Is SDN toxic?

[dunavice]

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SDN is a mirror. What you see reflects who you are and the way you see the world. I never noticed much toxicity because I skimmed posts that were clearly negative for the sake of being negative or irrelevant to the topic at hand. SDN is the most useful premed resource in the world if used properly.

You're right. I apologize for being an ass today. I'll do my best to sift through the good & plenty (and occasional rubbish) here. As for others, feel free to ignore me, I guess you already have.

Thread closed

 

[siliso]

I remember its seeming like a bodybuilding.com/misc spinoff back in 08 and not returning for years. And the impression that you needed to be Dr. Doogie Howser MD PhD to have any shot at becoming a physician. The toxicity level seems decreased upon a years later return, though there’s still plenty of neuroticism and excessive negative nelly being a doctor is terrible IT’S OVER stuff. If it were so terrible, you wouldn’t have a forum of thousands looking for the best way to get in. Don’t take it too serious. If it bums you out, ditch it, there’s no need to borrow trouble.

 

[Stagg737]

The better question is why is a 14 year old pouring over threads about med school/getting into med school then complaining about the toxic and neurotic environment of the site? Either a terrible troll or someone who needs to do some serious introspection before they consider pursuing medicine...

 

[dunavice]

The better question is why is a 14 year old pouring over threads about med school/getting into med school then complaining about the toxic and neurotic environment of the site? Either a terrible troll or someone who needs to do some serious introspection before they consider pursuing medicine...

I am not a troll.

Please consider my situation:

I have a genuine passion for helping animals, including humans
I feel a need to contribute to medicine considering my mothers misfortune as an early-onset Alzheimer's and PCA patient
I can see myself doing very little besides medicine and being good at it
I come from a relatively low socioeconomic background
I have shadowed a DVM twice in the past year and she thinks a career in veterinary medicine or humans would be a good fit for me

I'm concerned for my future. I don't want to get half a million in debt, then 40 years down the line regret my decision to why I chose such a stressful and time consuming profession in the first place.

I am leaning towards ditching the idea of getting into medicine and risk it all pursuing something more ambitious, perhaps working for myself. I am worried that my happiness may suffer if I go down this path and end up miserable like I've heard other doctors are on this forum and on the Internet.

Just my story. Would appreciate any genuine advice.

 

[IDontHaveAnyFeet]

I am not a troll.

Please consider my situation:

I have a genuine passion for helping animals, including humans
I feel a need to contribute to medicine considering my mothers misfortune as an early-onset Alzheimer's and PCA patient
I can see myself doing very little besides medicine and being good at it
I come from a relatively low socioeconomic background
I have shadowed a DVM twice in the past year and she thinks a career in veterinary medicine or humans would be a good fit for me

I'm concerned for my future. I don't want to get half a million in debt, then 40 years down the line regret my decision to why I chose such a stressful and time consuming profession in the first place.

I am leaning towards ditching the idea of getting into medicine and risk it all pursuing something more ambitious, perhaps working for myself. I am worried that my happiness may suffer if I go down this path and end up miserable like I've heard other doctors are on this forum and on the Internet.

Just my story. Would appreciate any genuine advice.

Again, I'm going to advise you to use your ignore function. Think long and hard, when someone is a resident, a medical student, an orthopedic surgeon, do you REALLY think they will be sitting on SDN reading these kinds of posts (and responding)? Any live medical student will tell you F*** no they wouldn't waste their time on here doing such things.

Stop using SDN as a tool to validate yourself. Use it for information, get what you want to know and move on. Don't focus on what others tell you.
Whether it be a balding 40 year old man child in his mothers basement pretending to be a neurosurgeon or the actual dean of harvard medical school, what SDN'ers say about you on here is irrelevant. Get your information, and move on.

 

[dunavice]

Again, I'm going to advise you to use your ignore function. Think long and hard, when someone is a resident, a medical student, an orthopedic surgeon, do you REALLY think they will be sitting on SDN reading these kinds of posts (and responding)? Any live medical student will tell you F*** no they wouldn't waste their time on here doing such things.

