super prestigious residencies

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When is it really a big benefit to have done your residency at somewhere super prestigious like mass general? I know some schools rave about getting kids into these residency programs. I don't really see the point for the majority of med students though if they aren't going to be practicing in that state or at least at a prestigious academic institution in the northeast.
 
There could be many benefits other than just easing a transition into academia. This is generalized, but they could offer more resources such as more research opportunities with the higher NIH funding they receive, higher quality of learning along with a more diverse body of fellow residents and professors, and a larger patient access pool which would mean a better array of cases for you to become familiar with.
 
Outside of academics, the benefit is being able to say "I trained at Mass General
zcqTO.gif
," which no one will really care about.
 
CrimsonKing said:
Not according to any Attending in private practice I've talked with.

I feel like Winged Scapula's input would help here.
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According to Drizzt it does :shrug:

Honestly I don't see why it wouldn't help. Also I'm sure there are some indirect benefits too such as connections, opportunities etc.
 
Haha I've learned that PTs don't give a crap where you trained, so I don't think you'd get a larger pt base. They mostly care about your bedside manner. yeah I assume mostly for research and if you want to practice academia at an elite institution in the area of your residency.
 
It helps if you are interested in competitive fellowships. However, there are some fellowships where there are more spots than applicants.

For academic medicine, it helps but not necessary (unless you want to practice academic medicine at elite institutions). However, keep in mind, prestigious academic institutions do not pay well compare to their private practice equivalents. According to Medscape's 2012 survey, for Internal Medicine, average academic internists make $128,000, while an internist who work for a hospital makes $163,000 and for a multispecialty group practice, makes $194,000. For Anesthesiology, academic anesthesiologist make $220,000 while a private anesthesiologist in a multispecialty group practice makes $396,000. For Emergency Medicine, academia pays $159,000 while hospital-employed EM makes $247,000. Orthopedics, academia pays $225,000 but a single-specialty group practice makes $391,000
(source is Medscape 2012 Compensation Report, with 24,216 respondents across 25 specialities)

The "connections" will be helpful if you are interested in academic medicine, but once in private practice, those "connections" won't be as useful. In fact, it might be harder finding a private practice jobs since your academic attendings might not have those connections with private practice groups (since their main focus is on academia and academic medicine/research/QAQI projects, grant writing, etc)

There is no "big law" equivalent in medicine. And insurance companies/medicare/medicaid will not pay you more or reimburse you more if you went to MGH or Mayo or Hopkins compare to your colleagues who went to rural community hospital. An appy will be reimburse for an appy, whether you were train at a community hospital, or at Hopkins. And training at an elite institution will not protect you from lawsuits

And right now, there is such a huge physician shortage (in PCP and also in specialties) that patients are waiting months just to be seen - so while a few patients will specifically seek out "the best" (I want Harvard-train, Mayo-educated, Hopkins professor) (hint: you want to avoid those patients if you value your sanity and time), most of your patients just want to see a good doctor.

As for recruiting, it helps but it won't overcome other factors (if you are weird, you don't get along with colleagues, poor bedside manners and rude/impolite to your referral sources, don't complete dictations on time, etc).

Up until now, the process has been competitive (getting into a competitive college, doing well, getting into a competitive med school, doing well, getting into a competitive residency at a competitive hospital, and surviving residency/fellowship, and ultimately passing boards) - there should be a big reward for jumping through all those difficult hoops and beating your competition. And yes, while having a tenure clinician-educator tract position at Harvard Med (or even a tenure research scientist spot) is very prestigious, in the end, it is the doctor with the most business sense, in a practice that is the most efficient at procedures, scheduling, payor-mix, that will make the most money.
 
CrimsonKing said:
Not according to any Attending in private practice I've talked with.

I feel like Winged Scapula's input would help here.
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Depends on the specialty, perhaps. RadOnc attendings have repeatedly mentioned prestigious residencies are useful with landing best pp gigs.
circulus vitios said:
Outside of academics, the benefit is being able to say "I trained at Mass General
zcqTO.gif
," which no one will really care about.
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nice smiley

sliceofbread136 said:
It helps if you want get hired by more elite practices as well.
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Yup.
 
