primary care rankings

[Sailorcircus]

Here's a silly question about the US News primary care rankings:

According to their methodology, the most weighted factor in determining a school's primary care ranking is the percent of graduates who go on to primary care residencies. If I want a career in academic medicine, should I intentionally choose a school with a lower ranking on the primary care list? (Assuming the two schools have very similar research rankings)


disclaimer: I am not planning to base my decision on this! just curious.

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[Pons Asinorum]

Here's a silly question about the US News primary care rankings:

According to their methodology, the most weighted factor in determining a school's primary care ranking is the percent of graduates who go on to primary care residencies. If I want a career in academic medicine, should I intentionally choose a school with a lower ranking on the primary care list? (Assuming the two schools have very similar research rankings)


disclaimer: I am not planning to base my decision on this! just curious.

No. Just choose from the more frequently talked about rankings from the other side of the page.

 

[nysegop]

No, because high primary care does not equal low research. Just ignore the primary care ranking and look at the research ranking. But keep in mind that any medical school, regardless of ranking, will allow you to go into either primary care, sub-specialization, research, or academics.

 

[Nymphicus]

The primary care rankings are pretty useless no matter who you are.

 

[Law2Doc]

The primary care rankings are pretty useless no matter who you are.

Agreed. The only programs emphasizing the primary care rankings are those that fare poorly on the research rankings, ie the "real" rankings. Ignore them.

 

[235009]

Here's a silly question about the US News primary care rankings:

According to their methodology, the most weighted factor in determining a school's primary care ranking is the percent of graduates who go on to primary care residencies. If I want a career in academic medicine, should I intentionally choose a school with a lower ranking on the primary care list? (Assuming the two schools have very similar research rankings)


disclaimer: I am not planning to base my decision on this! just curious.

yea, you definitely don't want to go to a school with a bunch of *******es who couldn't match into anything other than a "primary care" specialty

....i mean none of them go on to have academic careers and certainly none end up sub-specializing.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

yea, you definitely don't want to go to a school with a bunch of *******es who couldn't match into anything other than a "primary care" specialty

....i mean none of them go on to have academic careers and certainly none end up sub-specializing.

Which scenario would you prefer for a medical school interested in an academic career:
1) school ranked in top 10 research rankings, but unranked on the primary care list, or
2) vice versa, top 10 primary care, but unranked on research list.

That's meant to be a rhetorical question. No one is ****ing on your career path, just a question of how to use those two lists (not that they're ever that useful, but that's a story for another thread...)

 

[235009]

Which scenario would you prefer for a medical school interested in an academic career:
1) school ranked in top 10 research rankings, but unranked on the primary care list, or
2) vice versa, top 10 primary care, but unranked on research list.

That's meant to be a rhetorical question. No one is ****ing on your career path, just a question of how to use those two lists (not that they're ever that useful, but that's a story for another thread...)

read the OP's post carefully...that's not what he's asking at all. your question can be answered by any freshman premed ...the OP is asking whether he should penalize a school for having a high primary care rank even though it has a strong research rank

 

[Pons Asinorum]

read the OP's post carefully...that's not what he's asking at all. your question can be answered by any freshman premed ...the OP is asking whether he should penalize a school for having a high primary care rank even though it has a strong research rank

Wow. I think you're right, that isn't how I read it, I guess the logic filters kept me from seeing the question for what it was. OP had it right, that's a silly question.

 

[Law2Doc]

read the OP's post carefully...that's not what he's asking at all. your question can be answered by any freshman premed ...the OP is asking whether he should penalize a school for having a high primary care rank even though it has a strong research rank

Not that you should penalize it, per se, but the factors that go into the primary care list simply emphasize different things, making it often the consolation prize of programs which do a worse job of research and placing grads into specialties. I wouldn't avoid a program that is top 10 in the primary care list if it were also high ranked on the research list, but what I'm really saying by doing this is I'd ignore the primary care list altogether. as you should.

 

[darkjedi]

My understanding of the primary care rankings is that it's the ranking of the schools is you strip away the importance of research in the ranking criteria and replace it with the ratio of those entering primary care. The rest of the ranking criteria or more or less the same however.

 

[235009]

Not that you should penalize it, per se, but the factors that go into the primary care list simply emphasize different things, making it often the consolation prize of programs which do a worse job of research and placing grads into specialties. I wouldn't avoid a program that is top 10 in the primary care list if it were also high ranked on the research list, but what I'm really saying by doing this is I'd ignore the primary care list altogether. as you should.

i'm really surprised you would say something like this ...i hope i'm just misinterpreting....but just in case: for the most part WHAT you go into depends on your preferences, WHERE you go within that field will depend partially on which school you go to. your implication that people end up in IM/peds/FM because their school couldn't "get them into specialties" is something i would expect to hear from a pre-med.

My understanding of the primary care rankings is that it's the ranking of the schools is you strip away the importance of research in the ranking criteria and replace it with how ratio of those entering primary care. The rest of the ranking criteria or more or less the same however.

that's basically right: http://www.usnews.com/education/bes.../11/methodology-best-medical-schools-rankings ....the other criteria are just weighted differently

 

[BABSstudent]

Not that you should penalize it, per se, but the factors that go into the primary care list simply emphasize different things, making it often the consolation prize of programs which do a worse job of research and placing grads into specialties. I wouldn't avoid a program that is top 10 in the primary care list if it were also high ranked on the research list, but what I'm really saying by doing this is I'd ignore the primary care list altogether. as you should.

Not all schools that are high on the primary care ranks are low in research. UW is number 2 in primary care and number 12 in research. I think that is pretty good.

If you think you want to do primary care, then pay attention to that rank. If you think you want to do research or academic medicine, pay attention to research rank. If you don't care about either, then don't even look at the rank. You can get into any residency from a US MD school.