Stop using SDN as a tool to validate yourself. Use it for information, get what you want to know and move on. Don't focus on what others tell you.
Whether it be a balding 40 year old man child in his mothers basement pretending to be a neurosurgeon or the actual dean of harvard medical school, what SDN'ers say about you on here is irrelevant. Get your information, and move on.

Thank you. I am kind of suspicious about the validity of the people here. I doubt most of the people are who they say they are. It perplexes me how some of these "SDN member since 1982 PhD in Advanced cognitive astrobiology"-esque people even find time for this website.

 

[Lucca]

OP, you’re 14. You have much more urgent things to worry about than getting into medical school. My advice is to come back to SDN when you’re ready to think about applying. In my own opinion, nobody should call themselves a premed without an MCAT score. Until then you are just a person with interests.

Don’t take the cynicism here too seriously. Just see how things are for yourself once you are at the stage where that’s appropriate. For now, just focus on being a kid and getting into a good undergrad.

 

[dunavice]

OP, you’re 14. You have much more urgent things to worry about than getting into medical school. My advice is to come back to SDN when you’re ready to think about applying. In my own opinion, nobody should call themselves a premed without an MCAT score. Until then you are just a person with interests.

Don’t take the cynicism here too seriously. Just see how things are for yourself once you are at the stage where that’s appropriate. For now, just focus on being a kid and getting into a good undergrad.

Thanks. Needed that reminder. If I'm not pursuing medicine, I won't bother with uni. I have other dreams to work for.

What I hate are the KIAs and fakes here who will hurt others if they go further in their career. There's no shame in admitting that you don't know something. Even in our modern understanding of medicine, most things aren't definitive.

 

[Lucca]

Thanks. Needed that reminder. If I'm not pursuing medicine, I won't bother with uni. I have other dreams to work for.

What I'm most concerned with is the KIAs here who will hurt others once they're further in their career. There's no shame in admitting that you don't know something. Even in our modern understanding of medicine, most things aren't definitive.

Here’s some life advice from someone who has spent way too much time on the internet: if something is happening exclusively on the internet, then it doesn’t matter. Dont worry about it too much.

Second, you don’t know any of these people and they don’t know you. You have no idea what kind of professionals they are. Don’t insult them by pretending that you do from a few posts on an Internet forum. Also, we have a badge verification system for PhDs, faculty, military, and physicians if you’re ever wondering if people are “real.”

Seriously, get off SDN. Go be 14.

 

[bananafish94]

I don't think it's toxic per se, I've largely found it to be pretty supportive and informative (e.g., my early days on SDN were spent almost entirely on interview/waitlist support threads). Although I realize that you have to go into medicine and apply to medical school with as little naïveté as possible, I do sometimes see advice that is so conservative that I think it's actually harmful w/r/t crafting an application. There's also a solid amount of elitism amongst many users. By and large, though, it's a very useful resource and I would recommend it to anyone applying to med school.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Again, I'm going to advise you to use your ignore function. Think long and hard, when someone is a resident, a medical student, an orthopedic surgeon, do you REALLY think they will be sitting on SDN reading these kinds of posts (and responding)? Any live medical student will tell you F*** no they wouldn't waste their time on here doing such things.

Stop using SDN as a tool to validate yourself. Use it for information, get what you want to know and move on. Don't focus on what others tell you.
Whether it be a balding 40 year old man child in his mothers basement pretending to be a neurosurgeon or the actual dean of harvard medical school, what SDN'ers say about you on here is irrelevant. Get your information, and move on.

I have ignored the pre-pubescent troll (or pre-pubescent jerk, whatever it is), but I’m genuinely curious about why you seem to be convinced people in medicine wouldn’t go out of their way to mentor others using the Internet and that we are “fake.” It’s rather insulting. Just as an FYI, when physicians register for the site they are verified using their hospital email and credentials (known only to the admins), and if they are faculty, the hospital must be an academic institution (as in an .edu address). Verification is quite easy as most hospital emails have our first initial and last name, so it’s pretty easy to look up who we actually are during the verification process.

