Extracurriculars

Each year, the first-year class puts together several short videos highlighting life as a medical student at WashU: the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Student directed, produced, and edited videos are debuted to the class, faculty, and administrators on Class Show night, which always proves to be a memorable event. Past videos have included WashU-versions of Mean Tweets, music video parodies, and Carpool Karaoke, starring your very own classmates and even some of your favorite faculty and staff.

As someone who went here for undergrad and decided to come back for medical school, I’ve really enjoyed WashU and St. Louis. I think my decision to come here has been one of the best I’ve made. In light of that, I decided to become an Editor-in-Chief of the Dis-O Guide to show what the student experience is like here, with the hope of helping prospective students make this important decision. As Editor-in-Chief, I’ve gotten to learn so much more about my classmates and have gained new insights about the school from the deans themselves, while also learning valuable leadership and organizational skills. Overall, it’s been an amazing experience, and I would definitely do it again!

I thought age 24 was too old to pick up musical theatre as a new hobby … and then I came to WashU. Each year, the med school puts on a full-length Broadway musical cast entirely of students in the MD, PhD, OT, PT, and AuD programs. The time commitment is manageable — three hours once/week — and while prior music or dance experience is helpful, everyone who auditions is guaranteed a part. You can also get involved by playing in the pit orchestra, building the set, or making costumes. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

One might not initially expect St. Louis to be densely populated by Spanish speakers. However, step no further than Cherokee Street in the city or El Morelia Supermarket in the county to find a bustling Hispanic community. A great way to interact with this community is to volunteer either as a medical interpreter or community worker. Perhaps the most streamlined way to get involved with the Spanish-speaking community is to contact the Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA), which has a volunteer coordinator who organizes several volunteer opportunities. For example, LMSA performs health screenings at El Torito, a grocery store on Cherokee Street. Another rewarding experience is to volunteer as a medical interpreter at Casa de Salud, a medical clinic serving those who are underinsured and uninsured in the Latino community. I have been an interpreter at Casa de Salud since 2014 and have found it very rewarding to facilitate interactions between patients and their providers. Whatever your interest with the Spanish-speaking community is, reach out to other classmates or upperclassmen who are involved to see how you can get involved yourself!

I never expected St. Louis, of all places, to be fertile ground to start a new company — but now I’m doing that through Sling Health! Sling is a startup incubator funded by WashU that provides access to local mentors, the Cortex (a large hackerspace replete with whiteboards, free coffee and food, and conference rooms), and a bit of funding to get your medical startup idea off the ground. It’s a great interdisciplinary experience that lets you meet many people outside of medicine — business students, undergrads, people from the College of Pharmacy, and even Saint Louis University students! It also provides the right structure to keep you on pace and disciplined enough to keep your forward momentum. You can either lead a project or join one, depending on what you want to work on, but Sling takes you through a full cycle from ideation to demoing a product.

Even though I plan to practice clinical medicine, working in an entrepreneurial context has greatly improved my leadership, communication, and organizational skills. You will use all of those skills in leading a care team. And if you do decide to make the leap into entrepreneurial medicine, Sling is a great place to start.