AOA Projects & Resources
AOA Pearls of Wisdom
Each year, AOA members create the AOA Pearls of Wisdom document as part of their mission to serve the UW medical school community. The document represents a compilation of their advice to fellow students about how to succeed in the pre-clinical years, in clerkships, and during the residency application time. The document represents AOA students’ opinions, and as such, may or may not resonate with your experience in medical school.
AOA Peer Mentoring
Let’s be honest, medical school can be hard – academically, physically, relationally, emotionally. Sometimes a little bit of wisdom and encouragement from those that have gone before you can be hugely helpful. With this in mind, the UW chapter of the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Medical Honor Society has developed a program that facilitates mentorship between MS4 AOA members and interested pre-clinical and early clinical students. There are many potential reasons to seek an AOA mentor. Maybe you want to talk with someone matching into a residency that you are interested in. Maybe you want to connect with someone who has done research as a medical student in order to learn more about how that works. Maybe you just want to chat about what it takes to be healthy and successful during this crazy journey.
In the late fall a short survey will be sent out for those that are interested in pairing up with an AOA mentor. Based on this survey data, we will then match you with an appropriate mentor and connect you two via email. For those located in different cities than their mentor they can connect via phone, Zoom, and email.
Specialty Videos
Every year, AOA works with its members to gather advice and insights in order you get more information about each specialty and how you can be the most competitive applicant for that specialty.
Now, we have a catalog video collection of information for different specialties that will help you in your career discernment process! Don’t see a particular sub-specialty represented, let us know by contacting us or SOM career advising. Check out the available videos below!
Link to YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChwOxdGTqvls26wK86h-NXw/videos?view_as=subscriber
2016-2018 Older Specialty Videos: https://mediasite.hs.washington.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/aoa
Student Medical School Advising Calendar
The Student Advising Calendar is a quarter-by-quarter guide to the four years of medical school complied from the perspective of AOA students. This guide is intended to help students think ahead and prepare for the important components required to graduate medical school and match in a residency program. For each quarter of medical school, there are words of advice as well as links to useful websites with information in terms of Research and Extracurricular Activities, Scheduling, Career Advising, Residency Apps, and Board Prep. The last page of the calendar includes a few key web resources which many students have found to be very helpful.
UW AOA Turkey Book App
“Don’t be a turkey!” was an old phrase that meant “Don’t be a fool, a coward, a chicken, inept, a failure…” When you have the Turkey Book with you, you won’t be any of these things! The Turkey Book, now an app, is a compilation of helpful hints, high-yield facts, and need-to-know introductions to many clinical topics that you will encounter in your clinical years of medical education. It can be used as a starting point, and/or to supplement other more exhaustive references.
Purchase from Google Play Store
Purchase from iTunes as iBook
About
The U Dub Scrub is a podcast run-by an awesome team of medical students at the University of Washington, and sponsored by the University of Washington Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA).
Goals
- #1 – Create a podcast of the students, by the students and above all for the students!
- Produce episodes featuring leaders from a variety of medical specialties, research and medical education to provide students with vital information and pearls to be successful in their journey towards a career medicine.
- Construct a space in which essential themes and topics existent in the world of medical training are discussed.
- Utilize an audio-based platform to share unique and diverse experiences and insights from UWSOM students, staff and admins.
- Promote connection and cohesion among all UWSOM students across WWAMI by facilitating greater access to information.
Episodes:
Episode 6: Out of Hospital Emergency Medicine with Dr. Fiona Gallahue
Our guest Dr. Fiona Gallahue, is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Program Director of the UW Emergency Medicine Residency Program. We sit down with Dr. Gallahue and discuss the basics of out of hospital emergency care. Dr. Gallahue gives us some tips on how to handle the dreaded in-flight medical emergency, what to do if you are ever involved in a cardiac arrest outside the hospital and some of the basic principles behind out of hospital triage. Enjoy!
