NMAT Series: Test Day Tips

NMAT is just around the corner and you are probably a little nervous and wondering what will happen on the exam day so I created this blog post for you to have an idea of what to expect as well as what to bring and not to bring on this big day.

I must say that the they are really strict when it comes to the items that you can bring inside the testing room. To avoid stress, bring only the allowed items.

Here are the MUST brings:

1. NMAT identification form, this will serve as your pass to enter the building/testing room.
2. Valid ID (School ID, driver's license, passport or any gov't issued ID), bring at least 2.
3. Printed exam permit, available for download 1 week before the exam day.
4. Photocopy of Transcript of Records (TOR), required only from college graduates.
5. Pencils! (Mongol No. 2 or HB) with/and erasers, bring at least 2 pencils with you. Do not forget your sharpener.
6. TRANSPARENT plastic envelope, this will serve as your "bag" in the testing site.

Personal tips in the exam day:

1. Report to the testing center early (before 7 AM), especially if you are unfamiliar with the testing site. Consider your travel time going in to the venue - though NMAT is scheduled on a Sunday.
2. Attend to all your personal needs like eating breakfast, washroom breaks etc. BEFORE 7 AM as you will have to fall in line to enter the testing site - lines can be long so, go to the venue earlier so you can relax before you take the test.
3. Do NOT bring your mobile phone if you are going to the testing site alone as CEM is extra strict with the items allowed inside. ALL items NOT allowed will be left outside the building, yes outside the testing building! and there will be NO baggage counter available on site, you do NOT want your valuables being left outside the building on its own.
4. Calculators or any other gadgets are NOT allowed.
5. Wrist/smart watches are NOT allowed (based on my experience - Oct. 2017).
6. Only the transparent plastic envelope with the 'must brings' mentioned above will be allowed in the testing building. YES, this is for all the test takers' strict compliance.
7. Wear comfortable and decent clothes. Wearing of slippers are NOT allowed.
8. Bring a jacket/cardigan with you as the room is air-conditioned. Being cold should be the least of your concerns while taking the test.
9. I recommend you to buy lunch BEFORE you enter the testing site and leave it to your dorm/someone you know who'll not take the exam as it is a hassle to buy food during lunch break because there will be A LOT of people in UST and for sure all of the food establishments are full. Buying lunch early will save you time and stress which can be allocated to eating and relaxing during the quick 1 hour lunch break.
10. Bring drinking water though most (if not all) buildings in UST have drinking fountains in them and remove its label.
11. There will be a scratch paper on one side of the test paper, NO other papers/scratch will be allowed.

There you have it for my test day tips for NMAT. Feel free to ask questions and I try to answer all of it. I would like to hear from you and good luck!

*This post is based on my experience of NMAT in Manila (UST).

Anatomy: My First Cadaver Encounter and Dissection

Anatomy is one of the foundations of medicine. It tackles the different parts that compose a human being; this tackles what you are made of.

In medical school, it is one of your major subjects in your freshman year which will then should come in handy as you go through deeper and deeper into studying medicine. Anatomy is not for the faint heart because you will encounter a corpse of a real human being called as cadavers. Cadavers are preserved human body commonly from the morgue of the hospitals. I believe these are unclaimed dead bodies which are either sold or donated to the medical school from their partner hospital.

As I enrolled to my anatomy class, I fully conditioned myself for the cadaver dissection. This way I will not be stunned and shocked by the things that I will about to see during the entire semester. I prepared myself that what I will see is an actual human body (dead) and I have to get through this if I want to become a doctor and a surgeon someday. Days before the actual class, I can't help but to feel really excited to see, touch and dissect a human body. It feels like you are one step closer to your goal. On our first day, we are just asked to bring the necessary materials required for this class like scrubs, face mask, surgical cap, hand gloves and of course our dissecting kit.

