Best for pre-med

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious what people think is inaccurate that has been posted?

What’s a “great” premed.
What’s a “great” med school.
All these silly rankings.

Med school isn’t like law or business. In med school, what matters is what you know, empathy for people, and wanting to serve. It’s not about rankings or perceptions or gaming the system. It’s a calling. And if you love it, you’ll do great things.

I am a doctor who went to a top undergrad and a top med. While of course it is correct that it is a calling, I had friends who were called to ophthalmology (lost an eye as a kid), neurosurgery(dad died of brain cancer). Or they thought they wanted primary care and then fell in love with a super competitive specialty that they were introduced to on med school clinicals and then realized only a handful of places in the US have this subspecialty. The entire class of top 15ish med school grads, even the bottom people(it is pass-fail so there is no strict rank), are able to match into any specialty they want due to the reputation of the top med schools. It is not just a prestigious name, the top med schools are tertiary care centers with highly specialized capability and best in the US or world level clinicians teaching. Residencies specifically surgical or interventional driven fields tend to be the best at the hospital systems affiliated with the top med schools: they select a majority for these programs from top med schools, their own or other schools with that subspecialty. One has to have in depth experience to match in certain fields.
CHOP for example has developed cardiac procedures that were revolutionary in pediatrics: if you want to be a top peds cardio surgeon you need to be there or maybe 6 other places for your training. Same with groundbreaking cancer treatments: they happen at the same 5-10 hospitals in the country.
That is even more important now as robotic techniques are added to the operating theater. Very few med schools in the country have a fully dedicated teaching robotic surgical suite for med students to use.

It absolutely matters where you go to medical school if you have dreams and goals that involve subspecialties, or if you want to be a cutting edge research MD-phD. I do not know a single undergrad who made it to med school nor any of my med school peers who thought "I just want to be a doctor any doctor will do". No that is not how it ever is, for those that end up making it.

If you want to be a researcher, the hardest part will be getting into an MD-PhD program.

[Anonymous]

I think the rub online about premeds is that some are trying to get through as inexpensively as possible or get in somewhere period (understandable!) and others are vying for top schools and specialties. The advice isn't the same for both groups.

[Anonymous]

I know several doctors who were in the middle of our class in high school, and thrived as pre-meds at less selective LAC’s, and went on to top medical schools. That group seemed to do just as well and possibly better than the top kids who went to Uber-selective schools and were weeded out there (or burnt out). Just food for thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know several doctors who were in the middle of our class in high school, and thrived as pre-meds at less selective LAC’s, and went on to top medical schools. That group seemed to do just as well and possibly better than the top kids who went to Uber-selective schools and were weeded out there (or burnt out). Just food for thought.

Time has changed. Medical school admission has became uber competitive since your time. Also, many times the top kids at uber selective schools opt for other career paths simply because there are abundance of opportunities there. It may appear that they were "weeded out" but that may not be the truth.

[Anonymous]

https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/from-pre-med-to-md-understanding-the-pathways-to-medical-school/

[Anonymous]

Don’t discount current parents and their research, some know more on state of applying than current doctors and they’ll admit it. So much has changed and it’s always evolving year to year. They don’t have time to be pouring over stuff online.

[Anonymous]

If you are getting your information from an anonymous website, you are a fool OP. Go spend your time on more data driven official sources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t discount current parents and their research, some know more on state of applying than current doctors and they’ll admit it. So much has changed and it’s always evolving year to year. They don’t have time to be pouring over stuff online.

I'd take doctors' words over premed parents words any day, anytime. But you do you, I guess?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t discount current parents and their research, some know more on state of applying than current doctors and they’ll admit it. So much has changed and it’s always evolving year to year. They don’t have time to be pouring over stuff online.

I'd take doctors' words over premed parents words any day, anytime. But you do you, I guess?

It’s not one or the other? I take my kids premed advising first and foremost. I don’t blindly trust anything, doctor or layperson, articles, this thread, etc. Worked for them getting in to top schools unhooked so they’ll be using lots of avenues to gain knowledge to extrapolate what’s useful.