Why do top US universities weed out most pre-med kids & then we import foreign MDs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I am one of the "weeded out" Duke undergrads who dropped pre-med. Wow you guys are harsh! Honestly, I struggled with depression in college and was unhappy at Duke and was even more miserable in pre med courses and did poorly. I was so unaccustomed to flailing so miserably and it seemed like everyone around me seemed so brilliant and was happy and doing awesome (although that wasn't true!). If I could do it all over again I would have majored in something less rigorous at Duke, tried to graduate in 3 years, and then taken my science courses at an easier school. I think sometimes we have different capacities at different times in our lives. For my own child, my advice would be that a job is a job and not who you are, no matter how prestigious or lucrative it is. My family pushed me so hard and made everything so much worse. Even now I think my family perceives me as a failure for going to such a prestigious college and failing to go to medical school. That's hurtful to me, honestly. I went to a top law school on scholarship and graduated with no debt and have a great job now. Everything turned out really well, and yet I suppose I will always wonder what if...

So, you couldn't do premed courses because those courses are "harder" @ Duke? Maybe med school wasn't meant to be.

Exactly. Med schools are going to notice if you do poorly in your science classes - which could very well have happened in the community college classes as well. You can’t hide a lack of science aptitude on the intense MCAT’s either.
Why have regret?

I knew more than a few students who realized they could not compete in science classes at Duke and took them at less rigorous schools. I don't think anyone could tell you the level of competition and rigor at Duke vs. some random school are the same. I am jealous of their savvy, not regretful. I eventually realized I needed to make things work for ME, which is how I made some good choices and positioned myself much better than most of the posters on this board. You have to learn from mistakes.

But I think it's silly to think our system rewards only aptitude- it rewards savvy and parents who can pay $$$$.

Yes, yes, PP, we’re all sure that the only reason you didn’t do well in premed courses is that they are *so* much harder at Duke. And that you are much, much more successful than the rest of us.

It’s good that you don’t have a chip on your shoulder about med school, though.

Pot meet kettle?

You guys, your state schools were awesome. I’m sure you will go far.

Well, I’m a doctor, and my kid’s in medical school. And you’re...not. So there’s that.

Deeply impressed. But, move along. Not interested in the slinging mud back and forth, esp. from a doctor who should know better.

*shrug* you sarcastically said [our] state schools were awesome and that we’d go far. Just saying that you’re right!

Literally weeks later, you are still posting snarky responses on this thread. This is not something successful people do, regardless of their degrees. Just saying!

[Anonymous]

Leaving aside the gross racism in this thread, if your kid can’t hack premed they won’t like being a doctor. It’s an awful grind and if they aren’t willing to make the sacrifices needed to get As in undergrad then they don’t have what it takes. I am married to a doctor and can’t imagine encouraging my son to follow suit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:About the # of foreigners in US med schools: my understanding is that US med schools generally won't accept pre-requisites completed at non-US colleges/universities (with very limited exceptions for Canadian and certain UK universities). So, the only way for a "foreigner" to go to med school in the US is to have also gone to undergrad in US or to have completed pre-reqs (such as in a post-bacc program) in the US.

Not the OP, but my DD is interested in the medical professions. She has a lot of other interests as well. Rather than select college specifically for pre-med, we are thinking that she should choose a college based on overall fit for all her interests. And potentially, just do a post-bacc if she ultimately decides that she wants to go to the med school route.

If undergrad pre-med is so brutal, why do more students not do a post-bacc? (I'm sure cost is a reason, but we are thinking that a more inexpensive undergrad followed by a "prestigious" post-bacc could cost the same or less than pre-med at a "prestigious" undergrad).

Thread is about importing foreign trained MDs after flushing out most of our domestic best and brightest during undergrad. We literally push millions of wicked smart American kids into pointless financial services and consulting because they couldn't ace organic chemistry?! It's insanity.

I am a PhD not an MD. As part of my grad work, I taught (teaching assistant) and tutored pre-med students in organic chem. I assure you the standards are not too high. Most pre-med students did not have a deep understanding of .org chem (they dealt with it by memorizing). You could always tell the pre-med versus the chem students (or engineering students). Really it’s a pretty low bar to do well on organic chem. I would hope a doctor treating me or my kid could hack it.

[Anonymous]

To the poster who lamented the “millions of smart American kids being PUSHED into financial services and consulting”...

Are you serious?? That is who we are supposed to pity in this world?

I would question someone’s devotion to helping others if their Plan B is FINANCE?

I have a feeling we might all be better off by their medical careers being sidetracked!

[Anonymous]

Sorry your grades weren’t what you hoped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who lamented the “millions of smart American kids being PUSHED into financial services and consulting”...

Are you serious?? That is who we are supposed to pity in this world?

I would question someone’s devotion to helping others if their Plan B is FINANCE?

I have a feeling we might all be better off by their medical careers being sidetracked!

