Fast Track Facts:
The Clinical Scholars Grand Rounds Symposium is a great way to learn how to think like a doctor and present like a doctor while directly interacting with doctors!
It’s also a rare opportunity to win a research mentorship!
An Orthopedic Surgeon, an ENT, an Anesthesiologist, and a PharmD/MD Psychiatry resident walk into a room... and host the Clinical Scholars Grand Rounds Symposium!
The number of applications to this program has been incredible!
So today I want to pull back the curtain on exactly what the Clinical Scholars Grand Rounds Symposium is, specifically, who is on the panel, and why I think this experience can change the trajectory of your medical school applications.
I get emails every week from students asking for research opportunities, for shadowing, for someone who can write them a letter of recommendation based on something real.
And I want to say yes to all of you! I genuinely do. But I am one person with a surgical schedule and a family. I cannot be a 1-on-1 mentor to everyone who reaches out, not at the volume this community has grown to.
So I built the next best thing.
To give you access to the kind of clinical environment that actually teaches you how medicine thinks and to help improve your application at the same time.
The Clinical Scholars Grand Rounds Symposium is a hybrid, partially self-paced 5-week entirely virtual program where students build and present a real clinical Grand Rounds case to a panel of physicians and surgeons. Every student who completes it walks away with 6 certified clinical hours, a finalized presentation for their CV, live physician feedback on their clinical reasoning, and the option to request a letter of recommendation from the panel.
The top presenter wins something I think is even more valuable than any of that: a direct physician research mentorship, from project design all the way to a submission-ready abstract. With their name on it.
So get ready to meet the surgeons and doctors who will be evaluating your work!
MEET THE PANELISTS
DR. RUWAA SAMARRAI, MD OTOLARYNGOLOGY – HEAD & NECK SURGERY
I graduated medical school at 23 through the 7-year BA/MD program at Rutgers–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. I am a practicing otolaryngologist-head & neck surgeon. I have served on ranking and selection committees, which means I have sat on both sides of the table. I know what programs are looking for because I have helped decide who gets in.
I built Fast Track to MD because the information gap between students who accelerate and students who don't has nothing to do with intelligence. It has to do with access. This program is my attempt to close that gap in a way that is tangible, not theoretical.
DR. TARIQ RADWAN, MD/MBA ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY, HAND & UPPER EXTREMITY
Dr. Radwan holds an MD/MBA from the University at Buffalo and is a practicing orthopedic surgeon specializing in hand and upper extremity surgery. His dual training in medicine and business gives him a perspective most physicians don't have. He thinks about clinical decision-making through the lens of both surgical precision and strategic judgment.
Orthopedic surgery is one of the most competitive specialties in medicine. Dr. Radwan knows what it takes to stand out at every stage of the pipeline.
When he is evaluating your presentation, he is asking the same question every residency director asks: does this person think like a physician, or are they just reciting information?
DR. OMID ADABI, DO ANESTHESIOLOGY, UPMC
Dr. Adabi earned his DO from West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his anesthesiology residency within the UPMC system, where he is now a practicing anesthesiologist with over a decade of clinical experience.
Anesthesiologists are among the most rigorous clinical thinkers in medicine. Every case requires real-time physiological reasoning, rapid differential diagnosis, and the ability to manage uncertainty under pressure. Dr. Adabi brings that lens to the panel, and it is a lens that will challenge your clinical reasoning in exactly the way an adcom interview is designed to.
His presence also matters for another reason. He trained through a DO pathway and built a highly competitive career.
For students who are navigating BS/DO programs or wondering whether the DO pathway limits their options, Dr. Adabi is proof that it does not.
DR. MUSAB SAMARRAI, PHARMD/MD PSYCHIATRY, RUTGERS–RWJMS
Dr. Musab Samarrai holds both a PharmD and an MD, a combination that is genuinely rare. He is affiliated with Rutgers–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and has co-authored peer-reviewed research and contributed to pharmacy education as a co-author of a board exam study guide.
His dual training gives him a distinctive lens on clinical reasoning, drug therapeutics, and the diagnostic process that most panelists simply don't have. In psychiatry, the entire discipline is built on reasoning from incomplete information, pattern recognition, longitudinal thinking, and the ability to hold complexity without collapsing it into an oversimplification. That is exactly what Grand Rounds demands of a presenter.
WHAT GRAND ROUNDS ACTUALLY IS
Most premed students have heard the term Grand Rounds. Very few know what it actually involves.
Grand Rounds is the conference format physicians use to present complex cases to their colleagues. A surgeon, a resident, or a fellow stands in front of the department and walks through a patient case: the presentation, the workup, the differential diagnosis, the treatment decision, and the outcome. The audience asks questions. Hard ones. The presenter has to defend every choice with clinical reasoning and evidence from the literature.
It is one of the most demanding forms of clinical communication in medicine. It is also the format that adcoms notice when they see it on an application, because it signals something that shadowing logs and club memberships cannot: that this student has been inside medicine in a way that most students haven't.
In this program, each student learns to build their own Grand Rounds presentation over four weeks, guided by physician-designed modules. Then they present it live to the panel.
The feedback they receive is not generic. It comes from physicians who have stood at that podium themselves.
WHO THIS IS FOR
High school students and early undergrads who are building toward premedical or medical school routes. Students who already understand that shadowing alone is not enough. Students who are ready to put themselves in front of a clinical audience before the stakes are application-level.
You do not need prior research experience or a clinical background. The modules teach you everything you need to build and present a case from scratch. What you need is the willingness to do the work and show up.
The application is free. The first ten applicants receive Fast Track Foundations for free, whether selected or not (only a couple of spots left for this offer). Modules begin May 18. The deadline to apply is April 20.
This program was built by physicians and surgeons who know what it takes to get into medical school and beyond. They are now showing up for you. Don’t miss your chance to make your application stand out for medical school.
If you have been waiting for an opportunity to advance your premed CV, this is it.
— Dr. Samarrai
PS: Spots are capped by cohort size. If you're serious about this, apply for free today. The first ten applicants receive Fast Track Foundations regardless of acceptance outcome, and we are almost at capacity for that offer. Don't wait on this one.
This is a five-week program with the goal of guiding each student to build and present their own Clinical Grand Rounds Presentation.
For the first four weeks, students work through online modules designed by myself and other physicians to teach clinical thinking: how to analyze real patient cases, build a differential diagnosis, structure a treatment plan, and defend it with the literature. Each week a new module drops to guide them through the next section of their Grand Rounds presentation.
By the end of week four, every student has a complete, physician-informed Grand Rounds presentation.
Then they present it live. To an actual panel of physicians and surgeons, in a virtual Grand Rounds session.
The panel evaluates every presentation and delivers live verbal feedback and written commentary on their clinical reasoning and communication.
Every student who completes the program receives a certificate of six clinical hours, all remote and virtual, as well as the opportunity to request a letter of recommendation from the panelists based on how they performed.
The Grand Prize: The student who delivers the strongest presentation is selected for a direct physician research mentorship with one of the panelists, culminating in a submission-ready abstract.
Application and tuition
Applying is free. Spots are extremely limited so each student has the full time to present.
The first ten students to apply, whether selected or not, will receive free enrollment in Fast Track Foundations (normally worth $44.99).
This is an experience I wish had existed when I was building my own application.
Real clinical experience. Real physician feedback. A research opportunity that doesn't require a wet lab or a connection. A certificate for your CV that was earned from work in front of physicians who were actually evaluating you.
The application is free, but spots are limited. Apply today!