URM Advantage in Medicine

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Members don't see this ad.
Oh God it's this thing again.

This thing will just go on until everyone finally realizes that medical school is a professional school aimed at training service providers. It's essentially government funded (at least at the residency level) and the whole point is to train people to provide medical services to people who need it. It's not a graduate program where the sole aim is to find the "smartest" on paper.

If URMs are more likely to practice in areas with minorities or minorities feel more comfortable seeing URM doctors, then the schools are just gonna train more URM doctors. If the number of Asian applicants outweigh the number of Asian doctors communities being served by the institution need, they're not gonna be saving seats for Asian students. It's not like the schools have some kind of hidden agenda, they're pretty out in the open about it.

It's no different than when you apply to certain service jobs and they tell you that speaking Spanish is preferred because you happen to be providing a service to a Spanish speaking population.
 
Last edited:
ChemEngMD said:
Maybe the reason that we continue to have shortages of PCPs in rural and inner-city underserved areas is because of med school applicants lying on their apps and claiming to want to help communities that they truly have disdain for...🙄

The whole lie, cheat, BS, and say/do anything possible to get into medical school mentality that prevails in a lot of pre-medical students is truly disheartening. I really hope that it isn't as prevalent as SDN makes it seem some times.
Click to expand...
:nod: I don't think it's as bad as SDN makes it seem, but I could be very wrong.
 
If the whole point of medical education is to be artificially finding people to fill the spots no one wants to fill...the answer is money. Either scholarships with strings attached (nhsc) or higher reimbursement for rural/underserved primary care. While I actually want to live in the middle of nowhere and do family med, I know that I am the minority and that to get a bunch of people to do what I want to do will require some actual incentive as opposed to trusting in the altruism of people who face $200k+ in debt.
 
sb247 said:
If the whole point of medical education is to be artificially finding people to fill the spots no one wants to fill...the answer is money. Either scholarships with strings attached (nhsc) or higher reimbursement for rural/underserved primary care. While I actually want to live in the middle of nowhere and do family med, I know that I am the minority and that to get a bunch of people to do what I want to do will require some actual incentive as opposed to trusting in the altruism of people who face $200k+ in debt.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately this will never happen. Because who needs primary care doctors when you can just go on webmd and figure out which specialist you need to see! 🙄

Maybe it's because people can't afford to go to the doctor on a regular basis anymore, but I feel like medicine has slowly shifted towards go-when-you're-deathly-ill versus go-on-a-regular-basis for preventive care, and so primary care doctors are kinda getting ignored. Or maybe that's just where I live.
 
ChemEngMD said:
Maybe the reason that we continue to have shortages of PCPs in rural and inner-city underserved areas is because of med school applicants lying on their apps and claiming to want to help communities that they truly have disdain for...🙄

The whole lie, cheat, BS, and say/do anything possible to get into medical school mentality that prevails in a lot of pre-medical students is truly disheartening. I really hope that it isn't as prevalent as SDN makes it seem some times.
Click to expand...

Medical jobs in underserved areas typically pay more than jobs in healthy metropolitan areas, but we're still dealing with shortages. I wonder why that is? Probably because we don't have enough altruistic people who want to serve their community, and not because practicing medicine in the ghetto or living in a hick town sucks, right?

(I guess it's easier to puke out idiotic mission statements and rain down judgement from the ivory towers of academia than it is to come to terms with the reality of the situation.)

I don't see how you can find me at fault. The admissions process is a game of deception, where we have to navigate through idiotic mission statements and social policy goals that are completely divorced from reality. If you want honesty and transparency from applicants, then the medical school administrators need to stop the bull**** and start acting like real people.
 
Circulus, not everyone thinks like you.
 
circulus vitios said:
Medical jobs in underserved areas typically pay more than jobs in healthy metropolitan areas, but we're still dealing with shortages. I wonder why that is? Probably because we don't have enough altruistic people who want to serve their community, and not because practicing medicine in the ghetto or living in a hick town sucks, right?

(I guess it's easier to puke out idiotic mission statements and rain down judgement from the ivory towers of academia than it is to come to terms with the reality of the situation.)

