Should people with Low Stats Become Doctors

Dbate said:

This is a question that I have been thinking of lately. First of all, I really don't mean to offend. Seriously.


My question is more of a conceptual one. SDN seems to be filled mostly with really smart people and people who have struggled in school (with few, it seems, in between). Many people on here have low 20s MCAT scores and sincerely want to become doctors. Their desire is entirely genuine and admirable, but should people who either don't do well in school (have low gpas) or low test scores be allowed to be doctors?

As a person who did poorly on my first MCAT (30) and had a science GPA of 3.25 at one point, I certainly understand and sympathize with low stats applicants. But I wanted to be a doctor, so I worked hard to improve.

I think about this in the context of Caribbean and DO schools most acutely. I am seriously not trying to offend*, but they do on average have lower stats and I wonder if they become substandard doctors. It would seem that stats are somewhat important in predicting the quality of a physician.

Thus, should low stat applicants who manage to get into Caribbean schools (or DO schools) be congratulated or should it be somewhat concerning.


*I know people are going to get offended, but I still want to make my intent clear. I know discussing anything controversial engenders alot of emotion, but I want it to be completely clear that I am not trying to insult anyone. I was (am) a low stat applicant myself.

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It sounds like you are struggling with your identity as a low stat applicant.

Don't worry I'm sure you will make a fine nurse one day.

Since when has a 30 been a poor MCAT score?

Sent from my Galaxy S2

Why would you even think that? I mean honestly? Really?



To say that you aren't trying to be offensive to DO's is ridiculous, because you are saying that because their stats on tests and exams from undergraduate makes them less of physicians. Ultimately they go through the same training as an MD so why are you so pressed? I think it's awesome that you can be a licensed physician and not have perfect scores. Because life happens, and it's not always pretty for everyone. Some people have families, depression, work, etc so they can't devote 100% of their time to studying and getting a straight 4.0. Does that make them any less qualified to be a physician? Absolutely not! You are trying to draw a correlation between how good someone looks on paper and how good a physician they will be and it's completely wrong. Some people test better than others, but the real test is after graduation when it comes to medical school, residency, and then full practicing. Just because someone does poorly on some tests doesn't make them a bad physician. Do you honestly think you will be using what you learned in undergrad when you are a practicing physician? I would guess probably not. So to say someone isn't good enough to be a physician because they don't have "good grades" it just ridiculous. If they can get into medical school they deserve to be there. So yes they should be congratulated. If they get through residency and practice then they should definitely be commended.

Ravizzle said:

Since when has a 30 been a poor MCAT score?

Sent from my Galaxy S2

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You are in a

Dbate said:

It was my first attempt and was low for my GPA. I retook it because I knew I wouldn't be able to get admitted with it. Check my mdapps profile.

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You would have been able to get in with a 30 no issue. There are so many people that do but I guess if you're aiming for the top 20s not so much.

I don't see why not. If they can pass their boards then they're competent. Obviously the question of what is low comes into play here. Should someone with a 3.3/22 get in? Probably not, they'll statistically have a low grad and pass rate. A 3.5/26 i.e the DO average, why not? They'll pass their boards and become doctors 95% of the time.

But then again I'm under the impression that you're trying to derive the notion that someone with low stats is going to be an awful doctor and that by letting these people in you're harming their patient base. Which is bs.

Dbate said:

I really don't get what you are trying to say.

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Probably why you got a 30 bro.

You are "toasting" in a "roll" "bread"



You want a real answer?

A 30 is not a particularly low score. You obviously know that.

Step is standardized for every student in the US regardless of their undergrad GPA, MCAT, and medical school grades.

There is a top 10% and bottom 10% in every profession. So think about whatever jobs you've had and remember that guy who just sucked at everything - there is a doctor out there like that.

And this is why AMCAS and admission's committees want more than just your MCAT score and GPA. Just because you have high test scores doesn't mean you should be a doctor.

Your post leaves out the fact that medical school acceptances are based on much more than stats alone. People with lower stats get in based on other merits such as ECs, research, strong LORs, etc. Additionally, after interviews there are plenty of lower stat applicants who interview well and get offers ahead of higher stat applicants who suck in the interview. This is why many schools don't let the interviewers see the applicant's stats on interview day. They want an unbiased opinion.

