Will medical school ever get less oversaturated with applicants?

[mrh125]

The trend seems to be that you have more and more people having to jump through more and more challenging hoops to get into the same number of slots for an ever decreasing or constant reward for their efforts (constant would be the more generous term). The MCAT score median keeps creeping up and ECs are now a ridiculous laundry list of how many things you can successfully do during your undergrad and allow to deprive you over of your quality of life and free time. Will this trend ever cease to exist or become more balanced, so that any realistically qualified app can enjoy some quality of life and get into an avg medical school? realistically I think LizzyM once said anyone with a 24 mcat and I'd imagine decent grades is qualified enough for medical school [going from memory so dont quote me]. Medical schools are always willing to accept the best qualified applicants and rationalize why getting less than the arbitrarily cutoffs makes one under-qualified for medical school regardless of the validity of it in reality (how many people who have the capacity to make great doctors are denied the opportunity by ever increasing admissions standards?), as well debacles such as the new mcat and requirements in medical school get more and more stiff and demanding.

Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants or will there be any way to at least balance out the level of investment put in with the output (degree in medicine) or equalize things (e.g. free med school education)? Or perhaps even the realization that there should be more than one way to achieve the same goal of a doctor like recognizing that being the best test taker on the planet and having the greatest short term memory ever may not necessarily translate to being a great doctor especially when many things can be easily looked up thus making much intensive memorization less valuable compared to understanding general concepts/critical thinking and on the job learning? If this does happen I look forward to it changing.

Law has been wrecked by oversaturation for example, I wonder if medicine can overcome it.

ignoring my obvious frustration, there's a valid question here. Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants? How can this be combated?

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[Beargryllz]

They keep saying medicine is becoming a less and less attractive field for all sorts of reasons but the process just becomes more and more competitive each year

 

[Ace-Co-A]

Nope, it'll just keep getting worse until the process reaches a maximum. At this point, medical schools will be admitting students as fast as is possible, but still won't be able to catch up.

You'll notice that a special number of applicants corresponds to half this maximal rate, we call it the ***, or the medical school constant.

How's that?

 

[LostinLift]

Why do we need to combat this? Competition is a good thing - It inspires people to work harder than they thought possible.

 

[stevvo111]

Lots of points being addressed, but good questions.

As beargryllz said, I think medicine is becoming less and less of an attractive field, but it somehow manages to attract more and more qualified people. It must either mean the coming generations are constantly getting more and more altruistic, or that everyone is becoming dumber for not

recognizing that being the best test taker on the planet and having the greatest short term memory ever may not necessarily translate to being a great doctor especially when many things can be easily looked up thus making much intensive memorization less valuable compared understanding general concepts/critical thinking and on the job learning

I'd like to think the former and that society as a whole is advancing and realizing medicine is a cool field for all the reasons beyond it's "attractive" qualities. But it is certainly possible that society is becoming dumber for not recognizing and being turned off by the competition, time drain of extracurriculars, and decreasing rewards.

 

[mrh125]

Why do we need to combat this? Competition is a good thing - It inspires people to work harder than they thought possible.

In an ideal that would be a good thing, but there comes a point when such competition is totally unnecessary and it's really debatable how much a higher test score on an arbitrarily chosen test prepares one student better for the medical field than another. Also, there's a whole (Lack of) quality of life business, which is part of why medical students are often left feeling burnt out and inadequate and unable to measure to the expectations set.

Also, when competition increases and the cost increases, while the reward decreases, and deprives one of life experiences is all-around bad mojo.

 

[LostinLift]

In an ideal that would be a good thing, but there comes a point when such competition is totally unnecessary and it's really debatable how much a higher test score on an arbitrarily chosen test prepares one student better for the medical field than another. Also, there's a whole (Lack of) quality of life business, which is part of why medical students are often left feeling burnt out and inadequate and unable to measure to the expectations set.

Also, when competition increases and the cost increases, while the reward decreases and/or stays the same is all-around bad mojo.

If people are willing to do it, then it's not an issue...

Also competition is not based just around the MCAT. It's important but there are so many other factors that are just as important (especially after the interview).

 

[Beargryllz]

Lots of points being addressed, but good questions.

