<p>Less desirable, more desirable. most desirable…</p>
<p>Good, better, best…</p>
<p>Sufficient quality, very good quality, excellent quality, superior quality…</p>
<p>Are there any differentiations/gradations that can be considered legitimate, or is everything ‘flat’?</p>
<p>No, of course not. But comparing undergraduate education to medical school/residency programs is not exactly apples to apples. And back to the point of the OP, it is not necessary to go to a prestigious undergraduate institution to get into a top medical school, anyway.</p>
<p>I think some of you guys aren’t familiar with medical school and residencies. People from Harvard Med and Average State U Med work side by side in residencies. And it’s hardly as though Blue Cross pays the Harvard med or Harvard resident more than the Average State U med or resident.</p>
<p>I have been dealing with medical issues for many years now. One of my kids is a cancer survivor, my siblings have had crises, and I currently have two octogenerians with various health issues. With as many kids as I have, things crop up all of the time.</p>
<p>I can tell you that it really depends upon the situation as to where one goes for medical care To take my MIL/mother to the “best” hospital for a lot of their issues does not mean getting the best care for them. A very good local hospital with amenities works for them. You would not do that when dealing with some unusual high risk situation, however. So community hospitals have their place, especially some of them with very good ratings. No residents is a relief when you have older chronic issues Having been to many hospitals, it’s pretty clear to me that one can differentiate when to go where, not always, but many times.</p>
<p>But when we are talking about going to a prestigious university as an undergrad, it’s a whole other issue than going as a patient, as doctor, as a med student. For most kids, who want to go into medicine, I would not suggest a Johns Hopkins or Cornell, unless they are truly over the top in terms of academic preparedness and motivation. Those schools are outright cut throat in their premed programs and there are a number of such schools. Why run the gauntlet so early in the race? Better to have a more pleasant, nurturing less stressful ug experience to uplift you into the med school admissions process than one geared to weeding you out I know too many kids who were cut at schools that are just very difficult in terms of grade curves, and atmosphere that I think might have made it to med school had they gone to a less intense college. So it a case like that, paying a premium might be cutting down on the chances of getting to where one wants to go. Not a worthwhile premium–got the name on the UG degree, not not the grades to get into prof schools, like med school</p>
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<p>Yes. You’re in Boston, where it just so happens that the prestigious / best places are affiliated with a prestigious university. But if you lived in Cleveland, you’d take your wife / kid to the Cleveland Clinic, which is affiliated with Case, which is not a “prestigious” university the way Harvard is. Which doesn’t mean that it’s not one bit less good. You’re taking a very Boston-centric point of view. Prestigious medical centers aren’t necessarily affiliated with “prestigious” universities.</p>
<p>Again, neither my original statement, nor subsequent ones, limited my point to university-based. Cleveland Clinic however is academic I believe (as in has residency programs, no?). The point was major medical centers and that they are not ‘flat’. The fact that the Boston hospitals are affiliated with Harvard may be beneficial but is incidental the the issue and incidental to your initial critique of a post based on a statement that the medical field is ‘flat.’</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, would you say the same thing about law schools? Otherwise I agree with most of your post. I didn’t suggest that local suburban hospitals aren’t valuable or even preferable for a lot of routine care and routine procedures.</p>
<p>And FWIW, while Case obviously isn’t Harvard, I wouldn’t call Case ‘flat’ either.</p>
<h1>583…Are we now using reimbursements rates as a metric for relative quality of medical educations? Don’t see a connection. Many academic physicians, including the ones who write the textbooks, could have elected to make more money in full-time private practice. So?</h1>
<p>final…your last 50 posts…all but two are on this thread. Is this topic really that important?</p>
<p>Apparently you missed the “decal anxiety” thread before this one.</p>
<p>I’m not sure finalchild’s comparison of undergrad schools to hospitals works 100 percent but I have to say that I read her analogy as a simple one: as is the case with hospitals there are varying levels of quality and prestige. I understood her to be saying that while the community hospital or lesser-known university works well most of the time, there are times when you want the best available-be it HYPSM or Mass General/Sloan Kettering/Johns Hopkins, etc.</p>
<p>I can attest to her point from the patient side. I live in a town with a very good community hospital. My kids and husband have been frequent flyers and one of my kids has surgery there. We could have gone into town to have them treated but we chose this hospital because it was close, the kids’ pediatrician could check in on them, and being less busy they were seen more quickly than they would have been at a place like Mass General.</p>
