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One of the worst requirements is mandating that medical students spend four years getting their bachelor's degree before entering med school. Realistically, the

One of the worst requirements is mandating that medical students spend four years getting their bachelor's degree before entering med school. Realistically, the essential prerequisites for med school could be covered in two years. This would allow graduates to start their careers younger and with less debt.

thmsths 3y ago
The "bachelor for everything even if it has no direct correlation with the work" mentality is a real plague. It's causing issues with airline pilots too. From what I understand the FAA does NOT mandate it, they "only" ask that you get a PPL and 1500 hours of flight to get your ATP and then you can work for an airline. But airlines want to hire college educated people for some reason...
- vunderba 3y ago
  The FAA has no such educational criteria requirements for being able to get your commercial license. In fact, a great deal of pilots often get a bachelors degree in an unrelated field just in case working as a pilot doesn't pan out for them for various reasons (poor pay, medical issues, etc).
nradov 3y ago
Yes, and some US medical colleges are doing exactly that with combined baccalaureate/MD programs. https://www.aamc.org/news/combined-bachelor-s-and-md-programs-offer-direct-path-high-school-medical-school https://www.aamc.org/news/combined-bachelor-s-and-md-program...
epivosism 3y ago
Yes. Other countries don't do this - you go directly from HS to a 6 year medical school. It not just saves time, but increases your useful career length by over 10%, probably more if we weigh age-effectiveness. Plus it would let many more people do MD-related jobs like medical researcher.
callalex 3y ago
At the same time, a more holistic educational experience could help to reduce long-standing social biases. For example a significant portion of doctors, to this day, think that for some reason having more melanin in your skin increases your ability to tolerate/process pain. The two phenomena are entirely unrelated from a scientific standpoint, but are intertwined in the social fabric.
- firejake308 3y ago
  Yeah, but it makes a lot more sense to just incorporate that into the medical school curriculum than to make students sit through 4 years of Chemistry classes and hope that the dance class they took to fulfill the university core curriculum will erase all of their intrinsic biases

thmsths 3y ago

The "bachelor for everything even if it has no direct correlation with the work" mentality is a real plague. It's causing issues with airline pilots too. From what I understand the FAA does NOT mandate it, they "only" ask that you get a PPL and 1500 hours of flight to get your ATP and then you can work for an airline. But airlines want to hire college educated people for some reason...

vunderba 3y ago
The FAA has no such educational criteria requirements for being able to get your commercial license. In fact, a great deal of pilots often get a bachelors degree in an unrelated field just in case working as a pilot doesn't pan out for them for various reasons (poor pay, medical issues, etc).

nradov 3y ago

Yes, and some US medical colleges are doing exactly that with combined baccalaureate/MD programs. https://www.aamc.org/news/combined-bachelor-s-and-md-programs-offer-direct-path-high-school-medical-school https://www.aamc.org/news/combined-bachelor-s-and-md-program...

epivosism 3y ago

Yes. Other countries don't do this - you go directly from HS to a 6 year medical school. It not just saves time, but increases your useful career length by over 10%, probably more if we weigh age-effectiveness. Plus it would let many more people do MD-related jobs like medical researcher.

callalex 3y ago

At the same time, a more holistic educational experience could help to reduce long-standing social biases. For example a significant portion of doctors, to this day, think that for some reason having more melanin in your skin increases your ability to tolerate/process pain. The two phenomena are entirely unrelated from a scientific standpoint, but are intertwined in the social fabric.

firejake308 3y ago
Yeah, but it makes a lot more sense to just incorporate that into the medical school curriculum than to make students sit through 4 years of Chemistry classes and hope that the dance class they took to fulfill the university core curriculum will erase all of their intrinsic biases