The system is broken

[Henry415]

The reality of modern Canadian med school applications is that they have gotten so competitive that they really only caters to people from the most privileged backgrounds. That is, people who had the time to spend thousands of hours on useless and irrelevant extracurricular activities just to show some sleepy adcom that they are a “well rounded” person. Not to mention the people who have the time and money to spend on all those extra gpa boosting courses for the sole purpose of this stupid application. These activities have almost zero merit outside of applying to med.

I understand that most things in life favor the privileged, but you will be hard pressed to find any other program/profession that demands that applicants must spend such a ridiculous amount of time on activities unrelated/tangentially related to the profession. To become a software engineer, you just need to have good personal projects and show you have good coding abilities during an interview. To become a delivery driver, you just need to show you have a good driving record and demonstrate that you can lift heavy objects. Essentially, you just need to show that you will be competent at the job. But what do you need to become a doctor? You only have to spend hundreds of hours on an executive committee of some student run club, build a non-profit organization from the ground up which helps marginalized individuals, spend years volunteering at a hospital, work at a suicide prevention call center, etc. The sad thing is, there are so many people willing to grind and waste their life away on these stupid activities for the sole purpose of appeasing the adcoms. As a result, the people who do go on and become medical students are some of the most boring and soulless people I've ever met. The system is broken.

[robclem21]

I agree to an extent with your overall premise, but I disagree with many of your points and mainly, your post just sounds bitter and ignorant.

First of all, I think you are right in that medical school (and university) admissions in general tend to favour those from privileged backgrounds. Those with time and economic resources to pursue extra volunteering opportunities, take on leadership roles in clubs, afford MCAT prep courses and review materials, overcome the financial costs to applying and interviewing, and with personal connections to gain exposure to the field and become knowledgable of the system and "game" of applying to medicine. Despite making some good progress recently, I think there is still a lot of room for improvement in the way we advocate and facilitate admission to medical school and provide resources for those from low SES and marginalized backgrounds. I won't dispute the main thesis of your rant.

However, I don't think you can compare becoming a doctor to becoming a delivery driver or software engineer, or in fact most other professions. Even though physicians are generally well compensated, it requires a substantial amount of commitment (6-10 years of your life, financial, time lost with friends and family). This requires selecting people who are dedicated to undertaking a decade of training and sacrifice prior to making ANY money for a job they want to do. You need to try to identify altruistic, dedicated, and hard-working applicants who have already shown an ability to commit to the field and understand what it takes to make it through a very very challenging training; much different than a delivery driver (0 training) or a software engineer (also very intelligent but different skillset, which can often be learned independently/easily on the job after only undergrad with little manpower and high compensation/flexibility to move). Finally, once training is finished, you may or may not have a job in the city you want doing what you want. With all of these factors, you can't simply select anyone who wants it like you would for other careers that can start right out of school, so yes you need to find applicants who have shown some dedication to pursuing it. You are looking after patients and responsible for their lives. This requires more than just mere competence 

"You only have to spend hundreds of hours on an executive committee of some student run club, build a non-profit organization from the ground up which helps marginalized individuals, spend years volunteering at a hospital, work at a suicide prevention call centre, etc." 
 

For this, its a bit facetious but nobody forces you to do any of these things if you don't want to. Ideally, the projects and activities one undertakes while planning for medical school are things they are passionate about and want to do. You can get into medical school by doing other things. You don't have to be president of anything, volunteer, travel anywhere. You can gain the skills you need to become a good physician by working a menial service job to support your family (in fact preferred). Your comment shows that you think it is more about the activity, than the skills you gain from it and thats a very immature approach and mindset which shows your ignorance about what medical schools are actually looking for in applicants. It is sad that people waste their time and money on things like this to appease adcoms, but definitely not necessary for admission. You just need to show you've learned and demonstrated you can work in a team, communicate well, advocate for things that are important to you, be a leader, etc.

As someone who has spent many years on medical school adcoms, it is not a few people sitting in an ivory tower. Yes, it is made up mostly of people who have been successful in the current system, but not only those who think volunteering to built houses in Central America is what it takes to be a good doctor. There are current medical students, community members, residents, physicians, from a wide variety of backgrounds who took many different paths to medicine. It's not perfect, but most of us try to put our biases aside to select the best candidates among thousands.

"As a result, the people who do go on and become medical students are some of the most boring and soulless people I've ever met." 

I guess its probably for the best you don't get in then so you don't become boring and soulless. If you still want to try though, find and do things that truly interest you, that help you grow and mature as a person, and maybe adjust your attitude and understanding that medicine is more than just a "job".

