Once I found out why we are here...

[realgraverobber]

What we do at medical school makes clear sense once I found out why we are really here:

-pay schools so profs can do research
-pay for a hundred administrative benchwarmers
-'Medical School' sounds nice, too bad the students are in the way of everyone

Now it makes sense why so little is learned during the operating hours. Profs need to show the legislature that their 12 hours per semester of lecture is done, now pay me $60,000.

What a sad state of affairs in allopathic medical schools.

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[nogolfinsnow]

most research is funded by grant $, so the profs (PhDs) are writing NIH grants for both research funding and salary, and money from those grants also goes to the institution where the professor works. In order to be faculty, they also have to do some "teaching."

But I do agree w/ you. Some profs are great, enjoy teaching, like to interact with med students. To many others, we seem to be an annoyance.

 

[taXi]

My first two years of medschool were literally useless. One month before step1 I sat down and taught myself everything I should have been teaching myself during m1/2. Looking back, I would not go to any lectures at my school that were not required--I could have learned a lot more medicine.

And yes, NIH does fund a lot of researchers, which in turn benefits the school, BUT...
i.e. at my school there are a LOT of profs that have tenure, no grant money and only lecture 12 hours a year. These profs still get lab space and minimal funds for research.

But whatev, I knew I came here primarily to jump through hoops. I'm just thankful that a. my phd studies are proving academically fulfilling and b. the clinical education here is light years superior to the pre-clinical.

A sad state of affairs indeed though...

 

[xanthines]

Whoa! What school do you go to? That's where I want to be after I get out of school. Most places give you the boot when you run out of grant money. If you're tenured you still get your base salary, but you lose your lab, personnel, and your office.

-X

...at my school there are a LOT of profs that have tenure, no grant money and only lecture 12 hours a year. These profs still get lab space and minimal funds for research.

 

[coffeebythelake]

My first two years of medschool were literally useless. One month before step1 I sat down and taught myself everything I should have been teaching myself during m1/2. Looking back, I would not go to any lectures at my school that were not required--I could have learned a lot more medicine.

And how well did you do?

 

[OncoCaP]

What we do at medical school makes clear sense once I found out why we are really here:

-pay schools so profs can do research
-pay for a hundred administrative benchwarmers
-'Medical School' sounds nice, too bad the students are in the way of everyone

Now it makes sense why so little is learned during the operating hours. Profs need to show the legislature that their 12 hours per semester of lecture is done, now pay me $60,000.

What a sad state of affairs in allopathic medical schools.

Hmmm. You're saying that you have no profs that like to teach and have a talent for it? Is it perhaps that the low end of the prof performance curve is getting to you?

For point of reference, I hear complaints about lousy physicians all the time, but I'm not under the impression that every physician is incompetent as a result of those (several) complaints.

 

[dilated]

One thing that's sure true is the utter uselessness and bloat of medical school administrations. We apparently have a person whose only job is to deal with course evaluations. That's the entire job. I would actually prefer they take my tuition and burn it in front of me.

 

[coffeebythelake]

One thing that's sure true is the utter uselessness and bloat of medical school administrations. We apparently have a person whose only job is to deal with course evaluations. That's the entire job. I would actually prefer they take my tuition and burn it in front of me.

There are a lot of useless admin at my school as well.

 

[rgarrig]

What we do at medical school makes clear sense once I found out why we are really here:

-pay schools so profs can do research
-pay for a hundred administrative benchwarmers
-'Medical School' sounds nice, too bad the students are in the way of everyone

Now it makes sense why so little is learned during the operating hours. Profs need to show the legislature that their 12 hours per semester of lecture is done, now pay me $60,000.

What a sad state of affairs in allopathic medical schools.

One thing: even with the tuition I pay (~$50K/year), my entire class only puts up about $4 million - this doesn't amount to very much money when you look at the billion dollar a year budget the school runs. I really don't believe they could be making money off of us at these rates - and if they are, it isn't much.

 

[deleted77919]

Assuming a class size of 160, and all students graduate in 4 years, a school would collect about $25,600,000/year in tuition. Assuming a total hospital budget of $1 billion, that represents 2.56% of the overall budget. It is certainly not the majority, but most places would have trouble cutting their overall budget by that much. They have an easier time writting letters to alums about how high tuition is, so please contribute to the scholarship fund, and telling students "don't worry about how much you are borrowing, you'll pay it off."

 

[jocg27]

One of our deans was telling us at one point, adamantly, that all med schools including expensive private ones actually lose a substantial amount of money on each student. He never clearly explained why this was the case or really convinced me that it is totally true...but he certainly seemed sure of himself.