Who else thinks the entire MD admissions process is bull****?

[Staradmiral]

So basically until we can objectively measure something, we shouldn't bother with it? Nice to know.... were you a philosophy major in undergrad by any chance?

nope, biochemistry major

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[Staradmiral]

So much about this is wrong.

excellent arguement

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

nope, biochemistry major

Ah, the world of the physical scientist... if it isn't an R= .95 then it's obviously useless ****.

 

[Staradmiral]

Ah, the world of the physical scientist... if it isn't an R= .95 then it's obviously useless ****.

yeah that's dead on actually. If it isn't statistically significant then one should not use it to discriminate between two groups/people.

 

[alexandertg6]

It is ridiculously hard to get a good shadowship if you are not family with a current doctor. No big name hospital is gonna take you in if you don't know people, unless your one of the lucky few that got it without any contacts. Most people I know that do not have contacts could only get something with their family doctor which isn't much, while all my classmates that got to be in cardiology etc. guess what, their dad is a cardiologist!

I did exactly that. I had no contacts and ended up shadowing general surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, the deputy chief of staff, and the chief of staff of the hospital. Its impossible if and only if you have no contacts and no people skills. Contacts aren't things you are either born with or without. You can easily make them if you are a like-able person. If you aren't a like-able person learn to act in a way that you can be mistaken for one. I'm in business right now (MBA) and contacts are everything. Remember that hospitals, universities, etc. are all businesses. They offer a service for a fee in order to generate revenue. Thinking that they are anything else is a nice thought but naive.

Hospitals want physicians with well rounded attributes and personalities who can talk to their patients and others because essentially they must "sell" their physicians to patients. They do want them to be driven, intelligent, etc because if they aren't they will get sued often for malpractice (yes that is an oversimplification but bare with me). A hospital where no patient wants to go because the physicians are all tools will not last any longer than a hospital where the physicians are all idiots and kill every other patient.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

yeah that's dead on actually. If it isn't statistically significant then one should not use it to discriminate between two groups/people.

Most medically related R's aren't very high usually. In fact most R's in anything to do with humans are usually below .3. But still .25 and over are considered strong correlations for human studies ( By Cohen's standards) in a plethora of fields and when applied that correlation is worth more than one would assume due to effect size.

 

[Morzh]

As Prowler previously said, the admissions process is a buyer's market, and we are not the buyers. Adcoms clearly do not agree with the OP. Apparently something about obtaining decades more life experience than pre-meds causes a shift in attitude.

This thread is nothing but hot air until a seasoned admissions officer (not a med student or resident) comes along and says "Yep the admissions process is crap--we would all be better off if we just ranked and admitted applicants based off their LizzyM score and nothing more."

 

[gettheleadout]

excellent arguement

Okay, here's my cereal response.

1) Basing admissions on MCAT/GPA and interviews, as you suggested should be done, leaves competitive schools in an inconvenient position (since they have more applicants with 99th percentile stats than they do seats). I'm confused why you think interviews should be a factor at all since you go on to say they're useless and just lying charades. In addition, who is to say that raw intelligence translates to best doctoring?

2) The shadowing thing is just wrong. Maybe in your experience it's been true, but it is in no way an absolute. I have no physicians in my family and have had multiple incredible shadowing experiences through simple arrangement.

3) Volunteering is not bull (again, this may be your experience.) There is an important lesson in humility to learn from serving another without compensation that you feel is adequate, as no one says every doctor will be satisfied with their compensation. Clinical volunteering =/= clinical experience, and while the latter is a de facto requirement for admission, the former is rarely required specifically. As proof, I submit the many accepted applicants that were employed in clinical settings but never volunteered in such a capacity. Further, clinical volunteering is not meant to teach you the "life of a doctor," that is what shadowing is for. Clinical exposure in general is meant to accustom you to the clinical setting/interacting with sick people/seeing blood/etc... so you can confirm your desire to pursue medicine. Schools that unofficially require some form of volunteer service in general have reasons for doing so, again such as getting used to serving another without compensation. I personally have found my volunteering experiences extremely rewarding and fulfilling, so your assertion is at the very least not universally true, though you hold it to be so.

