What does the US news primary care rankings mean? What exactly determines the ranking that US news gives in this category? And why is it that so many schools that are high on research rankings are unranked in the primary care category?
unfrozencaveman said:Sorry, what exactly fits under the umbrella of "primary care"?
Praetorian said:And what precisely does it tell us? *waits patiently*
zurned said:What does the US news primary care rankings mean? What exactly determines the ranking that US news gives in this category? And why is it that so many schools that are high on research rankings are unranked in the primary care category?
LTrain1 said:usually im, peds, and fp. I want to specialize so I stay away from primary care rankings because that's not what I want to do. A d.o. school is top 10 primary care so that should tell you something.
TheDarkSide said:It's late and I'm tired, but by my cursory examination of both rankings, it appears to me that of the top 54 schools in the research rankings, 44 are also in the primary care rankings. Some are at vastly different spots, some are at about the same place. This would lead me to believe that the disparity between research schools and primary care schools is perhaps not all that large.
For those keeping score at home, of the top 54 schools ranked in research, those unranked in primary care are:
Stanford (8)
Pritzker (19)
Mayo (23)
UNC (23)
Mount Sinai (32)
NYU (32)
U Cincinnati (41)
Georgetown (46)
UC-Irvine (46)
Tulane (51)
Of those that are ranked in both, the biggest disparity appears to be for Yale (11 for research, 58 for primary care). OHSU seems to be fairly large as well (3 for primary care, 35 for research).
Disclaimer: This information may be inaccurate as I did do this very quickly. Corrections would be welcomed.
erin682 said:Many consider ob/gyn and emergency medicine to fall under primary care as well.
tigress said:The scholarship and loan repayment programs for primary care physicians vary in their definition of primary care. All include IM, FP, and peds. Many also include OB/Gyn. I've also seen one that includes psych, but that's new to me. I've also seen that public health and preventive medicine fall under the rubric of primary care.
I've never seen EM considered primary care. None of the scholarship or loan programs consider it such.
LTrain1 said:the bottom line when people look at these rankings is the ability to get residencies. No one is under the impression that the d.o. school in the top 10 is better at getting residencies than most allopathic schools. I look at rankings for residency placement and primary care rankings are obviously not as good at telling you this.
GPACfan said:I am a little eery about schools that send a large amount of students to primary care (high primary care ranking). Primary care tends to be easier to get a residency in(not as desirable), so are these students going into PC because they want to or don't have scores high enough for anything else?
Maybe they attend a high ranked PC schools because they want to go into PC. Most pre-med students would take an acceptance anywhere (me included) just to become a doc.
OSUdoc08 said:Why are they not desireable? A majority of physicians go into this field.
I planned on going to primary care prior to applying to medical school.
OSUdoc08 said:Actually, they do in my state.
GPACfan said:You and many others planned on primary care before you entered. I realize this. I was just throwing out ideas as to why some choose PC. Not as desirable as other specialities (to me, I shouldn't have spoke for everyone).
tigress said:In Oklahoma? Interesting. I've read a lot about the different programs offered for going into primary care, but I've never seen EM even mentioned. I'm considering going into EM, so it is of interest to me. Do you have a link to the info on the Oklahoma program? I'll also search for it.
tigress said:Maybe you really mean competitive. Primary care isn't as competitive. That's because there are so many spaces open for primary care, because, as OSUdoc08, a majority of people complete residencies in the primary care fields.
But IM specialties aren't primary care. Just plain IM.
GPACfan said:You and many others planned on primary care before you entered. I realize this. I was just throwing out ideas as to why some choose PC. Not as desirable as other specialities (to me, I shouldn't have spoke for everyone).
OSUdoc08 said:Actually, EM can be pretty competitive.
tigress said:Maybe you really mean competitive. Primary care isn't as competitive. That's because there are so many spaces open for primary care, because, as OSUdoc08, a majority of people complete residencies in the primary care fields.
But IM specialties aren't primary care. Just plain IM.
tigress said:Yeah I know. I was talking about the tradionally accepted primary care specialties (IM, FP, peds, +/- OB/Gyn)
This is interesting. Arkansas considers general surgery to be primary care for the purpose of their rural medicine practice loans and scholarships. They include IM, FP, peds, OB/Gyn, Med/Peds, and general surgery.
OSUdoc08 said:Who defines this? The traditional definition where I am from includes EM.
tigress said:Okay, but as far as I can tell that might be the only state. No other list I've looked at includes EM. I haven't found Oklahoma yet, but I've looked at a ton of them. The national (as opposed to state) programs also do not include EM. So I would suggest that including EM is an expection rather than the rule, and therefore I wouldn't say it is part of the commonly used definition of primary care.
