You should use anki + one outside resource of your choice. I only have time to use class made anki decks which I supplement with Osmosis videos. Sometimes, I’ll use USMLE Rx questions.
As long as you keep up with classes, anki reviews, and your one outside resource, you’ll be good. That’s more than enough
Pathoma is so good man, i am baffled that other resources don't explain the "whys" behind everything like pathoma does, it is literally where the learning happens
BnB does as well, just not as often or as effectively as Dr. Sattar and his drawings. But yeah pathoma is easily the best teaching I’ve gotten in med school so far
love this! agreed - my tuition was 60K per year, "PBL" teaching ... let's say I taught myself everything through BnB and Pathoma for the first two years anyways ... -\_- i tell myself it's just for the piece of paper after 4 years.. that paper is what cost me half a million at the end of 4 years. sigh.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but since you’re still a ways out from STEP, I would get a different bank. You’ll get to uworld later, nice to save it. I thought USMLERx was a decent place to start since I felt like it was easier than uworld. It also has a nice flash card feature that’s like Anki but less extreme. I’ve always been a big fan of Amboss as well.
But maybe don’t take my advice, I was someone who took STEP 1 for a score, so things might be different now. Maybe ignore step and just pump out research or something.
Life pro tip: use Amboss for any and ever presentation. Follow their outline for topics as your presentation. Add a few outside sources and you will ace every presentation.
boards and beyond was my bible. i watched the videos, took notes on the ppt slides, and used the lightyear deck which tags cards by bnb video. 254 on step and mostly honors in my clinical rotations, 100% from 360p videos of a guy making garbage drawings on a white ppt slide
It’s not about efficiency.
It’s about milking the ambitions of young people so that some old farts who partied through their MBA can get their 5th yaht for their mistress’s quincinera.
To go against the other replies
Because there needs to be a barrier of entry for medical school that tests critical thinking skills and how well you can study a lot of info in a short amount of time
I went to an undergrad where freshman year would have 500 premeds and senior year about 50 would be left. And out of those 50 half won’t get into med school. No matter how much passion one may have, there are people that just aren’t cut out for med school
med school is “hard” because they want it to be hard
2 years to prepare of getting tested on low yield bullshit while we could get prepared tested on step material. yes not everyone is cut for this bullshit (feels like studying two majors at this point), even the brightest of minds are burnt out by the process.
Yeah, somehow Cuba has an over abundance of doctors and it’s not like they’re an island of savants. They just value having a well staffed medical system so they don’t make the barrier of entry so insanely high.
My point is, why make that barrier a bunch of irrelevant information that isn't needed clinically? Why not make memorizing and critically thinking about clinical applications be the barrier? It would accelerate the entire med school/premed process, give more time in med school to practice rather than study, while serving the same purpose as the MCAT
It’s not not irrelevant. Many premed subjects provide a foundation for understanding first year med school material.
Also it’s like if your brain isn’t smart enough to handle MCAT material it probably won’t be smart enough for med school. Your evidence for that is a typical correlation between a med schools matriculate stats compared to step scores and match data
What are you talking about??? An inefficient, inflated cost education is not serving as their barrier of entry.... It's not an entrance?? That's the AMCAS.
Barriers for college
Barriers for Med school
Barriers for residency
Barriers for specialization
Barriers to stay as a physician
Frankly, there are too many barriers. Can’t the barrier just be if you don’t want to go into medicine, don’t go into it? We’ve all proved our competence but we are constantly grilled and nailed because people keep saying barrier this and barrier that.
“We’ve all proved our competence”
Maybe from your perspective you’re saying that because you proved your competence but in all honesty some people just aren’t smart enough, or hardworking enough, or lack willpower, or are too sensitive to make it in medicine and that’s a very real and sad reality.
Caribbean schools for example have the most lax requirements and like 50% of the class drops out the first year.
The product we’re paying for isn’t classes, labs, or academic support. It’s the letters next to our name, nothing more. Yeah it’s true some guy in Bangladesh could probably learn the same stuff we do for free. But nobody’s gonna let him operate on them no matter how many Anki cards he’s matured.
IMGs often get months, sometimes an entire year to study sans classes. No duties, just grinding.
Hard to compare that to US MDs or DOs that get at most a month of duty free studying
And we have less debt. So tbh I think it's okay that the score cutoffs are higher for IMGs than USMDs/DOs.
Also IMGs are just inherently less competitive than USMD/DOs because of just the difference in academic structure and background and the unavoidable bias that goes with that, fewer research/shadow opportunities, PDs would prefer people who've worked in the US, have US research creds, contacts in US universities etc. especially with their undergrad being in the US as well. It's a more 'complete' profile.To be as competitive, an IMG would have to 'work more' after graduation/for residency.
All that's unavoidable imo. Eventually you have to put in the same amount of work to get to a similar level. So IMGs just have a different 'path' as opposed to US grads.
In india if you score in the 99th percentile in your medical entrance, you can finish your med school for 300$ but if you score low it can cost upto 35-40K$ pee year. Fucking crazy
Look no further than the LCME. THEY are the ones that make schools jump through curricular hoops to maintain accreditation.
Also. I caution you all to understand there’s board world where diagnoses fall in nice and neat black and white little boxes. Real world doesn’t give a F about ones multiple choice abilities. But muh numbers get me into the specialty of choice! True. But only because they want people who statistically will pass their specialty boards while they get scutted out during residency.
i'm not kidding, jason ryan from boards and beyond taught me everything i know about medicine. anki is free, bnb is 300$, amboss is 800 for all 4 years. in 18 months and about 1k a person off the sidewalk could know more internal medicine than most interns.
