UMKC 6-year BS/MD Program

Pre-Med & Medical School Multiple Degree Programs
4141

@ang331, I believe BA/MD students can now participate, if they want to, in both graduation ceremonies. The undergraduate degree ceremony usually happens earlier in the month of May for the end of the semester. The MD graduation ceremony happens at the end of the month of May.

I think debt is a very personal and individual thing. If your parents are paying in cash on hand for your education entirely, then officially, you have zero debt to report at the end of med school. Why? Bc your parents paid cash! This can then skew the average numbers a lot. You can see statistics (October 2014) here though on the debt medical students are coming out with now from the AAMC: https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/debtfactcard.pdf

You can see this as well: https://www.aamc.org/download/328322/data/statedebtreport.pdf. Interesting to note that if you divide up family income into quintiles - 50% of all medical students now come from families, whose income is above $100,241. (Table 7). The charts are very interesting if you have time to look at them. If it tells you anything of how old I am (lol), when I started, med school tuition at UMKC was $20,793 for in-state, $41,376 for out-of-state.

I think early on debt won’t influence you when you’re studying for classes. You’re young, enthusiastic, and are just starting out. It starts more to have an influence as you progress and when you get more towards the clinical side and you’ve been amassing a lot of debt. You’ll start thinking more about your life, possibly getting married, maybe starting a family, etc. You might be thinking about number of years of residency commitment, whether you want to do an additional fellowship beyond the residency you’re in, lifestyle in terms of hours worked, whether you’re ok with being on call, etc. So no, you really don’t have to be concerned as a Year 1 about residency positions to apply to. That being said, if you’re wanting to go into something competitive, you will have to work harder and do better than you would if you’re going for something not as competitive. It’s always good to leave doors open initially, rather than closing doors initially and then wanting to open them back up later. But to answer your question somewhat, I do think debt has an influence on medical students more than we’d like to admit.

Same with paying off your student debt - also a personalized or individual decision. I believe there are loan repayment programs (IBR or PAYE) where you pay it off over a period of 25 years but these can easily change. For example, it used to be you could take Stafford grad loans and not be charged interest as long as you were enrolled in medical school. That is no longer an option: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/paying/articles/2012/03/13/grad-students-to-lose-federal-loan-subsidy

Remember by the time you graduate and you’ll be 24/25, you will have many other expenses and priorities in your life you’ll be taking care of. By the time you graduate residency, you’ll have delayed gratification for so long, I guarantee you won’t be paying all of your student loans in 5 years, although you definitely probably could if you were quite frugal. I don’t recommend it bc I guarantee once you’ve been living hand to mouth (http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/live+hand+to+mouth) in residency, you will want to finally live life.

4142

@ang331, I doubt she announced it out loud on stage. Maybe the person speaking on another interview day was being honest to the person who personally asked 1 on 1?

Most medical schools are not going to announce what their USMLE Step 1 average is out loud unless they did fantastic. Even then it’s not easily verifiable by you. They will always say they are “at or above the national average”. It means nothing bc you have no idea if they’re talking about over 1 year or over several years. If you include all medical schools, there will be one average. Some schools will clearly be above that average, some will be below that average. It’s mathematically impossible for every med school to be at or above the average yet they will all say they are at or above the national average. No medical school will usually admit (out loud) that they are below the national average.

Just so you know, nearly all medical schools offer the ability to do international electives, have days off to present their research and/or attend conferences, take part in free health clinics (UMKC has Sojourner and the Free Eye Clinic). So I wouldn’t use those things as the basis to choosing UMKC over another med school. A lot of med schools get ideas from each other on these things at meetings and incorporate them at their own schools.

Also, maybe things have changed, but KU, KCUMB, UMKC students usually don’t study together bc we’re on such different schedules for when we have to take boards. UMKC is the only one that has finished all their basic sciences in the Spring of Year 4, while KCUMB/KU are still finishing up their MS-2 year and take boards a few weeks after MS-2 is over.

