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

[Anonymous]

My oldest attends a top college and she's not pursuing pre-med but many of her friends are (or were). These pre-med girls (and boys) are verified brilliant, with grit and outgoing genuinely nice personalities. Yet their college and every top 100 American university weeds out at least 50% of them. Can someone tell me why? These kids go from wanting to serve people to becoming "consultants" or wall street money changers or lawyers. This has to be the most ass backwards disservice to health care in this country. Then we import Asia and Middle East-trained MDs with subpar training and awful bedside manner. I just don't get it.

https://www.stanforddaily.com/2017/06/03/the-pre-med-drop-out/

[Anonymous]

Same with engineering

It's BS that our country says they want more student in STEM
and I say this with a DD who has a STEM doctorate.

[Anonymous]

By weeding out, you mean the students perform poorly in the courses needed to become a doctoral level scientist. Not sure how to get around that.

I have a PhD and often have to review the applications of students who sincerely want to pursue a PhD in my field. Their grades and standardized test scores however, suggest that they will not complete graduate school successfully. We would do them a disservice to admit them to an expensive, time-consuming (5-7 year) process...if all indications are they will not finish with the degree at the end.

[Anonymous]

Because it is hard and kids are NOT willing to put in required work. My kid is in premed and about to take her MCAT... it's been a long and hard journey for her. she's been up and studying as i type this

[Anonymous]

You are insulting and ignorant. My husband has medical training from France and the selection there is:

SIX percent.

Not 50%.

He works at NIH alongside other competent doctors from all over the world, and they all survived much more rigorous selection than the one here in the US.

Same for scientific research: I went to grad school here to join my husband, and the PhD students in my department were majority foreign. The American students were unfortunately much less knowledgeable and prepared than their foreign counterparts, and PIs (tenured researchers with their own labs) always preferred foreign students to work in their lab. Stipends were the same, it was purely a competence issue.

You are confusing money with abilities. Just because the US is the wealthiest country on earth, it doesn’t follow that its education is the most rigorous. Foreigners come here because US universities are well-funded, and Ivy league diplomas are recognized. But their foundational learning is much stronger because their home countries place more emphasis on K-12 and undergrad education.

[Anonymous]

We have more than enough pre-med students applying to med schools.

Each year there over 50,000 applicants to med schools. Only 40% get at least one acceptance. The US ranks towards the bottom of developed countries in the number of medical graduates per population. So the problem is more about not enough spaces in med schools.

There are not enough slots in US medical schools to fill residency positions, so a quarter or so go to foreign medical school graduates.

Another way this gap is being filled is through DO schools, where the program has become much closer to that of conventional medical schools and the students take the same licensing exams. DOs tend far more than MDs to go into the much needed primary care medical areas.

Foreign medical school graduates also play a huge role in providing doctors to underserved communities across the US.

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

[Anonymous]

I have mostly been impressed by the "bedside manner" of immigrant doctors I have had. And their knowledge.

The one mishap I can recall was an urgent care doctor named Omar. I went in with a fever and what turned out to be a 70/40 bp with a MRSA cellulitis infection (I had had them roughly 1x/per year for at least 10 years).

So I was in a daze to begin with, and this guy was stunningly gorgeous (and wearing high-fashion jacket, shirt, and pocket square). Usually with the MRSA I would be prescribed either sulfa or clindomyxin and there would always be a discussion as to what I had been treated with in the past. This guy whipped out an Rx for Keflex. It puzzled me bt, like I said, dazed and smitten.

It was definitely the wrong Rx and I went back in the next day and got the right one.

But I think his underlying flaw was that he was so goddamned gorgeous and I think knew it.

[Anonymous]

The number of medical school slots is constrained bc residency slots are funded by the federal government through health programs (like medicare and medicaid). IN partnership with the AMA medical schools match the number of admitted students to the number of funded residencies for post-graduate training bc that is what is needed to be a good practicing physician and the cost of delivering this training is very high. When the healthcare system (broadly speaking) hires foreign doctors who are already trained they are finding a way to fill the need for more doctors while bypassing the cost of training them. If we want more "American doctors" we need to spend more money. -- Former Senate HELP committee staffer

[Anonymous]

Culturally, doctors trained in China (not to be confused with Chinese-American doctors who trained here) may not be used to shared decision-making. In other Asian countries, it is also less common to inform patients of things like a cancer diagnosis. So, there are some differences in bedside manner. But that may be changing.

[Anonymous]

Do you want anyone other than the brightest and most capable people in charge of your medical care?

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You are insulting and ignorant. My husband has medical training from France and the selection there is: SIX percent. Not 50%.

He works at NIH alongside other competent doctors from all over the world, and they all survived much more rigorous selection than the one here in the US.

Same for scientific research: I went to grad school here to join my husband, and the PhD students in my department were majority foreign. The American students were unfortunately much less knowledgeable and prepared than their foreign counterparts, and PIs (tenured researchers with their own labs) always preferred foreign students to work in their lab. Stipends were the same, it was purely a competence issue.

You are confusing money with abilities. Just because the US is the wealthiest country on earth, it doesn’t follow that its education is the most rigorous. Foreigners come here because US universities are well-funded, and Ivy league diplomas are recognized. But their foundational learning is much stronger because their home countries place more emphasis on K-12 and undergrad education.

My SIL is a nurse administrator, her words: US-trained nurses are brighter and 100x more compassionate than most foreign trained MDs. It's an absolute joke we weed out bright American-born kids, then feign an MD shortage so now half the doctors are ESL foreign trained in places you've never heard of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you want anyone other than the brightest and most capable people in charge of your medical care?

I want more English speaking proven high IQ American kids becoming doctors, I don't want tens of thousands of them being arbitrarily weeded out with curved STEM courses and senseless hoops and hyper-selective medical schools rejecting them.

[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.

This is not true with respect to US med schools. It is extremely difficult for an international student to get a slot in a US medical school. Of the 20,000 or so accepted in any given year, only 400, or 2%, or so are international students. 2000 or so apply, so the acceptance rate is 20% vs. 40% for US applicants.

Also, med schools are notorious for giving little financial aid, so most students are paying close to full freight. Most finance their med school education through loans, and many are still paying them off in their forties.

As described above, the number of foreign medical school grads entering residencies is much higher, but those are not positions you have to pay for--you get a salary.

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of premeds are in it for the prestige and money. Once they realize that it's not easy, they bail and go into equally well paying/ prestigious professions with lower barriers to entry. End of story.