Is Wright State REALLY all about Primary Care?

[CavsFan2016]

So I posted this in the pre-med form but a helpful MI told me I would get better advice posting it here instead:

I've been hearing conflicting evidence on this - some people claim that this was just in the past and this school is now much more open to their students pursuing other specialties, while other students have told me their primary reason for NOT picking Wright State was because of this "primary care stigma".

I've been looking at previous match lists from graduates of Wright State, and they do send a few people into some very competitive specialties, but this is only 1-2 students in each speciality every year because the student population is not very large (~100 students total). I think last year they sent over 50% into a primary-care specialty.

So whats the deal? Would Wright State really limit me to pursuing other non-primary care specialties if I were to attend next year over another In-State Ohio school? The school is located in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio which is a huge plus, but I don't want to be limiting my options before I even start medical school.

Any advice or input really appreciated!


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[Mad Jack]

Schools don't limit you. They do, however, tend to select for particular pools of people. If they pick a class of people that have indicated a strong interest in primary care, it is no surprise that a large number of their graduates enter primary care.

 

[jkmnop]

I agree with mad jack, if you show that you're not interested in pc in your application/interview, they might take someone who is over you simply because that is their mission. Half of the class goes into a specialty though. It's really not that bad of a school


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[realba11]

The dean specifically told our interview group. "People are going to tell you that we are interested in primary care but that is a bunch of BS. And the most of the "primary care" graduates that go into internal medicine have no interest in practicing primary care long term but end up specializing. Wright State just prepares you to be a good general practitioner so you can be good at anything you want to go into."

 

[jkmnop]

Yeah a lot of times that's what it means to be primary care focused, you need to perfect clinical skills before you go on to specialize. But this country does need more PCPs so it would be beneficial to the medical community to add more students interested in PC from any school not just WSU. But yeah it's a great med school.


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[deleted689233]

Any school that has a mission to produce primary care doctors and actually DOES produce a high percentage of primary care doctors is also largely self-selection.

This applies to DO schools and MD schools that push primary care alike.

For instance you could look at a DO school match list, see 50% going into primary care and think, "oh, it'll be really hard to specialize/i can't specialize as a DO". When you think about it, most DO applicants aren't quite as type A and "I'm gonna make AOA and do Ortho" as MD students are, especially MD students at higher ranking programs.

Wright State is just a less extreme example. So yeah, self-selection is a huge factor.

 

[OnePunchBiopsy]

Assuming you were to attend this school, the fact you are there will not limit you to doing primary care.

Your specialty pursuit will depend much more heavily on your Step 1 score, your 3rd year grades, and your residency application Letters of Rec (LONG way down the line, no worries for now).

My school produces lots of primary care docs bc thats what many of us decide we want to do.