Alumni create site with guidance for pre-med students
By Kanav Saraf
Feb. 11, 2013 11:57 p.m.
Pre-medical students in the midst of application season have a new resource started by two UCLA alumni to help guide the students in their pursuit of a medical degree.
Daniel Lee and Edward Chang, who both graduated in 2012, started the website in November to give advice to students hoping to get into medical school.
The website, ProspectiveDoctor.com, publishes free content and resources on a regular basis to help pre-medical students in their journey as they apply to medical school, including articles giving advice, a “chance predictor” for estimating the likelihood of getting accepted to medical school and a forum for asking questions.
Lee and Chang met as freshmen at UCLA while Lee was studying math and economics and Chang was studying molecular and cellular developmental biology. “(Chang) was one of the smartest people I knew,” Lee said.
When he was a third-year, Lee wanted to start a business to help people, like pre-medical students, achieve their dreams and goals.
He said UCLA has a lot of pre-medical students and wanted them to be more informed about what it takes to get into medical school.
After graduating, he started the company Career Dean, LLC comprised of people who aim to create websites like ProspectiveDoctor.com.
Lee hired Chang to answer student questions and to write content for the website, which was Career Dean’s first project.
“Based on my personal experience, a lot of my (pre-medical) friends expressed their frustration about not being able to get good and reliable information (on the Internet),” Chang said.
In one article he discusses the potential advantages of being an Emergency Medical Technician.
The website also includes information about medical specialties, like emergency medicine and cardiology.
Yara Badrakhan, vice president of the American Medical Student Association UCLA chapter and a fourth-year biology student said she thinks the salary comparison feature is something many pre-medical students may find useful.
She added that the timeline feature, which tells students what extracurriculars they should pursue before applying to medical school, also helps students stay on track each year.
“There was a lot of information I didn’t know before, and the website does a really good job of explaining it,” said Allan Kim, a third-year psychobiology student at UCLA.
He said he visits the website every day to stay updated on medical school admissions.
Kim said he particularly looks forward to more information about changes in the medical school admission process, such as the new MCAT rules.
Jose Palomares, a fourth-year neuroscience student who is pursuing a career in medicine, said he hopes the website will give more information about what it is like to be a doctor.
“You can get good things out of (such websites) if you don’t overwhelm yourself,” Palomeras said.
But at the same time, he said he takes the information with a grain of salt.
“It’s not always good to look around and compare yourself to other people because every candidate is unique,” he said.
In the future, Lee and Chang said they want to develop a larger medical and pre-medical community.
They said they hope to get more doctors, medical students and people at all stages in their careers to both post and answer questions on the website.
