How Atlantis Prepared Me for Medical School Interviews
Ally Limmer, a 2015 Atlantis Fellow in Spain, shares her experience on an Atlantis program and how it helped her prepare for med school interviews.
“So, what are your thoughts regarding the status of healthcare in the United States?”
This is the question asked by almost every interviewer with whom I have had the pleasure to interact. I never thought that traveling to Spain to spend a couple of weeks shadowing various specialty areas in a public hospital would give me the perfect answer to this historically-stumping question.
My name is Ally Limmer, and I graduated in the spring of 2016 with a Bachelors of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology as well as a Bachelors of Arts in Spanish from Rhodes College. I have been hitting medical interviews hard since August and have yet to go through an interview without mentioning my Fellowship experience through Atlantis in Albacete, Spain. Being proficient in Spanish, traveling to Spain had obvious pros in my mind. And intending a future in medicine, shadowing physicians abroad almost had more appeal.
Not only have I made connections with multiple interviewers who happen to be from Europe and even Spain specifically, but I now have the perfect answer to the question that most candidates dread: the healthcare-judgment question.
What continues to amaze me is the practical, useful experience I gained from flying across the Atlantic. Not only have I made connections with multiple interviewers who happen to be from Europe and even Spain specifically, but I now have the perfect answer to the question that most candidates dread: the healthcare-judgment question.
This question is hard both because it deals with a topic that is inherently polarizing between political parties and because it practically asks interviewees to share their opinion.
So is this question a trap? My time in Spain has made it so that I can actually smile when I hear this question since I can now compare the United States’ predicament with the European public health system that is in full swing.
I have seen the pros and the cons first-hand. I have shadowed a plastic surgeon who does zero cosmetic procedures and have watched patients walk in and not be haggled about insurance. I have never once regretted taking that flight.