As beargryllz said, I think medicine is becoming less and less of an attractive field, but it somehow manages to attract more and more qualified people. It must either mean the coming generations are constantly getting more and more altruistic, or that everyone is becoming dumber for not


I'd like to think the former and that society as a whole is advancing and realizing medicine is a cool field for all the reasons beyond it's "attractive" qualities. But it is certainly possible that society is becoming dumber for not recognizing and being turned off by the competition, time drain of extracurriculars, and decreasing rewards.

The alternatives are simply laughable and thoroughly embarrassing, to me anyway. I'm ambitious and try not to get held up with the past. We can tell ourselves of "golden ages" when medicine was even more attractive. It wasn't. If it were, more people would have pursued it. Instead, they are doing it now, even as we pretend that we have it so rough with shrinking reimbursements, burdening loan debt, or other nonsense.

 

[LostinLift]

I'd like to think the former and that society as a whole is advancing and realizing medicine is a cool field for all the reasons beyond it's "attractive" qualities. But it is certainly possible that society is becoming dumber for not recognizing and being turned off by the competition, time drain of extracurriculars, and decreasing rewards.

People are dumb, in general. Young people especially due to lack of experience. ESPECIALLY if they apply as juniors in undergrad. They just literally have less time to experience life and make better, more informed decisions.

 

[Lucca]

The higher education bubble will burst in a decade if not earlier and that will lower the overall number of students going into college in general so I imagine that med school applications will decrease accordingly. I wouldn't suspect a dramatic drop, however, considering the amount of self-selection involved in applying. The average age of the applicant will only go up and up and up though in that time. I wouldn't be surprised if it tops off at 28/27.

 

[Beargryllz]

The higher education bubble will burst in a decade if not earlier

I have a thought. Education and healthcare are both indisputable bubbles in the USA. Both education and healthcare will burst. Which one goes first?

 

[zeppelinpage4]

Honestly, regardless of changes...medicine is still a respectable stable job with good pay...at least for the time being. The way the economy is, I can't imagine there are many jobs available with the perks medicine offers, the biggest for me being job stability. It's also still a rewarding profession for many people.

Still...every few days I think I was an idiot choosing this path and instead of a shorter route into healthcare like PA. We'll see if this was a good decision or not.

 

[Lucca]

I have a thought. Education and healthcare are both indisputable bubbles in the USA. Both education and healthcare will burst. Which one goes first?

Hmm I don't think healthcare is a bubble. Education, at least undergraduate education, definitely is and will definitely burst. Healthcare isn't a bubble because the market is nothing like in education and it's hard to say what "overvaluing" healthcare even means. Healthcare is definitely expensive, most likely too expensive, but a bubble it is far from.

Medical education could potentially become a bubble if the cost ever surpasses 1 million dollars at which point it will net 0 financial gain when compared to the lifetime earnings of an average college graduate (all in today's dollars of course) and considering the lifestyle compromises, work hours, and delayed gratification involved the realistic Med.Ed bubble estimate is probably around 450-500K.

 

[Beargryllz]

Healthcare isn't a bubble because the market is nothing like in education and it's hard to say what "overvaluing" healthcare even means. Healthcare is definitely expensive, most likely too expensive, but a bubble it is far from.

It probably is though. Look at how rapidly it grows over the years or simply contrast the change in healthcare spending in USA with any other nation, developed or developing. You'll have a hard time convincing me that healthcare isn't a bubble. Check the change of any stock price for any healthcare corporation from medical devices, insurance, pharmaceuticals, etc. It's just so convincing one way. Convince me otherwise.

If it isn't a bubble, what on earth is it? And what does it mean?

 

[487806]

The trend seems to be that you have more and more people having to jump through more and more challenging hoops to get into the same number of slots for an ever decreasing or constant reward for their efforts (constant would be the more generous term). The MCAT score median keeps creeping up and ECs are now a ridiculous laundry list of how many things you can successfully do during your undergrad and allow to deprive you over of your quality of life and free time. Will this trend ever cease to exist or become more balanced, so that any realistically qualified app can enjoy some quality of life and get into an avg medical school? realistically I think LizzyM once said anyone with a 24 mcat and I'd imagine decent grades is qualified enough for medical school [going from memory so dont quote me]. Medical schools are always willing to accept the best qualified applicants and rationalize why getting less than the arbitrarily cutoffs makes one under-qualified for medical school regardless of the validity of it in reality (how many people who have the capacity to make great doctors are denied the opportunity by ever increasing admissions standards?), as well debacles such as the new mcat and requirements in medical school get more and more stiff and demanding.

Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants or will there be any way to at least balance out the level of investment put in with the output (degree in medicine) or equalize things (e.g. free med school education)? Or perhaps even the realization that there should be more than one way to achieve the same goal of a doctor like recognizing that being the best test taker on the planet and having the greatest short term memory ever may not necessarily translate to being a great doctor especially when many things can be easily looked up thus making much intensive memorization less valuable compared to understanding general concepts/critical thinking and on the job learning? If this does happen I look forward to it changing.

Law has been wrecked by oversaturation for example, I wonder if medicine can overcome it.

ignoring my obvious frustration, there's a valid question here. Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants? How can this be combated?

It will become less oversaturated when:

1) Medicine loses its value
2) Alternative healthcare careers become increasingly popular
3) The job market improves

Healthcare isn't a bubble because the market is nothing like in education and it's hard to say what "overvaluing" healthcare even means. Healthcare is definitely expensive, most likely too expensive, but a bubble it is far from.

 

[Lucca]

It probably is though. Look at how rapidly it grows over the years or simply contrast the change in healthcare spending in USA with any other nation, developed or developing. You'll have a hard time convincing me that healthcare isn't a bubble. Check the change of any stock price for any healthcare corporation from medical devices, insurance, pharmaceuticals, etc. It's just so convincing one way. Convince me otherwise.

If it isn't a bubble, what on earth is it? And what does it mean?

The healthcare market is regulated and demand is constant or rising at any point in time at all prices. The supply is strongly controlled and for it to be a bubble the customer (the patient or the government) must buy the product (healthcare) at a price that is higher than what that product is "actually" worth (as determined by economics and mathematics and alternatives). It's tough to say what healthcare is "actually" worth because depending on the gravity of the care required it could be worth nothing (in some cases, it could even do harm) and in the other - statistically, the vast majority of expensive cases - could be valued infinitely simply due to the fact that it's life or death at that point. Moreover, the new healthcare model is leaning towards a "Sickest 95% pay for the Sickest 5% and also the uninsured" kind of system that relies on 'everyone being in it together' which is definitely not the case right now and you only have to read the posts on these forums on the ACA to know why/how that is happening. What this means for the bubble vs. not bubble argument is that the pay structure is different in that the customer is not always paying for the product they use so it adds another level of complexity to the valuing of the product.

Yah we spend a lot more than any other nation but that's partly because we're idiots and let Pharm + Insurance run the show and partly because the healthcare system in this country is very complicated.

In contrast, look at the housing market and the bubble of '05-'08. There is an objective way of valuing housing costs/prices. They were over valued. People bought it at an overvalued price. People realize it is overvalued. People jump the **** off that boat. Prices crash. People lose tons of money. Alternatively, if healthcare is expensive then what do people do? Die?

tl;dr. Healthcare market =/= traditional market, ergo Healthcare is not a bubble because it is very difficult to accurately value it.

Healthcare isn't a bubble, it's just expensive, bloated, and cumbersome.

 

[Lucca]

Do you quarrel sir?

 

[487806]

Do you quarrel sir?

Well I'm just gonna be a spectator in this economic debate.... if hopefully it gets somewhere interesting

 

[Lucca]

Well I'm just gonna be a spectator in this economic debate.... if hopefully it gets somewhere interesting

Fair enough. I'm going to tag @moop since m'colleague has more experience in actual financial/economic research than myself.

 

[Beargryllz]

tl;dr. Healthcare market =/= traditional market, ergo Healthcare is not a bubble because it is very difficult to accurately value it.

Healthcare isn't a bubble, it's just expensive, bloated, and cumbersome.

I like that we're talking about accurate value. Because I'm thinking that not having an accurate value on a runaway, accelerating market is only going to add suspicion. The total spending on healthcare continues to tick up and consume a larger and larger portion. I'm still thinking that the "why" can be answered. It is overvalued, it is expensive, and it is bloated. I'll bet we could find out what healthcare is really worth, and I'll bet it isn't worth what we're spending. I've already made that bet. I just hope I don't forget to remember to collect on it.

