It's a toxic attitude. It's not even an MD thing. DOs are just as bad, if not worse sometimes. We may not be at the top of the prestige food chain, but we're not at the bottom, either. We still love to s**t on IMGs and "low tier" DOs, because at the end of the day, we're still medical students. Beneath our noble exterior of caring for people's health is a disgusting, festering blend of unjustified elitism, paranoia, one-upsmanship, and brutal judgment of our peers. It's not entirely out fault - the system was built this way, and we need to work within it's confines.
I'm no better. I tell myself that I'd have full trust in the abilities of an IMG who passed his boards. After all, at the med school level it's all the same. But I'm still going to be silently gloating to myself that I went to an American medical school.
I don't fault a US MD for thinking he has some sort of vague, undefined inner quality that makes him better than me, justified by his admittance into an MD-granting school. He doesn't know my story. Would he even care if he knew? If it were me, would I even care? I don't know.
The problem is when we go about our business and don't even address that this is a problem. When we don't aspire to being any better, and become content and complacent with our prejudices. I'm personally an elitist, a classist, I'm even a rascist. But I don't want to be, and I aspire to be better and not to let it dictate my actions.
This is the problem I see in this thread. It's medical elitism laid bare, a toxic attitude stripped all all pretense of pragmatism. Hell, what you said about USMD-only programs and fellowships is totally true and valid. It's a damn good point. It's pragmatic, and in my opinion, slightly less toxic. But this thread, and a lot of SDN, just takes it for granted that "that's the way it is." This thread isn't about fellowships, or quality of education - it's about prestige, our worst qualities start pouring out- and no one says a goddamn thing about it.
