March 11, 2019 Monday
Bedtime Story
Medical Education System
In 2014 the president of NBME disclosed a
compensation of $960,592 with an additional NBME compensation of $125,902 that
in total adds up to a staggering $1,086,494!
How is that for a not-for-profit
organization!
With this kind of income therefore it is
not surprising that this not-for-profit NBME along with Federation of State
Medical Boards are the chief sponsors of United States Medical Licensing
Examination.
Even though NBME was established way back
in 1915 the USMLE exams were introduced as recently as in 1992.
Prior to 1992 NBME conducted its own
examination and its Part I basic science examination was simply carried forward
to its new and present avatar of USMLE Step 1 examination.
Every year medical educators and clinicians
from across the nation that form a part of the examination committees create
material for these exams which implies that the questions that are framed keep
on getting updated with new knowledge that come up with advances in sciences.
This examination comes in three parts with
the second part consisting of further two sub parts.
Let me take you three these parts so that
you get a sense of what it takes to get enrolled into a specialty residency
program after having completed your medical school and rotatory internship.
Even though a physician in United States
gets a general license to independently practice medicine (meaning without
supervision of a senior) and some of them do practice so in rural hospitals and
emergency care centers the general practice of most graduates is to pursue
residency training and specialize in one of the medical specialties.
Unlike in India and perhaps many other
medicine education systems of other countries the residency period is not fixed
and varies from specialty to specialty.
For instance, a residency program in family
medicine is of “standard” three-year duration whereas for neurosurgery it is of
a mammoth 7-year period.
Surgical residency programs in general are
always of longer duration than their medical counterparts.
What is equally important to know is that
these residency time periods do not include the potential fellowships that may
follow the residency period.
This will give a fair estimate what it
takes and more importantly how long the journey is towards becoming an accomplished
physician in a surgical super specialty in United States.
Before we study the USMLE examination
itself it is very interesting how the candidates or the medical graduates who
clear the examination are selected for the specialty residency by the program
directors.
What is it that makes a candidate most
attractive to the director of a residency program?
This means to say that if you were a
director of a residency program which in other words is an assumption that you
are the head of department of say ophthalmology then how would you select a
candidate given that you have a lot of options to choose from?
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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