Is hard work alone good enough for medical school?

This medical student argues yes:

U.S. schools will only admit students who have proven that they can excel academically and otherwise, while many Caribbean schools are willing to accept students who have less than perfect academic records, with the caveat that they have to prove themselves.
Most students at my school would agree that they have been given an extra chance — a chance to prove that they can be incredible doctors. Unfortunately, not everyone succeeds. There are no guarantees that any school can turn you into a good doctor. It all comes back to what you put into it. I believe that if you work hard, and are truly dedicated, you stand a good chance of graduating and doing well.
Although I agree that admitting the very best students to a medical school makes sense, I can’t help but feel that many well-qualified people are falling through the cracks. If a prospective student takes the MCAT and passes their pre-med classes, and if they truly believe they can make it through medical school, don’t they deserve a chance?

Comments

Medie
A good grade and test scores aren’t everything. They may be seen as so but you have the think about the people that are trained for test and go and get good grades but do nothing else, they didn’t learn much they just know how to take a test. Then you have the person who studies 16 hours a day everyday only to get a C on a test and he can’t get into med school because he doesn’t have the grades but he has a drive. Schools work like that all the time, they mainly see what’s on paper and judge but they never meet the person. They judge the cover by the book but a few are let in because they have the drive. I would like someone with the drive that can find the answer no matter what it takes rather than a person who doesn’t know and will quit that quickly.
Okulus
College is four years long, and longer still for many. One poor turnout in a course can be remedied along the way by repeating the course with a better grade and the opportunity to demonstrate mastery on the MCAT, when ready. But that demonstration of preparedness should be over and done before beginning medical school, not somehow glossed over under the illusion of giving “second chances” while in medical school to people who by matriculation have not shown they have overcome their academic deficiencies.
Medical school is not and should not be a remedial course for those who have been weak performers on the premed course. Taking money from people who over a long time have failed to demonstrate the ability to master general scientific learning as undergraduates is an unfair way to provide a “second chance”. Those folks have had lots of second chances and the fairer thing to do is suggest they apply themselves to something for they will have a better chance at success.
Anonymous
Um, someone who studies 16 hours a day and only manages a C is determined, yes, and they would have my respect for that. But I would much rather have my doctor be someone with no drive but has the capability of doing the work, instead of someone who has to put in all the effort in the world just to get by.
What’s necessary is a balance of both ability and effort, obviously.
Anonymous
Someone who studies 16 hours a day and gets a C should should go to law school. He may eventually hit the jackpot.
Criminallopath
And a C average is all one needs to pass through medical school.
Anonymous
how about the guy who crams for a test by staying up all night and then gets A’s and B’s.. how about that guy .. he clearly is building up the stamina to make it thru long calls with more to do the next day!!!
Anonymous
I knew several students in my class that literally studied 16 hours a day, every day. They made it through, yes, but as far as on the spot medical clinical decision making they still remained as dumb as rocks. At some point academic review committees need to say “You really aren’t cut out for this, save yourself the tuition, and find another career”
Anonymous
Medical Schools ought to try a money back policy for those who fail: if you bail out during the first two years, in exchange for withdrawing on a permanent basis and waiving the right transfer your credits, you could get your money back and/or a payoff of your funds borrowed for medical school. (The waiver is essential to prevent fraud.)
Obviously screening well for academic proficiency and motivation would hopefully make the use of that policy rare.
Anonymous
and a C average is all one needs to sit on the brench as a judge.
Criminallopath
You apparently missed the point. Let us try this using a few more words. Once a student gets into the medical school system, they virtually have to try to fail out in order not to make it through. The pass-fail-honors system will allow the average student to make it through. The bottleneck with the system is at the admissions level.
Okulus
C-path.
You obviously have not been there and done that.
Yes, the “bottleneck” as you put it is at admissions. That is where it belongs, since the resources needed to teach medical students are costly and really should be expended only on those best able to use them. Just wanting very badly to be a doctor is not a good enough reason to admit someone to medical school, particularly someone with a mediocre record at premedical work and/or similar MCAT scores. And it is an utter fallacy to conclude that because there are particular doctors whose personalities you may not like or who do unprofessional things that the medical school screening process is necessarily turning away “better” candidates. Just because someone has a nice personality, and earnestly wants to be a doctor doesn’t mean they are a good or fit candidate for medical schools. They have to be able to perform well above average and do so over the long haul. The time for remediation is long before going to medical school, but some posters, I think you included, don’t seem to get that.
If you believe differently, the heavy burden is on you to show how. A good candidate should have no trouble showing a lengthy and consistent record of superior academic performance. Admissions committees look at complete records, not just how someone did their last year of college, or when they finally “got serious” after college and took some science courses they finally were able to pass.
