Am I taking med school too easily?

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For both ethical and financial reasons, we should not tolerate effort based mediocrity.

Board exams and other qualifications were initially designed to designate a threshold level of knowledge for a trainee to continue training and eventually safely practice medicine. When we get into, "get as high scores as we can," we necessarily assume that the more minutia we can cram, the better we will be at clinical medicine. But that's never been demonstrated to be the case. Where's the evidence that a student who gets an 80 on his exam will order more unnecessary tests than a student who gets an 90? What if the average as an 85? Are you comfortable saying that students who get 80 are inadequate? And it's not just me who feels this way. It's a common refrain even on sdn that boards were never meant to be used the way they are.

When we go down the route of the givens in this thread, we go down a very uncomfortable slope. One that says that these scores matter to patient safety. If true, we shouldn't be coddling actually mediocre students even if they're trying their best and on the verge of breakdown. Because lives are on the line. It isn't about their ego. It's about the patient. Except we don't think that way. We absolutely coddle such students trusting in the minimums we set in place to be adequate minimums. Going down this line, many DOs shouldn't be practicing period. We've always had lower average board scores than MDs. Are we worse physicians? AFAIK, no. So that's why I'm real skeptical about the your guys' jumping down this guy's throat for not wanting to beast mode his every exam.

We agree not to act that way when we decide not to get a regular, replaceable, and utterly unimportant job.

This is the self-aggrandizing that I personally don't subscribe to. Yes, I did this because I wanted to help people. But I'm not some sort of hero who is irreplaceable. Really, if I had refused my admit, someone with nearly identical aptitude and passion would take my place. Hell, if I drop out, a caribbean could probably jump in with similar board scores to mine. I'm just as replaceable. And you are too.

The sorts of things you're all assuming are the sorts of things that fuel many cannibalistic tendencies of our field. Are 80 hour residency workweeks actually that much of a burden? "You chose to be here and we're forcing you through that hell for the patients' sakes. Yes, it shouldn't be tolerated in other fields, but it's okay in medicine because our trainees accepted this sort of treatment when they chose to get a job that wasn't regular, replaceable and utterly unimportant. How can you be expected to understand the course of many pathologies if you can't follow the course of such pathologies due to residency hour restrictions?"

We all know the arguments to counter such arguments: it's not means tested. It isn't necessarily the case that you NEED to work 80 hours a week to learn medicine. And it isn't necessarily the case that you need to be roughly 5 questions on a 50 exam test better than your peers to be a good physician. This is something we all recognize. That is unless you're asking all of your personal physicians their med school scores when they evaluate their qualifications to be your physician.

 

[Neopolymath]

Board exams and other qualifications were initially designed to designate a threshold level of knowledge for a trainee to continue training and eventually safely practice medicine. When we get into, "get as high scores as we can," we necessarily assume that the more minutia we can cram, the better we will be at clinical medicine. But that's never been demonstrated to be the case. Where's the evidence that a student who gets an 80 on his exam will order more unnecessary tests than a student who gets an 90? What if the average as an 85? Are you comfortable saying that students who get 80 are inadequate? And it's not just me who feels this way. It's a common refrain even on sdn that boards were never meant to be used the way they are.

When we go down the route of the givens in this thread, we go down a very uncomfortable slope. One that says that these scores matter to patient safety. If true, we shouldn't be coddling actually mediocre students even if they're trying their best and on the verge of breakdown. Because lives are on the line. It isn't about their ego. It's about the patient. Except we don't think that way. We absolutely coddle such students trusting in the minimums we set in place to be adequate minimums. Going down this line, many DOs shouldn't be practicing period. We've always had lower average board scores than MDs. Are we worse physicians? AFAIK, no. So that's why I'm real skeptical about the your guys' jumping down this guy's throat for not wanting to beast mode his every exam.



This is the self-aggrandizing that I personally don't subscribe to. Yes, I did this because I wanted to help people. But I'm not some sort of hero who is irreplaceable. Really, if I had refused my admit, someone with nearly identical aptitude and passion would take my place. Hell, if I drop out, a caribbean could probably jump in with similar board scores to mine. I'm just as replaceable. And you are too.

The sorts of things you're all assuming are the sorts of things that fuel many cannibalistic tendencies of our field. Are 80 hour residency workweeks actually that much of a burden? "You chose to be here and we're forcing you through that hell for the patients' sakes. Yes, it shouldn't be tolerated in other fields, but it's okay in medicine because our trainees accepted this sort of treatment when they chose to get a job that wasn't regular, replaceable and utterly unimportant. How can you be expected to understand the course of many pathologies if you can't follow the course of such pathologies due to residency hour restrictions?"

We all know the arguments to counter such arguments: it's not means tested. It isn't necessarily the case that you NEED to work 80 hours a week to learn medicine. And it isn't necessarily the case that you need to be roughly 5 questions on a 50 exam test better than your peers to be a good physician. This is something we all recognize. That is unless you're asking all of your personal physicians their med school scores when they evaluate their qualifications to be your physician.

I'm going to keep this short. No one argued any of that. The argument is you should give a **** and try. That translates to clinical years... No one ragged him for getting average scores other than that he came off like he thinks he is cool for some reason. You aren't mailing it in and taking personal days like Susie in HR and taking 6 days to respond to an email. There are some aspects of a career in medicine that are unavoidable. Nowhere did anyone say getting a certain score is mandatory or that we all agree with some aspects of medical education and training. You are arguing ghosts.

And yes, it may come off harsh, but the fact that a bunch of people are lined up to replace you in the medical education factory does not change that when you are the doc that day on service you are the person people are counting on. That has nothing to do with weirdo virtue signaling about some "noble profession" or whatever. It is the truth. If it makes you feel better, there are other jobs out there like that but I wouldn't recommend them to OP either..