Asian Students in Medical School.

[carlosc1dbz]

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Asians are not under represented in medical school, as most of us know. As a matter of fact in many schools, they are over represented. There are many reasons for that I am sure, most of them being cultural I assume. Anyway, my question is simple. Where do all the Asians go after they graduate? I have had many experiences as a patient, as well as a student here in Texas hospitals, and I see Indian, I see Hispanic, I even see black doctors, but where are all the Asians? There are two possibilities that I can imagine. 1. Asians all get highly specialized and I have never had to use their services, or 2. They are all leaving to California where the Asian population is very large.

Any thoughts?

 

[Shoushu]

Asians are not under represented in medical school, as most of us know. As a matter of fact in many schools, they are over represented. There are many reasons for that I am sure, most of them being cultural I assume. Anyway, my question is simple. Where do all the Asians go after they graduate? I have had many experiences as a patient, as well as a student here in Texas hospitals, and I see Indian, I see Hispanic, I even see black doctors, but where are all the Asians? There are two possibilities that I can imagine. 1. Asians all get highly specialized and I have never had to use their services, or 2. They are all leaving to California where the Asian population is very large.

Any thoughts?

Some of them may be family reasons too, many Asian parents push their children to become doctors.

I guess a large % of Asian MDs could end up in research, teaching, from universities to community college. Or even scientist jobs for gov agencies. BTW, Indians are Asians, and 20% of all imported doctors come from India. If you mean East Asians, less than 2% of foreign physicians come from China, but more than 2% come from Grenada in Caribbean (St. George's University). S. Korea, Japan and Taiwan's doctors already make good $$ in their rich countries, so they aren't likely to be physicians in US.

Asians make tiny % in US pop., concentrated in California etc

 

[carlosc1dbz]

Some of them may be family reasons too, many Asian parents push their children to become doctors.

I guess a large % of Asian MDs could end up in research, teaching, from universities to community college. Or even scientist jobs for gov agencies. BTW, Indians are Asians, and 20% of all imported doctors come from India. If you mean East Asians, less than 2% of foreign physicians come from China, but more than 2% come from Grenada in Caribbean (St. George's University). S. Korea, Japan and Taiwan's doctors already make good $$ in their rich countries, so they aren't likely to be physicians in US.

Asians make tiny % in US pop., concentrated in California etc

Yes of course I mean East Asians. Thank you for pointing that out. Great answer, you make some great points about rich East Asian countries. But What I was referring to, was all of the students of East Asian decent that make up a good percentage of all American medical school classes.

 

[Messerschmitts]

There are plenty of (east) Asian doctors on the west coast. I will be one of them, just matched into a programme in Los Angeles. Going home! Asians tend not to like to get too far from the Pacific Ocean.

 

[carlosc1dbz]

Congrats on going to LA. I also want to go to LA. I like Pasadena. Do you have any tips for people that want to go to California?

I wonder if most Asian students think like you and want to head west? Cuz I know here at least in the cities I have been, I do not see that many.

 

[pinkanml]

Most medical students at any given school are not from the local area, it's not like college where anyone can just go to the state school, so it isn't as if there is some mass exodus of Asians leaving Texas and heading to the coast. Many of the medical students will want to go back home, wherever that may be, for residency, or leave to go into competitive specialties (meaning they have to be willing to go all over the U.S in most cases). The Match has a lovely way of choosing your fate for you (which worked out great for me, thank God).

I'm a D.C. area native (and half Korean btw) and go to med school here and we actually have a pretty small number of East Asians in my class, despite being a very diverse group and this area having a relatively high concentration of Koreans and Vietnamese. California isn't the only place with a lot of Asian people, don't forget about D.C and New York. Tons of the doctors, dentists, and optometrists around here are Asian.

 

[GH253]

I like having Asians for lab partners.

 

[brickandlace]

Asians are not under represented in medical school, as most of us know. As a matter of fact in many schools, they are over represented.

Any thoughts?

I disagree, I don't think Asians are overrepresented in medical schools. Schools have quotas that they go by while admitting students (although they don't outwardly say this, no one wants a discrimination lawsuit). This diversity clause (in my opinion and in the opinion of a few physicians I know) does play a role in the admissions process. I don't see any medical schools with 70% Asian student enrollment. Clearly there are measures in place to ensure certain proportions.

 

[PostLessOne]

"overrepresented" is a relative term. However, the simplest definition is this : take the percentage of racial group X in the population of the country in question. Compare that to the percentage of individuals belonging to said racial group in the school in question. Technically, a group is overrepresented if it appears more often in a school or other institution than the group is present in the population.

According to this http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table9-fact2006to2009detmat-web.pdf

Asians are 39% of the medical school matriculants.

