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To play the devils advocate. What should the medical schools remove from the curriculum to accommodate this? It is not like they have part of a semester that

To play the devils advocate. What should the medical schools remove from the curriculum to accommodate this? It is not like they have part of a semester that that is just waiting to be filled. It is already stuffed to the gills. There are 100s probably 1000s of things that should be added in order for doctors to be better prepared for one scenario or another. Being autistic I would like to see this added, but at the same time I have no idea what they could remove. They could keep adding semesters until they got it all covered by that is probably not going to work either. They have a set schedule. You want to push something in, you gotta take something out.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> What should the medical schools remove from the curriculum to accommodate this? I vote they remove the part of the curriculum that pointlessly makes residents work zillion-hour, sleep deprived shifts - one after the other, for years.
- cfu28 3y ago
  That’s residency, which is after medical school.
SkyPuncher 3y ago
> It is not like they have part of a semester that that is just waiting to be filled. It is already stuffed to the gills. Oh, how I wish this were true. I'm married to an MD. Went through the med school/residency journey with her. Soooooooooo much waste and BS in the process. In direct response to your question, 4th year of med school is essentially a joke. During the first half of the year, everyone is distracted by residency interviews and applications. During the second half of the year, no one really cares because they're ready to peace out. My wife's entire 4th year could have been dropped and she would have lost absolutely nothing. The reality is medical schools primary metric is percentage of students placed into residency. More prestigious schools care about more prestigious placements, but placement is a must. The primary, almost exclusive, means of ranking resident candidates is test scores. For most med schools, that means they don't actually care about providing their students with any practical skills. They only care about succeeding on a handful of standardized exams. In fact, I've seen schools kick students out with exams failures so they can artificially keep residency match rates high.
- cfu28 3y ago
  It depends per school, but 4th year students usually fill their own schedules with electives and rotations. You can definitely fill it in a way to make it as intense for the first three years, but it would likely cause students to start burning out before residency instead of during it. I am currently on my 4th year rotations and I find them to be some of the most educational, important, and interesting ones. YMMV of course
tdeck 3y ago
They could have a specialist with extra training who is brought in to consult for situations like this. That seems to be what we do for other scenarios (e.g. we could train every doctor to administer general anesthesia, but instead we have a specialist for that).
watwut 3y ago
What about removing the undergraduate degree requirement. That would free up years.
- nradov 3y ago
  Some schools offer combined BS/MD programs that free up 2 years. https://www.collegexpress.com/interests/health-medicine/blog/fast-track-medicine-6-year-direct-entry-medical-programs/ https://www.collegexpress.com/interests/health-medicine/blog...
- sarchertech 3y ago
  Countries that do that usually have med school programs that last longer than 4 years. US med schools would have to add in all the required classes from undergrad. Then you have to take into account that you the US doesn’t have a national high school curriculum, so the first 2 years of undergrad are essentially just getting everyone in the same page. You’d likely be looking at a 6-7 year program with a much higher failure rate. It’s not a clear cut win and it would take a huge amount of coordination and effort.
  - watwut 3y ago
    Sure longer then 4 years ans still shorter in total and still the whole higher part of it is on point rather then random. They don't have 7 years long programs.
    - sarchertech 3y ago
      There are countries with 7 year programs. 5 or 6 is more common. But some of those require an extra internship year before residency (which may be optional). But you’re forgetting the part where the US doesn’t have a national high school curriculum. So a direct high school to medschool pipeline in the US would definitely include a year or 2 of general education.
      - ghufran_syed 3y ago

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago

> What should the medical schools remove from the curriculum to accommodate this? I vote they remove the part of the curriculum that pointlessly makes residents work zillion-hour, sleep deprived shifts - one after the other, for years.

cfu28 3y ago
That’s residency, which is after medical school.

SkyPuncher 3y ago

> It is not like they have part of a semester that that is just waiting to be filled. It is already stuffed to the gills. Oh, how I wish this were true. I'm married to an MD. Went through the med school/residency journey with her. Soooooooooo much waste and BS in the process. In direct response to your question, 4th year of med school is essentially a joke. During the first half of the year, everyone is distracted by residency interviews and applications. During the second half of the year, no one really cares because they're ready to peace out. My wife's entire 4th year could have been dropped and she would have lost absolutely nothing. The reality is medical schools primary metric is percentage of students placed into residency. More prestigious schools care about more prestigious placements, but placement is a must. The primary, almost exclusive, means of ranking resident candidates is test scores. For most med schools, that means they don't actually care about providing their students with any practical skills. They only care about succeeding on a handful of standardized exams. In fact, I've seen schools kick students out with exams failures so they can artificially keep residency match rates high.

cfu28 3y ago
It depends per school, but 4th year students usually fill their own schedules with electives and rotations. You can definitely fill it in a way to make it as intense for the first three years, but it would likely cause students to start burning out before residency instead of during it. I am currently on my 4th year rotations and I find them to be some of the most educational, important, and interesting ones. YMMV of course

tdeck 3y ago

They could have a specialist with extra training who is brought in to consult for situations like this. That seems to be what we do for other scenarios (e.g. we could train every doctor to administer general anesthesia, but instead we have a specialist for that).

watwut 3y ago

What about removing the undergraduate degree requirement. That would free up years.

nradov 3y ago
Some schools offer combined BS/MD programs that free up 2 years. https://www.collegexpress.com/interests/health-medicine/blog/fast-track-medicine-6-year-direct-entry-medical-programs/ https://www.collegexpress.com/interests/health-medicine/blog...
sarchertech 3y ago
Countries that do that usually have med school programs that last longer than 4 years. US med schools would have to add in all the required classes from undergrad. Then you have to take into account that you the US doesn’t have a national high school curriculum, so the first 2 years of undergrad are essentially just getting everyone in the same page. You’d likely be looking at a 6-7 year program with a much higher failure rate. It’s not a clear cut win and it would take a huge amount of coordination and effort.
- watwut 3y ago
  Sure longer then 4 years ans still shorter in total and still the whole higher part of it is on point rather then random. They don't have 7 years long programs.
  - sarchertech 3y ago
    There are countries with 7 year programs. 5 or 6 is more common. But some of those require an extra internship year before residency (which may be optional). But you’re forgetting the part where the US doesn’t have a national high school curriculum. So a direct high school to medschool pipeline in the US would definitely include a year or 2 of general education.
    - ghufran_syed 3y ago