How hard is it to get into medical school?

@planner03

One more thing, the GPA usually gets bumped up in the Jr. and Sr. years. The kid you know must have reached GPA 3.4 to be offered a position in Lecom. I think he would make closed to the Lecom Average 3.5 cGPA and 3.4 sGPA after all. The waiver of Mcat is a big plus. Nevertheless, it takes courage to participate in a BS/DO program.

https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/do-schools-mcat-and-gpa-scores.1269154/

IMHO, this kid is not a “bad” student, it just does not meet “the CCer’s” eye as all of them(eg, iwbb and WoWm’s Ds) look so superior. As we know, not every doctor is HMS quality.

@artloversplus awwwwwwww! Stop it!! :">

@arloversplus You have repeatedly missed my point. I never mentioned the student’s college gpa–I have only referred to his high school record and the nonselective undergraduate college he attends. I don’t know his college gpa, but he is doing well there, although not a 4.0. (Of course it certainly doesn’t take much to get a good gpa there, or a 4.0 for that matter, which a high percentage of graduates achieve. As repeatedly discussed on CC it is only the number, not the quality of the gpa that matters) What I have been trying to convey all along is that this is an average kid, attending an average college, and he has been given at least the opportunity to become a Dr.

The reason I originally posted was to highlight for the OP that there is more than one route to becoming a Dr. Although anecdotal, you do not necessarily have be a great student, attend a name college, get a 4.0 in college, have relate ecs, work part time in health care, become an EMT(seems very popular), or even take the MCAT…and no he doesn’t have a “hook.”

@mom2collegekids Not St. Bonaventure…you need to dip another 100 or so places down the regional northern universities rankings, and it is a 4/4 program, not 4/3, but the admissions criteria would be the similar. Kid must have somehow gotten a pass on the 26 ACT floor though.

I have been telling a joke with my kid since long time ago: I definitely can be a dermatologist — Whoever comes to my clinic, I will give her/him ointment #1 and ask the person to come back two days later. Just repeat this and give the person ointment #2 and ointment #3 on the second and the third visit. On the fourth visit, if the person (does come back) and does not get well, I will tell the person to “go to a big hospital”.

I have seen enough doctors and concluded that physician is the only profession that you can get paid without getting your job done. Any other profession, if you don’t deliver, you don’t get paid. However, if your doctor does not know how to cure you, you still need to pay up. OK, my kid says it DEFINITELY don’t want to be THAT KIND OF DOCTOR (in fact, my kid wants to be a doctor who can actually save life). I am sure there are plenty of doctors out there who don’t know what he/she is doing. We always check our doctors’ credential/residency/experience. Fortunately we are living in an area that we don’t need to deal with THAT KIND OF DOCTOR. Kids who cannot do quality works should really move on. This profession can kill people.

@artloversplus

Wish I could claim my kidlets were super achieving geniuses, but they’re not. Just hard working, goal-directed kids. (And neither kiddo were the type that HMS would even for minute consider.)

@planner03

A non-selective college does not mean they don’t give high quality education. It just mean that they have a low admission standard, but they could have a high education standard and their graduates still can compete in the society for jobs. Forty years ago, I graduated from a non-selective college(85% acceptance rate), my college, in my opinion, gave me as good as a more selective school. How do I know that? I took classes in William and Mary and the quality of the education in W&M is the same as my college. Upon graduation, I was able to compete for jobs with other more selective colleges. My college maintain its education standard by attrition, their graduation rate is only 40%.

My dear friend from MD was a mission director in NASA, a position just below the general manager, he graduated from a small community college which is not selective. But his final phd is from Stanford. After retired from NASA, he was hired by a satellite company for more than One Million dollar salary.

I don’t think LECOM is so bad that they take in ANY kid off the street. The cooperative UG must pass LECOM’s standard so the UG’s school graduates could succeed in LECOM. I think the BS/DO program is there with a lot of weedout process in place. I would not worry about the graduates from LECOM if they can pass all the testing and residency cycle. A board certified doctor is a board certified doctor, no matter if they are from HMS or LECOM. Besides, most DOs are working in the Primary Care field, they always have specialist as backup.

Here is a list of LECOM’s affiliated EAP(3+4 or 4+4) program which @planner03 is referring from.
There are around 100 UGs on this list which is feeding LECOM, however, the total matriculation at LECOM is only 360ish and not every students are from EAP. Therefore, I believe the standards of EAP from the affiliates must be pretty hard to reach.

https://lecom.edu/content/uploads/2018/06/active-affiliates-6-5-18.pdf

I see this happen relatively often. It’s not high school that counts (except when kids take college classes while in high school - those count). It’s what the student does in college (or afterward if gaps years are involved) that matters. When my lad applied to med school I think only one school asked for his ACT scores. (WUSTL) No one else gave a hoot about anything from his high school years (aside from his college classes).

Plenty of students get into med schools from all sorts of colleges. My theory is med schools realize they’re training doctors for the whole community, so try to admit classes that represent the whole community demographically. They just pick from the top of those demographics based upon undergrad (if applying from undergrad).

