Schools that have a commitment to the underserved

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Clearly I'm just a lowly premed so please enlighten me: why do you believe this? How is it idealistic to believe that your career has the capacity to help people who would otherwise not have access to any care? I come from a country that is primarily just slums. If they had even one single physician there, imagine how much it would help them. How is this "wide-eyed idealism?" Seems to me to just be a plain fact.

 

[jb94mg]

Clearly I'm just a lowly premed so please enlighten me: why do you believe this? How is it idealistic to believe that your career has the capacity to help people who would otherwise not have access to any care? I come from a country that is primarily just slums. If they had even one single physician there, imagine how much it would help them. How is this "wide-eyed idealism?" Seems to me to just be a plain fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism

 

[whitemagic]

^ Wow thanks dude. I had no idea what that was...

That medicine has the capacity to help people is not open to interpretation. It is a fact.

 

[starstruck20]

The strength of a match list can only be known to the Deans involved in Career Advising.
I am most proud of the students who are well-matched in a field where they can do the most good.
I find it almost embarrassing if our "best" students go into an overpopulated field. It means we didn't show them how their gifts could be most usefully employed.

I may be misinterpreting this but are you saying you'd be embarrassed of students who had really strong Step 1 scores and grades and whatever else decided to pursue primary care instead of derm or radiology?

 

[22031 Alum]

I may be misinterpreting this but are you saying you'd be embarrassed of students who had really strong Step 1 scores and grades and whatever else decided to pursue primary care instead of derm or radiology?

I think it may be the opposite... disappointment that a student who indicates a love for rural FP would pick east-coast Derm because of good scores and pressure not to "waste" them.

 

[gyngyn]

I may be misinterpreting this but are you saying you'd be embarrassed of students who had really strong Step 1 scores and grades and whatever else decided to pursue primary care instead of derm or radiology?

There is a common syndrome in which students get a better score than anticipated and feel pressure (largely from their peers) to do something they have no interest in.

 

[NeuResurgens]

Honestly, my med school couldn't have given less of a sh-t.

I suppose in practice it might be different, but as far as I could tell, most of the medical school websites I've browsed have at least outwardly claimed to have a commitment to helping the underserved.

 

[22031 Alum]

While I recognize that this is largely a semantic discussion, I am a believer that words have meaning and those meanings are important. You can't have federal health agencies using one definition, and physicians using another. "Underserved" has a specific meaning for an important reason, and transforming the word into a synonym for "poor" or "abused" or "demographically challenged" can have long-lasting effects on both our education of physicians and eventually allocation of resources. I think you all (medical schools) need to use a different term and educate students accordingly.

Agree to disagree? It's not that I don't believe words have meaning, but I believe that in some cases, fixating on one specific meaning while ignoring a fairly obvious intent/connotation, isn't helpful. I don't feel in the slightest that a 20 year old pre-med saying "I might be interested in helping the underserved one day!!" while actually meaning "I may be interested in taking care of homeless people who can't easily access a nearby clinic!!" takes away from allocation of resources in a meaningful way. Nor does it take away from my understanding of what they mean, via the context in which they said it.

I actually just recently decided not to apply for a spot on ACOG's Committee on Healthcare for Underserved Women (meaning those with a lack of access as well as barriers to access), because I want to really focus on resident education for now. Even if I did join, an immediate insistence on changing the name since it doesn't line up with a particular definition probably wouldn't be too well received.

 

[22031 Alum]

Well, to be fair, I think the original question was along the lines of, "Is this considered underserved?" And I think the actual answer ends up being, "No, not by the strict definition, but if you mean 'patients who have trouble accessing services' then yes.

Looking back at the OP, my answer would have been "You don't need to work in a federally-designated underserved area to show a commitment to the underserved." My answer (and ACOG's, and my programs, and probably my school's) to your hypothetical question quoted would be "Yes." One word, no nitpicky technicalities. If an applicant is truly committed to soup kitchen volunteering, even if that kitchen is located in the most medically saturated ZIP code in the nation, I'm inclined to believe that they may eventually be interested in the health of those who can't reach care for WHATEVER reason. Forest for the trees type thing.


I would gladly accept the title of Happiest OB/GYN in the World. I really really love my job. (And I'm post-call!!!!)

 

[Psai]

Maybe if I had met more of you... no, that's not right... Maybe if I had ever met even one of you during my education, I wouldn't have such strong feelings about your specialty.

lmao
to be fair, many of the attendings were fine for me. it was some of the residents and nurses that made it a bad situation

 

[Lucca]

This thread started by being awful but now it's actually very interesting.