Smartest Docs?

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gluon999 said:
I found primary care docs to be consumed by mountains of mundane paperwork such as filling out disability forms, referral forms, insurance forms, imaging request forms, etc. There is nothing cognitively challenging about convincing a part-time employee at an insurance company whose job it is to deny requests, why your patient needs an MRI. I find that unfortunate b/c these docs are spending tons of time fighting red tape, time that could be better spent with patients. However, I can agree to disagree if your business model is different. Good for you.
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I don't think that's really limited to primary care. Sounds pretty much word for word of the day of the rad onc I shadowed. Just replace some of the paperwork with voice recordings.
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gluon999 said:
I found primary care docs to be consumed by mountains of mundane paperwork such as filling out disability forms, referral forms, insurance forms, imaging request forms, etc. There is nothing cognitively challenging about convincing a part-time employee at an insurance company whose job it is to deny requests, why your patient needs an MRI. I find that unfortunate b/c these docs are spending tons of time fighting red tape, time that could be better spent with patients. However, I can agree to disagree if your business model is different. Good for you.
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This is what your ancillary staff is for. And this is not isolated to primary care.
 
sideways said:
Here's the truth: the people who get into the most competitive specialties ARE NOT the most intelligent, in my observation. They are just the most pathologically driven to get into the most competitive specialties.

Getting straight A's in med school and knocking Step 1 out of the park is all about hard work, not brains. You can't be an idiot obviously, but I find being really smart can actually be a detriment in med school given that many highly intelligent people see through the mania of compulsively hard work, say "to hell with it," and thus get lower scores.

The guy gunning for neurosurgery isn't a genius. He's a narcissistic workaholic with a little teeny one that needs to prove to the world through his occupation how great he is, in spite of the fact that he doesn't believe it himself. This low self-image is ironically the very fuel needed to get through the excessively long hours required of someone who wants to pursue neurosurgery, so it's very self-selective in that respect. In the end, the process marries psychopathology with the demands of the given specialty very nicely.

These are generalizations, obviously, but they're pretty accurate. Once you get into med school, you'll see. Oh will you see.
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LOVE this post. As someone hoping to match into a surgical specialty I have realized there is definitely an inherent pathology to anyone willing to work the hours of surgery. Everyone I've worked in surgery with sees it in themselves too.

There are different sub-pathologies inherent to each of the competitive or work intensive specialties. The key to medschool is elucidating your own personal pathology and finding the place in medicine where it fits best. Every specialty "helps people" so that is no longer a part of the equation. Its what type of helping people appeals most to you.

Sanity is recognition and acceptance of your own insanity, crazy people don't realize their crazy.
 
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I think radiologists are smartest when it comes to radiology.
Dermatologist are smartest when it comes to dermatology.
Neurosurgeons are smartest when it comes to neurosurgery.
Neurologist are smartest when it come to neurology.
 
So OB/Gyn and Gastroenterologists are really good at sex?
 
ILikeDrugs said:
I think radiologists are smartest when it comes to radiology.
Dermatologist are smartest when it comes to dermatology.
Neurosurgeons are smartest when it comes to neurosurgery.
Neurologist are smartest when it come to neurology.
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I think nurses are the smartest when it comes to.....everything!


j/k:corny:
 
i feel like ID would be pretty high up because not only must you know about mutliple infectious diseases, you have to know how they usually (and unusually) manifest in the body. i feel like it takes an enormous amount of analytical reasoning and problem solving skills, which i think takes a good deal of intelligence.

just my opinion
 
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CofCpreMD said:
I was wondering, what do the "brains" of medical school usually end up choosing as their specialty?
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WHATEVER THEY WANT

really. the stupid people get doors shut in their face. smart people keep all their doors open. then they can go wherever they want. its that simple.
 
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eternalrage,

I understand that if you get the best grades and work the hardest that you will have a pick of what you want to specialize in. From that fact, it makes sense that smart doctors will be found everywhere in medicine. I am not a doctor, not a medical student so I was just wondering if a specialty was almost universally known for having very intelligent individuals (ex. Generally you think of neurosurgeons as "Super smart," whether intelligence is a prerequisite of being a neurosurgeon is another question). I was not trying to insult anyone at all, I think all physicians have to be bright.

I guess this begs some more questions:

Is the smartest doc the one with best problem solving skills? natural intelligence? memorizes the most medically relevant facts? best work ethic? Obviously all are needed, but my original question was a bit vague in this regard.

What field did the "smartest" student from your medical school end up doing his/her residency?

Any other thoughts?
 
Really old IM docs and even now the upper tier of IM docs at places like MPH are the smartest. Want to feel dumb? Hang around the endocrinology department and talk to the old attendings.


Deem and plastics are unfortunately the most intelligent on average. Neurosurgeons are as smart but they are also a tad off their rockers for going into neurosurgery! Neurologist on average are not smartest, they are just cerebral people which is not the same absolute as intelligence.
 
