The difference in quality of American medical schools seems to be negligible. Students from every medical school match into both competitive and non-competitive residencies, and perform similarly in test scores:
First, consider performance on the licensing exams. All universities, on average, have a 95% pass rate for their students. That also means that there is, on average, a 5% failure rate. Both Harvard and Drexel each have students perform at the top of the bell curve as well as those who fail outright. While there are differences in the average score, your performance on the test is based solely upon your own preparation, and not any magical instruction given by the school.
Knowing this, does it really matter where you graduated from?
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I went to a low ranked med school–but one based in public hospitals where students got a lot of practical experience. When I did electives elsewhere, I was expected based on the reputation to be able to perform procedures that residents from Ivy League institutions were just learning–and that was indeed the case. Later as an intern, based on the reputation that my schools prior graduates had built for practical performance, there were high expectations of my reliability and performance set. People would ascertain where all the new interns were from, and sometimes upon hearing my alma mater would then say “Oh, so i don’t need to worry about you, just call me if you need it”.
While not specifically related to medical school, residency programs often carry the same type of attitudes. My internal medicine residency sports a first time pass rate for national of boards of 100% for this entire decade. That’s pretty damn impressive.
And I can assure you I didn’t graduate from an Ivy league program. You can find great doctors teaching other great doctors in that vast waste land between the two coasts. It’s called America.
Agreed anon 7:39. I went to a middle of the road state school with a heavy VA/county hosptial hands-on experience. When I went to residency I found that those students who went to the Ivy/elite schools had much less real medicine experience. Including know procedural experience. Frankly I found the most proficient new interns from a procedural/physical exam standpoint to be FMG’ from the former third world.
I’m in the same boat as the above posters, but want to also point out the flip side of this equation, which I’ve heard from several fellows at my current institution:
For certain residency programs, medical school pedigree matters. Going to med school in Boston (not Harvard) everyone knew that the Brigham was HMS 5 because their programs filled with Harvard grads and a smattering of hopkins and yale grads. It didn’t matter if you were AOA and top of your class, if you from say …. iowa, you didn’t have a shot.
And it’s not just Harvard, most of the big name academic centers, particularly on the east coast, have a geographic bias and generally under value folks from the midwest. So if you’ve got your heart set on a competitive east coast residency, only the very best of the midwest schools will give you a shot at the program of your dreams, and then usually only if there is some history of your school sending people to the program (eg the historic trend of residents/fellows going from Boston Children’s to St. Louis Children’s and then as faculty writing letters and making calls to get WashU students residencies in the BCRP)
which again shows that it is not what you know but rather who you know and kissed up to.
But why do you want to be in that program anyway? if it fills with residents who don’t know how to do anything, if it values academic predigree over ability to perform, who is going to teach you to the high standard of excellent performance that you aspire to? Medicine is very much a meritocracy, where respect is earned by the ability to perform. I advise everyone to pick a residency based on where they are going to learn the skills they seek to learn to the highest possible level. I have seen several physicians come to our community from prestigious programs, whose performance disappointed colleagues, physicians, and the other hospital staff watching and reporting–with the result that their career never really blooms. Some over time achieve a higher level with more real world experience. Others attribute their lack of standing to “jealously” and therefore never learn a damned thing.
I had a chance as a senior medical student to work in a program that had a share of subspecialty fellows from the Ivy-named residencies–some of whom were performers and some at the PG-4 level were learning procedural and other practical clinical skills from MEDICAL STUDENTS!. Who do you want taking care of your mother? Where do want them to have trained? That is where you need to seek to go.
It is the residency, more than anything else (other than what is in your own heart), that makes you the doctor that you will be the rest of your life. Choose carefully.
Knowing more will enable you to do more for your patients.
Kissing up will not.
Neither will get you one more penny from Medicare or other 3rd party payers.
At Iowa, we called Harvard the Iowa of the East. Iowa was, naturally, a better school, especially in innovation of treatments.
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