While GPA and MCAT are good predictors of getting into medical school. They have no bearing whatsoever in who becomes a good doc in the long run.

Now, that being said. Are there plenty of UNDERQUALIFIED people getting into schools (US MD, DO, Carib MD)? Yes. I saw a handful matriculate into my well reputable midwest state school. But they drift to the bottom of the class, some have dropped out, and others have a hard time matching into residency anywhere. This happens at every school in this country and it happens even more frequently in the Carib. However, there is no evidence I have seen that would suggest these drop out/low acheiving medical students are the same ones who were applicants with poor GPAs and MCATs. At least not in the US MD or DO system.

Dbate said:

This is a question that I have been thinking of lately. First of all, I really don't mean to offend. Seriously.


My question is more of a conceptual one. SDN seems to be filled mostly with really smart people and people who have struggled in school (with few, it seems, in between). Many people on here have low 20s MCAT scores and sincerely want to become doctors. Their desire is entirely genuine and admirable, but should people who either don't do well in school (have low gpas) or low test scores be allowed to be doctors?

As a person who did poorly on my first MCAT (30) and had a science GPA of 3.25 at one point, I certainly understand and sympathize with low stats applicants. But I wanted to be a doctor, so I worked hard to improve.

I think about this in the context of Caribbean and DO schools most acutely. I am seriously not trying to offend*, but they do on average have lower stats and I wonder if they become substandard doctors. It would seem that stats are somewhat important in predicting the quality of a physician.

Thus, should low stat applicants who manage to get into Caribbean schools (or DO schools) be congratulated or should it be somewhat concerning.


*I know people are going to get offended, but I still want to make my intent clear. I know discussing anything controversial engenders alot of emotion, but I want it to be completely clear that I am not trying to insult anyone. I was (am) a low stat applicant myself.

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You will be an excellent physician( sarcasm).

Xlorgguss said:

To say that you aren't trying to be offensive to DO's is ridiculous, because you are saying that because their stats on tests and exams from undergraduate makes them less of physicians. Ultimately they go through the same training as an MD so why are you so pressed?

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Not true. You DOs do the OMM thing and it takes away from your basic science training. Only so many hours in a day afterall. This is why so many of you complain that your training doesn't set you up to take the USMLE boards as well as MD schools do and this is why on average DOs perform worse on the USMLE compared to MDs.

Define "good grades" and "bad grades". A 30 MCAT is fine to get into DO schools. A 3.25 isn't the best gpa, but I don't think it's terrible either. Good grades are important of course, but you need more than that to be a good physician. You need to be able to interact well with patients, practically apply the knowledge you learn, etc. Tests and scores don't really test that. They can say that they do but we all know it's not true. If you can get into a medical school you really shouldn't be questioned over whether or not you belong to be there. People will be weeded out if the career isn't for them during medical school and residency. If they can get in then somebody somewhere thought they would make a good physician. And honestly, I would rather the decision go to someone who recognizes that instead of just looking at a piece of paper. Now I'm not saying that the numbers aren't important. Because there are cutoff points that some schools have. But if you get an acceptance you deserve to be there. Stop trying to be cute and asserting that you will be a better physician because you scored better on your MCAT than someone else. When you sit next to someone on your first day of medical school, you are equal. I don't care what anyone else tells you. It's a new start. If someone gets in they deserve to be recognized for it. No matter if they had to retake chemistry 4 times to get into a DO school or what have you.

Dbate said:

Don't be a d*ck. I haven't insulted you at all and have tried to be exceedingly polite in this thread, so you insulting me is completely uncalled for.

And I got a 35 on my retake, so go toast that roll.





That's the scary part, though. The quality of the bottom 10% of workers at McDonald's don't take people's lives in their hand.

It is simply a fact that the bottom 10% of doctors are incredibly smart (you have to be in order to become a doctor in the first place), but the question is whether those physicians are substandard due to predictive metrics (test scores, gpa).

If so, then shouldn't it be somewhat concerning that they can become physicians.

I think about this more in terms of Caribbean med schools especially. I know very little about those schools, but from the general impression on here they are not high quality and do not have extremely high admissions standards.* So it does seem a little concerning* to me that their graduates have the same privileges in the hospital as say a MD or a DO.

