Advice to bioengineering graduates applying to medical school

The new medical triple threat is a clinician-technologist-entrepreneur.

Instead of research, teaching, and patient care, we should be recruiting for leadership, biomedical entrepreneurship, edupreneurship and innovation. But, before we can, the search committees need to understand the differences between one and the other.

In other words, we need leaderpreneurs.

Leadership is the process of providing vision, direction, and inspiration.

Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity with scarce, uncontrolled resources under conditions of uncertainty with the goal of the creating user defined value through the deployment of innovation using a VAST business model with the goal of achieving the sextuple aim.

Innovation is the process of creating something new or using it in a new way that results in at least 10x the customer defined value when compared to the competitive offering or the status quo.

Can physician-technologists-entrepreneurs and engineers transform sick care into healthcare, the Triple Threat 3.0?

Bioengineering graduates typically have four basic career objectives: 1) become a medical doctor, 2) work in industry, 3) get an academic appoint doing research, development and teaching 4) pursue alternate entrepreneurial roles, e.g. in venture capital or entrepreneurial finance, or creating their own companies.

If you are a bioengineering graduate interested in applying to medical school, consider:

1. While more applicants to medical school have computer science and engineering majors, most have life science majors. Applicants to medical school in 2023 reached an all-time high. The number plateaued in 2024 so it remains to be seen what will happen in future years given the burdens of increasing student debt and the rapid corporatization of the sick care industry.
2. Members of medical school admissions committees are slow to change who they select. It is a culture highly resistant to change so you will have to adapt and check the requisite boxes.
3. Do your research. Many newly created MD and DO schools are more accepting of applicants with non-traditional backgrounds. For example, the Carle School of Medicine claims to be the first engineering-based college of medicine.
4. Be sure you understand and practice how to give a winning performance at the interview theater.
5. There is not enough data to confirm that having a biomedical degree is a competitive advantage when applying to medical school
6. Medical students have 2 top of mind objectives: passing tests to graduate and getting the residency of their choice. Most medical school curriculums teach to the test and forget the rest to comply with highly structured accreditation compliance requirements.
7. The rules have changed. Adapt or find something else to do.
8. The majority of graduating residents eventually practice where they trained.
9. In many instances, if you are interested in biomedical entrepreneurship, geography is destiny so choose your residency carefully.
10. Follow the 6Rs of career planning and transitioning.
11. Learn the hidden curriculum, particularly how to sell and the soft skills
12. Always have Plan B. There is no guarantee that you will get accepted, that you will graduate, that you will get the residency of your choice, that you will complete that residency, that you will pass your boards, or that you will practice clinical medicine for most of your professional career to pursue non-clinical career opportunities.
13. How to close the doctor-data scientist-engineer gaps
14. Strategies for leading medical professional AI education, training and development: closing the gaps
15. How to tell if a medical student applicant has an entrepreneurial mindset

Good luck in whatever path you choose, including the ones less traveled.

The truth be TOLD, you will need it.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack