Why do med schools allow 12-year-olds to attend?
Started by cubbbie
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I can just see it now. This young kid is in surgery (when first starting his med school rotations) and during the surgery a 2 year old baby died (from a very low risk procedure) and the doctor tells this young kid to go and tell the parents that their baby died during surgery and it turns out that the parents have another kid that is the same age as this academically genius kid is and the parents tell this genius they want to talk to an adult (the parents might even say a real doctor, gasp). I would love to see how he would handle this type of situation.
I guess I keep making posts in this thread because something just doesn't fit right with me having such young people being in the medical field. I guess the issue for me is not that he could not handle the science side of medicine, but what I have an issue with is the social side of the medical care.
Knowing this kid is very young and book smart, I bet he would explain the sciences side of why the baby died in great detail instead of being their for support.
I guess I keep making posts in this thread because something just doesn't fit right with me having such young people being in the medical field. I guess the issue for me is not that he could not handle the science side of medicine, but what I have an issue with is the social side of the medical care.
Knowing this kid is very young and book smart, I bet he would explain the sciences side of why the baby died in great detail instead of being their for support.
Why did you quote me? That had nothing to do with what I said...
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If he's ready to be a doctor, why is she coddling him so much?
I wonder if when his answer to "Why do you want to be a doctor" was "to help people" if the adcomm didn't come back with "So why not choose social work?"
It'd be a great thing if he can get some life experience.
Relax, man. I think he's talking about a hypothetical situation for a tough example involving social skills. Noone's wishing for children to die here (I hope not).
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Are you even in med school yet? I highly doubt most people could start med school at 16-17. I doubt I could have. I know I couldn't have started college at 12.
This was so funny I choked on my Wheat Thins!!
We have a 17 year old here and I think that's a bit on the young side (to be rotating and dealing with patients as a 19 year old....) but a 12 year old is harder for me to swallow. However, he's doing the phd/md rpite so it's not like he'll see patients until he's in his late teens at least.
However, medicine is such a time consuming field and the ethical issues surrounding it can be quite complex, I'm not sure a 12 year old would be able to handle some of the tough issues he will confront as a resident and a very young attending who've only hung around people ten years older than him. A high intelligence IQ does not equal a high emotional IQ. I think the problem isn't that he started school so young (although that's another bag of worms) but that he'll be entering a field that will demand a certain social aptitude which he does not seem to have.
Btw, not jealous or bitter. I am in med school and I am glad for the college and work experiences I had before going to med school. 😀
However, medicine is such a time consuming field and the ethical issues surrounding it can be quite complex, I'm not sure a 12 year old would be able to handle some of the tough issues he will confront as a resident and a very young attending who've only hung around people ten years older than him. A high intelligence IQ does not equal a high emotional IQ. I think the problem isn't that he started school so young (although that's another bag of worms) but that he'll be entering a field that will demand a certain social aptitude which he does not seem to have.
Btw, not jealous or bitter. I am in med school and I am glad for the college and work experiences I had before going to med school. 😀
He's not only pre-med, he's pre-Pub(erty)!!!
It's a pity really, you just know his grades are gonna go bling as soon as he discovers girls.
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Haha, how did I never realize this? I guess Zordon was bald for a reason afterall......
hahah i love how everyone on here is so comfortable judging someone they dont even know. for all you know, he may be just fine with people. and like others said, with him doing the md/phd route, he wont be seeing patients until his late teens. besides, the adcoms know "good doctor material" much better than anyone on this board, i would think.
there are many normally-aged people i know who are social idiots with no real "life experience" who also easily got into many medical schools (and everyone on here also has a ton of examples of this). as rationally-minded people, we should reserve judgment on how good this guy is until actually meeting him. just because you are really smart doesnt mean you cant also be smooth in dealing with patients; most of you are just jealous.
there are many normally-aged people i know who are social idiots with no real "life experience" who also easily got into many medical schools (and everyone on here also has a ton of examples of this). as rationally-minded people, we should reserve judgment on how good this guy is until actually meeting him. just because you are really smart doesnt mean you cant also be smooth in dealing with patients; most of you are just jealous.
On a more serious note, as a former child 'genius' that went down in flames, it's like 99% your parents. (I have nothing on this guy, I was just doing all these math classes like 3-4 years ahead).
It's ridiculous and impossible that a 12 year old really knows what he wants to do. I don't buy for a half second the bullcrap that his parents had nothing to do with his desire for med school; if they just let him go thru kindergarden he'd be writing little stories about how he wants to be a fireman when he grows up or something.
I'm also totally not surprised the kid is not american. I'm even willing to bet the med school partly accepted him because of that cutesy CNN article. (In case you are verbally challenged, the logic here is like this: the school thinks ahead, and goes "Aha! If we accept him, we get a CNN article about ourselves, and people hear our name and associate us with geniuses.")
And I'm not judging the kid since I have no doubt he did not actually apply to med school on his own. I'm judging his parents.
I've personally known some people that were 'pushed' into certain career tracks by their parents early on. In the one particular example of a 'genius' (that's not me), he is quite bitter now because he actually doesn't want to do whatever his parents pushed him into doing, and as a result feels like he missed out on a lot. Which he did. You only hear the cute success stories in the news, the failures are 'boring'.
hahah yes they accepted him to medical school based on an article written about how he is already a first year medical student...
yes, maybe his parents did have something to do with it, but i know plenty of 21-22 year olds who are just as much in the same boat.
That made absolutely no sense. There is no similarity between a 12 yo's 'boat' and a 21-22yo's 'boat'. I am in the mood to include a personal attack on you with that statement, but I'm too lazy to make one, so imagine this blank is an insult to your manhood: _________________
man, you're giving U of C way too much credit here. read what i said earlier about Chicago. you can't tell me that the adcom truly considered a 12-year-old to be better "doctor material" than every single one of the 5000 people they rejected that year. their decision had nothing to with whether or not he'd be a good doctor and everything to do with whether or not he'd be a good genius.
Maybe not med school, but entering college before you are 17 or 18. It's totally possible, it's just that you have to give up stuff like girls (or guys), video games, TV, etc. For me at least, stuff started getting hard when I entered college. Middle school, high school, etc. was pretty chill relatively speaking. I mean, think of all the people who skipped 1-2 grade levels. They skipped them when they were in kindegarden and elementary school and I wouldn't consider them geniuses. What, they could stack the blocks or count numbers at a higher level? They basically skipped a bunch of play time which is pretty useless, but nice to have when all you care about is Pokemon and Super Smash Bros.
This debate over young kids in professional school will always be a hot one.
But to answer an earlier question, the kid does stand an abnormaly high chance of washing out.
There was a study done a while back of child prodigies that go onto professional school and I believe a vast majority of them burnt out and became unemployed, a large chunk of them also suffer from severe psychological disorders too.
Oh well, it'll be interesting to see where he ends up in 10-20 years. I don't imagine he'll go anywhere far.
But to answer an earlier question, the kid does stand an abnormaly high chance of washing out.
There was a study done a while back of child prodigies that go onto professional school and I believe a vast majority of them burnt out and became unemployed, a large chunk of them also suffer from severe psychological disorders too.
Oh well, it'll be interesting to see where he ends up in 10-20 years. I don't imagine he'll go anywhere far.
👍 Enough with this 'bend over and take it cuz adcoms know bezzts' attitude. This acceptance had as much to do with flash as it did with logic. If you take one look at all the hoops we're supposed to go through to prove our maturity and dedication to serving others et al infinitum, and turn around and watch a pre-teen enter behind your back, it should serve as a bit of a reality check, if nothing else. In the end, stats might not get you in...but they'll definitely get you to the door. And if you're 12, then yeah, they will get you in.
That's not true or nice. The kid is obviously smart, even if his parents aren't. So he might drop med school and go through a "what do I actually want to do" phase, but he'll pull through. He's a smart kid, and he has plenty of time to correct any potential mistakes.
Yes, a lot of people are pressured to enter a profession by their parents. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the majority of students in a profession. But for this kid, his parents probably had EVERYTHING to do with it, which is sad. They probably did some classical conditioning, like make him touch a firehose as an infant and simultaneously blow a horn in his face to make him cry.
It's even more sad/hilarious when people interview him and he says, "oh yah, i always wanted to be a doctor!" Righttt... He doesn't even have pubic hair yet and probably thinks girls are the devil.
I'm bitter because I was held back at various times because of age long ago, when I was young. I wasn't allowed to enroll in some programming classes at a community college because I wasn't in high school yet. Nothing as big of a deal as being 12 in medical school, but still...
Also, I know that I got nothing out of some school years. I feel that I should have been given a chance to skip a grade or three, but I didn't know about pursuing such a thing at the time.
alright thanks, i think your inane comment may have proved my point.
A lot of people love to pass judgements upon others who they understand very little about. I know personally of two people who entered college at 13 and besides being brilliant they are also some of the most intellectually, and emotionally mature people I have ever met. One of them was accepted to medical school at 16 and doing awesome. People talk a lot about emotional maturity and understanding of ethical issues. I have seen the premeds who get into medical schools, and sadly I can't say that all of them are emotionally mature or ethically understanding. I do not presume to know whether this kid is emotionally ready or not, but I am not so fast to pass judgement upon someone who obviously put the effort into getting the grades and MCAT.
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A 12 year old in medical school???? lol i bet he will actually be learning about pubes and vaginas in text books before he even gets any...
nah but seriously, who cares.
nah but seriously, who cares.
im not saying you are wrong, i am just saying it is really short-sighted to come to this judgment without ever having talked to this kid. if he is indeed a dick, well then mea culpa, you are right.
i don't think many people here on this thread are actually judging that kid. i think the issue here is 1.) the hypocrisy of the admissions committee and 2.) the dubious value of starting school at such a young age, as well as the potential pitfalls of such an action. it has nothing to do with the kid.
Whoa - I think you misread my post. Nowhere did I imply he was cocky et al. Actually, I wasn't even talking about the kid. My point was that schools aren't simply accepting and rejecting people based purely on standardized scores and ECs, though they often claim to the contraray. Other factors - like the "will this be the one to put us on the map?" factor - often come into play. And the hypocrisy or double-standard within that is what a few of us have been addressing here.
1.) I do not see any hypocrisy within in the admission committee(s) who accepted this 12 year old. This process is mysterious, and they never profess a clear cut criteria for acceptance.
2.) I feel it is even more dubious to not allow someone who obviously has what it takes to do well to follow their own volition. I rather doubt keeping him home, or in high school, or in junior high is going to help him in anyway. I doubt that any of us would like to re-enter 1st grade, so don't expect the equivalent of him.
Are you a professional hyperbolist? Because there's very little in common between a 12 year old going to the (gasp!) 6th grade instead of med school and a 19/20/21+ year old going to med school instead of to the 1st grade. I'd hardly call those equivalents, unless we're using some kind of inverse logarithmic math.
The only thing is that you don't know what that kid has achieved beyond his scores/GPA....
How do you know that he isn't exceptional also outside the classroom and that he might even have achieved more than most people entering med school? If I read correctly he has a research paper to his name.
Most of the posts here are just making assumptions that U Chicago is using him as a stat, rather than he might actually be a much better candidate than most people, except for his age.
Unless you were an adcom at U Chicago and you were part of the ones making the decision, you have no idea what went on in that process.
Just because he didn't smoke pot, get drunk, and went to high school formals doesn't necessarily mean that he didn't "live life".
I skipped about half of the thread, so I apologize if I'm repeating someone else. A lot of people are saying that this kid should sit back and enjoy highschool/college. I agree that a twelve year old should probably not be in med school and that their social life should be encouraged, but has anyone ever spent much time with a prodigy child? I have a cousin who was pretty close to reading at 2 years old. I was amazed at how smart this kid was. Of course his mom is going to homeschool the kid. She can't put him in kidnergarten when he is already doing easy algebra. She can't put a five year old in fourth grade. So, she homeschools him, and his knowledge continues to grow. A true prodigy child is just going to have a difficult time socially until they get old enough that they can sort of hide their intelligence so they fit in with their peers. And who's to say this kids gonna want to have the typical social life a teenager has. Most likely, he's interested in his education. Certainly this kid should be able to decide to slow things down a bit and try to be social, and his parents shouldn't push him to be older than he is.... but at the same time, a true prodigy really is gonna have different goals and desires than you and I.
Are you a professional hyperbolist? Because there's very little in common between a 12 year old going to the (gasp!) 6th grade instead of med school and a 19/20/21+ year old going to med school instead of to the 1st grade. I'd hardly call those equivalents, unless we're using some kind of logarithmic math.
I'm starting to love your posts, Rafa.
I graduated from high school at age 16, and it sucked. I never felt like I really fit in. Those 2 years just killed me. It was the worst thing my parents ever did for me. I always felt so far behind my peers, like I was constantly having to keep up with the big kids, even though they were in my grade. It makes a difference. And that was just 2 years. I consequently took time off after high school, and it was the best thing I ever did. Even though a 12-year-old might be mature "for his age," if he isn't given the time to develop and cope at a normal pace, there will be some significant holes in his emotional development.
Apparently a lot of people who've posted on this thread already...and counting...
Did you take the time to read the articles posted in this thread? Those articles show that this kid is no where near mentally read for the very complex ethical issues that he will have to deal with in the very near future.
He treats his sister like dirt and you expect him to be able to show he can mentally handle a case where a female has to make a choice of having her breast removed to save her life from breast cancer even though she wants to still get married and have a family and risk dying of cancer if the chemo therapy does not work and the lady risking getting into a serious relationship and starting a family knowing she runs the risk of drying from her breast cancer. Can you honestly say he would be able to handle such a situation when he has not even had sex yet or even know all of the mental and psychological issues involved? Yes a person can read all about the details in a textbook, but having to do with the HUMAN EMOTIONS is much harder to deal with then is the textbook "do it this way" approach.
