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Med Student | Family Medicine

@mulrainmentoring

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Your fav T1D Med Student 💉
Let’s make health make sense 🩺
My path to becoming an MD 👩🏽‍⚕️🇹🇹🇩🇲
My personal Views | NOT medical advice

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This is a real text my former boss sent me 8 years ago after I told him I wouldn’t be coming in for my shift that day. It was the first, and only, time I’ve ever quit a job.

I was a teenager who had just aged out of foster care and was living on my own. I worked part-time at a grocery store as a full-time highschool student, so living paycheck-to-paycheck was how I afforded my rent and basic needs.

I made the decision to leave after reporting my manager to corporate for behavior I felt was discriminatory toward my coworkers, many of whom did not speak fluent English. As a 2nd-generation immigrant, watching people be mistreated because of their language and culture felt deeply personal. At that point, I knew I couldn’t continue working in an environment that didn’t align with my values. I later learned he was removed from his position.

Even so, his words stayed with me. At a time when I was already focused on survival and trying to build a future for myself, they planted real doubt. I questioned whether I would make it to college, graduate on time, or even have a roof over my head next month.

But that moment didn’t define my outcome.

My faith and persistence carried me through seasons of trials. Over time, I began to understand that someone else’s words, especially when rooted in ignorance, do not determine your capacity or your future.

Today, I’m grateful for the opportunity to train as a future physician who will serve patients from all backgrounds and identities with compassion, humility, and deep respect. Having experienced firsthand what it means to navigate incredible hardship, I hope to lead with empathy from a deeper understanding of the realities that shape people’s lives.

I want to be clear: I’m not sharing this to call out or invite negativity toward any individual or workplace. I’m sharing this because I know there are others who have been told, directly or indirectly, that they don’t belong in certain spaces.

If that’s you, let this be your reminder: your circumstances, setbacks, and other people’s words do not define what you are capable of becoming.

So keep going. There is still so much ahead of you ✨

Luke 1:52 by @mulrainmentoring

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6 months ago

Medical school is already hard. There is so much to learn, the days are long, and there is this constant pressure to keep up. But something we don’t talk about enough is how many medical students are navigating all of that while also living with chronic illnesses and disabilities.

For me, that’s Type 1 diabetes.

Making this video feels more vulnerable than talking about the science, education, or advocacy around T1D. It’s harder to acknowledge what living with it means for me, especially because my disability isn’t always visible. Unless I tell someone or they notice my devices, they may never know, which can make it easier to put that part of myself aside and keep going.

But it’s still there.

My T1D doesn’t pause because I have an exam tomorrow or need to be at the hospital early for rounds. Sometimes it means waking up because my pump expired or malfunctioned, checking my blood sugar while I’m with my team, or applying for accommodations on top of everything else that comes with medical school.

There’s also something strange about learning about a condition you live with. Hearing about complications you’ve worried about or discussing hypothetical patients whose experiences hit a little closer to home. You become very aware that you’re not only a student learning about the condition. You’re a patient living with it too.

And I know I’m far from the only one. So many future physicians are navigating chronic illnesses and disabilities, ‘visible’ or ‘invisible’, alongside their training. Our experiences aren’t all the same, but there is something meaningful about entering medicine having experienced healthcare from the other side of the exam room.

Our perspectives as both patients and future providers are valuable, and I hope mine will always remind me to lead with a little more understanding, patience, and compassion. ❤️

#medicine #medschool #disability #t1d #premed by @mulrainmentoring

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24 days ago

One of the hardest parts of the medical school application, and one of the most important, is the personal statement.

Where do you start?
What do schools actually want to hear?
How do you write without sounding cliché?

If you feel stuck, you’re not alone.

A strong personal statement isn’t about dramatic storytelling or impressive vocabulary. It’s about a clear narrative that helps admissions committees understand your journey.

Here’s a simple way to structure it:

1️⃣ Why Medicine?
What drew you to this field in the first place? Not prestige. Not titles. Why this field and not another career path?

