<p>@cmoles is there such a thing as an invalid MBA? It is a degree that you have earned at an accredited institution, that makes it valid. Besides match lists, you also should consider location (north vs south) depending on where you currently reside and what type of weather you prefer.</p>
<p>@TheBombingRange well of course there’s no such thing as an invalid MBA. But I’m not sure whether employers would really consider the MBA of value since we were so young when we did it. I’m honestly fine with any sort of weather or region of the US. I do however have to keep up a 3.5 cumulative GPA at Union (I don’t think this should be too hard) while a 2.8 cumulative GPA at UMKC.</p>
<p>Many doctors work for themselves and so there are no employers per se. The reason they get MBAs is to move into administrative positions in the hospitals they work at.</p>
<p>@cmoles, I am in a very similar situation. I am trying to choose between RPI/Albany and UMKC. The match lists are actually pretty comparable but I was think Albany’s might be a little stronger. It’s a tough decision.</p>
<p>@cmoles How will they know at what age you got your MBA? If you really want the MBA, go for Union. If you want to relax a little bit more, go for UMKC. You said cost is the same, so look at objective comparisons to make your decision.</p>
<p>I am a parent and a specialist physician (hematologist) and have been very successfully and worked in both top tier academic institutions up to the level of a tenured Full Professor and now a full time private practitioner. I have been following this thread with interest because my son may be applying to one of these programs next year.</p>
<p>@cmoles, you are correct to question the value of the MBA. If you are going into private practice, it is useless. If you are going into academics, the academic world always view a physician with an MBA with doubt of his/her clinical ability and acumen. If you are going into hospital administration, having an MBA is useful but it is doubtful anyone will take it with great doubts an MBA that is taken so early in one’s career, before one actually has any experience in clinical practice. MBA generally should only be taken after one has had some working experience, or no one will take the MBA seriously. Your time will be much better spent practicing the arts of medicine, being exposed to more clinical experience, learning the arts of patient interaction, and in a program that specifically teaches a student to be a good clinician.</p>
<p>@daisy1111. If you want to be a pure clinician without being involved in research, then going to the RPI/AMC program is a waste of time. Again, your time will be better better spent practicing the arts of medicine, being exposed to more clinical experience, learning the arts of patient interaction, and in a program that specifically teaches a student to be a good clinician. However, if you think you might want to be in academia, then the RPI/AMC program will equip you to face the challenge.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>I disagree with OhioParents views on where one can get good medical training.</p>
<p>I am an International Medical Graduate from the United Kingdom. I went to a second or third tier medical school in Scotland because at the time I applied to medical school, there were very limited choices for an international student from a country that already has established medical schools in the Far East. Therefore, I did not go to Oxford, Cambridge or the London Universities. Nearly 90% of graduates from my school go into primary care. Despite this, I am an internationally recognized specialist, with a PhD degree and a British research MD degree, in addition to being a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists. I was also offered positions in the United Kingdom in preference to competitions from Oxford, Cambridge, or the London Universities.</p>
<p>I moved to this country, after being a very well established specialist in the United Kingdom and was a full tenured Associate Professor, because of my research interests. With my credentials, I have since been able to practice fully without restrictions in most of the states in this country, even though I have not done a single day of training in this country. I am respected not only for my research but also for my clinical acumen and experience. I left academia a few years ago to go into private practice and am working with a group of physicians, many of them received their training in this country, including UT Southwestern, Yale, and WUStL. I remain a resource for all my colleagues, including those trained in top medical schools in this country, and they have been very impressed with the very unique and top rate clinical training I received from a less than top tier British medical school.</p>
<p>I have been practicing medicine since 1984. I have worked with many physicians, including those trained in the United Kingdom, India, Eastern Europe, and the US. There are some very good physicians and also some physicians I would not let them go near my patients, and they all have received their training in all these countries, including the US. Therefore, it is incorrect to assume that if one is trained in this country, one will definitely be good. Whether one is good or not depends on how one wants to be and how much one is willing to devote ones life to the care of patients, irrespective of where one has done ones training.</p>
<p>OhioParent mentioned about the passing of the USMLE exam. Yes, of course the passing rate will always be lower for International Graduates because the medical topics are emphasized differently in foreign medical schools. For example, the medical schools in this country teach diseases such as Rocky Mountain Fever to their students and the topic might be tested in USMLE. However this is a disease not seen in Europe, or the Far East and so it is never taught. On the other hand, diseases such as Malaria is taught elsewhere but largely not covered in much detail in this country. Furthermore, the medical schools here specifically gear their curriculum to meet the need of passing the USMLE but this is not the case in medical schools in other countries. This explains the lower USMLE pass rate rather than the lesser quality of the international graduates.</p>
<p>Overall, from my many years of experience in medicine in this country and in the UK, I have come to the following conclusions. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>If one wants to be a peoples physician, the training overseas may better equip the students to do so. The training in the US does not concentrate much on patient interactions and clinical skills. Any patient with abdominal pain will get a CT scan of the abdomen without trying to figure out, based on careful clinical examination, what the pathology might be.</p></li>
<li><p>Irrespective of which medical schools one go to, one can always be a good physician if one tries. I have come across some physicians from the Ivies that I would not trust my patients to them.</p></li>