Stream it on PodBean here
Episode 5: Interview with the legendary Dr. Hugh Foy
In this episode we sit down with Dr. Foy and talk about growing up on the Nebraska/Wyoming border, his brief stint in the Air Force and his journey to become a trauma, burn and critical care surgeon at Harborview. We also touched on some very interesting Harborview history, the challenges of being the Program Director at the UW Department of Surgery, Dr. Foy also shares some great advice for future surgeons and much much more!
Stream it on PodBean here
Episode 4: It’s contagious! A discussion with Dr. Paul Pottinger
We sit down with Dr. Paul Pottinger, infectious disease and tropical medicine specialist at the University of Washington for an engaging discussion about working in the field of infectious disease. We also get Dr. Pottinger’s advice on learning and clinical resources for using antibiotics, and what antimicrobial stewardship, the future of antimicrobial resistance and how we–as future medical professionals–can be good stewards! We also get to hear about Dr. Pottinger’s mountain climbing ‘hobby’, which includes summiting the tallest mountain on every continent!
Stream it on PodBean here
Episode 3: USMLE Step 1: Tips and Tricks
UW AOA Honor Society members Emilie Jacobsen, Caitlin Crimp, and Kate McNevin answer the commonly asked questions about Step 1. Discover how to prepare for one of the most important tests in your medical career from the students who scored within the top one third of their class. Learn about what the test is (1:33-2:51), the best resources (2:53-10:11), how to study for Step 1 (10:12-32:00), and more!
Stream it on PodBean here
Episode 2: From the interview trail: First-hand advice from UW AOA members on interviewing for residency
Hear from AOA members in the midst of the 2018-2019 application year! We sit down with Ryan Dodge (ophthalmology), Justinn Lahaye (EM), Widya Adidharma (plastics), Sara Schafer (gen surg), Caitlin Crimp (derm) and Kate McNevin (gen surg) on all the tips and tricks in applying, interviewing and matching to residency! We discuss everything from the dreaded ERAS application (2:22), scheduling interviews (4:35) and making travel arrangements (7:22), preparing for the interview (14:57), ranking strategy (16:16) and much much more!
Stream it on PodBean here
Episode 1: An interview with Dr. Doug Paauw, Director of the IM Clerkship
For our first episode we interviewed Dr. Doug Paauw the Clerkship Director for the Internal Medicine Clerkship at UWSOM (since 1991!). Tune-in to hear tips for success in the internal medicine clerkship (including oral case presentation skills), recommendations for medical students interested in a career in IM and an all around inspiring discussion of the incredible journey we take as medical students!
Stream it on PodBean here
Follow us on Twitter!
@theudubscrub
Want to get involved or to submit episode ideas!
We want you to tell us what topics you want to hear about and who you want to hear from! Or do you want to be involved in joys and challenges of the podcast-making experience? No prior podcasting experience is required, just contact Ashley Russell russea@uw.edu with your ideas or for more information about how to be involved!
Visiting Professorship
Every year, schools with an active AOA chapter are eligible to invite a visiting professor from another institution to speak about a topic of their choosing. This initiative aims to encourage clinicians to participate in new opportunities to educate students, residents and fellow clinicians. The visiting professor spends one full day of teaching and interacting with students, residents, and faculty. Additionally, the visiting professor is awarded a $1,500 honorarium by the national AOA for their election.
University of Washington AOA is proud of the incredible achievements, both within and outside of medicine, of the recent visiting professors. This year, we are honored and humbled to welcome:
2023 – TBD
Visiting Professors from Previous Years:
- 2022 – Dr. Celine Gounder
- 2021 – Dr. Madeline Deutsch
- 2020 – Dr. Holly Humphrey
- 2019 – Dr. James O. Woolliscroft
- 2018 – Dr. Eve Higgenbotham
- 2017 – Dr. Wiley “Chip” Souba
- 2016 – Dr. Maxine Papadakis
- 2015 – Dr. Ruth-Marie “Rhee” Fincher
- 2014 – Dr. Bill Foege