Cal's Career Center Health Team

Chemistry Letter

I recently received a message from a student who was concerned about how medical and health schools perceive our chemistry sequence.  In the event that our unique sequence is challenged, your pre-health advisors have a copy of our "chemistry letter" which explains our sequence to admissions committees.  The vast majority of schools have become familiar with this letter and no longer challenge our sequence.  However, it is more likely to happen if you are applying to health schools outside of medicine.  Please call the Career Center at 642-1716 if you know that you need this letter. 

Medical School Stats and Facts

Medical school application season is well underway, and plenty of folks are feeling apprehensive about their odds of being accepted.  The Career Center doesn't maintain very many statistics about medical school acceptance rates, simply because the numbers convey only a very peripheral story about applicants' candidacy.  However, for those who are losing sleep over pesky percentages, please refer to this page of the AAMC website which offers plenty of statistics about applicants (including MCAT scores and GPA.)

Stress, Detox and my Intro to Traditional Chinese Medicine, Part 3

What is your definition of wellness?
Wellness is having a sense that all is right with the world that the body
and mind are functioning at its optimal and highest level. The mind feels
more at peace and calm. Physically, you are more present and engaged with
the world and you have the energy to enjoy life.

Who is your wellness hero?
Well there are people who teach wellness and those who practice it. I’m a
workaholic, a wife, a mother. I struggle with maintaining a balance,
whereas my husband is one of those people who lives well. He makes it a
priority to do things that he enjoys, which sometimes could be seen as
selfish…but he’s a good example for me.

How has your training as an herbalist and acupuncturist (L.Ac.) made you
better at dealing with stress? I have a much better idea of what’s going
on. In some ways, I’m more accountable. Sometimes you ask a doctor and
they don’t know what causes [illness]. Stress is often anger and
frustration restricting the flow of Qi or energy. Qi needs to run through
and when it’s blocked, or you hold onto your anger, it can lead to
disease. Louise Hay’s book, “You Can Heal Your Life” wrote about tracing
disease to its original thought form. The body has the ability to heal
itself and I have the tools to do that.

You mentioned that your grandfather was a healer in the Philippines; did
his knowledge ever get passed down? Unfortunately, no, I had learned that
my grandfather was a healer when I was an adult. He was an herbalist and
was known for practicing body work. Incidentally, the herbs that I learned
about in Chinese medicine were the herbs he also used.

Why law?
I’ve always been interested in health, and I also liked the idea of using
words effectively to assist people. Law has its problems, though. It
creates a lot of conflict. A lot of law doesn’t build on anything, but
creates more fighting. Chinese Medicine brings a sense of wellness, though
I get told I’m still “sticking it to people.”

How did you start your PIHMA College and Clinic?
No one would give me a loan, so I financed the college on my credit cards
while also working my legal bar review job (PIHMA was established in
1996). In retrospect, I wouldn’t have used my credit cards directly, but
to leverage more credit instead. The experience has taught me how to move
slowly and not to force things when you have a big obstacle ahead of you.
I’ve grown like the Tao, to flow up and down with things, to shift and
move.

What trends do you see in the future for TCM?
There’s a movement towards practitioners earning a 4-year entry level
doctorate degree (Currently PIHMA offers master’s level education). I see
licensed acupuncturists playing a larger role in disaster relief. I also
see it being covered by insurance as a service under health care, because
patients need relief and acupuncture works.

Many thanks to Catherine Niemiec, JD, L.Ac. for the resources listed below:
Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture, PIHMA
http://pihma.edu/

Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, CCAOM,
http://www.ccaom.org/

Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM)
http://www.acaom.org/

The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA),
http://www.acudetox.com

Acupuncturists Without Borders (AWB), http://www.acuwithoutborders.org

Stress, Detox and my Intro to Traditional Chinese Medicine, Part 2

Symptom Approach or Systems Approach
In contrast, western medicine tends to be more focused on diagnosing and
treating disease versus optimizing health. As a result, its interventions,
though powerful, tend to disregard how it affects the body as a whole. The
treatment of menopause is a perfect example of this. Hormone replacement
therapy or HRT was developed in response to help relieve women’s
debilitating peri- and menopausal symptoms: hot flashes, mood swings,
insomnia, vaginal dryness, memory problems and urinary problems. Back
then, the hormone replacements were derived from pregnant horses. Now,
bio-identical hormones, BHRT, are available. These hormones are chemically
equivalent to what the body produces but, they are not yet approved by the
FDA. However, in 2002, the Women’s Health Initiative released its first
results of a large-scale randomized study of post-menopausal women on HRT.
The study found there were a slight increase of heart disease, breast
cancer, stroke and blood clots for women who took a combination of
estrogen and progestin,
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/women/pht_facts.pdf.