It could be the case that they are exactly equal in ability. But I read a study correlating MCAT scores with Step 1 scores, so that was a little frightening.


Note: I actually have no idea what the mcat and gpa averages are. This is simply based on things I have read on SDN.

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We get it man... You are smart.

There are **** docs with high MCAT, high GPA, high Boards, high watever else you want.

Dbate said:

Don't be a d*ck. I haven't insulted you at all and have tried to be exceedingly polite in this thread, so you insulting me is completely uncalled for.

And I got a 35 on my retake, so go toast that roll.





That's the scary part, though. The quality of the bottom 10% of workers at McDonald's don't take people's lives in their hand.

It is simply a fact that the bottom 10% of doctors are incredibly smart (you have to be in order to become a doctor in the first place), but the question is whether those physicians are substandard due to predictive metrics (test scores, gpa).

If so, then shouldn't it be somewhat concerning that they can become physicians.

I think about this more in terms of Caribbean med schools especially. I know very little about those schools, but from the general impression on here they are not high quality and do not have extremely high admissions standards.* So it does seem a little concerning* to me that their graduates have the same privileges in the hospital as say a MD or a DO.

It could be the case that they are exactly equal in ability. But I read a study correlating MCAT scores with Step 1 scores, so that was a little frightening.


Note: I actually have no idea what the mcat and gpa averages are. This is simply based on things I have read on SDN.

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.... are you trying to say that the bottom 10% of med school students who passed their classes, passed their boards are somehow inferior to the students who were in the top? I mean lets be frank here, what does that parameter even tell you?
Anyway, mcat score's correlation to usmle score is... lukewarm and moderate. And chances are if you do a regression to other things you'll find that the mcat score probably is not even a moderate predictor.

Didnt a lot of the older doctors practicing medicine today get in when it was easier to be accepted to Med School?

Want to know a secret? Being a good student doesnt mean one will be a good doctor and not being a good student doesnt mean that one will be a poor doctor. Grades are used as a sorting mechanism because there are limited spots, and there needs to be a relatively fair way to decide who gets a seat and who doesnt.

The real secret is that most of the desired jobs in this country require a certain level of intelligence, a level that pretty much anybody who can get a 30 has. There just arent enough spots for all the people who have the potential to be competent doctors. Same goes for other fields. Medicine just has the sorting mechanism kick in when people apply to Med School.

Temperature101 said:

We get it man... You are smart.

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The fact that the OP is posing this question tells me he isn't. He thinks his 35 makes him smarter that other applicants but what he doesn't realize is that once he gets to med school nobody will care what his MCAT was. All the OChem he knows isn't going to help him on the first anatomy test and some dude with a 28 on his MCAT is going to rock him on that test becase he did a 2 yr Masters in anatomy before med school.

There is always someone smarter than you.

The poeple who become bad docs do so because of deficiencies far more significant than standardized test stores and undergrad GPAs.

OrthoPod57 said:

Not true. You DOs do the OMM thing and it takes away from your basic science training. Only so many hours in a day afterall. This is why so many of you complain that your training doesn't set you up to take the USMLE boards as well as MD schools do and this is why on average DOs perform worse on the USMLE compared to MDs.

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First off I'm not a DO, but I probably will be, but fine whatever. OMM is school specific. Some schools push it, so schools don't but every DO learns it. There are DO's who score better on Step 1 than MD's and vis versa. But honestly would you want to study for two board exams the COMLEX and USMLE. I don't know how close they are together, but after taking one would you want to spend an exorbitant amount of time studying for the other just so you could have a chance at a allopathic residency? Chances are probably not. Not to make this into a MD/DO thing, but you learn the same thing. Medical school is medical school. One degree isn't superior to another.

ravizzle said:

since when has a 30 been a poor mcat score?

Sent from my galaxy s2

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+5

Dbate said:

I just wondering if low stats actually equals poor physician.

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The answer is no.

/thread

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Dbate said:

That is not the point of this thread.

I was just in the WAMC forum and I saw someone with a 3.1-3.2 GPA and a 25-27 mcat hoping to get into medical school, and my immediate thought was that person shouldn't be a doctor.