<p>That said, when I was diagnosed with cancer last year I briefly considered being treated at the cancer center of the community hospital but quickly made the decision that Mass General was the place I wanted to handle my care. My oncologist put it into perspective when he said, “It’s a good hospital and you will get the best standard of care there, but I’m on the committee that wrote the standard of care.”</p>
<p>So perhaps we can think of it this way: Is it enough to study with a professor who uses the best book in the field or would you rather be studying with the professor who wrote the book? And where will you find this person? Are you just as likely to encounter this person at a mid-rank university as an Ivy League or similar institution? I don’t have an answer but I suspect it depends somewhat on the field of study and the level of scholarship at which the student is engaged.</p>
<p>FC</p>
<p>The title of this thread suggest there is a link between compensation and prestige. For a given region Medicare pays the same for a certain procedure regardless of where the physician performing the procedure was trained. This is evidence that medicine is “flat” in terms of prestige.</p>
<p>^^^^Don’t follow your question, or your interest in my habits? Does your question extend to others frequently posting here? This type of thread seems to be the type that draws a lot of interest. Whenever this thread closes, there will be another one within 2 days that is about virtually the exact same topics, and most likely with a similar name. Are you asking me to stop posting?</p>
<p>SKD, no, that suggests ‘flat’ in terms of reimbursment…and I think a ways back we reached some consensus that “worth” doesn’t equate with compensation or ROI. I find the argument that there is no “prestige” and/or no tiering in the medical field so strained at best and really out of touch that I will refrain from posting further on this sidebar to the overall discussion.</p>
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<p>At my university I took many classes from people who “wrote the books.” Some of them were great teachers; others not so much. My favorite classes were those taught by faculty who loved to teach students with a genuine interest in the subject. They were always the small classes where I had personal contact with and feedback from the professor.</p>
<p>To answer the question of where you will find the best teaching, I think it depends. As I said earlier, there’s a reason a lot of university faculty prefer LACs for their own kids. For mine, I would rather have them in classes with faculty whose focus is primarily on teaching undergrads and not doing their own research or being preoccupied with getting published. Departments at many small (even non-elite) LACs have great faculty who got their PhDs at top programs under advisors who “wrote the books.”</p>
<p>Okey-doke, finalchild. Those of us who are either in the medical field or who have spouses in the medical field say this on CC all the time - that the medical field is relatively flat compared to business and law. That the education out of any medical school in the US is considered good. That both State U and Harvard undergrads get accepted to the same medical schools, and that both State U Med School and Harvard Med School grads get accepted to the same residencies and work side by side. In a particular field that I’m familiar with, for example, the reigning “guru” is affiliated with the U of Cincinnati, and anything he says in this field isn’t marred by the fact that it’s not Harvard. This is in contrast with the law profession, which is very prestige-heavy, and for which “go top 14 or go home” is not bad advice. I’m not sure why you are disagreeing. No one is saying that there isn’t some prestige, but for the average workaday doctor intending to go treat patients on a daily basis, there is little benefit in going to Harvard Med vs State Flagship Med, as their workdays will look similar and their pay will be similar. </p>
<p>PUt another way: There is a greater difference between the experience at Harvard versus Average State U for undergrad, than there is between Harvard Medical School and Average State U Medical School. The curriculum in med school is very flat across schools.</p>
<p>The class composition is important in medical practice.</p>
<p>My 85 year old mother decided the community hospital was good enough for her breast cancer, but my 55 year old sister in law (who lives in the same town) that same summer went to the bigger name. It’s all about fit. :)</p>
<p>Shouldn’t this doctor business be pretty easy to check?
I’m pretty sure the Cleveland Clinic is pretty good at cardiology.
Here are their doctors-
[Our</a> Doctors](<a href=“http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/our-doctors.aspx]Our”>Top Cardiologists & Surgeons | Cleveland Clinic)</p>
<p>What am I missing? Are their hidden physician bios somewhere?</p>
<p>Exactly…monopolizing another thread with the same content when a previous one you were monopolizing was closed is really not necessary. At least not in my opinion.</p>