Comes the day of the dissection, the cadavers are in one big room side by side in their own dissection table inside a black body bag. The room is kind of cold of it's just me feeling that I am in a room full of dead human bodies. Each cadaver accommodates ten students (this really depends on your class size) for dissection.  

We begin to unzip their bags and I can't help but get more excited. At first, I avoid looking at the face because I think this is where I would be creep out but it can't be avoided so it's something I just learned to deal with over the next few minutes. Of course, the texture of the skin is already a bit dry and the smell really is hard to endure (at first) since it is full of formalin to preserve the body long enough for the whole semester to finish. Most of the cadavers are males since the breast part of the female cadavers are full of fats which will need to be removed to get a full view of the internal organs. In my experience, there's at least one female cadaver in the room reserved for studying the female reproductive organs. 

Before every dissection, we begin by saying a short prayer for the cadaver to say thank you for letting him/her be an instrument for us to study the wonders of the human body. It is also important to pay respect to the body and avoid playing with it and goofing around it while doing dissection. Since our topic that day focuses on the back bone, of course we have to flip the cadaver! The cadaver assigned to our group is a big man therefore he is heavy it is my first time to actually touch a cadaver and we have to lift him and flip it. All of the body juices and formalin started to leak and can't help but feel it in my hands even I'm wearing gloves. The smell became stronger and stinky to the eyes. Well it comes with the job. 

The dissection begins and it is somehow scary to do the cut because it is your first time to almost everything that's happening around you but we pushed through. It is quite enjoyable and I'm sure all of the med student aspirants out there would understand and agree to me about this. It is a wonderful experience really and I never thought that dissecting can be that tiring. You really need to make efforts to learn in anatomy and also be careful in everything that your scalpel cut into as it may be an important vein or nerve that is necessary later on. 

Afterwards, everything should be back in place and cadavers should be zipped again to their respective body bags 'til the next anatomy class.

On my next blog about anatomy, I will share my experience while taking practical exams which is a timed exam and a moving exam at the same time. It's fun but nerve-racking.

What's your first cadaver encounter and dissection like? Feel free to comment below.

How to Ace your Medical School Interview

It's that time of the year again, where aspiring medical students flock to different medical schools to apply for the next academic year. Most if not all medical schools conduct interview/s with their applicants as part of their screening process. The interview helps the admissions committee to see the applicants' emotional quotient (EQ) and how well the aspirants interact with people which is a key characteristic of being a doctor.

In this blog post, I will make a run down of what are do's and what you should avoid during the interview proper. I will also give out tips on how to prepare for an interview and how to ace your medical school interview.

In preparing for the interview, make sure that you look presentable - hair, clothing, overall appearance. I won't elaborate on this much as being presentable is self explanatory. Just remember that first impressions last and you would want to be remembered as someone who is presentable rather than someone who didn't make a good impression to the admissions committee. After all, they're the ones who will decide whether you get in to the medical school of your dreams or not.

Make sure to read about the school you are applying for, just the basics and at least have an idea about the institution you are getting yourself into. Knowledge is power and it is always impressive for the interviewers that you have at least something to say about the school. It will give them an impression that you are really interested in their program. Also, read about current events especially those which are related to the health sector as interviewers are doctors themselves and having knowledge about what's happening around you is a good plus point for you. I remember, during one of my medical school interviews I was asked about my thoughts on the Dengvaxia fiasco and the act of the President kissing an OFW. Since I am pretty much familiar with the issues, I just breezed out over these questions. 

Also, in preparing for the med school interview read about what are the usual questions being asked like "Why do you want to be a doctor?" "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" "How do you handle stress/pressure?". In my experience, these questions are so common and asked almost to every medical school interview I've been. Knowing the usual questions will give you a good head start and even prepare for the possible answers to these questions. What I did is write all the questions in a notebook and tried to answer all of them again and again. I even wrote my answers down so I can read them over and over. However, be careful not to sound rehearsed during the actual interview and make sure that you sound all natural while answering the questions thrown at you. This is important!