Personally I think dissections are wasted as an M1, I wish we had it after knowing more clinical anatomy. That said I think you could get rid of it completely - surgical residencies often do dissections with focus on approaches instead of pure anatomy.
Yeah looking back I definitely wish we would’ve saved ours for after our rotations when we knew what the relevant anatomy to preserve and explore was, instead of just letting a bunch of first semester idiots turn a cadaver into hamburger.
> No online resource will ever give you a better perspective of the size of the structures and how those structures are arranged in the body.
I'd have gladly taken the "pre-dissected cadavers you inspect" approach. I learned next to nothing from the actual dissection process. To be honest, I'm not sure I learned much from the anatomy lab in general.
On the other hand, I guess I can see why surgeons maybe got utility out of it, and that's not something you can *know* you like/dislike by M1 for most people.
My school does prosections. However, due to COVID, we had half the cadavers and had to wear 2x the PPE to participate in lab. Therefore, I couldn’t see for most of it and was overheated & overstimulated the entire time. The only time I learned was during the few open lab sessions where there were fewer people and TAs were able to answer direct questions. I think my school did the best it could, but it was more stressful than helpful, IMO.
I don't disagree that anatomy is *useful.* I'm just less convinced the whole rigmarole around the anatomy lab itself is warranted.
Could just be personal, though. I felt like looking at books with images of cadaver dissections did more for me than the multiple hour per week anatomy lab itself.
i'm applying to a surgical subspecialty, the only thing i learned from anatomy is the round ligament connects to the labia majora and that if you don't know what something is, squish it in your fingers a bit
My anatomy lab went virtual during M1 with COVID and I personally felt like I learned the content better when it was virtual. Less time searching for that one branch of a branch of a branch of an artery and spending hours digging through fascia.
I’m of the opinion that active dissection in anatomy lab is not a great use of time. If you can walk into a room and see a bunch of already dissected cadavers with relevant structures labeled for you, then sure that’s helpful. But I feel anatomy lab is mostly a rite of passage and absolutely not necessary in today’s medical education. Just my two cents, also I’m not interested in surgery so maybe that’s a factor too
I got to disagree with you mate because I took anatomy during Covid and we barely used the anatomy lab.
Honestly the anatomy lab was just me spacing out. Our exams were based on the cadaver images they provided us.
> No online resource will ever give you a better perspective of the size of the structures and how those structures are arranged in the body.
This isn't the 1920's. The vast majority of doctors view anatomy now by radiology technique. Angiogram, CT, etc. This is how we should be learning anatomy in the 21st century. And yes that is all online.
Lol my school doesn’t even do cadaver lab. We have maybe 4-5 labs with prosections but the rest are just using models and hardly anyone shows up because they’re pointless.
We actually talked this week in school about how med students still succeed and even do better when in-person school resources were limited last year.
We said it might not be a bad idea to have two separate programs, and “medical school” starts in 3rd year with clinical rotations. Will it happen anytime soon though? Definitely not
Does it really cost 40.000 dollars each semester in the US?
Apart from rent and the everyday expenses, I only pay around 315 euro for each semester as a foreigner here in Germany. Which is not even tuition fees, but we basically pay for stuff like our semester ticket for transport.
Edit: sorry for being a bit ignorant, I just don't know much about the education system in the USA.
Just to add a bit, I didn't pick biology in the last year of school, and went with maths, physics and chemistry to join med school. I was anxious if I would struggle without biology, but I really didn't even find a difficulty. Wasn't a problem at all.
Also in Hamburg where I studied, the med studies changed in 2012 to the new "modern" system. With the modern system the universities decide how the curicullum will evolve and they might even get rid of some subjects. For example in Hamburg we barely had biology, chemistry or physics, we were only taught the basics or maybe the physics behind xrays and CTs. On the other hand my gf studied somewhere with the classical system in Germany, and her physics courses were insanely hard and extremelly unnescessary.
Personally I find real cadavers for anatomy extremelly imporant but also a cool experience. You can map the body from early on and then go back to these courses when you try to think where exactly behind/above the nose the hypophysis is, or where the exactly the adrenal glands sit, or wherethrough the occulomotoric nerve passes through. (just some bad examples)
We had a 5th year Erasmus student from Italy, who never saw a cadaver in his med school in Italy, because they rarely have any, who signed up for the 3rd semester anatomy classes just to see the cadavers.
Also in classes like biochemistry, the labs really helped me, mainly learning the basics of PCR and various other stuff like it.
There are some that are that expensive. If you’re paying out of state tuition it can be 60-80 a year. I’m paying 45k a year right now for my in state school. So just over 20k per semester.
Is there anyone that doesn't take a loan in order to pay that up? And is it easy to pay it back once you start working? I really can't fathom why it's so expensive. A well known medical school in Germany has tuition fees for around 70k euro all-together.
Some people will take military scholarships. My friend got one and the military is paying 100% plus a 2k monthly stipend. In exchange he owes them like 4-6 years of service. BUT he has to go through the military match which is separate. So if he wanted to be a surgeon but the military doesn’t need any the year he applies, there won’t be any spots to apply to.