There was an article years back that exposed many of these pre-meds for what they really are (I’ll post it if I can find it). Let’s be real, the real reason that OP and countless others really care about the increasing difficulty of medical school admissions is because the profession is virtually the only one left that gives the most chance of a $200k+ income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who lamented the “millions of smart American kids being PUSHED into financial services and consulting”...

Are you serious?? That is who we are supposed to pity in this world?

I would question someone’s devotion to helping others if their Plan B is FINANCE?

I have a feeling we might all be better off by their medical careers being sidetracked!

There was an article years back that exposed many of these pre-meds for what they really are (I’ll post it if I can find it). Let’s be real, the real reason that OP and countless others really care about the increasing difficulty of medical school admissions is because the profession is virtually the only one left that gives the most chance of a $200k+ income.

Disagree.

A lot easier to get an accounting degree or computer science. 200k easily within range for moderately successful people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who lamented the “millions of smart American kids being PUSHED into financial services and consulting”...

Are you serious?? That is who we are supposed to pity in this world?

I would question someone’s devotion to helping others if their Plan B is FINANCE?

I have a feeling we might all be better off by their medical careers being sidetracked!

There was an article years back that exposed many of these pre-meds for what they really are (I’ll post it if I can find it). Let’s be real, the real reason that OP and countless others really care about the increasing difficulty of medical school admissions is because the profession is virtually the only one left that gives the most chance of a $200k+ income.

Disagree.

A lot easier to get an accounting degree or computer science. 200k easily within range for moderately successful people.

Doctors almost never have to worry about unemployment, a real possibility in computer science (although less so for accounting). Both accountants and computer science professionals have a wide range of income that goes into the five digits. And being a doctor confers more prestige than either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who lamented the “millions of smart American kids being PUSHED into financial services and consulting”...

Are you serious?? That is who we are supposed to pity in this world?

I would question someone’s devotion to helping others if their Plan B is FINANCE?

I have a feeling we might all be better off by their medical careers being sidetracked!

There was an article years back that exposed many of these pre-meds for what they really are (I’ll post it if I can find it). Let’s be real, the real reason that OP and countless others really care about the increasing difficulty of medical school admissions is because the profession is virtually the only one left that gives the most chance of a $200k+ income.

Disagree.

A lot easier to get an accounting degree or computer science. 200k easily within range for moderately successful people.

Doctors almost never have to worry about unemployment, a real possibility in computer science (although less so for accounting). Both accountants and computer science professionals have a wide range of income that goes into the five digits. And being a doctor confers more prestige than either.

Debt to income ratio, my friend. Also, opportunity cost of not actually starting your career until 27 or older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who lamented the “millions of smart American kids being PUSHED into financial services and consulting”...

Are you serious?? That is who we are supposed to pity in this world?

I would question someone’s devotion to helping others if their Plan B is FINANCE?

I have a feeling we might all be better off by their medical careers being sidetracked!

But most foreign trained doctors are not going into medicine for love of people- they are doctors because they got the highest test grades in high school. My cousins who trained abroad never so much as volunteered in a hospital or wrote an essay. They took a test- boom, got into med school, no loans, then came to America for residency and are better off than US trained doctors.

[Anonymous]

Here is a relatively recent article arguing that we need more foreign med school graduates.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/upshot/america-is-surprisingly-reliant-on-foreign-medical-graduates.html

[Anonymous]

Found it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/opinion/think-medical-school-is-for-you-youre-probably-wrong/article19609445/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because they pay full freight. It's always about money.. from politics to corporations to colleges.

Also, Americans may be willing to go into medicine, but most don't want to serve in rural areas, which is why there are so any foreign doctors in those areas.

"Always about the money" is right!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The last few foreign trained doctors who saw my parents were so awful there’s no way they were brighter than American trained nurses we dealt with. Rude, obnoxious, unprofessional, and scammed my parents out of large sums of money with unnecessary office and hospital visits and prescriptions and tests.

THIS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The last few foreign trained doctors who saw my parents were so awful there’s no way they were brighter than American trained nurses we dealt with. Rude, obnoxious, unprofessional, and scammed my parents out of large sums of money with unnecessary office and hospital visits and prescriptions and tests.

THIS!

23:15 is right about how the vast majority of foreign medical graduates got into medical school in their countries and became doctors. Demonstrated desire to become a doctor is simply not a criterion in those countries--having top grades and test results are pretty much the only criterion.

This is not about foreign students getting into US medical school because they pay full freight. It is extraordinarily difficult for them to get into medical school here and only a very small percentage of US med school students are foreign.

Their opening to become a US doctor is at the residency level because there are so many more openings for residents in the US than there are graduating US doctors to fill them. About one quarter of residency slots would go unfilled if foreign medical graduates weren't there to fill the gap.

The real question may be to what extent do those choosing foreign medical graduates to fill residency gaps really screen them for dedication to medicine and patients instead of to a debt free entrance to perhaps the most consistently well paying and secure professions in the U.S.