Medical school in the United States
Medical school in the United States is a graduate program with the purpose of educating physicians in the undifferentiated field of medicine.
Medical school in the United States does not require a degree in biological sciences, but rather a set of undergraduate courses in scientific disciplines thought to adequately prepare students.
The Flexner Report, published in 1910, had a significant impact on reforming medical education in the United States.
A majority of these schools were established within Northeast colleges that today make up the Ivy League, and modeled after their founders' coursework at Edinburgh.
[3] In 1767, Dr. Samuel Bard, an alumnus of then-King's College, opened a short-lived medical school that ultimately was forced to close in 1776 at the onset of the American Revolution.
Written by Abraham Flexner and published in 1910 under the aegis of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the report set standards and reformed American medical education.
[9] In 1940, the Report of the Commission on Graduate Medical Education was published, which first described the overworking of interns and residents.
[16] In general, admission into a US medical school is considered highly competitive and typically requires completion of a four-year Bachelor's degree or at least 90 credit hours from an accredited college or university.
Admissions criteria may include overall performance in the undergraduate years and performance in a group of courses specifically required by U.S. medical schools (pre-health sciences), the score on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), application essays, letters of recommendation (most schools require either one letter from the undergraduate institution's premedical advising committee or a combination of letters from at least one science faculty and one non-science faculty), and interviews.
[17] Beyond objective admissions criteria, many programs look for candidates who have had unique experiences in community service, volunteer work, international studies, research, or other advanced degrees.
The application essay is the primary opportunity for the candidate to describe their reasons for entering a medical career.
The essay requirements are usually open-ended to allow creativity and flexibility for the candidate to draw upon their personal experiences/challenges to make him/her stand out amongst other applicants.
[20] All medical school applicants must, however, complete undergraduate courses with labs in biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics; some medical schools have additional requirements such as biochemistry, calculus, genetics, psychology and English.
Concerns have been raised that these stringent science requirements constrict the applicant pool and deter many potentially talented future physicians, including those from groups historically underrepresented in medicine, from applying.
Such programs allow rapid fulfillment of prerequisite course work as well as grade point average improvement.
[23][24] Several universities[25] across the U.S. admit college students to their medical schools during college; students attend a single six-year to eight-year integrated program consisting of two to four years of an undergraduate curriculum and four years of medical school curriculum, culminating in both a bachelor's and M.D.
While not necessary for admission, several private organizations have capitalized on this complex and involved process by offering services ranging from single-component preparation (MCAT, essay, etc.)
[27] However, this figure does not account for the attrition rate of pre-med students in various stages of the pre-application process (those who ultimately do not decide to apply due to weeding out by low GPA, low MCAT, lack of clinical and research experience, and numerous other factors).
[29] Medical school typically consists of four years of education and training, although a few programs offer three-year tracks.
Traditionally, the first two years consist of basic science and clinical medicine courses, such as anatomy, biochemistry, histology, microbiology, pharmacology, physiology, cardiology, pulmonology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, psychiatry, and neurology.
USMLE Step 1/COMLEX Level 1 of the medical licensing boards are taken at the completion of the preclinical phase of study.
Some schools, such as the Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Medical College of South Carolina, both offer an integrated basic radiology curriculum during their respective MD programs led by investigators of the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity study.
[citation needed] Upon completion of medical school, the student gains the title of doctor and the degree of M.D.
[37][38] The percent of female medical students have been consistently growing within the last few decades as shown by the survey data below: [36] Various studies have shown that American medical students have depression rates that are higher than the general population[39] [40] Some of the factors that have been mentioned as possible causes include: financial pressures, academic competition, exposure to human suffering, and bullying.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, scholarship funds among those graduating without debt dropped by more than half, from $135,186 in 2010 to $52,718 in 2016.
[52] This suggests that the increase in students graduating without debt is due to personal wealth rather than decreased cost of attending medical school.
A study by the Cato Institute shows that schools raise prices 97 cents for each one dollar increase in borrowing capacity.
Dr. Herbert Pardes and others have suggested that medical school debt has been a direct cause of the US primary care shortage.
Students in more competitive specialties had significantly less debt on graduation, meaning that they weren't reliant on higher future compensation to repay loans.
[52] In February 2010, The Wall Street Journal published a story of Dr Michelle Bisutti's $555,000 medical school debt.