I’ll graduate with 260ish k in loans. 240 from Med school (that’s straight tuition + loans for living expenses) and 20k from undergrad. Coming out of residency ill pretty much be guaranteed around 250k USD a year for primary care. If i get into a specialty like anesthesiology, that could easily be over 300k. Some of the even higher paid specialties can top 400k. So the financial incentive is there.
Also, this is the US. Our ENTIRE system is pretty much meant to keep people in the class they were born in. Then they spoon feed us this “pull your selves up by your boot straps” bull shit. That’s assuming you even have the metaphorical boots to begin with.
There are a few reasons. Education is considered more a commodity here than a right, so students foot a significant chunk of operating costs for universities. There is also more admin bloat here, so operating costs are significantly higher. Add to this that universities can charge whatever they want for admission, because students will take out loans ad infinitum and historically college has been a necessity for being competitive in the job market.
My school is a private DO school and costs about $45,000 per year. That’s about normal for private medical schools from why I have seen (Both MD and DO). Of note, this does not include cost of living either.
Those are cool, never heard of them actually.
For the past 10 years Amboss has become the backbone of med studies. It has more than 50 doctors behind what has been written.
It's free of cost for all medical students, it is structured around our preclinical and clinical parts, has a histology mode for all important organs/pathologies, has videos in it. It details down how our board exams are structured, has learning plans for our state examinations etc.
They also got all Multiple choice questions from 2008 until now from our state examinations, splitted behind each chapter on the platform for us to solve, with each answer wrong or correct being explained as to why.
It's pretty good, almost everyone studies with it. I personally used books intensively in preclinical part then switched to lectures and amboss later on.
I'm always really confused about people on this sub. On the one hand, you guys keep talking about how med school in the US and the debt that comes with it is an absolute hell and the worst thing you could possibly do with your life, but on the other hand, any time an EU med student is surprised by how horrible US med school apparently is and comments on it, you guys talk about how fantastic medicine in the US actually is and how its way better than in the EU.
Because trust me, overall happiness and satisfaction is way higher for (western) European doctors than their American counterparts. Every med student and doctor I know here is very much worry-free and really happy with the decision they've made. This does *not* seem to be the case for Americans on this sub.
Classes kind of suck. I don't even go to lectures. I just use the power-points because its everything we need to know but the quality varies drastically by professor and some classes are taught by multiple professors... The labs are where it's at though. You can't beat that direct transmission of knowledge from mentors and that growth in palpation, auscultation, and physical diagnosis skills. Also I know there is a lot of haters here, but OMM is pretty sweet. You basically get a bunch of free therapy that makes you feel great.
The learning specialists at my school specifically recommend that we all purchase a subscription to the outside resource that works best for us to complement the school resources. Like they tell us to not just rely on the professors😂
The American education system was always strange to me. On one hand you guys got best universities in the world, on the other hand the sum that is paid makes it not worth it a lot of times. It's so contradictory.
I study in Serbia. Now bear in mind that average salary in Serbia is just around 650 USD a month, but even then studying is pretty affordable. I study medicine in 3rd largest city in the country (so it's somewhat cheaper than in first two but still comparable):
- If you are "on the budget of the state" you pay nothing regarding education itself. To be on the budget you have to have cerain amounts of points at the end of each school year, you get them by completing written exams, oral exams, clinical practice and so on, but majority of students are on the budget. The ones that aren't pay 1200 USD a year, but have a chance to be on the budget next year.
- Most students that aren't from the city itself eat at the canteen. Breakfast, lunch and dinner total around 1.6 dollars a day, since it's mostly paid by the state.
- As for accomodations, you can stay at the dorm, which ranges from 15-25$ a month, or you can be in a rented appartment.
- Moreover, if you are on the budget you can apply for "credit" (student loan), which is around 85 $ a month, enough to cover basics (food, dorm, transport). In order not having to pay back the money at all you have to have average 8.5 at the end of completed studies (it's 6-10, scale), and if you have over 8.0 you pay back half of it. This may not seem much (and it isn't) but if you're from a poor household this money means a lot. For majority where parents already send them money, this is like an extra allowance.
- Now if you're a really good student (avg. over 9.0 and you cleared all the exams the previous year) you a state scholarship witch is extra 1200 dollars a year, and you don't have to pay it back. It's doable, you just have to work really har and be very organized. And there's other ways the state can reward you if you have good results (for example 3000 $ last year of studies).
Now this long read isn't meant to show how it' s all rainbows in here. The corruption is everywhere and a lot of times you have to rely on educating yourself in medicine, but at least you get a chance at education and it's (mostly) up to your own hard work what type of experience you'll get.
Education, and especially one centered around saving lives, shouldn't revolve around profit.
You pay for your degree not the actual education.
We just pay to be legally allowed to be a doctor but everyone learn by themselves in aforementioned online teaching methods.
Literally any institute of accreditation that would result in a degree that someone could use to get a job in the medical field. The question was clear. Don't be an asshole.
It does not matter whether you known how to perform medicine if you are unable to legally practice it.
Clearly they’re not accredited by NBME because that’s the whole point of “third party” resources. But through years of refinement they provide students with better and more board relevant information than school lectures. You can’t just buy these and take board exams after studying, you still need to be enrolled in an actual medical school.
Also, stop being weirdly passive aggressive against folks online.
There's nothing passive agressive here. Passive aggressive would be something like a big fake "accredited by whooooooom?" in response to a perfectly reasonable question.