2️⃣ Why Doctor?
When did you realize you wanted to care for patients directly, carry responsibility, and lead medical decision-making as a physician? Show the moment you understood the role and why it fit you.

3️⃣ Why this kind of doctor?
You do NOT need to be certain about a specialty. No one expects a pre-med student, without medical training, to know exactly what career they will spend the rest of their life in.

But being able to express a clear direction of interest—whether primary care, community health, surgery, chronic disease management, research, or work with underserved populations—can be compelling!

It helps admissions committees see that you have thought seriously about your future in medicine and the role you hope to play. It shows not only that you are a strong applicant, but that you will be a thoughtful addition to their school community.

When readers can envision the physician you are becoming, they’re more likely to want to learn more (and that curiosity can help earn you an interview!)

Your clinical experiences, service work, research, and personal moments should all build toward these three narrative threads.

Each story should act as evidence, leaving “breadcrumbs” that guide your reader to the same conclusion you reached: that the physician path makes sense for you.

If you’re unsure where to begin, my free personal statement guide is linked in my bio, including examples from the essay that helped me earn multiple acceptances!

#premed #medschool #medicine #personalstatement #medstudent by @mulrainmentoring

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8 months ago

Becoming a physician can take 11–15+ years of education and training after high school, and when you add up college, the MCAT, applications, medical school, residency applications, licensing, and board certification, the total cost can easily reach hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Now, the total cost of becoming a doctor is not necessarily the total amount someone will owe in student loans. There are many ways people offset these expenses, including financial aid, scholarships, working, family support, service programs, and choosing less expensive schools. Still, about 71% of graduating MD students reported education debt in 2024, with a median debt of ~$205,000.

For students who don’t come from families that can financially support this journey, numbers like these can be intimidating before you even get started. And with recent changes to federal graduate and professional student loans, I think understanding the financial reality of becoming a physician is becoming even more important.

But I think one of the biggest hidden costs is time.

So much of this journey often happens during your 20s, and medical training is both intense and very structured. While many of your peers in other careers may be traveling, earning full salaries, and starting families, much of your life is still shaped by training. Where you live, your schedule, and even major life decisions (i.e. marriage, children) can revolve around getting through the next stage. And once you start earning a salary as a resident physician (~$67,000 a year on average), you may also begin repaying loans while working 60 to 80 hours a week, including nights, weekends, and holidays.

That’s not to say medicine isn’t worth it. I chose this path for a reason, and I would still choose it. But there are sacrifices that come with becoming a physician that I don’t think I fully understood before I started.

Knowing what this path costs doesn’t have to discourage you from pursuing medicine. It can help you prepare for it. ❤️ #premed #medschool by @mulrainmentoring

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a month ago

🥲

#medschool #medschool #scrubs #greysanatomy #whitecoat by @mulrainmentoring

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a year ago

Is smoking weed really that bad for you? Should you tell your doctor that you smoke weed? 🌿

These are questions a lot of people, especially teens and young adults, have, and they’re good questions to ask! There’s a lot of information (and misinformation) online, so my goal is to help break down what the current evidence actually says in a way that’s easier to understand.

Marijuana (cannabis) does have legitimate medical uses for certain conditions, but that doesn’t mean it’s risk-free or right for everyone. At the end of the day, inhaling smoke into your lungs isn’t harmless, no matter what you’re smoking. Cannabis smoke contains many of the same toxins, irritants, and cancer-causing chemicals found in tobacco smoke, and researchers are still studying what long-term cannabis smoking may mean for conditions like lung cancer and COPD.

Beyond the effects of smoking, cannabis can significantly affect memory, attention, and learning, especially in teens and young adults whose brains are still developing. For some people, marijuana use can also become harder to control. This might look like using more than intended, struggling to cut back, or continuing to use despite negative effects on your health or daily life. When cannabis use becomes a pattern like this, it’s called cannabis use disorder.

