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A clarification on this: DS once told us one of the MD/PhD students tend to ask too many questions at a deeper level in class (Is she/he the student who consistently studies more than 13 hours every day – according to DS, even before the preparation of the STEP-1 test?!) It causes some “resentment” from many other students as they are not motivated in learning things in that way just to pass the boards test with a good enough score.</p>
<p>It appears there is some “disconnect” between these two groups of the students due to their different focus or future plan, practicing doctors vs medical scientists. And this happens at a school which has relatively more focus on grooming some medical scientists as a part of their mission. (I guess ditto for a school like WashU, UTSW, Penn, etc. e.g., at the second look event at UTSW, there appears to be a major recruitment effort for their incoming students to join a research lab in addition to the typical MD training. It was funny that DS met an international student there who was graduated from my alma mater – DS learned by talking to him that the college I attended when I was his age now is not a “bad” one – but I majored in an arguably easier major, an engineering major at that time.)</p>