<p>Beliavsky, the most competitive and hard to get residency right now is dermatology… and even seasoned dermatologists will tell you that this in no way reflects the sophistication and amount of medical knowledge that an aspiring dermatologist must have vs. an ENT, OB/GYN, etc.</p>
<p>You really get hung up on the most bizarre statistics sometimes.</p>
<p>And don’t opt for a dermatologist to do your next pulmonary procedure, even if one had higher USMLE scores than the other.</p>
<p>Would it help you, Beliavsky, if we all posted our own SAT scores and IQs (and maybe salaries too) so you can decide which of our opinions are worth listening to and how much weight you should assign to each? Granted, we may have to use the old-school 1600 scale, but nonetheless.</p>
<p>PG, you have to put warnings on those posts! I just spit all over my keyboard.</p>
<p>That’s a super thread. Not to be interpreted superficially. Major sheesh. People outside certain professions or experiences should not be so quick to assign themselves authority.</p>
<p>It is NOT "I link, therefore I am right. "</p>
<p>It appears that some CC members would like to know their physicians’ GPA, (high school, college and med school), SAT scores (including SAT II’s) MCAT scores, class rank (hs, college and med school), and USMLE scores prior to having their rash of unknown origin treated.</p>
<p>Life would be so much simpler if we all had those things tattoeed across our foreheads, wouldn’t it? Yes, things like hard work, compassion, gratitude, humility, intellectual curiosity count for nothing in Bel’s world.</p>
<p>I’m afraid to ask how he found his spouse: was there a specific height / weight, beauty, IQ, and salary requirement? What if her percentage of gray hairs goes too high or she gains 10 pounds or decides she’d rather work at a lower-paying job than what she has? Ruh-roh.</p>
<p>Beliavsky, you’ll note that on that thread, a poster said something which is very true:
“Another extremely important point is that what matters to a particular program can be extremely dependent on the program director and the culture of that program.”</p>
<p>My spouse’s residency director, for example, cared very much for how the person presented himself or herself in an interview. And, as he himself was a very privileged, wealthy man (from an old-school Southern genteel family), he cared a lot for evidence that the applicant thought about and did things for others beyond themselves (whether those things were medical in nature or not). Of course he wanted smart people, but that wasn’t all there was.</p>
<p>In the normal world, people take all kinds of things into account when “judging” other people. (Why, one might call it holistic in nature!) It is only in an odd, bizarre world that the only thing one considers are test scores (and even odder when the other thing to be considered is “how well did your parents do”). You might try visiting this world sometimes. I shudder to think how you come across in the real work world with these attitudes. Do you treat the secretary with disdain because she doesn’t have a fancy IQ or fancy degree?</p>
<p>When dh interviews MD/PhD students for his lab, he’s often taken aback that the ones with great scores, don’t show any evidence of being smart when he starts asking about their research experience. It’s not all about numbers.</p>
<p>From upthread, but I’m just catching up: I believe the reason so many freshman (at MIT & elsewhere) fail physics is because they never had to apply it in high school. So much of learning today is memorizing formulas. </p>
<p>And the math curriculum has had it’s problems as well. [Where’s</a> the Math? | Working to ensure a quality mathematics education in Washington State](<a href=“http://wheresthemath.com%5DWhere’s”>http://wheresthemath.com)
This was started because UW professors were so very tired of their engineering students inability to pass their math courses.</p>
<p>"It appears that some CC members would like to know their physicians’ GPA, (high school, college and med school), SAT scores (including SAT II’s) MCAT scores, class rank (hs, college and med school), and USMLE scores prior to having their rash of unknown origin treated. "</p>
<p>Lot of medical schools are headed to satisfactory/non satisfactory scale. So many may not have a GPA in future.</p>
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<p>Some may feel very discomfited by concepts such as “cultural fit” as they have been used as code by those in the majority to discriminate against individuals from disfavored races, ethnicities, and religions/creeds. </p>
<p>Considering the history in this and many other parts of the world…this concern cannot be lightly dismissed. </p>
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<p>Not specifically referring to your spouse, but in the abstract general.</p>
<p>However, one thing to think about is that some folks who hold such variants of noblisse oblige expectations for others fail to realize that their expectations may need to be adjusted according to the socio-economic and cultural circumstances of the individuals being evaluated. </p>
<p>Moreover, I’ve observed instances where failure of taking such allowances was deliberate and meant to slight those who didn’t grow up in that socio-cultural milieu and/or have the means to demonstrate it to the satisfaction of the one who is essentially a classist snob. </p>
<p>What can be expected for a student/candidate from a comfortably upper-middle class family from a well-off part of New Jersey or the Upper East Side may be quite a tall order or an impossibility for someone from a poor/working-class/lower-middle class inner-city or rural family struggling to make ends meet to the point the kid’s spare time is taken working part-time to contribute to the family’s basic living expenses.</p>
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<p>Throwing away information in this way (setting an A equal to a C) disturbs me.</p>
<p>Many of the top medical schools have been on a pass/fail or similar variant for many years.</p>
<p>For example,
[The</a> Yale System > Admissions | Medical Education | Yale School of Medicine](<a href=“http://medicine.yale.edu/education/admissions/education/yalesystem.aspx]The”>http://medicine.yale.edu/education/admissions/education/yalesystem.aspx)</p>
<p>Omg, cobrat. No. Presentation, professional appearance and demeanor- and service- are valued and emphasized in Med school today. As is diversity. And sensitivity. It’s professional training.</p>
<p>I think that cobrat makes really good points in #591.</p>
<p>For those who are not acquainted with me from other threads, the comment about the Nobel Prize was a joke. As was ice-9.</p>
<p>When I was a grad student, I served as a TA equivalent for a small group of students who were attending a “drink from the firehose” type of undergrad institution. Many of them could handle it. Some of them got splattered, but emerged ok. About 20% of the students could not handle the speed, and I think would have learned more at an institution where the classes were a bit easier (not far down the scale, just a bit). The group was culturally homogeneous. </p>
<p>I don’t know about the situation at MIT in this regard. Pizzagirl, do you have any direct acquaintances whose experiences would bear on this issue? You said that all of the students at MIT were better off than if they had gone to a strong flagship.</p>
<p>If I understand correctly Yale med school may have started this trend.</p>
<p>Is it possible that they believe true learning is reflected by their USMLE scores?</p>
<p>Not the MIT thing again!
Wish it cd go offline.</p>
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<p>Well, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the kinds of values that don’t have cultural norms associated with them. Like kindness, compassion, humility, gratitude and a sense of wanting to give back to others who are less fortunate. But feel free to twist the topic into something completely off-topic.</p>
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<p>Oh please. We are not talking about “oh, Rupert, dahling, did you write a $10,000 check to the Metropolitan Opera like I asked you to?” We are talking about demonstrating compassion towards and interest in people who may be less privileged. Of wanting to enter medicine with a servant’s heart and wanting to truly help people, as opposed to a I-hear-you-can-make-lots-of-money mindset. That is absolutely something that anyone of ANY cultural / socioeconomic background can demonstrate, cobrat. And no, this gentleman didn’t need to “adjust his filter.” If anything, more people needed to have a filter like his.</p>