Ok here is one of my curiosity questions: what is the process for med school? do you get a b.a/b.s first then go? or how does all that work? thanks for the help, drew
Here's the process as I understand it. 1) enroll in a decent RA school 2) major in anything you like but make certain to take all the required "premed" courses (organic chemistry, etc) 3) earn perfect grades and get your BA/BS in whatever 4) apply to a zillion med schools 5) cross you fingers while awaiting notification 6) once you're accepted, question whether this is a good thing 7) enroll in med school 8) say good-bye to whatever passes for normal life for the next handfull of years 9) internship 10) residency 11) malpractice payments for the rest of your life 12) oops we missed the part about the graduation party. 13) oops again, sorry, you were on-call in the ER that day. Good luck, Jack
Jack Tracey write: > 3) earn perfect grades and get your BA/BS in whatever In the US, a Bachelor's degree is required. In Canada, you can apply to medical school after 2 years of university premed courses with no degree.
Aren't there some American schools that will accept an applicant with three years of undergrad work? I think they call it "articulation" or something like that? The idea is to shorten that LONG road by a year.
Some universities, including the U of Alberta, will then give you a freeby bachelor's degree like a Bachelor of Medical Sciences, by giving a year undergrad credit for the MD degree work. My dentist has a BS with 2 years undergrad work plus a years credit for work in his DDS. The U of Alberta previously had a combined law program where 2 years of Arts courses and 3 years of law earned both a BA and an LLB. I notice that several California Approved law schools give an interim Bachelor of Legal Studies after 2 years.
Yes, you're right. I should have put it right after the piece about the liability payments. I used to hear about programs where medical students would agree to practice in underserved areas for a specified period of time in exchange for tuition relief. I don't know if these programs still exist but I imagine they'd be attractive to many who are not interested in making those huge student loan payments. I suppose the flip side is that while your med school buddies are busy building up thriving practices in the "big city," you're busy making house calls in your beat up pickup truck somewhere out in the boondocks. Still, it would be worth it to some. Jack
Maaybe the UK has it right!! My nephew went straight to med school from high school, obtaind a B.M. (about six years ago), did a one year "internship" in a third world country, did a couple of years practice in a UK hospital, sat for the exams of a Royal Medical Society, passed them, and now he is a "Mr". Oh yes - tuition free.
Hi Ian - I'm pleased to hear your nephew has done well. This issue provides an opportunity to raise an issue of some mild interest to me . . . When you say "tuition free" I assume you mean that your nephew did not have to pay the tuition himself. Nonetheless, tuition was paid. I assume further that this tuition was paid by the taxpayer. To me this is fine as long as it is fine with those who actually pay. Do the people who have paid this tuition (taxpayers) actually know that they have done so? Does your nephew owe them a debt of service? Is it simply assumed that "it will all work out in the end?" Obviously there is a different philosophy working in England than in the US. I'm just curious. I recently posted in another thread that med students should have more opportunity to work off their educational debt. Is this the case in England? Jack
Thanks everybody. This is just something that I guess I woke up one day wondering, "wonder what the process is to get into med school" I would prolly like to do it to become a psychiatrist. How do specialties work? Is there just a portion of your program that is specialized in that? Surely they wouldn't have to know everything that a general practioner would have to know, would they? Thanks, drew
Yup. Sounds like Ian's nephew was one of the last to get through the system before compulsory fees reared their head. Generally in the UK, we have no problem with the fact that the large proportion of a medic's costs of tuition are paid by the state. 99.99 percent of medics will do at least some time in the NHS, and most of them will spend their whole career there. As such, one of the few things that all parts of the political spectrum agree on is that paying quite a bit of a future surgeon or GP's fees is a social good. Even with private health insurance on the rise, the NHS remains pretty much the only game in town, and it's definitely the only place where you can get the range of experience necessary to be able to do a decent clinical rotation. Angela
I can only say how our med school works, I'm sure others would have a different perspective. After college there's 4 years medical school in which you will learn everything a general practitioner would learn. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor, unlike a psychologist. During residency, you would rotate through various services, emergency medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine, neurology, etc., some you get to pick, some you have to do anyway, I've even had some residents who were going into psychiatry in the OR with me for 3 month rotations, which they chose as a rotation. After various rotations you then go into the psych portion of residency to finish. During the rotations you will follow all types of patients in all the services the medical center has, do the 5am rounds etc, you work all the shifts and do the lions share of the work at the hospital for the attendings during those rotations. Residents learn a little about everything before they settle into their specialties. I know there have been some recent changes to residency programs. They used to be able to keep you for 36 hour stretches at my hospital. Now the guidelines are a little better. No call for certain departments after 24 hours on straight. This is good, I've seen residents fall asleep holding retractors in the OR. I wouldn't want to be treated by someone who is on hour 35 of 36. The drive these students have is unbelievable, no sleep, no food, no potty breaks. And there is a small number who make it through medical school that don't make it through residency. But my experience has been that the ones who don't make it are the ones whose applications of the art don't meet the training. Most of these fail near the end, not the beginning of residency. In the final year of residency, you are top dog, the hours are better and the work load is better but you carry the responsibility of the junior residents. Best wishes to you. It's a long and difficult journey. Most I've worked with never regretted a day of it and I've worked with some just devastated by their choice, they are few, but it happens.
Oh, I forgot to add. Since I've been on this board I've asked several of my residents what they majored in for their bachelors. The answers have ranged from chemistry to history to political science. Be sure you get all the medical school pre-reqs, i.e. the sciences and maths. The medical school entry boards will sort you out. Grades and scores on the MCAT get you in, not necessarily the major you chose.
Something I've wondered about for a long time...do medical schools discriminate against applicants on the basis of age? Given the LONG and arduous educational process, and the huge expense and the amount of direct or indirect public subsidy involved, I could undertand a preference for younger applicants.
I think that's a good question. I worked with one female resident that was 52. I've worked with several residents in their mid thirties coming into medicine after 4-5 years in the military and one that was with IBM for 10 years before coming to medical school, and there always seems to be the woman who was a nurse for 10 years who returned to medical school and comes into residency in her late 30's early 40's. Most are in their mid to late twenties. I think the grueling schedule the residents have to survive would preclude many of us in our 40's and 50's from being able to survive it. There is also obviously a return on investment that medical schools must look at. A resident at 50 means a shorter practice life. I don't really know what determines what is acceptable at our medical school. I do think it's weird that most of our anesthesia residents are from out of the US, they are african, middle eastern, far eastern and from the states that made up the old USSR, although this past July we did seem to get more american kids in. Don't know why that is.
Most people I know in the UK understand that their taxes fund education and accept that. There are other threads that discuss the current position but I have not followed them. My daughter just started a BS or BA in pschology at York University so I will ask her about fees next time we talk.