What followed was a lot of confusion amongst women, and many, including my
mom, stopped HRT altogether because of this. I’m still confused today on
whether the benefits of HRT outweigh the risks. But I’m also baffled by
the intervention. Why introduce a synthetic hormone to alleviate the
symptoms of a normal process? Isn’t that tinkering with the body’s
physiology? Aren’t there better, less invasive ways to alleviate the
suffering without creating long-term side effects later? That’s where I
feel western medicine falls short…it’s so good at understanding
physiological functions and pathways for medicine, but when it comes to
interventions such as drugs, they’re disruptive. They don’t seem to
enhance or work with the body’s natural mechanisms but rather, overtake it
altogether.

TCM, on the other hand treats menopause as a natural process not to be
interfered with. Instead of replacing hormones, TCM practitioners
facilitate the process of menopause while treating the symptoms with
acupuncture and herbal medicine. The plus side of this approach is that
there are no introduced risks of heart disease, breast cancer, etc that
are typically associated with HRT and best of all, symptoms are typically
relieved. In 2006, Stanford University released a study of acupuncture in
the September issue of Fertility and Sterility, showing the efficacy of
acupuncture to treat hot flashes. Their findings showed a significant 28%
decrease of hot flashes amongst women who received acupuncture treatment
vs. the 6% who received the “sham” acupuncture treatment. Their
conclusions were that acupuncture is “promising” in alleviating menopausal
symptoms and more studies need to done to validate acupuncture’s
effectiveness from an “evidence-based” perspective. It should be noted,
though, that TCM practitioners would treat menopausal symptoms not just
with acupuncture alone, but also in tandem with herbal medicine, exercise
and nutrition specially tailored for the individual.

Herbal Medicine and Powerful Drugs
Acupuncture tends to get a lot attention, even though Chinese herbal
medicine is the oldest and longest practiced modality in TCM. Herbal
medicine in conjunction with acupuncture can be effective in treating many
conditions. Niemiec gave the example of using acupuncture and herbs to
treat PMS. “PMS is a function of the Liver (TCM’s classification of the
liver) and causes emotions to be stuck. Herbs can relax that tension to
release that energy.”
Although Niemiec is trained mostly in Chinese herbal medicine, she is also
quick to point out “almost all cultures have had an herbal pharmacopeia
that has been passed down as collective knowledge. People and cultures
have always been self-sufficient in healing themselves.” Similarly, her
graduate students at Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine receive
instruction primarily on Chinese Herbs, but they also explore and include
herbal medicinal practices of Native Americans, India (Ayurveda) and the
Philippines. (For a useful resource of healing traditions from around the
world, check out Stanford’s Vaden Health Center website:
http://vaden.stanford.edu/library/healing_trad.html).

 There are benefits to learning from the indigenous knowledge of other
cultures. Niemiec gave an example of a relative who was recently in the
hospital for dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease. “She was in the
hospital undergoing blood transfusions, when a friend of hers suggested
that she drink an herbal tea made from a weed in the Philippines.” The tea
worked. The weed Niemiec was referring to is called “gatas gatas” or “tawa
tawa” depending on the region of the Philippines. Its botanical name is
Euphorbia hirta and it’s purported to help increase blood
platelet counts for those with dengue hemorrhagic fever. Upon learning
about this herbal remedy, I was disappointed that I couldn’t find any
accessible published studies regarding tawa tawa tea, only anecdotal
stories. This is still valuable, but I must admit, as a westerner myself,
I also like to know how and why things work and tawa-tawa deserves to be
studied.

Still, I believe the benefits of herbal medicine are great from an
economic and health standpoint—they’re cheap, accessible and an effective
way to deliver medicine when the knowledge is there. On the other hand,
the western arguments against it are safety issues, such as toxicity
levels, quality and whether they really are effective to begin with.
Interestingly enough, these very same arguments can be used to question
the efficacy of modern drugs (e.g. are statins really safe and effective
in the long run?). At any rate, I think both western and herbal medicine
can learn a lot from each other. Herbal medicine can benefit from research
explaining its efficacy and western medicine can learn how to use herbal
medicine as a way to assist the body in healing itself vs. overcoming it,
or as Catherine described it “going after a problem with a sledgehammer.”
Most of our drugs are from plant derivatives anyway. The difference,
according to Niemiec is that “western medicine isolates the active
ingredient in certain plants and as a result, they’re potent, act quickly
and usually have side effects. They also tend to be tested on an adult
male population. Herbal medicine, on the other hand, is gentle, has no
side effects, has been tested and tried on everyone of all ages and sexes
in China, and, when the right diagnoses are made, the operative word being
‘right,’ it can help fight many health conditions.”

