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Comment by syedkarim | Hacker News Reader

Why do you include your undergraduate degree as part of your medical training? I've asked dozens of doctors (and lawyers) about the relevance of their college/undergraduate education to their day-to-day work and none have said it was critical, most have said it was not relevant, and some have had completely non-medical majors (music and physics). Of course, maybe it's different for you, which is why I ask.

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It could be more of explaining the total duration and cost of how long they went to college.

If it's required to have an undergrad I believe one can mention it, even if the undergraduate isn't required.

Like in Belgium you need to have a masters for certain government jobs, but it's not relevant in which field.

Then why not include high school?

Unless the degree was exclusive to medicine, including it is bullshit.

MDs have a glorified 4 year masters and an on the job training program not significantly different than what it takes to become a PE.

what's PE?

Professional Engineer

But you can become a PE without a masters. Would you say that PEs the only requirement for PE is 2 year Mentorship?

Maybe people should be able to go straight into medschool with an associates or hs diploma

Yes

+1. In Mexico there's a "Medicine" major, which is longer than other majors, but not as long as doing a 4 year undergrad degree followed by a 4 years of med-school. I've always found interesting and a little pointless that even if you know you want to be a doctor you have to go through the extra steps of two degrees/schools.

Anatomy and many other highly relevant undergraduate courses in biology and chemistry are mandatory for the postgraduate degrees.

I think the standard pre-reqs in the US are two semesters of biology, math, and physics, four of chemistry (general and organic).

I doubt that any of this is directly relevant to patient care and honestly, I’m skeptical that it’s either necessary or sufficient background for the stuff that is.

I wouldn't trust any MD that couldn't manage a C- in all of those subjects.

> Why do you include your undergraduate degree as part of your medical training?

Was the comment edited after you posted this? Because I don't see them saying this was part of their training at all. They wrote "12 years of school and training", and this is the school part.

You caught something I didn't. The first paragraph states "12 years of school and training". The second paragraph has the same phrase, but without "school". I was focused on the second paragraph without realizing it was likely referencing the first one.

Funny, I missed that phrase in the second paragraph instead. Yeah I think in that paragraph they just used the word training to encompass everything the job requires you to have done (after K-12).

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