This Is Insane

[Cuttlefish]

10 hours ago, xiphoid said:

I'd say he's more notorious than well known...

But to answer your original question, the majority of his publications are not legitimate. They are in predatory journals that will accept essentially anything as long as you pay the publishing fee. The other papers, well his dad is an oncologist in Toronto. If you do a PubMed search, notice how many of "his" papers have his dad as the senior author... There is such a thing as overdoing it for a med school app. Him putting that he has 30+ first author publications will for sure result in the admission committee going to verify (whereas saying you have a few publications likely won't result in adcom performing a PubMed search to verify), and when they do, I'm pretty sure it'll be a red flag on his app.

I suspect being this suspicious would do one more harm than good in the long run, even beyond medical school

[Dwight_Schrute]

I wouldn't worry about this student. Adcoms aren't stupid, they'll see his BS a mile away.

[asdasdasd]

 

4 hours ago, sWOMEN said:

Bike helmets and awareness of ASD man

Also having your daddy RadOnc at Sunnybrook put you on his papers since Gr 10

He's getting flagged for sure

I intentionally withheld using his name due to respect of privacy, but now his name is being hurled around on this site like it's nothing (in complete disrepute, no less). Lol

[Compton]

7 minutes ago, KeyzerSoze said:

 

I intentionally withheld using his name due to respect of privacy, but now his name is being hurled around on this site like it's nothing (in complete disrepute, no less). Lol

I can tell you its been discussed in the US as well. Heard from a few colleagues in USMD that a Canadian premed student "published" 30+ first authors and faculty are aware of the story. This story has exploded..

[Butterfly_]

I know others have already mentioned this in previous replies, but I want to reiterate that research is not required for admission into medical school.

It’s okay if you don’t have any. You CAN get in without it. I’m in medical school now and I still don’t have any research.

To be honest,  I don’t know very much about research. Right now, I’m focusing on learning the basics of methodology and how to critically analyze papers. And I’m okay with that :)!

[asdasdasd]

2 hours ago, sWOMEN said:

This has been brought to the adcom at my school as well

Not saying he doesn’t deserve to be blacklisted from every medical school west of the Atlantic (because he does), but I kinda feel for the guy. I’m sure he did put in a fair amount of due diligence to achieve what he has. And now it’ll mean absolutely nothing.

[rmorelan]

Ha ok I really have to stop going on vacation. 

Obviously a particular person's name has been thrown around on the formal as a lightening rod to the sort of concerns people have about research and how people from particular background might have an advantage. Fair enough as extreme examples can bring things to light. 

People are saying that admins should be aware of the situation - well they are at this point quite aware. Just like this case is being used by an example for discussion here, as you can imagine it is being used for a similar point of discussion elsewhere. It is hard to completely remove any form of advantage someone can have from background but it can be minimized. 

We collectively on the form at the moderator/site owner level decided not to keep using the person's name  - which is why forum moderators have removed some of the posts without really saying why they are removed. Thus people recreated them.....and they were deleted again. I think explanation is required as to what is going on and the logic of what is happening. 

That being said the conversation around this is more important than a particular person involved. Very much more important It is highlighting a classic problem - GPA/MCAT doesn't capture all of the things many people think are required to make an excellent doctor - they want more and we in fact we need more. If you truly believe the canMed roles define what a traits a good doctor must have, and that is exactly what we are saying at the royal college level, you are left with the issue that only 1 or possible 2 of those roles directly has anything to do with raw academic ability (medical expert and maybe scholar).   

Admins are hoping ECs can help show those other traits - yet the problem is that ECs are highly dependent on circumstance and vulnerable to things. They depend on financial support you may or may not have. They depend on connections - either obtained by yourself or through family or friends (which is a matter in large part of luck). They depend location as people in particular parts of the country may not have access to the same sorts of opportunities as others might. No one likes chance being a major part of the process but we remain stuck with the uncomfortable reality that a 4.0 GPA does not equal a good doctor alone and are struggling with how to manage that. MMI, essays, and ECs are all attempts to get to something important but hard to evaluate - particularly at scale. Admins are constantly trying to remove bias and any special advantages someone may have but not truly earn. There is and will always be work needed there. 

To reinforce what others have said you still don't need research to get into medical school - and over doing it in some area just makes you weaker than others. I wouldn't use this example as indication you have to radically move away from the basics we have always focused on. 

[rmorelan]

4 hours ago, KeyzerSoze said:

 

I intentionally withheld using his name due to respect of privacy, but now his name is being hurled around on this site like it's nothing (in complete disrepute, no less). Lol

.....and we are removing those for large part for exactly that issue of privacy. Although there is some lag in the removal. 