I imagine it might come in handy if you wanted to go into concierge care, but let's be honest. The public doesn't know any name besides "Harvard" and "Hopkins," and I'm not even sure Harvard has a FP residency program.
 
group_theory said:
It helps if you are interested in competitive fellowships. However, there are some fellowships where there are more spots than applicants.

For academic medicine, it helps but not necessary (unless you want to practice academic medicine at elite institutions). However, keep in mind, prestigious academic institutions do not pay well compare to their private practice equivalents. According to Medscape's 2012 survey, for Internal Medicine, average academic internists make $128,000, while an internist who work for a hospital makes $163,000 and for a multispecialty group practice, makes $194,000. For Anesthesiology, academic anesthesiologist make $220,000 while a private anesthesiologist in a multispecialty group practice makes $396,000. For Emergency Medicine, academia pays $159,000 while hospital-employed EM makes $247,000. Orthopedics, academia pays $225,000 but a single-specialty group practice makes $391,000
(source is Medscape 2012 Compensation Report, with 24,216 respondents across 25 specialities)

The "connections" will be helpful if you are interested in academic medicine, but once in private practice, those "connections" won't be as useful. In fact, it might be harder finding a private practice jobs since your academic attendings might not have those connections with private practice groups (since their main focus is on academia and academic medicine/research/QAQI projects, grant writing, etc)

There is no "big law" equivalent in medicine. And insurance companies/medicare/medicaid will not pay you more or reimburse you more if you went to MGH or Mayo or Hopkins compare to your colleagues who went to rural community hospital. An appy will be reimburse for an appy, whether you were train at a community hospital, or at Hopkins. And training at an elite institution will not protect you from lawsuits

And right now, there is such a huge physician shortage (in PCP and also in specialties) that patients are waiting months just to be seen - so while a few patients will specifically seek out "the best" (I want Harvard-train, Mayo-educated, Hopkins professor) (hint: you want to avoid those patients if you value your sanity and time), most of your patients just want to see a good doctor.

As for recruiting, it helps but it won't overcome other factors (if you are weird, you don't get along with colleagues, poor bedside manners and rude/impolite to your referral sources, don't complete dictations on time, etc).

Up until now, the process has been competitive (getting into a competitive college, doing well, getting into a competitive med school, doing well, getting into a competitive residency at a competitive hospital, and surviving residency/fellowship, and ultimately passing boards) - there should be a big reward for jumping through all those difficult hoops and beating your competition. And yes, while having a tenure clinician-educator tract position at Harvard Med (or even a tenure research scientist spot) is very prestigious, in the end, it is the doctor with the most business sense, in a practice that is the most efficient at procedures, scheduling, payor-mix, that will make the most money.
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Wow, lots of good information here. Thanks
 
I suppose if your career aspirations include being Dean of XYZ Medical School before you die, it might make a difference whether you went to Harvard or Podunk U.

But for obtaining a 'normal' MD job, no. Where you went for residency should not matter.





EDIT: Read what Group Theory wrote above. I'd guess he knows more on the topic than most of us.
 
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mappingmedicine said:
There could be many benefits other than just easing a transition into academia. This is generalized, but they could offer more resources such as more research opportunities with the higher NIH funding they receive, higher quality of learning along with a more diverse body of fellow residents and professors, and a larger patient access pool which would mean a better array of cases for you to become familiar with.
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More research opportunities goes along with academic medicine. People who go to community practices don't do nearly as much research as academics.

The higher quality of learning is iffy. Sometimes, you have a better opportunity to learn if you're in an unopposed program (where you are the only resident in the hospital) or where there are no fellows (and thus no one between you and the attending to call at 3 am). Those are more frequent in community practices. Yes, you will be learning the cutting edge stuff in the more prestigious academic programs, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be better able to take care of the bread and butter cases.

As far as the patient access pool... that's also iffy. Someone training in an inner-city hospital for EM is going to have a lot of trauma experience compared to someone in Mayo clinic (which is in a much more rural location). Sure, in a level 3 referral center, which is what most academic centers (and prestigious residencies) are, you're going to see a larger diversity of cases just because the small community hospitals aren't able to take care of it, but that doesn't mean the community hospitals don't get that exposure; just that they are the gatekeepers and refer patients out. Someone in a large city is also naturally going to see more patients, and likely a greater diversity, than people in rural programs. So, basically, I'm saying it's geographic area more than prestigious program that lends to a greater diversity in the patient population. There are programs in large cities that are not academic centers, just as there are academic centers that are not in large cities.
 
