Requirements for medical school
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Anonymous
Because the insurance companies only reimburse them for like 8 mins per patient. |
Anonymous
Business. Accounting. Just about anything if you are really good at it -- a friend who went to cosmetology school when we were in high school now has 2 salons and a med spa and makes more than your average doctor. |
Anonymous
And American grads do not want those spots. You realize that not all programs/residencies are the same, right? That not all are created equal? And that rotation sites are not residency spots? I had an M4 complaining bitterly to me just last week about lack of rotation spots. |
Anonymous
Learn what the day-to-day of being a doctor actually looks like? |
Anonymous
They don't need to do "hundreds of shadowing hours." Most med schools recommend somewhere between 40 (which is of course just one week) to 100 (which is just 2 1/2 weeks). A very reasonable amount of time to look at whether or not this is something you want to be investing in and doing for the rest of your life. And yes, you certainly need at least a week. I would recommend a week with at least two different doctors. This isn't mindless "busy work." Not at all. |
Anonymous
No med school requires hundreds of hours of shadowing. Most have no formal requirement, the ones that do are usually like 30-40 hours. so maybe 4 full days or 8 half days. It is really not that big of a deal. https://jackwestin.com/resources/blog/how-many-shadowing-hours-are-needed-for-medical-school |
Anonymous
| Parents, you could learn a lot by reading the forums on the website, student doctor network. Covers medical professional fields beside the MD |
Anonymous
Most of EC activities are not “required” but they are, nevertheless, “soft” required. |
Anonymous
Literally no school soft requires hundreds of hours of shadowing. |
Anonymous
+1000 Not even close. |
Anonymous
This is such a good example of the nonsense that runs rampant on DCUM. People spreading ridiculous misinformation and others running with it. People are on here arguing how absurd it is that students have to do "hundreds of hours of shadowing" to get into med school, when literally no school is requiring or even expecting to see applicants with "hundreds of hours of shadowing." |
Anonymous
Exactly! Because we have all had undergrad shadows and know exactly how valuable that experience is likely to be. It’s not that it doesn’t have value, it’s that the benefit of doing 150 vs 25 or 50 is essentially nil. Now if the kid was working as an emt or a patient care tech that’s a different story (and they’d be getting paid!) |
Anonymous
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As a retired US academic physician who worked at a top medical school, I have a few reflections:
At UVa 50 years ago, 500 future premeds huddled into the chemistry lecture hall to hear about the process of becoming a doctor. Over the next four years we studied hard and played hard. But many were lost along the way. At the time of my graduation in 1979, there were only about 50 (10%) students who were directly accepted into an allopathic medical school, mostly UVa or MCV. At that time the national acceptance rate was about 45%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK217679/table/ttt00015/?report=objectonly. At UVa, I don't know how many reapplied and subsequently accepted. The core requirement classes in biology, chemistry, physics, math, etc., were very challenging. It was very difficult to get an A, much less a B. Grade inflation, at least at UVa, was nonexistent, as it is today. Many had some type of clinical exposure or worked in labs, but it was difficult to find opportunities. Very few had research publications. Gap years were unheard off. For those who wern't directly accepted, some took additional courses or pursued a master's before reapplying. In the late 1970s there were only 3 offshore Caribbean medical schools. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_medical_school I don't know how many chose a DO route. Finally, relative to the present, with loans the financial burden of medical school was feasible for a middle class family. Just a few comments on the current international medical graduate (IMG) situation. A few years ago I worked with foreign-trained medical students and doctors trying to get into a US residency. For those who had excellent grades, scores and letters, pleasant personalities, and spoke English, they were successful in matching into a residency. In the past couple of years, however, the IMG situation has dramatically changed due to politics. With the stringent VISA requirements, particularly with respect to the H1B, many residency programs are not accepting IMG applicants. This could make the physician shortage worse, particularly in primary care. Just take a look at the posts on this Reddit site for FMGs: https://www.reddit.com/r/IMGreddit/. 2025 Match Data 93.5% of U.S. MD seniors matched 92.6% of U.S. DO seniors matched 67.8% of U.S. citizen international medical graduates (IMGs) matched 58% of non-U.S. citizen IMGs matched,a https://www.nrmp.org/about/news/2025/05/nrmp-releases-2025-main-residency-match-results-and-data-report-providing-in-depth-insight-into-the-largest-residency-match-in-history/#:~:text=Among%20all%20active%20U.S.%20DO,the%20Match%20and%20SOAP%20overall. |
Anonymous
Your "reflections" on medical school admittance are about a half a century old. Not remotely applicable here. |
Anonymous
That poster is someone who would know vastly, vastly more about what med schools are looking for in incoming students to than overbearing mom helicoptering their adult children’s professional school paths for bragging rights. |