And where did you ever get the idea that medical school was easy once you got admitted? You obviously have never been enrolled in one, or you would never say that. Medical school demands are substantial, and even the smartest students work hard because they want to place well and get selective residency slots. Only a stupid student would think that his opportunities would not be affected by his academic record in medical school. Medical schools rank their graduates, and class ranking makes a substantial difference when applying to residencies that are desirable and competitive.
Anonymous
Crim,
Okulus is 100% correct. No medical student wants to just “pass”. They want to achieve a high class ranking so they are not relegated to some primary care residency facing a life of long hours, low pay, high hassle, low satisfaction.
If you think getting into medical school is competitive you havn’t seen anything until you get there. The difference is like a preseason NBA game vs. game 7 of the NBA finals.
Criminallopath
Okulus –
Can you point to a specific statement in which I indicated that getting through medical school was easy? This is an ungrounded presumption of yours and not a statement that I made. My point, which I have yet to see a rebuttal on, is that with the pass-fail-honors system, a C average is sufficient to make it through the system. Additionally, let me make another point. That point is that the domestic process of medical school admission takes the idea of admitting only “qualified” students to the extreme and thusly creates a bottleneck in the incorrect place.
The credibility of the admissions process is invalidated by two factors. The first is that substandard students, because of non-academic factors such as race, are being admitted to schools domestically. The “road to social justice” pabulum is inconsistent with the paradigm of high academic standards when more qualified students are not granted admission simply because of the color of their skin. The second factor, again, goes to foreign trained providers. If foreign trained providers (which in the northern hemisphere happen to be mostly American students that were not granted admission into schools domestically) are able to meet the domestic requirements for licensure while obtaining their degrees through programs that do not have the same rigorous admissions process as we do here then there exists little room to argue that the admissions process, in and of itself, provides the requisite level of screening needed to ensure the following – (a) successful completion of the requirements for obtaining the MD degree and (b) successful mastery of the knowledge needed to meet the additional requirements for licensure.
Okulus
C–path:
Don’t ask me to defend the pre-Bakke practices of non-race-blind admissions because I won’t. And programs that exist today that make an end-run around the spirit of that ruling are equally indefensible, and I believe some do exist.
Second, you are confusing the requirements imposed on overseas graduates of overseas medical schools applying to American residency training programs with the standards applied to domestic applicants to domestic medical scools. True, overseas grads are able to pass the USMLE, which is a good and necessary thing. But to say that because some of those grads are U.S. citizens who went abroad for their education and then returned to pass the USMLE that somehow the U.S. medical educational system is deficient for not having accommodated them in the first place is ludicrous. Positing that otherwise unqualified applicants who
gain admission because they fit some favored racial or ethnic description are displacing better qualified applicants whose only remaining opportunities are in non-U.S. programs sort of ignores the obvious question: if they really are better than others who displaced them, why did no program want them? The claim isn’t believable on its face. I could only conclude that they were no better than similarly-qualified applicants who had some desired racial/ethnic description that were admitted. In any case, your argument supports an even greater adherence to admissions policied that use objective ranking by GPA, MCAT and quality of undergraduate institution where the applicant does his or her premedical work.
Criminallopath
Okulus:
As always, it is a pleasure “speaking” with you here.
The pre-Bakke practice of an explicit racial quota system is indefensible if one is positing the argument that the primary basis for admissions be one that is based on an objective academic meritocracy. The existence of the current implicit system using “other factors” that effectively excuse academic shortcomings undermine the academic merit based system.
Secondly, I have not argued that the current domestic model, in its ideal conception, is deficient. The issue in my mind is one of judging the merits of the current system in place when it comes to achieving the requisite goals for obtaining the legal ability to practice. Namely, the degree, the passage of all steps of the USMLE and the performance of a residency. It is in this regard that the discussion of “offshore” medical schools becomes important as it provides a different model for comparing with the domestic system. I agree with the merit based system but I see the current domestic system as one, as per the underlying intent of the findings of Abraham Flexner, that is overtly restrictive with a number of aspects that (along with limited residency slots)preclude (or make more difficult) the opportunity to enter medicine for students that are clearly capable, as shown by students of foreign trained schools, of achieving the requirements of domestic medical practice.
Anonymous
Criminey,
Do you know the drop out rate of those at Tijuana Tech vs. domestic schools?
Do you know the percentage from Tijuana tech that are able meet requirements to practice in the US?
Do you know how their level of competence compares?
Do you know how their rates of hospital, medical societies, and state board sanctions compare?
Do you know how the rates understandable English and other interpersonal skills compare.
Just wondering
CJD
Do you know their malpractice claims rates and payouts compare?
Criminallopath
CJD –
The answers to your questions (in order)
No.
http://www.usmle.org/scores/medlic.htm
No in that there is no “standard” metric for measuring it. Some would consider the barebacking Florida neurosurgeon “competent” with 2/2 split training for medical school foreign/domestic and others would not.
Not off the top of my head.
No “standard” metric for measuring it.
Have not seen any published data on it.

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