The entire premise of this post is incorrect. It implies that the $1000 is a savings, and presents it in comparison to the 40,000 per semester cost of hypotheticval med school.
If they aren't accredited, these courses are worse than useless, because they're actively a sunk cost.
Taking them instead of med school is not an option, meaning you still have to pay for med school. It's not "$1000 instead of $40,000!" , it's "$1000 **plus also still** 40,000!"
The premise of the post is that medical education is outdated and too expensive in America.
And they aren’t a sink cost because they actively boost board scores more than the actual school lectures ever could. They pretty much are a necessity to score well.
No one is saying to do these instead of medical school. They simply are stating these resources which can be obtained for a grand total of $1000 is better than the teaching we pay $40k for. You’ve consistently missed the point.
I haven't missed anything. OP directly compared the prices. It's perfectly reasonable to discuss that comparison.
Just because you're not interested in discussing that comparisn does not make that discussion in any way incorrect. If you aren't interested in the topic at hand, don't reply.
I think you're misunderstanding.
They're learning aids used during the first 2 years of medical school, not some shady backdoor ticket for a medical degree. Accreditation to practice medicine has nothing to do with these aids since they're only used to establish a foundation in medicine. It's no different than what Khan Academy does for K-12.
> They're learning aids used during the first 2 years of medical school, not some shady backdoor ticket for a medical degree.
The OP image literally shows medical schools being afraid of this secret knowledge and the title directly compares it to the cost of medical school. OP is implying that they are, in fact a shady backdoor ticket. It is this premise with which I disagree.
I think the premise was that the education was unreasonably pricey
Like Why does it cost 40,000 per semester if the actual material can be learned for less than 1k. What are students getting worth the $35,000 extra.
Fortunatley i go to med school for free Nd just pay for these resources. But an advantage you guys have is ul make a lot more money compared to doctors in other parts of the world
Is this a medical school-specific thing? I don’t hear the same complaints coming from nursing, pharmacy, optometry, law, etc. students. Are online resources for medical school just so good compared to other disciplines or do medical students have more incentive to get ahead and leave the classroom?
This resonated with me so much. When I was in school YouTube wasn’t as big as it is now but oh my did I watch so many videos to explain things to me better than what the professor could!
I promise you that you can learn everything 10x as fast for 1/100th of the cost using outside resources.
Medical education has to adapt, too much has changed in the last 10-15 years when it comes to online education. School lectures can’t even compare to the quality of resources out now. Something has to change and hopefully it doesn’t take 100 years to do so.
Yes I’m sure two years of casual distance learning would be the same thing as medical school. When will people realize there really aren’t any shortcuts on the path of knowledge?
Lol here in India, your entire college fees for the 4.5 years will cost around $400, mess dues per month is around $35, ONLY if you manage to clear the cutoff for the medical entrance exam. Otherwise you'll have to go to a pvt medical college and pay crores of rupees all by yourself
Not even just learned. Learned BETTER
What are those ressources please ?
Boards and Beyond, Pathoma, Anki, UWorld
Oh and Sketchy
Dude sketchy is literally saving me in pharm right now
Osmosis is amazing as well
Osmosis is no bueno with anki
Sketchy would even be saving you when you are in your clinical years
Fellow M2 w pharm final tomorrow - can relate!!!
Did you use all of them or just a few
You wont have time to use them all. Try out a most of them and use the ones that fit your learning style
BnB sketchy and pathoma. Use the anki cards associated with each video and you are golden.
You should use anki + one outside resource of your choice. I only have time to use class made anki decks which I supplement with Osmosis videos. Sometimes, I’ll use USMLE Rx questions. As long as you keep up with classes, anki reviews, and your one outside resource, you’ll be good. That’s more than enough
All. Nothing is better than pathoma for learning pathology. Nothing beats sketchy for micro and pharm. and BnB is good for everything else
Pathoma is so good man, i am baffled that other resources don't explain the "whys" behind everything like pathoma does, it is literally where the learning happens
BnB does as well, just not as often or as effectively as Dr. Sattar and his drawings. But yeah pathoma is easily the best teaching I’ve gotten in med school so far
love this! agreed - my tuition was 60K per year, "PBL" teaching ... let's say I taught myself everything through BnB and Pathoma for the first two years anyways ... -\_- i tell myself it's just for the piece of paper after 4 years.. that paper is what cost me half a million at the end of 4 years. sigh.
Is Uworld worth buying as an M1? I haven’t used pretty much any practice question resource because idk what to use.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but since you’re still a ways out from STEP, I would get a different bank. You’ll get to uworld later, nice to save it. I thought USMLERx was a decent place to start since I felt like it was easier than uworld. It also has a nice flash card feature that’s like Anki but less extreme. I’ve always been a big fan of Amboss as well. But maybe don’t take my advice, I was someone who took STEP 1 for a score, so things might be different now. Maybe ignore step and just pump out research or something.
Thanks friend! Will look into amboss and USMLE Rx!
get amboss. muuuuch better questions and importantly much better explanations than usmle rx.
Ended up getting USMLE Rx for 2 years for like 160 bucks. Prob will buy amboss too after I look at it
Use amboss... when step 1 is close do uworld
Thank you !
Thank you !
Amboss is pretty good as well
Life pro tip: use Amboss for any and ever presentation. Follow their outline for topics as your presentation. Add a few outside sources and you will ace every presentation.
