Are the brightest young people going into medicine today?
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When the Medical Economics Continuing Survey asked physicians earlier this year, "Do you think the brightest young people are going into medicine today?"
72 percent said, firmly, No!That rather depressing perception is shared not only by a hefty majority of the survey's 7,700 respondents but also by a number
of high-profile physicians: "We all worry that American medicine may no longer be the magnet it has been for America's best
and brightest," AMA Past President Yank D. Coble Jr. said last year in sizing up the profession.
National Institutes of Health Director Elias A. Zerhouni has also fretted that many promising students may be shying away
from careers in medicine and medical research.
The litany of reasons is familiar to anyone practicing medicine today: Too much government red tape . . . and not enough reimbursement.
An uphill battle to repay medical education debt . . . and a downhill slide into liability hell. Some of the more vocal among today's practicing physicians have lamented the transformation of their beloved profession into
what they view as a trade. In short, maybe prospective doctors—if they're listening to those elders—are reluctant to come in for the same reasons doctors at midcareer are trying to get out. As one young doctor groused, "MBA graduates with six years of post-high school education may start for nearly the same compensation
as physician residents with 12 years of post-high school education. This does not even begin to assess other factors such
as lifestyle, indebtedness, and liability."
The uneasiness is not exclusive to medicine. "Science as a profession isn't particularly honored," said Cornell University
physicist and Nobel Laureate Robert C. Richardson in an interview with The New York Times in July. Richardson was talking primarily about PhD careers in the sciences and engineering.
In 1975, the US ranked No. 3 in the world in the percentage of 18-24-year-olds who earned degrees in the natural sciences
and engineering. Today our country has dropped to No. 17, and half of the engineers graduating from US schools were born in
other countries. "The glamorous degree these days," Richardson concluded, "is the MBA."
Putting the grumbles in perspective Just how legitimate is the "best and brightest" gripe? How much reality is in the perception? Any concerns about the Doctors
of the Future must be put in context. Consider that average MCAT scores for both medical school applicants and matriculants
have steadily increased over the past decade. Applicants' mean MCAT verbal reasoning score rose from 8.3 in 1992 to 8.8 in 2003. Mean scores in the
physical sciences portion jumped from 8.1 to 9.0, and in biological sciences from 8.2 to 9.3. We're not sending schlubs to
med school these days.
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