This thread was worth reviving?

For those who are trying to point towards average USMLE scores as evidence for 'intelligence' keep looking elsewhere. Much of the reason for the inflated averages have to do with sample size. Residencies like derm are so few that they can be more selective, while there are many more IM spots which tends to dilute the pool and cause regression towards the mean. (I would argue that there are probably as many IM residents with a 250+ as derms with a 250+).
 
There is a difference between having the most intelligence and being the most knowledgable. Nobody can prove what field is the most intelligent, as step scores are not IQ tests.

Just like any other point in life, the more you read, the more knowledge you gain. Fields where residents are required to self-study more (path, rads, radonc--where residents are recommended to read 1-2 hrs per day) will have more knowledge than surgeons who spend 60 hours a week in the operating room and do nothing but sleep while at home. Neurosurgeons may be experts at fine motor skills, and internists may be the masters of obtaining a focused history and physical, but in terms of overall knowledge of medicine, I don't think they compare to the fields that spend time reading at home.
 
Seriously? Internists don't read and have less "overall knowledge of medicine" than radiation oncologists?
 
NOsquid said:
Seriously? Internists don't read and have less "overall knowledge of medicine" than radiation oncologists?
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Worded it wrong. Internists read..hell, all residents read, but not as much as the fields I mentioned. But I have never met an IM resident complain about how much reading they have to do when they go home.

Internists have plenty of knowledge, but in reality, most only know "a little about everything," which are why every complicated patient sees 5 sub specialist consultants in the hospital. I don't think you can name a field that knows more about the full spectrum of physiology, anatomy, and pathology than pathology (on the microscopic level) and radiology (on the macroscopic level).

Rad Oncs are a special subset, because they are pretty knowledgable about oncologic pathology AND radiology...granted it is only limited to cancer, but they also are experts of acute patient management from radiation side effects.
 
[QUOE="Renaissance Man, post: 9262078, member: 306958"]I always am afraid to post a question because I have few posts and feel like others will call me troll or say my question sucks, but anyways I am truly curious about something. I was wondering, what do the "brains" of medical school usually end up choosing as their specialty? Or even better, during your rounds with various doctors, which specialty stuck out as needing a lot of smarts? I am not saying I am really smart, nor trying to pick a specialty, just a question.

In that same line of though, I know that you need great grades and reviews for derm or radiology, but does that mean they get the smartest medical students? Any response to this question is appreciated, thanks guys....and girls. :)[/QUOTE]
Why Is it that noones mentioned medical oncology? I feel like they know about everything there is!
 
Lets try to bump this thread.

What about Geneticist? I think that as an one you do have to know a serious amount of everything because you have to know when it is a disorder in genetics and when it is not. Also there are genetic disorders in every piece of body, cancer.

It ranges from a fetus to a elderly people (rarely)

From what I know about this field I think it deserves to be in this list.
 
Kakarrott said:
Lets try to bump this thread.

What about Geneticist? I think that as an one you do have to know a serious amount of everything because you have to know when it is a disorder in genetics and when it is not. Also there are genetic disorders in every piece of body, cancer.

It ranges from a fetus to a elderly people (rarely)

From what I know about this field I think it deserves to be in this list.
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that ain't even a medical speciality. pls.
 
Saying the smartest type of doc is like saying the most crooked politician
 
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Don't worry too much about other folks' perception of you or your intelligence quota. Ask yourself what type of physician you would feel the most satisfied/content becoming. Most people don't stop thinking about themselves long enough to admire others' prospectively superior intellects. Just try to be the best you that you can possibly be!
 
I would wager that I had one of the highest MCAT's in my class, if not the highest. I was in the top 5% for Board scores.

Family Med.

I had people telling me that I should "reach higher." But FM is what I wanted. It is what I came in wanting. It is what I'm joyfully going to do.
 
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All I know is that DOs are more holistic than MDs :claps::corny:



michael-jackson-meme.png
 
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Promethean said:
I would wager that I had one of the highest MCAT's in my class, if not the highest. I was in the top 5% for Board scores.

Family Med.

I had people telling me that I should "reach higher." But FM is what I wanted. It is what I came in wanting. It is what I'm joyfully going to do.
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Serious question: why not do IM or meds-peds? You still could have done primary care, but you would have had many more options to specialize down the road if the situation for PC physicians worsens or if you decided you weren't as passionate about out-patient primary care as you had thought.
 
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mmmcdowe said:
Neurologist on average are not smartest, they are just cerebral people which is not the same absolute as intelligence.
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Since the necro-bump is now in effect, can we take a second to appreciate this pun from 2011?
 
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The variation in "smarts" between specialties is negligible compared to the variation within specialties. Smart docs are smart, not-so-smart docs are...not so smart.
 
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The answer is obvious. The smartest doctor is whichever doctor is currently talking.
 
