# How stupid/smart can you be & still be US medical doctor? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 11, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-smart-can-you-be-still-be-us-medical-doctor/779564 "2017-02-11T18:02:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-smart-can-you-be-still-be-us-medical-doctor/779564/41 "2017-02-15T14:44:18Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > Maybe, nut if they didn’t have the self-discipline as an undergrad, they’re probably not going to be a good student in Med School. A lot of people mature substantially between their undergraduate years and graduate programs - especially if they don’t go straight from one to the other. I was drunk more or less permanently from 1999 to 2003 while I was an undergrad and pretty much just went to campus to get the syllabus and for midterms/finals, except when I had a hankering for Steak Escape (the only one in town was in the Student Union) and incidentally went to class afterwards. I had something like a 1.9 GPA after two years of my BA program and finished with a 2.5. It wasn’t like I had other onerous obligations, either; I was in a fraternity and I had a part-time job just for extra drinking money, and that was pretty much it. In law school, by contrast, I only missed about 5 classes in 4 years and graduated _cum laude_ - working full-time and going to school at night. > [@Riemann](#): > > What exactly do you mean by the words “abstract” and “independent”? The statistics of a sample of people with the same condition is the _only_ way to provide an accurate prognosis. Her prognosis is the diametric opposite of “independent” of that statistic. I mean that if she was going to die, she was going to die whether or not 95% of similar patients do. I’m not saying I agree with her analysis. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-smart-can-you-be-still-be-us-medical-doctor/779564/42 "2017-02-15T14:49:56Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I mean that if she was going to die, she was going to die whether or not 95% of similar patients do. I’m not saying I agree with her analysis. Yes, that’s the way I read it too. Or at least, I queried it because it _seemed_ to be saying that. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-smart-can-you-be-still-be-us-medical-doctor/779564/43 "2017-02-15T18:15:09Z")
> [@rsat3acr](#): > > well Dr. Oz had to be pretty smart to become a cardiologist but stupid to believe some of the woo he pushes on his show. You’d be surprised how stupid otherwise smart people can become when their paycheck depends on it. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2017, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-smart-can-you-be-still-be-us-medical-doctor/779564/44 "2017-02-16T01:06:18Z")
> [@astro](#): > > US Medical school and the training required after that to become an actual practicing physician is generally noted for being academically rigorous and intellectually demanding. In my day to day activities in various service clubs and community organizations I know several doctors and in talking with them they are intelligent people, but not wildly better informed or full of more scintillating insights than the guy who has the computer services company, or the school principal, small bank VP, or the corporate middle manger at the same table. > > So what’s the gatekeeping barrier for a US medical doctor? Do you have to be super good at math, obsessive about grades? What mental capacities allow some people to become doctors and others to flame out? Is there some secret path or “one stupid trick” where a person who was not all that smart could actually somehow wind up becoming a US medical doctor? I’m only familiar with the Australian system, but the people I know who’ve worked in both systems tell me that the graduates are the same. You have to be exceptionally good at studying / learning. The system (in Australia) is set up to help you: they know that you have to learn a lot of stuff, and they try to make that possible. But you have to be good at studying / learning to get there, you have to be good at studying / learning to get through, and you learn a lot of good studying / learning skills as you go. The medical students weren’t exceptionally smart (the exceptionally smart students were in physics, not medicine). The course work was exceptionally well explained and taught, so they didn’t have to do any more thinking after pre-med. It was clearly easier than engineering. Except that there was a lot of it. A truck-load of content. I heard about physics students that were smarter than their professors, but I never heard of a med student who knew more than their professors. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-smart-can-you-be-still-be-us-medical-doctor/779564.md?page=2)