I don't see how you can find me at fault. The admissions process is a game of deception, where we have to navigate through idiotic mission statements and social policy goals that are completely divorced from reality. If you want honesty and transparency from applicants, then the medical school administrators need to stop the bull**** and start acting like real people.
Click to expand...

How might we find people who would be willing to devote 30-40 years of their professional lives to living in a hick town and serving the people there? What sort of people should we be looking at? What questions should we be asking? Who's going to deliver the babies, take care of the old folks with heart failure and treat the kids with asthma?
 
LizzyM said:
How might we find people who would be willing to devote 30-40 years of their professional lives to living in a hick town and serving the people there? What sort of people should we be looking at? What questions should we be asking? Who's going to deliver the babies, take care of the old folks with heart failure and treat the kids with asthma?
Click to expand...

A ton more nhsc style scholarships (apply and hope? Nope....if you will sign the dotted line, here's your check) or larger pay differencials for practicing in those areas deemed to be in need. This issue also highlights the problem with nationalized pricing for such a large share of the market, if docs can make comparable money living in "desirable" areas, the less "desirable" will have to settle for me and few of the other random folk that want to live in the country
 
LizzyM said:
How might we find people who would be willing to devote 30-40 years of their professional lives to living in a hick town and serving the people there? What sort of people should we be looking at? What questions should we be asking? Who's going to deliver the babies, take care of the old folks with heart failure and treat the kids with asthma?
Click to expand...

I have spoken to a handful of residents at a rural family medicine residency program. Some expressed a desire to leave the area because of a lack of: culture, respectable jobs for their spouses, and good schools for their children. Others did not want to deal with the large Medicare and Medicaid population that comes with working in an underserved area. Of those who wanted to stay, some mentioned a desire to set up or join a private practice, perhaps a cash-only practice.

The people who have the mental capacity and work ethic to get through 8 years of higher education and 3+ years of training AND who want to serve the underserved are few and far between. I do not think financial rewards (e.g. primary care scholarships, higher wages, and student loan payback plans) have proven to be powerful motivators? I do not know what to suggest, but I know that medical school mission statements and social policies aren't the answer. To many of us, the admissions process is just a game. School X wants to serve the underserved? Great, so do I -- just look at my extracurricular activities that "reinforce" this "desire."
 
sb247 said:
A ton more nhsc style scholarships (apply and hope? Nope....if you will sign the dotted line, here's your check) or larger pay differencials for practicing in those areas deemed to be in need. This issue also highlights the problem with nationalized pricing for such a large share of the market, if docs can make comparable money living in "desirable" areas, the less "desirable" will have to settle for me and few of the other random folk that want to live in the country
Click to expand...

NHSC scholarships only cover a few years.... the docs do their payback and scoot. Then the community needs to recruit a new doc and the patients need to establish a relationship with someone new... every 3 years, rinse and repeat. Where can we find people who will put down roots and thrive in small towns that serve rural counties?
 
LizzyM said:
NHSC scholarships only cover a few years.... the docs do their payback and scoot. Then the community needs to recruit a new doc and the patients need to establish a relationship with someone new... every 3 years, rinse and repeat. Where can we find people who will put down roots and thrive in small towns that serve rural counties?
Click to expand...

"Thrive" is a great choice of words here LizzyM. In order to counterbalance the lack of entertainment and lifestyle items, something has to be offered....and that likely comes down to money. And while nhsc docs don't all stay rural, something had to get people to try rural. And we greatly restrict how many nhcs scholars we have. Let's take a hypothetical doc who moved his spouse out the country after an nhsc scholarship. Three years in they have freedom to move because they have no debt. The local schools are mediocre and there aren't any private schools of note nearby, there is no "fine dining", no sushi, the closest movie theatre is an hour away, no theatre, no musicals, no pro sports teams, the one church in town isn't your denomination and no college nearby for the kids, few work opportunites for the spouse, and no area gym. And while that works for a hippy like me, that is literal hell to most people. How do you convince people to do things they don't want to? You pay them more. Most People don't do an 8yr residency because they just like surgery, they see a payoff. You can't find overnight employees? Shift differential. You can't find rural employees? Geography differencial. You get rural fm docs making closer to $300k than $150/200 in the city and they might stay there
 