All of this is why it’s so important to tell your doctor if you use marijuana, including how often and how you use it. Being honest can help your healthcare team better understand symptoms you may be experiencing now and make decisions that protect both your short-term and long-term health. And if you’re worried about being judged or getting in trouble for using weed, remember that the goal is to give you the safest care possible, not to punish you for being honest. ❤️

🎓 I’m a medical student, and one of my goals is to make the medicine I’m learning more accessible while I continue my training. I hope these videos make healthcare a little less confusing and encourage more informed conversations with your own healthcare team!

⚠️ Educational content only and not a substitute for medical advice from your own healthcare provider.

#medicine #smoking #marijuana #cannabis by @mulrainmentoring

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4 days ago

I attend an accelerated MD program. What most medical students cover in 6–8 weeks, we have to learn in 4. That means a heavy lecture schedule and a lot of studying.

But I’ve never been an Anki person 😓 I’ve tried it in orgo, anatomy, and for the MCAT, and it just doesn’t work for me. I’ve often heard the idea that if you don’t use Anki, you’re studying less efficiently or won’t do well in medical school. But this is how my brain works best, and I’ve found what works for me!

So far, I’ve been able to pass all of my exams while still making time for my wellness, relationships, and extracurriculars 😊

I utilize my own strategy, which I call the Mulrain Mentoring Method:

1️⃣ Study/Learning Phase → Combining research-backed strategies like layered reading, active annotation, and chunking to retain information. With enough repetition, this approach strengthens my recall and visualization so efficiently that, while true “photographic memory” is not really how memory works, it can feel close to that in practice.

2️⃣ Summary Phase → I make a high-yield sheet condensing the lecture into quick-review notes for the days before the exam.

3️⃣ Testing Phase → I do practice questions, self-made or provided, to apply knowledge and strengthen active recall.

Time-wise:
⏱️ ~1 hr to study a lecture (~70 slides each)

⏱️ 30 min to make a summary sheet

⏱️ 30 min for practice questions

That pace lets me get through three or more lectures a day without burning out.

At the end of the day, my goal isn’t just to pass exams but to truly understand medicine so I can apply it to patient care. Studying isn’t one-size-fits-all, and academic success shouldn’t require fitting a “typical” mold, especially if you’ve proven that other methods work better for you.

Should I make a breakdown video diving deeper into my system?

#anki #premed #mcat #medschool #medicine by @mulrainmentoring

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a year ago

In Part 1 of my mini-series on how I study in medical school without using Anki, I shared an overview of my Mulrain Mentoring Method.

In this post, I want to break down the first phase of that system: actually learning and committing material to memory. I first started experimenting with this approach in undergraduate organic chemistry, saw the benefits in biochemistry, and refined it further while applying it to medical concepts and MCAT studying. Now in medical school, I’m seeing it work again — just at a higher and more efficient level.

The scientific community has shown that photographic/eidetic memory is not really how memory works. But through layered reading, intentional highlighting, and repeated exposure, I’ve trained my recall in a way that feels very close to it in practice. During practice questions or exams, I can often visualize where key terms and concepts appeared on the page, including how I organized them and sometimes even their approximate location (like the lower left corner of a page highlighted in blue) which has been a major advantage.

There are many ways to study, and no single method works for everyone. Anki is incredibly effective for some, but it never clicked for me. Instead of forcing it, I leaned into a strategy that aligns with how my brain learns. Just because this works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you, but I hope it offers another perspective!

Tell me what you think below. Would you try this, or do you already have a system that works well for you?

#anki #medschool #premed #medstudent #studying by @mulrainmentoring

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a year ago

In Part 2 of my mini-series on how I study in medical school without using Anki, I broke down the first phase: learning new material through layered reading, highlighting, and repeated exposure.

In this post, I’m breaking down the Summary Phase: Where I decide what information is worth spending more time reviewing.

One mistake I used to make was trying to summarize everything. Rewriting entire lectures into study guides can feel productive, but I realized there wasn’t enough time in medical school to treat every concept equally.

Instead, I started asking: “What is the high-yield information that needs to stick?”

For me, that includes concepts I had to reread, conditions I kept confusing, questions I missed during lecture, and information I knew I was likely to forget. Those are the concepts that earn a spot on my summary sheets.

