<p>And I don’t know how many Med students have jobs while in ms. I don’t know.</p>
<p>Imo pg made a nice point about presentation and compassion and y’all just jumped at the chance to tear it apart.</p>
<p>A friend of mine was an undergraduate at Wellesley and took a required course there called “Gracious Living.” It has since been dropped from the curriculum. But I suspect that aside from learning how soon to send the thank-you notes for the weekend in the Hamptons and on what sort of paper they should be written, self-presentation was part of the package.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl led off with the statement about the residency director caring “very much for how the person presented himself or herself in the interview.” This was followed by a statement that he himself was “very privileged, wealthy (from an old-school Southern genteel family”). Perhaps you were not made uncomfortable by this opening, but cobrat and I were.</p>
<p>The issue of whether someone thinks about others, and is actively involved in helping others, especially those most in need of help, is quite separate in my mind from the issue of self-presentation. </p>
<p>I am willing to grant that PG may have intended that the focus be on the evidence of what the person was doing for others, and how the person thought about it–just didn’t come across that way to me.</p>
<p>If I gave the impression that this man was looking for people exactly like him in cultural background, that’s not at all what I intended to convey. He was, absolutely, looking for people who had that servant’s heart, who approached medicine from the standpoint of genuinely wanting to help and serve others. That, of course, crosses all socioeconomic and cultural lines, and can be found in the inner-city kid who hard-scrabbled his way through school just as much as it can be found in the kid who summered in the Hamptons and wintered in Aspen.</p>
<p>QM, my D is at Wellesley. Trust me, there is no Gracious Living on the curriculum :-)</p>
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<p>Aren’t they trying to measure compassion and empathy by changing the MCAT? What’s your opinion of that?</p>
<p>Google it and share</p>
<p>This discussion is interesting. If someone wish to become rich from his career, it is alright. People come from different back ground and maybe financial stability is something his family never had. If I were to become a doctor, the reason for doing this is not because I care about my patient, it is because I care about their disease. If I spend sp many years in medical school I want to be able to fully understand how certain disease work and come up with a solution. U don’t need to be a people person to become a doctor. I will be like Dr House.</p>
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I’d respect an aspiring plastic surgeon who admits he chose his specialty in part for financial reasons more than someone who insults my intelligence by pretending that money had nothing to do with it. In general, people do go into medicine in part because it pays well. I don’t expect doctors to be saints.</p>
<p>Personally, I wish to be a doctor in part because it promises a comfortable lifestyle. I don’t need anything lavish, just some stability.</p>
<p>^Wait a minute. You said you wished you were a STEM person. If you are NOT a STEM person how will you be a doctor? Or is the wishing to be a doctor just wishful thinking?</p>
<p>It is possible to do pre-med with a non-STEM major, although the pre-med courses in chemistry, biology, physics, and math need to be taken.</p>
<p>English and history come easily, however, the sciences are more interesting to me so I prefer them. I’ll probs major in Bio.
=￣ω￣=</p>
<p>alexisss, no problem not majoring in STEM. My D majored in Classics and is doing just fine in medschool.</p>
<p>^Oh, but I absolutely love Biology!
