What would be the best school to become a doctor, most likely a GP, without spending 30,000/year(Yale,Harvard).
If you’re looking at cost alone, I’d suggest moving to North Carolina, if you don’t live here already, stay here a year until you become a legal resident, and then apply to either U of North Carolina-Chapel Hill or Eastern Carolina University. They have some of the cheapest instate tuitions and they’re both decent schools. If you want reallllly cheap, I think either Alabama or Missouri (some southern state, I’ll look it up in a sec) has the cheapest, but you have to be a resident. UNC you don’t technically have to be a resident, but it’s a lot more expensive, and ECU says they take out of state, but they haven’t accepted any in like 10 years.
Oh, and if you think that Harvard or Yale only costs $30k a year, you might want to check again. That’s for tuition alone. On top of that, depending on year, you have a lot more going on.
And just to be obnoxious and post three times in a row, you can search here (through usnews.com) by location, cost, instate/out of state, future profession, etc:
USnews.com
Thanks audiobottle. The link is great. I am in the south, so NC wouldn’t be that bad… I’ll check into it. thanks
You realize there is no such thing as ‘GP’ anymore, right? If you’re thinking Family Practice, which is about as close as you can come these days, you should search USNews for schools that rank highly in Primary Care. I went to the Univ of South Carolina, one of the cheapest medical schools in the country, and it was around $30,000/year for tuition + living expenses.
The real question in your mind should be “Where can I get in?”
My school, Marshall University, has a pretty nice little medical school.
The cheapest option is almost always going to be your state school, whatever that happens to be. But unless you can get some good scholarships it’s still going to be really expensive. When calculating financial aid, my state med school figures that in-state tuition plus room, board, books and incidental expenses is about $30,000 per year.
When compiling a list of schools you’re better off searching for programs that you’d like to attend regardless of cost. Narrow that down based on where you think you can get in and apply. At the very end when (if you’re lucky) you have been accepted to multiple schools, then you can decide between them based on cost. As USCDiver intimated it’s very difficult to get in to medical school these days. It may be that you have to attend a more expensive school because that’s the only place you were accepted.
If you have the grades for it, look into the MD/PhD programs. Very competitive, but not only is it a free medical education, during your PhD years, they pay you a small stipend.
I am not American, but if money is a concern, I would look into:
- your state schools
- options through the US military
- MD/PhD programs
- McGill University in Montreal
I wish you luck.
Go where you can get in and where you can afford.
Eventually, when you graduate you’ll be a doctor, and in the grand scheme of things, if you’re good where you got your degree from is irrelevant.
There aren’t many unemployed physicians out there…it may take a long time, and you may have to do jobs in places you’ve never heard of and specialties you don’t want in order to get your dream job, but eventually you’ll get there.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself- only 14 months until I graduate and the Irish general public is subjected to my tender mercies!
You know, they say that Johns Hopkins is the best of the best, and I’ve never had better care anywhere. Baltimore’s not such a bad place to live.
Yeah, but the Hop doesn’t turn out many Family Medicine specialists.
QtM, MD from Johns Hopkins
Family Medicine specialist.
(Hey, I didn’t say they didn’t turn out any Family Medicine specialists! My graduating year, they turned out a record number of us that went into Family Practice. Out of 120 grads, 3 of us chose that specialty! Never since have so many from the Hop gone that route)
If the OP wants to be a primary care practitioner, however, MD/PhD programs are not for him. Those programs are aimed towards students who want to be physician-scientists, usually academic physicians; they consider themselves to have failed if a student goes into primary care. I am in the middle of the MD/PhD interview process and it is amazing how hard they try to weed out the applicants who are just in it for the “free MD”.
On the other hand, there are other government programs like the National Health Service Corps want students who want to be primary care physicians, and will pay for your medical school in return for you serving in an underserved area for a few years after school.
Additionally, the military is also always looking for prospective medical students no matter what specialty you want to pursue.
if there is basically no such thing as a GP, then what is the guy who checks up on you when your’e in the emergency room for a sprained ankle or something? does he have a specialized degree?
Emergency Medicine is its own specialty these days.
However, currently the MD/PhD programs are being viewed as a failure for just the reason that they aren’t doing a very good job of weeding out the people in it for a “free MD”. For the most part, MD/PhDs go into one or the other (medicine or science) and not so much the medical scientist that was originally envisioned. The thinking is more moving toward having medical students do a research internship, though I’m not sure that this is a good idea either:
Not that the people applying, like yourself, didn’t have the best intentions of becoming medical scientists. The MD/PhD students I worked around in grad school were, no doubt, the best and brightest. But, the reality is that one or the other degree (MD or PhD) tends to win out in the individual in the end.
The MD/PhDs that I know are in it to become scientists of a medical nature. But mainly just science. Honestly, I’d say go to the best school you can get in. You’ll have no problems getting loans, and it may take a while to pay off, but no matter what, you’ll be in debt by the time you graduate, so you might as well pick the best school for you. Is med school a concrete plan for you now? I’m in the process of applying and it sucks.
Move to Australia. We offer university at a reduced cost (and on an interest free loan), that you don’t have to pay if you go overseas or make less than 30k a year.
I think you might have to become a permanent citizen for this. Otherwise I think you get charged American tuition fees.
Don’t they just call themselves Internal Medicine specialists, now?
I have recently had the task of finding a GP. Well. In Canada, we go to a General Practitioner as our main doctor, Family Doctor if you will. There are three listed in my insurance provider’s directory. When I called one, they told me that I should just choose from the Internal Medicine doctors. Colour me surprised. I had no idea they were the same thing. Of course, if I’m wrong, I wouldn’t be surprised either.
I don’t mind living here, so much. I do mind the medical system.