Mind-Body Connection
Finally, it seems fitting that I would end this blog on meditation. The
practice of Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine are robust because
of their holistic philosophy and aggregate wisdom. This is especially
apparent in their practice and awareness of the “mind-body connection.”
Ayurveda developed yoga and TCM, Qi gong. Both these techniques encourage
meditation through breathing and movement.

Probably the most valuable aspect of meditation is just doing it. Niemiec
simply describes meditation as a chance to just “stop and let it be.” As a
practice, meditation seems so simple, but it can also harness extremely
profound and powerful energy. Niemiec cites Qi Gong masters who are able
to block people from ten feet away just from their energy alone. And if
that doesn’t sound miraculous enough, she even talks about the ability of
Qi gong to reverse and redirect the DNA of cells. At PIHMA, Qi gong is
part of the curriculum and all students are encouraged to incorporate
meditation as part of their daily practice and I suspect, as a way to
teach their minds to heal. When I asked Niemiec how to meditate, she said
“We teach by doing and the more you do it, the easier it gets to return to
a place of balance.” That, I thought, was a perfect place to start.   Q&A
with Catherine Niemiec, Attorney, Acupuncturist, Herbalist and my wellness
leader.
Catherine was in law school at UC Hastings when she came down with a
serious flu she couldn’t shake off. After fruitless visits to her
physician, a nurse practitioner finally suggested that she see an
herbalist in Oakland. The practitioner didn’t speak any English, but
looked at her tongue and gave her an herbal tonic to drink. She felt
better instantly and that was her first introduction to Chinese Medicine.
Fast forward many years later, Catherine is now a licensed acupuncturist,
herbalist, co-author of Arizona’s licensed acupuncture law and founder and
president of Arizona’s first accredited acupuncture college, the Phoenix
Institute of Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture (PIHMA).

Stress, Detox and my Intro to Traditional Chinese Medicine, Part 1

Stress, Detox and my intro to Traditional Chinese Medicine
When I met with Catherine Niemiec, JD, L.Ac., founder and president of the
Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture, she was having an
acupuncture treatment done. She had some needles in her ear as a way to
decompress after a long day at work. She explained, “It’s the same
treatment they give for detox and in fact in Miami, Florida, the five
point protocol is mandated by the courts. Drug addicts have a choice,
acupuncture or jail.”  Catherine was referring to Miami Drug Court, which,
in 1990, was one of the first drug court models in the country to use
acupuncture as an adjunct therapy to substance abuse treatment for
first-time drug offenders.

As an interesting aside, the use of acupuncture to help with drug
withdrawals was a serendipitous discovery by Hong Kong neurosurgeon Dr.
Wen. In 1972, Dr. Wen used acupuncture (electrical stimulation of needles)
as anesthesia to treat some surgical patients. He gave patients
acupuncture treatments over a course of weeks prior to and during surgery.
Unbeknownst to Dr. Wen some of his patients were drug addicts. When the
patients later disclosed that they had lost their drug cravings during
acupuncture, Dr. Wen followed up with acupuncture treatments specifically
for opium and heroin addicts. News of Dr. Wen’s work lead another
physician, Dr. Smith from Lincoln Hospital in New York, to develop the
five point protocol, which is also called by those who developed it, the
“NADA protocol”

The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) website,
acudetox.com, provides the best explanation of the five-point or NADA
protocol, “The NADA protocol involves inserting tiny, sterilized needles
in 3 to 5 acupuncture points on each ear and retaining those needles for
up to 45 minutes to relieve withdrawal symptoms. It also relieves symptoms
of stress.”  In a separate pilot study, researcher L.C. Russell, et al 
attributed the procedure’s effectiveness for its ability to “reduce
cravings, anxiety and dysphoria of withdrawal in addicted patients.”
Russell even noted that some patients who completed their addiction
programs still returned for “boosters” to receive the stress reduction
benefit. For Catherine Niemiec, the NADA protocol was a way to help her
relax and be in the present. Niemiec explained the NADA protocol works on
the liver and the parasympathetic system. In Traditional Chinese Medicine
(TCM), the liver is associated with regulating the flow of energy. The
parasympathetic system plays a role in reducing heart rate and blood
pressure, thus, stilling the mind and calming the nerves. And that was how
Niemiec began my introduction to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

TCM is a comprehensive medical system that strives to maintain optimal
balance of Qi or energy in the body. Niemiec explained, “In Chinese
medicine, there are 5 main systems that create harmony in the body: water,
wood, fire, metal and earth.  Later, these systems were renamed after
organs: kidney, liver, heart, lung, spleen. Each organ corresponds with a
physiological function. For example, the earth or spleen is associated
with the digestive system. The spleen creates pure energy from impure
energy (food and drink). Where the stomach digests food for energy, the
spleen raises up the energy and builds blood and also works against the
effects of gravity by holding things up and containing blood in its
vessels.” Niemiec elaborated, not only are these five organs associated
with physiological function, but they are also associated with emotions.
“Chinese medicine takes emotions into account,” says Niemiec. In fact, in
TCM, emotions, environment (seasonal changes, weather, etc) food and
heredity are all considered when trying to restore balance. To do this,
practitioners use five different modalities: acupuncture, Chinese herbs,
body work (acupressure and Qi Gong) nutrition and meditation. Altogether,
Traditional Chinese Medicine is a holistic system that focuses on
optimizing a person’s well being.