Good luck.

 

[premed72]

My classmates are actually pretty cool ppl 

[GH0ST]

On 4/12/2023 at 2:45 AM, Henry415 said:

 

The sad thing is, there are so many people willing to grind and waste their life away on these stupid activities for the sole purpose of appeasing the adcoms. As a result, the people who do go on and become medical students are some of the most boring and soulless people I've ever met. The system is broken.

I'm sorry about your experience, but it does appear very biased and bitter. While some people I met have more mundane lives, my colleagues were/are some of the most diverse people I've met. This isn't to say everyone is nice, but to denigrate things like this without looking at the other side makes your point lose a lot of credibility. 

- G

EDIT: found the same individual making the exact post elsewhere with the same title... the comment history unfortunately reflects an individual that hasn't been admitted but feels that they have enough expertise to criticize or attack other members' contributions without presenting much evidence to support their own point. Disappointing really... I know the OP isn't applying to medicine any longer but one would think that in a debate you would have the ability to look at the different perspectives without it devolving into an attack on people's interest. 

As an example... you mention that those that got in are "boring" but then when someone has different ECs like gaming, or cooking... you discredit those skills thinking it has no bearing on being a good medical student. So which is it? do you want a cookie cutter or someone more diverse? That point is one of many inconsistencies that can best be summarized as someone who has a myopic view of medical school and the matriculants. 

I wish you well in the future, but I hope your attitude improves in your other careers and you find what you are looking for in life. It doesn't appear as though medical school is what you're looking for. 

- G 

[hero147]

I do find most residents live mundane lives haha. All those cool experiences and hobbies seem to disappear in clerkship and residency. I must admit so did my hobbies. Most residents I see just ski on the weekends and go to exotic or international cities on their vacation time. 

[GH0ST]

11 minutes ago, hero147 said:

I do find most residents live mundane lives haha. All those cool experiences and hobbies seem to disappear in clerkship and residency. I must admit so did my hobbies. Most residents I see just ski on the weekends and go to exotic or international cities on their vacation time. 

Don't get that confused with two things

1. They are interesting but they don't get many opportunities to practice their hobbies

2. This is med school applications, not slogging it in residency trying to breathe

- G

[Edict]

8 hours ago, hero147 said:

I do find most residents live mundane lives haha. All those cool experiences and hobbies seem to disappear in clerkship and residency. I must admit so did my hobbies. Most residents I see just ski on the weekends and go to exotic or international cities on their vacation time. 

Literally its work hard play hard, we work hard and then we need to do something big for when we get a bit of time off. 

[ytho]

it's kind of funny, the guy in the other post he made says he's not salty and making tons of money as a software developer. Yet here he is, making multiple of the same thread, spending his time commenting with bitter posts and not listening to any insight from the commenters.

People with admissions experience commenting and his response is that we can't handle criticism of the system and doesn't respond to the points that are made. I think the only person who can't handle criticism here is OP. idk, kinda seems like the admissions process worked. 

[Henry415]

3 hours ago, ytho said:

it's kind of funny, the guy in the other post he made says he's not salty and making tons of money as a software developer. Yet here he is, making multiple of the same thread, spending his time commenting with bitter posts and not listening to any insight from the commenters.

People with admissions experience commenting and his response is that we can't handle criticism of the system and doesn't respond to the points that are made. I think the only person who can't handle criticism here is OP. idk, kinda seems like the admissions process worked. 

Fine. I give up. I guess since there’s so much backlash against my post, there must be no problems with the application process because some gatekeepers on some premed forum said so. And there is no truth to my rant. Carry on then. 

[GH0ST]

18 hours ago, Henry415 said:

Fine. I give up. I guess since there’s so much backlash against my post, there must be no problems with the application process because some gatekeepers on some premed forum said so. And there is no truth to my rant. Carry on then. 

@Henry415 I think it's a real shame that you still aren't seeing the main point that others are trying to explain in different ways. It may be due to your perceived bias, but I think that ultimately hurts yourself and your pent up frustration at the process, as well as discourage potential applicants in the process. This journey is difficult enough without the perceived negativity behind your words. 

I think it's also concerning that you perceive a discussion challenging your beliefs as backlash. No one here ever said that the system was perfect or that it couldn't be improved upon. Many of the posters did mention that admissions is a fallible process. It's also concerning that you look at any criticism as us justifying things as "no problem." Things are rarely black and white as you make it out to be. 