4143

@UMKCRoosMD Yeah, I agree. I was jut saying that UMKC had all these things to eliminate the bias that students there have no life and if I went to medical school somewhere I wouldn’t be missing out on the extracurriculars that most others have. My friend who graduated from there just happened to have friends that went to KU, not to imply that students from all the schools just mingle together intentionally, if that makes sense. She felt like if she wasn’t getting something or needed to compare learning or get another opinion or whatever she just had an outside source to turn to. She and her friends all got a surgery residency (not sure how competitive that is), but it worked for her, I guess.

Also, if I may ask, what is your specialty, and what were your pros and cons of the program personally going in and after you graduated? Did you ever feel any stigmas against you for going this route?

4144

@pleasant, honestly, I’m not very sure. You can see more info here: http://cas.umkc.edu/honors/current-students.asp. If your question is whether the Honors College thing will help you in residency applications, I guarantee you they won’t care. You can take Honors sections of certain courses but that usually means it’s more work. You don’t get additional GPA like you do in high school. I think it’s something you apply for if you see the website but as a med student, it doesn’t mean much at your level. The more important honor is getting into AOA (Alpha Omega Alpha).

Regarding match lists, I’ll say again, it’s very difficult for high school students and even premeds to accurately interpret match lists. What is a good match list to you when you enter, will be much different than when you’re a Year 5 and you know what specialty you’re going for, and you’ve been advised by faculty who will tell you which are good programs. People in medicine are better able to intepret match lists.

Here’s a great example, so if you see on the 2014 match list, there is someone there who matched into Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins University – Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, MD. There was someone else who matched into University of California-San Francisco – Fresno Center – Fresno, CA. However, most people not in Medicine don’t know that the Hopkins-Bayview residency is not the competitive Hopkins Internal Medicine program - Johns Hopkins (Osler) program. They aren’t the same, and faculty in fellowships know they are not the same.

Same for UCSF. The one who matched into UCSF at Fresno: http://www.fresno.ucsf.edu/internal/, where most of the graduates are Caribbean, International, and DO grads. Much different than the top-tier Internal Medicine UCSF program in San Francisco: http://medicine.ucsf.edu/education/residency/current/, where many of the graduates are from Yale, Harvard, Penn, Cornell, Wash U, Baylor, Northwestern, etc.

Regarding USMLE Step 2, read what I wrote here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18167479/#Comment_18167479

4145

@Pleasant, The program is made to where you can’t really take the MCAT and apply out. That’s why a lot of the requirements are removed: i.e. General Bio I and II with labs, General Physics I and II with labs, Organic Chemistry I and II with labs.

The Elementary Organic Chemistry course you take at UMKC (Chem 320) isn’t Organic I and II that the premeds, predentals, and pharmacy students take.

4146

@UMKCRoosMD or @Roentgen, is there a point in the program where you can leave the program and still go back to doing the traditional route if you want? If I choose to go here, I don’t want to feel locked in the program, but wondering whether that’s very practical.

4147

.

4148

@PinkPrincess2014, I would say the best place to leave would be at the end of the second semester of Year 1. By then you know what the weather is like thru the year, what the city is like, what resources are available, make friends with Year 2s whom you’ll see on campus and find out more, maybe ask people in higher Years 3-6 that you might meet at interest group meetings, etc. and get a better idea of how the med school approaches certain areas: research, boards, the match, etc. You probably won’t have a good idea on how hard coursework gets since none of your classes are medical school classes at that point.

It’s much harder to leave at the end of Year 2 without having to redo classes and put in more time, although I have definitely seen people do it. Feeling locked into this program (or any program) usually never ends well.

4149

This is a great thread from 2006 in case anyone was interested: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/multiple-degree-programs/143289-umkc-vs-jmc-p1.html. I think it hits on good points that @hopingMD brought up regarding the Docent program.