<li><p>There are challenges one has to face if one goes to either a lesser medical school or a foreign medical school, just because of wrongful perception of the quality of training in these schools. But once patients and colleagues got to know you, they judge you on the quality of work you produce and beyond which medical school you have been trained.</p></li>
<li><p>It might be more difficult to get into competitive residency programs in this country if you go to a lesser medical school, not because you are not as good as those from top tier medical schools but because there is generally less networking that operates in the lesser medical schools.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So for all of you would are wondering which program you should go to, you need to ask yourself truthfully what you want to be. If you want to be a pure and good physician with good clinical skills, you might be more likely to attain that going to a program that concentrates on training practicing physicians. If you want to be an academician, it might be easier for you to get there going to a top tier program, not because the program gives better training, but because the program generally has better networking opportunities.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>@pgans12 I seem to have deleted your pm that has your phone number. Please call us any time today or pm me your phone number again.</p>
<p>imgdad - I understand your route to US and I have many friends who have taken that route from India, some of them with FRCS, MRCP etc. The question at hand is not whether these schools abroad are any good but if they create issues getting into residency programs once they are done. </p>
<p>Lately, I come across many US born and raised kids who have gone to other countries to get their medical degrees. I have close friends whose children are doing it right now. One of them finished their rotations in US and did not get a match in the recent results although the kid was offered a position just a few months ago at one of the hospitals during rotations in an area the kid was not interested in. Now this kid has to negotiate with a hospital to get a residency or wait until one more year. </p>
<p>The other question is should someone be afraid of the undergrad GPA requirements and take the foreign training instead? That to me makes no sense.</p>
<p>Imgdad, thanks for coming to this forum, we would love to have wisdom of a practitioner, your son is applying to combined program, is it because this is the norm of all oversea med education? I have reservation on ohioparent “going to best med school as you can”, if clinical training is deciding factor of your future practice.</p>
<p>@IMGDAD Thank you so much for your input. I’ve really started to lean towards UMKC now. I think that your input as an actual physician is valuable, because I don’t have any family members that are physicians to advise me on such a decision.
@TheBombingRange Employers look at everything. They won’t just see “oh you did an MBA”. They will look at when you did your MBA, where you did it, what undergraduate college you went to, and basically our entire academic history. So yes, I am definitely skeptical about an MBA done when I’m fresh out of high school.</p>
<p>@ IMGDAD, pcb1604, and Ohioparent, THANK YOU all for this lively debate. In addition to which med school is the best for our intended purpose (which I am sure will evolve or change over next few years), kids accepted into this program are also thinking about a) which UG will provide them best environment during the most important years of our lives b) which program has realistic requirement for us to stay in these program (I think some of us here have unreasonable fear about GPA or MCAT requirement since most of the accepted students are bright and competitive students and should not have any problem to meet them) and c) in the rare event some of us fail to stay in the program or suddenly decide not interested in medicine anymore, which UG option will provide us the flexibility to pursue a plan B. Our specific interest in specialty of medicine, clinician vs academic medicine…I am sure will change multiple times before we will know precisely what we want (we are 18 and have not figured everything well in advance).</p>
<p>I have a specific question though. I hear from many practicing physicians that to become a better clinician, med school like SUNY downstate in Brooklyn that serves a large urban population with limited resource and provide opportunity to see diverse diseases among patients with diverse ethnic background is the way to go. Residency directors love graduates from SUNY Downstate or UMiami Miller School of medicine. On the other hand, I hear that to get into top residencies or fellowship after ward, having exposure to research in a med school like SUNY Stony Brook (among SUNY schools) and other private medical schools is crucially important. How good of a clinician medical students become during the last 2 years of their med school (I hear students can’t even touch patients in private med school in affluent neighborhood while they can get a lot of hands on experience in a urban medical college because of the sheer volume of patients from all backgrounds)? Or these differences among different types of medical school are over blown in the grand scheme of things when everyone study the same curriculum, take the same standardized test and so on. Would you please provide your insight on this?</p>
<p>@ TheBombingRage, please pm me her e-mail. I intend to be in SBU on Friday and Saturday (13th). 20th I know for engineering students but we won’t meet all the honors college students. There will be orientation later and I am sure some of these will be repeated for admitted students. So might not go on 20th.</p>
<p>@Shoumik95 I’m pming you her email now. I’m thinking the same thing about the 20th, might not be worth it especially if we going to the HC reception. Are you definitely declining Brooklyn?I understand your stated concerns about research and residencies vs. patient exposure. I still feel that Stony Brook is a large enough hospital to see a large variety of patient types and healtcare issues. If you want, you can volunteer at the clinic, where all of the patients are uninsured. That, for sure, will provide some form of diversity.</p>
<p>@Shoumik95
Hi congratulations on your multiple admissions. Is it possible for you to share your Stats so the next year applicants can see where they stand? Thanks.</p>
<p>@ tamtiger
Thanks! Here are my stats:</p>
<p>SAT: CR 730, M 770, W 750 (total 2250/2400); Essay 12/12
Subject SAT: Bio M 760, Math I 760, Math II 760, Chemistry 800</p>
<p>GPA: 98%; Rank: 18/750 in a NY suburban public high school (not too impressive, I know)</p>
<p>APs: Bio (5), Chem (4), US History (4) in junior years; 4 more in senior year.