sb247 said:
"Thrive" is a great choice of words here LizzyM. In order to counterbalance the lack of entertainment and lifestyle items, something has to be offered....and that likely comes down to money. And while nhsc docs don't all stay rural, something had to get people to try rural. And we greatly restrict how many nhcs scholars we have. Let's take a hypothetical doc who moved his spouse out the country after an nhsc scholarship. Three years in they have freedom to move because they have no debt. The local schools are mediocre and there aren't any private schools of note nearby, there is no "fine dining", no sushi, the closest movie theatre is an hour away, no theatre, no musicals, no pro sports teams, the one church in town isn't your denomination and no college nearby for the kids, few work opportunites for the spouse, and no area gym. And while that works for a hippy like me, that is literal hell to most people. How do you convince people to do things they don't want to? You pay them more. Most People don't do an 8yr residency because they just like surgery, they see a payoff. You can't find overnight employees? Shift differential. You can't find rural employees? Geography differencial. You get rural fm docs making closer to $300k than $150/200 in the city and they might stay there
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
LuciusVorenus said:
Oh God it's this thing again.

This thing will just go on until everyone finally realizes that medical school is a professional school aimed at training service providers. It's essentially government funded (at least at the residency level) and the whole point is to train people to provide medical services to people who need it. It's not a graduate program where the sole aim is to find the "smartest" on paper.

If URMs are more likely to practice in areas with minorities or minorities feel more comfortable seeing URM doctors, then the schools are just gonna train more URM doctors. If the number of Asian applicants outweigh the number of Asian doctors communities being served by the institution need, they're not gonna be saving seats for Asian students. It's not like the schools have some kind of hidden agenda, they're pretty out in the open about it.

It's no different than when you apply to certain service jobs and they tell you that speaking Spanish is preferred because you happen to be providing a service to a Spanish speaking population.
Click to expand...

👍👍👍👍👍:
 
At my place (banking system) we get applicants that speak the required languages:
  • German and English.
However, from a pool of 50 applicants we decide to choose the person that looks like most of the company's clients even if he is amongst the worst applicants. Usually, it turns out to be the guy with the worst accent and pronunciation ever, you can call him a "URM."
Why? Because of this simple life rule:
  • You take what will benefit you the most.
Just like the banking system, this happens in medical school. Applicants like yourselves forget that you are at the mercy of a higher authority. Even if you dislike it, you cannot change it; Even if you see yourself amongst the best applicants out there, in fact, you are not because you are simply what the institution does. not. need.
Tough.
 
Why not do what England does and force everyone to do primary care before they can even apply to various specialties?
 
LizzyM said:
NHSC scholarships only cover a few years.... the docs do their payback and scoot. Then the community needs to recruit a new doc and the patients need to establish a relationship with someone new... every 3 years, rinse and repeat. Where can we find people who will put down roots and thrive in small towns that serve rural counties?
Click to expand...

Have schools make students sign 10 year contracts :meanie:
 
sb247 said:
"Thrive" is a great choice of words here LizzyM. In order to counterbalance the lack of entertainment and lifestyle items, something has to be offered....and that likely comes down to money. And while nhsc docs don't all stay rural, something had to get people to try rural. And we greatly restrict how many nhcs scholars we have. Let's take a hypothetical doc who moved his spouse out the country after an nhsc scholarship. Three years in they have freedom to move because they have no debt. The local schools are mediocre and there aren't any private schools of note nearby, there is no "fine dining", no sushi, the closest movie theatre is an hour away, no theatre, no musicals, no pro sports teams, the one church in town isn't your denomination and no college nearby for the kids, few work opportunites for the spouse, and no area gym. And while that works for a hippy like me, that is literal hell to most people. How do you convince people to do things they don't want to? You pay them more. Most People don't do an 8yr residency because they just like surgery, they see a payoff. You can't find overnight employees? Shift differential. You can't find rural employees? Geography differencial. You get rural fm docs making closer to $300k than $150/200 in the city and they might stay there
Click to expand...

Might we find students who enjoy outdoor pursuits such as fishing, hunting, rock climbings, gardening, carpentry or hobbies that don't involve concert halls? Students for whom a good time does not require dinner and a movie? Students who grew up in these communities or similar communities, who belong to a denomination represented in these small town and who cherish the culture of these places? Is it impossible for someone who loves a place like this and who wants to serve in a place like this to come out of such a place and enroll in medical school? Or is it like the old song, "How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?"
 