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mimelim said:
Prestige matters in private practice as well. Maybe not all or even most, but name matters to more people than you think, patients and other physicians alike.
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Meh. Patients don't really care where their doctor trained, period. In most of medicine you are only as good as your last stop. So your med school is meaningless once you do residency, and your residency is meaningless once you do fellowship, and then you join X group, and end up with the reputation of that group. Your fellow doctors are rarely going to ask where you schooled or trained. They are going to say "what group are you with". And then either be favorably impressed or not. Prestige matters the most to premeds and steadily becomes less significant as you progress in your career once there are better means of measuring performance. Show me an attending who harks on his being a Harvard grad and I'll show you an attending who didn't accomplish much subsequently.
 
Law2Doc said:
Meh. Patients don't really care where their doctor trained, period. In most of medicine you are only as good as your last stop. So your med school is meaningless once you do residency, and your residency is meaningless once you do fellowship, and then you join X group, and end up with the reputation of that group. Your fellow doctors are rarely going to ask where you schooled or trained. They are going to say "what group are you with". And then either be favorably impressed or not. Prestige matters the most to premeds and steadily becomes less significant as you progress in your career once there are better means of measuring performance. Show me an attending who harks on his being a Harvard grad and I'll show you an attending who didn't accomplish much subsequently.
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Compelling,,,
 
Law2Doc said:
Meh. Patients don't really care where their doctor trained, period. In most of medicine you are only as good as your last stop. So your med school is meaningless once you do residency, and your residency is meaningless once you do fellowship, and then you join X group, and end up with the reputation of that group. Your fellow doctors are rarely going to ask where you schooled or trained. They are going to say "what group are you with". And then either be favorably impressed or not. Prestige matters the most to premeds and steadily becomes less significant as you progress in your career once there are better means of measuring performance. Show me an attending who harks on his being a Harvard grad and I'll show you an attending who didn't accomplish much subsequently.
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I wrote a long response only to have SDN log me out and I lost it. But, this is simply incorrect. This is true for the vast majority of patients and physicians. But, there is at least one local practice that found with two new hires that the HMS/B&W trained had substantially more initial business than the UT/UT Hermann trained. Also, a good portion of our top surgeons in GS/VS/CVS trained under Debakey or at HMS/B&W/MGH and talk about their education and sometimes lord it over people. They are among the most accomplished surgeons in Texas/US/World depending on who you are talking about.

And in high end academics, there are a lot of people who care. When I was at Wash U, there were MDs that cared more about pedigree than just about anything else, passing the point of ridiculousness a long time ago. Granted they were more research oriented than clinical, but there are certainly a readily apparent subgroup of patients and physicians that DO care.

At the end of the day, it should not matter and by and large it doesn't. But, to say that nobody cares and it doesn't affect ANYTHING is misleading. No pre-med/med student should be suicidal or think they are a failure if they don't reach the best school or program. Nor should they drastically change what they are doing/want to do based on that. Just saying that things are different in different parts of the country and at different hospitals.
 
mimelim said:
Prestige matters in private practice as well. Maybe not all or even most, but name matters to more people than you think, patients and other physicians alike.
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Personally I just have a hard time believing that residency prestige wouldn't matter at all in your career.
 
sliceofbread136 said:
Personally I just have a hard time believing that residency prestige wouldn't matter at all in your career.
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Of course you do, because you're a pre-med and everything as a pre-med is based on becoming better than other pre-meds and getting into the absolute best program possible. I understand. Once you get into medical school you will realize that people don't really care about prestige, with two key exceptions: those in Academic Medicine, and those who went to prestigious institutions (because they want to think that makes them special).
 
CrimsonKing said:
Of course you do, because you're a pre-med and everything as a pre-med is based on becoming better than other pre-meds and getting into the absolute best program possible. I understand. Once you get into medical school you will realize that people don't really care about prestige, with two key exceptions: those in Academic Medicine, and those who went to prestigious institutions (because they want to think that makes them special).
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Ya mimelim is totally off base, he really needs to drop his premed mentality....
 
sliceofbread136 said:
Ya mimelim is totally off base, he really needs to drop his premed mentality....
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Please read his last post and note the following:

1) Half of his argument is that it matters in high-end academics. We agree on this.
2) The other half of his argument is based off of ONE private practice where the individual with more prestige got more business.

