Do good med students generally make good doctors?

[penguin24]

---

Members do not see this ad.

The ppl w/ the highest board scores tend to have the highest clinical grades. The ppl who have the book smarts to get AOA are also the most highly recruited by PD's to fill the best residency spots. Any train of thought that average students are somehow better than smart students is wishful thinking, that just isn't true.

On the wards there is a lot of brown-nosing and sucking up to attendings, don't confuse that w/ shining on the wards.

 

[penguin24]

Just my observations.

 

[VoiceofReason]

Ok, here are some examples..

1)a healer is a step or probably a few steps beyond a physician...
(the regular physician is small potatoes here)

2)A healer can make a blind man see..

3)A healer can make a crippled man walk normally..

4)A healer is beyond most human scope, so I wont say much more about this..

In my previous post I meant conventional medicine instead of classical medicine...

Also its the weekend. 😉

lol

 

[ObamaCare]

depends on what you mean by "good" medical students. There are some "good" medical students who are all-stars -- know their stuff inside out, glow with confidence, good with their hands, skillful, awesome with patients. They'll make great doctors. There are also some "good" medicals students who just play the game to do well: suck up everywhere, tell attendings they're interested in their specialty when they're truly aiming for derm, bring in NEJM articles no one is going to read, BS all the time....

 

[Ableton]

The ppl w/ the highest board scores tend to have the highest clinical grades. The ppl who have the book smarts to get AOA are also the most highly recruited by PD's to fill the best residency spots. Any train of thought that average students are somehow better than smart students is wishful thinking, that just isn't true.

On the wards there is a lot of brown-nosing and sucking up to attendings, don't confuse that w/ shining on the wards.

Agreed.

You all can live in as much denial as you'd like, but the ones answering the questions right on the wards are the ones who've built up a solid foundation of the basic sciences (the best academic students). This will help them do well on their clinical grades, provided they're not total tools - something that is not as common as all of you would like the believe.

 

[MilkmanAl]

the ones answering the questions right on the wards are the ones who've built up a solid foundation of the basic sciences (the best academic students)

I'm not so sure about that. I'd say the ones answering the questions correctly are the ones who keep studying during their third years. Getting a "solid foundation" certainly isn't going to hurt, but there are plenty of units I obliterated last year - GI, for example - that I currently remember next to nothing about. I got my foundation, but there's no way I'd be able to recall anything without burying myself in a review book for a little while.

 

[clement]

The ppl w/ the highest board scores tend to have the highest clinical grades. The ppl who have the book smarts to get AOA are also the most highly recruited by PD's to fill the best residency spots. Any train of thought that average students are somehow better than smart students is wishful thinking, that just isn't true.

On the wards there is a lot of brown-nosing and sucking up to attendings, don't confuse that w/ shining on the wards.

By definition I could never claim that average students are somehow better, but on the whole, they tend to have, how shall we say it, better people skills when it comes to H and P's.

You're absolutely right about the brown-nosing though, and unfortunately some people's voracious need to grease elbows suffocates the educational experience of their peers, i.e. the cocky kid that takes every opportunity to cut into someone else's sentence just to kiss some attending butt. Patients tend not to like these cocky kids either. We have one such person on my rotations right now that actually attends to his ringing iphone and walks out of the room during student presentations as if he were an attending 🙄
Patients and other students can't stand him, the attendings thinks he's the coolest pile off doo doo that flew out of an elephant's rear since last year.

 

[mjl1717]

I go to a DO school with a tiny class size, so we know exactly who the first and second year rockstars are. One kid in particular exemplifies most of the top 10 or so at my school (with a few exceptions):

1. Consistently nailed 90+ on some pretty ridiculous immuno, micro, path, and biochem/genetics exams taught by some pretty intense phd's or md/phd's at our school (people that had mostly only taught phd students in their past lives).
2. Homeboy lives about two miles away from school (with mom and dad)
3. Spends most every non-academic moment "gaming"
4. Cracked >250 on the USMLE
5. Is clueless on the wards. CLUELESS. Gets shredded on a daily basis by attendings that don't know "who" he is when presenting patients. He's the classic example of someone that works really hard over the course of the first two years, blows off simulated patients, rocks the boards, and then goes on a mental health break during the clinical years.

In his defense, I will say he has some schizoid personality features and a few ticks here and there that don't really help the situation. He's shooting for rads.

Based on my observations, the more average students tend to really step up their game during 3rd and 4th year. Given that they're average rather than poor students, and their basic sciences foundation is solid, they tend to shine at the end of the day.