AMCAS Letters Pilot Program

 

Applying to medical school this year and a bit confused about the new letter service program that AMCAS has instituted?  First of all, remember that it is a pilot program so AMCAS is going to be as flexible as possible with you.  In the future, it is safe to assume that all of the kinks in this system will be resolved which will make the submission process even easier.  Also, do your best not to over analyze the instructions because they are for the most part, straight forward.  And lastly, do not worry too much about how the Career Center will forward your letters because this pilot program has minimal impact on how your letters will be forwarded to AMCAS.  When in doubt, always contact either AMCAS or our Letter Service unit directly.

In a nutshell, AMCAS provides two options for you to submit your letters of recommendation:

Option #1

You can send all of your letters to AMCAS under the designation of “Letter Packet” which they will consider as “one letter”.  In choosing this option, you would only need to print out one AMCAS “Letter Request Form”.  All of your letters will be forwarded to every medical school that you apply to who are participating in this pilot program

Option #2

You can send individual letters to a medical school.  In choosing this option, you will need to attach the letter request form to each letter which will then be entered as individual letters.  AMCAS has communicated to the career center that they prefer option #1 over option #2 in order to help reduce the amount of forms received.

The Result:

Once you have decided which option to pursue, fill out the form(s) accordingly and forward it to us by fax, mail, email or in person.  The Letter Service will post your form(s) into your account.  When the form(s) are posted in your LETTERS section, you can then request for both form(s) and letters to be mailed to AMCAS in one packet via our online system.

For more information regarding the AMCAS letter pilot program, please visit their FAQ website: http://www.aamc.org/students/amcas/faq/amcaslettersfaq.htm

Good luck with applying to medical school this year!

AMCAS Application Workshop Tomorrow!

Presented by Cal Alumni Association & Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions
Sponsored by Sigma Mu Delta, Asian American Health Society, and Pre-Med Honors Society.
Tuesday, May 1st at 7pm
University of California, Berkeley, Alumni House

At Kaplan's Annual AMCAS Workshop we will work through the "nuts and bolts" of the Medical School Primary application process.  Included in our discussion, will be a step by step approach to the student profile, academic records, short answer questions, and an introduction to the personal statement.  We will also explore how the AMCAS application fits into your Medical School Admissions timeline.
Snacks and beverages will be provided!

Seating is limited, please register at www.kaptest.com/mcat for this once a year event.

Jose H. Olivas

Upcoming Event: Accepted to Medical School Panel

(Co-Sponsored with the Golden Key International Honour Society)

When: Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Time: 6: 00 PM to 7: 00 PM
Place: 2040 Valley Life Sciences

This panel is comprised of current undergraduate students who have been recently
admitted to a medical school. They will discuss the admissions process and what they
feel helped them to be a successful applicant.

Cast Your Net Wide: Med School Applications

Your  health team advisors have this to say (in unison):  Apply to many schools.  Not 40, unless you are really looking forward to filling out secondaries.  Not even necessarily 30 schools...but please, please, please...apply to more than 15.  Take our word for it, no matter how much you want to live in California, New York, or any other geographical location, do not discount other good schools (which take out-of-state applicants) just because they aren't in places to which you are automatically drawn.  A good range to aim for is 21-25.  No matter what your scores and grades look like, no matter how varied and interesting your activities, there is no guarantee that any one school will love you enough to grant you a sought after position; sometimes the schools you have little love for are the ones who will embrace you wholeheartedly; and all of these schools will make you a doc.  If you don't want to find yourself taking on "reapplicant" status just because you were being too choosy, then broaden your scope and cast that net widely, pre-meds!

English Requirement for Medical School

Here's a common question we're getting from students these days:  "I have only completed half of the one-year English requirement for some medical schools.  Would it be okay for me to take the other half at a community college?" 

The answer is yes.  Most medical schools aren't particularly concerned with where you completed your English requirement, whether or not they are even stringent about it to begin with.   If you are really nervous about this, call a few schools and ask.  Don't worry, they won't blacklist you for it. 

Rachel