Go to Africa
Posted on 07/30/2010 5:06:28 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
For generations of pre-med students, three things have been as certain as death and taxes: organic chemistry, physics and the Medical College Admission Test, known by its dread-inducing acronym, the MCAT.
So it came as a total shock to Elizabeth Adler when she discovered, through a singer in her favorite a cappella group at Brown University, that one of the nation’s top medical schools admits a small number of students every year who have skipped all three requirements.
*
They forgo organic chemistry, physics and calculus — though they get abbreviated organic chemistry and physics courses during a summer boot camp run by Mount Sinai. They are exempt from the MCAT. Instead, they are admitted into the program based on their high school SAT scores, two personal essays, their high school and early college grades and interviews.
The study found that, by some measures, the humanities students made more sensitive doctors: they were more than twice as likely to train as psychiatrists (14 percent compared with 5.6 percent of their classmates) and somewhat more likely — though less so than Dr. Kase had expected — to go into primary care fields, like pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology (49 percent compared with 39 percent). Conversely, they avoid some fields, like surgical subspecialties and anesthesiology.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ms. Adler said she was inspired by her freshman study abroad in Africa. “I didn’t want to waste a class on physics, or waste a class on orgo,” she said. “The social determinants of health are so much more pervasive than the immediate biology of it.”
She added that her parents, however, were “thrilled when I decided to go the M.D. route, because they were worried about my job security.”
Meh. Womyn's studies graduates are good enough for treating womyn. < /sarc>
Why on Earth would anyone want MORE psychiatrists?
If you apply yourself, those kind of tests aren’t really very hard. Studying for them is just the same as working a 40 hr a week job.
I wouldn’t want a doctor who couldn’t do them.
I guess if my current doctor dies I’ll start taking care of myself. I’ve actually studied physics, biology and organic chemistry.
So my veterinarian is better trained than these new doctors?!
They never told us what sex most of these students are.
To convince people to take the Red Pill......
Go to Africa
Oh dear God, we’re boned.
“So it came as a total shock to Elizabeth Adler when she discovered, through a singer in her favorite a cappella group at Brown University, that one of the nation’s top medical schools admits a small number of students every year who have skipped all three requirements.”
How nice for them. You just don’t want them around when your appendix starts to swell or your tonsils turn red.
What a crock of crap. And yet, Brown University is accepting her in to their medical school.
The operation of that university has apparently been 100% turned over to self-righteous, elitist social engineers. As far as I am concerned, Brown University has lost every shred of its academic integrity.
What a shame. It used to be a great school.
One obvious question would be: how do these doctors do in practice vs. their peers? The truth is that, in many professions, you learn much more than you need to actually do the job effectively. Part of the rationale is that you use it to insure that the people who get though the program are of higher quality. In many cases, however, this argument rings hollow.
In the military, I was treated by many people who (I assumed) were full fledged physicians but turned out to be physicians assistants. At the time, I didn’t detect any real difference and they treated me just fine.
Translation: I'm going to nag the shit out of you to live the lifestyle that I demand. Screw science, what matters is what feeeeeeeeeeeels like the right thing to do.
A classmate in the program, Kathryn Friedman, 21, graduated from the Chapin School in New York City, before going to Williams, where she is a senior, majoring in political science. Her mother and uncle are doctors at Mount Sinai; her father, Robert Friedman, who works in the entertainment business, is on the Mount Sinai Medical Center board.
The humanities program has allowed her to pursue other interests, like playing varsity tennis and going abroad, she said. When her pre-med classmates hear about the program, she said, “a lot of them are jealous.”
She added, “They are, like, ‘Wow, I wish I had known about that.’ ”
There is a shortage of psychiatrists right now -- in part because of the last time the gov't got into the act and restricted the supply of new doctors about 20 years ago. As the US population continues to age, dementia will become even more of a problem than it is today, and the need for psychiatrists will continue to increase.
So they get into Med School, big deal. They will be crushed on their first round of USMLE’s and wash out in a year.
Which would be why Mt. Sinai declined to say how these non-traditionals are doing 5-10 years down the road.
This is a play for money and publicity by Mt. Sinai. If anything, the competition for med school has gotten more fierce and more aggressive rather than less.
If the MD is from Brown you don’t want ‘em around!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.