College credit course from Stony Brook: 1 class in statistics (earned A)</p>
<p>Volunteer in a local hospital for 3 years in different departments
Worked in medical office of an internist in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood
Shadowed the same internist and a nephrologist in hospital setting
Spent a summer as a research assistant in cardiothoracic research lab of Stony Brook School of Medicine working on regenerative cardiovascular medicine, no publication.</p>
<p>Leadership positions in a few activities, honor societies, key club (nothing spectacular).</p>
<p>Had excellent recommendations from my teachers, guidance counsellor, and from medical professionals who helped me along the way.</p>
<p>I have taken extra care and spent a LOT of time in writing reflective, thoughtful essays both for common app, regular 4 year UG schools supplements and BS MD supplements that I think helped a lot. And once I got interviews, I have tried to do the best I could to present my case. At this stage, I think it’s no longer about stats but how one conduct him/herself and come across as a matured, calm person who is genuinely interested in medicine and in that specific institution where he/she is interviewing.</p>
<p>Other than BS/MD programs, I have been accepted to Cornell, WashU, Notre Dame, U Rochester, Swarthmore College, Bowdoin College, and Vassar College. If I could not make into any BS MD program, I would have gone most likely to Wash U or Bowdoin College. Rejected by Yale and Dartmouth; waitlisted by Rice, Vanderbilt, and Amherst College. I would tell you honestly that it hurts quite a bit to walk away from some of the best academic institutions of the country just for the sake of a guaranteed spot in med school.</p>
<p>Accepted into 3 BS/MD programs: Brooklyn SUNY Downstate; Geneseo SUNY Upstate; and Stony Brook BE MD (most likely heading here). Good luck to all future applicants!</p>
<p>@Shoumik95 That’s weird, I was waitlisted by WashU and accepted to Vanderbilt. Both of them gave me no financial assistance at all, so they were basically out as soon as I got the letters. You got my PM?</p>
<p>@texaspg, I agree with what you said. The point I was trying to make is that good clinical training can be, and very often is, derived from programs that specifically train clinicians, rather than programs that concentrates on research. Remember that the ranking of medical schools in this country is based primarily on research and so NIH funding. I know of many top class clinicians with top class clinical acumen working in the community. After all, probably more than 90% of physicians in this country work in the community. In contrast, most physicians in large and top program spend only one to two months a year doing clinical work and the rest in research or teaching. Obviously for clinical experience, the more you practice, the better you become.</p>
<p>I was not advocating those kids going to international programs but they have to decide what is more important for them. I truly believe that as long as you are determined and hardworking, you can overcome any deficiencies in “name” or “ranking” of your medical programs, as long as you also remember that to be competitive if you are from the lesser programs, you cannot expect to be just as good as the rest but have to make sure that you are clearly better than those from the more reputable programs.</p>
<p>@pcb1604. You have to ask yourself and be truthful to yourself. If you aspire to be a pure and solid clinician making a real difference to the daily lives of the citizens, how you would prefer to spend, say, 8-12 months of your life. Do something that is relevant to what you eventually want to do (e.g. be exposed to more clinical cases and master the arts of medicine) or do something that is not relevant to your future life (e.g. doing research and doing an MBA degree)? </p>
<p>My son wants to be a physician. However, from seeing how he works and looking at his characters, he may have problems with academic stamina if he goes by the normal route. Therefore, going into a BS/MD program would be good for him because I know that once he is in the program, he will do well just following the curriculum scheduled for him. He will complete the programs without problems and will be an excellent and caring physician.</p>
<p>thanks imgdad. I am not persuaded by the rankings of the different schools and do believe they are mainly useful in determining the strength of clinical vs research programs. I do believe a bias exists in accepting foreign medical graduates in the residency programs which means someone might lose an year or two trying to get into one even if they might have superior training. </p>
<p>As a moderator, I feel compelled to request imgdad and ohioparent to stick around and contribute to the premed topics. There are many threads outside of this one where regular applicants all the way through residency are discussing and seeking advice. It would be great to have some more doctors contributing in this area.</p>