<em>^▁^</em> Took lots of science classes in hs and I looooved them.</p>
<p>Regarding non-STEM pre-med majors, my pediatrician was a history major at an LAC. </p>
<p>Also, he and everyone I knew who went through the med school admission process or was associated with it has said non-STEM pre-meds actually get a slight favorable tip in med school admissions because majoring in a non-STEM field does make you stand out in an applicant pool of mostly natural sciences pre-med majors…especially bio. </p>
<p>This factor caused several of them to strongly encourage me to join the great pre-med slugfest during college. I rightfully decided to take a pass considering vivid visions of being subjected to endless malpractice suits. </p>
<p>Come to think about it…my being an MD would probably only work if there was actually a market for doctors like Steve Martin’s dentist character in Little Shop of Horrors.</p>
<p>There are soft factors which are helpful to being a good doctor, good employee, or good roommate. In practice, though, I’ve seen enough people with aggressive personalities and relatively less qualifications get selected for schools. It’s almost like once you select for soft factors, they end up select for BS artists who are self-promoters. This is the source of at least some of my cynicism.</p>
<p>If one is going to select for soft factors, I would prefer if those soft factors were indirectly evaluated by one’s peers. That is, the class president or student council president obviously needs to be somewhat liked by their peers. Or the captain of the sports team or academic team needs to gain the respect of their peers. Alternatively, one’s recs could communicate that the person is conscientious.</p>
<p>Yes, I value soft factors, but not used car salesman personalities.</p>
<p>People throw around the word “arrogant” here. As I’ve said before, there are two types of arrogance. One is to expect to be chosen if you have more relevant skills and accomplishments than others. Another form of arrogance is to think you should have a good chance to be chosen relative to those who are more skilled/accomplished than yourself just because you are, to use Pizzagirl’s phrase, some kind of “special snowflake” with an undescribable je ne sais quoi. </p>
<p>With regard to being a doctor, if you really cared about your future patients, wouldn’t you be trying to be an outstanding student in school, not just a good or great one?</p>
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<p>This won’t help in stemming the tide of BS artists. If anything, the above proposal would have the opposite effect as many BS artists excel at being extroverted personalities with the gift of gab, charm, and the inclination to network seamlessly like a social butterfly. How do you think politicians, marketing/sales folks, PR, lawyers, corporate executives, and more get into and maintain their careers? </p>
<p>Moreover, having a system which demands one to be concerned about how one is perceived by peers also encourages a form of self-aggrandizement contrary to humility, spirit of service, and concern for others. This is one reason why I am a bit skeptical of the exceedingly high degree such traits/evaluations are used as proof of “leadership qualities” in US society. </p>
<p>It will also screen out introverts and those who don’t have highly socially competitive personalities, but who may have the humility, spirit of service, concern for others, compassion/empathy, and more that’s critical to having a good bedside manner and a doctor with a patient-centered focus/concern in a holistic sense.</p>
<p>Being in sales is likely easier for an introvert, but being in marketing isn’t. People often conflate the two. In any case, introversion isn’t incompatible with great leadership skills.</p>
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<p>But at one point, it is what it is – X symptoms mean Y disease and Z treatment plan, and you needn’t be the smartest doctor in med school to recognize that and deal with it.</p>
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<p>If “everyone” majors in non-STEM to get a slight favorable tip because it stands out, then it won’t stand out. This is reminiscent of Yogi Berra’s line about how this restaurant is so crowded, nobody goes there anymore.</p>
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<p>Oh goodness, no! Half the time the class president or student council president are just winners of the latest popularity contest. I have to confess, if I were an adcom, I’d probably harbor a bit of a bias against them.</p>
<p>Luckily, my comments to follow on “self-presentation” appear to be still somewhat relevant to the discussion. (Otherwise, I was going to threaten to return to MIT as a topic, if anyone objected.)</p>
<p>I have observed the following modes of non-verbal self-presentation among my students:
Multiple piercings. Eyebrow, nose, lip, and tongue piercings still make me very uncomfortable, really.
Mohawks.
Really spiky mohawks.
On women.
Crewcuts on women.
Pink, blue, or green sections of hair. On men, all the hair in one of those colors.
Long artificial nails, with elaborate and very artistic patterns. Quite pretty, really.
Flashy earrings on a straight male, not joining a fraternity.
Jeans hitting below the hip-bone.</p>
<p>Admittedly, the junior pre-meds that I teach are less likely to be sporting these than either the freshmen or the grad students.</p>
<p>Also, I imagine that during med school, when the importance of “professional self-presentation” is emphasized, these modes are discouraged. (Why, though, really, if not class prejudice?)</p>
<p>Somehow, I cannot imagine Pizzagirl’s very wealthy, courtly Southern gentleman from an old, genteel family reacting well to any of them, if observed on someone interviewing for a residency. lookingforward, if I am guilty of stereotyping anyone, it’s the Southern gentleman. Perhaps he was actually broad-minded enough to look beyond the surface impressions.</p>