Did anyone hear from students on the quality of the Fundamentals of Medical Practice course in Years 1-2 and then Docent program in Years 3-6: Continuity Clinic, Docent Rotation, Docent teams, etc. or how those things helped in matching at their residency?

4150

@PinkPrincess, the reason UMKC is set up the way it is in terms of tuition, is because the university, as a whole, makes a LOT of money off of its professional programs: Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Law, etc. When I entered, there was a 6 year BA/MD program (Medicine), 6 year BA/DDS program (Dentistry), 6 year Pharmacy program (Freshman Provisional Admission Program) all of which you could be admitted directly from high school.

A lot of that tuition money from the professional schools supports the finances of the entire university including the undergrad. So they end up making much more money than they normally would by charging an in-state student $595.13/hr vs. $272.30/hr (so slightly above twice as much) or charging an out-of-state person $1,190.24/hr vs. $711.00/hr (about 1 and 2/3 higher), for the same undergraduate course.

It’s also why UMKC BA/MD students aren’t eligible for a lot of the University sponsored scholarships bc that would mean the university would lose money from that student. It used to be that if you were out-of-state you could never get in-state tuition, but I believe that changed likely bc of threat of lawsuit (residency is residency, you can’t deny in-state tuition to someone who qualifies just because they happen to be a certain major – Medicine, in this case).

Here is what I recommend:

Definitely find out what are the requirements and criteria you have to meet to qualify for in-state tuition. This is a good start: http://www.umkc.edu/residency/documents/residency_petition_packet.pdf. Buying a house helps a lot to make your case (which you can charge rent for roommates if you have them, and then you can sell the house at the end of 6 years). It’s a lot of manuevering you have to do but it’s well worth it, since it is now an option. http://www.umkc.edu/residency/

Apply for every single scholarship you are eligible for no matter how small.

4151

When admission decisions will come? UMKC website says, it will be coming no later than 1st April. But, on interview day, lady on stage said, admission decisions will be send on 27th April, Friday on emails on our file. Did any one noticed that???

4152

@15match, that must have been a verbal slip up. The national day that all colleges must give you a decision by is April 1st, and that of course includes BS/MD programs. It doesn’t mean a college can’t give you a decision before then, but it means they have to tell you the decision at the latest by that date. You then get time (about a month) to make a decision as families are comparing costs, financial aid, etc. and then decide where to go by the national date which is May 1st.

I would go by the website: http://med.umkc.edu/bamd/timeline/
April 1: Offers of Admission are Extended
Students being offered admission will be notified electronically of their acceptance to the program. Scholarship offers may also be made at this time. Students placed on the alternate list or denied to the program will also be notified electronically at this time. All admission decisions are communicated electronically, and will not be communicated via phone.

4153

@ang331, what do you mean by being able double major? Or did you mean minor in something else, like Chemistry? http://med.umkc.edu/docs/accepted/Three_Degree_Comparison.pdf

I don’t think it’s even possible to fulfill undergraduate requirements for 2 Bachelor’s degrees in the program. Not putting you on the spot, but thought maybe I missed something.

4154

@PinkPrincess2014 Lol, I know. I called and the director said that it would be possible for a student to double major in biology and chemistry in the six years. No student has done it because I guess they have never really cared to, but it has always been a goal of mine to double major. Students also can get a minor, but due to the nature and scheduling of the program that can only happen within the three course plans. She also stated that in the past there were other major options, but that has been changed.

4155

Thanks @ang331! I’ll have to look at the BA Biology/MD and BA Chemistry/MD plans again. There didn’t seem to be a lot of crossover to be able to do both, although that would be cool to double major. It would just seem like way too many credit hours, and limited to only specific semesters, but I guess anything is possible.

I saw this:
http://catalog.umkc.edu/colleges-schools/medicine/requirements-for-graduation-ba-md-combined-program/
“The most common baccalaureate degrees are in liberal arts, biology, chemistry, communication studies, philosophy, psychology and sociology.”

