Perhaps that is why your primary physician is now more likely to be foreign born and educated. S/he can afford the lower paying specialty due to lower debt.
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Med school prereqs (and MCAT) don’t exist to prepare applicants for med school as much as they provide adcoms a starting point for an apples to apples comparison in determining if an applicant can handled a moderately difficult set of science courses (and future Step exams) . Since the first two years of med school are pretty much nothing but science courses, it’s probably a good thing to have some confidence that an applicant can cut it.
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The above is very true.
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Sadly in last reported cycle just over 20k+ of the 49K+ applicants started med school. There just isn’t enough room at the inns and so sadly some, perhaps many potentially qualified future MDs lose out.
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“Do you really think there are different standards for non- STEM premeds?” OK I’ll bite. At many schools, STEM classes are graded more harshly. I don’t know enough about med school admissions to know whether they correct for that.
In addition, many premeds can finish much of the required coursework while in high school and repeat the material they already mastered for that easy A in college. Organic chemistry is one of the few courses where this isn’t possible for most students so it probably provides a better measure of how the student is likely to do in intensive med school classes where they haven’t seen it all before.
If psychiatry is a least selective, why does the nrmp report placement rates lower than, say, neurology and ob/gyn?
Can some of you offer links to back up your statements?
I noticed this program was only available to students from a few select (presumably elite) colleges.
I was a chemistry major who chose medicine over grad school- wanted to work with people, not just in a lab. I really see the value in knowing the basics of chemistry, including organic beyond general chemistry and physics- it helped me in basic sciences (biochemistry needs a firm foundation in chemistry, including organic- and it may be difficult because there is so much to memorize, such as many pathways). Calculus is so much more common now than in my day since more take it as HS students. Likewise having a firm foundation in the medical school basic sciences is useful in understanding the how and why of diagnosing and treating diseases and conditions.
Majoring in something because you actively like it and want that knowledge base is the way it should be. Many/most medical students actively like the sciences best and would choose them. Those who choose another area still need to be very comfortable with the sciences. Even psychiatrists need the fundamentals to understand the drugs they prescribe- all physicians are physicians first, then specialists. Regardless of all of the protocols determining medical practice physicians still need to think about why they are choosing to follow them. One reason it is the practice of medicine, not the technician following the script.
I would not expect there to be a difference in basic science knowledge based on one’s undergrad major. Those with an extensive background in the subject matter may need less time to learn it, some with other majors may be overall faster learners/better memorizers and handle the material equally well. We all have our likes/dislikes and areas we find easier/more difficult. Reasons some make excellent orthopedic surgeons and others endocrinologists and every other field within medicine.
I do not consider chemistry as a major in the same league as all of the variations of a biology major. It takes a lot more time and theoretical material specific to chemistry for that. I am discouraged by all of the neuroscience majors who are basically premeds. Of course it is interesting and the latest, greatest popular field now.
There are more students who would become excellent physicians than there is room to educate them. It is more than classrooms and professors but the availability of clinical experiences that matters. It requires a great deal of money to run teaching hospitals. Anyone up to a tax increase to fund these hospitals (they currently often struggle and need government payments, especially for indigent patients that allow students to practice on them and who tend to have a lot more medical issues)? However, not all applicants should become physicians.
Now a college statistics and psychology course seem to be required, unlike in my day (my only statistics was in medical school btw- learning how to evaluate studies needs the basics, I had a couple of semesters of psych when it was theories instead of science based like it is now).
This has been interesting to read. I have many classmates who went on to become MDs but I don’t really know the med school process. I was eager to hear the opinions of our parents here.
I don’t think anyone would argue that a humanities major can’t be a great doctor or that training in liberal arts is a bad idea. But I was curious how important all the hard science is to either getting admitted to med school or doing well in med school or practicing medicine.
" how important all the hard science is to either getting admitted to med school or doing well in med school or practicing medicine. "
- Applicant to Med. School has to have ALL pre-reqs that specific Med. School requires. They may be different from one school to another, one Med. School on D’s list had more pre-reqs than all others.
