Fuck Pre-Meds

The BBQ Pit
41

I don’t think that in most cases you’re forced to make a choice between the prototypical nice, caring physician and the highly talented jerk. You might put up with the jerk in an extreme situation (for instance, a neurosurgeon who’s pioneered a treatment for a serious problem) but increasingly, it’s not a choice that must be made. Jerkdom is a kiss of death in primary care and even in fields where human to human skills are less imperative, it’s a handicap that can also cause you to be sued more frequently.

Some people get upset enough about brusqueness and annoying personalities among physicians that they gravitate towards “alternative” practitioners, who have learned that spending lots of time with patients and exhibiting a super-caring attitude helps in exploiting the marks, er, in achieving patient satisfaction. In that one sphere, mainstream docs can perhaps learn from the quacks.

Advice for the OP - if pre-med behavior is annoying you that much (and some of these panicky, driven types can be plenty annoying), avoid them. Hang out with the non-obsessed science majors.

I guarantee you that all of the grade-grubbers you despise will be repeating these buzzwords/phrases at their med school interviews. :smiley:

Have you ever read Sinclair Lewis’ Arrowsmith (it’s about the trials and tribulations of an aspiring physician, set in the Midwest in the early 1900s)? You might find a kindred spirit.

42

I knew a lot of people like the OP describes in undergrad, and yeah, they bugged me. My favorite was a girl who majored in chemical engineering because 100% of the ChemE majors who applied to the UK College of Medicine in the preceding decade were accepted. (There were about three of them.) She eventually realized her fallacy, and oddly enough she’s a very happy chemical engineer.

I couldn’t have been more different. I majored in math with a minor in biology and took tons of theatre and creative writing classes, which probably got me some Bs where I could have had As. I never did anything just to have it on my resume; if I wasn’t enjoying it or getting something out of it, I didn’t do it. Medical school was my goal, but it didn’t consume me. I got in just fine.

Looking back on it, I don’t think there’s a correlation between who was a “gunner” in undergrad (or even med school) and who is a good doctor now. Everybody works so hard in med school that it all evens out, and the competitiveness ends pretty abruptly.

43

Uh, yeah, actually that’s where I did my premed . . . god love em, those kids are socially handicapped . . . makes me kind of sad for them, actually.

I might have a better impression of premeds had I not gone to Hopkins.

Gestalt

44

Heh. I did my pre-med at the Hop too.

I stayed there for med school, which was unusual because at the time the Hop med school hated the Hop undergrad pre-meds for being so pre-meddy, and hardly accepted any of 'em.

45

And then, you will die.

46

You can put me into the category of opinions with you guys there. Just because medical schools advertise what their “average” scores are, does NOT mean that’s what they like to look at all the time. It’s just those are the ones that end up going to that school after being refused from the top programs.

Speaking as someone with a lower GPA, but slightly higher MCAT (I woulda killed for that 3.6, but I did beat the 30 at least), it sucked applying to medical school and watching everyone else succeed in getting their applications through because they were the psych majors with the 4.0’s or they ended up taking only the CORE basic Bio classes and nothing advanced. But they had the 4.0’s and they were the ones getting the interviews in October, November, while I was stuck waiting for ANY hope of an interview in January, Feb. of the next year. And then I learned about those programs where if you maintained the 3.75 GPA and such you didn’t even NEED to take the MCATs but you could get into the school.
(My most bothered thing I’d overheard: “I took the mcats just for fun, but I got a 6 on it. I’m SO Glad though that I’m going to medical school @ XXXX Though! Thank god for this program. What about you?” And my brain just going… wait… did you just say you got a six? Not on a catagory… but the WHOLE thing? O_O And yet… you’re in and I’m not? GAH!!)

It was absolute HELL.
Med school applications are a bastardly soul sucking process that REALLY really cut you down to size. EVERYONE looks good, and everyone wants to get ahead, and it sucks to be rejected, which is eventually what happened to me my first time around.
I stuck with it though, and went through a second year of applications- and I still got quite a bit of rejections, but I had been taking more courses post-graduation to show that I could handle the medical school caliber level of classes and such- and even then after all that and reapplying this time with lowered expectations- I got just as few interviews due to the low grades, they didn’t even care to get to know me. Except for a few schools which actually SAW me as a person. I got into a a graduate program and that allowed me to get my foot in the door, and I ended up waitlisted at my #1 choice.
Thankfully, I ended up getting in back in May, and it’s been MUCH more pleasant since then… But its still a soul-sucking process.

SURE, schools say they take the lowered averages and such things- but they’re going to be more likely waitlisting those kids, and trying to get as many of the Top 4.0 kids as they can. But as those kids go elsewhere, they turn to the waitlisted kids, and that’s what ends up lowering the average down.
Its an evil evil process… but if you REALLY want to be in Medicine, you CAN succeed, and it IS possible. You may not get in here, but there are also DO Programs, PA programs, and Nursing schools, or even going to medical schools over seas. If you WANT to Help people and be involved in health care- You CAN do it. Just stay focused and do it for yourself. Good luck to you!

47

This was actually one of my questions posed to me during my interview:

Would I rather be the kind and caring doctor loved by all his patients?
Or would I rather be a doctor that was never wrong or made mistakes?

I thought it was unfair, and I tried to wiggle around it, saying you can’t just “Be Loved” OR “Be Never Wrong”. But they refused to move the goalposts- I had to pick what I valued more- caring and mistakes, or uncaring and perfect. Every time I tried to pick one, they’d point out the flaws of it.