4) Research is not all useless scutwork for premeds. If you believe so, I'm sorry you had a bad experience in research, but many applicants have had important roles in their research experiences. The general idea in preferring research experience to some extent in applicants is that it gives one a hands-on sense of how the knowledge behind medicine is derived, and how the scientific method is relied on to further medicine both in practice and behind-the-scenes.

5) If you really think interviewers can't detect lying or don't know how to probe people effectively, then you either haven't met a good interviewer or only know people who are exceptionally good liars. Canned answers sound canned.

Oh, and it's spelled "argument."

 

[Pooper McGoo]

As Prowler previously said, the admissions process is a buyer's market, and we are not the buyers. Adcoms clearly do not agree with the OP. Apparently something about obtaining decades more life experience than pre-meds causes a shift in attitude.

This thread is nothing but hot air until a seasoned admissions officer (not a med student or resident) comes along and says "Yep the admissions process is crap--we would all be better off if we just ranked and admitted applicants based off their LizzyM score and nothing more."

This is a profound insight.

 

[CodeBlu]

Okay, here's my cereal response.

1) Basing admissions on MCAT/GPA and interviews, as you suggested should be done, leaves competitive schools in an inconvenient position (since they have more applicants with 99th percentile stats than they do seats). I'm confused why you think interviews should be a factor at all since you go on to say they're useless and just lying charades. In addition, who is to say that raw intelligence translates to best doctoring?

2) The shadowing thing is just wrong. Maybe in your experience it's been true, but it is in no way an absolute. I have no physicians in my family and have had multiple incredible shadowing experiences through simple arrangement.

3) Volunteering is not bull (again, this may be your experience.) There is an important lesson in humility to learn from serving another without compensation that you feel is adequate, as no one says every doctor will be satisfied with their compensation. Clinical volunteering =/= clinical experience, and while the latter is a de facto requirement for admission, the former is rarely required specifically. As proof, I submit the many accepted applicants that were employed in clinical settings but never volunteered in such a capacity. Further, clinical volunteering is not meant to teach you the "life of a doctor," that is what shadowing is for. Clinical exposure in general is meant to accustom you to the clinical setting/interacting with sick people/seeing blood/etc... so you can confirm your desire to pursue medicine. Schools that unofficially require some form of volunteer service in general have reasons for doing so, again such as getting used to serving another without compensation. I personally have found my volunteering experiences extremely rewarding and fulfilling, so your assertion is at the very least not universally true, though you hold it to be so.

4) Research is not all useless scutwork for premeds. If you believe so, I'm sorry you had a bad experience in research, but many applicants have had important roles in their research experiences. The general idea in preferring research experience to some extent in applicants is that it gives one a hands-on sense of how the knowledge behind medicine is derived, and how the scientific method is relied on to further medicine both in practice and behind-the-scenes.

5) If you really think interviewers can't detect lying or don't know how to probe people effectively, then you either haven't met a good interviewer or only know people who are exceptionally good liars. Canned answers sound canned.

Oh, and it's spelled "argument."

Nailed it. This is awesome.

 

[sha15]

Can you explain why you have an allergic reaction to it? Don't you love the poor and sick people enough?

retweet

 

[Staradmiral]

As Prowler previously said, the admissions process is a buyer's market, and we are not the buyers. Adcoms clearly do not agree with the OP. Apparently something about obtaining decades more life experience than pre-meds causes a shift in attitude.

This thread is nothing but hot air until a seasoned admissions officer (not a med student or resident) comes along and says "Yep the admissions process is crap--we would all be better off if we just ranked and admitted applicants based off their LizzyM score and nothing more."

There are plenty of admissions committees who only look at scores. Many medical schools in Europe focus mainly on GPA/standardized exam. There are plenty that have no interview at all. When I was a pre-med I applied to 4 schools in the UK. 2 of them had no interview. Yet they are fully recognized by the EU.

The american healthcare system wants its free labour. Who's gonna argue against that?

 

[TheMightySmiter]

Can you explain why you have an allergic reaction to it? Don't you love the poor and sick people enough?

Yes, I am averse to the idea of med school tuition doubling because I hate poor people.

 

[hooligan]

Uh, no, they can't.

