How to Succeed in Clerkships as a "Quiet" Student (Introverts Rule!)

Comments · 42

• CO

  @ConanLiuMD · 3 years ago (edited)

  Another amazing video Dr. Jeong! It can honestly feel kind of sad how much the medical education system favors outgoing people who are charismatic and confident, but that is something that I think us introverts just need to adapt to because those are skills that really are important in real life too! Even if we don’t feel that confident or greater presenting, it’s always important to work on those skills as much as we can :)

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• DR

  @DrStyleMD · 2 years ago

  As an attending now, I always give the max reviews and change things up here n there. I never comment on how quiet someone is. I do this because I understand the importance of these evals long term and that some evals can really delay career goals if they come across as negative. Med students are busy, I get it.

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• WE

  @wendyking638 · 1 month ago

  Great advice for any field!

• KE

  @keira-ni-gowan · 3 years ago

  You can only conquer fear by facing it head-on. When I graduated with my BA, I was afraid of public speaking. I volunteered to give a weekly presentation. Later, I was afraid of heights, so I started doing aerial circus.

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• AL

  @Alotta-u4h · 8 months ago (edited)

  You're seriously saving me. Probably even my life.

• ST

  @storispinner · 3 years ago

  As a life-long introvert who also considers public speaking to be probably my top skill....as you hinted at, public speaking is where introverts can thrive! All that time we introverts spend thinking and listening can be distilled into extremely clean and logical structures that really help a listener understand. And since public speaking means you can practice ahead of time, there's time to make it sound polished and professional. Many "extroverts" I know actually aren't great at public speaking because they assume they can talk well and just wing it, but there's SO much more that goes into a good talk. And frankly, delivering a speech/presentation is a good way to connect with people on a big idea without having to first preface it with a bunch of small talk.

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• MA

  @manuelsteele7755 · 6 months ago

  This is an excellent video for a problem I observed in medical school recruitment. &nbsp;I applied to medical school in 2001 and was waitlisted at Colorado School of Medicine. &nbsp;I missed admission by 8 spots. &nbsp;I decided to stay in biomedical engineering. &nbsp;Here are problems I observed. &nbsp;The medical schools definitely had a preference for an extrovert with the context of mainstream American &quot;white&quot; personalities. &nbsp;A white male fraternity president who is the life of the party or an outgoing white sorority female president who coordinates social events would be highly preferred over quite introverts from minority communities. &nbsp;I saw that pattern expressed very aggressively with blunt criticism. &nbsp;&quot;That Rez guy is too quiet.&quot; &nbsp;&quot;That Rez guy has no people skills.&quot; &nbsp;&quot;That Rez guy spends too much time with computers.&quot; &nbsp;The reason why I said the focus is on white, mainstream American extroverts is because NONE of them had anything positive to say about my ability to speak my indigenous language with indigenous patients of the Four Corners Region. &nbsp;They absolutely did not care about that. &nbsp;The focus was on mainstream American English.<br><br>So, given that diatribe of preference for &quot;English-speaking extroverts with Eurocentric (mainstream American) personalities&quot;, how do minorities from reserved cultures deal with that? &nbsp;As an old Gen X guy who now has six master&apos;s degrees and is working on a PhD in AI, I found an optimal solution. &nbsp;I think people from non-mainstream, reserved cultures should start out with &quot;iterations&quot; of training. &nbsp;Here is iteration 1 - just get a general associate&apos;s degree in allied health with plenty of patient interaction and heavy evaluation by allied health managers with constant feedback. &nbsp;This will allow the growth of major strategies to deal with communication challenges. &nbsp;Iteration 2 - finish the AS in Allied Health and work in field part-time while simultaneously doing a bachelor&apos;s in a healthcare field with major clinical exposure or medical science emphasis. &nbsp;Examples include radiography, biomedical engineering, public health, biochemistry, etc. &nbsp;Meanwhile, the part-time job should be done proactively. &nbsp;Ask the managers for more respectful feedback on an accelerated scale. &nbsp;Instead of once a month perhaps once a week on feedback for communication.<br><br>This strategy will take longer about 5-6 years instead of four. &nbsp;But it would deal with the communication challenges more realistically. &nbsp;The applicant would also learn about challenges in specific subcategories. &nbsp;What are proper communication methods for (1) patient interaction, (2) interaction with allied health, (3) interaction with medical students, (4) interaction with residents, (5) interaction with attending physicians, (6) interaction with medical boards, (7) interaction with HMO, (8) interaction with malpractice attorneys, (9) interaction with external roles players like medical sales agents, engineers who build medical devices, business people who setup financial or corporate structures for the hospital (healthcare finances), etc. &nbsp;It&apos;s a complicated maze of communication. &nbsp;<br><br>So, there is a viable, optimal way to train an &quot;introvert&quot; from a non-mainstream culture. &nbsp;A Navajo guy from a remote town like Tohatchee who adopts that strategy and does healthcare training in Phoenix or Albuquerque or Denver could go far in these iterations. &nbsp;If they do like I did and abruptly apply to medical school from engineering, these communication challenges could impede the whole application process like it did for me. &nbsp;<br><br>If I had to do it over, I would have gotten TWO ASSOCIATE&quot;S DEGREES. &nbsp;My HS was horrible for preparation into a major STEM major. &nbsp;I would have gotten one general associate&apos;s degree simply to catch up (e.g. associate engineering technician) slowly. &nbsp;Then I would have accelerated in a 2nd associate&apos;s degree for allied health like surgical tech, radiology tech, cardiology tech, etc. &nbsp;From that, I had options of STEM four-year majors while being well-prepared. &nbsp;I would have chosen electrical &amp; computer engineering for a bachelor&apos;s degree and done a JD/PhD in biomedical engineering for patent prosecution. &nbsp;But that same path of two associate&apos;s degrees could work for pre-med and medical school applications.

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• MO

  @motiabera8887 · 3 years ago (edited)

  You are &nbsp;so generous <br>10x.

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• JP

  @Jps277 · 2 years ago

  Hi Dr. Jeong, I enjoyed watching this and thanks for sharing your journey with us. Truly inspiring.

• EN

  @EnochBrown-s5j · 1 year ago

  Wow, what great advice. &nbsp;Thank you Dr. Jeong!!!

• SE

  @serellamadole · 3 years ago

  This is great advice. I definitely needed to hear this.

• DA

  @dallyj6109 · 1 year ago

  Thanks Dr. Jeong!