Penn State Accelerated Pathways: neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery

[OrthoTraumaMD]

I would argue that what you are saying is exactly what these accelerated programs are attempting to do-take away the gunner mentality and cutthroat competitiveness which is unfortunately exhibited by some of those students who desire to match into a competitive residency and allow students to focus on learning to be a well rounded doctor, which is what medical school should be about.

In an ideal world, yes. And I wish it would. But they are operating on a false premise — they are promising a spot to someone without knowing, at all, if they will be a good ortho resident. The jump from college to residency is so much more vast than the jump you make for ba/md (I have done the latter myself). The extrapolation from “interested college student” to “ortho resident” makes no sense, and is nothing like “high school to med school.” School is school. Ortho residency is a completely different beast, you cannot “skip a step” before jumping into this pool. These programs are doing little more than gambling, and taking away the chance from someone who has made a real informed decision (ie, a medical student). I’ll put it this way. High school to BA/MD is like “you did great in boot camp, when you become a soldier if you do a good job you’re gonna be promoted to lead a platoon.” College to ortho residency is “you did great in boot camp, if you do great at being a soldier we’re going to put you on the next flight to the moon as an astronaut.”

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[Damson]

I read a good point on here. Just to expand on it -

There are countless people working office jobs they hate making average wages. Who the hell are we to tell premeds to not play the game and to not land a 4/500k per annum job? Why was someone here telling OP not to pursue the penn ortho/neurosurg track and apply for a better program traditionally? To make the OP work three times harder in med school and maybe get an ortho position as a PGY1?

It's the same deal in BS/MD/DO threads. Most trad peeps discourage the OP from taking the offer. They claim the OP will be tunneled into medical school (ortho/neuro in this thread) without considering professions that may fit them better. Don't do this. Don't suggest the OPs will become closed-minded and won't look around them because they have a safe card. We don't know them, and we're not here to implicate on their character or presuppose their future decision-making

OP has a safety net ≠ OP won't venture out of the safety net. When you get a guaranteed ticket that doesn't require commitment, you take it.

 

[RJ McReady]

Don't suggest the OPs will become closed-minded and won't look around them because they have a safe card. We don't know them, and we're not here to implicate on their character or presuppose their future decision-making

exactly what I was trying to say.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Who the hell are we to tell premeds to not play the game and to not land a 4/500k per annum job?

When you get a guaranteed ticket that doesn't require commitment, you take it.

“Who the hell are we?” People who actually care about patients. Because it’s not just a job. It’s a career and a passion that affects people’s lives, and these programs are choosing people for literally the most important decision in a med student’s life, when they’re not even a med student, on little more than a roll of the dice. That is a way for them to tick whatever checkboxes they want to tick without taking the time to actually consider who will be the best surgeon. To eliminate the med school competition by simply choosing the gunners at an earlier stage does the patients a disservice, and doesn’t solve the problem of deciding who will fit this career.

And as for the second sentence. There is a reason there is such a high rate of dropout among wannabe surgeons in med school. People who end up in residency understand the commitment required. To treat it as a free ticket without understanding what it means and going “oh yeah I can just quit anytime” is egotistical.

 

[7331poas]

Yes and yes, and rotations. There are also other ways that are in the works such as “compatibility testing” with the program’s personality

Clerkships boil down to whether you got lucky and got a preceptor who gives out honors. And most letters of recommendations are positive, no matter how bad the applicant is. The worth of a letter is moreso the popularity of the writer.

I'm glad I won't be applying in a world where those factors determine my candidacy.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Clerkships boil down to whether you got lucky and got a preceptor who gives out honors. And most letters of recommendations are positive, no matter how bad the applicant is. The worth of a letter is moreso the popularity of the writer.

I'm glad I won't be applying in a world where those factors determine my candidacy.

Why so little agency or responsibility in these words? you are not only misinformed, but seem to have a viewpoint where the actual student input into this doesn’t matter, which is kind of sad. As someone who has interviewed ortho candidates for years, I can tell you that these are the single most important things we look at once people reach the interview stage, especially if they didn’t rotate. Most letters are in fact not positive but neutral. You can absolutely tell letters of rec apart even if there are “positive” words in each of them and even if you don’t know the writer. A neutral letter and a positive letter differ by the types of words used, their length, their sentence structure, their use of anecdotes, their personal touches, what kind of end sentences they use, etc etc. As for clerkships, somewhat true that luck matters, but the student’s affability and how hard they work make a difference, which is reflected in the dean’s letter as well. We don’t care about “honors” when many schools are pass/fail.

 

[7331poas]

Why so little agency or responsibility in these words? you are not only misinformed, but seem to have a viewpoint where the actual student input into this doesn’t matter, which is kind of sad. As someone who has interviewed ortho candidates for years, I can tell you that these are the single most important things we look at once people reach the interview stage, especially if they didn’t rotate. Most letters are in fact not positive but neutral. You can absolutely tell letters of rec apart even if there are “positive” words in each of them and even if you don’t know the writer. A neutral letter and a positive letter differ by the types of words used, their length, their sentence structure, their use of anecdotes, their personal touches, what kind of end sentences they use, etc etc. As for clerkships, somewhat true that luck matters, but the student’s affability and how hard they work make a difference, which is reflected in the dean’s letter as well. We don’t care about “honors” when many schools are pass/fail.

The problem with letters is the same problem with clerkship grades. The applicant with a "neutral letter" may truly be a bad student or they simply chose the wrong person to write their letter.

 

[Damson]

OrthoTrauma has a point in that the better you perform, the better your clerkship grades/LoR tends to be. But, it's also very luck-dependent on who you get as your preceptor.

 

[7331poas]

OrthoTrauma has a point in that the better you perform, the better your clerkship grades/LoR tends to be. But, it's also very luck-dependent on who you get as your preceptor.

No debate on that point.

 

[crossstr]

I can see the value in everyone's opinion. I do think there will be those who are pre-med who will try and take advantage of these programs, and there will surely be those who are in for a rude awakening, as well as the small few who recognize orthopaedic surgery and neurosurgery as their calling and continue to pursue it. I, however, feel there is a third group that's missing representation which I think the program is also meant to include and that's nontraditional applicants who may have medical experience but want to pursue or advance their profession. I have worked as a physician assistant in neurosurgery for 7 years and am applying this cycle - to the penn state and NYU programs as well. I know what I want to pursue from firsthand experience and while I did complete all my clinical rotations in PA school so many years ago, I won't deter going through them again just for the fun of experiencing something new, but at the end of the day Neurosurgery is what I want to do. Did I know I wanted to do Neurosurgery before PA school? Absolutely. So over-generalizations are just as much "tunnel vision" as those going into medical school without an open mind.

 

[confuzzled10]

speaking of neurosurgery, there's a really good show on Netflix called "Lennox Hill". It's pretty interesting. I figured you NS guys would be interested