This is correct. According to the 2010 score distribution, only 5.8% of MCAT writers got 35 or above. Let's say that of these people, 50% got a 3.9 or above.

This narrows the pool down to about 2.9% of all MCAT test writers. Given that the acceptance rate is 50% in the united states, that leaves a heck of a lot more spots to fill.

It's completely feasible to only select based on GPA/MCAT... and you wouldn't have to be a freak to get in either.

Dude, you're living in the wrong era -- where the MCAT is currently being edited
to include more humanities subjects; adcoms want well-rounded liberal arts
educations; and a solid command of the English (and Spanish!) languages is a
huge advantage in addition to all the things that bother you like
ECs/volunteering/shadowing.

There is nothing that has happened in medicine in the last 10 years that calls for more doctors with humanities experience. If that was the case, they would simply just teach the humanities in medical school. The only reason this is going on is because of ASTROTURFING on the part of the AAMC and adcoms. What's really going on is there is a bunch of liberal, feel good, new age, "community" people on the adcoms and in the AAMC, who studied humanities, and want doctors to be like them and know humanities. That is all.

It's NOT that medicine is changing, and the AAMC and adcoms are adapting. It's that the AAMC and adcoms are changing medicine.

As for spanish? **** that. Let's send all the illegal immigrants back to mexico, problem solved, no need for doctors to know spanish.

 

[MEDCandy]

Too much emphasis on things that are subjective and don't matter, like ECs, and the interview. I doubt the cancer patient who you are cutting open is going to care that you volunteered for big brothers and worked in a biochem lab when you were 18.

Too much emphasis on LoRs, which is pretty much a game of sucking up and hoping you don't get stabbed in the back by an ass hole prof. Doesn't mean much in the long run, but it sure does help out the profs on the adcoms who need some free labor.

Too little emphasis on things that actually matter, like MCAT and GPA.

IMO, admissions should be based on GPA, MCAT, and a pass/fail interview (to screen out the weirdos) ONLY. If you deny this, you are a pinko who simply wants to redistribute wealth by giving the *******es with 3.5 GPAs (who likely come from poor families) a chance of getting in.

I don't get the point of this thread. Either post threads that help you or someone else OR start you're own forum with your super intelligence call ImAwesomeAndRichLetsArgueAboutStupidStuff.net .. It's like that for good reason, you'll be a better doctor bc of it

 

[hooligan]

It's hilarious how people say I'm a loser, virgin, etc. but as soon as they get off this website they're going to go watch porn

 

[JESSFALLING]

The american healthcare system wants its free labour. Who's gonna argue against that?

And with European salaries, doctors might as well have become school teachers, financially speaking.

 

[alexandertg6]

It's hilarious how people say I'm a loser, virgin, etc.

glad you found it amusing too

 

[45408]

Another option would be to double the application fees and double the tuition for med school. That will cut down on the number of applications. The people remaining will be more committed to medicine instead of less committed. Students are borrowing against future income, so it's not about their wealth before med school. Then, the added fees and tuition the med school could donate directly to poor and sick people. Write them checks instead of having pre-meds (and high school students) hovering around them as part of the game plan to get into academic programs. That would be simpler, more effective and more honest and straightforward than things I've heard about among the ultimate applicant types.

That's a really stupid idea, and it's not at all effective. You would favor people with poor financial planning skills.

 

[alexandertg6]

That's a really stupid idea, and it's not at all effective. You would favor people with poor financial planning skills.

agreed. IMO people who go to medical school are usually intelligent and have hard work, initiative, leadership, and creativity (to some extent). Like I mentioned before, Im an MBA student of sorts and my non-professional opinion is that the average medical student can make a **** ton more money if they went into business in one form or another... Were already making sacrifices. We don't want to crucify our nations brightest for becoming physicians or they simply will do something else and the quality of physicians will plummet.

 

[45408]

It is ridiculously hard to get a good shadowship if you are not family with a current doctor. No big name hospital is gonna take you in if you don't know people, unless your one of the lucky few that got it without any contacts. Most people I know that do not have contacts could only get something with their family doctor which isn't much, while all my classmates that got to be in cardiology etc. guess what, their dad is a cardiologist!

