@whitecane
Best to wait until all offers are in hand and avoid breaking your head now.
In your 3 choice, UPitt is the top choice. 3.75 GPA in BCPM over 4 years is doable in 70th ranked UG school.
Here is the take on MCAT. In medical career, all that they end up doing is taking some exam or other, USMLE Step 1, 2A, 2x, Board exam etc. MCAT is yet another exam. VCU req is 507 which is nothing. VCU median for regular MD is 511 (In case if they change the rule later) which is again very reasonable. I would go with VCU than UMKC. But if she feels the other way, it is her choice.
Wait. Some time a single choice makes every ones life simple!
@gallentjill â Excellent points, and I agree with all of them! You forgot to mention not only having these kids go on to do amazing things and raise the status of the school, but also to remember the schoolâs financial generosity to them and to âpay it forwardâ with significant donations!
@ whitecane,
Here is my experience from my DD and her friend:
DD at Pitt GAPâs sophomore, and her best friend from high school in top 20 private school with merit scholarship full ride as pre-med.
They frequent update each otherâs status. , she is much busier than my daughter. In addition to maintaining good grades, she also take role as school clubs leadership, community service, volunteering, doctor shadow ⊠Of course, my daughter also needs to do all those ECâs similar to her, one benefit is UPMC is so nearby and so many opportunities.
Here comes the differences, DD continue takes one or two additional classes during summer, so she can graduate in three and a half years without worrying about MCAT, her plans to travel as a backpacker to Europe for 2 months before going to medical school.
But her friend need to looking for reputable research opportunity during summer time She mentions that she may want to take a gap year to prepare MCAT.
I strongly support DD taking break after UG, before medical school We all know medical school will be another long journey until âŠâŠwho know for how longâŠ.
A good friend of mineâs daughter was married during the gap year, then went to mayo medical school and residency, she had baby during her third year of residency but only can take 6 weeks off, it ended up the husband in IT field took 6 months off from work, and grandma took 3 months to take care the baby.
I guess it is the differences in between Male and Female. Male has no this kind of issueâŠ
.
Pittâs GAP 3.75 is not easy (DD heard there were students got kicked out before), but still doable, the key is constantly study each day little by little, do not wait until few days before the test.
âAlso, you canât look at the BSMD programs in isolation. They are part of coordinated efforts to bring in high stat students across the disciplinesâ
So very true! That is the reason why they donât give out merit awards to all the super achieving kids of BA/MD by capping it at some level at this not to be named program They spread the merit awards across different schools and departments within them. I being from engineering background was more interested in checking to out their faculty and facilities though D is in the accelerated med program. It is mind blowing to find the electrical and computer engineering there has 15 IEEE fellows and a member of national academy of engineering on their faculty. Likewise the bio med eng program has some 15 AAMBE fellows (American association of medical and biological engineering). Departments with such stellar faculty need stellar students to come and learn from and work with them.
I am sure likewise there are so many schools and departments of eminence within that university system such as the highly reputed undergrad business school, many stellar departments within college of arts and science like physics, molecular biology, neuroscience, psychology ⊠The 6 kids that I mentioned went there from Dâs high school batch are more or less spread evenly across multiple fields of study there.
Hi guys! I have two medical school interviews coming up later this month (with NJMS and Pitt). Does anyone know of any good websites/threads with advice and tips for medical school/combined-program interviews? Thanks a lot, everyone!
@PPofEngrDr Something to chew on, for sure. But I personally do not believe a single-payer health care system or any sort of âgovernment-runâ health insurance system would work in the USA. The article argues that the USA spends more (on average) for healthcare, but our healthcare costs are still higher than other developed nations and more people lack insurance⊠so by copying the Canadian system, we can essentially increase our âutilization rate.â Not entirely sure what that means either.
I would disagree. Barring the obvious tax-hike across the board to support this socialized health care system, weâd be essentially preventing the speedy delivery of care and increase waiting times for patients for any major procedure. We would be helping the common Joe but destroying the jobs of docs/hospitals/other private insurance providers.
This would mean that (considering a nationalized health system exists), more people would have to visit a PCP before being referred to a specialist. Now, if specialists were both seen and compensated at a lesser rate⊠and PCPs would similarly be seen MORE and compensated even less than they are currently⊠the already existing shortage of PCPs would dramatically heighten. Similarly, hospitals and other private employers would end up losing out on needed compensation and start terminating many healthcare jobs. In the end⊠the already high need for healthcare in the USA would skyrocket further. Atleast, thatâs my opinion.
Feel free to correct me if Iâm mistaken about anything.