So are the only majors available now Biology, Chemistry, and Liberal Arts?

4156

@Roentgen and @UMKCRoos, I looked up classes (Schedule of Classes) on the Pathway website: https://umkc.umsystem.edu/psp/prd/?cmd=login. They have class schedules for Summer 2015 and Fall 2015 also. These are all the med school classes in the first 2 years. Did you think these classes helped you by the time you got to Hospital Hill or helped you greatly in residency? How are these different from say volunteering or shadowing at a hospital or in a clinic?

MEDICINE 9119 - Learning Basic Medical Sciences
Kathy Phillips, Bibie Chronwall
Tu 1:00PM - 1:50PM

1 credit hour/1 hour per week. Provides students with an understanding of their own learning processes and those study strategies that promote maximum learning efficiency. Active participation in course increases achievement in both science and non-science courses, smoothes transition to college-level work, and further develops reasoning and thinking skills that apply to medical school

MEDICINE 9115 - Medical Terminology
Susan Sykes Berry
Internet Class

1 credit hour/twice weekly each semester. Methodical introduction to the language of medicine and its usage in modern clinical documentation. Introduces word elements in a logical, graduated sequence correlated with laboratory practice. Encourages skills in etymological analysis based on the word elements presented to facilitate interpretation of composite medical terms.

MEDICINE 9110 - Fundamentals of Medical Practice I
Lawrence Dall
Fr 2:00PM - 4:00PM

Introduces students to professional values, attitudes and skills required to practice medicine competently. Develops student competence in basic communication, relationship-building and patient centered interviewing skills. Provides self-awareness and personal growth strategies that facilitate the acquisition of professional behavior affecting honesty and integrity, compassion and altruism, as well as the management of stress. Explores non-biological factors influencing health and the appreciation of different value systems and life styles. Promotes ethical considerations relating to professional behavior and student conduct as a forerunner to professional behavior. Emphasizes the team approach in solving medical problems through direct small group activities as part of weekly onsite docent experiences. Integrates patient interviews and examinations with sciences fundamental to clinical medicine.

MEDICINE 9120 - Fundamentals of Medical Practice II
Lawrence Dall
Fr 2:00PM - 3:50PM
TuTh 8:00AM - 12:00PM

Introduces students to professional values, attitudes and skills required to practice medicine competently. Develops student competence in basic communication, relationship-building and patient centered interviewing skills. Provides self-awareness and personal growth strategies that facilitate the acquisition of professional behavior affecting honesty and integrity, compassion and altruism, as well as the management of stress. Explores non-biological factors influencing health and the appreciation of different value systems and life styles. Promotes ethical considerations relating to professional behavior and student conduct as a forerunner to professional behavior. Emphasizes the team approach in solving medical problems through direct small group activities as part of weekly onsite docent experiences. Integrates patient interviews and examinations with sciences fundamental to clinical medicine.

MEDICINE 9221 - Hospital Team Experience
Cynthia Anderson, Samuel Turner
TBA

1 credit hour/2-week assignment in hospital. Teaches students to make good observations, interact appropriately with patients, family, and hospital staff, assist with non-physician duties, and perform technical skills appropriate to assigned departments. Facilitates understanding of allied health care personnel roles in patient care, communication among health care professionals and its influence on the delivery of health care and patient outcomes, and the hospital process and structure of authority within the hospital.

MEDICINE 9210 - Fundamentals Of Medical Practice III
Lawrence Dall, Gina Scott, George Harris
Tu 3:30PM - 5:20PM
TuTh 8:00AM - 11:15AM

5 credit hours, 3 hours per week onsite, 2 hours lecture. Reinforces important concepts in diversity and professionalism. Continues the team approach in solving medical problems through direct small group activities as part of weekly onsite docent experience.

