Jump to content
Premed 101 Forums

Recommended Posts

It isn't possible to game the system forever. Eventually, you will be found out and the consequences will be damaging. UofC is a small place, and most PIs check the internally available list of the incoming MD class out of interest. Even if you went to another university, medicine and research are small worlds. I also know my lab's budget and if I found out a student of ours who left their program for personal/unknown reasons was in the MD class after being paid up to 21k (depending on when you start, TA, etc) of our precious research money? I would be contacting my PI immediately and it would go from there. I do not know of any PIs who would just let it go if they knew a student of theirs did this. If you started grad school at UofC, it is a small small world and your former lab members would eventually see you around campus - even if you were in Engineering, VetMed, or BioSci.

Also, the manual says "applicants will honour any commitments made to graduate supervisors prior to entering MD program". It says entering the MD program, not applying. The manual section is worded if you are in grad school at time of application, but the above sentence seems to encompass if you start after the application form is submitted.

Every item in that manual is in there for a reason. I have a feeling nearly every trick in the book has been tried. They seem to be guided by if applicants communicate fully and in good faith, the admissions office will do the same. Your scenario is not good faith acting. It would cost nothing to email the office or post on the blog and ask "If I got admitted to an MSc after the application deadline - what do I do?".

Last, I have read many of your posts with interest. I think the reason I wrote such a long reply (my first) is it hit a nerve and I would like to point out to anyone else reading the post that grad school is not a waiting room for medical school.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, YesIcan55 said:

 I know that if you apply in the first year of a two year thesis masters you must defer your MD acceptance for 1 year to complete your masters. This is assuming you start your Masters in September, you would have to indicate that you started your masters since the app deadline is October. BUT, what happens if you start your 2 year Thesis masters in jan of the year that you applied (this would be way past the Oct MD app deadline) so MD program would not know you are currently enrolled in a Masters since you started it after you applied...and then assuming you interview and get accepted the following May cant you just drop out of the Masters and begin the MD? The MD program wouldnt know you dropped the masters since you never told them you started it? I know sounds super shady but my friend was thinking if this was ever done before, if it is possible and I told him I wasnt sure since I dont know much about masters..so asking you all that may have some insight, thanks

Honestly? Enrolling in an MSc program as a waiting room for medical school, making a commitment to a lab that invests time and money in you, hiding that commitment from the MD committee and then cutting and running on that commitment, as others have said, is pretty much the opposite of "ethics and professionalism". Qwerty and End Poverty made some excellent points in their posts. There are plenty of students who get in to medical school during a graduate school degree - and they follow the proper channels by entering LiM and fulfilling their commitment to their graduate program (and many of them plan to be involved in research as an MD).

I think it comes down to this... the graduate degree program is not there to provide funding for people waiting to get in to medical school - graduate research labs are there to raise the next generation of quality researchers. The investment they make in a student (both in time and financing) should be honoured and respected. Just as with medical school, there are MANY students who want to do a graduate degree who are denied a seat in the program.

In one of your previous threads you made statements to the effect that students who had a Plan B they were happy with should not get in to medical school because they were not completely invested - yet what you are talking about in this scenario is essentially the same thing: someone is knowingly taking a position in a research lab that they don't have a lot of interest in and won't follow through with if something more appealing comes along. As an applicant to medicine would you be angry to find out that some of the seats in the class were taken up by students who are just waiting to get admitted to (insert random competitive program here), felt being in medicine would give their application a boost, and plan to drop out of medicine as soon as they get in to the program they 'really' want? I suspect you would be upset if this happened (this is theoretical, not an actual thing that has happened, for clarity). The theoretical scenario you are posing here is no different - the student in question would be entering a competitive program and taking a seat away from someone who really wants to be in that program while knowing that they plan to waste that seat if the opportunity they really want comes along.

To be clear - there is nothing wrong with doing a graduate degree as part of medical school or doing a graduate degree before medical school. Medicine needs MDs with research backgrounds. The problem in the scenario you have posed is that the person in question appears to have no interest in actually doing the research degree and is just using the seat as a place to keep their butt warm until they get in to medicine. They are also being untruthful to the lab and on their application. If a student in the same scenario you posted above entered the program with an honest interest in research, made their eventual intentions to enter medicine known to the PI, and carried the graduate program through to completion via the LiM pathway? This second student is making sure everyone is informed of their plans (so the lab in question can make an informed decision about how to invest their time and resources) and will likely be in a great position to contribute to medical research in addition to clinical practice once completing their MD. Nobody loses in this scenario. 

The TL;DR? If someone has to hide something on their application that's a pretty good sign that it's not something they should be doing. If a student was planning to do what you state above then it should be made crystal clear to the PI in the lab the student is entering ("I plan to abandon my graduate program the moment I get into medicine") and it should be listed on the medical application ("I am applying for a graduate program that I plan to abandon without completing if I get in to medicine"). Otherwise, the student should either use the LiM pathway or find something else to do other than graduate school. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, adhominem said:

Asking "for a friend" seems almost comically cliche here. 

If you start your grad degree you better plan on finishing it, or plan on having your MD admissions offer revoked when they find out what you did. 

I wasn't going to say it, but the dots connected as well. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...