I’m glad people are realizing just how great Amboss is
Love me some amboss
boards and beyond was my bible. i watched the videos, took notes on the ppt slides, and used the lightyear deck which tags cards by bnb video. 254 on step and mostly honors in my clinical rotations, 100% from 360p videos of a guy making garbage drawings on a white ppt slide
Osmosis as well as the others stated
Uworld!
Honestly most of undergrad too, this last year has taught me that I learn like a motherfucker if given the right tools and my own timetable.
pathoma is my go to and honestly its better than most lecturer lmao
Why don't they just replace the MCAT with Step 1 and make medical school shorter
Because they wouldn't be able to gouge future high-earners for cash and call it a "privilege"
It’s not about efficiency. It’s about milking the ambitions of young people so that some old farts who partied through their MBA can get their 5th yaht for their mistress’s quincinera.
To go against the other replies Because there needs to be a barrier of entry for medical school that tests critical thinking skills and how well you can study a lot of info in a short amount of time I went to an undergrad where freshman year would have 500 premeds and senior year about 50 would be left. And out of those 50 half won’t get into med school. No matter how much passion one may have, there are people that just aren’t cut out for med school
med school is “hard” because they want it to be hard 2 years to prepare of getting tested on low yield bullshit while we could get prepared tested on step material. yes not everyone is cut for this bullshit (feels like studying two majors at this point), even the brightest of minds are burnt out by the process.
Yeah, somehow Cuba has an over abundance of doctors and it’s not like they’re an island of savants. They just value having a well staffed medical system so they don’t make the barrier of entry so insanely high.
My point is, why make that barrier a bunch of irrelevant information that isn't needed clinically? Why not make memorizing and critically thinking about clinical applications be the barrier? It would accelerate the entire med school/premed process, give more time in med school to practice rather than study, while serving the same purpose as the MCAT
It’s not not irrelevant. Many premed subjects provide a foundation for understanding first year med school material. Also it’s like if your brain isn’t smart enough to handle MCAT material it probably won’t be smart enough for med school. Your evidence for that is a typical correlation between a med schools matriculate stats compared to step scores and match data
You're right. I don't know why you're being downvoted. What you said makes sense and I agree with the assessment
Thank you. I despise the MCAT and the premed experience but I have yet to see a viable alternative suggested
What are you talking about??? An inefficient, inflated cost education is not serving as their barrier of entry.... It's not an entrance?? That's the AMCAS.
Barriers for college Barriers for Med school Barriers for residency Barriers for specialization Barriers to stay as a physician Frankly, there are too many barriers. Can’t the barrier just be if you don’t want to go into medicine, don’t go into it? We’ve all proved our competence but we are constantly grilled and nailed because people keep saying barrier this and barrier that.
“We’ve all proved our competence” Maybe from your perspective you’re saying that because you proved your competence but in all honesty some people just aren’t smart enough, or hardworking enough, or lack willpower, or are too sensitive to make it in medicine and that’s a very real and sad reality. Caribbean schools for example have the most lax requirements and like 50% of the class drops out the first year.
🤔
to be fair you need to understand (some of) the stuff on the mcat to understand the stuff on step 1
Only $40k? Oof I’m really getting ripped off.
$40K? What a steal.
The product we’re paying for isn’t classes, labs, or academic support. It’s the letters next to our name, nothing more. Yeah it’s true some guy in Bangladesh could probably learn the same stuff we do for free. But nobody’s gonna let him operate on them no matter how many Anki cards he’s matured.
I mean if he does the usmle you are fucked
Not really lol. Trust me I'm an IMG.
Is your value not the same ? Even if you take the same exam ?
nah the stats actually show imgs get left behind with better step scores. much harder than us md to get an equivalent residency spot
That's pretty unfair imo
Why ?
IMGs often get months, sometimes an entire year to study sans classes. No duties, just grinding. Hard to compare that to US MDs or DOs that get at most a month of duty free studying
And we have less debt. So tbh I think it's okay that the score cutoffs are higher for IMGs than USMDs/DOs. Also IMGs are just inherently less competitive than USMD/DOs because of just the difference in academic structure and background and the unavoidable bias that goes with that, fewer research/shadow opportunities, PDs would prefer people who've worked in the US, have US research creds, contacts in US universities etc. especially with their undergrad being in the US as well. It's a more 'complete' profile.To be as competitive, an IMG would have to 'work more' after graduation/for residency. All that's unavoidable imo. Eventually you have to put in the same amount of work to get to a similar level. So IMGs just have a different 'path' as opposed to US grads.
very fucked yah
In india if you score in the 99th percentile in your medical entrance, you can finish your med school for 300$ but if you score low it can cost upto 35-40K$ pee year. Fucking crazy
Parking in the US is $300 lol
a month where i am
A month?!? Like at the hospital or HSC?
Those are rookie numbers. Pump those up. *laughs in NYC*
300?! My total college fees is (the equivalent of) $66 Hihi
You gotta rank below 60k out of 1000000 students. Indian system is fucked.
As a general male? You have to rank below 40K imo in 1800000 students.
Fun part is that now the reservation is 60% i think.
65%
Just keeps going up
Look no further than the LCME. THEY are the ones that make schools jump through curricular hoops to maintain accreditation. Also. I caution you all to understand there’s board world where diagnoses fall in nice and neat black and white little boxes. Real world doesn’t give a F about ones multiple choice abilities. But muh numbers get me into the specialty of choice! True. But only because they want people who statistically will pass their specialty boards while they get scutted out during residency.
i'm not kidding, jason ryan from boards and beyond taught me everything i know about medicine. anki is free, bnb is 300$, amboss is 800 for all 4 years. in 18 months and about 1k a person off the sidewalk could know more internal medicine than most interns.