What many posters have tried to communicate revolves around the theme of challenges in the admission criteria themselves. There are two themes that make medical admissions a difficult process to get right:

1) medical schools are focused primarily on serving the community they represent

- This means that medical schools may not necessarily select the best candidates on paper, but those that match morer with the needs of the community. For example, NOSM's social accountability mandate places emphasis on candidates that grew up in rural/remote regions, as both observed and studied evidence suggests that those from the region are more likely to serve the community they reside. Similar logic can be applied to affirmative action programs, though in that case, it is also to help correct for historical inequities that exist in the marginalized and/or vulnerable population.

- This inherently means that a good candidate in one school may be less ideal in another, but that's not due to a weakness in character but just not being as strong of a "fit."

2) there are numerous qualities and skills that people should/must possess and evaluating them are not straightforward (and sometimes subjective)

- There are common traits such as organizational skills, empathy, integrity, and critical thinking (among many) that are sought after in medicine (as well as other careers), but even these traits are hard to evaluate. If there was an indisputable evidence-based process, then we wouldn't be having this discussion since every school could use that as their admissions criteria.

- This challenge, combined with point #1, means that different schools will have different approaches to evaluating such qualities (due to the fact that we are all different people on admissions committees). Some schools place less emphasis on GPA, more emphasis on ECs, variable emphasis on MCAT, or written statements, etc. 

- That is also why there are many that are admitted to medical school with more diverse backgrounds. Medical school admission average age is typically cited as 24, and while there is a proportion of those that study science, there is a significant group that studies various disciplines. Similarly, whether it's working to support your family, volunteering at an organization you care about, or leading an initiative, evaluating these activities gives us an opportunity to see how well you adapt as well as what character traits you may have that would be conducive to medicine. 

 

Medical school admissions process also has seen changes over time, but like any population level intervention, it takes time to recognize and it doesn't always reflect on individual factors. For example, a de-emphasis on GPA may not matter to someone who already has a higher GPA to begin with, but may mean more to someone that didn't get as many opportunities to study or couldn't get the help they needed. I know that on the back end, the programs are constantly reflecting on implementing adjustments to the admissions process to refine their objective. A lot of work is happening in the background but it isn't obvious to everyone on the outside. It's also important to remember that regardless of the change, there will always be a group that disagree with the proposed changes (assuming they even recognize the change in the first place). It's not easy to make something that appeals to everyone but we do the best we can. 

 

A lot of medical school admissions reminds me of public health. Even something as simple as traffic safety in front of a school has a lot of moving parts (no pun intended). In program design: you want to manage your resources, engage in various stakeholder groups, identify the scale and scope of the problem, address potential multifactorial solutions, develop indicators, and ultimately implement and evaluate your program for future directions. Different groups will inherently disagree on the best approach (just like how we are having a disagreement now). Different people will have various preferences/emphasis on indicators as well as what to measure. Implementation and evaluation is also not black and white, but the importance is on continual quality improvement to reach our desired goal. 

 

I know that this likely won't change your mind, but my written text is for the other prospective applicants. It isn't doom and gloom. I can speak as someone that didn't get in my first try and studied public health afterwards. It truly was a blessing in disguise as I was able to reflect on my shortcomings and have a better approach and perspective on various topics in health and health care. I believe I am a better doctor now, and easily would have been better than if I had gotten in right away. While not getting in sucks for everyone, it isn't the end and there are ways to improve things under your sphere of influence. Most importantly, keep living your life and try to do the best you can. For ad coms and colleagues on this forum, I can really feel the passion and dedication that they have when they share their wisdom (something I've always respected from members here). When I think of being involved in the process, I don't have any regrets and know I did my best to try and select for the best people I felt were going to be good doctors regardless of any outside influence. 

 

The process is not perfect, but even with the negativity in your post, I will take that constructively to reflect on what I can do to help make things better. I don't have all of the answers but I will always strive to work towards a more equitable process so our community as a whole benefits for generations to come. That's all we can do. 

 

Best wishes to the other applicants out there and also to @Henry415in your future, regardless of where you end up. 

 

- G

[robclem21]

18 hours ago, Henry415 said:

Fine. I give up. I guess since there’s so much backlash against my post, there must be no problems with the application process because some gatekeepers on some premed forum said so. And there is no truth to my rant. Carry on then. 

If you even bothered to read my response to you, which it sounds like you didn't, I spent the first half of it agreeing with you. You are thinking and going about this the wrong way, and your attitude here reflects that of a bitter cry baby, not someone actually interested in having a discussion about the issues and changes.

But yes, you keep acting like you're the victim here...

Sincerely,

Previous candidate who was rejected substantially more times than you.