Days before your schedule, make sure that you are familiar with the location of your interview. You wouldn't want to be lost and stressed minutes before your actual interview, first impressions matter remember?

On the night before your interview, prepare the clothes you'll be wearing, the things you need to bring for the interview, set your alarm and go to bed early. This way, on your interview day you'll be more relaxed and will give your brain enough energy to think clearly and answer well all your questions which is really the key to ace the interview.

On the day of your interview, be confident in answering every question asked your way but do not be cocky or a know-it-all type of interviewee. Being articulate will also make your interview look good as you will sound quick witted and know what you are saying. My key secret to any interview I go to is to make it conversational, meaning I just treat the interview as I am just communicating with a friend or a colleague but in a little formal way. Keeping this in mind helps you relax and sound more natural. Also, take your time while answering the question and do not talk fast. Make sure the interviewer was able to understand what you are saying by talking moderately and loud enough.

Below are some of the handy and useful interview tips that I myself used during my interview session.

Interview day tips:

1. Wake up, eat your breakfast and prepare to go early.
2.  Double check your things to bring for the interview.
3. Arrive at least 15 minutes before your schedule.
4. Greet and initiate a hand shake with your interviewer/s.
5. Always smile and maintain eye contact.
6. Relax and answer honestly (answer from your heart).
7. Avoid checking your watch or the clock for the time as this is disrespectful.
8. Avoid fidgeting as it's a distracting action.
9. Grab the opportunity to ask questions to your interviewer when he/she asks if you have any questions or if you need clarifications about anything related to the medical school admissions.
10. At the end of the interview, don't forget to say 'thank you' and to shake the hands of your interviewer/s.

You only have a one time chance and a few minutes to show the admission committee who you are, what your potentials are and why you are worthy to wear that white coat in the future so make sure to make your interview count. Go ace your medical school interview! With these tips in mind, no doubt you'll ace your medical school interview.

There you go for my tips on how to ace your medical school interview. I will create a separate post for all the medical school interview questions that I encountered and heard of. Good luck future doctors and I hope this helps. Any questions, feel free to comment below or send me an email.

NMAT Series: Torn between enrolling to a review center and self studying

Holidays are over and it is time to get back to crunch time to study for the coming NMAT. Many of you are thorn between enrolling yourself to a review center or just do a self study - trust me when I say I know the feeling because I've been there. I'll give you some helpful factors to consider which option will work best for you. 

I did both - enrolled myself to a review center and buried myself with self study materials, reviewers, resources, books and anything that I found will help me prepare for NMAT. 

My thoughts about NMAT review centers depends on which review center will you enroll to. There are a lot of review centers available in the market in this day on but I believe not all review centers will help you achieve your goal %ile rank and sadly, some are just pure business. I know review centers can slash you a good amount of money so be careful to choose for a 'worth the price' sessions that you are looking for. If you have the resources to enroll yourself in review classes, go ahead but if not might as well hit your books as early as now to study for the NMAT. I am telling you, NMAT is no joke and it is not a piece of cake. 

Review centers are good if you need a little push to study and be productive because they have specific time and day of classes that you need to attend to (though not mandatory) and several sample tests even take home tests to work on will be given.  All of the review centers are in a classroom setting so if classroom setting works for you, a review center will definitely help you. Another good thing with some review centers is that they give tips on how to answer the questions and problems easier, faster and correctly which I will share with you guys on my blogs to follow for the NMAT series (so make sure to subscribe to my blog, you wouldn't want to miss it - trust me). 

Be aware of review centers which will just give you incomplete/incompetent review materials, hold classes that will just answer the sample questions they provided and that's it, review done and you can bid your hard earned money good bye. It is a sad reality for review centers. Trust me, it happens. Aside from enrolling myself to a review center, what my friends and I did are share notes, review materials and techniques that the review centers taught us which really came in handy during the actual test. So if you're on a tight budget, it wouldn't hurt to ask your friends (who enrolled in a review center) for the review materials, sample exams and most especially the techniques in answering the NMAT questions (which is what I found most useful tool in acing the NMAT) they acquired from the review centers. 