According to this https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html Asians are 4.43% of the population in the United States.

Face facts. Asians are massively over-represented, by a factor of ten times.

Now, once you know the facts, we can discuss why this is. Judging by average MCATs and GPAs, asians richly deserve their spots in medical school. Medical schools have to actively discriminate against Asians in order to keep them from being the entire class. (about 80% or 90% of the class would be Asian if the medical school went by GPA and MCAT and an individual of any given racial group had an equal probability of succeeding in an interview)

Journals on intelligence find that Asians as a group have higher IQs on average than do other groups. This is one theory. Others include cultural differences or perhaps something about Asians that causes them to do better in school even more than their higher IQ would suggest. For example, there's evidence that Asians have somewhat lower sex drives and secondary sexual characteristics than do other groups, which I suspect would help them to stay on track in school.

 

[carlosc1dbz]

"overrepresented" is a relative term. However, the simplest definition is this : take the percentage of racial group X in the population of the country in question. Compare that to the percentage of individuals belonging to said racial group in the school in question. Technically, a group is overrepresented if it appears more often in a school or other institution than the group is present in the population.

According to this http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table9-fact2006to2009detmat-web.pdf

Asians are 39% of the medical school matriculants.

According to this https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html Asians are 4.43% of the population in the United States.

Face facts. Asians are massively over-represented, by a factor of ten times.

Now, once you know the facts, we can discuss why this is. Judging by average MCATs and GPAs, asians richly deserve their spots in medical school. Medical schools have to actively discriminate against Asians in order to keep them from being the entire class. (about 80% or 90% of the class would be Asian if the medical school went by GPA and MCAT and an individual of any given racial group had an equal probability of succeeding in an interview)

Journals on intelligence find that Asians as a group have higher IQs on average than do other groups. This is one theory. Others include cultural differences or perhaps something about Asians that causes them to do better in school even more than their higher IQ would suggest. For example, there's evidence that Asians have somewhat lower sex drives and secondary sexual characteristics than do other groups, which I suspect would help them to stay on track in school.

Interesting facts. I never thought about the sexual characteristics. That is very important in high school. So that is a huge chunk of each med school class. Now to find out where they all go after medical school.

 

[kstreet]

"overrepresented" is a relative term. However, the simplest definition is this : take the percentage of racial group X in the population of the country in question. Compare that to the percentage of individuals belonging to said racial group in the school in question. Technically, a group is overrepresented if it appears more often in a school or other institution than the group is present in the population.

According to this http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table9-fact2006to2009detmat-web.pdf

Asians are 39% of the medical school matriculants.

According to this https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html Asians are 4.43% of the population in the United States.

Face facts. Asians are massively over-represented, by a factor of ten times.

Now, once you know the facts, we can discuss why this is. Judging by average MCATs and GPAs, asians richly deserve their spots in medical school. Medical schools have to actively discriminate against Asians in order to keep them from being the entire class. (about 80% or 90% of the class would be Asian if the medical school went by GPA and MCAT and an individual of any given racial group had an equal probability of succeeding in an interview)

Journals on intelligence find that Asians as a group have higher IQs on average than do other groups. This is one theory. Others include cultural differences or perhaps something about Asians that causes them to do better in school even more than their higher IQ would suggest. For example, there's evidence that Asians have somewhat lower sex drives and secondary sexual characteristics than do other groups, which I suspect would help them to stay on track in school.

Interesting "evidence" indeed. Why are there 2 billions asians in the world again?

 

[The Wild Wind]

I am East Asian...I know Asians are over/underrespresented in med school, but I know nobody from my country who goes to med school in USA. This makes me the first one going to American med school from my country...this is very interesting to me because in terms of ethnicity my ethnicity is greatly under-represented (virtually no one)in health care proffession. I guess admission don't care which ethinicity you are coming from thinking asian is asian...but I'm not from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan etc...

 

[PostLessOne]

Interesting "evidence" indeed. Why are there 2 billions asians in the world again?

Evidence? This is an indisputable fact. You cannot apply to medical school in the United States unless you are a U.S. citizen or have the right residency papers. Asians are overrepresented. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing if you acknowledge the reality that different people have different talents, determined by their genetics, and you try to make admission decisions to medical school based upon academic merit.

 

[bronx43]

Interesting "evidence" indeed. Why are there 2 billions asians in the world again?

...because of sociohistorical, as well as economic, factors. So, you think nations with inverted demographics have less sex?

 

[kstreet]

evidence? This is an indisputable fact. You cannot apply to medical school in the united states unless you are a u.s. Citizen or have the right residency papers. Asians are overrepresented. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing if you acknowledge the reality that different people have different talents, determined by their genetics, and you try to make admission decisions to medical school based upon academic merit.

ok