Three-year medical school?
When I started teaching medical students, our MD curriculum was four years. The entire first two years were pre-clinical. Students advanced to clinical clerkships at the beginning of their third year. For seven years, I was course director for a 2.5 trimester, 95 lecture course called “Medical Biochemistry.”
When I retired last July, pre-clinical training was 1.6 years. Students now start their clinical clerkships in the spring of year 2. This was done primarily to allow students exposure to more clinical settings before applying for residency. The topics in what used to be “Medical Biochemistry” are now covered in three weeks.
Some medical school in the US are looking at shortening medical school to three years, like law school:
“A growing number of medical schools are experimenting with a provocative solution to that problem: shaving a year off of medical school and letting qualified students graduate after three years.
“In Massachusetts, UMass Chan Medical School offers a three-year MD program. Tufts University School of Medicine is exploring one. Thirty-two medical schools in the US and Canada have joined the Consortium of Accelerated Medical Pathway Programs, an organization formed a decade ago to support and study accelerated medical degree programs.”
Three-year medical school would reduce the cost for students, and it is hoped would thus increase the number of physicians in the less generously compensated specialties like internal medicine, pediatrics and geriatrics.
“UMass provides one model. UMass is like many other three-year programs nationwide in that it restricts its accelerated program to students studying primary care: family medicine, internal medicine, or pediatrics. The UMass program is tiny — its first three classes have a total of eight students. Part of the reason it’s so small is students interview for residencies at UMass in their first year of medical school with the expectation that they will match there (beginning this year, students can also match at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center).
“The accelerated students have less vacation time, but most of what they lose is electives. In a traditional fourth year, medical students do clinical rotations, getting experience in different specialties and at different hospitals where they will interview for residency. In the accelerated program, the students already know what they will specialize in and where they will match.
“Financially, the three-year program means students avoid paying a fourth year’s tuition and enter the workforce earlier.”
America needs better medical care. Having more docs in primary care would be one way to achieve this. Others include allowing physician assistants to take over more jobs previously performed by MDs and DOs and replacing radiologists with AI. Of course, adopting some form of single payer, like the other industrialized nations on the planet, would also help.
Three years to the MD
Joel:
What is the difference between a DO and MD? Knowing a bit of my history, which would you say might be better for me?
@Bill,
The primary difference between an MD (Doctor of Allopathic Medicine) and a DO (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) lies in their philosophical and training approach, rather than their final qualifications. Both can practice all areas of medicine, including surgery, and prescribe medication. DOs are trained in a more holistic approach to medicine compared to MDs.
For your history, I’d look for a hematologist, regardless of the degree.
@Terry,
This makes the point eloquently. The huge debts that med students roll up between college and med school incent them to choose residencies leading to highly compensated subspecialties. These trainees simply can’t afford to be primary care physicians, which is what American needs.
Joel:
I have not read up on this lately. One of the big complaints is primary care doctors are making less as determined by “some” Board. I have to look it up to identify it.
@Bill,
Yes. That’s what I’ve been saying in my post and my comments: ” . . . physicians in the less generously compensated specialties like internal medicine, pediatrics and geriatrics.” “These trainees simply can’t afford to be primary care physicians, which is what American needs.”
The docs who get paid more are the ones who do procedures. The PCPs who just do check-ups, shots, prescriptions and referrals don’t get paid as much.
Terry:
Good story on the success of a person you know quite well by now. I guess what would the “brightest among the bright ones mean? Why eliminate the next level when there is a shortage? there is more to this than what I will talk about here.
Bill, I think we are on the same page. I know a guy from college who desperately wanted to be a doctor. He had good grades and presumably did well on the tests, but not well enough. He attended some medical school off shore, but has practiced for the better part of 50 years including being an adjunct at a couple of medical schools. Very bright but not the brightest but I would argue is a better doctor than the guys and gals who beat him out for the last spots in US medical schools. In my personal experience I have received more help with some of my chronic problems from nurse practitioners rather than the MD who is my primary.
Terry:
A good doctor knows when they need help and will ask for it. I just need direction most of the time. The only issue I have is timing. Today I can be ok and tomorrow I could be off to the hospital because my platelets mostly disappeared. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand my issues.
They just have to understand my being ok today does not mean I am ok tomorrow. When they say I am healthy, I look healthy today. Doctors do not seem to understand the issues. A month in a hospital is not fun.
Sometimes you just need to have a good doctor who knows when to seek help. Thanks Terry.