By the time anyone reaches graduate school -- certainly medical school -- there should be no compelling reason to keep up the academic competition that might have been necessary to get into grad school in the first place. However, I was one of many students who found it difficult to "let go." I ruined a friendship with a childhood friend. You can read about my experience and recommendations on how to academically disengage in my most recent Op-Med posted on Doximity. #medicalschool #competition #friendships
Douglas Brandt
7mo
Great article, Art. In my Medical School class were at least 5 or 6 classmates from my high school senior class (they were in the same city). I was blown away by the cutthroat competition, magnified by our Dean. For me, it was a time of personal confusion and my grades suffered. Going from the top of my class in HS and college was a real blow to my self-esteem. But I persevered and ended up in the middle of the pack grade wise. But I naively thought that once you were in Medical School, there would be an esprit de corps. I was so wrong. Doug
It's never to late to reach out to Danny. Share this post with him. You might be amazed at the result. Best wishes. #friendship
Chief Medical Officer, Mentavi Health and Co-Founder, THYNK, Inc.
7moI’m always learning something new about you, Arthur! I had such a different experience in medical school at Tufts University School of Medicine. I think you and I graduated med school the same year (1980). I was so grateful to have been accepted to med school and given the opportunity to become a physician. The first two pre-clinical years were Pass/Fail. I never felt any pressure to compete. I was there to learn medicine and for the most part I enjoyed the experience. Into the first year I found three classmates to form a study group, and we stayed together through the first two years. Besides being a perfect way for me to learn by utilizing our collective strengths and weaknesses, it was a great social support. We helped each other and never felt the need to compete. No grades, no class ranking. The clinical years were a bit different in that there were 3 categories of grades for a clinical rotation: pass, fail, or distinction. Most of my clinical rotations were with one or two classmates, so again I never felt it was a competition. I didn’t care if I made AOA- I was learning medicine and never had a worry about whether I was going to make it through medical school. Graduation was one of the happiest days of my life.