

NYU and Other Medical Schools Offer Shorter Course in Training, for Less Tuition - interconnector
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/education/nyu-and-others-offer-shorter-courses-through-medical-school.html?src=me&ref=general

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dr_
Odd. Medical School was one area where four years actually seemed appropriate
to consume the amt of knowledge necessary. As opposed to 4 years of college.

To be honest, it's really residency training programs that have become too
long. You pretty much know what you need to know to become a PCP after two
years of residency training in primary care. And I'm not sure if you really
need 6 years of post medical school training to become a cardiologist or
gastroenterologist. Seems like 4 would be enough. But the people who make
these decisions, like the American Board of Medical Specialties, won't hear of
this. In an era of rising tuition rates and declining reimbursements, they
need to reconsider what not only makes for a reliable practitioner, but also
one that isn't drowning in debt for years. Otherwise many of our best and
brightest will mostly pursue other professions.

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delinka
"But the people who make these decisions [...] won't hear of this."

I'd bet lawyers are to blame here. At least partially. Sure you can wax
conspiratorial about lawyers in cahoots with doctors or something ... but
malpractice. I'm sure there's a case somewhere that a plaintiff's lawyer
attempted to go after a doctor's training institution as well as the doctor.

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anigbrowl
I'm equally sure there isn't.

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aheilbut
McMaster University (in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) has had a well-regarded
3-year MD program for a very long time.

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arn
As someone who went to medical school, this makes a lot of sense. 4th year of
medical school was filled with elective time and could have been mostly
skipped.

Don't think combining that year with others would be hard at all. On the other
hand I don't necessarily agree that residencies necessarily need to be shorter
( as someone else commented here ) At least, im not sure to what advantage it
would serve.

Residency is a matter of real life on-the-job experience. You can start
graduating people early but then you are just graduating less experienced
people. It's hard to compress the same work experience in a shorter amount of
time, at least with the hours restrictions that are in place. And unlike my
4th year of medical school, my residency had much less downtime.

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michaelhoffman
This is a fantastic idea. It's interesting that they are starting by making it
available to people going into primary care, though, for which the final two
years will be most useful.

My specialist physician friends say that they basically restarted their
training in residency. In particular, I have pathologist friends who say they
almost never use knowledge from their clinical rotations in medical school,
and might as well just not have done them.

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jseliger
>This is a fantastic idea.

True, but the really radical shift would come from another direction, as I
wrote in a separate comment:

It would also be a good idea to move toward a more European-style system that
creates an alternate path to the M.D. by making the first two years of med
school equivalent to an undergrad major. So a student at, say, the University
of Washington could do their first two years of med school from 20 – 22, their
second two from 22 – 24, and a three-year residency afterwards, leaving them
with less debt (because they'd pay undergrad tuition) and with a faster path
to an actual career.

This sort of thing is hugely important to me because I wrote an essay called
"Why you should become a nurse or physicians assistant instead of a doctor:
the underrated perils of medical school"
([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-
beco...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-
nurse-or-physicians-assistant-instead-of-a-doctor-the-underrated-perils-of-
medical-school/)) which explains what numerous med students, residents, and
doctors say they wish someone had told them.