Would you like some cheese with that whine? I shadowed an orthopedic surgeon, CT surgeon, general surgeon and ER doc, all through my school's pre-med shadowing program. No connections needed. I did know an anesthesiologist, so I arranged that one myself. Of course, he wasn't really a family friend - I was his landscaper.

Volunteering is all bull. It does not teach you the life of a doctor and is nothing more than a ploy to get free hospital labour out of pre-meds. Volunteer work is suppose to be VOLUNTEER. Making it a requirement should be illegal.

So don't do it. Get a paid job, like I did. Other than a small amount of hospice volunteering I did (and didn't like, so I stopped), I did volunteering with something I did like - a boys' camping program that I was involved in as a kid.

Research is much the same, just getting free lab labour out of pre-meds.

Your labor isn't worth much as a pre-med who's just doing it to grease your application, and in exchange, they're teaching you how to do research.

Interviews are nothing more than who is the best actor. Who can come up with the best answer to "tell me about a leadership experience of yours" whether the answer is real or not, the interviewer can't tell.

Since most pre-meds are sh-tty actors, the interviewer can tell if you're blowing smoke. And no, I was no exception. I'm a terrible liar.

 

[ATPase8]

since when was a 3.5 bad

 

[Pooper McGoo]

agreed. IMO people who go to medical school are usually intelligent and have hard work, initiative, leadership, and creativity (to some extent). Like I mentioned before, Im an MBA student of sorts and my non-professional opinion is that the average medical student can make a **** ton more money if they went into business in one form or another... Were already making sacrifices. We don't want to crucify our nations brightest for becoming physicians or they simply will do something else and the quality of physicians will plummet.

I'm sure the average medical student can make a "**** ton more money in business" rather than as a member of the highest paid profession in the United States. I assume they will apply this brilliant economic rationale in order to bring home the proverbial bacon.

 

[JESSFALLING]

I'm sure the average medical student can make a "**** ton more money in business" rather than as a member of the highest paid profession in the United States. I assume they will apply this brilliant economic rationale in order to bring home the proverbial bacon.

Though I'm not going to argue that it's a profession, investment banking is clearly the more lucrative option, between it and medicine, if that's what floats your boat.

 

[Pooper McGoo]

Though I'm not going to argue that it's a profession, investment banking is clearly the more lucrative option, between it and medicine, if that's what floats your boat.

Investment banking is not the more lucrative option. One could state the top percentages or the average salaries at a bulge bracket are more lucrative, then I could point out that would be an apples to bicycles comparison.

 

[StephanieZ]

Would you like some cheese with that whine? I shadowed an orthopedic surgeon, CT surgeon, general surgeon and ER doc, all through my school's pre-med shadowing program. No connections needed. I did know an anesthesiologist, so I arranged that one myself. Of course, he wasn't really a family friend - I was his landscaper..

Not every school has a premed shadowing program. I would say that that in itself counts as an "in" that alot of people don't have.

 

[Laplace]

FOR THE RECORD:

I'm applying this year, I haven't ever been rejected. I'm probably going to get in too, suckers!

I have a hot blonde girlfriend who I hook up with 4 times a week, including during the school year. Just a bit of advice for the scrubs on this forum: spending some time in the gym, buying nice clothes, and owning an expensive car can actually get you places with women.

Now on to my main point.

I agree that doctors should be compassionate, honest, and leaders.

HOWEVER, you CANNOT measure these qualities by looking at a person's EC list.

Why?

1) Most people do ECs JUST to get into medical school. They wouldn't have done them if they weren't trying to get into medical school. It's therefore impossible to tell who is REALLY compassionate, versus who is just doing it to get in.

2) It's impossible to QUANTIFY how compassionate somebody is based on their ECs. Person A volunteered in the hospital, caring for the elderly. Person B volunteered for Big Sisters, mentoring underpriveledged children. Who is more compassionate? Some people would say person A, some people would say person B. Therefore, it's impossible to put a NUMBER on how compassionate somebody is, making the process UNFAIR.

3) Science says that the interview is complete crap. Studies show that job interviews have no correlation with job performance. Studies also show that, people base hiring decisions within the first 10 seconds of meeting a person, before a word even comes out of their mouth. Mull that over for a while.