Mentoring actually does matter to many of us. I’ve run my AMA thread for more than a year, taking time between cases or during my time on the treadmill to answer students who are curious about my specialty. So have tons of surgeons on this forum. So have admins like @Goro and PDs. It’s not that hard.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Lucca]

I have ignored the pre-pubescent troll (or pre-pubescent jerk, whatever it is), but I’m genuinely curious about why you seem to be convinced people in medicine wouldn’t go out of their way to mentor others using the Internet and that we are “fake.” It’s rather insulting. Just as an FYI, when physicians register for the site they are verified using their hospital email and credentials (known only to the mods), and if they are faculty, the hospital must be an academic institution (as in an .edu address). Verification is quite easy as most hospital emails have our first initial and last name, so it’s pretty easy to look up who we actually are during the verification process.

Mentoring actually does matter to many of us. I’ve run my AMA thread for more than a year, taking time between cases or during my time on the treadmill to answer students who are curious about my specialty. So have tons of surgeons on this forum. So have admins like @Goro and PDs. It’s not that hard.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Just a small point of clarification, only admin staff can see the verified credentials. Regular mods like me can’t.

 

[ciestar]

Again, I'm going to advise you to use your ignore function. Think long and hard, when someone is a resident, a medical student, an orthopedic surgeon, do you REALLY think they will be sitting on SDN reading these kinds of posts (and responding)? Any live medical student will tell you F*** no they wouldn't waste their time on here doing such things.

Stop using SDN as a tool to validate yourself. Use it for information, get what you want to know and move on. Don't focus on what others tell you.
Whether it be a balding 40 year old man child in his mothers basement pretending to be a neurosurgeon or the actual dean of harvard medical school, what SDN'ers say about you on here is irrelevant. Get your information, and move on.

What a sad world we live in. Dear God.

I am almost an MS3. I answer questions on here because I want to. I tend to steer away from things I don’t have much knowledge/experience with. This process is hell and if I can help even one person on here, that is good enough for me.

 

[Jdp00921]

 

[MedicalDoge]

This must be a troll. Please Lord tell me it is.

Anyway, I want to take this moment to say that SDN gave me excellent advice on school lists, school decisions, and miscellaneous information. The ability to get advice directly from physicians and even med students is an unparalleled opportunity. Just yesterday, I was able to get advice about becoming a physician astronaut from a military physician who actually applied for an astronaut class! It is crazy how many resources are here.

As with everything in life, SDN is what you make it. If you want it to be an invaluable tool, you can make it that. If you want to get in a fruitless argument that will spiral you into madness, you can do that here too🙂

Edit: And @Goro is awesome, I love that cat.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Just a small point of clarification, only admin staff can see the verified credentials. Regular mods like me can’t.

Got it, corrected my post! 🙂


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Winged Scapula]

Again, I'm going to advise you to use your ignore function. Think long and hard, when someone is a resident, a medical student, an orthopedic surgeon, do you REALLY think they will be sitting on SDN reading these kinds of posts (and responding)? Any live medical student will tell you F*** no they wouldn't waste their time on here doing such things.

Stop using SDN as a tool to validate yourself. Use it for information, get what you want to know and move on. Don't focus on what others tell you.
Whether it be a balding 40 year old man child in his mothers basement pretending to be a neurosurgeon or the actual dean of harvard medical school, what SDN'ers say about you on here is irrelevant. Get your information, and move on.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

SDN has a rich tradition of students, residents, attending physicians and other medical professionals helping each other. As noted above, many of us enjoyed the mentorship and make time for it because we want to give back to a community that helped us.