Doing self study will require a huge amount of efforts because you have to look for the right review materials, notes, and blogs that give out reviewers. Luckily, today there are lots of sources you can get the reviewers from, like some facebook page and groups such as the pinoy doctor, non-premed doctors/future doctors, Philippine NMAT: October 2018. These page/groups provide tips, review materials, sample questions that are really useful that you may think twice if you still want to pay for a review center that much money wherein you can just be motivated and use the available resources and save your money for other things when you're already in medical school. These groups can also be your support group because all of its members are aspiring doctors and always willing to help you with anything like answering a problem that you're not sure of and other NMAT and even medical schools related questions.

As I've mentioned earlier, I worked my hardest to self study and thank God, it worked for me. I spent all my vacant hours studying for NMAT everyday and have a strict schedule set just for studying - no phones, no other electronic devices that might distract me from studying. It takes discipline to do this. I even made my review materials posted in the walls of my room which I found very effective. You might want to consider doing this too - it may be a little 'extra' but whatever works, right?

I hope this blog post helped you decide which option is suitable for you and if you have questions, feel free to comment down or send me a message and I'll be glad to help you with it. Thank you.

Book Review: Surgeons Do Not Cry by Ting Tiongco

 

I do not find a lot of books telling stories about their lives as a medical student or a doctor so the moment I found out about this book, it went automatically to my 'to-read' books list. Mostly of stories told by medical practitioners are found online in a form of a blog, a vlog but rarely do I find printed books about it. 

Being too eager to grab my copy, I searched for it everywhere, online, at the Solidaridad book shop in Ermita, even in Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) but I got my copy from the University of the Philippines (UP) Press in UP Diliman campus which is the publisher of the said book. The book cost at 200 pesos from the UP Press (which I believe has a branch now in UP Town Center in Katipunan). In the MIBF, the book is less 50 pesos making the cost of the book at 150 pesos. I can say that it is not pricey for a book and the content is really good. Quality paper, cover and print too so it is a very good buy for me. I personally like the last part which are just extra stories for the book. These are the speeches made by Dr. Tiongco when he was asked to be as a guest speaker in graduations. Reading these speeches really inspired me and hit a soft spot in my heart.

The book cover is quite simple which I like. It has a minimalist design and the book is not too thick. It has 167 pages, 37 real life short stories and 4 annexes in total. The book talks about the experiences that actually happened to the author from his medical education at UP College of Medicine, development as a doctor to a surgeon in UP-PGH (Philippine General Hospital).

I enjoyed reading the book because it is just a bit of everything, really short stories. If you continuously read the book, it can be finished in a day or two but in my case, what I did was to read 1-3 stories per day as I want to enjoy and savor the moments experienced by the author. The stories are short (1-2 or 3 pages) which sometimes make me ask for more. My personal favorites are God Forgives..., Tears of Anger Tears of Joy, Kissing Rounds, and Major Joe.

I learned a lot from this book on what could be experienced in the hospital especially under UP-PGH compound which is mostly if not all, the setting of the stories. For someone who aims to go to UP-PGH to train and practice medicine, like me, this book will definitely help you have a glimpse of what happens inside the largest government hospital in the Philippines. The stories will inspire you, make you laugh and give you a background about medicine, politics, the UP-PGH itself and real life stories that an aspiring and even doctors experience on a day-to-day scenario.

Now, I'm actually waiting for another book to be released by next year (2019) entitled Some Days You Can't Save Them All. it is written by Dr. Ron Baticulon, another UP Medicine alumnus and a Palanca winner for the same titled essay.  I will definitely make a book review about it once it is released and I hope to get my copy signed too. 

I am recommending you to read this book because it is full of heart, experiences and stories which will definitely to remember. I hope this content inspires you and help you towards our goal of becoming a doctor in the Philippines.

