so you enjoyed wasting 4 years of your life on your PRE-MED education (its called pre-medical for a reason, its supposed to prepare you for medical school. its not just an arbitrary degree that you obtain)? Infact theres parts of the world where you DON'T do an undergrad education. You jump from highschool straight into medical school & instead of a 4 year medschool, you have an extended 6 years which are ALL clinically relevant.
No... it isnt. It is just a small subset of courses that medschools want to make sure you take to avoid someone getting a 4 year degree in something completely BS (not bachelors of science) and then coming in with a 4.0 an having no idea how to study science. The level of "training" is so minimal here as to be nonexistant, and pre-med requirements really only take a couple of semesters anyways. What are they for most places now? 2 semesters of orgo, 2 semesters of non-calc physics, intro to biology, 1 semester of calculus..... There isn't a whole lot else....
yeah because that is hard.
I don't find this that unreasonable at all.
Yes, other countries do it this way. Many other countries don't have residencies either, they don't produce the same quality of physician, and... why are you using that as a valid argument again?
China is one of these countries. In China if you fail to get into "college" you go to med school. No joke.
Central america has the straight into med school gig. However there it is because each "college" trains a specific profession and
they still spend 8 years in post HS schooling.
Aside from all of that, you still have not demonstrated to ANY degree that such a change will be beneficial. You are just sitting there saying "I can haz doctor naow?"
. UG was a positive experience for me and for most people who do it. I'm OK with the experience I had for the maturity that was developed, interpersonal skills (no cracks about my post history plz
) and overall increase in experiences. I think setting up a system to spit out medical drones is a mistake and that is what you are describing.
You don't think you were pressured to take upper level science courses in whatever field, because you had to show that you were a more science oriented person & that you could handle the rigors of medical school? There is too much of an emphasis on proving to medical school that you are worthy of their attention. another poster above mentioned that they should have some way of screening who should/shouldn't go to medical school. WHY!? Why should someone decide that you can't become a doctor (infact theres a pathway for people to still become doctors even if medical schools don't think they are worthy -- its called carribean & you will be working with them side by side in the future).
I absolutely think that I was. Good thing too, because the guy who got a 4.0 in something silly and then didn't have the chops to handle the MCAT or didn't have the drive to do other ECs is currently not in medical school
a VERY small percentage of caribbean med students make it to practice in the US. I wont be working with very many of them, that is for sure. Also, this fact PROVES the efficacy of the selection process. Many of the carib students don't even pass, few enough that most schools down there are essentially scams. Pointing out the odd exception to the rule does nothing to support your argument. All you have demonstrated is that 1 person gets incorrectly screened out for every 100 that were appropriately screened out.(and let's face it, most of the time it is because of the poor decisions they made in undergrad, and how is putting in an express line going to help this? So they can make the same poor decisions in medschool and fail out after the state and schools invest money in them? yeah
)
You don't have some god given right to become a doctor. The hurdles are useful for screening out those who are not serious about it or do not have the ability and the hurdles are perfectly manageable. Yes, it sucks that a little immaturity your freshman year can haunt you for years to come. I fail to see how just accepting them anyways on a speed track helps this at all.
We all like to justify the hard work we've done to get to where we are, but stop & think for a moment if it was really necessary. What if I took less advanced microbiology/biophysical chem classes in college (because I felt pressured to prove that I could handle advanced sciences) & instead spent it doing something more useful, perhaps completely mastering spanish & learning a 3rd language. Instead, I took advanced microbiology...learned about thermophile bacteria that grow on volcanoes......also took biochemistry for an entire year & learned to draw nucleotides/nucleosides.....not to mention my degree eventually required biophysical chemistry, the most useless complicated **** i will never use.
Your mistake is in thinking that not using the information itself means it is useless. Again, you develop study habits, interpersonal skills, and (of highest importance) get the opportunity to understand a little about what the commitment will mean, something that HS grads simply do not have. Allowing HS grads to come straight in only increases the dropout rate.
Its very easy for us to justify all the hard work we do to get where we are. "we're training the smartest & the brightest people to become doctors, we can't make that road easy. they need to prove they are worthy of learning medicine by spending 4 years jumping through hoops".
& again, you're a ms2 & haven't set foot in a hospital yet. so i'm going to disregard all your "my attendings know their science to the molecular level" comments, because you are full of it.
I have been in the clinic several times. No, not on clerkship, but I don't pretend at all that my clinical experiences gives me insight into what clinical profession really is, nor did my statement imply that or require it to be valid. I have been pimped, seen the MS3-4s get pimped, and heard the questions others get. What I said is that these doctors do retain and use the knowledge. I didn't say it was necessary, but to deny utility makes YOU full of it
You should feel bad that another field has figured out how to get to the same end goal that you are looking to achieve (treating patients) with less hoops to jump through, with a BETTER job market, with a union, with the job market/salaries only improving in the future. Americans are starting to hate doctors, but they don't quite hate NPs yet. You can criticize them all you want, but when i work with some NPs & they introduce themselves as "i'm a nurse prac & I will be treating you" & the patients respond with "oh you can do that? cool!", you should be worried because the customer is always right. The customer here is the patient & they're going to spend their money with whoever they want. Telling them that you jumped through years of hoops to prove yourself worthy is not going to win over their $$.
except, as previously mentioned they don't do as good of a job of it.
You sit here and complain about all the hoops and then compare to a group without them who demonstrate diminished ability.
Seriously.... If all you want is to treat patients go that route. You will get the satisfaction of treating patients while being blissfully unaware of your knowledge gap. From where I sit I see 2 professions and 2 educational tracts. Those coming out the DNP educational tract do not have the skills of the MD tract and every attending you interact with will attest to this. On here they have been compared to perpetual residents. The only difference is in the education. So knock the system if you want, but until DNPs are performing equally with physicians on their own in all cases and not just those that they decide not to defer on (which is very common) your entire argument is simply invalid and it is nothing but the whining of someone who is missing the point