Technically, high school only gets someone into a college. If one is at a college and then applying to med school it matters a whole lot what the GPA and scores are and even DO schools still consider those 2.

There are combined programs in Texas which are based on whether they come from a rural area or underprivileged. Those programs dont have a very high threshold from high school for getting into those programs but are expected to do reasonably well in college even if taking MCAT is just a formality.

https://www.texasjamp.org/ProspectiveStudents/become-a-JAMPer.html

http://www.tamiu.edu/coas/depts/biochem/CooperativePrograms.shtml

I am sure there are back doors for everything, including some “doctors” who wear a gown and have a badge but really don’t know much. Of course, you can’t find them in surgery room or other mission critical places. Those locations which are highly competitive in residency matching tend to have better doctors and better quality of medical care, and doctors associated with those hospitals tend to have better knowledge. My kid is currently working at one of those hospitals for a summer program. The experience so far is indeed eye opening. We were very impressed by the description of the system similar to [this[/url] installed at the hospital which aims to prevent abduction, mismatch and baby-swopping incidents. Not every hospital has installed such a system. The training those summer program participants receive can’t be learned in the classroom. Those who aspire to be a doctor should definitely try to find more clinical opportunities as recommended in [url=https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/hotterthanhadelees/attachments/20081001/adb009a4/attachment.pdf]this Stanford file](https://www.iol.co.za/news/hospital-installs-system-to-stop-baby-theft-1831978). Pay special attention to Myth # 16.

Where did you get these numbers…? Both the number of years, and the salaries.

Current residents get paid about $55,000-$65,000 a year with full benefits.

IIRC, surgical residencies are five years…and I’m not sure there are longer ones.

After residency, a doctor can do a fellowship, but those pay $75,000 a year…and up.

@WayOutWestMom am I correct?

Thanks for that Stanford file. It was from 2008, so the resident work hours and salary are out of date. But the concepts are still helpful. Residents are restricted to 80 hours a week and a maximum shift of 24 hours by the ACGME.

@nrtlax33 I forgot to tag you. Where did you get your salary and years info? If it was from 2008, it’s quite outdated.

The Stanford file is ten years old. The salary range needs to be adjusted for inflation. But according to [url=<a href=“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_resident_work_hours%5Dwiki%5B/url”>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_resident_work_hours]wiki[/url], “In many locations, trainee doctors commonly work 80 to 100 hours a week, with residents occasionally logging 136”.

@thumper1 is right. That “fact sheet” from Stanford is way out of date. Rules & salaries have changed. A lot.

Residencies last 3 to 7 years. There are no 10 year long residencies. Neurosurgery is 7 years, but everything else is shorter. Even integrated sub-specialty surgical residency tracks like thoracic surgery and plastic surgery are less than 7 years. Even counting residency + fellowship, it still doesn’t add up to 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hospital pay scale that goes past a PGY8.

See: https://residency.wustl.edu/residencies/length-of-residencies/

Current residents are paid anywhere from about $42K to $78K, depending on the program. Most interns earn in the $45-$60K range, with an automatic salary step increase for each year of residency completed. A few programs give residents non-salary perks like subsidized housing or a housing allowance.

That ACGME rules state that residents may not work more than an average of 80 hours /week when averaged over a period of 4 weeks. (that is, not more than 360 hours in a 4 week period.) So a 136 hour/week might be possible, but it would an fairly isolate incident.

Residents are not permitted to work more than 28 hours straight. 24 regular duty hours plus up to 4 additional hours for patient care continuity. And no more than 3 28- hours shifts per week, with a minimum of 10 duty free hours between shifts. Also residents are guaranteed to have at least one full day (i.e. 24 hours) off each week.

My D’s surgery residency is 7 years, but that includes 2 years surgery, 2 years surgical research, then 3 more years surgery. She will be 35 years old before any possible fellowship! It is a long, long haul.

What profession will give you the 3-7 years of on-the-job training other than medical doctors? MBA or lawyers are probably given 3 months of time to learn on the job, after that you either perform or get fired!

If residency is such a negative thing, I wonder why so many physician parents have their kids going through this route.

@nrtlax33

Info from 2008 is basically useless. The MCAT has changed. The prerequisite courses for applying to medical school have changed. Salaries have changed. The maximum hours for interns and residents to work has changed with firmer guidelines issued.

Really, posting info from 2008 is not helpful…in any way other than maybe to look at general information…not specifics.

Oh…and the competitiveness of medical school admissions has also changed.

I am fully aware of the fact that the Stanford file does not have updated numbers (plus a lot of Stanford-specific stuff). But the general idea in the file is very valuable and timeless … (long hours/tiny pay for interns/residents, high suicide rate, etc.)

Other than the specific numbers which are obviously outdated, are there any other information in the file which is obviously not true? BTW, I have posted very specific new 2015 MCAT information before. Check it out!