No problem with his mentality, as he at least supports it with a personal experience. That cannot be said of you, sir.
 
CrimsonKing said:
Of course you do, because you're a pre-med and everything as a pre-med is based on becoming better than other pre-meds and getting into the absolute best program possible. I understand. Once you get into medical school you will realize that people don't really care about prestige, with two key exceptions: those in Academic Medicine, and those who went to prestigious institutions (because they want to think that makes them special).
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I think it matters more WHO you train under rather than WHERE you trained. At the same time, big name hospitals/institutions end up collecting a lot of really good physicians/researchers, so there is probably some coorelation. I buy the argument that the upper eccelon of programs/schools tend to name drop completely unnecessarily more than others, but where you train DOES matter in terms of the quality of your training. That doesn't mean state university affiliated hospitals are 'worse' than MGH/Hopkins etc. But, if you trained in IM under Braunwald at B&W, it says something about your education/skills over someone coming from a community program in rural Massachusetts. To say otherwise is just silly.

CrimsonKing said:
Please read his last post and note the following:

1) Half of his argument is that it matters in high-end academics. We agree on this.
2) The other half of his argument is based off of ONE private practice where the individual with more prestige got more business.

No problem with his mentality, as he at least supports it with a personal experience. That cannot be said of you, sir.
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Hehe, at the end of the day we are splitting hairs based on our personal experiences which is largely based on where we went to school and the people we have been exposed to. Except for maybe <1% of the population saying, "it matters zero" and the other <1% of crazies that say, "ITS EVERYTHING", people would say, going to the best program that you can is a good thing, but far less important than a whole host of other things. People should just be careful when referring to any group of people, patients, physicians, researchers etc. as a homogeneous group, even if every person they have met from that group has thought one way. There are a lot of variations within those HUGE, diverse groups across the country and they may simply not have been exposed to drastically different personalities/cares.
 
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mimelim said:
I think it matters more WHO you train under rather than WHERE you trained. At the same time, big name hospitals/institutions end up collecting a lot of really good physicians/researchers, so there is probably some coorelation. I buy the argument that the upper eccelon of programs/schools tend to name drop completely unnecessarily more than others, but where you train DOES matter in terms of the quality of your training. That doesn't mean state university affiliated hospitals are 'worse' than MGH/Hopkins etc. But, if you trained in IM under Braunwald at B&W, it says something about your education/skills over someone coming from a community program in rural Massachusetts. To say otherwise is just silly.
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👍 that makes sense
 
CrimsonKing said:
Please read his last post and note the following:

1) Half of his argument is that it matters in high-end academics. We agree on this.
2) The other half of his argument is based off of ONE private practice where the individual with more prestige got more business.

No problem with his mentality, as he at least supports it with a personal experience. That cannot be said of you, sir.
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So what am I supposed to base it off? There are conflicting views in this thread, and I am leaning in the direction that I think makes more sense. I simply don't see why residency prestige would NOT matter in a job hunt.

Maybe if you gave me some evidence besides "herp derp, my 2-3 years of med student experience makes it so what I say is right" (how does med student experience even matter when we are talking post-residency stuff?) then I will believe you. Until then this lowly premed will just have to disagree with you.
 
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sliceofbread136 said:
.... I simply don't see why residency prestige would NOT matter in a job hunt....
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the real problem is you are trying to make this call without having any useful vantage point or frame of reference. Sort of an alien looking at a cow and a lion, and saying I cant see why anyone would be more afraid of the lion. Its a silly topic for preallo, actually. You can't see why prestige wouldn't matter because you are still several steps too early in the game to appreciate how it really plays out.
 
mimelim said:
... But, to say that nobody cares and it doesn't affect ANYTHING is misleading. No pre-med/med student should be suicidal or think they are a failure if they don't reach the best school or program. Nor should they drastically change what they are doing/want to do based on that. Just saying that things are different in different parts of the country and at different hospitals.
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I'm not saying nobody cares. I'm saying the vast vast majority don't care, once you get to this point, and so the posters on this thread should mellow out about it. For every one example you find where someone cashes in on their pedigree, I could find ten other people without such pedigree who similarly cashed in, even in the same geographic region. That's life. There are fields where pedigree matters a heck of a lot more than medicine, (outside of academic medicine). Actually probably all of them.
 
