Wahoos said:
I agree with the above post that Doctors need both intelligence and great interpersonal skills. However, if you were admitted into an medical school then that means the admissions committee had faith in you that you have the intelligence AND personal qualities to finished medical school and become a competent physician. However, the committee is not perfect and do make mistakes in the people that they select to represent their medical school. (I have seen it first hand). I used to think that intelligence is the most important quality of a good doctor, but now that I have finished medical school and have rotated with so many doctors/residents in the hospitals, I am beginning to feel that the personal qualities of a doctor is much more important than intelligence. I think that most people with average intelligence will be able to learn the material necessary to become a competent physician, but personal qualities are ingrained into a particular person becuase of his/her background, edcuation, parents, life experiences, etc, etc, and not changable. I have seen and worked with a lot of doctors who are very intelligent but horrible in terms of their attitudes to the patients/nurses/OR tech/etc. They can quote all of the studies and statistics and chapters and indications and all the other things, but they don't have a genuine care for their patients. Are they good doctors, yes, they get the job done, but if I was a patient, I would rather go to the person who I feel comfortable with and feel that they really do care for me and the outcomes of my treatment. As you go through your medical training, residency, and beyond, you will see that the level of knowledge levels off in a curve, and with the many many years of residency, fellowships, etc, everyone will reach the top of this curve.... the difference is that someone who is a little more intelligent will get to the top slightly faster than his/her colleagues, but it all levels out in the end.
When I interviewed someone for addmissions to our med school as a 4th year student, I would first look at all the things this person have done in the past (how much volunteer, service oriented activities, leadership, etc, that shows some connection with other human beings other than the library while studying) and then after I chated with him/her for 30 minutes, if I feel that I would be comfortable coming to see this person as my doctor, then I would make recommendations for admission. If I don't feel feel comfortable, then I would probably not rec this person even if their MCAT is 40s and 4.0 GPA. And trust me, their are some people who fit this category and have been waitlisted at my school. I have had someone who I asked "I see that you have done so many other things other than medicine in the past, why do you want to go into the field of medicine? Why not this or this, why would you feel happier in medicine?" This person's answer was " ahh, ... I guess I just really like medicine, you know." Then a long momment of slience, and I was waiting for something else, but.....that was it.
😴 Please, if you go to an interview for med school, have an answer prepared for that question and not just say that you like medicine. So needless to say, no addmission offer for this guy.
(this person was 3.9 and 38 MCAT with tons of research and EC)
So the bottom line is that I feel personal qualities of a physician is more important than the intelligence portion. Given that my Doc is > or = average in intelligence. (which is most/all of the people graduating with an MD)
😀
I understand your point, but I disagree slightly.
"I have seen and worked with a lot of doctors who are very intelligent but horrible in terms of their attitudes to the patients/nurses/OR tech/etc. "
This is not excusable. Its hard to imagine someone that doesnt want a positive outcome of the patient.
It is important to be compassionate in the medical field, but it is truly important to do the right thing and serve medicine the best you can. I prefer people that are compassionate but not too "compassionate".
People that claim to be compassionate often do so for affectation (don't confuse this word with affection, TAKEANMDPILL), but will quickly condone such cruel aspects of our society such as the death penalty, when a close loved one is murdered. Compassion is disregard-able and disposable upon any whim and a subjective attribute for those who claim to be compassionate. I think Im a compassionate person, but that doesnt fuel my desire to become a physician. I am passionate about medicine. I am aware that during my practice I will sometimes have my hands tied. I may have to follow protocols, procedures and regulations. I will see the law system involve itself where it should not. For anyone that fuels their ideals of becoming a doctor on compassion, what will you do when you realize that medicine is controlled by a cold, ignorant law system. Will you become disgruntled, will you commit suicide, will you leave the profession?
Compassion is an ideal.
Religious piety is also an ideal.
Do priests molest little boys? Do Jews or Christians ever kill people? Etc. etc.
Do you trust someone that does the right thing because "God tells him" he should, or do you trust someone that does the right thing because they do the right thing for the right reasons, which is simply because it is right (or at least accepted as right by society). Do you trust that someone, who claims or even thinks that they are compassionate, will always do the right thing? Everyone claims to be compassionate, and everyone thinks they are compassionate. So who really is?
Interpersonal skills is a very broad topic. When I saw it posted I thought what was meant was the ability to make people like you or side with you. This is important, but would you rather have a smooth talking really friendly doc that could miss diagnose you, or a very serious kind of distant doc that will hit the bulls-eye on your diagnosis. When you seek out a cardiologist to take care of you mother will you specifically search for an average doctor or will you look for the best? These questions are very serious.
Can doctors of average intelligence misdiagnose you? Hell yes they can and they do often; its called medical malpractice and its rampant. But the average doctor has well above average intelligence. You can kid yourselves by saying that these lawsuits are all frivolous, but I beg to differ, most medical malpractice suits are very valid. In fact the risk of lawsuit is what makes medicine in America so good. You sure bet youll try to do the right thing and put some effort into it if you know you are liable.
"When I interviewed someone for admissions to our med school as a 4th year student, I would first look at all the things this person have done in the past (how much volunteer, service oriented activities, leadership, etc, that shows some connection with other human beings other than the library while studying) and then after I chated with him/her for 30 minutes, if I feel that I would be comfortable coming to see this person as my doctor"
Do people ever volunteer just to look good on applications? Who counts volunteer hours? I don't. Service oriented activities, anyone do it just to look good? leadership, who does it just for fun?
I think you will never be able to weed out the real misfits, because they can make themselves look like they are the greatest people on earth.
In fact the misfits that can trick you have the very good interpersonal skills. They could probably sell you an unnecessary procedure without any problem and make you feel at ease as they take your money and put your life at risk I agree that I wouldn't recommend someone with good scores that didn't even try to figure out why they were going into medicine.
Don't be offended, this is a debate, not an attack.
And the thing about all doctors leveling off at the same place once they start practice.
This is not so. Some doctors will become fantastic physicians and others will become horrible, incompetent physicians that only last in medicine because of their wonderful interpersonal skills that makes everyone like them. No sir, this kind of thinking is going to get your parents killed if you are in charge of picking their docs. In my dad's practice there was one doc that was such a ***** that my dad would double check his diagnosis in his reports just to protect the partnership, because this fool would mess up all the time.
Scores and grades only generally correlate to how good of a doc you will be but not perfectly, because there are a lot of factors that will affect you on your way to becoming a physician, but I think good scores and grades show that you have the potential to do well, yet doing well is still up to you.
There exists the fantasy world of ideals
and there exists the real world of life and death.
Study hard!