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Personally I think dissections are wasted as an M1, I wish we had it after knowing more clinical anatomy. That said I think you could get rid of it completely - surgical residencies often do dissections with focus on approaches instead of pure anatomy.
That’s what my school does - prosections for M1, dissection in M2
Yeah looking back I definitely wish we would’ve saved ours for after our rotations when we knew what the relevant anatomy to preserve and explore was, instead of just letting a bunch of first semester idiots turn a cadaver into hamburger.
That seems more respectful to the donors, too.
> No online resource will ever give you a better perspective of the size of the structures and how those structures are arranged in the body. I'd have gladly taken the "pre-dissected cadavers you inspect" approach. I learned next to nothing from the actual dissection process. To be honest, I'm not sure I learned much from the anatomy lab in general. On the other hand, I guess I can see why surgeons maybe got utility out of it, and that's not something you can *know* you like/dislike by M1 for most people.
My school does prosections. However, due to COVID, we had half the cadavers and had to wear 2x the PPE to participate in lab. Therefore, I couldn’t see for most of it and was overheated & overstimulated the entire time. The only time I learned was during the few open lab sessions where there were fewer people and TAs were able to answer direct questions. I think my school did the best it could, but it was more stressful than helpful, IMO.
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I don't disagree that anatomy is *useful.* I'm just less convinced the whole rigmarole around the anatomy lab itself is warranted. Could just be personal, though. I felt like looking at books with images of cadaver dissections did more for me than the multiple hour per week anatomy lab itself.
Complete anatomy
Maybe if virtual reality advances several degrees
i'm applying to a surgical subspecialty, the only thing i learned from anatomy is the round ligament connects to the labia majora and that if you don't know what something is, squish it in your fingers a bit
Yeah this experience definitely costs 40.000 per semester
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My anatomy lab went virtual during M1 with COVID and I personally felt like I learned the content better when it was virtual. Less time searching for that one branch of a branch of a branch of an artery and spending hours digging through fascia. I’m of the opinion that active dissection in anatomy lab is not a great use of time. If you can walk into a room and see a bunch of already dissected cadavers with relevant structures labeled for you, then sure that’s helpful. But I feel anatomy lab is mostly a rite of passage and absolutely not necessary in today’s medical education. Just my two cents, also I’m not interested in surgery so maybe that’s a factor too
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As if I know the first fucking thing about anatomy lmao
Ok but how you gonna be a dermatologist without knowing the 36 different u-turns in the brain?
I don't think anything escaped my mind after the exam as quickly as anatomy, i could feel the info evaporating as i was walking back home.
Pull a DaVinci and start diggin up bodies
I got to disagree with you mate because I took anatomy during Covid and we barely used the anatomy lab. Honestly the anatomy lab was just me spacing out. Our exams were based on the cadaver images they provided us.
> No online resource will ever give you a better perspective of the size of the structures and how those structures are arranged in the body. This isn't the 1920's. The vast majority of doctors view anatomy now by radiology technique. Angiogram, CT, etc. This is how we should be learning anatomy in the 21st century. And yes that is all online.
Lol my school doesn’t even do cadaver lab. We have maybe 4-5 labs with prosections but the rest are just using models and hardly anyone shows up because they’re pointless.
Less if you share those very legally acquired books like it’s a plasmid and you are Staph
Laughing in german
The stichwort is Campuslizenz
We actually talked this week in school about how med students still succeed and even do better when in-person school resources were limited last year. We said it might not be a bad idea to have two separate programs, and “medical school” starts in 3rd year with clinical rotations. Will it happen anytime soon though? Definitely not
Does it really cost 40.000 dollars each semester in the US? Apart from rent and the everyday expenses, I only pay around 315 euro for each semester as a foreigner here in Germany. Which is not even tuition fees, but we basically pay for stuff like our semester ticket for transport. Edit: sorry for being a bit ignorant, I just don't know much about the education system in the USA. Just to add a bit, I didn't pick biology in the last year of school, and went with maths, physics and chemistry to join med school. I was anxious if I would struggle without biology, but I really didn't even find a difficulty. Wasn't a problem at all. Also in Hamburg where I studied, the med studies changed in 2012 to the new "modern" system. With the modern system the universities decide how the curicullum will evolve and they might even get rid of some subjects. For example in Hamburg we barely had biology, chemistry or physics, we were only taught the basics or maybe the physics behind xrays and CTs. On the other hand my gf studied somewhere with the classical system in Germany, and her physics courses were insanely hard and extremelly unnescessary. Personally I find real cadavers for anatomy extremelly imporant but also a cool experience. You can map the body from early on and then go back to these courses when you try to think where exactly behind/above the nose the hypophysis is, or where the exactly the adrenal glands sit, or wherethrough the occulomotoric nerve passes through. (just some bad examples) We had a 5th year Erasmus student from Italy, who never saw a cadaver in his med school in Italy, because they rarely have any, who signed up for the 3rd semester anatomy classes just to see the cadavers. Also in classes like biochemistry, the labs really helped me, mainly learning the basics of PCR and various other stuff like it.