Anyone that has a badge that says physician, pharmacist, etc. has had their credentials verified. In addition there are numerous faculty members here that have proven themselves over the years even if they haven’t undergone credential verification. I would venture the number of people that pretend to be something they’re not is an extremely small number.

I’m sure there are a number of people who go through life being selfish and/or have no interest in helping others but many of us thankfully feel differently.

 

[SpoiledMilk]

The idiom "separate the wheat from the chaff" is appropriate regarding SDN.

Fortunately, oodles of good/sound advice from those in the profession/knowledgeable that more than make up for those that post just to get a rise of out of others.

 

[buckoh24]

I would say that SDN is only toxic in a sense that there are a lot of people who are at the top % of applicants so sometimes you feel "inadequate" even if you are an average applicant. Besides that, the resources are great and the people, especially the faculty/physicians, have always been nice. Blunt=/=rude. Some people may be mad that people here are telling them to not apply to Harvard/JHU/etc with a 2.7/500 but I find the blunt suggestions to be helpful.

 

[Osminog]

When I was 14, I was doing a lot of things: I was figuring out how to talk to girls, I was adding way too much gel to my hair, I was skipping geometry class, I was chopping away at pixelated trees on Runescape, I was experimenting with different "limited edition" Poptart flavors...

One thing I wasn't doing when I was 14 was going to profession-oriented internet forums and trying to make long-term decisions about my future career.

 

[FutureSurgical]

This site is what you make of it. In college I felt horrible for not having a 3.8+ GPA and a 524 MCAT. But after graduating and working, I was able to take things with a grain of salt and be confident in what I had. It's conservative on here for sure (nothing is guaranteed with medical school admissions.) This site can be your best friend or what drives you away from medicine altogether.

Sent from my SM-G930V using SDN mobile

 

[LizzyM]

I would say that SDN is only toxic in a sense that there are a lot of people who are at the top % of applicants so sometimes you feel "inadequate" even if you are an average applicant. Besides that, the resources are great and the people, especially the faculty/physicians, have always been nice. Blunt=/=rude. Some people may be mad that people here are telling them to not apply to Harvard/JHU/etc with a 2.7/500 but I find the blunt suggestions to be helpful.

Given that <50% of applicants end up going to medical school, the "average applicant" is, on average, going to be unsuccessful at being admitted. If that's toxic, well, it is also true. Deal with it.

 

[FlavivirusProtease]

Would posting this thread to /r/Im14andthisisdeep be too on the nose?

 

[Goro]

Again, I'm going to advise you to use your ignore function. Think long and hard, when someone is a resident, a medical student, an orthopedic surgeon, do you REALLY think they will be sitting on SDN reading these kinds of posts (and responding)? Any live medical student will tell you F*** no they wouldn't waste their time on here doing such things.

Stop using SDN as a tool to validate yourself. Use it for information, get what you want to know and move on. Don't focus on what others tell you.
Whether it be a balding 40 year old man child in his mothers basement pretending to be a neurosurgeon or the actual dean of harvard medical school, what SDN'ers say about you on here is irrelevant. Get your information, and move on.

It's a common pre-med delusion that "they don't have time for that!". We do, because many of us are good at time mgt. For me, it's easy to whip out the cell phone in the lab in between spins or while a gell is running.

I have ignored the pre-pubescent troll (or pre-pubescent jerk, whatever it is), but I’m genuinely curious about why you seem to be convinced people in medicine wouldn’t go out of their way to mentor others using the Internet and that we are “fake.” It’s rather insulting. Just as an FYI, when physicians register for the site they are verified using their hospital email and credentials (known only to the admins), and if they are faculty, the hospital must be an academic institution (as in an .edu address). Verification is quite easy as most hospital emails have our first initial and last name, so it’s pretty easy to look up who we actually are during the verification process.

Mentoring actually does matter to many of us. I’ve run my AMA thread for more than a year, taking time between cases or during my time on the treadmill to answer students who are curious about my specialty. So have tons of surgeons on this forum. So have admins like @Goro and PDs. It’s not that hard.