Yet, when people like that poster get into medical school everyone congratulates them, and I just wondering if low stats actually equals poor physician.



So I wanted to start a thread to talk about it.

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why

OrthoPod57 said:

Not true. You DOs do the OMM thing and it takes away from your basic science training. Only so many hours in a day afterall. This is why so many of you complain that your training doesn't set you up to take the USMLE boards as well as MD schools do and this is why on average DOs perform worse on the USMLE compared to MDs.

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Which is why DO school is a month longer than MD school to compensate for OMM taking away time. But yes most DO's want things different for the reason you mentioned.

Dbate said:

That is not the point of this thread.

I was just in the WAMC forum and I saw someone with a 3.1-3.2 GPA and a 25-27 mcat hoping to get into medical school, and my immediate thought was that person shouldn't be a doctor.

Yet, when people like that poster get into medical school everyone congratulates them, and I just wondering if low stats actually equals poor physician.



So I wanted to start a thread to talk about it.

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If such person can make it out of med school and pass the boards, he/she is qualified to be a physician.

Temperature101 said:

If such person can make it out of med school and pass the boards, he/she is qualified to be a physician.

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Dbate somehow believes that even if he will make it out then he will be an awful physician. Despite no evidence.

Xlorgguss said:

First off I'm not a DO, but I probably will be, but fine whatever. OMM is school specific. Some schools push it, so schools don't but every DO learns it. There are DO's who score better on Step 1 than MD's and vis versa. But honestly would you want to study for two board exams the COMLEX and USMLE. I don't know how close they are together, but after taking one would you want to spend an exorbitant amount of time studying for the other just so you could have a chance at a allopathic residency? Chances are probably not. Not to make this into a MD/DO thing, but you learn the same thing. Medical school is medical school. One degree isn't superior to another.

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I'm not saying one is superior. I'm just saying they aren't the same. OMM is a focus of DO school and not a focus of MD school. Every minute a DO student is studying OMM or in an OMM Lab is a minute that an MD student is studying anatomy or biochem or something. We don't spend time on OMM so we get to spend it studying for the boards or for the other basic sciences. USMLE is the same test as COMLEX minus the OMM and plus a little more basic science. The DOs I know usually take them close together because preparing for one is the same as preparing for the other with the presence OMM being the only real difference.

Dbate said:

That is not the point of this thread.

I was just in the WAMC forum and I saw someone with a 3.1-3.2 GPA and a 25-27 mcat hoping to get into medical school, and my immediate thought was that person shouldn't be a doctor.

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Way to offend everyone in those MCAT ranges.

You have no idea how that person is going to interview. You have no idea all the EC's that person has. You have no idea of their drive and passion for medicine. Thank God you're not the admissions committee. Or I guess we'd have a bunch of socially incompetent doctors who had no previous exposure to healthcare running around in our medical schools. Oh, but they got a good MCAT score.... proves they'll be just great at talking and easing patient's concerns. [/sarcasm]

If an admissions committee, which to my knowledge, is usually made up of physicians and administrators from that university, think that that person will make a good physician - I trust their judgment. They have way more experience than someone who is babbling on about stuff they read on SDN and hasn't even been accepted to medical school yet.

serenade said:

Which is why DO school is a month longer than MD school to compensate for OMM taking away time. But yes most DO's want things different for the reason you mentioned.

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your lucky if that is the case. It is not the case for all DO schools and it wasn't for the ones I applied to. Although that was 4 yrs ago.

This entire thread is based on the premise that there is a strong, direct correlation between performance in UG courses/MCAT and competent skills as a physician.

Until you provide some actual support for that assumption nobody is going to take you seriously.

Double post.

Dbate said:

Because we all know that people make mistakes. I have been thinking of all the responsibility that physicians are given and what makes them qualified to have that responsibility.

I had no shot of getting into a medical school until recently. Now that I may have a chance, I am just wondering what makes the fact that you can click a few correct buttons on a 4 hour exam qualify you to be a doctor?

My very first thought after getting my score back was: Am I any different as a person because I got lucky on a test? Why would med schools consider a person "more qualified" and deserving of taking a person's life in their hand JUST because they could do some stupid calculations and read some passages.


I am just trying to understand why the metrics that currently exist are sufficient to validate that a person should be a doctor.

