To be a medical student today
Posted 01-09-2007 at 08:23 PM by Pal
If you want to become a doctor, you must survive the course. Martin Dawes considers what it takes
Medical students are some of the brightest people in the country and are willing to work for the benefit of others more than just working for themselves. Because they already have these two characteristics, most will go on to make good doctors.
The recruitment of medical students varies between countries and universities. However, over time nothing very much has changed.w1 As well as being good at exams you also have to have common sense and enthusiasm. It takes brains and character to survive the challenges of medical school.
The characteristics identified formally by some schools in their interview stage may help to identify the non-academic attributes we seek in doctors. The crucial question that interviewers may ask themselves is whether they would want this candidate to be their doctor. Other characteristics include good communication skills, empathy, flexibility, good decision making skills, teamwork, honesty, ability to reflect, insight about illness and medicine, and insight about stress management.
PHOTS.COM
Stress: nature meets nurture
On the way 5% will not complete their medical school training.w2 The reasons for failing exams are generally unpredictable, and include mental health problems, family stress, debt, questioning the decision to study medicine, and lack of motivation to study for a formative exam.w3 The easier you find it to do well in exams before medical school the more likely you will survive the course.w4
Stress is common among medical students,w5 but those students who recognise their own problems often find it hard to seek support from the school, fearing a "black mark" on their overall evaluation having declared their "weakness." It may be we can predict who might be at more risk of stress during their time at medical school,w6 but we are not sure what can be done to alleviate the pressure.
The problems of finding a job after studying, and, for example, the staggering government incompetence in the UK medical training application service (MTAS), can add more stress. Will I be able to work in my chosen specialty?
People need doctors, and you will be able to practise. Compared with the alternative of commercial senior management, where job security is never assured and you may be required to move at any time, medicine is still a "safe" option. This security in the likelihood of being able to choose an area you want, geographically and in terms of specialty, and also being mainly free of oversight of your day to day activity, are important additional dividends to the career of being a doctor.
The truly "core" competency
Achieving satisfactory grades is only one part of the pressure. Another is the expectation of society. The 2004 UK Department of Health paper, Medical Schools: Delivering the Doctors of the Future, asks the impossible of people training to be doctors. You must be a skilled communicator; be able to learn and work flexibly in multiprofessional teams; have the skills of continuous learning based on real problems, which you can apply throughout your career; and be able to develop your practice in response to the rapid pace of change in technology and the rapidly expanding knowledge base.
To lessen the academic burden on students there is always debate about moving away from medical education aimed at training the generic "stem cell" doctor who can go on to do any specialty to a more focused approach training certain types of doctors, such as surgeons or general practitioners. The problem with this approach is that it requires the student to make a career choice before they have even seen the specialties for themselves.
We honestly don't know what will make a good doctor. We didn't know 100 years ago. We don't know now. And we certainly can't guess what medicine will be like in 10 years, in terms of skills or even knowledge. But what we do know is that practising doctors will still be helping people, and if we stop nurturing that skill, replacing it with yet another "core competency," then we will be doing more harm than good.
For students, the answer to survival must be different for each individual student. Our job as teachers is to help each individual student find the strength to cope with the stresses that are not new but have always been part of the doctor's life. As a doctor or student you cannot help people with illness without sharing something of your own emotions, no matter how many self help books you read. But that sharing brings with it the reward you spoke about at the interview to enter medical school.
Competing interests: None declared.
Martin Dawes, chair of family medicineMcGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Email: Martin.dawes@mcgill.ca
Student BMJ 2007;15:293-336 September ISSN 0966-6494
Medical students are some of the brightest people in the country and are willing to work for the benefit of others more than just working for themselves. Because they already have these two characteristics, most will go on to make good doctors.
The recruitment of medical students varies between countries and universities. However, over time nothing very much has changed.w1 As well as being good at exams you also have to have common sense and enthusiasm. It takes brains and character to survive the challenges of medical school.
The characteristics identified formally by some schools in their interview stage may help to identify the non-academic attributes we seek in doctors. The crucial question that interviewers may ask themselves is whether they would want this candidate to be their doctor. Other characteristics include good communication skills, empathy, flexibility, good decision making skills, teamwork, honesty, ability to reflect, insight about illness and medicine, and insight about stress management.
PHOTS.COM
Stress: nature meets nurture
On the way 5% will not complete their medical school training.w2 The reasons for failing exams are generally unpredictable, and include mental health problems, family stress, debt, questioning the decision to study medicine, and lack of motivation to study for a formative exam.w3 The easier you find it to do well in exams before medical school the more likely you will survive the course.w4
Stress is common among medical students,w5 but those students who recognise their own problems often find it hard to seek support from the school, fearing a "black mark" on their overall evaluation having declared their "weakness." It may be we can predict who might be at more risk of stress during their time at medical school,w6 but we are not sure what can be done to alleviate the pressure.
The problems of finding a job after studying, and, for example, the staggering government incompetence in the UK medical training application service (MTAS), can add more stress. Will I be able to work in my chosen specialty?
People need doctors, and you will be able to practise. Compared with the alternative of commercial senior management, where job security is never assured and you may be required to move at any time, medicine is still a "safe" option. This security in the likelihood of being able to choose an area you want, geographically and in terms of specialty, and also being mainly free of oversight of your day to day activity, are important additional dividends to the career of being a doctor.
The truly "core" competency
Achieving satisfactory grades is only one part of the pressure. Another is the expectation of society. The 2004 UK Department of Health paper, Medical Schools: Delivering the Doctors of the Future, asks the impossible of people training to be doctors. You must be a skilled communicator; be able to learn and work flexibly in multiprofessional teams; have the skills of continuous learning based on real problems, which you can apply throughout your career; and be able to develop your practice in response to the rapid pace of change in technology and the rapidly expanding knowledge base.
To lessen the academic burden on students there is always debate about moving away from medical education aimed at training the generic "stem cell" doctor who can go on to do any specialty to a more focused approach training certain types of doctors, such as surgeons or general practitioners. The problem with this approach is that it requires the student to make a career choice before they have even seen the specialties for themselves.
We honestly don't know what will make a good doctor. We didn't know 100 years ago. We don't know now. And we certainly can't guess what medicine will be like in 10 years, in terms of skills or even knowledge. But what we do know is that practising doctors will still be helping people, and if we stop nurturing that skill, replacing it with yet another "core competency," then we will be doing more harm than good.
For students, the answer to survival must be different for each individual student. Our job as teachers is to help each individual student find the strength to cope with the stresses that are not new but have always been part of the doctor's life. As a doctor or student you cannot help people with illness without sharing something of your own emotions, no matter how many self help books you read. But that sharing brings with it the reward you spoke about at the interview to enter medical school.
Competing interests: None declared.
Martin Dawes, chair of family medicineMcGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Email: Martin.dawes@mcgill.ca
Student BMJ 2007;15:293-336 September ISSN 0966-6494
Total Comments 0
Comments
Recent Blog Entries by Pal
- World First - Two arm transplantation (02-08-2008)
- Now, licence needed to have sex (02-08-2008)
- Flossing could save your life (21-03-2008)
- A Drug to End Drug Addiction (15-01-2008)
- The Future Of Medicine: Insert Chip, Cure Disease? (01-01-2008)
