then move
past that and then um in the future
look at the videos um of wayne state
tour on your own or um i know that um
kaylee said something about um there
being like a tour of detroit possibly
like virtual uh virtually and then maybe
in the future whenever we allow students
back then you would do more in-person
type stuff
around the actual school itself
yeah and there was another question
about the ability to talk with
students during your interview day it's
something that um
so when interviews were in person the
organization that organized this is the
md ambassadors
so the ambassadors were the people that
ate lunch with the interview candidates
and or the prospective students and um
then we gave like a short tour of the
school for everybody to kind of
see what wayne is about um so that is
something that we're looking into
logistically
um but i don't have any like specifics
on that right now
like i said you know everything's
changing all the time so
um it's something that we're looking
into and um hopefully you'll be able to
talk to students like
um annika lucas capricio myself um
and then a bunch of our m1s just to
get a feel for the collegial environment
and who you'll be working with at school
um
one of the oh um i this is the last
question i want to talk about from
before but it said i've heard that
applicants can come up with questions
for their interviewers on the day of
their interview
this is true if we were unable to visit
the campus
how do you go about learning more about
the environment and attributes
from like i guess kind of what questions
should i ask my interviewer
i would ask why they came to wayne
personally
if it's your student i would ask why did
you come to wayne if it's your faculty
i would ask you know why do you like
working at wayne
what do you want to see in you know the
people that
are graduating with wayne md
those are some good questions yeah
and then um for my interview with my
student interviewer i had asked her what
are some things that she's involved in
and how did she get involved with that
stuff
and that kind of just opened a new door
for me because it kind of gave me the
perspective of oh i didn't know i could
also get involved with that i didn't
know that i could pursue that while also
still in medical school
and then when my faculty interviewer had
asked her to tell me her story about how
she came to wayne and the opportunities
and resources that were offered to her
while in medical school and then after
medical school and that was really
important to me because it kind of gave
me the perspective of life after
graduation and
how william would still support me as a
physician
awesome um so with our last couple
minutes we'll go back to
the um chat
um what has been the most surprising
thing about your time at wayne uh this
is
lauren she said you know on the flip
side
what are some areas of improvement you'd
like to see within the next two years
well i don't want to be like uh you know
too too obvious but uh kovid's kind of
been the most uh the most uh
what what it was the most surprising
thing to occur just because it was
extremely unexpected and we've been
online and and that's obviously a
different experience
i i for one really you know miss
miss the other students i i miss my
friends i don't see people as much as i
get to
as much as i got to first year and and i
think that that really
really is surprising to me that it
speaks to
it speaks to uh the the community that
wayne has created
the community that wayne creates the the
ability that we have to
to like get to know people here and
that's i think been stunted a little bit
uh through covid but that's you know to
be expected
another thing i was surprised about is
honestly the amount of free time that
i've ended up having here as a student
and the ability to pursue
things that i've wanted to be able to
pursue i've still been able to be
involved in uh you know athletic
pursuits been able to
keep up on reading that i like doing and
can even like play video games and stuff
occasionally like you know there are
things that i like to do that i'm able
to do
uh in terms of improvement uh i think
that the uh
the school can work a little just a
little bit on
on communication with the students which
can be difficult because there are
over 300 of us in each class and uh you
know there are only so many faculty
members and administrators they've got a
lot going on and
most of them are physicians who also
work on top of doing stuff for us
so at the end of the day there's that
that can be improved but that's you know
really an
organizational thing that's just going
to be difficult with the school that's
larger but i think that the
benefits of having more classmates
around is
offsets that in my opinion
yeah that's a really um really
insightful i think
but definitely the most surprising thing
for everyone in 2020 is probably covid
and it has affected a lot of you know
it's permeated everything
so just you know be ready to go with the
flow and i think
really here learning how to learning how
to treat patients and how to practice
in an urban environment you really do
learn how to kind of go with the flow
and
see you know well what's going to come
in today like you really don't know
um and it's kind of it's kind of fun and
it's a really really great place to
learn because of all the things you get
to see
all the people that you get to treat all
of the patients that you get to meet and
the stories that you hear
are so unique because of where you
practice so i think
the most surprising thing for me about
wayne was when they say like you get
into clinics early
we really we really get into clinics
early um
and i was in my continuity clinic on
tuesday
and um my preceptor was asking you know
what do you want to do you know what you
want to be when you grow up what you
what residency do you want to do and
it's
i'm an m2 i haven't i haven't done any
of my rotations like
i'm just you know here for the ride and
and so just to be able to have those
one-on-one interactions with preceptors
so early in our
training to be able to do ekgs
and pulmonary function tests as a second
year student
is really unique to our program
so that was definitely the most
surprising thing for me
as a student someone asks will
interviews be one hour long
uh each interview will should be like
the student interviews
uh faculty and mmi each of those
uh portions of your interview day are
going to be around 35 minutes apiece
um there will be some break time in
between those
for just reorganization purposes
but um for the 35 minutes we will either
have a timer or
let you know exactly how long you have
in that interview that day
so um but just know that it will be
around 35 minutes
with five of those minutes being
dedicated towards um just talking
to you about um like whatever questions
you have about wayne state
and then same goes with the faculty that
there will be a
question section or question portion of
that interview
at the end of the interview so towards
the end of that 35 minutes
thank you i wasn't sure if i was 30 or
35
um i saw a question that dawn answered
earlier about topics to avoid in your
interview
um we haven't really touched on that yet
and we only have a few minutes left so i
was wondering
um you know obviously political and
controversial topics
probably not your best bet but if anyone
has anything else that they want to
share about you know maybe some topics
to avoid or
questions to avoid for your when you're
asking your interviewer
i would say just avoid the controversial
stuff is the biggest thing
um i mean you can ask any questions you
want like
but um just be careful about what you
ask it's like it's almost like if you're
meeting somebody for the first time like
you want to
you know get to know them you also don't
want to start asking those super
tough questions that you know um some
people may have strong opinions about
or it just isn't appropriate for a
professional interview
because it is like even though we are
going to be you know casual student to
student
you should still remember that it you
should be professional throughout the
interview
definitely and then i just want to wrap
up
with the last couple questions so the
last two are asking about
housing and research the ones that we
have
haven't answered or addressed yet either
live or in the chat
um and basically what i want to say
about these is we're having these
webinars
monthly um through december we have them
scheduled
and living in detroit is actually one of
our next webinars
where we'll talk about on campus off
campus you know where everybody lives
um so come to that it's on
the website basically like the same
place that you registered for
this webinar there's a link to register
for that one
and the last one is is research
important to the school
yes obviously research is important it's
important in the field of medicine so
it's important to the school
we have a research elective i pretty
much don't know anyone that's not
involved in research in some way shape
or form
it's really easy to get in contact with
pis
it's really easy to start your own
projects i started my own project with a
pi in dc for
plants so you really can just get
involved with research however you want
but again we're going to have more
webinars in the future to talk about
opportunities at wayne and everything
like that
so with that i want to thank everybody
for
joining us today i hope that this was
helpful was informational and maybe
alleviated some of your stress
and worries and concerns about
interviewing virtually
um for this season um i know that there
were some questions that we weren't able
to
answer because we don't share this
experience with you
of virtual interviews um but
i hope that you know our insights and
stuff were helpful so
with that um have a wonderful rest of
your i think today is thursday
um and um it was
it was great talking to you