 

[Lucca]

I like that we're talking about accurate value. Because I'm thinking that not having an accurate value on a runaway, accelerating market is only going to add suspicion. The total spending on healthcare continues to tick up and consume a larger and larger portion. I'm still thinking that the "why" can be answered. It is overvalued, it is expensive, and it is bloated. I'll bet we could find out what healthcare is really worth, and I'll bet it isn't worth what we're spending. I've already made that bet. I just hope I don't forget to remember to collect on it.

I mean, sure, you could make that bet but there is no data to back up what it is actually worth. We know that if we spend more and more on healthcare then it becomes a national defense issue because it begins to encroach on what we can spend on other important governmental bodies.

Healthcare isn't going to burst because there is no exiting the system and there's no control over whether you are a customer or not. You simply are because you are alive, that's why this profession is so stable.

You want to make healthcare cheaper though? The higher-ed bubble has to burst first for that. Heavily subsidize medical education, cut physician salaries (after the heavy med-ed subsidies of course), bring the pharm industry to the chopping block, then bring the insurance industry to the chopping block and impose regulations that prevent eye-gouging and highway robbery. Patients shouldn't be paying 3x the cost for acetaminophen just because it says Tylenol (I don't know this is accurate, but you guys know that generic vs. brand-name drugs that are chemically identical is a big cost sink). While you're at it give doctor's more protection against lawsuits and work to curb defensive medicine. On the private end, improve EMR/Medical bookkeeping to avoid misdiagnoses and other easily avoidable clinical errors - we know we lose billions of dollars because of this.

Improve public health education and public health initiatives to curb the growing trend of preventable disease in this country. Improve the primary and secondary education systems so they actually produce capable members of society that can contribute in a meaningful way without becoming cost-sinks for four years only to saturate a job market and artificially raise educational hiring standards. Curb anti-intellectualism in this country so the average member of a society is literate and educated enough to partake in a democracy and not some quasi-plutocracy.

This problem is so freaking big that it's just never that simple.

 

[WillburCobb]

Follow your no... Oops, mean the economy.

 

[infinitessimal]

At the current rate, I think there will be a growing number of applicants jumping through ever-increasing hoops until there's some major change, and it doesn't have to come from the medical field. One of the reasons becoming a doctor is so attractive is that if you get in, it's more often than not a straight path to a steady job for the rest of your life with a likely 6-figure salary. If you end up having to relocate to another country for whatever reason, a doctor is universally respected and will also find a niche faster than a tax accountant, for example. You just don't have that kind of security in other fields in America today, and more and more people are realizing this. I agree with Agent B that if the job market improves significantly, the # of prospective doctors might decrease. I don't think medicine will ever lose its value anywhere, at any time, in the world.

 

[Docbeme]

Although some of us believe that medicine won't become less attractive for applicants, I disagree. When you have a projected shortage of over 100,000 doctors and an aging population, there will be a demand for the foreseeable future. However, when and if that changes, watch out. It happened with law school admissions. The market for lawyers is saturated and many law schools are pleading for candidates. Why would you think medicine is any different? Supply and demand is germane to the discussion.

There are other factors at play. More and more doctors are giving up their private practices and working for hospitals. Physician income has been going in a negative direction, on average, for over a decade. The PPACA is only going to make things worse. Eventually, as many people fear, US medicine may become single payer for most Americans. If and when that occurs, I believe you will see reimbursement drop to even lower levels. None of this is good for physicians who have endured vast amounts of debt to go through the educational process and then receive a miserly wage during years of training where we work 80 hours per week. If you are headed towards primary care, you will be competing with NP's and PA's whose training will be a fraction of what we go through. This, too, will push physician compensation down. In essence we incur vast amounts of debt, break our butts during residency and at the end of the day, our financial rewards won't be what they once were, not even close, and we will work for a hospital whose single major interest is a good bottom line for its owners/stockholders.

I personally believe that at some point, the application pool could shrink, and shrink drastically. I know that the more I read about the direction medicine is going, the more I am second guessing myself, and this is as I finish my third year of med school with some yet undecided surgical specialty in my future.