- No UG academic material will help in Medical School academics. Everybody pretty much has a certain background in sciences. But the "doing well " in med. school will depend on student’s efforts in med. school. Do not get me wrong, as every school has about 5000+ applicants for about 200 or less spots, the students in each Medical School class are the top of the tops. D. mentioned that the only people with the helpful background in one area - Anatomy, were few MS’s in Anatomy. However, these were students who did not get into Med. School on the first try, so they choose to get the MS in Anatomy. Other than that, everybody in her class were on the same footing, each person had certain advantages and disadvantages dependig more on personality / set of specific skills than anything related to prior academic training. Again, this was an impression of my D. who graduated from Med. School 10 days ago and who had a great variety of students in her class. Couple of additional comments (not anything required, but gave my D. her set of advantages, while others may had a different set): 1. Many of her superiors, patients as well as her classmates noted that she had great bed manner and was easy to work with in team setting. This were not any “random” or in-born talent. In college, D. was seeking to be surrounded by a great variety of people, not only intense, academically focused pre-meds in Honors college. She actively was seeking all opportunities to have some experiences where she may not necessarily be on top of the game, where she could learn from others. Personal growth is an important aspect of college life that not always recognized. 2. D’s Spanish opened additional doors of opportunites for D. while at Med. School as well as her other foreign language. 3. Great writing skills.
Again, this were D’s specific personal advantages, skills that are NOT part of requirement. As I mentioned, others may had a different set, there are for example, very fast readers, that a great skill to have that D. did not possess.
Buried in this article is the information I was asking for: How do the humanities majors do on Step 1? The answer is they score lower on Step 1 than science majors. They also drop out more and take more leaves of absences from medical school.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/nyregion/30medschools.html?_r=0
TatinG,
I bet there are exceptions to this statistics about humanitites major. D. said that no UG academics anyhow prepare her for academics at Med. School. As I said every Med. Student has a certain level of background in sciences. Then if goes to how hard you prepare for everything. D. (science major in college) had to study 14 hrs / day every day for 7.5 weeks (with about 2 - 3 days of break) for Step 1 exam. Did all these humanity majors who score low, did all of them study that much? I highly doubt it. The reason for my doubt is not enough background in humanities majors, but not having the same hard working habits as more challenging majors at college. D. mentioned tht she had to step up her efforts considerably at college (in-state public) in comparison to HS and she graduated from the #2 private HS in our state. I do not know if humanities majors had to make as big adjustment. I am not the judge here, just an educated guess…
Med school is evolving quickly. In some respects, getting easier; in others, harder. Mt Sinai is just one example. The expectation is to produce quality docs. As even the link says, that includes more than all sci/all the time.
Have to affirm this. Every great doctor I have ever had fits this description. And having evaluated them all in terms of their approach to medicine, it makes perfect sense: they have all been imaginative, curious, and open. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have explored puzzling medical situations that defied textbook categories. They have all had a “freedom” about them which allowed them to come at a problem from an unorthodox angle at times.
They are all (the older ones) intellectually curious people about many subjects; I’d call it an intellectual hunger. I think it definitely benefits listening to patients, differential diagnosis, and flexibility.
Wrong guess. And not a very educated one either.
I think the reason that the students in the Mount Sinai FlexMed program are not permitted to take the MCAT is that if they took it, Mount Sinai would have to include their scores in their statistics. They are assuming that the students in the FlexMed program would score lower than the other students that they admit. I think this is probable. One can pick up a lot of the literature/humanities/social science elements of the MCAT from general reading. The science that is on the MCAT is not available from general reading. One could self-study it, of course, without taking the classes. But I don’t think anyone would pick it up without actually studying.
The no-MCAT requirement does also lock the students into the Mount Sinai program. But few medical schools will admit students without the full range of biology/chemistry/physics/math that they require, anyway.