PLM Series: The College of Medicine Interview

This is the third part of my PLM Series, if you haven't read the first 2 blogs about PLM College of Medicine, below are the quick links and I would suggest you to read these first.

1.PLM Series: Applying to PLM College of Medicine

2.PLM Series: Braving the MCAT

You are now on the third and more crucial part of the application process of your target medical school, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila College of Medicine (PLM CM) which is the interview process. As mentioned, the MCAT is always scheduled on a Sunday and the interview process starts the next day (Monday) so better keep your game face on as you continue to battle on the PLM CM application journey.

What to wear: Just wear your smart casual to semi formal outfit. No need to wear coat or anything like too formal for a medical school interview. Just wear something you are comfortable with yet decent. Just be you.

How to prepare for the interview: Know your schedule, practice interview etiquette and research or ask around what are the commonly asked questions in a medical school interview. Personally, what I did is I wrote the common questions asked and the possible questions to be asked in a small notebook and answer them one by one - written and orally, again and again. This will serve as your practice and this worked perfectly for me. I believe I nailed the interview part with this technique as I sounded confident and know what am I talking about. But be careful during the interview to still sound natural and genuine and not rehearsed.

The list of the students for interview are posted in the medicine building and re-posted online by PLM CM's student organizations (a.k.a. fraternities and sororities), the interview is held everyday from 8 AM and 10 AM in the morning and another schedule in the afternoon. In every schedule there are 8-10 applicants which have the same schedule as you so better come early as the interview will go on a first come, first serve basis. Once you're at PLM CM dean's office, fill the attendance sheet in the front desk which will determine your turn in the interview flow. 

As said, come early as you'll be asked to fill an application form, answer a 3-5 psychological  questions and write an essay answering a question. During my application, the question asked is "Why should PLM accept/choose you?". This is done while you are waiting to be called to get interviewed.

The interviewers are the department heads of the different fields of medicine in PLM and even the dean herself will conduct your interview. The interview varies from the interviewer, they do not have a standard set of questions or format followed when doing the interview. Some interviewers will just ask you 3 questions and your done while others will ask a lot of questions which will I discuss as we go on. The setting is on a one on one, conversational set up and not a panel interview. The interview also happens simultaneously  so I must say that 'luck' plays a role on which interviewer you'll be assigned to. I heard a story from one applicant which was assigned to the interviewer who asked her only 3 questions, "What's your NMAT rank?" "What's your GWA?" and "What's your undergrad course?" and that's it. Imagine, her interview points will just be based on these 3 questions and she's not given a chance to prove herself more on other aspects. It is sad but it happened.

Some of the pointers for the interview given by the fraternities after MCAT are as follows: Prepare a 5-minute monologue about yourself when you are asked the classic interview question "Tell me something about yourself.". As I've mentioned above, there's a 150-word essay before the interview so I cannot emphasize this more, be early! Make sure to revolve your essay around the community and not just about yourself. PLM is a very community oriented and based medical school so it is plus points for  them if they saw that you care about the community like return service, becoming a doctor to the barrio and serving the underserved Filipino people. Also, this is an unusual question I encountered in PLM, only PLM CM (from my experience) asked questions about my college thesis so make sure to know your thesis by heart. Treat this like a mini defense and also site the obstacles you've encountered and how you overcome them. Lastly, make sure to read and familiarize yourself with the latest news around you especially news related to the health sector like Dengvaxia, Universal Healthcare Bill and some DOH programs.

