This is one way medicine sustains its image as a science, even though medicine isn't a science, as Kathryn Montgomery observes: "In clinical education the claim that medicine is a science, rather than being an accurate description of clinical work, is instead a behavioral and intellectual norm that expresses medicine’s commitment to act on behalf of patients in a way that is as well reasoned and certain as humanly possible. “Medicine is a science” is a rhetorical claim that is meant to affect attitudes and habits. It is a moral appeal to do one’s rational best for one’s patients. ... We want the certainty of science, its authority and protection, the promise of a better future, restored health. We want its reassurance. Instead, all too often, what we get is statistics."
I’m a veterinarian who never finished the PhD part of her DVM/PhD program. These days I do general practice (primary care) 3 days a week and urgent care/er 1 day a week.
I’m definitely a better clinician because of my research background, but I think I would’ve been a better graduate student after some years as a clinician.
It’s weird because I know some people who decided to get a PhD after specialty training and they’d say they wish they’d done the PhD first and I’m like “I think I may have a PhD if I’d done it after some time in the hospital.”
I wish I had answers for how to handle CV inflation. I wish I had a good way to distill 5 years of grad school into a 6 week research course for vet students.
Learning by doing, meaning requiring a student to do their own research is noble but as you stated is it the most effective use of a student’s time, especially in relationship to their goals.
Medical students should learn to interact with Researchers to be able to participate effectively within a study. Not have to devote hours to an experiment unless this is their intended career path. This could improve medical research with a smaller number of, hopefully more impactful, studies instead of a noise filled landscape of meaningless studies.
This is a great conversation to have, especially because of the chaos at the NIH that is interfering so much with biomedical research (I speak as a premed who is finding it exceptionally difficult to find research opportunities for a gap year right now). It could be beneficial if this temporary freeze on funding would shake up the whole system in a way that results in a lower research emphasis for most medical students.
At my school you can opt out of the research topic and do an audit instead (plus some random coursework)... As I object to audits personally on privacy principles (I don't want some random breaching my privacy by looking into my medical notes, they should be private to me and my clinician, only you can't get care nowadays without agreeing to be audited) no way did I want to be doing one. I can't say my research taught me much, and I object to the way we're expected to do it on top of full-time placement... I'd much prefer a critical analysis critically thinking topic taught instead, so many of my peers are ignorant sheep...
I'm very jaundiced about the whole med school teaching approach... At least at my school... A list of a dozen learning objectives each week (in the preclinical years) with miscellaneous lectures and labs etc sometimes woefully behind the times (recorded lectures on heart failure treatment that ignored SGLT2s which were a thing even a few years ago)... To seriously research 1 LO and come up with a decent summary of the field would take me all day... And there's a dozen of them... And then I actually have to learn the material I've synthesized... Small wonder as an arts grad I threw my hands up and just focused on hoops-jumping... Passing... Self-directed learning is the bane of my life, it seems like an excuse by the med school to avoid teaching...
This isn't addressing research, which is optional in my school, though doing an audit (the alternative) seemed even more painful. Particularly if you have privacy concerns (patients here don't have the right to refuse consent to audits). If a patient doesn't want anyone but their doctor accessing their notes... They're in the wrong country.
This is one way medicine sustains its image as a science, even though medicine isn't a science, as Kathryn Montgomery observes: "In clinical education the claim that medicine is a science, rather than being an accurate description of clinical work, is instead a behavioral and intellectual norm that expresses medicine’s commitment to act on behalf of patients in a way that is as well reasoned and certain as humanly possible. “Medicine is a science” is a rhetorical claim that is meant to affect attitudes and habits. It is a moral appeal to do one’s rational best for one’s patients. ... We want the certainty of science, its authority and protection, the promise of a better future, restored health. We want its reassurance. Instead, all too often, what we get is statistics."
I’m a veterinarian who never finished the PhD part of her DVM/PhD program. These days I do general practice (primary care) 3 days a week and urgent care/er 1 day a week.
I’m definitely a better clinician because of my research background, but I think I would’ve been a better graduate student after some years as a clinician.
It’s weird because I know some people who decided to get a PhD after specialty training and they’d say they wish they’d done the PhD first and I’m like “I think I may have a PhD if I’d done it after some time in the hospital.”
I wish I had answers for how to handle CV inflation. I wish I had a good way to distill 5 years of grad school into a 6 week research course for vet students.
I like number 2
Learning by doing, meaning requiring a student to do their own research is noble but as you stated is it the most effective use of a student’s time, especially in relationship to their goals.
Medical students should learn to interact with Researchers to be able to participate effectively within a study. Not have to devote hours to an experiment unless this is their intended career path. This could improve medical research with a smaller number of, hopefully more impactful, studies instead of a noise filled landscape of meaningless studies.
This is a great conversation to have, especially because of the chaos at the NIH that is interfering so much with biomedical research (I speak as a premed who is finding it exceptionally difficult to find research opportunities for a gap year right now). It could be beneficial if this temporary freeze on funding would shake up the whole system in a way that results in a lower research emphasis for most medical students.
At my school you can opt out of the research topic and do an audit instead (plus some random coursework)... As I object to audits personally on privacy principles (I don't want some random breaching my privacy by looking into my medical notes, they should be private to me and my clinician, only you can't get care nowadays without agreeing to be audited) no way did I want to be doing one. I can't say my research taught me much, and I object to the way we're expected to do it on top of full-time placement... I'd much prefer a critical analysis critically thinking topic taught instead, so many of my peers are ignorant sheep...
I'm very jaundiced about the whole med school teaching approach... At least at my school... A list of a dozen learning objectives each week (in the preclinical years) with miscellaneous lectures and labs etc sometimes woefully behind the times (recorded lectures on heart failure treatment that ignored SGLT2s which were a thing even a few years ago)... To seriously research 1 LO and come up with a decent summary of the field would take me all day... And there's a dozen of them... And then I actually have to learn the material I've synthesized... Small wonder as an arts grad I threw my hands up and just focused on hoops-jumping... Passing... Self-directed learning is the bane of my life, it seems like an excuse by the med school to avoid teaching...
This isn't addressing research, which is optional in my school, though doing an audit (the alternative) seemed even more painful. Particularly if you have privacy concerns (patients here don't have the right to refuse consent to audits). If a patient doesn't want anyone but their doctor accessing their notes... They're in the wrong country.