Re:the waste of time/money, the way I see it, you are ultimately you are paying for the degree, not the classes themselves. That always made it easier for me to stomach.
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Sounds like a waste of time until you see a lack of professionalism, respect, tardiness, lack of cultural competency etc.
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All of that stuff is just as relevant to the practice of medicine as the sciences. Maybe even more so. You’re dealing with people, not just doing experiments in a lab. Over the course of your career, you’re going to be facing many ethical decisions, dealing with patients from a variety of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds which will affect your ability to provide the care they require, and all patients expect you to treat them as human beings first and foremost, not lab rats. Medicine, in my opinion, is actually a marriage of the biological sciences with the humanities, used to help the public with maintenance of good health and dealing with illness. So take what you learn from those classes just as seriously as you do the basic sciences.
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Bro I’m 6 weeks in and have taken 3 exams and am taking a 4th on Friday. 3 sciences and 1 clinical portion. Man.. I’d be mad. Defiantly bring it up with admin/deans I the appropriate forum.
Hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but medicine is not about science. Your day to day job as a physician will have far more to do with knowing how to engage with people and deal with social issues then it will be dealing with chemistry or biology, etc. Being a doctor is all about being a people person first and foremost. Especially in the age of for-profit, corporate medicine.
If you are a science minded person, change your career now and go get a PhD😉
Also, it’s quite stereotypical for a bunch of first year med students to be so egotistical that they believe their “time is being wasted” by their medical school for forcing them to learn something they think is beneath them. As if you’re already gods great gift to planet earth, lol.
You know why your school is spending time on these topics? Because so many doctors in practice today SUCK at being good, decent people. Learn some humility first. Then learn to listen. These topics are important and those that take them seriously and approach them with an open will stand out from the crowd in practice.
You know why your school is spending time on these topics? Because so many doctors in practice today SUCK at being good, decent people. Learn some humility first. Then learn to listen. These topics are important and those that take them seriously and approach them with an open will stand out from the crowd in practice.
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You will soon learn that a lot of what we learn in med school is pointless my friend. Hang in there lol. 3rd and 4th year are the years you will learn the most important/useful skills.
I feel your frustration...that's how it felt at the beginning .Go with the flow ,it will be all worth it!!1
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All the “common sense” they teach in professionalism courses is because some time in the past someone *didn’t* do what you’re learning so now everyone has to learn how to *not* be *that* doctor.
In other words, clearly “don’t be a dick” is not universal knowledge.
MD.Loading
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So for one yes my school is doing something similar but I'm not gonna lie I'm a bit surprised at this sentiment. Even though it is one that is abundant in our society I hoped to see better within this field that is supposed to be about helping other people. Feel free to correct me if this is a misinterpretation but it's sounds to me like you are saying you really don't care about learning how to understand people who may be different than you which is kinda huge for being a *good* doctor. Im not sure how aware you are of the tumultuous relationship between many minorities in this country and the healthcare field. Much of it stems from mistrust and while those sentiments may be misplaced, there are legitimate reasons why someone might feel misunderstood and thus be hesitant to build a healthy relationship with their physician....this is actually ESSENTIAL to practicing medicine. You can be the smartest doctor in the world and by most onlookers standards you'd be excellent at your job but medicine isn't about looking smart. It's truly about helping people and how can you be invested in helping people when you don't understand people that are different than you? Please help me understand what you are actually saying.
You are short sighted to think what you're doing now will not impact your career as a physician. In fact, this will have a much bigger impact than biochemistry and histology. These are important concepts that heavily influence your patients' daily lives. Your understanding of this will play a role in how effective you are in engaging your patients, how much they trust and listen to you, and how well you encourage them to be their own advocates without antagonizing healthcare providers. Instead of "getting through it," you need to take it seriously and understand that your knowledge of social determinants of health will make a greater difference for your patients than your knowledge of what a blood smear looks like under a microscope.
Pshalt
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I went to a top 5 school 25 years ago, and we never got any of that education. We were hit with a firehose of science coming out of the gate. Don't worry its coming. What you are getting now would have been useful in retrospect. Practicing medicine in the real world is a lot of culture shock after a lifetime in hard sciences.
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You would be surprised how many practicing physicians know nothing about the human-interaction side of being a doctor. Knowing all the science in the world isn’t what’s going to make you a good doctor. The science will come, don’t worry. Every doctor knows all the science. Not every doctor knows how to treat people.
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Indeed. There's a reason that of the four required categories of competencies for entering medical students, three are humanistic, and only one is science-based.
And for residents, there are six. Again, of which five are humanistic.
And BTW, one of them is Professionalism.
Premed Competencies Resources
Learn more about the premed competencies in applying to medical school.
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This will probably be a hot take for some, but professionalism and similar “soft skills” really can’t be learned from lectures. And much more importantly, you can’t make people care about this kind of stuff with lectures. The truly unprofessional people in my class do not and will never care about lectures on professionalism or any of the subtopics like community engagement, etc.
There are a small set of people I would call the well-meaning space cadets that do benefit from a few hours of this type of content maybe once a semester or once a year. But 6 weeks is insanity.
With that being said, nothing you can do about it now OP. Sounds like a cash grab since it could have been incorporated longitudinally. Is your school perhaps owned by a for-profit hospital system or the family of a popular retail chain...?
There are a small set of people I would call the well-meaning space cadets that do benefit from a few hours of this type of content maybe once a semester or once a year. But 6 weeks is insanity.
With that being said, nothing you can do about it now OP. Sounds like a cash grab since it could have been incorporated longitudinally. Is your school perhaps owned by a for-profit hospital system or the family of a popular retail chain...?
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I agree. But 6 weeks of professionalism boot camp honestly makes me think this school thinks they can jam Professionalism™ down everyone's throat and move on. I would much rather they spend a week (at most) making expectations VERY clear and then enforcing those expectations.
Medical boards don't revoke licenses for being culturally insensitive, not being up to date on social determinants of health, being rude to your co-workers and sub-ordinates, showing up late, having unprofessional grooming/dress. Depending on the place, you can fired for all of that stuff, and you definitely can fail out of medical school, which is good, because all of that stuff is important. But let's not pretend that professionalism talks with one week old medical students are going to prevent sex with patients, drug abuse, over-prescribing drugs, fraud, or the few other serious things that actually causes licenses to be revoked. That is like saying:
to a bunch of middle-schoolers and then expecting that to stop them from doing drugs 7 years later in college.
A talk on professionalism is not going to stop people who are hatefully bigoted, cheaters, or just straight up [insert your favorite term here]s.
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That’s not a good argument for not having them.
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deleted966164
I will attempt to be serious for once...
I may go on a whim here but professionalism in the medical field appears also to be related to maturity and experience. WE can spend weeks in the lecture hall debating moral dilemmas and typical scenarios that may come up in the clinic or on wards. It is easy to distinguish right from wrong if one is not emotionally invested in the situation. We then go on in year 3 and encounter patients who may sometimes be disrespectful, demeaning, or plain simply rude. They may do this unintentionally or with very sinister intent. No amount of lecturing about professionalism will get one ready to just suck it up, take a deep breath, and keep compassionately carrying for people. These, unfortunately, can't be taught in the classroom setting.
Thus I think that professionalism education should not be eradicated in school but it has to be understood what can and what can't be accomplished through it.
I may go on a whim here but professionalism in the medical field appears also to be related to maturity and experience. WE can spend weeks in the lecture hall debating moral dilemmas and typical scenarios that may come up in the clinic or on wards. It is easy to distinguish right from wrong if one is not emotionally invested in the situation. We then go on in year 3 and encounter patients who may sometimes be disrespectful, demeaning, or plain simply rude. They may do this unintentionally or with very sinister intent. No amount of lecturing about professionalism will get one ready to just suck it up, take a deep breath, and keep compassionately carrying for people. These, unfortunately, can't be taught in the classroom setting.
Thus I think that professionalism education should not be eradicated in school but it has to be understood what can and what can't be accomplished through it.
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Maybe med school interviews should just be watching you interact with difficult people for a couple weeks. Candid camera style. That would probably be more indicative of your potential as a physician than answering some questions about how you feel about the med school’s mission statement
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Feasibility aside that’s probably true.
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I did not say not have them. I said don't have 6 weeks straight of it. Plenty of middle ground between never addressing it and 30 days straight of professionalism 😂
What I said:
and
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6 weeks seems a bit excessive to me too. I personally enjoy professionalism classes and inter-professional classes. I even organized a speaker series on cultural competency at my school. But I‘m in medical school to learn the material that’s going to be on boards. The other stuff is really important but I’m not sure if 6 weeks is necessary. Maybe could be spaced out better. I’m also aware that many of my classmates think all of that stuff is bs and it may not feel relevant to them especially if they’re getting it before they’ve worked with patients.
There is a lot of pointless nonsense in medicine. Welcome!
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Totally.
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1) this isn’t a sprint. Its a marathon. I am almost done with residency, and what you learn in the first 6 months of medical school will end up being less than 2% of your medical knowledge. So stay humble.
2) Enjoy the break. I applaud your hunger to learn. Realize that your medical school is kind and trying to ease medical students into MS life. Do you want one of your classmates to commit suicide? I am happy that your school is easing the entire group into medical school. Great that you are in the top 10% and eager to learn. But most of what you learn in the first year of med school, you forget come board times. So its ok to forget the BS that they are teaching you now. Save your mental capacity for the end of MS2.
3) Just wait until intern year when nurses are asking to you read Xrays on your own, or when NPs ask you to interpret an EKG. At that point you will wish you were back in early MS1. So go enjoy a beer and enjoy your first year.
2) Enjoy the break. I applaud your hunger to learn. Realize that your medical school is kind and trying to ease medical students into MS life. Do you want one of your classmates to commit suicide? I am happy that your school is easing the entire group into medical school. Great that you are in the top 10% and eager to learn. But most of what you learn in the first year of med school, you forget come board times. So its ok to forget the BS that they are teaching you now. Save your mental capacity for the end of MS2.
3) Just wait until intern year when nurses are asking to you read Xrays on your own, or when NPs ask you to interpret an EKG. At that point you will wish you were back in early MS1. So go enjoy a beer and enjoy your first year.
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This is true. I also think that it’s possible to incorporate those lessons into the curriculum. There is so much volume to cover its astounding to think 6 whole weeks have gone by with no science. Put the prideful medical students in their place— in part by teaching them science.
Heck! My second exam score put me RIGHT in my place. No pride here. Head down.. humble.. willing to learn. More than I’ve ever been!
We also are taught interpersonal skills along the way. In fact, I’ll be tested on interpersonal skills in a clinical exam practice setting with standardized pts. 30% is HOW we ask questions, making eye contact, being sensitive to social factors, avoiding assumptions regarding both health and social. Again— it can be mixed in. Our first week was orientation one day, classes the next and alternated until week two. We have deans give mandatory lectures regarding interpersonal skills, professionalism, etc.
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I haven’t had that scenario either, but I have had patients who wholeheartedly believe that evil spirits are causing seizures and no amount of medicine is going to fix that, so they’re just gonna take their loved one home to die.
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Sounds like this thread hasn’t gone the way OP hoped, to which I say: welcome to SDN! We may not tell you what you want to hear, but we will tell you what you need to hear!
An entire medical school faculty and every practicing physician here thinks this stuff is important, not to mention the LCME and the ACGME. As to why it’s frontloaded, I’d bet money that past student evals complained about these mandatory lectures getting dropped into otherwise overwhelming blocks when students were more worried about imminent anatomy practicals and block exams.
Medical students are some of the best complainers I’ve ever met, only exceed by attendings who, by and large, have developed complaining into an elite art form. Your school has trained thousands of physicians by now. Maybe they know better than you do how to train students into doctors. And you can rest assured that your deans have also had the same epiphany that professionalism and cultural education is lost on those who need it most. What they know that you’ll soon learn is that it’s still worth teaching.
An entire medical school faculty and every practicing physician here thinks this stuff is important, not to mention the LCME and the ACGME. As to why it’s frontloaded, I’d bet money that past student evals complained about these mandatory lectures getting dropped into otherwise overwhelming blocks when students were more worried about imminent anatomy practicals and block exams.
Medical students are some of the best complainers I’ve ever met, only exceed by attendings who, by and large, have developed complaining into an elite art form. Your school has trained thousands of physicians by now. Maybe they know better than you do how to train students into doctors. And you can rest assured that your deans have also had the same epiphany that professionalism and cultural education is lost on those who need it most. What they know that you’ll soon learn is that it’s still worth teaching.
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I couldn't agree more with a ton of this but also disagree pretty strongly with other parts.
I disagree that medical schools are inherently good at training doctors because they have done it before. Granted, the faculty almost certainly knows better than an M1 who has been in med school for 5 weeks. But much of medical training (at least in the US) is the opposite of logical, efficient, and/or effective.
As often gets repeated on SDN, the core of the American medical training system is over 100 years old and its principle designer was less than an ideal role model.
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deleted966164
Quit complaining about medical students and attendings... lol
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I used to think Med students were the best complainers, but there is nothing like a senior full professor level attending. The way they can marry petty grievances with self-aggrandizement is just…chef’s kiss… sublime.
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For all its issues, our current system has 100 year history of training US physicians which make up the bulk of what is arguably the finest health care system in the world (once you have access to it of course - debate for a different thread!). Conversely, every crappy doc has also come through this system too.
I don’t know what the answers are, though any suggestion of “teaching less of XYZ” seems odd when overall medical knowledge is increasing so fast. I’m hopeful that making step 1 pf will help students focus more on learning and building a foundation of knowledge early on rather than cramming for a critical exam for two years.
Teaching the soft skills and professionalism is much more about indoctrinating students into the culture of medicine, albeit an overly idealized version of it. Other professions have a long history of this too. Perhaps the best example would be the military academies with their hell weeks and rigid hierarchies that start the process of turning young people into professional soldiers. Medical school has many parallels - fewer push-ups and less marching, but still having to make a distinction between one’s life before medicine and what one is to become.
Umm a lot of medicine is going down the hill because a lot of this nonsense. should we be appropriate, respectful with patients? Absolutely! There is however way way way too much nonsense. Medicine and physicians as a whole have lost the reigns of Medicine to a large part because of this. Being a physician means making tough decisions - pretty much all day. Patients in this era of Google MD and WebMd think they always know best, that their every nonsensical request will and should be catered to, etc. I provide my patients with excellent care and if we go by record I have a stellar record - but I also remain the doctor. I tell patietns you are ultimately the boss and you will do what you want however this is my medical recommendation. If you are in the hospital you will have to trust that we will take care of you. Patients complain about everything - when a patient tells me they don't want to be "bothered" or don't want "questions asked" I say well you are in the hospital - that's what happens at hospitals, we ask lots of questions to take care of you. And at times I have said if you feel you would do better at home let me know and we can discharge you. Or when patients tell me they want to leave now! and then they tell me they don't have a ride or transportaiton or anyone to help them at home. Those discussions end pretty quickly as a result. We need to be leaders as physicians. Way too much emphasis on nonsense as doctors and healthcare is getting gutted. No sir.
psychneuro33
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Hey, just want to let you know that "anon" profiles are not as anon as you'd like to think. As your classmate, this was disheartening to read. I and all classmates I have spoken with found our course very valuable and eye opening, with multiple opportunities for class debates, insight by hearing live patient accounts, and interactive activities with our classmates to learn more about specific topics like our cultural competency as a class. It takes way more than being good at science to be a competent doctor, and while no, our course can't necessarily change the behavior of people who are set in their ways, hopefully it opened the eyes of the few students who still struggle with professionalism or who don't feel comfortable interacting with people from different cultures for example. All of the things covered in the class are a "blueprint" if you will, for us to take with us as we continue throughout these 4 years. You did not mention this course is longitudinal and will be incorporated throughout our years in medical school, which is very important. While you probably didn't get the response you were intending, I hope you truly ponder these comments and consider why this information is important to learn as a future physician.
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