Eventually I settled on the Caring one and stuck with it. Because I’d have more patients, less frivolous lawsuits, and a better rapport with them so they’re more likely to talk to me about their problems and I can be in a better situation to help or at least SEND them to someone who could help. But it sucked to have to chose so coldly, as it was basically “be loved and wrong, or be Right and hated”

48

I taught Chemistry at U of Miami for 3 years. Can I sign below the OP? Well, minus the wanting to be an MD part, I never wanted to be an MD and spent my time in UM hearing “oh, why don’t you go to medical school?” “Cos I don’t wanna, and when we’re talking careers, ‘don’t wanna’ is an acceptable reason.”

All except two of my over-200 students were pre-med. The majority were so entitled it would have been hilarious if it wasn’t worrisome, specially knowing that the American medical system lets someone practice any specialy of his choosing without specific training on it. The majority wanted “to be a Doctor so I can be rich;” I would have liked to hug the few who actually wanted to do things like, ya know, heal people, only hugging your students is wildly inappropiate.

“How can you give me only a 6 of 10 in this daily test?” Beeeeecause you only did 60% of it. Yes, the part you did was fine, but if someone comes in with a broken leg and a broken arm and you only patch up the leg, they’re gonna be mighty pissed.

Mind you, I also had the pleasure to verify that admissions officers aren’t as obsessed with grades as the Premeds think. One of my cow-orkers (with my apologies to cows) in grad school was this lazy-ass who only came in about once a month, whose girlfriend did all his work (wasn’t much) and who should have been a 20-times-used car salesman but, he wanted to be a doctor. To be rich. Dude was living in a 4B3b all by himself, but see, he wasn’t “rich.” Ah. Well, the rest of us are sharing bedrooms, so excuse us if we don’t pass you the Kleenex. He tried Medical Admissions three times in those three years and never got in… the last time, he told us about the interview right after he’d had it
“Man I can’t believe it! I mean, I’m there about going to medical school and this idiot” (note to cow-orker: “this idiot” is deciding your future, if he wants you to put on a pink tutu and dance Swan Lake, you put on a pink tutu and dance Swan Lake) “kept trying to talk about yesterday’s game! He’s going all ‘so what about those Martins, did you watch the game?’ and I’m saying ‘look, I’ve got a 4.0GPA and I know a lot of Chemistry, that’s important, see, I’m taking Grad level courses while I get into Medical School, see,’ but he wouldn’t even look at my grade report!”

Empathy isn’t something students get graded on. But yeah, it’s kind of important in any doctor who doesn’t play one on TV…

49

Speaking of “caring about grades,” the med school here at the U of S just shifted its grading formula from 60% academics (grades) and 40% personality (interview + references) to 35% academics and 65% personality. Quite exciting. Although when they’ve theoretically applied it to past classes, it’s only changed the class composition a little. Most people accepted do really well in both, unsurprisingly.

50

I think that depends on the school, not necessarily the country. Years ago, when I was a student at the University of Toronto, many of the students I knew who were aiming for medical school were a pretty cutthroat lot, probably much like the OP describes. I was a TA at the U of T for a year, and we knew we’d have pre-med (and to be fair, pre-law) students grubbing for grades any time there was an assignment or a test. No matter what they got on their assignments, it was never good enough: “I can’t get into medical school with that grade!” Their parents called the professor to argue on their behalf, the students appealed grades up to the department chair, and so on. It was as if our class (which, BTW, was Introductory Linguistics) was not a class where they might actually learn something, but rather, one more barrier to medical school that had to be overcome in any way possible.

I’m wondering if things change once they make it into medical school. It was apparent to me, when I went to law school, that many of my classmates were just as the OP describes. But once they made it into law school, they relaxed a little and concentrated on becoming a lawyer, rather than working towards becoming a law student. (Though not all; some remained pretty cutthroat.) Does the same thing happen in medical school?

51

Despite Jackmannii, RoOsh, and Speaker all agreeing that caring vs. commitment are a false dichotomy.

Now I’m a cynic myself, so I agree that there is a certain feeling of authenticity around hard or abrasive people. We tend to assume they are strong and masterful and can’t possibly be putting us on. However, can we really trust their motivations any better? I tend to think they’re more capable of devaluing and dehumanizing other people, maybe even without realizing it. And if you don’t think that’s going to affect their professional ethics…

52

…caring vs. commitment is a false dichotomy, natch.

53

eleanorrigby, was it Northwestern? My sister graduated from Feinberg and actually left to do residency on the East Coast at another teaching hospital (also famous and posh but with a less egotistical team according to her) with a more difficult call schedule simply because the people at N.U. are so…god-complexy and annoying.

I still remember when she told me that it was her against the whole class in her ethics course because they considered it okay to knowingly risk breaking a dead patient’s ribs in order to teach interns how to do the heart-shock thing. And continue to break ribs and violate the body as long as there were interns who hadn’t had a chance to do the electro-whatevermahwhatever. Without the family’s consent (as in, these are patients who come in to the ER, die and then you use them as teaching tools). Fucking gross-that was the day she told me she was going to leave Northwestern.

I also think that particular med school is especially “royalty” based, promoting an attitude of entitlement-at the graduation I was amazed to note how many children had parents on the med school faculty. Then they all go through the residency programs at NU’s hospitals.