Ah, ok. Makes much more sense then. I was going to say - even physicians have to worry about medication interactions. But the OP's circumstance is not an uncommon scenario. There's a reason there is a huge drop in empathy by med students when the third year is over and the literature supports this phenomenon.
If it makes you feel any better, it sounds like OP is set to be miserable for the rest of his life.
More just a jealous premed pissed that someone who was more qualified in terms of academics got his spot.
I guess I just can't understand the outrage by premeds and some people here. The OP has said that he liked the profession bc of the ability to make a major difference (this is debatable) in people's lives and his love of science. The salary/job security were more enticements and perks to the career.
There are plenty of excellent physicians and surgeons that went into the field for money or prestige or to please their parents or whatever. They are more likely to be unhappy with their career, but they're just as deserving of the right to choose to go into the field for whatever reasons are important to them as you are for the reasons that are important to you.
What I was surprised at is they couldn't find even one specialty they liked. Not even one. Medicine has a specialty that matches nearly every personality type, even down to the asperger-like types.
Your soapbox rant says otherwise.
I don't know what thread you're reading:
The competitiveness of getting into medical school is largely artificial as there is no shortage of demand in the workforce. Getting out of the academic circle jerk mentality, there really is no point in designating qualified vs more qualified vs most qualified valuations for pre-med applicants. Once you reach a certain threshold of performance, you're perfectly capable of becoming a perfectly capable physician.
Thank you for parsing his quote. You left off his last sentence that was key:
It sounds like OP wants a more exciting job than medicine can provide them with.
Bc it didn't have the salary and job security. He also may have meant making a difference in people's lives.
Jeez, burn a couch about it why don't you.
can't escape you guys anywhere.
I've known some very, very good physicians that went into the field for prestige or money. Guys who are world-class researchers at a top 10 medical school. They are the reason that there is a good<better<best mentality to medical school admissions. Anyone can be a run-of-the-mill provider. But world-class educators and researchers are the best of the best, and only the best medical school applicants are usually capable of that level of performance. Some dude with lackluster ECs, a 3.3, and a 31 is likely to continue to be lackluster throughout his career, as premed is the easiest stage of medicine (despite what other people might state). If you can't do the easy part well, you most likely aren't just going to step it up and become some sort of uberdoctor over time.
Is it the purpose of medical schools to train uber doctors?
It is the purpose of medical school to produce the best physicians that they can possibly produce. The more highly qualified candidates institutions produce, the more ground-breaking research we end up with, and the more lives that are subsequently saved. These physicians then teach other physicians, imparting their high level of skill and knowledge to the next generation and so on and so forth. Not every person with a stellar application is going to step up and be that top-tier physician, as many will grow tired and burn out, but by selecting the greatest number of highly qualified applicants, you have a larger chance of some of them ending up as top-notch physicians and researchers that change the world.
My point wasn't that mediocre applicants can't perform exceptionally well on standardized exams. It's that they are less likely to end up as the big movers of the medical world.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. I want to be a clinician as well. But we need to medical schools to select for as many of those superdocs as we can so they can make the tools I need to practice in a way that is most beneficial to my patients.They have failed with me, cause I never plan on transforming medicine or "moving it forward". I want to be a clinician
You misunderstand much. I'm just saying medical school shouldn't primarily select for lackluster candidates. They should primarily select for the best of the best, as they do now, for numerous reasons that are beneficial to the medical profession as a whole.
Don't tell me you're an Ohio native
Oh, totally. The thing is, if you've got 80 of those crazy smart kids in a class, maybe 10 or 15 of them will end up becoming big academic docs. The rest will want to settle down into PP, burn out, or just decide that the crazy life of an academic doc isn't what they want. But if we only had 20 of those kids to start with, we'd only end up with 2 or 3 world class researcher/educators.
Does Ohio make fun of WVU too? I thought it was a Pitt thing. Then again the last backyard brawl was in 2011 so most current undergrads here don't really care about that old rivalry. It was fun though.
Depends on the state school. Mine heavily recruits for potential academics and researchers- you basically don't get considered without decent published work and a mid-30s MCAT.
*flies in out of left field* Some of us undergrads do still like to make fun of WVUDoes Ohio make fun of WVU too? I thought it was a Pitt thing. Then again the last backyard brawl was in 2011 so most current undergrads here don't really care about that old rivalry. It was fun though.
*flies in out of left field* Some of us undergrads do still like to make fun of WVU
I wouldn't describe the vast majority of physicians that I have come in contact with as being involved in ground-breaking research or on the cusp of transforming medicine/moving it forward. As an increasingly protocol-driven profession, the field of medicine probably needs more competent clinicians than it does brilliant researchers.
There's a good deal of controversy about whether prescribing statins under the new guidelines is going beyond prophylaxis and into treating healthy people that might have never had a problem even if they hadn't been on them. Also, dat risk/benefit ratio, so hard to assess in patients that are borderline healthy.
