Inquiétude face aux entrevues

[aris]

Salut,

je suis étudiante au cégep depuis automne 2022 et je compte essayer de rentrer en med en 2025. Cependant, j’ai beaucoup d’inquiétudes confernant les entrevues et le test CASPer. En effet, je crois avoir une cote r suffisante pour rentrer (36.1), mais j’ai vraiment l’impression que je ne vais pas bien scorer dans les tests de personnalité. Ce n’est pas parce que je n’ai pas confiance en mes compétences ou mon éthique, mais je n’ai pas l’impression d’avoir d’expériences de vie importante à adresser et je suis plutôt une personne introvertie. J’ai toujours mené une vie assez privilégiée, j’en suis consciente, et j’ai l’impression que ça va me nuire à ma candidature. Je n’ai jamais participé à des activités parascolaires de façon assidues, j’ai pratiqué quelques sports au secondaire sans être très bonne et pour peu de temps. Je n’ai pas l’impression d’avoir vécu de l’adversité quelconque, et les seuls choses que j’ai à mon CV sont d’avoir travaillé dans un cinéma pendant 3 ans et d’avoir gagné divers prix académique, genre des méritas et la médaille du gouverneur général. 

Suis-je la seul à avoir ce sentiment? Avez-vous des conseils pour quand même me démarquer malgré mes expériences assez médiocres? Je suis réellement passionnée par la médecine et la biologie et je ne voudrais pas gâcher cette opportunité parce que je n’avais pas de motivation durant mon secondaire. Merci!

[Bambi]

Hi there, welcome to the Forum. Many of us in Cegep or as graduates of Cegep were introverted and shy. I was one of those students and today, I am a surgeon. What helped build up my confidence and coming out of my shell were life experiences, particularly doing things that were beyond my comfort level, and gradually, I became more confident and assertive. Always, I was kind, considerate of others, empathetic, respectful, a hard worker, friendly and a collaborative team player. These attributes, together with developing leadership qualities, being focused, disciplined, having a healthy life style for mind and body, being ethical and a problem solver under pressure, being able to see all sides of an issue, many of which may not be apparent, and articulate these, being able to develop a timely plan of action to desal with the problem at hand and being an effective communicator are helpful and important. You also need to develop good time and stress management skills. A level of maturity is required to have these attributes and we all mature in our own time. I, for example, was a brilliant student entering Cegep and then it all went to mush! My academics suffered and my poor level of academic attainment did not even permit me to apply to med school then. Essentially, I did not focus on my academics, although I did on my ECs and volunteering. I was a mixed bag of maturity levels. I went to undergrad, recognizing that if I wanted to accomplish my dream of becoming a physician, I needed to concentrate on my academics, work hard and strive for excellence - which I did! I took a program of interest in the health care field at Concordia, my grades were in the A - A+ range, and I went directly to med school.

I did ballet since a very early age, performed in public, won awards and helped out others in our group, thus developing not only collaborative skills, but expertise and developing leadership qualities. Notwithstanding this, I was still shy. However, I got small summer jobs where I had to deal with the public, some of these experiences took me out of my comfort zone, and as a result, I lost my shyness. Also, one of my ECs involved dealing with large, strong animals and I had to take command, to take charge, there was really no choice. This taught me a lot, I gained in confidence and in developing leadership qualities. In doing classical piano for many years, I understood the meaning of focus, discipline, attention to detail and the important of strving for excellence in all I do to gain expertise, the same for ballet.

All these activities and volunteering, visiting patients in hospital and chatting, playing board games, distracting them from their medical issues, were important in my formation! When the time came to do the MEMFI - which was meant to be a "fun experience" - I did virtually no preparation, I relied upon my life experiences to see me through. 

I know a student who is in med school today, studying medicine and for his PhD. In Cegep, he was at the top academically and his ECs and volunteering were astounding. However, due to his maturity level, he was not then accepted into medicine - which turned out to be a blessing for him, although he was so unhappy at the time. He went to undergrad, learned of his interest in medical research, he worked with top scientists and when again, he applied for medicine., he was accepted into medicine and a PhD program. His aim is to be a clinician-scientist. Everything happens for a reason and at the right time. Remember this. When you apply to medicine, you will either be accepted or not when you first apply. If not accepted, you too will go to undergrad and develop in skills and maturity, gaining in important life experience which will create a foundation for the rest of your life. For us all to accomplish our goals, takes time and 2 or 3 years over a lifetime is nothing relatively speaking as we each develop and grow in maturity. 

I hope this is helpful and gives you some perspective.

On this Forum, go to the Section of Medical School Interviews and read the sticky threads of Arztin and future_doc. Here is the link to one of them: