Interview Preparation

Guyz, I know that my question/ concern may seem funny to you…so please don’t laugh at me .


I think I have quite good social skills and I know I may perform pretty good at the interviews. My only concern is that I don’t have enough knowledge on issues directly connected with medicine and. Is there any source you can refer me to, so I can broaden my knowlegde? I know that a lot of it is common sense; I can also pick up a lot from daily news etc. But a lot of things that are obvious for people who were growing up in here are foreign for me. I don’t think at this point I even have a clear idea of the whole healthcare system in this country; also, I’m always very confused about insurances, Medicare,Medicaid etc. My potential interviews are a year away, I should start preparing for them…


I will be grateful for any suggestions,


Kasia

I joined the American Medical Students Association and subscribed to the daily e-mail newsletter on health science and policy issues. I think you’ll see this e-mail subscription page when you join. It contains links to health articles in papers across the US and UK. Some of the newspapers they link to you have to register online to read, no big deal. A couple of papers (like the Wall Street Journal)are for paid subscribers only but your university will probably have them.
This should help give you a good picture of US health care and may be exactly the thing you need to fill in the gaps.

great advice from Denise. I would also recommend the excellent weekly New England Journal of Medicine (nejm.org). You can scan the website for headlines for free, or pay $50 for web-only access to articles (student rate) or $60 for both web and magazine. Warning–it’s a LOT of reading if you subscribe to the magazine; I’m resubbing to just the web because I hate wasting paper. They awesomely let you download articles in Palm format, also.
Beyond that… there are so many health and medical websites and newsletters that it’s almost overwhelming. Consumer Reports has a good health newsletter, as does Tufts, Harvard, and some of the other big medical schools and insurance companies.

I used to visit the AMA website, back when it was free. I find the the WSJ has great articles on the pharma and device industry, and some pretty good in-depth health-related articles. There was a really great article about anesthesiologists recently, worth looking up. In addition, I scan the medical device links. http://www.devicelink.com/

thank you guyz for the suggestions!
I looked at the pages and I’m going to sing up for AMSA and for NEJM after the next paycheck
it’s just unbelivable how much beside the ‘textbook’ knowlege there is to learn and know…
Kasia