True for a surgeon to whom a patient is more like a broken car to be fixed. For a non-surgeon “healing” rather than “fixing” is the center where team work with the patient is key. Patients may come from all walks of life and to partner with them requires deep understanding. A person competing fiercely through schools all his/her life may lack the exposure to other human conditions.
It used to be in the US that law school did not require a bachelor’s degree as a prerequisite. The earlier Governor Brown of California (father of the current Governor Brown of California) could not afford to attend college as an undergraduate, but eventually earned a law degree at an evening law school. That probably influenced his push as governor to emphasize affordability for students from lower income families in California’s public colleges and universities.
This may be a moot point as the combined programs are very very competitive…
A typical student would have:
Very high academic achievement. Taking most demanding courses available and
has mostly As. Testing in the mid to
high 700s on each section of the SAT or at least a 32/33 on ACT.
Excellent involvement in extracurriculars, well rounded, and significant
leadership roles.
Significant exploration of the field of medicine, such as volunteering,
shadowing, research, or some combination of those.
Has your daughter done that?
But if she gets accepted…I would say it is her choice!
I’m a graduate of a 6 year BS/MD program over 30 years ago. I’ve always regretted my abbreviated college career. While I have no regrets about my chosen profession, I have no doubt that I would have been accepted to medical schools after a traditional 4 year collegiate experience. I missed out on the opportunity to travel abroad among other things. I did minor in history, but I would have enjoyed taking a variety of other courses.
Thankfully, the 6 year programs have vanished. The attrition rate was too high (50% in my program) and most schools recognized that it was detrimental to many students to have them cram college into just those two years. We went year round and completed two semesters of organic chemistry in 10 along with two semesters of physics our first summer.
I think the 7 and 8 year programs are a reasonable option for those high school students who are 100% sure about medicine. Personally, I never wanted to do anything else. My only caveat is that if you are qualified to get into one of these programs, you would very likely succeed at any college and get into medical school via the traditional pathway.
If cost is a factor, as another poster mentioned, students who would get accepted into one of these programs would likely be offered significant scholarships at many undergraduate schools. If cost is not a factor, these student would likely get into most any school they wanted (I turned down Stanford).
When we started looking at local BS/MD programs in our area, we were very enthusiastic about them initially. It seemed like a great option. But the more we educated ourselves, the less convinced we have become.
Three issues stick out in my mind
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The local BS/MD programs we looked at had less than stellar BS options linked to them, in terms of overall student selectivity to the general program, reputations, rigorous academics etc. It looked like they were trying to cherry pick 20-30 extremely high stats kids into their undergraduate college that they would otherwise never have attracted or convinced to matriculate. This meant that the overall undergraduate experience for the first 3 years would be less than rewarding at these schools. After all you wouldn’t be interacting just with those 20-30 students during those 3 years
-
When we really looked at our motivations closely, it seemed more like a risk mitigation strategy, but when we thought about it a little more, it seemed to us that if our kid could get into one of these programs, then he/she could probably also get into medical schools via the normal path, unless we feared that our child was peaking at high school and would only go downhill from there. When we looked at it that way, we felt that we were actually selling our child short and sending a wrong message. Also what did it say about our parenting style that we feared that once our kid left our home, he/she would just unravel academically? Exploring this issue further, led to some interesting and sometimes unrelated conversations with our child, so just looking at this closely raised our consciousness as parents quite a bit
-
Obviously, if the child changed her mind, this option would not look so good, because the BS degree then became important and unfortunately, attending a mediocre school ( very few of the local programs, were affiliated with strong state flagships or strong private schools) would limit the child’s option for grad school etc. Some part of the choice of picking a school in my opinion is about signalling information about the kid’s academic potential and gravitas to the outside world and none of these schools were really capable of sending any strong message about the kid’s academic capabilities, because the general population had much poorer stats and achievement compared to the BS/MD crowd. If you did not exit into medical school, then exiting out with the general pool with a regular BS degree meant that you typically had poorer alum networks to rely on, less than stellar college reputation, etc.
Now we are wondering if saving a year and taking on a little less risk (in terms of admission to medical school) is worth the potential downside. Our kid was never too enamored with this option to start with, but was not totally against it either.
We still have some time to make this decision, but as of now, our child is leaning towards the regular route.
Off track, but I have to answer this:
The assumptions here (not just @ucbalumnus --his just echoes the usual stance) are some of the reasons medicine is not what it could be. So this was my H’s path
- double majored in philosophy and bio, had enough credits almost for an English major as well. Never worried about GPA (but did have a stellar one.) Minor study for MCATs. mostly his knowledge for them came out of his actual, you know, learning. Had to work through college, no time for pre-med ECs.
- Took out huge loans (by the time interest accrued throughout deferments, close to 100K, 30 years ago.) Did NOT choose lucrative specialty. Not his style. Went low-paying in the trenches instead.
- years in residency, just barely keeping current with huge loans. YES.
- did public health, comparatively low paying work--lived frugally (not the usual "doctor" life) to pay off huge loans. No chasing of the money.
- Staying frugal, sent kids to college.
- Quit medicine. :)
@garland – Thank you for this post. There are many who choose a different path – like your H – and are to be admired. No doubt it is a grind to get into Medical School (and pay for it). But I am quite certain that there are as many different stories on the paths taken. For example, those who serve in the Military or in under-served areas so they don’t pile up debt and also “give back”.
Finally – it seems that items 1-6 are more of an indictment of how our medical and education systems train and prepare our health care professionals. I am sure those in the “pipeline” would love to change many of these shortcomings.