Mr Avante said:
At my place (banking system) we get applicants that speak the required languages:
  • German and English.
However, from a pool of 50 applicants we decide to choose the person that looks like most of the company's clients even if he is amongst the worst applicants. Usually, it turns out to be the guy with the worst accent and pronunciation ever, you can call him a "URM."
Why? Because of this simple life rule:
  • You take what will benefit you the most.
Just like the banking system, this happens in medical school. Applicants like yourselves forget that you are at the mercy of a higher authority. Even if you dislike it, you cannot change it; Even if you see yourself amongst the best applicants out there, in fact, you are not because you are simply what the institution does. not. need.
Tough.
Click to expand...

Yes! Thank you!

It's not about what the applicant "deserves," it's about what the school "needs." That's all there is to it.
 
LizzyM said:
Might we find students who enjoy outdoor pursuits such as fishing, hunting, rock climbings, gardening, carpentry or hobbies that don't involve concert halls? Students for whom a good time does not require dinner and a movie? Students who grew up in these communities or similar communities, who belong to a denomination represented in these small town and who cherish the culture of these places? Is it impossible for someone who loves a place like this and who wants to serve in a place like this to come out of such a place and enroll in medical school? Or is it like the old song, "How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?"
Click to expand...

I'm curious about what's going to happen to UCR. California has a large, under-served rural community and they've decided to build two new schools (UCR and hopefully soon UCM) in the middle/very close to these communities, so students who want to practice in rural areas won't have to move to rural areas - they'll already be training there for medical school/residency. Maybe that'll help some of the students set down roots?

So far, I feel like UCLA/UCI/UCD's PRIME programs haven't really been doing the job (I haven't been able to find any research on this though...). I mean after spending four to eight years in LA and Irvine, it'll be a lot tougher to convince someone to move out to the inland empire.

However, I feel like the PRIME programs and accelerated family care programs at the UCs are a good example. You apply to them separately if you're interested in that kind of career and they train you specifically FOR that kind of career. I've hear it's been somewhat successful in keeping people who aren't interested in practicing in those regions from checking the box for applying to them on their secondaries, since the program is pretty different from the traditional program the rest of the students go through.
 
Last edited:
circulus vitios said:
I applied to schools that aim to create rural primary care physicians. Sure, I've written secondaries about my desire to "return to my home town," but it's all a lie. I did my time in this worthless garbage dump and I'm going to leave this miserable piece of crap town one way or another. I feel absolutely no duty -- in fact, I feel nothing but contempt for the people who choose to remain here.
Click to expand...

circulus vitios said:
Medical jobs in underserved areas typically pay more than jobs in healthy metropolitan areas, but we're still dealing with shortages. I wonder why that is? Probably because we don't have enough altruistic people who want to serve their community, and not because practicing medicine in the ghetto or living in a hick town sucks, right?

(I guess it's easier to puke out idiotic mission statements and rain down judgement from the ivory towers of academia than it is to come to terms with the reality of the situation.)

I don't see how you can find me at fault. The admissions process is a game of deception, where we have to navigate through idiotic mission statements and social policy goals that are completely divorced from reality. If you want honesty and transparency from applicants, then the medical school administrators need to stop the bull**** and start acting like real people.
Click to expand...

👎 Lots of people get into medical school that don't lie their way in. I also grew up in a town in the middle of nowhere, that was impoverished and had only a triple digit population. It sucked. I was really poor, but I busted my butt to get the heck out of there, and I don't want to go back. When asked in interviews or on secondaries where/how I wanted to practice, I said at an urban, preferably academic institution, and that I'm leaning toward surgery. I ended up getting into two schools that are looking for rural physicians. This is what they prefer, but they still let in other students, and I bet they have gotten pretty good at determining those that are lying.

I don't think that it is fair for people to look at people that came from rural areas as if it is our duty to go back and live in a place that we hate after we worked so hard to get out of there. This is why they ask the interview questions, though - and it is absolutely appropriate to find you at fault for blatantly lying in them.

