fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3003 ]

[ SECRET POST #3003 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3003 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 043 secrets from Secret Submission Post #429.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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It is MUCH, MUCH easier for a black person to get into medical school than a white person and, especially, an Asian person.

I understand the logic of this for undergraduate -- you want a variety of people with a broad range of life experience.

But for med school this makes NO SENSE to me. Doctors have people's LIVES in their hands.

If we end up with 90% Asian doctors than so be it, but I want my doctors to be THE BEST.

Look, as someone who has taken the MCAT, it's really not all that indicative of how good you're going to be at medicine. It's very indicative of whether or not you're good at studying specific material and doing physics or chemistry problems on the fly with no calculator.

That's about it. It doesn't say whether or not you're going to be able to deal with the position emotionally or be able to solve problems or be able to connect to and interact with patients or any of the myriad other skills actually required for being a good physician.

But you know what is more important than that? Having good life experience. The best doctors are not the ones with the best grades. They just aren't. This is the entire reason they weight volunteer experience so highly on entrance requirements and have stopped handing out spots in medical school to people who just got high marks.

I understand your concern here, but you're just so wrong.

Well of course. MCAT scores are just one factor.

But the fact of the matter is that black people ARE privileged in this area.

Plus, not all doctors require good life experience or even patient interaction.

Pathologists for example.

Surgeons can also be this.

But the point is simply to state that if you have an Asian candidate and a Black candidate that are basically equivalent, the black candidate will get the spot in med school. Which is privilege. Just like white people and legacies.

No, it's not "black people" privilege. This privilege is extended to anyone with extenuating life circumstances that might interfere with studying; for example, holding down a full time job in order to pay for tuition or having to care for family members or siblings while going to school or studying for the MCAT.

The reality is that this is often the situation black applicants find themselves in, whereas white or Asian applicants are far, far more likely to have their parents paying for their entire schooling experience.

And you're totally wrong about that last line. There is no magical black aura that lets you into medical school, and no two people are ever equivalent. This is why people are interviewed. Your "equivalent" applicants might have exactly the same scores, grades, number of volunteer hours, references... all of that, but one of those people is going to interview better. One of those people is going to have a more realistic understanding of what being a doctor entails or a hardier personality or more dedication to that life path than "this is what my parents want me to do".

"And you're totally wrong about that last line."

Considering I've seen it happen, I'm going to have to disagree.

Yes, I have had far more qualified and better prepared Asian students get rejected where they should have been accepted over less qualified candidates (not just a race issue either as white people who have the right connections are also included here).

That whole nepotism thing is half the reason the qualifications have changed so much. You keep talking like you know what those are, but I'm forced to assume you're off base.

The people most frequently getting rejected are the ones whose parents were doctors or who have good grades with no volunteer experience because they assumed all you needed was grades. And as it turns out, what people have been finding over the past ten years or so (and the reason they recently revamped the entire MCAT itself) is that those people actually make the worst doctors because most of the time they don't even make it through their entire training without quitting and going on to do something else.

Why in the world would you assume that by "connections" I meant parents?

I was referring to INSTITUTIONAL connections, which are a HUGE advantage.

Because that's what most people mean when they mention nepotism and then connections in the space of two comments?

But regardless, institutional mean anything if they interviewed poorly. I mean, basically nothing matters if you interview poorly. You could have the best grades possible and an MCAT score of 45 and you could still present yourself as someone unfit for the position.

Sorry. Should have been clearer on that. It's just funny to me because my father is a physician and he's always encouraged me to run as far away as possible from medicine.

In regards to interviewing poorly, well, let's just say that mock interviews have made me a little cynical in that regard.

Realistically though... people can tell when you've prepared for questions. I mean, there are a ton of preparative things like that for any position, but the people interviewing also are aware of that. They're aware of stock answers and "correct" answers and people trying to bluff their way in.

You either want to be a physician or you don't. It sounds like your dad might have been part of the reason the system is getting a revamp.

Wow dude. I know we disagree, but that's no reason to insult my dad.

That wasn't an insult. My entire argument thus far has been "they're revamping this because people were getting in that didn't realize what being a doctor actually entails".

If your dad has warned you off medicine that hard, that seems like he might have been one of the people to go into it without realizing it wasn't the job for him.

I don't think so -- he warned me off of it more because he knows I don't tolerate high stress environments very well and that I don't do well with highly emotionally charged situations (which doctors will potentially face).

It was more of an incompatible personality than him thinking he doesn't handle it well himself. I'm more like my mother.

Well... then I'm sure you know that for the longest time medicine was pretty incestuous. All it took was a recommendation from a doctor and some solid grades (and passing a few of the weeder courses like calculus) and you could get in.

This, a lot of the time, didn't produce the kind of doctors that were good at interacting with patients or ...really at being doctors in the first place.

The whole system now is designed around finding people who are a good fit without resorting to those old standards. This might lead to it looking on the outside that black people can get into medical school more easily, but it's just not true. What is true is that you can get into medical school more easily without the best grades if you have a valid reason for it and you have demonstrated that you would be a strong candidate in other ways.

So in your first post when you equated getting the best grades with being the best doctor, it's just so untrue it hurts. Historically speaking, it has been demonstrably untrue for years.

I hope you can take this to heart, because thinking that a black doctor is automatically less qualified is not only kind of racist, it's also just... wrong, in the grand scheme of things, you know?

I just want to clarify where I'm coming from here:

My dad's father was not a doctor. And, in fact, he didn't go to medical school in the US or any of the "developed nations."

When he moved to Europe, though, he found out that those marking his exams (which, unlike in the US, aren't multiple choice but are instead short answer and essay) were marking him down when they noticed he wrote in ways a native speaker wouldn't. Not that it was wrong, mind you, but his style of writing was notably different. Additionally, preference was given to natives in terms of job openings.

I think this is bullshit of the highest caliber. You pick the best doctors. Based on merit.

Also, you know how I know your "whole system" is bullshit?

Because a black applicant with a GPA of 3.40-3.59 and an MCAT score of 36-38 has a 100% chance of getting into med school.

Whereas for an Asian person, this is 63.9%

Are you SHITTING me? 100 percent for black applicants?

You're telling me that EVERY SINGLE ONE of them did SO much better than those Asian applicants.

YES, there are many fewer black applicants than Asian applicants. But the thought that someone is being denied a chance because of quotas gets under my skin.

Is a black doctor less qualified than an Asian doctor? Unless I could see them in action and had access to their INDIVIDUAL test scores are CVs, I couldn't tell you.

But what I do know is that the requirements for GPA and MCAT scores are less stringent for black undergraduates than, say Asian undergraduates.

And THAT is a privilege in black people's favor.

Well, okay, you have successfully clarified that you're both under the wrong impression (nobody has 100% chance of getting into med school based on scores. Nobody. Not unless that school happens to base their entire entrance requirement on scores, which ignores the fact that not all med school entrance requirements are the same).

You've also successfully clarified that you're kind of racist. Good for you.

Re: MCAT scores - the argument is, not just that MCAT scores are not totally indicative of ability as a doctor, but more specifically, that MCAT scores are not accurate reflectors of the potential skill of a candidate particularly when categories of race and class are involved.

In other words (on this line of thinking) - it could be that by adjusting the scoring scales, you're actually securing better doctors overall, because candidates whose MCAT scores are depressed by outside factors will be able to overcome that disability.

Re: admissions more generally, I don't think that it's true for a black person to get into medical school than a white person. I think it's easier for a black person to get into medical school provided that they've done all the other things you need to do to get into medical school.

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