One change that made this even more useful was waiting until AFTER doing practice questions. I used to make summary sheets right after a lecture, but I realized I didn’t always know what I didn’t know yet. Practice questions exposed those blind spots.

If I kept missing questions on the same topic, it went on my review sheet. Instead of predicting every weakness, I let my mistakes identify them.

This also made my notes more useful than outside resources. Third-party resources are written for a broad audience. My sheets were based on my in-house material and weak areas, which was especially helpful during my first year, when extra “Step prep” info could create more noise than help.

By exam week, instead of rereading hundreds of slides, I could review a few pages of material I had already identified as needing more attention. My notes gave me a concise way to revisit weaker areas and recall the larger concepts behind them.

Overall, there isn’t one perfect way to study; this is just what works for me! I share it so other students who haven’t connected with Anki know they’re not alone. Find the system that works for you!

#Anki #medschool #study #premed by @mulrainmentoring

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2 months ago

November is Diabetes Awareness Month 💉

But what is “diabetes,” and what does it actually look like?

The name diabetes mellitus literally means “sweet urine.” Centuries ago, physicians diagnosed diabetes by tasting a patient’s urine, noticing it was unusually sweet due to excess sugar.

Today, we understand diabetes as a complex group of metabolic conditions.

There are two main types:

Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system permanently destroys the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas. The exact trigger is not fully understood, but genetics and environmental factors are believed to play a role. There is currently no cure for T1D, and lifelong insulin therapy is required.

Type 2 Diabetes occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin and/or does not produce enough of it over time. It is influenced by a combination of genetics, metabolism, environment, medications, chronic stress, access to care, and lifestyle factors. While there is no guaranteed permanent cure, T2D can sometimes go into remission with sustained interventions such as weight loss, improved nutrition, increased physical activity, medication support, or bariatric surgery when appropriate.

Despite this complexity, public perception of diabetes is often oversimplified and stigmatizing—reducing it to the idea that someone is lazy, unhealthy, or simply “ate too much sugar.” These misconceptions contribute to shame, discrimination, and the harmful belief that diabetes is purely self-inflicted.

Even within healthcare, diabetes can sometimes be reduced to a list of medications rather than understood as a multifaceted condition requiring individualized, patient-centered care. At the same time, gaps in screening and awareness of prediabetes remain, reflecting a broader issue: we often focus on treating diabetes after it develops, rather than preventing it.

In reality, diabetes is not a moral failure. It is a chronic condition shaped by biology, environment, and systems. Stigma delays diagnosis, harms mental health, and creates barriers to care.

Diabetes has no single “look", and understanding that is key to changing how we talk about!

#diabetes #T1D #T2D by @mulrainmentoring

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a year ago

Medical school teaches you the foundational basic science that makes clinical reasoning possible.

It also teaches you humility… like when you’re fighting for your life trying to brute-force memorize metabolic pathways and identify histology slides at 2 AM 😭

#premed #medschool #medstudent #histology #medicine by @mulrainmentoring

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8 months ago

When I first started studying for the MCAT, my diagnostic score completely discouraged me. I was scrolling through pre-med spaces on Reddit and kept seeing people casually share diagnostic scores in the 510s; it was hard not to compare myself. I told myself there was no way I could raise my score that much in three months, let alone earn a score I felt confident applying with.

On top of that, I was working two jobs while trying to fit MCAT prep into an already packed schedule.

But I decided to try anyway.

I focused on building strong study habits, using the right resources, and creating a realistic schedule that worked for my life. Little by little, the progress added up—far more than I ever thought possible when I first saw that diagnostic.

I’m sharing this to encourage anyone studying for the MCAT right now: your first diagnostic score is not your destiny. Being out of school, retaking the exam, or starting from a low baseline does not disqualify you. With the right strategy, structure, and consistency, meaningful improvement is possible ☺️

I’ll be dropping another free guide soon through the link in my bio on how I studied for the MCAT despite a busy schedule, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, what has been your biggest struggle with MCAT prep?

#mcat #premed #medschool #study #doctor by @mulrainmentoring

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8 months ago