MEDICINE 9220 - Fundamentals Of Medical Practice IV
Lawrence Dall
Tu 3:30PM - 5:20PM
TuTh 8:00AM - 12:00PM

5 credit hours, 3 hours per week onsite, 2 hours lecture. Reinforces important concepts in diversity and professionalism. Continues the team approach in solving medical problems through direct small group activities as part of weekly onsite docent experiences. Integrates patient interviews and examinations with sciences fundamental to clinical medicine, including biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and social sciences. Exposes students to a series of interviews with seasoned professionals who address issues of professionalism and career development.

MEDICINE 9310 - History of Medicine
Betty Drees
Class meets MED School, Theater A. Tuesdays: June 2 - July 7.

In this course students will learn the ways disease has altered history and that conceptions of disease undergo constant change. Topics covered include diseases and their relationships to other medical sciences, as well as the historical and scientific developments which led to our present understanding of diseases and medicine.

4157

@PinkPrincess2014,
So those classes are technically labeled “Medicine” classes since they are offered by the med school, but they’re not taught on a medical school level the way they might be taught to traditional medical students who’ve completed a Bachelor’s degree. Since you’re just starting as a college freshman in Year 1, the classes have to be contoured somewhat to fit your knowledge base at the time. If they were that integral to the program, those students who enter in as traditional students, which they call MD-only students now, would be behind since they miss those things when they enter the program.

I wouldn’t put too much stock into catalog descriptions of courses in general which can make it sound nicer than it actually is. The quality and how useful a course is usually depends on the person teaching it. The same thing will work for your Year 5 rotations. Some were great, if you had good residents or a good attending, some not so great. Same in Year 3 - for Docent teams - if you had good teammates and a good docent. You’ll have to put effort and enthusiasm to learn regardless, but it always helps to have great teachers. Totally different people run these courses now, so I would ask current students how much they thought it helped overall. You learn most of your clinical skills formally in the Year 3 Clinical Skills course, and hopefully it gets stronger as you progress through clinics and rotations.

As far as my experience:

LBMS, that’s what we called it for short, it was a waste of time. In theory, it was supposed to be a class where you learn good study skills, how to digest and process information for harder medical school level science courses, but it never really lived up to its name. It was only 1 hour a week, so it wasn’t a huge imposition on time.

Med Term, that’s we called it for short, there was an elderly woman, Edith Mardiat, who taught the course for literally decades. Every UMKC Alumni knows who she is. She retired, and I think she recently passed away, and I believe her course lectures were uploaded to a website, as part of Computer Science project, but it looks like they only did 2 units: http://v.web.umkc.edu/vm63a/451mp/med115.htm - one of my friends in my class did the audio! It was funny bc on the first day we were all freaked out bc she knew all of our names bc she studied the roster with our photos. If you didn’t do good on the quizzes or final, she had you come over to her house and bake cookies and redo the exam until you passed. LOL!! Such great nostalgia!

Docent classes were named a little differently - they weren’t called Fundamentals of Medical Practice: It was "Introduction to Medicine I and II in the first year (Your docents were a board certified Family Medicine or Internal Medicine doctor paired with a board-certified Psychiatrist whom you had all year). In the second year, half the class had “Introduction to the Child” one semester (with a Pediatrician docent), and the other half had Introduction to the Woman (with an OB-Gyn docent) another semester. In theory, you’re supposed to learn the building blocks about medicine, different areas of the hospital, the initial building blocks on doing a complete History on a patient: Chief Complaint, History of Present Illness, Past Medical History, Past Surgical History, Family History, Social History, Allergies, Review of Systems, etc. You might learn very initial or brief physical exam stuff, but it wasn’t a full one. You learned though how to communicate with patients, although at a very basic level.