Law2Doc said:
the real problem is you are trying to make this call without having any useful vantage point or frame of reference. Sort of an alien looking at a cow and a lion, and saying I cant see why anyone would be more afraid of the lion. Its a silly topic for preallo, actually. You can't see why prestige wouldn't matter because you are still several steps too early in the game to appreciate how it really plays out.
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The inability to match into a residency is also in pre-allo. Apparently some people are so neurotic that they are trying to plan out their future fellowships ten years in advance.
 
Law2Doc said:
the real problem is you are trying to make this call without having any useful vantage point or frame of reference. Sort of an alien looking at a cow and a lion, and saying I cant see why anyone would be more afraid of the lion. Its a silly topic for preallo, actually. You can't see why prestige wouldn't matter because you are still several steps too early in the game to appreciate how it really plays out.
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I don't believe that not having personal experience necessarily makes someone wrong. I've reached my opinion reading the conflicting views on this topic in the various subforums of SDN. Even if I hadn't done that, I always have a hard time believing absolute statements, such as NO ONE in private practice cares about how prestigious your residency is. Imo, there are bound to be some people hiring that DO care. No amount of anecdotal evidence from attendings would change my mind (especially since there are conflicting views). What would change my mind would be a study or some other objective data. Since that probably doesn't exist, there probably isn't any point in arguing this.

Now if you were to say that residency prestige doesn't matter that much compared to other facets of a job application, then I could definitely believe that.
 
Law2Doc said:
If you have no frame of reference from which to base your conclusions, you will be wrong almost every time. It's why premeds shouldn't use match lists either. Same concept.
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We'll just have to disagree here. IMO, an informed opinion can be gathered through research. Either way, I'm still skeptical of absolute statements especially when it seems to go against what makes sense.
 
mimelim said:
And in high end academics, there are a lot of people who care. When I was at Wash U, there were MDs that cared more about pedigree than just about anything else, passing the point of ridiculousness a long time ago. Granted they were more research oriented than clinical, but there are certainly a readily apparent subgroup of patients and physicians that DO care.
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I think this is worth revisiting. I find that prestige only matters in prestigious environments (academia, top research, "cutting edge" surgery). I'm not at all surprised that prestigious MDs at a prestigious academic institution (WashU) cared more about pedigree. If you're one of 20 surgeons in the country who performs a certain valve replacement surgery, than ya pedigree matters and who you trained under matters. If the fellowship you want is a Harvard program, the director will probably be more googly-eyed if you came from a top 10.

Outside of that, I really don't think it matters. I just don't see most people outside of prestige really caring. But many of you probably know better than I do.
 
sliceofbread136 said:
We'll just have to disagree here. IMO, an informed opinion can be gathered through research. Either way, I'm still skeptical of absolute statements especially when it seems to go against what makes sense.
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If there is good research out there, go for it. In most cases frame of reference comes from being at that stage in the process. There's always a lot of people like you who will kick themselves saying "boy if I knew then what I know now". But of course you couldn't know. That's the way the world works. You can only play a chess game so many moves out in advance before you are really just blindly guessing.
 
Law2Doc said:
If there is good research out there, go for it. In most cases frame of reference comes from being at that stage in the process. There's always a lot of people like you who will kick themselves saying "boy if I knew then what I know now". But of course you couldn't know. That's the way the world works. You can only play a chess game so many moves out in advance before you are really just blindly guessing.
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Like I said we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I think you can do better than blindly guessing.
 
Law2Doc said:
You "think" one way. I have a better vantage point and "know" the other. Disagree with me all you want. Cheers.
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I'm not the only one who has disagreed with you. You just focus on me because it's easy to target that I'm a premed. Also, you can't "know" something that is so absolute. Have you personally interviewed every US private practice?