The fact is that if your GPA is less than 3.7, you are a SCRUB. Given the VAST number of ******s in our "higher" education system, you couldn't even manage to get in the top 20% of your class? YOU SUCK.

I agree with this 100%. especially the very last paragraph. The problem, like I said earlier, is if you can't use ECs to determine those characteristics, what CAN you use? Schools have nothing else to go on.

 

[gettheleadout]

I agree with this 100%. especially the very last paragraph. The problem, like I said earlier, is if you can't use ECs to determine those characteristics, what CAN you use? Schools have nothing else to go on.

Seriously? A bunch of "scrubs" in engineering departments where the average GPA is 3.1 would beg to differ.

 

[sdguy2008]

the aamc needs to make military service mandatory for application to medical school. 2 year minimum. a little bit of real service would help a lot for some of the immaturity you see here and in medical school frankly.

 

[aSagacious]

the aamc needs to make military service mandatory for application to medical school. 2 year minimum. a little bit of real service would help a lot for some of the immaturity you see here and in medical school frankly.

The overwhelming majority of off duty soldiers I see act no different than high school boys. No disrespect to their business side, but they are hardly more mature than anyone else.

 

[Tots]

How is this thread still going.

 

[gettheleadout]

the aamc needs to make military service mandatory for application to medical school. 2 year minimum. a little bit of real service would help a lot for some of the immaturity you see here and in medical school frankly.

lolwut

 

[dbeast]

This is correct. According to the 2010 score distribution, only 5.8% of MCAT writers got 35 or above. Let's say that of these people, 50% got a 3.9 or above.

This narrows the pool down to about 2.9% of all MCAT test writers. Given that the acceptance rate is 50% in the united states, that leaves a heck of a lot more spots to fill.

It's completely feasible to only select based on GPA/MCAT... and you wouldn't have to be a freak to get in either.



There is nothing that has happened in medicine in the last 10 years that calls for more doctors with humanities experience. If that was the case, they would simply just teach the humanities in medical school. The only reason this is going on is because of ASTROTURFING on the part of the AAMC and adcoms. What's really going on is there is a bunch of liberal, feel good, new age, "community" people on the adcoms and in the AAMC, who studied humanities, and want doctors to be like them and know humanities. That is all.

It's NOT that medicine is changing, and the AAMC and adcoms are adapting. It's that the AAMC and adcoms are changing medicine.[/B]

As for spanish? **** that. Let's send all the illegal immigrants back to mexico, problem solved, no need for doctors to know spanish.

Bolded for troll feeding purposes... Surprised nobody picked that one up yet

 

[MrBananaGrabber]

Bolded for troll feeding purposes... Surprised nobody picked that one up yet

Pouring gas on the fire

 

[TheMightySmiter]

Bolded for troll feeding purposes... Surprised nobody picked that one up yet

Too easy.

 

[circulus vitios]

Volunteering is a stupid waste of time.

 

[JESSFALLING]

If we are going to continue debating how best to raise the proverbial bar ever higher, I think it is important to remember that a high intelligence is worthless without the creativity or motivation to channel it into new frontiers. Richard Feynman and Einstein were smart, obviously, but they are remembered as scientific legends for their incredible contributions. Without said contributions, we wouldn't even know their names.

A proven interest in research is one way that an individual can demonstrate to others that they might have what it takes to become legendary, rather than just ordinary. (Not that an ordinary physician is useless, by any means...they just aren't scholarly, so to say.)

 

[JESSFALLING]

Volunteering is a stupid waste of time.

For you, maybe, but not so much for those you helped. And if you didn't help anyone, you are doing the whole volunteering thing incorrectly!

 

[aSagacious]

If we are going to continue debating how best to raise the proverbial bar ever higher, I think it is important to remember that a high intelligence is worthless without the creativity or motivation to channel it into new frontiers. Richard Feynman and Einstein were smart, obviously, but they are remembered as scientific legends for their incredible contributions. Without said contributions, we wouldn't even know their names.

A proven interest in research is one way that an individual can demonstrate to others that they might have what it takes to become legendary, rather than just ordinary. (Not that an ordinary physician is useless, by any means...they just aren't scholarly, so to say.)

Did you mean to post this here?
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=850266

 

[GoSpursGo]

The end.

Thread closed because the OP has been banned.