LizzyM said:
Might we find students who enjoy outdoor pursuits such as fishing, hunting, rock climbings, gardening, carpentry or hobbies that don't involve concert halls? Students for whom a good time does not require dinner and a movie? Students who grew up in these communities or similar communities, who belong to a denomination represented in these small town and who cherish the culture of these places? Is it impossible for someone who loves a place like this and who wants to serve in a place like this to come out of such a place and enroll in medical school? Or is it like the old song, "How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?"
Click to expand...

There are just so many places where you can have your cake and eat it to. You can live in Portland, most of the NE, Seattle, etc. and easily be able to do all sorts of outdoor activities without having to give up all of the luxeries that a more urban society provides.

LizzyM said:
How might we find people who would be willing to devote 30-40 years of their professional lives to living in a hick town and serving the people there? What sort of people should we be looking at? What questions should we be asking? Who's going to deliver the babies, take care of the old folks with heart failure and treat the kids with asthma?
Click to expand...

My opinion, at least for primary care, is that maybe we should consider not requiring so much friggin education. There are lots of NPs and PAs that basically serve as primary care physicians in most cities. Why not expand this, and have them be one of the primary sources of PCPs in rural areas? This has the bonus of also offering a way to provide healthcare at a less expensive rate.

The problem is that the type of person that is content and wants to stay in rural USA is not usually the same type of person who is going to be driven to go to medical school, especially since there aren't usually medical schools in rural USA. The ones that are that attached to and love their home town that much, usually aren't willing to leave it in the first place.

I agree with LuciusVorenus that getting medical school in these areas may help, but that isn't really a workable solution for the problem at large, since we can't put a medical school in every rural neighborhood.
 
LizzyM said:
Might we find students who enjoy outdoor pursuits such as fishing, hunting, rock climbings, gardening, carpentry or hobbies that don't involve concert halls? Students for whom a good time does not require dinner and a movie? Students who grew up in these communities or similar communities, who belong to a denomination represented in these small town and who cherish the culture of these places? Is it impossible for someone who loves a place like this and who wants to serve in a place like this to come out of such a place and enroll in medical school? Or is it like the old song, "How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?"
Click to expand...

I understand the idealism as I am the candidate you describe (no interest in Paree 😉.....but either those students don't exist in large numbers or adcoms are extremely bad at selecting them. Luckily, I don't have to solve the universe...I just want a seat in medical school, I just need a seat
 
LizzyM said:
Might we find students who enjoy outdoor pursuits such as fishing, hunting, rock climbings, gardening, carpentry or hobbies that don't involve concert halls? Students for whom a good time does not require dinner and a movie? Students who grew up in these communities or similar communities, who belong to a denomination represented in these small town and who cherish the culture of these places? Is it impossible for someone who loves a place like this and who wants to serve in a place like this to come out of such a place and enroll in medical school? Or is it like the old song, "How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?"
Click to expand...

ron swanson is too busy in pawnee
 
LizzyM said:
Might we find students who enjoy outdoor pursuits such as fishing, hunting, rock climbings, gardening, carpentry or hobbies that don't involve concert halls? Students for whom a good time does not require dinner and a movie? Students who grew up in these communities or similar communities, who belong to a denomination represented in these small town and who cherish the culture of these places? Is it impossible for someone who loves a place like this and who wants to serve in a place like this to come out of such a place and enroll in medical school? Or is it like the old song, "How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?"
Click to expand...

Unless you've lived in a rural town, you wouldn't understand. It's a dead-end existence which is why Americans have been moving away from rural areas for the past few decades. I imagine it's even more pronounced for highly educated 30 somethings i.e. physicians. If you like hunting and fishing and you still want your wife and children to have a good life, you move to the suburbs and drive 30 minutes in one direction to the city/school/work/concert hall, or 30 minutes in the other direction to the camping/fishing/hiking/hunting sites.
 
circulus vitios said:
Unless you've lived in a rural town, you wouldn't understand. It's a dead-end existence which is why Americans have been moving away from rural areas for the past few decades. I imagine it's even more pronounced for highly educated 30 somethings i.e. physicians. If you like hunting and fishing and you still want your wife and children to have a good life, you move to the suburbs and drive 30 minutes in one direction to the city/school/work/concert hall, or 30 minutes in the other direction to the camping/fishing/hiking/hunting sites.
Click to expand...

