Every once in a while, there are posts about the doctor career path on blind. I was curious going into my upcoming high school reunion and checked out some of the MD/DO/DDS/etc profiles. Some were top academic performers but just as many were, to my surprise, middle of the pack high school students who didn’t take any science AP classes, went to the local average state school, then to the same or similar school’s medical school. It reminded me of a tip back then that the path to med school was to go to a less competitive school to try to get high grades because low grades at a top school would tank med school admissions chances. I didn’t think much of it back then because I wasn’t interested in medicine but it is a bit of a surprise to see the pipeline kind of filter out some likely more competitive people. My college saw valedictorians from smaller high schools get wrecked at first due to the stronger competition. Many of them dug deeper to improve their GPA but it wouldn’t be the near-perfects that’s required for med school. They could have gotten those high GPA’s at a less competitive school. In any case, curious about your views on doctor quality overall. I’ve had some bad doctor experiences requiring second opinions so I’m starting to think the general perception of doctors is a bit of a myth. TC300
The best doctors are empathetic and want to help people. Being oriented toward prioritizing, listening to and respecting their patients is best quality a doctor can have. There is no aptitude test for this. The worst doctors care about prestige, social climbing and senselessly ranking people against their peers
sound like you’re thinking of therapists. doctors need that too but not just that, might want to consider learning what doctors do
Nothing doctors do depends on their grades from way back in high school either.
For common medical treatment including stroke , diabetes, heart disease , it's over rated but for rare diseases or complicated health situations like rare tumors or childhood cancers etc, it's superb
All healthcare related stuff is a Scam in the US, they are there only to get money out of you and your insurance
Attended both engineering and med school here, never worked as a physician, and in fact left the MD program in year 3. The early career path experience was very different from the notion of it, but maybe sheds light on your comment. Medical training and practice generally doesn’t allow for as much creative work, is quite orthodox, stressful, financially challenging, and especially in the beginning prone to abuse and grueling hours. With a reward being that you’re genuinely doing good by the community and helping real people, plus good comp, respect in the community, and a layoff proof career. Med and premed students tend to be reasonably intelligent and good hearted and intensely career focused, but they’re the type that is intimidated by math and puts great priority on gaming their gpa’s. Engineering has been a much less certain path, at the time I started much less lucrative than medicine. But I’ve done creative work with fresh ideas, I got to enjoy my 20s, and these days mature engineer comp can be in the same tax bracket as an attending physician. You can go to engineering school and get just decent grades and still work your way into a great career by working on always learning and adapting and getting better and better. Getting into med school (and thus medicine) doesn’t work that way, grades and focus and endurance are everything. It’s worth noting that since I left med school, doctor comp has not increased the way technology career comp has. And it has simultaneously become more and more difficult to get an appointment with a family doctor. FWIW not sure why someone would give that tip - “the path to med school was to go to a less competitive school to try to get high grades because low grades at a top school would tank med school admissions chances.” Elite universities in the US have become notoriously easy graders. The higher grades students are statistically likely to earn there combined with the cult like brand credibility their graduates will receive in the med school application process implies that this strategy would be the wrong one. If you can get into Yale and your parents are rich enough to pay for it just go to fuckin Yale lol. But even if not, there’s a path through pedestrian state school systems via the aforementioned grades and focus and endurance which yields the same career outcome. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12832441/As-Yale-Students-grades-inflation-ivy-leagues.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/nyregion/yale-grade-inflation.html
1 person in mind fit the description quite well, intimidated by math. Of course, talking about the bottom tier of doctors but point being they’re not universally top students as is the common belief. Re: school like Yale, it’s among many known for grade inflation but that advice was general; someone choosing between Berkeley and SJSU/SCU might pick between the latter to have better chances of high GPA. If grading were more standardized, then you’d likely see more concentration of doctors from fewer schools, similar to engr professors Curious how you decided to leave after year 3?
I’d say that just because someone went to a school that’s lower on popular tier lists or isn’t good at math etc, this doesn’t necessarily correlate with their quality as a professional physician. But I’m aware that’s not the norm thinking. The humans are gonna impose castes whether they admit it or not, it’s not their fault, they just can’t help themselves. Indeed, were I a more conventional personality I do expect I’d have ended up a doctor, and it wouldn’t have been a bad thing in hindsight. To answer your question, I left because (1) the culture didn’t agree with my personality and I had alternative options in technology that weren’t available to the average med student; (2) it became clear that medicine is a commitment like few others, you gotta give up your 20s, maybe early 30s too, and you’re gonna spend career practicing your specialty and that’s that; & (3) some extraordinarily stressful personal/family events occurred just as I was beginning to come to grips with the realities of (1) & (2)
90% of the workforce in any professional sector is clueless and useless. Only the top percent know their shit. This applies to every single industry out there. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, plumbers, teachers, everyone!
The people I know who are doctors span across the board. Some are very smart (double ivy league and Stanford residency)/smart while some not so much. One guy told me on his first day of intern year, he didn't realize his patient was coding until the attending stepped in.
Doctors are just people who can prescribe you legal drugs