<p>Well said, Pizzagirl. And really, if you are going to open up a medical practice which specifically targets pre-teens to teenage girls to young adult women up to age 26, you’d better damn well be able and willing to help them out with a tampon question or any other problem unique to adolescent girls. If not, that’s inferior care and I’m not paying good money for a specialist who considers themselves above dealing with some of the most common issues in their specialty.</p>
<p>The pediatrician we used prior to finding this adolescent medicine group was a fine doctor and a brilliant clinician, particularly with the babies and young children. But when D1 began having some problems, he missed something pretty important because he wasn’t looking at the problem from the standpoint of a teenage girl; he was simply looking at the clinical data. The doctor at the new group identified the problem immediately because she’s very good at considering physical problems within the context of developmental considerations. That’s when we made the switch, and the sarcastic attitude displayed by the doctor earlier in the thread is exactly what I refuse to subject my kids to, especially when we have so many choices. Your husband sounds like he’s smart in the way he runs his practice and relates to his patients, but he probably also is a nice guy who actually does care about them.</p>
<p>Not sure I understand the question correctly, but yes, this practice I described takes insurance. But they don’t take every insurance or they are out of network for certain insurance providers, so the patient has to pay a higher copay. I know families that pay 100% out of pocket in order to use this practice. They take my insurance and are in-network, so it is not an issue for me personally.</p>
<p>About half of medical school applicants and matriculants for 2011 had undergraduate majors in the biological sciences, according to [this</a> table](<a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/161692/data/table18.pdf]this”>https://www.aamc.org/download/161692/data/table18.pdf). The next most popular undergraduate major groups among applicants were “other”, social sciences, and physical sciences. Humanities, specialized health sciences, and math/statistics were less popular undergraduate majors.</p>
<p>'If 90% in sciences are pre-meds, it can’t all be interest that motivates them."</p>
<p>It is definitely not true that 90% of science majors at Harvard are pre-med. I doubt that 90% of biology majors are pre-med. No way this is true when you include chemistry and physics.</p>
<p>nrdsb - I am guessing the for profit question is about whether they are a real medical outfit or if they are health related but a chain kind of outfit trying to make money ala a spa.</p>
<p>The one datum I had was for Harvard chemistry majors in a single graduating class, quite a while ago. 88.415% bound for med school. So not 90%, no.</p>
<p>^^^^They are a real medical outfit, take insurance (but not all insurance plans, which is no different than any of my own doctors). But they do have an in-house nutritionist who specializes in kids with eating disorders, a psychologist who deals with eating disorders, anxiety disorders, depression, and so forth with a specific focus on female adolescent issues. They offer Mom and daughter yoga classes on the weekends, teach babysitting CPR classes, and have guest speakers from time to time who speak on issues of importance to adolescent and young adult females. It is not a spa. They have three M.D.s and at one time had a NP, but for some reason she is no longer there.</p>
<p>I think the reason a lot of medical students major in science is because the pre-requisites self-select for science majors. If you like science well enough to take a year of physics, two years of chemistry and a year of biology, plus some math, you may already be someone who actually likes science and wants to major in it. Obviously, you can major in something else, or be a passionate philosophy major, but as a humanities major, you have to be pretty sure you’re headed toward medical school to give up that many class choices for those science classes, unless that combo of classes just really appeals to you with no further interest in science.</p>
<p>I didn’t like some of the pre-med student vibe at my school (Univ WI), so I majored in zoology and minored in History of Science. The most interesting people in med school imo were the non-hardcore science people-- my best friend was a French major, others were Music and Lit majors. AND lest you give up hope, one guy only ever wanted to be a hs football coach. His hs gpa was 2.75. He worked his behind off in college (realized early that he was smarter than he’d given himself credit for) and ended up in med school and an ultimately a very good ER doc. </p>
<p>Nrdsb, I also did my residency at Cincinnati, an amazing pediatrics teaching center. Wonder if I know your pediatrician! I did know some fellow residents who’d gone to Baylor and went on to RWJ fellowships… hmmm! (Is her first name Susan??)</p>
<p>Why does it matter to others what motivates people? Nobody has control over others’ motivations / goals. We cannot even predict that the person who was originally motivated by “greed” a.k.a. “nice life style for his family” is going to be a bad MD. He might end up great, he might discover new treatement, develop new procedure or just simply be a nice family physician. How we can judge others by thier motives? Any way, the selection process is brutal, it takes many years. Person who is not academically strong, who does not know how or is not willing to work hard, who does not participate in various activities that indicate to him personally if medicine is for him, who cannot connect to people easily, this person will fall out. Isn’t it enough of the test to insure that only the most dedicated continue in medicine? We do not have to judge them, the selection process is taking care of it.</p>
<p>That’s absolutely false. As a nurse, I’ve come across many physicians who “cannot connect to people easily.” They are usually surgeons, but certainly not always. They treat patients like idiots, are rude to the nurses and other ancillary staff, and somehow believe that they are superior to everyone around them, even other colleagues.</p>
<p>Fortunately they are the minority of docs I’ve worked with, but it’s false that you will not make it through the process of becoming a doctor if you’re a poor excuse for a human being.</p>
<p>"They treat patients like idiots, are rude to the nurses and other ancillary staff, and somehow "
-Yes, met those as a patient. Will avoid them, will talk negatively about them to others. However, i have to believe that many of these were NOT selected after interviews at Med. Schools. Even my D. indicated after one of her interviews that happen to be a group interview that it was obvious when person was socially awkward. Why they would go thru interviews otherwise? All facts are known to adcoms before interviews. Interviews are taking lots of resources from Medical School. If they did not want to check personal skills, there is no other reasons to conduct them. And they talk mostly about things outside of medicine, like music, for example. And again, there are interviews for many other opportunities, participating in them might determine the path of future MD. But again, some people are better actors than others, I agree with that. They might have better skills pretending being somebody else, and they will continue.</p>
<p>The easy pre-med physics at the “public land grant school” was probably the non-calculus-based physics. Harvard might have difficult non-calc-based physics, but most places don’t. The question is why the med schools allow that course–it’s often easier than high-school physics.</p>
<p>This had me laughing! But I haven’t had to work with them, so I guess I can laugh more easily. Sometimes you can walk down the hall at a hospital and it’s so easy to spot a surgeon, they just have an arrogant look about them. I’m willing to concede that a little of that goes with the territory when you consider that these are the ones who have to cut into you. It’s a very different skill set than what you need to be a good diagnostician.</p>
<p>^^^^Yes, when looking for a surgeon recently, the bedside manner was the least of my concerns. You want someone who knows what they are doing; one who is board certified and who has done many of these particular surgeries. I got three opinions for 3 different surgeons. They were all top notch and any one of them would have done a good job. The one I picked? The one who was top notch AND one of the nicest people I’ve met (and worked with as well).</p>