I spent a significant portion of my life in a rural town and I know many other people who have (the state I'm originally from is 95% rural) and MANY of them desire to go back to their towns or towns like theirs to live. The problem is that there normally aren't that many jobs in those towns. A doctor is one of the few jobs that affords you the opportunity to return to those areas and do good for the people there. It doesn't need to be your hometown in particular if you have bad memories associated with it or you can't stand the people any more, but why not another town similar to it that has a lot of the good qualities of small town life?

If the people from these towns and areas won't do it then I find it unlikely anyone ever will.
 
I've never seen a URM thread turn into a hillbilly thread. This is a first.
 
:laugh: regarding hillbilly comment.
Cue "dueling banjos"

Fact: in some of these more rural places, and other undesirable locations, the physicians who are willing to live and work there are foreign medical graduates sponsored by the local health care facility to work in the US after residency. And they go to the residencies that no US grad wants, too.
 
ITT:

URM thread gets derailed into a redneck country thread.
 
cookiemonsters said:
Blanket statement. Most URM medical students are not from poor upbringings... they are largely from affluent backgrounds, like most of their ORM classmates. If medical schools truly want students to work in poor or underserved areas, they should look for students who grew up in these areas - regardless of race.

But as LizzyM said in another thread, medical schools are REQUIRED by the LCME to have racial diversity in their class. They are not required to have socioeconomic diversity. I don't hold it against URM's for taking advantage of unfair selection criteria to get into medical school - I would do the same in their shoes. I blame the LCME for instituting myopic selection criteria it in the first place.
Click to expand...

Yeah, a lot of the black people in medical schools are immigrants from Africa, not descendents of slaves. Many of these people are immigrants and hardworking just like all immigrants and benefit in med school admissions because they are the perfect poster boy for racial diversity.

Its reverse discrimination and you all know it. Sucks, because most people in the know judge URM physicians once again by the color of their skin precisely because of AA.
 
LizzyM said:
:laugh: regarding hillbilly comment.
Cue "dueling banjos"

Fact: in some of these more rural places, and other undesirable locations, the physicians who are willing to live and work there are foreign medical graduates sponsored by the local health care facility to work in the US after residency. And they go to the residencies that no US grad wants, too.
Click to expand...

You make a good point, I have an african friend who is an img that got into a very "remote" fm residency here in the states.....we joke about raising goats together in the middle of nowhere someday
 
alpinism said:
ITT:

URM thread gets derailed into a redneck country thread.
Click to expand...

Replace 'rural' with 'urban' and it's more or less the same idea. Doctors don't want to practice medicine in Skid Row, what a surprise.
 
circulus vitios said:
Replace 'rural' with 'urban' and it's more or less the same idea. Doctors don't want to practice medicine in Skid Row, what a surprise.
Click to expand...

At least it is possible to live close by and commute into the 'hood which is not feasible when the job is 150 miles from a city of 100,000 with nothing of any size closer by.

One of my non-minority, top-20 grads bought in a 98% minority neighborhood as a "calling" to live with and serve that population. In that case, the student was deeply religious which may have played a role.
 
LizzyM said:
At least it is possible to live close by and commute into the 'hood which is not feasible when the job is 150 miles from a city of 100,000 with nothing of any size closer by.

One of my non-minority, top-20 grads bought in a 98% minority neighborhood as a "calling" to live with and serve that population. In that case, the student was deeply religious which may have played a role.
Click to expand...
true, though doctors working in rural areas get paid a lot more than those working in the inner city.
 
One point I'd like to add here: The government/LCME can't expect to take advantage of the benevolence of 20-ish year olds to work for pittances in rural/inner city neighborhoods. When there are better options available in the suburbs where patients are actually willing to take responsibility for their own health (and actually pay), it's going to be no surprise that there are so few doctors in those "underserved" areas. And if graduates are going to be forced to work in these areas, good luck finding quality people who are willing to go into medicine. It's basic Economics 101.

And the boomer-doctors and the current generation of doctors in academia didn't dedicate their lives to working in underserved areas. So besides being hypocrites, what right do they have to demand that we should?
 
