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deleted849476
Poll assumptions (in case it changes your response):
-I tried to frame a successful but fairly average medical student, not pursuing a competitive specialty which would obviously require different priorities. I'm looking for what you'd have a typical, ideal medical student do.
-The student is striving to be considered an excellent physician by future peers and patients (private practice, non-academic)
-The student will study class material while in school and only study "for boards" during their dedicated study time of 4 weeks.
-The student is healthy and satisfied with life/school balance, not overly stressed by boards or schoolwork
-Assume their social/people skills are normal/fine
And the thread title question:
This comes up a lot in person at school but less so on SDN, I thought it deserved its own thread. At school PhDs will say, "the more you know about [this biochem/immuno/whatever science topic] the better physician you'll be," while in surgery/internal med classes and doctoring courses some doctors will (only somewhat jokingly) say, "None of that really matters," (understanding that they mean beyond passing and in general doing your best). And since most people agree that there's too much material in medical school to learn it all perfectly by rotations/residency, where should students focus their effort?
So what is it? How can students become the best doctors starting in preclinicals? Assuming already a 3.5+ GPA.
I'm led to believe given what those doctors say and that boards are becoming pass/fail that there is such a distinction between preclinical success on paper and being the best doctor in the future. Also I do think that the student in the poll (asking for friend/definitely not me) is in a position to just keep up their study schedule (if not relax a bit about biochem grades, etc) and practice physical exam skills or take that time to actually read the internal med text and not just study lecture (which itself affords A's/B's in the class), or practice doctoring skills or I dare say, OMM, more often than just the night before the test or patient encounter (again, enough for A's but practice would be more useful in the clinic). After all, if they're getting A's and B's in their classes, god forbid they take some time to do the fun stuff too, right? Or am I wrong and that they wouldn't gain much out of that given their GPA and likelihood of passing boards?
-I tried to frame a successful but fairly average medical student, not pursuing a competitive specialty which would obviously require different priorities. I'm looking for what you'd have a typical, ideal medical student do.
-The student is striving to be considered an excellent physician by future peers and patients (private practice, non-academic)
-The student will study class material while in school and only study "for boards" during their dedicated study time of 4 weeks.
-The student is healthy and satisfied with life/school balance, not overly stressed by boards or schoolwork
-Assume their social/people skills are normal/fine
And the thread title question:
This comes up a lot in person at school but less so on SDN, I thought it deserved its own thread. At school PhDs will say, "the more you know about [this biochem/immuno/whatever science topic] the better physician you'll be," while in surgery/internal med classes and doctoring courses some doctors will (only somewhat jokingly) say, "None of that really matters," (understanding that they mean beyond passing and in general doing your best). And since most people agree that there's too much material in medical school to learn it all perfectly by rotations/residency, where should students focus their effort?
So what is it? How can students become the best doctors starting in preclinicals? Assuming already a 3.5+ GPA.
I'm led to believe given what those doctors say and that boards are becoming pass/fail that there is such a distinction between preclinical success on paper and being the best doctor in the future. Also I do think that the student in the poll (asking for friend/definitely not me) is in a position to just keep up their study schedule (if not relax a bit about biochem grades, etc) and practice physical exam skills or take that time to actually read the internal med text and not just study lecture (which itself affords A's/B's in the class), or practice doctoring skills or I dare say, OMM, more often than just the night before the test or patient encounter (again, enough for A's but practice would be more useful in the clinic). After all, if they're getting A's and B's in their classes, god forbid they take some time to do the fun stuff too, right? Or am I wrong and that they wouldn't gain much out of that given their GPA and likelihood of passing boards?
