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Comment by robg | Hacker News Reader

All true. We create a glut of specialized people while the market has been shrinking. Universities aren't hiring.

One solution is trying to transition people into applied biology - i.e. medicine. We could always use more doctors. What's crazy is you could have a Ph.D. in biological sciences yet need to spend another few hundred grand to get trained as a doctor. A general care practitioner needn't spend seven years to get trained.

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I was under the impression that the professional organizations kept a pretty tight grip on the number of medical school students allowed to graduate every year - the reason we could use more doctors is that doctors enjoy the job security that comes with this enforced scarcity. It's certainly not the case that you really need to have both a perfect 4.0 GPA and have gone to the moon to be capable of performing as a doctor (as the application process for med schools would have you believe... after all, Europe manages to train doctors straight out of highschool in 3 years + internships/fellowships/etc. compared to North America's 4+ years + a bachelor's degree).

  > after all, Europe manages to train doctors straight out
  > of highschool in 3 years + internships/fellowships/etc. 
  > compared to North America's 4+ years + a bachelor's
  > degree).

It's at least six years of med school in Germany, France and the UK, although I can't vouch for any other European states. But I do agree with your basic point: the selectivity isn't due to doctors having to be much more skilled than, say, (real) engineers.

Eastern Europe here, Romania more specifically - the standard is 5 years plus internship, more for certain specializations. I never heard of (nor would I trust) 3 year medical schools...

I think relatively few medical students had a perfect 4.0 GPA in college. Even places like Harvard Med School have entering students averaging 3.8.

Not sure how professional organizations can keep a "tight grip" on med school slots when foreign medical school graduates (and osteopathic medical school grads) can take USMLE medical boards. The pass rates for foreign medical grads, including US students who study abroad, are about 15-20% lower than US medical grads. My point is that the choke point for future doctors isn't the number of medical school slots but the USMLE pass rate and possibly the number of residency slots.

A Ph.D in most biological sciences would only teach you enough to get through the first year of medical school (although in far more detail than you need for medicine). The last 2 years of medical school are a practical application of your coursework as you work with residents and more senior doctors to diagnose and treat patients. Medical school still follows the old guild model where you do some initial learning and then a long period of apprenticeship before you are allowed to go off on your own.

That's why combined PhD/MD programs still take about 7 years - and that's not including residency and fellowships if you decide to actually practice medicine instead of becoming a scientist.

disclaimer - not a doctor, but did a biological PhD and have several family members who just completed their MDs.

That's my problem with academia and university culture. They don't show how their degree can translate to real jobs. So they graduate only to find out they're only qualified to work in universities as a researcher! For example, in biology you only have two options outside of research: law or medicine.

I feel that it's not the primary purpose of a university to train the students for some job.

That's a perfectly reasonable position to hold, but it might be inconsistent with the idea that a university education should be for everyone. (I don't think it can ever be for everyone.)

Many people (if not most) just want a job.

I think there should be special schools for people who just want a job. Most of what you learn at a university isn't particularly important for anything you do in the industry anyway. At least in CS it's like that, I can't speak for other fields.

The problem is that a university degree has more prestige that a technical school. So employers use it as a measure of the ability of the people they are hiring, and then complain that their new hires don't have enough practical skills. So the technical schools become universities and start offering degrees in tourism, IT management, and financial planning.

That's a remarkably blinkered view of the world and I can probably call about about 200 examples where this is incorrect, especially today when biologist could mean someone with expertise in Bayesian analysis.

To be fair, there are also private research foundations and private sector companies -- i.e., drug or medical device companies that also hire biologists. You can also pivot somewhat easily into public health and work for e.g., the Department of Health. And if all else fails, teach high school or lower biology.

"And if all else fails, teach high school or lower biology."

With yet more years in education to get your teacher certificate, while your student debt accrues interest and grows, and which you will have to pay down in a career whose income potential has quite likely already peaked and is quite likely headed down over the next 20 years while you are competing for salary against people who don't need to pay down anywhere near as much debt and with additional qualifications that the schools don't care about at all.

In the US, PhD students in biology are paid tuition plus salary. So assuming his undergraduate student loans were subsidized, a PhD who decided to teach high school would not be in a much different financial position than a recently graduated Science B.Ed.

Not to mention that there are magnet high schools that do very much like the perceived prestige of having PhD level instructors. Your typical public high school wouldn't care, of course.

Not to mention that there are magnet high schools that do very much like the perceived prestige of having PhD level instructors. Your typical public high school wouldn't care, of course.

That's not true everywhere. Where I live, there's nearly unlimited public school choice and school districts must reimburse each other at a state-mandated rate for transferred students. Especially in poorer districts, this rate is generally higher than the per-student funding the schools receive for in-district students. (I've heard it's up to $1500/year more.) Individual schools that can recruit students by offering specialized programs (languages, music, science, etc.) can increase their funding quite a bit.

This simply shows that the US university system is horribly broken with regard to finances and debt. Wouldn't happen in the EU, for instance.

Not really, it simply shows that in the EU, your bad education choices harm everyone. In the US, the only person they harm is you.

This probably needs explanation

I assume the rationale is that it's the student's fault if he chooses a major (e.g., sociology) that doesn't cover interest afterwards.

Well, if you say so? Of course, it grossly oversimplifies reality. Job markets are complex; lack of success cannot always be traced back to bad choices. Also, you could level a very similar objection against health insurance. Personally, I'm not comfortable with that kind of senseless cut-throat capitalism.

In the EU, I assume the OP was alluding to the fact that everyone else is forced to pay (most of) your college costs. Therefore, you owe very little debt upon graduation. Private gains, socialized losses.

I got a degree in biochemistry and I am now doing web development!

Critical thinking, self-managing a senior research project, miscellaneous business classes, and diving into unknown knowledge areas help me today.

Hence physician assistants. Stanford's program takes 1.5 years post ba. They can do most/all of what doctors and surgeons can do, but they may require a doctor to sign off on what they do; this varies by state. See http://www.princetonreview.com/Careers.aspx?cid=181

I'd bet that for a good chunk of what a general doctor does -- yup your ear is infected, here's an antibiotic; your wrist sure is broken, let me cast it; it hurts to pee -- uti or std; a full md is overkill. Living in SF, my gf who has had less complicated medical issues than me primarily sees a PA at One Medical Group, who by the way I would recommend. I recently tore ligaments in my ankle and broke my tibia plus fibula; even my orthopaedic surgeon has PAs helping her maximize efficiency.

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