reply to Spang

[Andre]

Hello Spang:
Nice to talk to a mature person like you.
I have never received any money from any Carib school. I have never been a recruiter.
Care to see my Tax returns? my only income is from Brown&Root as an engineer.
Here in Texas, both Baylor + UT want MCAT 33+.
I talked on the island several studs with MCAT 30 and repeatedly refused by US MD schools.
I only posted a few times, to help refused premeds, who wanted to know all options.
Besyonek: Please go and buck a fuffalo.
Good luck to all,
Andre

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[dlbruch]

Andre- No need to call people names or talk about anybody?s momma. I have not attacked you as a person and will no do so. I have a right, I believe, to ask questions you when much of what you post is untrue, misleading, or simply your opinion disguised as fact.

For example:
1- Needing MCAT scores 32-35 (and stated in another post >30) to be admitted to American medical schools. Again, simply untrue. Not only have numerous people on this message board gained admission with scores in the low to mid 20?s, a vast number of medical schools have published averages of 8-9 on all three sections!

2- Claiming that Carribbean-trained medical students are more compassionate. At best this is your opinion. But the real joke here is that you have no way of knowing a fair cross section of medical students, Carribbean or American, to get a real feel for the truth of that belief. As for your third-world experience, that?s great. I also have third world experience and have lived and done ministry in the inner-city of the US! Surprised? You don?t know anything about how compassionate I am (or any other of the 20K + American medical students for that matter)!

3- Carribean schools are comparable to US schools. I won?t refute this statement, but I am skeptical. If you are going to stand behind this assertion, you better have something to back it up other than your opinion. ie. UMSLE pass rates, % of graduates gaining competetive residencies, published articles by people who know academic medicine comparing the two. You are a medical school student?s husband- your opinion on medical education is second hand at best, and has little worth without facts to support it.

As for my ego and your humility, I think you have it backwards. If anything I have posted is incorrect or misleading, please call it to my attention and I will correct it and apologize immediately. I post here as one who has been through the application process and am willing to offer opinions based on my experience and research. At the very least I think our responsibility as posters is to do no damage (reminiscent of do no harm!). It is my opinion that the nature of some of your posts is damaging- leading candidates away from US medical schools with scare tactics when many probably do stand a fair, if not good, chance of gaining admission.

I encourage you to research your claims and support them, if you can. Where you cannot, I think you are obligated to clearly communicate that they are opinions, not fact. And please, before you start accusing and insulting people, take a good look in the mirror!

 

[Taylor DO]

Andre,

I have to disagree with your assessment.

I believe your test group (just the schools in Texas) is MUCH too small to generalize that an MCAT of "32-35" is needed to gain a spot in medical school state side.

Many of the schools that do not give state preference have MCAT ranges anywhere from 25-32. Further, the averages are much closer to 28 than 33.

I am puzzled that any student in the caribbean with an MCAT over 30 could not get into a US school. That intrigues me, simply because I know of at least 8 students who got into a school with an MCAT of 26 or less.

Your assertion that caribbean students chose FP out of humility and altruism also puzzles me. IMG's are more or less forced into the non-competitve specialties such as FP, not bymotivation for primary care medicine.

I do not think for a second that you can deem US allopaths as out of touch or claim that they do not understand the difficulties associated with poverty and illness. In fact, I can name at least 10 major allopathic programs (John Hopkins, Penn, Jefferson, Temple, Yale, Case Western, UC, Miami, Columbia, NYMC) that have their major teaching hospitals located in the worst parts of urban america, where drugs and crime are much more rampant than a small island in the caribbean.

If anything these students are exposed to characteristics of American culture that people in the caribbean only learn about from watching bad television.

My point is this. IMG's in the caribbean are hard working, dedicated students, however they do not have a monopoly on learning humility and seeing the worst of human behavior. Additonally, US students are not motivated primarily by money and high paying specialties, they are students who earned their spot in their respective school and deserve the benefit of the doubt accordingly.

 

[Besyonek]

Hmmmmm, where to begin........

"Here in Texas, both Baylor + UT want MCAT 33+.
I talked on the island several studs with MCAT 30 and repeatedly refused by US MD schools."

As an engineer, you presumably have taken quite a few science classes. Anecdotal "evidence" of any kind is not reliable, nor is a small sample size. Have you considered that these people were lying about their stats? There are quite a few US MD/DO programs with mean MCAT scores <30. A person with an MCAT greater than 30 who's been rejected several times either has something wrong with the rest of their application or they're applying to the wrong schools.

"Besyonek: Please go and buck a fuffalo."

Boy, that's really clever how you switched the "b" and the "f" around!! Too bad you haven't put the same degree of thought into your other posts. As of yet, you have not substantiated any of your assertions about IMGs or offered proof for your insulting statements about US med students' purported "lack of compassion". In fact, you have avoided those forums where people have specifically asked you for proof. Your only recourse, it seems, is to scurry to another thread and hurl profanity and insults at those who have (reasonably) asked you to back up your statements.

I think it's clear to all by now that your "thoughts" (and I think I'm being generous in describing them as such) are illogical and groundless. You've only succeeded in making yourself look even more foolish by resorting to personal attacks.



[This message has been edited by Besyonek (edited 04-01-2000).]

 

[Robb1818]

A friend of mine in considering AUC...is it true that 2/3 of their students have to do their core rotations outside of the US? I think she told me the UK and Ireland?

 

[dr.sof]

Oh, the childishness. Really! Instead of immediately getting defensive and spewing out lengthy diatribes, take a minute to breathe. These boards are inteded to help others. This is not a "c**k fight". Please, leave your machismo at the door.