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Mostly because these metrics are cheap, easy, standardized, and classical.

Guess what, if this were psychiatry or psychology you'd be laughed at for valuing them.

Dbate said:

If the MCAT and gpa correlated with tests of clinical competence, then it would seem to imply a lower MCAT and gpa would produce less qualified physicians.




But isn't this what all medical schools admissions committees (including DO schools) say.

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uhh no. The MCAT does not predict crap. Wait till you take step 1 and then you'll know what a real exam looks like. I could give two craps about my physicians gpa or mcat score. In the end of the day if they passed medical school, the boards and residency then they are qualified physicians. I highly doubt the mcat or gpa has direct correlation with how qualified of a physician you will be.

In the future, our roles in society will be determined by advanced molecular tests that can accurately gauge intelligence.




Lets be srs, someone has to flip the burgers.

Dbate said:

So then are they meaningless? It just seems dumb for ad coms to make us learn all this bull, when there doesn't seem to be an connection to medicine. Case in point: Science labs seem to be a huge waste of time, and I don't see why they are required.

My reasoning went something like this:

1) Orgo, Physics, and especially Verbal seemed like huge wastes of time.

After I finished my test, I thought why the f*ck did I have to learn that stuff to be a doctor.

2) Why do MCAT scores determine if you become a doctor?

The only logical reason I could think of was that MCAT scores must correlate with how good a physician you will be. Thus, why I started the current thread.

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Medical schools want people who will succeed in the academic environment of medical school, so they select for people with past records of academic success and test taking ability.

You can claim they try to use ECs to pick people who will have the less tangible skills that might translate into "good doctoring" but obviously that becomes much more nebulous.

Dbate said:

Because we all know that people make mistakes. I have been thinking of all the responsibility that physicians are given and what makes them qualified to have that responsibility.

I had no shot of getting into a medical school until recently. Now that I may have a chance, I am just wondering what makes the fact that you can click a few correct buttons on a 4 hour exam qualify you to be a doctor?

My very first thought after getting my score back was: Am I any different as a person because I got lucky on a test? Why would med schools consider a person "more qualified" and deserving of taking a person's life in their hand JUST because they could do some stupid calculations and read some passages.


I am just trying to understand why the metrics that currently exist are sufficient to validate that a person should be a doctor.

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I think you just answered your own question. Just because you score higher than someone else doesn't make you more qualified to hold someone's life in your hands. That's why they consider more than just a score and actually have interviews. A score will get you an interview. And good interview will get you in. Or at least that how it seems. I personally don't have experience with it, but yeah.

Dbate said:

So then are they meaningless? It just seems dumb for ad coms to make us learn all this bull, when there doesn't seem to be an connection to medicine. Case in point: Science labs seem to be a huge waste of time, and I don't see why they are required.

Maybe, they're just not great is what I'm saying. Science labs are completely archic though.

My reasoning went something like this:

1) Orgo, Physics, and especially Verbal seemed like huge wastes of time.

After I finished my test, I thought why the f*ck did I have to learn that stuff to be a doctor.

2) Why do MCAT scores determine if you become a doctor?

The only logical reason I could think of was that MCAT scores must correlate with how good a physician you will be. Thus, why I started the current thread.

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Mostly because things adcoms obtain from these tests cannot be directly seen until neuroscience advances further. And even then they'd never be as cheap as just a test. So... take what you want. Just remmeber, you went from a 30 to a 35, what does that mean about the guy with a 25 who didn't retake and went to DO school instead of getting a 30?

So obviously it's hard to really obtain anything from this because there are so many confounding variables. Its not like we can stimulate some part of you that will show adcoms a full range of medical competence or something. and until we can, we'll have a lot of bad indirect measures.

It is posts like these that signify what is wrong with SDN.

neuro nephrons said:

It is posts like these that signify what is wrong with SDN.

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+1... But in fairness OP is in the minority.

Temperature101 said:

+1... But in fairness OP is in the minority.

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Admittedly SDN, especially pre-allo is very gun-ho on being ideal and those not ideal should be nurses and DOs.

serenade said:

Admittedly SDN, especially pre-allo is very gun-ho on being ideal and those not ideal should be nurses and DOs.

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There's a reason why this is pre-allo.