ElCapone said:
One point I'd like to add here: The government/LCME can't expect to take advantage of the benevolence of 20-ish year olds to work for pittances in rural/inner city neighborhoods. When there are better options available in the suburbs where patients are actually willing to take responsibility for their own health (and actually pay), it's going to be no surprise that there are so few doctors in those "underserved" areas. And if graduates are going to be forced to work in these areas, good luck finding quality people who are willing to go into medicine. It's basic Economics 101.

And the boomer-doctors and the current generation of doctors in academia didn't dedicate their lives to working in underserved areas. So besides being hypocrites, what right do they have to demand that we should?
Click to expand...

Have you seen the locations of some medical schools? They aren't all in gorgeous suburban neighborhoods or upper crusty urban enclaves.

No wants to demand that anyone do anything they don't want to do... what I'm asking is how to find people with the desire to serve where others won't go. (Almost) Everyone talks about being inspired by Paul Farmer but no one wants to climb into the mountains as he does.
 
LizzyM said:
Have you seen the locations of some medical schools? They aren't all in gorgeous suburban neighborhoods or upper crusty urban enclaves.

No wants to demand that anyone do anything they don't want to do... what I'm asking is how to find people with the desire to serve where others won't go. (Almost) Everyone talks about being inspired by Paul Farmer but no one wants to climb into the mountains as he does.
Click to expand...

more like no one can abuse the generosity of rich people like he does
 
LizzyM said:
Have you seen the locations of some medical schools? They aren't all in gorgeous suburban neighborhoods or upper crusty urban enclaves.
Click to expand...

I used to volunteer at a free clinic that was affiliated with a medical school. They had extreme difficulties getting attendings in any specialty to show up one Saturday every month or two for 4 to 6 hours. The hypocrisy of the faculty was actually called out during a speech at an AOA banquet I attended. The discomfort in the room was palpable.
 
aamrys said:
see.gif
Click to expand...

:laugh::laugh::laugh:
 
Mt Kilimanjaro said:
I used to volunteer at a free clinic that was affiliated with a medical school. They had extreme difficulties getting attendings in any specialty to show up one Saturday every month or two for 4 to 6 hours. The hypocrisy of the faculty was actually called out during a speech at an AOA banquet I attended. The discomfort in the room was palpable.
Click to expand...

Bravo to the person with the balls to do that. Did anything change?
 
LizzyM said:
Have you seen the locations of some medical schools? They aren't all in gorgeous suburban neighborhoods or upper crusty urban enclaves.

No wants to demand that anyone do anything they don't want to do... what I'm asking is how to find people with the desire to serve where others won't go. (Almost) Everyone talks about being inspired by Paul Farmer but no one wants to climb into the mountains as he does.
Click to expand...

Maybe a more effective method than giving URM preference is a combination of something like two of UC Davis's programs.

Specifically a combination of "The Rural-Program In Medical Education" (designed for students interested in becoming physician leaders in rural California communities. Rural-PRIME curricular enhancements include: weekly seminars in the first and second years, leadership, community engagement and cultural competency, hands-on skill sessions, mentorship and teaching with rural physicians, clinical rotations in rural communities in the third year, leadership and research opportunities related to rural health in the final year) and their "Accelerated Competency-based Education in Primary Care (ACE-PC) program" (allows a select group of eligible students to complete medical school in 3 years and receive a conditional acceptance to a UC Davis or Kaiser Permanente Northern California residency program in primary care. Students who are accepted to the UCDSOM 4-year program and who plan a career in primary care Internal Medicine or Family Medicine will be considered for the program).

In other words, save seats for students who are willing to enter a program specifically designed at training rural primary care physicians?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

B
  • Locked
Am I URM? (Serious)
Replies
6
Views
1K
Brandon M.
B
P
What to do with interest in rural medicine?
Replies
17
Views
1K
lizard17
lizard17
H
should i put myself as URM in secondaries?
Replies
7
Views
1K
LeaveNoTrace
L
vinestarmed
Am I URM?
Replies
5
Views
1K
vinestarmed
vinestarmed
P
URM Clarification
Replies
7
Views
2K
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
Top