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The smartest doc is the one that knows themselves well and chose the right specialty for themselves without consideration of pride, money or lifestyle.
 
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I would that it would be one of the following:

Derm (Need to know 1000+ diagnoses as well as cutaneous manifestations of every other organ system pathology)
Path (Again, need very strong knowledge of many disease processes in addition to the visual aspect)
Rads (Again, need very strong knowledge of many disease processes in addition to the visual aspect)
IM (The sky is literally the limit, to truly master IM is arguably impossible)

Each of these fields has a massive scope of information they are responsible for. Path and Rads have quasi mandatory fellowships now which goes to show how diverse the fields are.
 
DubbiDoctor said:
Serious question: why not do IM or meds-peds? You still could have done primary care, but you would have had many more options to specialize down the road if the situation for PC physicians worsens or if you decided you weren't as passionate about out-patient primary care as you had thought.
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My mentor has tried urgently to steer me into IM. I tell him, I'm not sure why he wants to practice medicine with one hand tied behind his back? No peds, no OB? That means that I will have to tell some patients that I can't be their doctor. That is abhorrent to me. The whole reason that I'm doing this is that I and people that I know and love have been refused primary care. I was refused care as a medical student by two of my professors, because they "weren't comfortable" with taking care of people like me. (I'm transgender.) One of them referred me to the other, saying "She's more open minded." That one referred me to specialists, who refused me, saying flatly "We don't provide services for transgender patients." The End. I was advised that I would need to drive from 100-150 miles to Cleveland or Pittsburgh for care. Incidentally, the physicians I would have seen in those places? Primary care doctors. There is nothing hard or complex about my care. I've been on a stable dose of testosterone for 15+ years. I have no other comorbid conditions, other than mild, well controlled hypertension. There is no reason other than prejudice for someone to refuse me care. It took me a year to find one of my own professors willing to care for me... and he said "Don't tell everyone in town. I don't want a lot of other transgender patients. I'll take care of you because I know you."

This isn't a career choice. This is a religious and social justice mission. No human, no member of my human family, should ever be told that they simply can't have primary care because a doctor "isn't comfortable" with their superficial demographics. I don't just want to take care of LGBT people. I want to ensure that no patient who comes to me for care is ever told "No. I don't know anything about how to help people like you."

I can't force other doctors to step the heck up to that. But I can do it myself, and lead by example.

Family Medicine isn't a lack of specialty. It is the specialty with the widest scope and breadth. It is my best bet to do the most good. There is no other reason for doing any of this, for me. If "the situation worsens for PC physicians" meaning that the market becomes well saturated such that the need drops, then I don't have to be such a crusader. I can spend time with my family again. I can have my own life again. I pray for that to happen. But until it does.... I'm not going to lose this passion.
 
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Lest y'all think that I'm just being super sensitive or making things up and that access to health care for transgender people isn't this dire a problem... here is the tumblr of a local trans support group that was trying to raise money to rent a shuttle to take transgender people from Erie who had been refused care by local physicians down to Pittsburgh to be seen there by Family Medicine physicians.

Transgender Community of Erie

I'm happy to report that the situation has improved over the past couple of years. So many folks had to make that trip that Pittsburgh noticed and was like... wtf, are there no primary care doctors in Erie? So, they sent someone up to recruit / do a training with a couple of FM docs here and now there are like two doctors in Erie who are happy to take trans folks.

But no, for real. Can you imagine this happening with any other condition? Oh, you have Gaucher's? Yeah, I'm really not comfortable providing basic primary care to people with that uncommon condition. Oh, the specialist I referred you to won't see you? Yeah, tough luck about that. Guess you have to drive to a place with physicians who don't have weird personal hang ups about your condition.

The silver lining is that physicians and nurses that have encountered me as a student have come to me privately and asked for resources that they can use to provide competent care for trans folks. I get messaged for stat consults of "OMG, we have one of you folks here in our unit and how do we know what name to call them and which gender marker to use on the forms." The answer, btw, is the same as with any patient. Don't try to know better than the patient does about who they are. If they tell you their name, use it. If you aren't sure what pronouns they prefer, just ask. Basic courtesy, such as you'd show any patient. You aren't doing genetic or anatomy checking on most of your patients to see if they have the right to be called Ma'am or Sir, so why play that kind of nonsense game with someone you perceive to be trans? Just treat us like absolutely everyone else. That is all we want.

It really is that extraordinarily simple. It only gets hard when the health care providers are uncomfortable about it and make it harder than it needs to be.
 
I’ve worked with some unbelievably smart docs from heme/one and rad/onc. But I’ve also worked with some EM docs who are brilliant so like people are saying it kind of depends on what the person wanted to study and specialize in.
 
Unfortunately, I would say medicine is full of clever, not smart people. If you want smarts, go to your local university's physics department. Doctors? Nope.
 
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