Careers in the Health Professions

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Maintained by Harry E. Pence, Professor of Chemistry, SUNY Oneonta, for the use of his students. Any opinions are totally coincidental and have no official endorsement, including the people who sign my pay checks. Comments and suggestions are welcome (pencehe@oneonta.edu).

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Last Revised Aug. 4, 2000

Careers in the Health Professions

Getting into medical school or other health professions school requires a lot of hard work, some good advice, and a bit of luck, so work closely with your premedical advisor to insure that you are taking the right courses. The Career Development Center at CalTech has developed a useful outline of both the steps in developing a premedical programs as well as the self-assessment that should take place before you decide to make this commitment.

There are a large number of web sites that offer helpful advice and information, but the following seem to be a good place to start. Unfortunately, some of the most useful sites are created by students who are in medical school, and these may be abandoned when these individuals graduate. None the less, they are great sources while they continue to be available. One of the most comprehensive and valuable sites that I have found is personal advice and links from Erick Santos. The links on this site will not only provide a great deal of information but keep you occupied for weeks. Dave Sacco is another medical student who developed a personal site to share his experiences. He has now graduated, but the advice is still good.

The Collegeview.com interview feedback site is an excellent preparation for a premed interview, which lets you learn something about at least one person's impressions of the school and what types of questions you may have to answer. Just search for the name of the school(s) that you are interested in. Don't miss this one! Equally useful is a site maintained by the American Association of Medical Colleges that suggests "31 Questions you should ask at a medical school interview."

Several different sites contain links to all (or most of) the medical schools in the U.S., including The Hunter College list of Medical School Pages. The list of Accredited U.S. Medical Schools from the American Association of Medical Colleges can be searched alphabetically or geographically.

You may also wish to look at the Rankings of U.S. Health Programs by U.S. News and World Report, a news magazine that is well-known for ranking various types of educational programs. If you move down on this page, you will discover listings for Medicine, and if you continue to page down you will find related professions, such as Audiology, Nursing, Physicians Assistant, and other programs. These listings are links to further information about the institution, so this is a good place to do some research of your possibilities.

There are two major courses that prepare one to take the MCAT exams, the Kaplan Course and the Princeton Review. The Princeton Review Homepage also has some useful information, including an on-line practice version of the MCAT. Although these pages do try to sell you on their respective courses, there is also some good information about taking the MCAT

Those interested in Chiropractic Study will wish to the listing of U.S. Chiropractic School web pages, as well as a second page that just lists basic information about Chiropractic schools, like address, phone number, etc. This information is provided by the efforts of Frank M. Painter, D.C. (Frankp@chiro.org).

If you are interested in osteopathic medicine, you will want to look at the home page of the
American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine.

Veterinary Science is often included under the heading of Health-related professions. The American Veterinary Medicine Association site includes a list of the Colleges of Veterinary Science in the U.S. The NetVet site includes a directory of information on academic programs, career opportunities, and professional associations related to veterinary science. This is an excellent site with many links and a great deal of useful information.

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