Website to review medical schools...

[@JackShephard]

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For almost everything we consume or buy in today's world, we typically are able to read reviews by actual customers on their use of a product, if it was better or worse than expected, strengths / weaknesses, regrets, enthusiastic recommendations, etc.

Does anyone know if there is a website or source we can do this for medical schools? I'm sure many medical students would be happy to inform future students with an honest thorough review of the strengths/weaknesses of their school, and maybe a 1-5 star ranking on various metrics. Also, the reviews could be anonymous leading to more honest remarks.

I wonder if this could be put together somewhere, either on SDN or somewhere else. Maybe I just haven't heard of it, but if not then I'm surprised no one has put something like this together.

 

[DermViser]

Does anyone know if there is a website or source we can do this for medical schools? I'm sure many medical students would be happy to inform future students with an honest thorough review of the strengths/weaknesses of their school, and maybe a 1-5 star ranking on various metrics. Also, the reviews could be anonymous leading to more honest remarks.

I wonder if this could be put together somewhere, either on SDN or somewhere else. Maybe I just haven't heard of it, but if not then I'm surprised no one has put something like this together.

Yeah, it's called SDN and the Pre-Allopathic school forums.

 

[chipwhitley]

I think a website where it would be easy to pull up reviews of a specific school without reading through hundreds of unorganized threads, would be nice.

 

[The Kraken]

Of course not subject to the issues of other review sites with a vocal minority expressing polarized views.

 

[chipwhitley]

Of course not subject to the issues of other review sites with a vocal minority expressing polarized views.

You have to take reviews with a grain of salt, as always. That doesn't mean we shouldn't allow people to write reviews. They are useful.

One might argue that SDN also suffers from the issue of a minority expressing polarized views. Doesn't mean it is a useless site.

 

[@JackShephard]

Yeah, it's called SDN and the Pre-Allopathic school forums.

I think a website where it would be easy to pull up reviews of a specific school without reading through hundreds of unorganized threads, would be nice.

Exactly, I mean like you would review any product. Click on the school, see a list of anywhere from 10-100 reviews which collate into a ranking system.

I haven't been on the pre-allo forums in a while, but when I was it was 95% pre-meds just excited about getting into schools rather than a critical analysis of what made schools good or bad. Even if those posts did come, they are hidden between hundreds of useless posts.

Of course not subject to the issues of other review sites with a vocal minority expressing polarized views.

Oh, obviously. Every review site will have polarized views. Isn't that the internet though and humanity in general? Let's leave it up to the reader to make an assessment on the bias of the writer, but this shouldn't deter us from creating a place to freely exchange ideas on the quality of each individual school. If the school I went to had 100 well written reviews and honest assessments, I would have read it before attending even if there would be bias in it. As it stands today, I received 110% positive bias information about my school, which I think is a disservice because there are obviously strengths and weaknesses to every school. Allowing the students to share this would be beneficial to everyone.

 

[@JackShephard]

You have to take reviews with a grain of salt, as always. That doesn't mean we shouldn't allow people to write reviews. They are useful.

One might argue that SDN also suffers from the issue of a minority expressing polarized views. Doesn't mean it is a useless site.

Exactly.

I think there would be a lot of interest on this for both graduating students (M4 allows time to reflect on the process) and the incoming students - who get a one-sided sales pitch of each school.

 

[chipwhitley]

Exactly.

I think there would be a lot of interest on this for both graduating students (M4 allows time to reflect on the process) and the incoming students - who get a one-sided sales pitch of each school.

I'm down to build it. I'm not going to residency so I've got to find something to do with my loads of free time 🙂

 

[DermViser]

I'm down to build it. I'm not going to residency so I've got to find something to do with my loads of free time 🙂

You should make it like ScutWork.com for residencies: www.scutwork.com

 

[KinasePro]

You should contact the people at doximity. I'm sure they'd be willing to work with you on it if they're not doing it already. There's a lot of young, nice people running that website and they're all about making people's CVs grow.

 

[chipwhitley]

You should contact the people at doximity. I'm sure they'd be willing to work with you on it if they're not doing it already. There's a lot of young, nice people running that website and they're all about making people's CVs grow.

Do you know anyone there I can talk to?

 

[CarlosDanger]

I think it would be marginally useful, but each med student only attends 1 school, so its like going to one restaurant and saying it was the worst restaurant you've ever been to. So, kind of like yelp but less useful.

I would still read it though. It would be interesting to have a centralized place to read 4th years' reflection on their experiences and what they liked/disliked about their program. Unfortunately, I think it would just place undeserved long-term stigmas on certain schools based on 1 person's diatribe.

 

[DermViser]

Do you know anyone there I can talk to?

Email them: https://www.doximity.com/faq

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

You should make it like ScutWork.com for residencies: www.scutwork.com

Unfortunately scutwork is pretty much useless now...I think it must have been more popular in the early 2000s bc that's when most of the reviews are from.

 

[DermViser]

Unfortunately scutwork is pretty much useless now...I think it must have been more popular in the early 2000s bc that's when most of the reviews are from.

Yeah, I have no idea why people don't use it now.

 

[MedRookie]

Glad someone asked this, MedRookie.com is already working on this =D it should be up and running in no time.

 

[Lucca]

Glad someone asked this, MedRookie.com is already working on this =D it should be up and running in no time.

God I love capitalism.

 

[@JackShephard]

Glad someone asked this, MedRookie.com is already working on this =D it should be up and running in no time.

Sounds awesome, I will definitely try to post a review on the site.

