01/17/2022

Friends of Franz Podcast S1 E5: The Medical Journey with Dr. Benjamin Tran

Upcoming early Summertime is known to be medical school application season. Known to many, the journey to becoming a board-certified physician in the United States is the most rigorous educational and training process in the nation: four years of undergraduate college studies to fulfill pre-medicine science and math classes (along with the accumulation of clinical hours, volunteering, and shadowing), the one-year expanse of applications (taking the MCAT, primary and secondary applications, interviews, etc.), four years of medical school (two years of grueling didactics followed by two years of clerkship/varying medical specialty rotations) with three board exams (Step 1-3), 3-7 years of residency training (specialty-dependent, with a minimum of 10,000 training hours), and 2-3 years of chosen subspecialty/fellowship if desired.

What are the keys to acing the components of each of these processes to reach one's goal of becoming a medical doctor? How can students ensure that their application process is as successful as it can be during the cycle? I thought that there would be no better representative to ask for tips and advice regarding the whole medical journey than someone fresh out of the process: Dr. Benjamin Tran.

Currently a dermatology resident physician in San Francisco, CA, Dr. Tran remembers all too well about it all. Join us as we take a deep dive into all things pre-med and applications (gap year, AAMC, letters of recommendations, gravity of GPA and MCAT score, interviews, etc.), medical school (student loans, tuition debt, board exams), and even now in residency (match day, intern year, working hours, teaming with nurses, the path to dermatology). Being in his late 20s, from his primordial inspirations to his thought processes of pursuing such an arduous career path entailing so many life sacrifices, we scrutinized Dr. Tran's regrets in pursuing the path of medicine...if any at all.