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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who had a child who had to be diagnosed with a rare disease and had subsequent treatment, it is very hard to find a doctor who is a decent listener, which is absolutely the most important skill for diagnosis. I learned I had to be very aggressive on behalf of my child and basically be a jerk if I felt like the person in front of me was not taking me seriously. DC is ok but it’s not really thanks to any clinicians unfortunately, except for 1.

And I had a serious diagnosis missed entirely by a touchy-feely good listener with great social skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some posters here seem to think it is easy for a foreign doctor to come to US and do residency. No American teaching hospital is rolling out red carpet to recruit foreign educated doctors. Also, it is not easy to get a visa for foreign doctors to come to US. Given all things otherwise equal, why would any US teaching hospital offer residency to a foreign educated doctor over a US Medical School graduate? If you stop for a second and think logically with open mind you will realize that foreign educated doctors are exceptionally well qualified and overcame many obstacles to be where they are.

Regarding Duke premed students being curved out despite their stellar credentials prior to entering Duke, one doesn't have to be at Duke or other selective schools to go to med school. I know of students who had full ride at UMBC and had more than one med school admission offer each. Yes, undergrad GPA matters in admission to med schools. Duke and other highly selective schools can't give high GPAs for all students.

American college students are relatively unintelligent and lazy. Just go over to AAP forum to see how posters dump on TJ and TJ students saying they are studying too much, robots and how TJ is too difficult etc. Almost all TJ grads have no problem going in to medicine and in fact many go into guaranteed BS/MD programs all over the country. When studying and working hard to learn is denigrated and criticized, do not expect your kids to be equipped to gain admissions to medical schools and graduating from medical schools.

Yes--when God handed out intelligence genes, he shorted the US population. With all our natural resources, it is only fair that He compensated other countries by ensuring they have a greater portion of high IQ people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who had a child who had to be diagnosed with a rare disease and had subsequent treatment, it is very hard to find a doctor who is a decent listener, which is absolutely the most important skill for diagnosis. I learned I had to be very aggressive on behalf of my child and basically be a jerk if I felt like the person in front of me was not taking me seriously. DC is ok but it’s not really thanks to any clinicians unfortunately, except for 1.

I am glad your DC is doing well. In addition to be a fighter, your DC has a very loving, assertive, take no nonsense parent. You both go far as a team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who had a child who had to be diagnosed with a rare disease and had subsequent treatment, it is very hard to find a doctor who is a decent listener, which is absolutely the most important skill for diagnosis. I learned I had to be very aggressive on behalf of my child and basically be a jerk if I felt like the person in front of me was not taking me seriously. DC is ok but it’s not really thanks to any clinicians unfortunately, except for 1.

And I had a serious diagnosis missed entirely by a touchy-feely good listener with great social skills.

Touchy feely and saying I feel your pain is not the same as truly listening to a patient attentive to clues that can inform a doctor about his condition and relating it to superior medical knowledge. For the record, you did not need to be a US med school graduate to do this well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who had a child who had to be diagnosed with a rare disease and had subsequent treatment, it is very hard to find a doctor who is a decent listener, which is absolutely the most important skill for diagnosis. I learned I had to be very aggressive on behalf of my child and basically be a jerk if I felt like the person in front of me was not taking me seriously. DC is ok but it’s not really thanks to any clinicians unfortunately, except for 1.

Same experience here. Dozens of doctors who couldn't listen or do a decent hands on examination and only one who could. Guess who came up with the diagnosis, which actually should not have been that difficult? The VERY worst and most mistaken was a Harvard med school grad.

[Anonymous]

How are foreign students cunning and Machivellian????

[Anonymous]

1. Medicine will soon be a vastly different field, and understanding data and interpreting the rapidly growing body of literature will be imperative - can't fake this understanding so need technically capable MDs
2. Diagnosis will largely be driven by algorithm, and less will need to be memorized; but a solid understanding of medical informatics will be beneficial - we'll need far fewer MDs, but more nurses and techs to do the actual care
3. Organic chemistry and physics have very little use in medical school, unless you plan on doing bench research - if not interested in bench research, would replace with 2 semesters of biostats and 2 semesters of sociology or psychology, which are much more relevant for all fields in medicine
4. I think we all should want medical school admissions to remain competitive - maintains quality
Bonus: IIT is not equivalent to Harvard (or MIT, which may be more relevant comparison) - no significant discovery from there, no Nobel prizes; I would challenge you to find a student who would choose IIT over a top 10 US university

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who had a child who had to be diagnosed with a rare disease and had subsequent treatment, it is very hard to find a doctor who is a decent listener, which is absolutely the most important skill for diagnosis. I learned I had to be very aggressive on behalf of my child and basically be a jerk if I felt like the person in front of me was not taking me seriously. DC is ok but it’s not really thanks to any clinicians unfortunately, except for 1.

And I had a serious diagnosis missed entirely by a touchy-feely good listener with great social skills.

Touchy feely and saying I feel your pain is not the same as truly listening to a patient attentive to clues that can inform a doctor about his condition and relating it to superior medical knowledge. For the record, you did not need to be a US med school graduate to do this well.