Just a small clarification for my learned colleague. I'm not an admin...I work for a living. I teach medical students!
😉

 

[Kpw101]

The competitiveness and caliber of applicants on this site actually helped me a ton. It gave me an idea of what to shoot for and how to be productive during my college years. No matter how blunt it was at times it saved me from thinking a 500 MCAT was amazing and that the Caribbean was a sound option.

When the time comes for you to actually be involved in the application/mcat process you'll realize how helpful this site is once you come across the MCAT forums, school specific forums, and chance me forums. If you spend your time here scrolling through the front page and looking for entertaining threads you might as well go on bodybuilding misc.

 

[MedicalDoge]

This site is what you make of it. In college I felt horrible for not having a 3.8+ GPA and a 524 MCAT. But after graduating and working, I was able to take things with a grain of salt and be confident in what I had. It's conservative on here for sure (nothing is guaranteed with medical school admissions.) This site can be your best friend or what drives you away from medicine altogether.

Sent from my SM-G930V using SDN mobile

.

 

[FlavivirusProtease]

This site is what you make of it. In college I felt horrible for not having a 3.8+ GPA and a 524 MCAT. But after graduating and working, I was able to take things with a grain of salt and be confident in what I had. It's conservative on here for sure (nothing is guaranteed with medical school admissions.) This site can be your best friend or what drives you away from medicine altogether.

Sent from my SM-G930V using SDN mobile

Don't want to hiijack the thread, but how could you feel horrible with a 524... if you're smart enough to get a 524 you're smart enough to know what the 99th percentile means lol

You may have skipped a word.

 

[MedicalDoge]

You may have skipped a word.

Whoopsie, sorry! will edit out my comment. This explains my CARS score. thanks for the catch

 

[JustAUser]

It's people like the OP who give SDN a bad name.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Just a small clarification for my learned colleague. I'm not an admin...I work for a living. I teach medical students!
😉

Lol! Sorry. I meant admin as in you participate in med school admissions, so you also have an admin role...or is that incorrect?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[dunavice]

I have ignored the pre-pubescent troll (or pre-pubescent jerk, whatever it is), but I’m genuinely curious about why you seem to be convinced people in medicine wouldn’t go out of their way to mentor others using the Internet and that we are “fake.” It’s rather insulting. Just as an FYI, when physicians register for the site they are verified using their hospital email and credentials (known only to the admins), and if they are faculty, the hospital must be an academic institution (as in an .edu address). Verification is quite easy as most hospital emails have our first initial and last name, so it’s pretty easy to look up who we actually are during the verification process.

Mentoring actually does matter to many of us. I’ve run my AMA thread for more than a year, taking time between cases or during my time on the treadmill to answer students who are curious about my specialty. So have tons of surgeons on this forum. So have admins like @Goro and PDs. It’s not that hard.

Not to burst your bubble, but domain emails are $1.99 at GoDaddy and .edu emails are $17.95 at a website I won't be disclosing. Make your own website, some undisclosed location your "office" on Google Maps and you're officially an SDN doctor. Now, I'm not sure why some physicians want anonymity on this site and aren't comfortable sharing their identity like they have with all of their patients and colleagues, but as a current customer of the U.S. healthcare system that's none of my business.

Thank you to all those physicians who have volunteered their workweek not spending time with their friends and family, but instead insulting me and pretending that I'm a "troll" even after I "closed" the thread.

 

[MedicalDoge]

:troll:

 

[JustaDO]

Now, I'm not sure why some physicians want anonymity on this site and aren't comfortable sharing their identity like they have with all of their patients and colleagues, but as a current customer of the U.S. healthcare system that's none of my business.

I don't see your screen name being your real name either.

That being said, if you are so bothered by a online forum like SDN, life will be difficult for you.

 

[DocAdams]

Quit while you're ahead.