 

[Psai]

The alternatives are simply laughable and thoroughly embarrassing, to me anyway. I'm ambitious and try not to get held up with the past. We can tell ourselves of "golden ages" when medicine was even more attractive. It wasn't. If it were, more people would have pursued it. Instead, they are doing it now, even as we pretend that we have it so rough with shrinking reimbursements, burdening loan debt, or other nonsense.

Man you are clueless.

 

[Mad Jack]

I like that we're talking about accurate value. Because I'm thinking that not having an accurate value on a runaway, accelerating market is only going to add suspicion. The total spending on healthcare continues to tick up and consume a larger and larger portion. I'm still thinking that the "why" can be answered. It is overvalued, it is expensive, and it is bloated. I'll bet we could find out what healthcare is really worth, and I'll bet it isn't worth what we're spending. I've already made that bet. I just hope I don't forget to remember to collect on it.

A lot of the overspending is on administration and drugs. We spend many times the administrative costs of other developed countries, and spend more than double what they do on drugs per person.

 

[Mad Jack]

The trend seems to be that you have more and more people having to jump through more and more challenging hoops to get into the same number of slots for an ever decreasing or constant reward for their efforts (constant would be the more generous term). The MCAT score median keeps creeping up and ECs are now a ridiculous laundry list of how many things you can successfully do during your undergrad and allow to deprive you over of your quality of life and free time. Will this trend ever cease to exist or become more balanced, so that any realistically qualified app can enjoy some quality of life and get into an avg medical school? realistically I think LizzyM once said anyone with a 24 mcat and I'd imagine decent grades is qualified enough for medical school [going from memory so dont quote me]. Medical schools are always willing to accept the best qualified applicants and rationalize why getting less than the arbitrarily cutoffs makes one under-qualified for medical school regardless of the validity of it in reality (how many people who have the capacity to make great doctors are denied the opportunity by ever increasing admissions standards?), as well debacles such as the new mcat and requirements in medical school get more and more stiff and demanding.

Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants or will there be any way to at least balance out the level of investment put in with the output (degree in medicine) or equalize things (e.g. free med school education)? Or perhaps even the realization that there should be more than one way to achieve the same goal of a doctor like recognizing that being the best test taker on the planet and having the greatest short term memory ever may not necessarily translate to being a great doctor especially when many things can be easily looked up thus making much intensive memorization less valuable compared to understanding general concepts/critical thinking and on the job learning? If this does happen I look forward to it changing.

Law has been wrecked by oversaturation for example, I wonder if medicine can overcome it.

ignoring my obvious frustration, there's a valid question here. Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants? How can this be combated?

First off, the law market became what it is due to rapid school expansion, poor quality control, and the post-2008 collapse of the legal field, not increasing applicant competitiveness. The overall competitiveness of law school had decreased to the point that basically anyone with a Bachelor's degree and a pulse could get in.

Medicine will only decrease in competitiveness when the value of a medical degree normalizes compared to that of other potential options. Either medicine will have to pay substantially less, or alternative careers will have to pay substantially more. With PAYE written into people's MPNs, skyrocketing debt loads will have a minimal impact on applications. With post-graduation unemployment and underemployment so high, it's just common sense that a few thousand people over the norm will think about it every year and realize, "screw Starbucks, I'm going to medical school." And that many seniors, leery at the thought of not finding a job and being forced to move back in with their parents, will do the same.

 

[touchpause13]

The problem is the cost of education has skyrocketed. Gone are the days were you could pay your way through college. Or have a bachelor's degree that gave you a job that could support a family (engineering and nursing are the exceptions) as it stands, for the smart kids of America going into medicine provides a stable pathway to a decent wage/ability to pay back their student loans. Lawyers/pharmacists/vets/psychologists are all vastly over saturated. If you were planning on doing any 4 year program after college medicine is the only thing that makes sense financially. So until the economy is stabilized and average student loan debt is reduced, I think competition will just continue to increase

 

[darkjedi]