The quality of that Docent experience in Years 1 and 2 relied a lot on who your docent was. Based on the descriptions it looks like they’ve changed the curriculum to where there are now additional required lectures on top of the hospital experience, likely so that no matter how “good” or “bad” your individual Docent experience is, you still come away having learned something. I’ve heard now that they’ve made it a little harder with midterm and final exams in Docent, when usually it was just an evaluation of Pass/Fail at the end.

Hospital Team - was where you only shadowed non-physicians for 2 weeks to learn about other personnel in a hospital.

History of Medicine - we had this summer Year 1 along with Organic Chem, rather than summer Year 3 as it is now, but it’s relatively a benign social science course on medicine throughout periods in history.

Sometimes our class felt like these classes would get in the way of our other “more important” graded classes and make things more stressful, especially if there was an exam coming up soon, and we still had to go to these classes anyways, rather than get extra study time, but otherwise, they were probably a good “break” from studying.

I think also it made us feel a little “special” as Year 1s/2s that we weren’t your typical premed student just taking undergraduate classes. I don’t think these Year 1 & 2 classes, in and of themselves, made internship or residency easier though - would have been nice if they did, but I don’t think that was their purpose.

4158

@UMKCRoosMD

I don’t know if you answered @ang331’s question(s), and sorry if I missed it: but what is your specialty, and what were your pros and cons of the program personally going in and after you graduated? Did you ever feel any stigmas against you for going this route?

What makes a specialty competitive for medical students? Is it just the residency or the specialty fellowship that is competitive? How is applying to a competitive specialty different than applying to a non-competitive specialty? Is the residency match different now than back in 2003?

Can’t speak for everyone else, but I really appreciate you answering all these questions about UMKC’s med school and about life in medicine in general, while we’re all sitting and waiting for our result. April 1 can’t come soon enough!

4159

@PinkPrincess2014, @ang331

Sorry, took me a bit to answer, new baby on the way.

I actually went into Pediatrics and then did a subspecialty fellowship. Overall, Pediatrics, as a residency, is not competitive, although specific residency programs in Pediatrics will always be very competitive. That’s like this in any non-competitive specialty - even though overall the residency specialty is not competitive, the top programs in that specialty are competitive.

I didn’t make a pro and con list of the UMKC program itself because UMKC was the only Baccalaureate/MD program I applied to, which I applied based on the word of mouth from a family friend. If I didn’t get in, I would have automatically done the traditional route and was fully prepared and planning to do so until I got my acceptance letter. The six year route is what made me find out about the program and attracted me, initially, no question. I wouldn’t say that’s the right way to go about doing things though. Time should not be a huge factor in your decision - the quality of the medical school, or the quality of the undergrad in case you decide to drop out should be a factor. Cost should be a factor. But getting to graduate 2 years early should not factor into a decision like this.

I don’t think I felt any stigma, personally, but my frame of reference will be different than maybe someone going for a competitive specialty. As an example, we had 4 people in our class (all of whom I am very good friends with) go for Dermatology, a very competitive specialty. 2 of them made it into AOA. Out of all 4 of them, only one girl matched that year and she had very few interviews, and could have just as easily not matched, since her overall probability was low. I think they did feel that coming from UMKC hurt them because UMKC is a primary care-oriented school, so your interest in the specialty gets questioned since UMKC does not have a residency program in that field. Going into a 6 year program didn’t help since many of the faculty came thru the traditional route.

I think there are some residency faculty in the U.S. who have the belief that 6 year students may not have the underlying maturity or may not be as well-rounded as their traditional counterparts. Those things are important when you’re interacting all the time with real patients, attending doctors, other residents, etc. Regardless, if you are a 6 year med student, you will get asked questions about it in residency interviews, since almost all doctors in the US do the traditional route. I never felt the stigma at UMKC with faculty, bc they all know we are 6 year students. The key is to prove that the stereotype is not the case.