Even if this kid goes into pediatrics is he going to know how to handle the different cultural issues that a person would have to do deal with for a seriously ill child?
Even some of the psychological experts that deal with child development say a kid this young should not be in medical school. Not necessarily because they would lack the ability to understand the science aspect, that can be done just by having more glia cells present in the brain then a normal person (which this kid might have), but knowing how to handle the VERY complex ethical issues that is involved with medical cases, a person that young just cant know how to handle it.
He treats his sister like dirt and you expect him to be able to show he can mentally handle a case where a female has to make a choice of having her breast removed to save her life from breast cancer even though she wants to still get married and have a family and risk dying of cancer if the chemo therapy does not work and the lady risking getting into a serious relationship and starting a family knowing she runs the risk of drying from her breast cancer. Can you honestly say he would be able to handle such a situation when he has not even had sex yet or even know all of the mental and psychological issues involved? Yes a person can read all about the details in a textbook, but having to do with the HUMAN EMOTIONS is much harder to deal with then is the textbook "do it this way" approach.
Even if this kid goes into pediatrics is he going to know how to handle the different cultural issues that a person would have to do deal with for a seriously ill child?
Even some of the psychological experts that deal with child development say a kid this young should not be in medical school. Not necessarily because they would lack the ability to understand the science aspect, that can be done just by having more glia cells present in the brain then a normal person (which this kid might have), but knowing how to handle the VERY complex ethical issues that is involved with medical cases, a person that young just cant know how to handle it.
That is you and you are unique. Don't generalize. I went through a program, along with 200 other 16 year olds and younger, that allowed all of us to bypass the remaining years of high/middle school and go straight to college. As a class we kicked ass. A large number of national finalists (PSAT), a few intel semi-finalists, and so on. Most of us are well adjusted and never regret skipping those years in highschool/middle school.
That kid is MSTP.
He is not going to go anywhere near a patient until he is at least 17, and even though that might still be young, he will be a lot more mature than he is right now, especially since he is constantly surrounded by older people.
VERY complex ethical issues will be difficult to handle by ANYONE, no matter what their age is. Heck, I know many med students who are nowhere near the mental maturity expectations that some hold so high here. Don't tell me that by age 20-21, everyone will have the answers to ethical issues/dilemmas. You learn how to handle that stuff in med school once you are thrown to the sharks.
By your logic, you can't deal with patients suffering of cancer because you never experienced it yourself? Tell me how many docs that had to counsel a patient that needs a mastectomy actually got one and experienced that themselves? Most people, no matter what their age, will never have experienced ( hopefully) most of the stuff they'll encounter.
Again, you might be right. But like I said, those are just assumptions. The article paints a "cutesy" picture, but it doesn't tell us how "mature" he really is. At 12, he might not be "developed" enough to deal with more complex emotional issues, but by age 16-17, he should be, especially considering how intelligent he is in the first place.
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Don't generalize? I'm sorry, what is it you're doing immediately after you tell me not to generalize? It seems to me almost like a little bit of a generalization. Weird.
Also, there is a large difference between skipping ahead when you're 16, and skipping ahead when you're younger (in my case, 5). By the time you hit 15 or 16, you've done a lot of your socializing. It does not make nearly as big of an impact.
I am not quite sure what part of the articles you are reading, but from what I can tell he was well adjusted and accepted by his initially skeptical peers. In addition his professors rank him among the best in the class and his grades are stellar. You seem to find fault with his reluctance to come to clear cut answers regarding ethical issues. If you would recall his reluctance does not stem from a lack of interest, " "I knew he'd be smart when it came to science. But Sho thinks so much about social and political issues and then makes up his mind," Pocivavsek told a visitor.", but rather a mature realization that these issues are very tough. I have met a lot of people who are sure of a lot things, and they are usually the ones with the shallow understanding of the issues. He squabbles with his sister. Man that really is immature. [sarcasm]Adults never have squabbles with their siblings[sarcasm].
I offered a counter-example to your generalization. I would have never brought up my history and experiences if you didn't. In addition my experience involve observation of 200 other samples, unlike your's.
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you win. you can list 200 cool people. my personal experience is of no relevance or value whatsoever.
i'll repeat what i said before:
there is a large difference between skipping ahead when you're 16, and skipping ahead when you're younger (in my case, 5). By the time you hit 15 or 16, you've done a lot of your socializing. It does not make nearly as big of an impact.
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