@mk1901 â You are mistaken about one thing â a sort of âgovernment-runâ health insurance system does work in the USA. Itâs called Medicare, and most people who have it love it. As the CNN article pointed out, the path from what we have now to MFA would definitely be noisy and painful, but in the end most people would receive better care at lower prices.
Private insurance would shrink dramatically, since it would be primarily used by the wealthy to supplement MFA. Taxes would go up, but private insurance costs would be eliminated for most people, so employers and employees would save a lot of money.
It would be less lucrative to run a hospital, or a drug company, or deliver medical services (MD), but there would not be any greater shortage of doctors than there is today, since most people do it for the love of science and helping humanity (as evidenced by all of their shadowing and community service) as opposed to for money!
I just did a bit more research into the pros and cons of single-payer healthcare (which I presume MFA would fall under). A counter-point Iâd like to raise is:
Now, with single-payer healthcare, the same problems will arise. People who choose to use MFA may be limited in the types of healthcare they can pursue and use â and especially when it comes to long term care (i.e. nursing homes, alzheimerâs facilities) this could be a problem (given the aging US population). Also, it still doesnât fix the problems with referral waiting times, which nations like Canada and the UK experience.
Maybe youâre right â the number of qualified physicians may certainly NOT decrease. Most people do, indeed, not base their decision on wanting to be a physician on money. But, I still do not believe that the pros outweigh the cons.
@mk1901 â no, you are correct in your observations insofar as nothing pays for everything. The problem now is that the uninsured are not allowed to die in the streets, so the cost of treating them is built into to cost of insurance for those who have it. As the CNN article pointed out, the problem today is that certain sectors (insurance companies, hospital groups, drug companies, etc.) are allowed to extract monopoly profits from the system, and they have a strong vested interest in the status quo. Medicare is insurance for the a segment of the population the insurance companies didnât want, and it works very well, so there is no inherent reason it wouldnât work very well if expanded to the rest of the population, but for the fact that the cost savings for society would come at the expense of those extracting obscene monopoly profits now. Doctors really wouldnât take a huge hit because insurance companies have done a lot of the work of transferring income from the providers to the insurance companies, so they wouldnât be too affected as the government transferred that income back to the people paying the bills - i.e., everyone else!
With respect to coverage limitations - that is the case either way, and is either covered out of pocket or through supplemental coverage. Increased waiting time for treatment is really just a scare tactic used by those opposed to change. Today, Medicare patients sitting next to me in a doctorâs waiting room have the same wait times for an appointment as I do. If wait times increase due to more people having coverage, that is far better for society than the alternative (i.e., less people having coverage and receiving care), and the fix is more medical school seats and training more MDs, DOs, PAs, etc.
@PPofEngrDr
I would tell Rep. Jayapal to go take a hike and live a couple years in Canada. If she hasnât spent some time living under a socialized healthcare system, she has no right whatsoever to propose it. In Canada, even for basic surgeries, wait times can span for months if injuries are deemed ânon-life threateningâ. This is since the government has to artificially reduce the amount of providers and thus cut down on costs even though taxes in Canada are already ridiculously high.
Is it right to make people wait to see a physician in the name of âequalityâ and âwaiting in lineâ? Obviously not. This is what abolishing private insurance would do- force everyone to rely on an inefficient government-provided healthcare with untold amounts of red tape to cut through.
@mk1901 I am responding this as neither opponent nor a proponent.
So in your opinion current form of medicare is not working for seniors. What is wrong with it and how to correct it?
its a 2 phase situation, taking a base of another healthcare system and tweaking it to your needs is not necessarily bad. For an industry of 17-18% GDP, any blind copy would result just like any plagiarism outcome. 2nd part âutilization rateâ, I am not certain what that exactly mean either, but reading in that article context it sounds like medical services (true medical, non-administrative).
this is a grey area and have to dig out how exactly it is being funded, but if I remember correctly from Bernieâs town hall the other day, it sounded like you stop paying insurance premiums so that savings will offset tax hike, again how much and what is certainly debatable.
have heard this fear mongering stories about Canadian system, if there is truth in it, it needs to be tweaked.
well on one hand we call medicare for all is bad because it is so called âsocializeâ and on other hand we do care about jobs which is âsocializedâ too. Not sure how that may affect Docs and Hospitals as demand for healthcare would rise rather than avoiding it to prevent high deductible and/or out-of-pocket expenses that resulted in current framework of just pay premium to insurance companies to keep their lights on but avoid to use it. I remember those corporate days where life time maximum was 1M, 2M and so forth until it become unlimited. Tbh, back in those days I was barely understanding health insurance. Didnât understand the word preexisting condition until someone has one.
so who is compensated more in current framework? C suites of insurance, drug companies. I donât think anyone is suggesting Drs become a charity only business at the same time in its current shape and form it is unsustainable, I see it just like any bubble we have experience in last 20 years. to be fair argument, I am not sure how compensation would work and any potential drastic effect.
this sounds complete opposite to previous argument, if there is more demand then economics principle suggests you need to increase supply, healthcare service personnel, to meet that demand, not reduce supply, unless I am reading it differently.