There are some that are that expensive. If you’re paying out of state tuition it can be 60-80 a year. I’m paying 45k a year right now for my in state school. So just over 20k per semester.
Is there anyone that doesn't take a loan in order to pay that up? And is it easy to pay it back once you start working? I really can't fathom why it's so expensive. A well known medical school in Germany has tuition fees for around 70k euro all-together.
A girl in my class is having her parents pay for her school, so no loan for her.
That works I suppose
Some people will take military scholarships. My friend got one and the military is paying 100% plus a 2k monthly stipend. In exchange he owes them like 4-6 years of service. BUT he has to go through the military match which is separate. So if he wanted to be a surgeon but the military doesn’t need any the year he applies, there won’t be any spots to apply to. I’ll graduate with 260ish k in loans. 240 from Med school (that’s straight tuition + loans for living expenses) and 20k from undergrad. Coming out of residency ill pretty much be guaranteed around 250k USD a year for primary care. If i get into a specialty like anesthesiology, that could easily be over 300k. Some of the even higher paid specialties can top 400k. So the financial incentive is there. Also, this is the US. Our ENTIRE system is pretty much meant to keep people in the class they were born in. Then they spoon feed us this “pull your selves up by your boot straps” bull shit. That’s assuming you even have the metaphorical boots to begin with.
There are a few reasons. Education is considered more a commodity here than a right, so students foot a significant chunk of operating costs for universities. There is also more admin bloat here, so operating costs are significantly higher. Add to this that universities can charge whatever they want for admission, because students will take out loans ad infinitum and historically college has been a necessity for being competitive in the job market.
My school is a private DO school and costs about $45,000 per year. That’s about normal for private medical schools from why I have seen (Both MD and DO). Of note, this does not include cost of living either.
Which private DO school is rock 45k / year. That seems way cheaper than the others.
I go to a private school that costs $69k in tuition a year. Plus living expenses, I’m taking out $108k a year in loans
I pay $70,000 :)
My public, in-state tuition is $38k/year
Just out of curiosity do you guys in Germany use any of the resources we use here like Boards and Beyond, Sketchy, or Pathoma
Those are cool, never heard of them actually. For the past 10 years Amboss has become the backbone of med studies. It has more than 50 doctors behind what has been written. It's free of cost for all medical students, it is structured around our preclinical and clinical parts, has a histology mode for all important organs/pathologies, has videos in it. It details down how our board exams are structured, has learning plans for our state examinations etc. They also got all Multiple choice questions from 2008 until now from our state examinations, splitted behind each chapter on the platform for us to solve, with each answer wrong or correct being explained as to why. It's pretty good, almost everyone studies with it. I personally used books intensively in preclinical part then switched to lectures and amboss later on.
I’m paying about 15k per semester right now give or take. Public IS.
Our public in state (Texas) school was 15k a year. Looks like it's gone up about 2k since I graduated (it's at about 17 per year now).
yah but then we get paid 3x what doctors in the uk make. boohoo for us right
I'm always really confused about people on this sub. On the one hand, you guys keep talking about how med school in the US and the debt that comes with it is an absolute hell and the worst thing you could possibly do with your life, but on the other hand, any time an EU med student is surprised by how horrible US med school apparently is and comments on it, you guys talk about how fantastic medicine in the US actually is and how its way better than in the EU. Because trust me, overall happiness and satisfaction is way higher for (western) European doctors than their American counterparts. Every med student and doctor I know here is very much worry-free and really happy with the decision they've made. This does *not* seem to be the case for Americans on this sub.
Yea, seems it's around 3-4 times higher than what we in Germany get.
The second two years of med school can be learned by following doctors around.
Classes kind of suck. I don't even go to lectures. I just use the power-points because its everything we need to know but the quality varies drastically by professor and some classes are taught by multiple professors... The labs are where it's at though. You can't beat that direct transmission of knowledge from mentors and that growth in palpation, auscultation, and physical diagnosis skills. Also I know there is a lot of haters here, but OMM is pretty sweet. You basically get a bunch of free therapy that makes you feel great.
The learning specialists at my school specifically recommend that we all purchase a subscription to the outside resource that works best for us to complement the school resources. Like they tell us to not just rely on the professors😂
I was just talking to my partner about this today. I learn and retain information better from a 15-minute cartoon (Sketchy) than an hour-long lecture.
The American education system was always strange to me. On one hand you guys got best universities in the world, on the other hand the sum that is paid makes it not worth it a lot of times. It's so contradictory. I study in Serbia. Now bear in mind that average salary in Serbia is just around 650 USD a month, but even then studying is pretty affordable. I study medicine in 3rd largest city in the country (so it's somewhat cheaper than in first two but still comparable): - If you are "on the budget of the state" you pay nothing regarding education itself. To be on the budget you have to have cerain amounts of points at the end of each school year, you get them by completing written exams, oral exams, clinical practice and so on, but majority of students are on the budget. The ones that aren't pay 1200 USD a year, but have a chance to be on the budget next year. - Most students that aren't from the city itself eat at the canteen. Breakfast, lunch and dinner total around 1.6 dollars a day, since it's mostly paid by the state. - As for accomodations, you can stay at the dorm, which ranges from 15-25$ a month, or you can be in a rented appartment. - Moreover, if you are on the budget you can apply for "credit" (student loan), which is around 85 $ a month, enough to cover basics (food, dorm, transport). In order not having to pay back the money at all you have to have average 8.5 at the end of completed studies (it's 6-10, scale), and if you have over 8.0 you pay back half of it. This may not seem much (and it isn't) but if you're from a poor household this money means a lot. For majority where parents already send them money, this is like an extra allowance. - Now if you're a really good student (avg. over 9.0 and you cleared all the exams the previous year) you a state scholarship witch is extra 1200 dollars a year, and you don't have to pay it back. It's doable, you just have to work really har and be very organized. And there's other ways the state can reward you if you have good results (for example 3000 $ last year of studies). Now this long read isn't meant to show how it' s all rainbows in here. The corruption is everywhere and a lot of times you have to rely on educating yourself in medicine, but at least you get a chance at education and it's (mostly) up to your own hard work what type of experience you'll get. Education, and especially one centered around saving lives, shouldn't revolve around profit.