Have you spoken with medical students to get feedback on things like: What metrics to include (maybe like 4-5 that you can rank 1-5 each, i.e. curriculum, required assignments, clinical rotations, grading, etc). I'm sure if we had a dozen medical students think about a group of metrics, you could come up with 5-10 high quality selections. Obviously after that the free response area would be key, there could be some prompts but allowing the person to tell their story in a free response would be essentially.

I'm excited to see what you guys put together, hopefully you don't make the mistake that the government does and just build something without going to the users to see what they would want in it... (i.e. not asking doctors how they would like EHR to work, i.e. any healthcare adminstration not working with physicians and instead just implementing whatever). There are tons of intelligent medical students happy to help give feedback on how to set up the site. (I'm sure you guys already know this, as most real companies that are for profit think of things like this, it's just that our government scares me how they set up huge websites or tech systems, so I figured I throw out the advice).

 

[DermViser]

Sounds awesome, I will definitely try to post a review on the site.

Have you spoken with medical students to get feedback on things like: What metrics to include (maybe like 4-5 that you can rank 1-5 each, i.e. curriculum, required assignments, clinical rotations, grading, etc). I'm sure if we had a dozen medical students think about a group of metrics, you could come up with 5-10 high quality selections. Obviously after that the free response area would be key, there could be some prompts but allowing the person to tell their story in a free response would be essentially.

I'm excited to see what you guys put together, hopefully you don't make the mistake that the government does and just build something without going to the users to see what they would want in it... (i.e. not asking doctors how they would like EHR to work, i.e. any healthcare adminstration not working with physicians and instead just implementing whatever). There are tons of intelligent medical students happy to help give feedback on how to set up the site. (I'm sure you guys already know this, as most real companies that are for profit think of things like this, it's just that our government scares me how they set up huge websites or tech systems, so I figured I throw out the advice).

Yes, I have many good categories that could be included.

 

[@JackShephard]

Hmm, after visiting MedRookie site it looks like another copy of SDN, which isn't the point of this thread. I was thinking more like Amazon.com - how people review books or other products.

Also, I don't mean to be overly harsh, but the design of your website is not very good.

It's very bloated. There is very little information on the page and you have to scroll down far too often. Maybe this is an attempt to make it more user friendly on a mobile device? It doesn't look good on a laptop/desktop.

Do you know anyone there I can talk to?

Chip, you may need to work with Doximity. Go for it if you're not going to residency, you could do some good work here.

 

[@JackShephard]

Yes, I have many good categories that could be included.

Feel free to share. I think Chip is taking the lead on this with Doximity.

 

[DermViser]

Feel free to share. I think Chip is taking the lead on this with Doximity.

Just off the top of my head I would use categories like:

Grading System -- and what percent of class is allowed to get H (if it's norm referenced), or if not (criterion referenced)
How much time after MS-2 to study for Step 1 (and whether it's required to promote to Year 3)
Whether the MSPE gives rank, quartile, code words (and what those code words mean) --- since med students get to see their MSPE
Clerkships -- and how they are graded and what goes into each grade.
Maybe reviews for each required basic science course and clerkship
Reviews of Student Affairs and their help in career planning etc.
Reviews of certain departments at that school.

 

[MedRookie]

Hmm, after visiting MedRookie site it looks like another copy of SDN, which isn't the point of this thread. I was thinking more like Amazon.com - how people review books or other products.

Also, I don't mean to be overly harsh, but the design of your website is not very good.

It's very bloated. There is very little information on the page and you have to scroll down far too often. Maybe this is an attempt to make it more user friendly on a mobile device? It doesn't look good on a laptop/desktop.


Chip, you may need to work with Doximity. Go for it if you're not going to residency, you could do some good work here.

We are a non profit website. Its just for medical students or pre-med. No Dental and all the other stuff you find on here. The school review system will be based on a few different criteria, also offering the student the chance to write a short comment.

 

[alamo4]

Does anyone know if there is a website or source we can do this for medical schools? I'm sure many medical students would be happy to inform future students with an honest thorough review of the strengths/weaknesses of their school, and maybe a 1-5 star ranking on various metrics.

Yeah, you can just use Yelp, same as for any other place:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/harvard-medical-school-boston-3

You can give five stars, just like your spec.

$$$$, Reservation required

 

[Psai]

If there's anything medicine needs, it's more subjective measurements based on poorly defined criteria with a useless number based grading system for randomly chosen metrics that don't help anyone.

Also your proposed system already exists on this site

 

[@JackShephard]

If there's anything medicine needs, it's more subjective measurements based on poorly defined criteria with a useless number based grading system for randomly chosen metrics that don't help anyone.

Also your proposed system already exists on this site

???

Somehow you've associated an idea for a non-required, free to participate or not, feedback system by users to metrics that physicians are forced to use (i.e. required, nonexempt), used to drive productivity or force efficiency / pressuring physicians to do things they can't.

Those are far from the same things.

 

[Psai]

You need to get over yourself. Also your proposed tool already exists at schools.studentdoctor.net

 

[@JackShephard]

You need to get over yourself. Also your proposed tool already exists at schools.studentdoctor.net

I asked if it existed before proposing a tool, you would realize that if you read my first post.

I find it interesting how hostile people in this profession are to each other. It's interesting that we have politicians, media and midlevels who are all battering us. And our profession in general is far from collegial. The attitude you display is harbinger of the disaster that faces medicine.

We have always been a fragmented group, quickly willing to insult others or tell them to get over themselves when others are just trying to think of ways to help others.

if we can't live together—we're gonna die alone.

- Jack Shephard

Anyway, I've grown tired of this site.

You're probably right, my idea was terrible, poor, random, and useless.

Good luck to everyone else.