The biggest challenge of any pre-medicine student is matriculating into a medical program. Regardless of one’s choice of D.O or M.D., one thing is clear…you must perform well on the MCAT. A lesser G.P.A can be forgiven by excellent MCAT marks but a sub-28 composite and most students start looking at Master’s in Public Health programs. An interesting article caught my attention in the New York Times a while ago. The columnist sought to look into whether the importance of the MCAT is starting to be downplayed or even eliminated. Here is the link to the story http://www.nytimes.com/2010/
I think the personality testing that is proposed in the article is a vital assessment medical schools should take either replacing the MCAT scores or supplementing an application. As a junior who is taking the MCAT this summer, I am very weary of receiving a poor score on the test. Although I believe that I will end up doing just fine on the exam, I would like to think that my value as a doctor is more than the amount of science I know. From firsthand experience as a surgical patient this summer, character counts. With that said, we all want the surgeon who wrote the textbook (and in my case I did in fact have that surgeon). The point is clear and everyone should already know it: We are more than the information we learn because of our character. The columnist also added that the personality testing would be a means of showing that a hard working individual can, in fact, make-up his or her lower score one the MCAT. Good work ethic makes doctors more aware and better at what they do. Ultimately, each person brings something unique to the medical field and that needs to be evaluated and considered by schools. Doctor-patient interactions are most crucial when hard decisions have to be made. I know I trusted my doctor this summer to no end. He was able to provide care when I was most vulnerable and did so with kindness and skill. Someday, hopefully, I will be able to bring a similar experience to my patients.
No comments:
Post a Comment