THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT than your MCAT, GPA, Board Scores & Class Rank!

hey what's going on guys Michael here AKA Dr merer I am a new emergency medicine resident today I want to talk about something extremely important it's more important than your grades class rank your GPA your board scores your MCAT score all of that garbage um that helps these institutions kind of rank you in some

sort of way it's more important than all of those things combined and it's making connections it's being a good human being it's finding good mentors I promise you guys having the right connections will open more doors than having a good GPA because at the end of the day we are social creatures we would much rather look at Google reviews and Amazon reviews before you know buying something so why is it any different for you as a student or as an applicant if you have people that you trust that can vouch for you that's going to go so much further than having your name on a piece of paper with a number next to it whether that's a GPA or a step one score or whatever but the reason I bring this up is because I find that a lot of students don't take advantage of good mentors and good connections and you know this is clearly coming from personal experience because I obviously don't know the different experiences that other people are having but there are so many times when I have given out my number my email to Premed students to other medical students um offering up you know advice or answers to questions to the best of my ability and honestly I just don't even hear back from the majority of people now I don't know why people you know don't reach back out or don't utilize me as a resource but you

guys are going to learn really fast that there are very few people that go out of their way to actually help you but I can tell you that the people that actually reach out to you guys and want to help you personally those are going to be your best friends your best mentors your best connections and that goes for any aspect of your life it doesn't have to just be medicine now I know as like preds and Med students and Physicians we kind of have this mentality of maybe we know more than other people and that's definitely not a mentality that you want to adopt and if you're starting down that path I urge you to reverse it and to stop it and to really humble yourself because at the end of the day we will be taking care of other people and the worst thing that you can do is think that you know everything because that's when patients start to suffer for our mistakes so if you're a Premed student or early on in medical school or what have you just stop thinking that you know everything because it's okay to not know everything nobody knows everything and that's why we have other people to help us and those are your mentors those are the connections that you'll be making throughout this long journey I could not have gotten to where I am today without my mentors are freaking awesome and I've gotten different mentors at different stages of my training but something that is very important to me is staying in touch with every single Mentor that I develop over these years and honestly guys it is okay to have multiple mentors like if you have someone that you are already working with or talk to or ask questions to that's phenomenal but don't limit yourself to just that one person you know reach out and try and find as many people that you connect with as possible because mentorship is all about connecting with the other person it's sharing a common interest or a common goal and being able to work towards that goal with that other person usually your mentors have already done what you're going through and so they provide a very unique perspective of what you should expect and how you should go about things they're going to be able to answer your questions and give you really good advice so that you avoid mistakes that maybe they made mentors are going to help you guys get to where you want to go okay they're going to put in a good word for you whether that's a letter of recommendation whether that's giving you know a certain residency a phone call whether that's connecting you with maybe one of their mentors and really expanding on that network of connections that you have there are Limitless benefits to having good mentors and good connections so it's super frustrating

when I you know I give out my phone number to like a Premed student or a med student you know expecting them to reach out because I feel like as a mentee you should be reaching out to your mentors and just showing that you are interested and what they have to say but it's super frustrating when I don't hear back from someone and it's like is it because they think they know everything is it because you know maybe they found someone else to work with which is great but like I said you're not going to find a ton of people that actually reach out to you and offer up advice and friendship and all of those good things medicine is all about who you know it's all about Connections and you guys are going to learn that the further you get along in your career maybe once you start looking at residencies or looking for jobs as a physician it's way more about who you know than what your resume says and the sooner you guys can realize this the faster you guys can start creating those connections with the people that have already done this journey and have already done or completed the steps that you're currently doing now if you guys didn't know my email is in the description so you guys all have access to my email so I'm obviously here to help you guys and answer any of your questions that you have to the best of my ability um obviously I don't know everything but um if you are you know doing an S SMP program or trying to get into med school or have questions about your board exams like I'm here to answer those questions because I've done all of those things you know and if you really connect with someone whether that's someone on social media like myself or you know a resident that you really enjoyed working with or a physician that you're rotating with make sure to just reach out to them and ask them for their email or for their number um and just stay connected with that person I promise you they're not going to be upset if you ask them for those things they're going to be very flattered more than willing to help you out but don't always expect the mentor to reach out to you as a mentee so I don't know guys I really wanted to like make this video because I just feel like it's super important and too many of you guys are not taking advantage of good mentors that are out there there's a lot of people that want to help you um but it's up to you to kind of make that first initial step and reach out to them and just ask them for their advice and you know just to continue with that relationship build it nurture it um and eventually it'll probably just form into a friendship which is the ideal situation one of my best friends was just like you watching one of my videos he actually ended up coming to my medical school where we actually connected in person we stayed in touch um and now we're just friends like I'm not his you know so-called Mentor anymore we're just friends you know he's going through med school now it's fun to see him doing the things that I used to complain to him about um but now he understands what I was going through and it's just a fun friendship that formed through social media and that was because he reached out to me and now we're just really good friends so it is possible just be a little assertive humble yourself because you don't know everything you need help from others whether that's me whether that's someone else um find good mentors guys find good mentors make connections because they will pay off in the future one last thing I ended up getting a residency interview because of a connection I made so you don't know how all of your interactions will affect you in the future so be a good human make connections stay up to date with those connections become friends with people be a nice human being and you will go very far in the field of medicine and probably in all aspects of your life so hopefully this helped you guys out if you did give it a like subscribe to the channel and I look forward to seeing you guys in another video