[Happy_go]

2 hours ago, sWOMEN said:

This has been brought to the adcom at my school as well

How do we inform of our home school adcoms of this unethical premed student without sounding petty?

[asdasdasd]

25 minutes ago, getrich said:

How do we inform of our home school adcoms of this unethical premed student without sounding petty?

If you’re not a medical student then don’t bother lmao

[rmorelan]

39 minutes ago, getrich said:

How do we inform of our home school adcoms of this unethical premed student without sounding petty?

You don't have to - they all talk among themselves. I am sure it isn't a surprise that protecting the integrity of the system is of great importance to them. 

in cases where you think they may not know, some people have used anonymous email accounts etc.  

[Compton]

I think the main point here is that this student "exaggerated" their accomplishments and tried to influence the study body to not engage in research, to their advantage. Yes, the admission process is cut throat and people consider every little thing to get themselves ahead however, the manner in which this student "published" and wrote "books" is the root of the problem. A colleague of mine stated if this student did not attract publicity by stating all his publications on LinkedIn or writing an article, they would have flown under the radar and got away with it. In essence, this may result in more awareness in the admission process.  

In the end I wouldn't be surprised if this student is made an example for future applicants and flagged for all future applications to Canadian and American med schools (maybe even extending into residency spots if the student chooses the IMG route).

[#YOLO]

nvm read above posts

[erythrocyte]

Even in the absence of adcoms being notified, I think any person would be extremely suspicious of someone claiming to have published 30+ papers by 3rd year university. It extends so far beyond what the 'average' applicant has that one would automatically think "this is bogus".

[LloydRedStan]

nevermind! already mentioned

[rmorelan]

6 minutes ago, Monocyte said:

Even in the absence of adcoms being notified, I think any person would be extremely suspicious of someone claiming to have published 30+ papers by 3rd year university. It extends so far beyond what the 'average' applicant has that one would automatically think "this is bogus".

yeah there would be checks - I mean one this the adcoms really do know all the tricks - they know them because they used to be premeds, and often not that long ago either. 

There is a high rate of detection of BS. 

 

[md-2200]

Just a question im just wondering If the guy actually put in work for his research with his dad because he is interested by the profession. Why wouldn't his dad take him as a research assistant If he's doing the work required? But I do agree that him making a whole article telling premed's not to do research is idiotic.

[cleanup]

Think of it this way. The way he behaves (no issues traversing ethical, moral & social boundaries to advance his own agenda & disregard anyone in his way) means he clearly has nothing going on in his life other than his relentless pursuit of 'Get into medical school.'  I find that sad, to be frank. It's extremely one track and reeks of an insecure, unfulfilled, externally-focused person who we should feel sorry for rather than be indignant at. These are people who only have one thing to hang their hat on: I do 'well' in school and I'm 'intelligent.' How boring.

If he doesn't get into medical school, or maybe something/someone threatens either his credibility as a physician, his entire identity & confidence collapse. That should frighten him.

[asdasdasd]

2 minutes ago, cleanup said:

Think of it this way. The way he behaves (no issues traversing ethical, moral & social boundaries to advance his own agenda & disregard anyone in his way) means he clearly has nothing going on in his life other than his relentless pursuit of 'Get into medical school.'  I find that sad, to be frank. It's extremely one track and reeks of an insecure, unfulfilled, externally-focused person who we should feel sorry for rather than be indignant at. These are people who only have one thing to hang their hat on: I do 'well' in school and I'm 'intelligent.' How boring.

If he doesn't get into medical school, or maybe something/someone threatens either his credibility as a physician, his entire identity & confidence collapse. That should frighten him.

That's a level of existential angst I don't think anyone deserves. While I think he doesn't deserve to be a physician, I don't think anyone deserves to live life completely void of purpose. Sad how things might turn out

[cleanup]

4 minutes ago, KeyzerSoze said:

That's a level of existential angst I don't think anyone deserves. While I think he doesn't deserve to be a physician, I don't think anyone deserves to live life completely void of purpose. Sad how things might turn out

Everyone goes through existential angst. If someone hasn't experienced it yet, it simply means they haven't run into the right obstacles yet. It's the human condition.

It's important to have the self-sufficiency and mental fortitude to realize that there are aspects of your life that bring you vitality & confidence, and those things will be threatened, taken away, destroyed or lost somehow. It will happen to all of us. Putting all your eggs in one basket as he is doing is unwise. If you read some of the articles/interviews floating around you get the impression that this guy has nothing else going on in his life. 

[Ian Wong]

rmorelan put in a much more eloquent and detailed reply already. Bottom line, leave personal identities/names out of this discussion. Any further threads will be removed.  

Thanks!

Ian