The trend seems to be that you have more and more people having to jump through more and more challenging hoops to get into the same number of slots for an ever decreasing or constant reward for their efforts (constant would be the more generous term). The MCAT score median keeps creeping up and ECs are now a ridiculous laundry list of how many things you can successfully do during your undergrad and allow to deprive you over of your quality of life and free time. Will this trend ever cease to exist or become more balanced, so that any realistically qualified app can enjoy some quality of life and get into an avg medical school? realistically I think LizzyM once said anyone with a 24 mcat and I'd imagine decent grades is qualified enough for medical school [going from memory so dont quote me]. Medical schools are always willing to accept the best qualified applicants and rationalize why getting less than the arbitrarily cutoffs makes one under-qualified for medical school regardless of the validity of it in reality (how many people who have the capacity to make great doctors are denied the opportunity by ever increasing admissions standards?), as well debacles such as the new mcat and requirements in medical school get more and more stiff and demanding.

Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants or will there be any way to at least balance out the level of investment put in with the output (degree in medicine) or equalize things (e.g. free med school education)? Or perhaps even the realization that there should be more than one way to achieve the same goal of a doctor like recognizing that being the best test taker on the planet and having the greatest short term memory ever may not necessarily translate to being a great doctor especially when many things can be easily looked up thus making much intensive memorization less valuable compared to understanding general concepts/critical thinking and on the job learning? If this does happen I look forward to it changing.

Law has been wrecked by oversaturation for example, I wonder if medicine can overcome it.

ignoring my obvious frustration, there's a valid question here. Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants? How can this be combated?

The fact that you can't distinguish between or understand the reason there is over saturation of the law field and why med school is becoming more competitive is both troubling and mind boggling to me.

 

[KnuxNole]

Why do we need to combat this? Competition is a good thing - It inspires people to work harder than they thought possible.

Eh, Im not a competitive person in the slightest. I never care for that kinda stuff. I know it makes most people work harder, for me, it has zero effect and results in shrugged shoulders lol.

Then again, medicine is definitely not something uber competitive...it's just med school. I never once felt like I was competing in any aspect of this career process, by a longshot. It was only a one man race, me.

 

[mrh125]

The fact that you can't distinguish between or understand the reason there is over saturation of the law field and why med school is becoming more competitive is both troubling and mind boggling to me.

lmao try not to lose too much sleep over it.

 

[Docbeme]

First off, the law market became what it is due to rapid school expansion, poor quality control, and the post-2008 collapse of the legal field, not increasing applicant competitiveness. The overall competitiveness of law school had decreased to the point that basically anyone with a Bachelor's degree and a pulse could get in.

Medicine will only decrease in competitiveness when the value of a medical degree normalizes compared to that of other potential options. Either medicine will have to pay substantially less, or alternative careers will have to pay substantially more. With PAYE written into people's MPNs, skyrocketing debt loads will have a minimal impact on applications. With post-graduation unemployment and underemployment so high, it's just common sense that a few thousand people over the norm will think about it every year and realize, "screw Starbucks, I'm going to medical school." And that many seniors, leery at the thought of not finding a job and being forced to move back in with their parents, will do the same.

The ACA and, ultimately, a move to a single payer system, something that many people believe is an inevitable outcome due to the high cost of HC delivery in the US along with burgeoning debt, seem to suggest that physician wages will continue to go down. That will give you a great deal of wage normalization, particularly when compared to other options that are "out there" which require a heck of a lot less school and a fraction of the time spent in residency. When the government decides to pay for medical school, I am skeptical that such generosity will occur without them having a strong say in where we practice and potentially, even what specialty we are allowed to select.

 

[Goro]

Only when Medicine becomes like Law and there are more grads than positions to fill them. Some people have suggested that some law schools either close or reduce their class sizes. I can see accrediting bodies enforcing this.

The trend seems to be that you have more and more people having to jump through more and more challenging hoops to get into the same number of slots for an ever decreasing or constant reward for their efforts (constant would be the more generous term). The MCAT score median keeps creeping up and ECs are now a ridiculous laundry list of how many things you can successfully do during your undergrad and allow to deprive you over of your quality of life and free time. Will this trend ever cease to exist or become more balanced, so that any realistically qualified app can enjoy some quality of life and get into an avg medical school? realistically I think LizzyM once said anyone with a 24 mcat and I'd imagine decent grades is qualified enough for medical school [going from memory so dont quote me]. Medical schools are always willing to accept the best qualified applicants and rationalize why getting less than the arbitrarily cutoffs makes one under-qualified for medical school regardless of the validity of it in reality (how many people who have the capacity to make great doctors are denied the opportunity by ever increasing admissions standards?), as well debacles such as the new mcat and requirements in medical school get more and more stiff and demanding.

Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants or will there be any way to at least balance out the level of investment put in with the output (degree in medicine) or equalize things (e.g. free med school education)? Or perhaps even the realization that there should be more than one way to achieve the same goal of a doctor like recognizing that being the best test taker on the planet and having the greatest short term memory ever may not necessarily translate to being a great doctor especially when many things can be easily looked up thus making much intensive memorization less valuable compared to understanding general concepts/critical thinking and on the job learning? If this does happen I look forward to it changing.

Law has been wrecked by oversaturation for example, I wonder if medicine can overcome it.

ignoring my obvious frustration, there's a valid question here. Will medical school ever get less oversaturated from applicants? How can this be combated?

 

[Mad Jack]

The ACA and, ultimately, a move to a single payer system, something that many people believe is an inevitable outcome due to the high cost of HC delivery in the US along with burgeoning debt, seem to suggest that physician wages will continue to go down. That will give you a great deal of wage normalization, particularly when compared to other options that are "out there" which require a heck of a lot less school and a fraction of the time spent in residency. When the government decides to pay for medical school, I am skeptical that such generosity will occur without them having a strong say in where we practice and potentially, even what specialty we are allowed to select.

Single payer is highly unlikely in the next 20 years. It would just be too risky for any politician to try and pass, as a single payer system would result in the loss of 444,000 jobs in the private health insurance industry, as well as a loss of many of the 186,000 medical billing and coding positions out there. This puts aside all of the money that hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, device makers, etc put into the political system that would be thrown against such a measure. You should really stop worrying about unlikely things and focus more on very real and growing threats to physicians in the near future. Hospitals, insurance companies, and the government are pushing to replace many physicians with midlevels, diagnostic technology and advanced computing might soon make the process of medicine so much faster that far fewer physicians will be needed to cover a given number of patients, etc etc. Worrying about single payer (which people have been crying will happen "soon" for over 60 years) versus very real technological and human forces that currently exist just seems quite foolish to me.

 

[DermViser]

They keep saying medicine is becoming a less and less attractive field for all sorts of reasons but the process just becomes more and more competitive each year

That's bc other jobs have been replaced or have virtually disappeared.

 

[DermViser]

Lots of points being addressed, but good questions.

As beargryllz said, I think medicine is becoming less and less of an attractive field, but it somehow manages to attract more and more qualified people. It must either mean the coming generations are constantly getting more and more altruistic, or that everyone is becoming dumber for not

 

[deanthedream17]

When Obamacare takes its toll on doctors and people start seeing it yes there will be a decent drop. Right now, most people applying to med school I have found are first generation born here or immigrants to the country who see becoming a doctor as a route to the American dream and riches. They do not understand or see the many problems in the field since they do not have family that have been affected by its problems.

 

[touchpause13]

When Obamacare takes its toll on doctors and people start seeing it yes there will be a decent drop. Right now, most people applying to med school I have found are first generation born here or immigrants to the country who see becoming a doctor as a route to the American dream and riches. They do not understand or see the many problems in the field since they do not have family that have been affected by its problems.

Pretty sure the number of people applying with physician parents is greatly higher than the general population.

 

[deanthedream17]

Pretty sure the number of people applying with physician parents is greatly higher than the general population.

Most people applying do not have physician parents.

 

[touchpause13]

Most people applying do not have physician parents.

That's not what I was claiming

 

[WillburCobb]

Most people applying do not have physician parents.

Having close connections to MANY med students since I was knee high to a grasshopper, I beg to differ.

 

[LostinLift]

Most people applying do not have physician parents.

Wow how's your VR?

