So, someone actually paid attention to my poster...
The Penn study is done and has yielded a lot of interesting results about CURRENT students at Penn including the fact that many students have considered or are considering leaving the program. This rate increases cummulatively as you look at students further along in the program. However, it is just conjecture but the vast majority of those who consider leaving don't. I say conjecture because those data are not available. Most program directors (including Penn's) are not willing to publicize actual attrition rates yet (so don't bother asking...for now). Anecdotally, anywhere from 10 to 25% was the norm for the 8 years I was at Penn. (By the way 6% as the norm??? What program do you go to? If you have 10 per year and one drops out that's already 10%.) The data from the Penn study are forthcoming in Academic Medicine and Clinical Orthopaedics (comparison of surgical versus nonsurgical students) within the next few months.
A national version was also administered. Some of you many have gotten my annoying emails already. The study is complete and the data are now being analyzed and should hopefully get out in about a year. It wasn't a randomized sample (too hard to gather everyone's contact info) but targeted about a quarter of all md-phd students. (Although, I'm disappointed in many of you--less than 60% response rate because you were "too busy" or had "no interest." We're supposed to be the most academic of populations! For those of you who filled out the survey, thanks.)
In any case, PM me if you have specific questions. But I can't post any unpublished numbers on a public forum. I'm trying to convince one of my collaborating students to present at this year's national student mtg so you may see some of the data there.
And finally, here's me on my soap box:
DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY TRAVEL DOWN THE PATH LAID BEFORE YOU BY YOUR PREDECESSORS. THEY SAY ACADEMICS IS DYING OR ALREADY DEAD IN MANY SUBSPECIALTIES OF MEDICINE (ortho being one). THESE ARE THE DECLARATIONS (or rather lamentations, imho) OF THE MISTAKES OF THE GENERATION BEFORE US. ONLY WE CAN (should?) CHANGE THAT.
I'll shut up now and get back to reading about ankle fractures and annoy a few patients with some middle of the night neuro checks.
- FunnyBones, The Farm 94, Penn MD-PhD 03, bone doc to be 08
aka Jaimo, look me up and get in touch if you're at Penn or intersted in those "harder" specialties (a la newquagmire) esp surgical ones.