Now here is my understanding of todayâs healthcare industry, I may be wrong.
[ul]
[] Healthcare is number one cause for bankruptcy filing inspite we spend most.
[] Only insurance companies, drug companies profits are skyrocketing while average citizen canât afford service.
[] Purpose of insurance industry is to spread out risk, not become a risk itself.
[] Healthcare is a privilege, but at the same time fight for unborn child rights (I know it is sensitive issue, not suggesting what is right or wrong)
[] Current insurance benefits have exclusions for variety of reasons, e.g. hearing aid, eye care, dental for seniors, well that time of life one need those benefits, donât expect baby teeth again.
[] Drug prices are unbalance too, have seen enough media coverage in last few years.
[] Drs are compensated same irrespective of SOM, yet same would be different based on insurance plan being used, a Dr seeing a patient with medicate vs. another patient with PPO for identical reason, compensated differently. In other words, money dictates healthcare quality, not the other way around.
[] Healthcare administration is still working in 18th century laws and technology.
[li] ACA has brought lots of good things on table and was a step in right direction, but it is still insufficient in terms of affordability.[/li][/ul]
Personally, I am neither anti-capitalism nor pro-socialist, rather centrist, my view is current framework of Service Providers (healthcare professionals,drug, hospitals), Service dictators (insurance), Service consumers (all of us) is broken/unbalanced and not resulting in better benefits then other healthcare countries framework. On policy front healthcare should be a right, not a privilege.
We have lots of physician parents on thread, eager to understand their experience and thoughts as well.
lol, right now people donât even queued up, they simply avoid it because of high cost of deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums. Besides that I am not suggesting waiting and Q-up is right thing to do. In terms of solution, whether MFA is good/bad, UHC like Amy proposed is good/bad or something else. But fact remains healthcare industry is out of bounds and non sustainable.
If Medicare works for seniors, why not for everyone else?
Believe a policy, healthcare is a right not a privilege, based solution should work.
@whitecane - UPitt is far better medical school than other 2. with conservate course planning itâs not that difficult to get 3.7 GPA. Anyone who was able to get a good BSMD admission shouldnât worry about USMLE. As others said thatâs not the last standardized test they take. USMLE STEP I & 2, boards etcâŠ
Just look at this graph if you truly think Medicare works. Medicare may be much better than Medicaid (which isnât saying much), but the costs are simply unsustainable. Unless you want the federal gov. to greatly ratchet up taxes or add more debt, you either have to trim Medicare or acknowledge it as a failure from which to start over.
So medicare is responsible for high cost or is a victim of high cost too? Did you notice how healthcare categories (2) in chart stated spiking up from 1990 compare to GDP? Between 1968-90, 22 years relatively on par with GDP and CPI then 1990-2018, 28 years.
Can anyone share their DS/DD/friendâs experiences in Brown PLME (or) Penn/Jeff?
I had been searching in past couple of years of applicants / results / experiences thread and donât see much talk about to these two programs.
@XJet2019 Current students are no longer going to be active and make posts (except for very few). So you need to find out who are in which programs and send them a PM.
Always go to results thread and search by putting the college. For example in 2018 thread I could see
pantsmalone joined Brown/HPME and TheElusiveGod joined PSU/Jeff. Also bearchichi is knowledgeable person on PSU/Jeff.
Search previous year threads and find more folks and send PMs.
I have been accepted to VCU GMED and UCF BMS program. I decided not to attend Union/AMC interview. Have Drew/Rutgers in March end as well as have also completed UMKC.
Which ones are better? I was looking at med school rankings, but do not know how else to decide.
They spread the merit awards across different schools and departments within them. I being from engineering background was more interested in checking to out their faculty and facilities though D is in the accelerated med program. It is mind blowing to find the electrical and computer engineering there has 15 IEEE fellows and a member of national academy of engineering on their faculty. Likewise the bio med eng program has some 15 AAMBE fellows (American association of medical and biological engineering). Departments with such stellar faculty need stellar students to come and learn from and work with them.