 

[Planes2Doc]

The trend seems to be that you have more and more people having to jump through more and more challenging hoops to get into the same number of slots for an ever decreasing or constant reward for their efforts (constant would be the more generous term). The MCAT score median keeps creeping up and ECs are now a ridiculous laundry list of how many things you can successfully do during your undergrad and allow to deprive you over of your quality of life and free time. Will this trend ever cease to exist or become more balanced, so that any realistically qualified app can enjoy some quality of life and get into an avg medical school?

I totally agree with this part, and have been saying this for a while. I think that there's a perfect storm brewing on the pre-med front. Currently pre-meds are expected to be "ZERO to Mother Teresa" applicants with ridiculous laundry-lists of ECs. The ECs arms race is without a doubt ruining the quality of life for undergraduates. So when you end ruining what's supposed to be the best time of one's life, how do you think they will end up as medical students? In my opinion, going from a rigorous undergrad with so many hoops will lead to an unhappy time in medical school. Then you read about those horrifying statistics of medical student depression and even high rates of suicidal ideation. Can you say burnout?

So what's the best way to remedy this situation? Oh I know! Let's make the MCAT a much longer exam in 2015! This is sure to address the issues of having unhappy less empathetic physicians in practice. Without a doubt, the 2015 MCAT will fix everything!

Now couple this with uncertainty about future earnings. Oh wait a minute, I thought that everyone wants to work for free or at least minimum wage, right? I think that's why 90% of medical school applicants are just dying to help the underserved, or at least work in primary care.

Yeah, the system is broken. It needs to be fixed starting with the very broken pre-med process. I was a non-trad, so I was a "typical" college student. And I'm sorry, I just didn't see anyone other pre-meds lining up in front of hospital doors to do free labor. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of people I've met in my life that are genuinely altruistic (those that volunteer extensively because they want to). I think that the huge dog and pony show is just pissing off a large number of pre-meds. Things are getting even crazier. Are we going to expect that every pre-med starts a non-profit organization in the near future? It's definitely plausible. I don't think many people saw pre-meds going on so many mission trips just a couple decades ago.

If you're going to fix the healthcare system, you can't start with attending physicians. You need to address the source of the problem. The 2015 MCAT isn't the answer. I think it's only going to contribute to what I and @mrh125 believe is a bubble. At some point, I think it's going to burst. What effect is it going to have? I'm not sure. But I don't think it will be all too pretty.

 

[deanthedream17]

Wow how's your VR?

I know what he said that they are overrepresented compared to general population. And actually my verbal is good 11 . thanks for asking

 

[deanthedream17]

That's not what I was claiming

I know. Stop diverting the convo all I said is right now many people not closely connected with medicine see it as a gold mine. My dad is a physician and out of his close physician friends or my siblings I am the only one pursuing this.

 

[DermViser]

I don't know the exact numbers, but I was surprised how many children of physicians were at all my interviews.

Really?

 

[darklabel]

Actually, we haven't reached the greatest number of applications ever.

https://www.aamc.org/download/153708/data/

95 - 96 was the hardest time to apply for medical school ever (so far) and it looks like it steadily went down for a while before increasing again.

Also, GPA and MCAT averages for both matriculants and applicants has been creeping up since 2002 ( can't find the info for the mid 90's, but its probably lower than today's averages).

https://www.aamc.org/download/321494/data/2013factstable17.pdf

The late 80s and early 00's would have been the best time to apply for medical school.

 

[DermViser]

Yeah. I wasn't the most social with other premeds so I didn't understand how much of a "family" thing medicine was until interviews. From what I saw, I'd say that "physician" easily has a plurality in terms of applicant's family occupation.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got it. Yes, these days more and more applicants are ones in physician families. This isn't surprising looking at how ridiculous medical school tuition has gotten even at state schools. Hence, why PA school is looking more and more attractive, esp. with health care reform.

 

[KnuxNole]

I guess I'm in the minority with no physicians in either side of my family.

Tutition is ridiculous, but that's what loans are for. Even though that nagging slut Sallie won't stop nagging D:

 

[DermViser]

I guess I'm in the minority with no physicians in either side of my family.

Tutition is ridiculous, but that's what loans are for. Even though that nagging slut Sallie won't stop nagging D:

I also believe (IMHO) that when you have rich physician parents, you don't have the pressure of choosing a specialty based on finances, since that is taken care off. Medicine, like other fields, is hardly egalitarian.