Congratulations on finishing the school year! Here are some simple yet powerful goals to work on during the summer.

Relax
While it’s natural to want to avoid boredom during the summer, being just as busy as during the school year defeats the purpose of a break. The summer between my sophomore and junior year of college I worked 20 hours a week and took a full year of Anatomy and Physiology. It was terrible. At the end of my Junior year I was burnt out. Do not do this. Find time to relax, read some good books, go on a vacation and give that brain a little well deserved rest.

Get Medical Experience.
Volunteer at a non-profit clinic, clean rooms in a hospital, shadow your family physician or try to find a job as an ER Scribe. The point is not to bolster your application but rather to better understand medicine and to be sure it is the right path for you.

Find A Mentor.
I wrote about this a while back. Mentors can challenge and inspire you. One mentor I met with has gone on over 30 medical mission trips (recently returning from Haiti). Talking with him always reminded me why I wanted to go into medicine. Take the summer to think about who might best mentor you and respectfully ask them.

Read Medical Blogs.
There are excellent physician and medical student blogs out there. It’s a great way to get an unfiltered perspective on medicine from the eyes of those actually practicing it. A few of my favorite are ER Stories, Vitum Medicinus, KevinMD, Med School Memoir, Agraphia and Jae Won Joh.

Reflect.
Take some time to think about the past school year. What study habits worked for you? Is there a subject that particularly interested you that you may want to do some research on? What were the highs and lows of the year?
After reflecting on the past year, take some time to consider the coming school year. If you want to bump up your GPA, what grades will you have to get in your classes to meet your goal? If you’re going to take the MCAT, what is your ideal score? How can you simplify your life to reduce stress?

Working on these simple goals over the summer will help you have a great start to the next year. Do you have any other goals for the summer?

As I mention in the about page, I have the privilege of being an ER Scribe. However, many people are unfamiliar with what an ER Scribe does. Here is a brief overview:

An ER Scribe is a specialized transcriptionist that works in the Emergency Room (ER) of hospitals. Scribes follow ER doctors as they see patients and record all the charting notes for that patient’s visit. Some Scribes write notes by hand, but it is becoming more and more common for hospitals to use electronic charts, so most of the scribing involves typing and clicking. ER Scribes are in the unique position to not only work in the hospital environment, but also observe and work directly with physicians as they practice medicine.

Is being an ER Scribe for me?
The first response to that question is, where do you live? ER Scribe programs are becoming more common, but are still rare across the United States. According to Wikipedia, only ten states have hospitals that offer ER Scribe programs. Most of the hospitals are in California.
Most Scribes are pre med students looking for some medical experience. The pay isn’t great ($8-$11 per hour), the hours are horrible, but trust me, the it’s all worth it. No amount of shadowing will replace the medical experience you get while an ER Scribe.

How do I become an ER Scribe?
Ask your pre med adviser if there are any Scribe programs, or similar jobs in the area. Otherwise, do some research yourself on the internet, checking that Wikipedia link above. That link may not be comprehensive however, so it may be helpful to research the hospitals in your area further. If you don’t have a program in the area, you could always move to an area that does have one, or who knows, maybe you could spur the development of a Scribe program at a local hospital just by asking. Give it a shot!

Let me know if you have any more questions about the job. I’ll be updating my experiences as a Scribe fairly often. From what you know already, do you think being an ER Scribe is something you’d like to do?

Read about my first day as an ER Scribe.

Click here for a great article about the position.