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.
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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 ...
Except the exams she mentioned are licensing exams. The degree does no good without a license to practice.
The AMA is an elitist liberal bunch that fewer than 1 in 4 docs belongs to. That is like saying the DNC represents the membership of free republic.
Today’s car are all done by computer. You plug your car into a machine and it tells you what repairs are necessary. Mechanics are computer people not shade tree guys. The rules have changed. No difference in medicine. I bet $1,000.00 that 20 people on this site have a story about a doctor who got it wrong and on a second opinion or after years of failure some other doctor found the solution in minutes. Medicine is not what we are lead to believe.
1. Those who have been given the easy route into medical school may be given the easy route through it to protect their egos and the jobs of those who promote this type of idiocy.
2. With the government and AMA rationing the number of slots in medical school, each one of these unqualified students bumps a qualified one from a seat in the class.
And those licenses will be issued by Kitty Sebelius.
Actually the ideal gas laws and fluid dynamics are more important. Truly most physics is useless in medical school, but so are a lot of the prerequisites. What the classes do help with is the mindset required in medical school. You learn to assimilate a LOT of complicated information quickly in a way that can be remembered
.
For example - gross anatomy in medical school - you get a several thousand page text book with small print, and a cadaver you share with several other students. There will be a test in 12 weeks (and what a test!). If you have not learned the discipline of studying complex issues quickly and on your own by then - good luck.
And while a lot of physics, organic etc does not directly translate to medical school classes (the exception is biochemistry - knowledge of that is a must) the overall knowledge of scientific fields and how the disciplines fit together is invaluable. For example, physiology and pathophysiology combine physics, genetics, organic chemistry, some inorganic chemistry, biology and biochemistry. If you are not familiar with at least the basics of each, you are lost again. You may finish med school with knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep - not a good foundation to practice in a field rapidly changing where self study is necessary every day.
I understand where you're coming from, and don't disagree. What I'm saying is I don't want someone who thinks political science is a worthwhile course of study to perform any task for me that requires a logical thought process.
Unless it has changed, it has always been more difficult to get into veterinary school.
Haven’t opened a PDR in 25 years of practice. Sorry to blow your theory. And BTW I am only an adequate mechanic - I can fix my own sewing machine - but a dang good doc.
Cook books can be taught to anyone. Being a good doc requires the knowledge base and skill (+ experience) to take a bunch of seemingly unrelated facts and lab results and synthesize it into a diagnosis and treatment.
I'm not so sure they choose psychiatry as much as it is chosen for them.
As I understand it, the type of medical practice a medical school graduate goes into depends on a number of factors including faculty recommendations and medical school performance and grades. I have a couple of MD friends who tell me that psychiatry is the medical practice that is left over after all the other specialties have been gobbled up by the more talented and higher-performing medical students.
Comforting thought /s
My DH and I figure we will take care of ourselves until we are too senile, then it doesn’t matter anymore...
I seriously don’t know where the rest of the country will go for good medical care. Obamacare will send most of the good docs packing and most of the rest will retire in the next 10 years or so. 80% of the docs we interview now for openings are foreign grads (don’t get me wrong, some are excellent) and I don’t see any change in that trend in the near future.
Psychiatrists that deal with severely depressed people on a daily basis are heroes, it is something I couldn’t do. Have a little sympathy, depression is the pits.
I don’t know much about Brown, but it’s where Amy Carter went to college. (I forget whether she ever graduated.)
We’ll have doctors who actually believe it isn’t a baby...
” 80% of the docs we interview now for openings are foreign grads (don’t get me wrong, some are excellent) and I don’t see any change in that trend in the near future. “
Having had experience with Doctors who couldn’t understand what I was telling them - and I couldn’t understand what they were telling me — I don’t find this to be a particularly comforting trend....
I bet there’s a racial element to this that the NYT is ignoring. There are “too many” Asians in medical school, if you believe that every institution in America must have the same racial makeup as the general population (I don’t). The pesky Asians are not deterred by math and science requirements — in fact many of them shine in such courses. Therefore we must eliminate math and science prerequisites to make medicine more “diverse”.
Dementia is not a psychological condition. it's a medical one.
Not a damn thing a shrink can do for dementia. It's caused by one or more organic brain diseases, and unfortunately, there are few if any drugs that actually help in any significant way, either. There is no treatment. Quite frankly, the end game here is a locked facility. My wife works in this field, so I get to hear all about it. Not in all the years has she ever indicated a single person with dementia was seeing a shrink, and she's gonna burst out laughing (or crying) when I mention the idea to her.
I've seen more of the medical system, from a patients point of view, than most people, from six weeks in a charity surgical ward at age 15 while race riot were raging a few blocks away, to some of the finest specialty surgeons in the country.
I've also seen some great pre-med students while attending a small private college. A former roommate is currently CEO of a major medical school and hospitals. Another classmate won the Nobel in physics. My own pre-med studies suffered because of my chronic illness and lack of stamina for the rigorous schedule.
I have had a number of foreign doctors who were quite good but have had serious problems with communication. I judge a new doctor initially on the basis of their history taking, and dismiss those who are brief and cursory. But I agree with you that foreign grads will be the future. All I have to do is look at the math and science skills of our public schools and those in Asia.
They may, but they aren’t.
USMLE’s are required of all students.
FWIW, these 35 students are not shining stars of success. They are more likely to drop out, score lower on the Steps, and avoid the sub specialties that require even more training. In essence, they are glorified nurse practioners, except probably not are well-trained.
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