Student Profiles
Did You Know?
Over the last 4 years, 61.3% of Miami undergraduate applicants have been accepted to medical schools, compared to a national average of 45%.
Support the CenterMallory-Wilson Center
for Healthcare Education
at Miami University
Mallory-Wilson Center Videos
The Essential Mallory Wilson Center
The Mallory-Wilson Center is almost essential for the pre-medical students here. It allows for that centralized presence that really encourages us as we begin this path; it's very daunting, but a very rewarding path as well.
To Become a Physician
If the purpose of going to college is to get you into a good medical school, you've got to stay out of trouble ... You have to work very hard. You have to be totally committed 24 hours a day. You've got to do well on your tests, and you've got to have a passion for your future.
[Listen to Dr. Richard Blath talk about what you need to do to get into medical school.]
Just a Family Doctor
When people talk to me about why I decided to become a physician at all, the word I use to describe myself is I'm a lifer. I began at a very early age, had an interest in bones, in human anatomy. My father had a very tattered copy of an encyclopedia with the acetate pages, with the organ systems that overlay each other. I was looking at that as young as five.
[Listen to Dr. Mark Meacham talk about the importance of primary care and family medicine.]
Choosing a Specialty
Make sure you really want to be a physician. It is a long and arduous pathway ... and if while you're in med school you truly find that you don't love this, get out. You're not a failure. Don't put yourself down a pathway that you don't like. And then ultimately, whatever field you pick, make sure you're picking it because you enjoy it and that's it.
From MBI to MBA
Ending up in the business side of medicine, after starting from a very technical field, isn't perhaps as unusual as it may seem ... I did fine on [the GMAT], and I realized it was because the same scientific method that I had used and been trained in so well at Miami were the basics for analyzing business problems.
Giving Back Locally and Globally
My advice is to 'go for it' with every opportunity that the individual has ... Being blessed means that you have been given the opportunities, and those of us who have been given these opportunities should feel an obligation to give back to society, whether that's giving back locally or regionally or globally.
[Listen to Dr. Richard N. Hirsh talk about why volunteerism is important and how rewarding it is.]
Job Shadowing
One of the opportunities that Miami offers now that I would have killed for when I was here is the job shadowing. You spend a week shadowing a physician ... It's just an awesome program, and I would really encourage people to check it out.
PhD? MD? Or both?
When I left Miami, I had gained such an interest in science that I wasn't really sure if I wanted to go to graduate school or medical school. So, I took a year off ... I brokered a deal with the dean to allow some of my [University of Cincinnati] medical school courses to apply to the requirements of the PhD. And the model that we worked out ended up being the model of their MD-PhD program.