I think for me, and more towards what @Roentgen was saying, a better pro and con list at that age, would have been whether to pursue medicine at all or through medical school. There was a lot about the real practice of medicine that I just didn’t know vs. the idealized version I came in with - i.e. certain ethical situations that happen in hospitals: death, palliative cancer/hospice care, DNR/DNI discussions, etc., dealing with patients and their distraught families. Not all of your patients are going to be the “happy to see you” type that you might be used to seeing in clinics or ones who will be happy/thankful that you gave them great guidance for their health or saved their life. Depending on your specialty, there are times you will have to be on call. There will be sacrifices you will make by being a doctor. I would say if your reason for choosing physician over becoming an NP/PA is because you think you want to be the one “in charge” making decisions, then you should probably investigate things a little more, as you’ll see very quickly that medicine in many specialties is practiced as a team sport. The more open your eyes are, the less shocking it will be to you later.

All competitive means is that there are just way more people applying to that specialty then there are spots available. What makes a specialty competitive can vary but I think things like number of hours worked, amount of free time available outside of work, salary, all factor in. I think this is a good website to give an idea as to what is competitive currently (realize this can always change based on changes in healthcare): https://www.med.umich.edu/medstudents/curRes/M4/docs/Critical_Components_of_the_Match.pdf

Just bc a residency isn’t competitive doesn’t mean it is not interesting or that it is boring or that it is a “bad” specialty. It just means there are enough spots to accomodate the number of people currently applying. I know people who went into Psychiatry and then did a Child & Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship and thoroughly enjoy working with young children with conditions like ADHD, behavioral problems in school, etc. You’ll be very surprised by what rotations appeal to you in medical school and it’s not always what you think it is, if you go in with an open mind. Realize also that many non-competitive specialties have competitive subspecialty fellowships (Allergy) that you can get because you finished the residency required. Nearly all residencies have fellowships, but whether to do a fellowship or not is an individual decision. I don’t think applying is any different. However with a competitive residency specialty, a greater emphasis will be placed on being near the top of your class in terms of grades, board scores, research publications, etc. just bc there aren’t enough spots and the demand is high. A competitive fellowship is more based on your residency performance, networking, etc. so at that time your medical school performance won’t be as huge a factor, if at all.

I think one thing that is different from 2003, is that by the time you guys apply in the fall 2020, the number of US medical school graduates will be equal if not greater than the total number of residency positions offered and the government is not spending more money on residency positions. That means there will be people who even if they were good med students, don’t match into the residency of their choice. So either they will have to choose another specialty or not be able to practice medicine at all. Since all residency positions are currently funded by Medicare and Medicaid. Currently the number of residency positions is capped bc of the Budget Control Act of 1997: http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/MedicalEducation/42786. Just something to keep in mind, bc NPs and PAs don’t have to do a residency.

4160

@UMKCRoosMD, what do you mean by “medicine in many specialties is practiced as a team sport”? I tended to like the one on one interaction with patients, honestly. I liked the idea of being an individual physician and doing things that I’m supposed to do and be responsible for and doing a good job. Is this something that is changing in healthcare? Kind of like how doctors back in the old days used to do house-calls (but don’t anymore)? I never really explored PAs and NPs and what they do.

I don’t know about other people here ( @ang331, @HopingMD, @advitam, @elliotpiano), but as someone only in high school, it was really difficult to get hospital volunteer positions as a high schooler, especially with hospitals that work with medical schools. Even then, it’s not like you’re shadowing and following along the doctors and residents closely and get to see what they actually do. I just want to make sure that I’m getting a realistic picture of how medicine is like. A lot of the shadowing I did was with private practice doctors, since it was a lot easier to get, and less paperwork. It just required a phone call.

What do you think high school students should be doing to get a realistic picture of how medicine is like or will be like or the ethical scenarios you’re talking about? I think a lot of us like medicine or like sciences as it pertains to humans, but I also think the financial stability of medicine is a huge motivator as well, since people will always be sick. It’s a field you can like to do and still have a job.

Do you think it’s a good idea to go into medical school wanting to do certain specialties?