Also, all the attendings I've talked to say where you do residency does matter. I've heard different things about where you do medical school, but I've never heard this residency doesn't matter stuff outside of SDN.
 
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h6C540192




Haha just kidding. I remembered that someone had made this meme of you and, well, this is the appropriate place to post it.
 
I'm just a lowly premed, but was wondering something. People repeat a lot that medical school prestige doesn't matter for your future training, etc., but they also say patients don't notice. In my experiences (shadowing, etc), the only thing patients would ask about a doc's pedigree pertained to what medical school they went to. The general population has no understanding of residency/fellowships (even most premeds...). So while it won't affect your ability, the perception is there from the patients. Is this true at all, or am I way off base?

(Just as an example, a couple docs I shadowed did medical school at Mayo, Harvard, JHU... always got a significant response from patients)
 
I'm just a lowly premed, but was wondering something. People repeat a lot that medical school prestige doesn't matter for your future training, etc., but they also say patients don't notice. In my experiences (shadowing, etc), the only thing patients would ask about a doc's pedigree pertained to what medical school they went to. The general population has no understanding of residency/fellowships (even most premeds...). So while it won't affect your ability, the perception is there from the patients. Is this true at all, or am I way off base?

(Just as an example, a couple docs I shadowed did medical school at Mayo, Harvard, JHU... always got a significant response from patients)
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That might be specialty or regionally dependent, or even totally random, because no one but one patient who was a premed himself ever asked any of the docs I shadowed where they went to medical school.
 
PreMedOrDead said:
I'm just a lowly premed, but was wondering something. People repeat a lot that medical school prestige doesn't matter for your future training, etc., but they also say patients don't notice. In my experiences (shadowing, etc), the only thing patients would ask about a doc's pedigree pertained to what medical school they went to. The general population has no understanding of residency/fellowships (even most premeds...). So while it won't affect your ability, the perception is there from the patients. Is this true at all, or am I way off base?

(Just as an example, a couple docs I shadowed did medical school at Mayo, Harvard, JHU... always got a significant response from patients)
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The only patients that care about these things are internet-age, over-entitled, upper-middle class yahoos who think the only physicians worthy of saving their precious lives are top10 graduates. These people don't really ask a doctor point blank what his credentials are (I've never seen anyone except interested pre-meds ask this question), but do their research long before their first visit, so they certainly see everything. Usually when doing this research, the highest credential is listed first, and the first credential is the most important, so....

that and these people are usually well-educated (hence their entitlement), so they probably have a better idea of what the deal is than most laymen.
 
Being in a top-tier residency (for your field) definitely does give you an advantage. This advantage is both for academic and private practice jobs.

Private practice jobs in desirable location can get their pick of resident, so of-course the prestige of residency matters. I think what matters even more is that competitive residencies in prestigious locations also train their residents better. I have personally experienced this as a resident.

Also patients are becoming more and more informed in this day and age. They can, and do look at USNews to find out the best hospitals and see if you were affiliated with podunk university (it will be on your profile) or affiliated with Harvard.


PS: I'm not talking about the uninsured patient you see at the county hospital as a resident. I'm talking about the private insurance patient your practice will base your pay/bonus on as an attending.
 
mimelim said:
I wrote a long response only to have SDN log me out and I lost it. But, this is simply incorrect. This is true for the vast majority of patients and physicians. But, there is at least one local practice that found with two new hires that the HMS/B&W trained had substantially more initial business than the UT/UT Hermann trained. Also, a good portion of our top surgeons in GS/VS/CVS trained under Debakey or at HMS/B&W/MGH and talk about their education and sometimes lord it over people. They are among the most accomplished surgeons in Texas/US/World depending on who you are talking about.

And in high end academics, there are a lot of people who care. When I was at Wash U, there were MDs that cared more about pedigree than just about anything else, passing the point of ridiculousness a long time ago. Granted they were more research oriented than clinical, but there are certainly a readily apparent subgroup of patients and physicians that DO care.

At the end of the day, it should not matter and by and large it doesn't. But, to say that nobody cares and it doesn't affect ANYTHING is misleading. No pre-med/med student should be suicidal or think they are a failure if they don't reach the best school or program. Nor should they drastically change what they are doing/want to do based on that. Just saying that things are different in different parts of the country and at different hospitals.
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But 99% of doctors won't be from those super elite places....