Below are some of the questions (I can recall) asked to me during my interview with PLM CM:

1. What's your NMAT %ile?
2. What's your GWA?
3. Tell me something about yourself. *classic medical school interview question*
4. Why do you want to be in PLM?
5. As a scholar of Manila, after graduation, you will be asked to render some form of community service to the city, would that be okay with you?
6. Why do you want to be a doctor? *classic medical school interview question*
7. What if PLM did not accept you, what are your plans? *tricky question*
8. Have you experienced working under pressure? State your experience.
9. How do you handle that? *referring to number 7*
10. Tell me about your college thesis? What are your findings? What obstacles did you encounter? How did you address that?
11. How do you cope with stress?
12. Did you apply to other medical schools? What are your status there?
13. Who will pay for your tuition? What are your parents job?
14. What if the payer of your tuition suddenly dies, how will you continue to pay for your medical school fees? *tricky question*
15. Why should we choose you? What are your advantages over other applicants?

After, the interviewer will ask you if you have any questions for him/her, make sure to ask any question that tickled your mind as this will show that you are serious and really interested in getting into their medical school. Before you leave, do not forget to shake the hand of your interviewer and say 'thank you' for the time and the interview, this will definitely leave mark on them.

Remember that the interview will be the last part of your application process as well as your impression to the admissions committee so make sure to make it count and make a pitch on your application. The next time you'll come back to the dean's office is during the confirmation of slots happening in June. Yes, the wait is that long. PLM is really a battle on who is the most patient applicant to wait several months for the list of accepted applicants.

Since the interview is over, please treat yourself with good food or anything that will make you happy for your hard work all this application process. Always remember that you deserve a pat on the back for a job well done. All you can do now is pray and hope that you made it to the golden list of accepted applicants of the medical school of your dreams. Good luck!

I hope this content help you one way or another. Feel free to comment down if you have questions in mind. Thank you.

Disclaimer: The author is not in any way related/connected to the admissions office of PLM CM. This post is only based on personal experience of the author.

NMAT Series: What does your percentile rank means

National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) results are out and I hope you reached the score you  aimed for. You might be asking what's the passing grade, the answer is none. There is no passing grade for NMAT, only acceptable NMAT score. Acceptable NMAT score varies on the medical school in the Philippines but the lowest score one needs to qualify is 40 percentile rank, for example, University of the Philippines - College of Medicine (UPCM) accepts applicants with 90 and above percentile rank. Before enrolling, make sure to check the requirements of the medical school of your choice and ensure that you have their preferred NMAT percentile. 

The NMAT is a combination of an IQ test (part 1) and of special area test (Part 2) which will I'll discuss in another blog. I'll also blog on how to ace the NMAT with useful tips that I used when I took it so make sure to follow my blog so you won't miss it. Trust me, you wouldn't want to miss it as I'll spill all the beans and every piece of advise that will be really useful in taking this test.

NMAT score is not easy to understand, I know. In this blog, I'll simplify the explanation for us to understand it better. Your NMAT score is in a form of percentile rank therefore all the test takers are arranged based on their rank in the exam. So if you get a score of 75, it does not mean that you got 75% of the exam correct, it means that you scored better than the 75% of the total takers.  To understand it better, think of it this way, the score you get means that your raw score is higher than that percentage of the takers. Example if you get a percentile rank of 95, it mean that you scored higher than 95% of the test takers and you are in the top 5% of the NMAT takers. Another example, let us say you get 40 NMAT percentile, it means 60% of the takers got higher scores than you while you bested the other 40% of the takers. The highest NMAT score one can get is a 99+ which will surely give you a huge advantage on the med school of your choice.

A lot of people are asking if how many times one is allowed to take the NMAT, the answer is unlimited. NMAT can be taken as many times as you like until you are satisfied with your score. It is not true that your scores will be averaged on your third try or more. That is a complete myth. I am not sure where this news came from but based on what I know, it is not averaged on your 3rd or so on try of the test. This created confusion and worry to the people and I want to clarify that it is not true.

I hope this blog helped you in understanding your NMAT score and feel free to comment below if you have questions and I will be happy to answer it to the best of my ability. Thank you.

Disclaimer: The author is not in any way related/connected to the CEM NMAT Committee This post is only based on personal experience and understanding of the author.