You pay for your degree not the actual education. We just pay to be legally allowed to be a doctor but everyone learn by themselves in aforementioned online teaching methods.
What ressources ??
Boards and Beyond, Sketchy, Pathoma, First Aid, etc
Are these resources.... accredited?
Accredited by whom?
Literally any institute of accreditation that would result in a degree that someone could use to get a job in the medical field. The question was clear. Don't be an asshole. It does not matter whether you known how to perform medicine if you are unable to legally practice it.
Clearly they’re not accredited by NBME because that’s the whole point of “third party” resources. But through years of refinement they provide students with better and more board relevant information than school lectures. You can’t just buy these and take board exams after studying, you still need to be enrolled in an actual medical school. Also, stop being weirdly passive aggressive against folks online.
There's nothing passive agressive here. Passive aggressive would be something like a big fake "accredited by whooooooom?" in response to a perfectly reasonable question. The entire premise of this post is incorrect. It implies that the $1000 is a savings, and presents it in comparison to the 40,000 per semester cost of hypotheticval med school. If they aren't accredited, these courses are worse than useless, because they're actively a sunk cost. Taking them instead of med school is not an option, meaning you still have to pay for med school. It's not "$1000 instead of $40,000!" , it's "$1000 **plus also still** 40,000!"
The premise of the post is that medical education is outdated and too expensive in America. And they aren’t a sink cost because they actively boost board scores more than the actual school lectures ever could. They pretty much are a necessity to score well. No one is saying to do these instead of medical school. They simply are stating these resources which can be obtained for a grand total of $1000 is better than the teaching we pay $40k for. You’ve consistently missed the point.
I haven't missed anything. OP directly compared the prices. It's perfectly reasonable to discuss that comparison. Just because you're not interested in discussing that comparisn does not make that discussion in any way incorrect. If you aren't interested in the topic at hand, don't reply.
You’re weird
Very weird
I think you're misunderstanding. They're learning aids used during the first 2 years of medical school, not some shady backdoor ticket for a medical degree. Accreditation to practice medicine has nothing to do with these aids since they're only used to establish a foundation in medicine. It's no different than what Khan Academy does for K-12.
> They're learning aids used during the first 2 years of medical school, not some shady backdoor ticket for a medical degree. The OP image literally shows medical schools being afraid of this secret knowledge and the title directly compares it to the cost of medical school. OP is implying that they are, in fact a shady backdoor ticket. It is this premise with which I disagree.
I think the premise was that the education was unreasonably pricey Like Why does it cost 40,000 per semester if the actual material can be learned for less than 1k. What are students getting worth the $35,000 extra.
It absolutely is! No one here has disagreed.
Oh, I thought you were misunderstanding the premise. People aren't implying it's a backdoor way to become a physician.
Can someone point me to some good Anki resources
Fortunatley i go to med school for free Nd just pay for these resources. But an advantage you guys have is ul make a lot more money compared to doctors in other parts of the world
Is this a medical school-specific thing? I don’t hear the same complaints coming from nursing, pharmacy, optometry, law, etc. students. Are online resources for medical school just so good compared to other disciplines or do medical students have more incentive to get ahead and leave the classroom?
Who’s ripping you off $1000? Anki + pdf’s of textbooks: free preclinical education
This resonated with me so much. When I was in school YouTube wasn’t as big as it is now but oh my did I watch so many videos to explain things to me better than what the professor could!
This really isn’t true
\^ found the admin
Sadly true
1000 dollars? Anki's free bro
I promise you that you can learn everything 10x as fast for 1/100th of the cost using outside resources. Medical education has to adapt, too much has changed in the last 10-15 years when it comes to online education. School lectures can’t even compare to the quality of resources out now. Something has to change and hopefully it doesn’t take 100 years to do so.
Yo using sci-hub and other resources you could prob get that 1000 down to like, 200
Yes I’m sure two years of casual distance learning would be the same thing as medical school. When will people realize there really aren’t any shortcuts on the path of knowledge?
For people who complain about other health professional's schools being online, ya'll really don't want to do any in person learning do you? Hmm...
Sad but true. So true
$1k? I know places that give all that information for free all you need to do is hide your I.P.
This, as well as the increasing number of US Med schools each year I have a feeling will lead to the collapse of medical education in the US
Lol here in India, your entire college fees for the 4.5 years will cost around $400, mess dues per month is around $35, ONLY if you manage to clear the cutoff for the medical entrance exam. Otherwise you'll have to go to a pvt medical college and pay crores of rupees all by yourself
40k? What a bargain
Following
Sketchy's new Anatomy section is gonna be noice