Well, unless it's mean more than just Harvard/Wash U/B+W. You can be in several states and not find a single doctor from an elite residency.
 
PreMedOrDead said:
I'm just a lowly premed, but was wondering something. People repeat a lot that medical school prestige doesn't matter for your future training, etc., but they also say patients don't notice. In my experiences (shadowing, etc), the only thing patients would ask about a doc's pedigree pertained to what medical school they went to. The general population has no understanding of residency/fellowships (even most premeds...). So while it won't affect your ability, the perception is there from the patients. Is this true at all, or am I way off base?

(Just as an example, a couple docs I shadowed did medical school at Mayo, Harvard, JHU... always got a significant response from patients)
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Most people don't even know what "good medical schools" are with the exception of Harvard. College ranking to them is BCS Bowl Game, NCAA March Madness, etc. A lot of people don't know that Mayo Clinic is. If you were to ask "who has a better medical school - Alabama or Notre Dame", you will be hard-press to find someone who will tell you "wait, Notre Dame doesn't have a medical school" - most premeds won't be able to say that. Pick an average guy off the street and ask them if they know anything about WashU, and I doubt you will hear anything about their medical school or law school (most likely confuse it with UW).

Geebeejay said:
The only patients that care about these things are internet-age, over-entitled, upper-middle class yahoos who think the only physicians worthy of saving their precious lives are top10 graduates. These people don't really ask a doctor point blank what his credentials are (I've never seen anyone except interested pre-meds ask this question), but do their research long before their first visit, so they certainly see everything. Usually when doing this research, the highest credential is listed first, and the first credential is the most important, so....

that and these people are usually well-educated (hence their entitlement), so they probably have a better idea of what the deal is than most laymen.
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The hardest population to deal with are those who are intelligent and educated, so can look things up, but not smart enough to realize that they don't know what they don't know. They will look stuff up on the internet, and are more willing to trust "my personal blog about my experience with XX disease and why YYY is such a good drug" and will ask for YYY, even though they don't have XX disease (just symptoms similar to XX) - and will insist on telling you how to do your job, because they are smart, while we doctors are greedy carsalesmen who don't know anything and look stuff up on the internet anyway like they just did.

I want my patients educated on the disease process. But it has to be a two-way street, them asking questions, wanting to know answers, and being receptive to responses. The internet is a great resource but it can also do great harm, like "this blog sites tells me that goat milk is better than human breast milk and you are in the pocket of the medical-industrial complex who want to take my hard earn money and turn my baby into a zombie so I'm going to stick with this unpasteurized goat milk instead"
 
md_hopeful21 said:
Being in a top-tier residency (for your field) definitely does give you an advantage. This advantage is both for academic and private practice jobs.

Private practice jobs in desirable location can get their pick of resident, so of-course the prestige of residency matters. I think what matters even more is that competitive residencies in prestigious locations also train their residents better. I have personally experienced this as a resident.

Also patients are becoming more and more informed in this day and age. They can, and do look at USNews to find out the best hospitals and see if you were affiliated with podunk university (it will be on your profile) or affiliated with Harvard.


PS: I'm not talking about the uninsured patient you see at the county hospital as a resident. I'm talking about the private insurance patient your practice will base your pay/bonus on as an attending.
Click to expand...

I think this (bold) depends vastly on the type of residency/specialty we're talking about.
 
Geebeejay said:
I think this (bold) depends vastly on the type of residency/specialty we're talking about.
Click to expand...

I actually beg to differ. I saw how internal medicine operates at podunk residency and also at a more prestigious program and they definitely differed in quality. I also experienced radonc at two centers and it was night and day as well. I'm sure its no different for surgery.
 
mimelim said:
Which is why this is very regional. I grew up in NJ, lived in St. Louis for 8 years and am now in Houston. My parents both went to school in Boston as well as medical school and residency etc. If you are from the Northeast it is harder to escape. I think there is still a lot of residual snobbery there, the whole, "Ivy league" bit.

Here in Texas you have a handful of people who cling to their NE big names and they run the range from 'meh' to 'superstar' in terms of ability.



It is night and day in surgery.
Click to expand...

Where in Texas are you training if you dont mind me asking?
 
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