I have nothing against EM, mind you. As I said above, at this point I think it may be what I'd like to go into. I'm just talking about what the programs pay for. It would be great if EM were included, but as far as I can tell it very rarely is (with your example being the only one I've heard of).
OSUdoc08 said:How do you know this?
LTrain1 said:come one, the usnews primary care rankings have a d.o. school top 10 and have stanford unranked. If you are under the impression that this d.o. school is better at getting any type of residencies than stanford you really need more insight into the residency selection process.
OSUdoc08 said:Why don't you post Stanford's match list in primary care, and we'll compare it to TCOM's or MSU-COM's.
This might be a bit more objective than you saying Stanford has a better match list because they have a big name.
LTrain1 said:Stanford only has 39.5% of their class going into primary care. This is not because Stanford kids have trouble getting into those prestigious fp and peds residencies. Most people at Stanford want to specialize. I really can't believe you're under the assumption that is easier to get a primary care residency from a d.o. school than Stanford. If I wanted to do primary care the reason I would look at these rankings is to find which school is going to set me up best when residency selection time comes around. I just find it funny that an unranked school in the rankings will give me a much easier time getting any primary care residencies I want than a school in the top 10.
LTrain1 said:Stanford only has 39.5% of their class going into primary care. This is not because Stanford kids have trouble getting into those prestigious fp and peds residencies. Most people at Stanford want to specialize. I really can't believe you're under the assumption that is easier to get a primary care residency from a d.o. school than Stanford. If I wanted to do primary care the reason I would look at these rankings is to find which school is going to set me up best when residency selection time comes around. I just find it funny that an unranked school in the rankings will give me a much easier time getting any primary care residencies I want than a school in the top 10.
drgoodlove said:Why would a top primary care program, with a focus on clinical training, care if John Doe went to Stanford and spent 4 years in a lab doing research and publishing papers about something completely and totally unrelated to the residency program mission? Seems like a bad fit both the student, who according to you wants to specialize anyway, and the program. Not sure why Stanford or any other big name matters in this?
LTrain1 said:i'm sorry if you can't understand why top schools place students in better residencies. Look at the Stanford match list of those who went into primary care and see the quality of residencies they got
drgoodlove said:My point was that it is more important what you do at Stanford or MSU or anywhere else to show your commitment to your chosen field, in this case primary care. The name is only going to get you so far and then it is going to come down to board scores, recommendations and activities that set you apart. Stanford is a great med school but an MD from Stanford is not an admissions ticket to any residency in the country. That was my point.
jeffsleepy said:Yeah, but I think his point was that all things being equal, the Stanford guy has a better shot. So if you're a premed saying "Ok, I'm gonna work hard in med school and show commitment to primary care no matter what," going to Stanford would give you an edge in competative residencies. It's up to you to determine whether or not that's important.
jeffsleepy said:Yeah, but I think his point was that all things being equal, the Stanford guy has a better shot. So if you're a premed saying "Ok, I'm gonna work hard in med school and show commitment to primary care no matter what," going to Stanford would give you an edge in competative residencies. It's up to you to determine whether or not that's important.
drgoodlove said:My point was that it is more important what you do at Stanford or MSU or anywhere else to show your commitment to your chosen field, in this case primary care. The name is only going to get you so far and then it is going to come down to board scores, recommendations and activities that set you apart. Stanford is a great med school but an MD from Stanford is not an admissions ticket to any residency in the country. That was my point.
Research.dz88 said:so what if I just want to be a surgeon, which school should I choose: the research or the primary care med school?
dz88 said:so what if I just want to be a surgeon, which school should I choose: the research or the primary care med school?
souljah1 said:The whole primary care denomination thing is bogus b/c the overwhelming majority of people going into internal medicine, and to some extent ob/gyn and peds, specialize in something. If you look at our match list, we have about 25-35 out of 150'ish who go into internal medicine. How many of those poeple will actually do primary care (outpatient medicine)? Probably less than 10. Most people who go into internal medicine wind up doing fellowships in cards, gi, pulm, id, renal, etc. UCSF used to be top 5 or whatever in primary care, but that is deceiving. Not many people here actually practice outpatient medicine when it is all said and done.
The other thing I'll add is that as people go through medical school fewer and fewer people actually choose to do primary care. I am teaching a small group of first year med students now and the majority of them say things like they want to practice primary care, work with the underserved, etc. Three years later, many of them will be saying things like anesthesia, categorical medicine, emergency medicine, ortho, etc. That is why in most cases whenever someone hears a premed saying they want to do primary care it is heard as "blah blah blah". If it winds up being true, fantastic. But in most cases, people gain more perspective and gain insight into other realms of medicine that they have never considered.
dz88 said:so what if I just want to be a surgeon, which school should I choose: the research or the primary care med school?