Friday, January 30, 1998
Eye on success
PREMED: Stress may drive students
to unethical practices
By Michelle Navarro
Daily Bruin Staff
After missing lecture, it’s reasonable for a student to expect
that a fellow classmate would lend their notes. Or, when confused
by a problem set, most would assume somebody is willing to help
out.
A pre-med student might not be so lucky.
Stories supporting this generalization are familiar in the
pre-med circle. But as treacherous as it may sound, don’t be too
quick to condemn pre-med students altogether. Most can rightfully
plea stressed-induced insanity.
The competition surrounding aspiring medical students is
incredible. According to Kaplan Educational Centers, only one in
three medical school applicants is actually accepted. For the 1997
entering class, 46,968 competed for only 16,000 spaces.
Just look at last year’s admissions figures for UCLA Medical
School. Out of about 6,000 applicants, only 121 students were
offered admission into the UCLA Medical School.
Living the life of a pre-med student is no easy task. The
requirements needed to enter the professional school add up to a
considerable stack of responsibilities: research, volunteering, the
MCAT, grades and the long, grueling application process. It’s
enough to make even Wonder Woman scream.
An additional hardship is the financial burden placed on pre-med
students.
"It’s really expensive to be a pre-med in college," said Wesley
Woo, a third-year physiological sciences student. "Your friends who
are all econ or art history majors are out getting jobs while you
spend the bulk of your time volunteering, studying, doing research
and paying for things like MCAT class."
"Not that the things pre-meds do aren’t worth it. They are. It
just puts an extra burden on you."
The Kaplan Educational Centers say the GPA and MCAT scores are
the two most important elements of the application.
"The atmosphere is very intense, at least within my major," Woo
said. "I never encountered someone who refused to let me borrow
notes but there are people that I have the feeling I couldn’t ask
to work with me."
Are such a methods of staying ahead really healthy for future
doctors?
"Ideally when you reflect toward the future, you want to see an
atmosphere where all work together," Woo said, "I don’t think that
competition would breed the best kind of doctors because as people
we need to learn to deal with others."
It would be a great contradiction if the pressure and stress of
getting to medical school drove students to cross the boundary of
ethics.
"I would hate to think that our future doctors are unethical,"
said Ken Houk, professor in the Department of Chemistry and
Biochemistry, "But to be great doctors, they need to not only be
ethical, but will need to have a ton of information and fabulous
solving skills to be successful."
So, perhaps a little rivalry is healthy to promote and encourage
students to work hard, as long as it isn’t taken to extremes.
"It is a good idea to try to do as well as possible," Houk said,
"I don’t think fellow students should be considered the ‘enemy’ and
I do not see that in the students I teach. As for how healthy it
is, life is full of competitive situations, where the best are
advanced to something or other, so it is good practice."
College is definitely the place to learn about competition. Woo
blames the system for putting pressure on students.
"The educational atmosphere is competitive, especially at UCLA,"
Woo said. "It’s more so the academic system that causes the
competition than the ambition of the students themselves."
Woo explained that the majority of the classes pre-meds take
have a grading system where only 20 percent of the class gets As,
20 percent gets Bs, and the rest get Cs or fail. It creates a great
urgency to do well, since an impressive GPA is necessary to get
into medical school.
Houk defended the need for competition.
"Anything worth doing often takes a lot of energy and stress,"
Houk said. "Not every student has the ability to be a doctor, nor
can society afford to have as many doctors as there are people who
would like to be doctors."
Kashani said the pre-med struggle is a great indicator of things
to come.
"(That kind of) stress is good, it makes you get used to it,"
Kashani said, "In medical school you’ll be constantly dealing with
stress."
An excess of stress can bring out the worst in anyone’s
character. But to say that all pre-med students are predators ready
to attack anyone who might jeopardize their grades would be a
lie.
"There is light at the end of the tunnel," Woo said, "You do see
a few individuals that try and transcend that kind of mindless
competition and are genuinely good people who enjoy working with
others."