 

[FlavivirusProtease]

Not to burst your bubble, but domain emails are $1.99 at GoDaddy and .edu emails are $17.95 at a website I won't be disclosing. Make your own website, some undisclosed location your "office" on Google Maps and you're officially an SDN doctor. Now, I'm not sure why some physicians want anonymity on this site and aren't comfortable sharing their identity like they have with all of their patients and colleagues, but as a current customer of the U.S. healthcare system that's none of my business.

Thank you to all those physicians who have volunteered their workweek not spending time with their friends and family, but instead insulting me and pretending that I'm a "troll" even after I "closed" the thread.

:troll:

But I really want to...

So, lets list our options here:

1. The people who have been posting consistent, good, advice for the last several years and are verified by SDN are actual physicians/administrators/PhDs.

OR​

2. There's some Machiavellian scheme where multiple people have been paying $17.95 per month for the last several years to pass themselves off as physians/administrators/PhDs online to some premeds that literally nobody gives a flying **** about. They then proceed to give great admissions advice to them and invest countless hours on this website for no personal gain.

I'm going to be brutally honest with you for a minute. I'm not sure if you're trying to be edgy as a 14 year old or if you're some random 30 year old with literally no life and nothing better to do than cause a bit of drama online so that you feel good about yourself at the end of the day. Either way, you have some real personality issues that you need to work on, especially if you plan on applying to medicine. If you ever make it to an interview, an adcom is going to sniff this crappy, condescending, argumentative attitude on you from a mile away.

Edit: Finally, let me answer your initial question: Is SDN toxic?

The answer is a resounding no. I can't speak for others, but what I'm sure they would tell you is that the SDN community wants to see all of its members succeed. Sometimes, someone will have to knock you down a few pegs, but when they do that, it's for your own good.

Even though I've never met anyone that I speak with on this site on an almost daily basis, I feel connected to them through this application cycle we've gone through together. I genuinely want to see them go to medical school, and I'm excited when I see their posts saying they got in. I'm sure that the physicians/administrators/PhDs on this site feel the same way.

Toxicity is tearing people down for the sole purpose of making them feel like crap. I've never seen that supported on this forum. The physicians/administrators/PhDs give a lot of reality checks to people here, and sometimes being on the receiving end of that can hurt, but it's meant to build, not tear down.

 

[ciestar]

Not to burst your bubble, but domain emails are $1.99 at GoDaddy and .edu emails are $17.95 at a website I won't be disclosing. Make your own website, some undisclosed location your "office" on Google Maps and you're officially an SDN doctor. Now, I'm not sure why some physicians want anonymity on this site and aren't comfortable sharing their identity like they have with all of their patients and colleagues, but as a current customer of the U.S. healthcare system that's none of my business.

Thank you to all those physicians who have volunteered their workweek not spending time with their friends and family, but instead insulting me and pretending that I'm a "troll" even after I "closed" the thread.

Even your “thank you” there was absolutely condescending. Not sure how taking a few minutes out of the day is not spending time with friends and family? As Goro said, he checks in while running gels in the lab. You can check in while studying or eating lunch, sitting in the waiting room somewhere, while watching tv, while making dinner, etc.

Nobody is entitled to anyone’s information on an internet forum. But this website has been around longer than you’ve been alive so they have it pretty well figured out.

 

[tammyp]

Not to burst your bubble, but domain emails are $1.99 at GoDaddy and .edu emails are $17.95 at a website I won't be disclosing. Make your own website, some undisclosed location your "office" on Google Maps and you're officially an SDN doctor. Now, I'm not sure why some physicians want anonymity on this site and aren't comfortable sharing their identity like they have with all of their patients and colleagues, but as a current customer of the U.S. healthcare system that's none of my business.

Thank you to all those physicians who have volunteered their workweek not spending time with their friends and family, but instead insulting me and pretending that I'm a "troll" even after I "closed" the thread.

Its okay to walk away from an argument that you're losing. You attempting to get the last word is really just making you look like a stereotypical "I'm always right" annoying teen, though it is entertaining.

 

[Lucca]

closing