At least that one kid is self actualized enought to know that he does NOT need a lot of patient contact by going into radiology

 

[penguin24]

Patient contact is something to be avoided if at all possible. Rads is actually a very good field, if not the best field in medicine.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

By definition I could never claim that average students are somehow better, but on the whole, they tend to have, how shall we say it, better people skills when it comes to H and P's.

a) It's unfair to top students to either imply (or state outright as you did) that being a good student somehow requires a personality disorder. Most of the top students in my class are simply very intelligent, very dedicated, and very hard workers.

b) As mentioned before, these assertions that "average" students are better with people or have better performances on the wards are rationalizations and not accurate.

 

[andie gustafson]

at the end of the day all that matters is your personality, how you treat patients and how u use ur knowledge... good grades really don't guarantee you sucess, you have to earn it on your own

 

[penguin24]

at the end of the day all that matters is your personality, how you treat patients and how u use ur knowledge... good grades really don't guarantee you sucess, you have to earn it on your own

Well if you define success by matching in your preferred specialty, then good grades would indeed help you along the way to success. You make it seem like good grades and being a good doctor are uncorrelated, which is absurd.

 

[greg1184]

I go to a DO school with a tiny class size, so we know exactly who the first and second year rockstars are. One kid in particular exemplifies most of the top 10 or so at my school (with a few exceptions):

1. Consistently nailed 90+ on some pretty ridiculous immuno, micro, path, and biochem/genetics exams taught by some pretty intense phd's or md/phd's at our school (people that had mostly only taught phd students in their past lives).
2. Homeboy lives about two miles away from school (with mom and dad)
3. Spends most every non-academic moment "gaming"
4. Cracked >250 on the USMLE
5. Is clueless on the wards. CLUELESS. Gets shredded on a daily basis by attendings that don't know "who" he is when presenting patients. He's the classic example of someone that works really hard over the course of the first two years, blows off simulated patients, rocks the boards, and then goes on a mental health break during the clinical years.

In his defense, I will say he has some schizoid personality features and a few ticks here and there that don't really help the situation. He's shooting for rads.

Based on my observations, the more average students tend to really step up their game during 3rd and 4th year. Given that they're average rather than poor students, and their basic sciences foundation is solid, they tend to shine at the end of the day.

It seems like the issues with him have more to do with his personality issues than #1-4 of your list.... especially #2 which I fail to see the problem with. His inability to adjust to the last two years (which most medical students are able to eventually regardless of the amount of clinical experience) has probably to do with deeper problems.

 

[mjl1717]

Patient contact is something to be avoided if at all possible. Rads is actually a very good field, if not the best field in medicine.

Im not knocking or discounting rads...Just that rads and probably pathology are good for not having much patient contact..

What you say is funny and has some truth to it..Overall I think its very hard to avoid patient contact in medicine bacause patients often want contact with you (eg.. "hey the doc wouldnt talk or look at me!)..

 

[Noirukiddingme]

Bill Gates didn't finish college and was never really a good student but look where he is now.

my poop also never finished college (I paid the teachers to get him past 1st year) and wasn't really a good student....🙄 I joke, I joke.

 

[KindaRambo]

Patient contact is something to be avoided if at all possible. Rads is actually a very good field, if not the best field in medicine.

You have no idea how right you are. Shhh, keep it a secret, too many people know already.

 

[shnuffles]

I'm sure there are a few outliers who are terrible at taking exams but great at clinic, or great at exams but super awkward in the hospital (ok there are a lot of these) but I think the vast majority of good med students are that way because they have something inside them that makes them be rockstars, no matter what they do. And they'll always be like that, they will work really hard for boards just like they'll work hard on wards. Later on they'll always work hard and have high-expectations for their careers, which will lead to becoming competent physicians. work ethic, good habits, etc..

Bingo.

 

[reedman]

I think one of the main qualities that seems to determine class rank in years 1 and 2 is how fast people learn and how well they retain information. Some students just have a vast aptitude for memorization. I know a few people that study all the time but they just can't seem to stay on top of all the details. Some of the people at the bottom are hard workers too.

When people become attending physicians I think the dynamics of success become quite different. Granted, some people will know more than others right out of med school and maybe residency, but given a year or two of practical experience I think pretty much everyone acquires the same knowledge of things required for practice. After time has equalized the quick learners and the slow learners, other factors come into play. Success is then highly dependent on good interpersonal skills, creative problem solving, communications skills, ability to work quickly and efficiently (and I mean work, which is very different than school), willingness to seek help when needed, leadership abilities, emotional stability, and probably a million other things.

Of course there is no reason to think that folks at the top of the class won't have all those qualities. But just remember that there are some folks at the bottom of the class that may not be great at cramming factoids, but might have other talents that will come to to the forefront when the dynamics of success finally change.