Op with a child with rare disease here- on top of just making the diagnosis, I also had to research and basically choose the treatment I wanted my child to have before the doctor even made her diagnosis. The doctor diagnosed dd, and was a good listener, and then said “ok we are going to start with X drug today,” without even discussing all of the options. I asked “what about Y treatment?” And they had never heard of it and were not interested because it was a surgical option and they were rheumatologists. Basically they have a hammer and every problem is a nail. I talked to physician friends and family and we all agreed the surgical option was better. It is scary how aggressive and how much research YOU have to do as a patient to get the best treatment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who had a child who had to be diagnosed with a rare disease and had subsequent treatment, it is very hard to find a doctor who is a decent listener, which is absolutely the most important skill for diagnosis. I learned I had to be very aggressive on behalf of my child and basically be a jerk if I felt like the person in front of me was not taking me seriously. DC is ok but it’s not really thanks to any clinicians unfortunately, except for 1.

And I had a serious diagnosis missed entirely by a touchy-feely good listener with great social skills.

Same for me. I went to someone who got amazing 5 star rave reviews for being so caring and really spending a lot of time talking and listening to the patient. This was true, my first appt lasted nearly 1.5 hours!! That’s pretty much unheard of around here. But in the end, he simply wrote me a script for Prozac and sent me on my way.

This really messed with me as I started think my pain was in my head. When I finally went to another doctor that actually ordered tests, I was properly diagnosed and surgery changed my life.

As a side note, first doc was white American from an American med school, second was a brown immigrant from a foreign medical school. But I think of that as anecdotal, could have been the other way around for someone else. I just want a strong clinician, don’t care about their conversation skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who had a child who had to be diagnosed with a rare disease and had subsequent treatment, it is very hard to find a doctor who is a decent listener, which is absolutely the most important skill for diagnosis. I learned I had to be very aggressive on behalf of my child and basically be a jerk if I felt like the person in front of me was not taking me seriously. DC is ok but it’s not really thanks to any clinicians unfortunately, except for 1.

Same experience here. Dozens of doctors who couldn't listen or do a decent hands on examination and only one who could. Guess who came up with the diagnosis, which actually should not have been that difficult? The VERY worst and most mistaken was a Harvard med school grad.

I wonder if the best doctor you had got an A or B in organic chemistry. I often find that the family members I have who seem better at their jobs are the ones who truly struggled in pre med and medical school. They seem more compassionate and careful, less arrogant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same is true with nursing schools. They are hard to get into and then we hire from 2nd and 3rd world countries to fill our nursing shortages. Why?! Are Jamaican nurses that much more intelligent than the students who were weeded out? Why not increase the spots available to fill the need.

And same with doctors. We have a shortage of pediatricians and general practitioners

Sorry I love nurses but nursing schools are NOT the same. If you weeded out of nursing program... I may have other issues.

They are not as hard to get into medical school, but many are still quite selective. The college my daughter goes to only accepts about 25% of the students who apply to the program, and the average GPA in the prerequisites (human anatomy, human physiology, microbiology, gen bio and gen chem, psychology, and sociology) is 3.65. Nursing is a very competitive field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. Medicine will soon be a vastly different field, and understanding data and interpreting the rapidly growing body of literature will be imperative - can't fake this understanding so need technically capable MDs
2. Diagnosis will largely be driven by algorithm, and less will need to be memorized; but a solid understanding of medical informatics will be beneficial - we'll need far fewer MDs, but more nurses and techs to do the actual care
3. Organic chemistry and physics have very little use in medical school, unless you plan on doing bench research - if not interested in bench research, would replace with 2 semesters of biostats and 2 semesters of sociology or psychology, which are much more relevant for all fields in medicine
4. I think we all should want medical school admissions to remain competitive - maintains quality
Bonus: IIT is not equivalent to Harvard (or MIT, which may be more relevant comparison) - no significant discovery from there, no Nobel prizes; I would challenge you to find a student who would choose IIT over a top 10 US university

IITs are excellent at undergraduate education, especially because students are admitted after a nationwide competitive examination. But they are not good at doctoral research mainly because of lack of funding for research and top graduates of IITs go abroad for MS and PhD or take up jobs instead of doing PhD in IITs. This is the reason why you don't see Nobel Prizes awarded to IIT researchers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think many can “handle” them but are weeded out because they got a B and not an A. Sure you don’t want someone who failed but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here

Bingo and curved against other best of the best, proven 98-99 percentile classmates. Earning a few Bs and Cs can shatter your pre-med dreams -- all because the top 20 college chooses to curve out half of the pre-meds. How is that good for the nation's health care?

Have you ever seen the differences between a A/A- student and a B/C+ student? They are not comparable.

You’re right, they get into an Ivy Duke Northwestern with 98-99 percentile scores and now they’re idiots!

That helps you only little. A state U kid can beat your Ivy/Duke NW kid to med school with higher GPA/higher MCAT score.

[Anonymous]

I have heard about cheating at local high schools but i’m sure it’s sophisticated and difficult to detect and prove.

[Anonymous]

The AMA strictly controls the number of accredited med schools and spots at those schools.