In his role as the Co-Advocacy Chair of AMA-MSS Region 3 that includes medical schools in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, the first-year medical student has helped organize nationwide campaigns for the organization.
“I was extremely honored to receive this award alongside other incredible leaders in AMA-MSS Region 3,” Singh said. “Receiving this award inspires me to continue growing my involvement in the AMA-MSS and be an advocate for medical students, physicians, and patients.”
Singh has been a part of the MSS Region 3 Resolution Review Committee, the Logistics and Resources committee for the AMA-MSS N-21 Conference and the Committee on Legislation and Advocacy (COLA) since 2021. He was also one of the authors on four different resolutions presented at the AMA N-21 Conference held in November 2021.
“Through the Texas Medical Association (TMA)-MSS, I was part of the Ad-Hoc Committee to review resolutions for TexMed 2022 and I was primary author for one resolution and helped draft two other resolutions,” Singh said.
Singh is the current AMA delegate for the TCU School of Medicine. During National Advocacy week in October 2021, he helped organize a “Call Your Rep” event as well as social events to increase AMA engagement at the medical school. He also attends monthly Tarrant County Medical Society meetings to provide updates about the medical school, the AMA-MSS and TMA-MSS chapters he’s involved in.
“It really gives me the opportunity to connect and build relationships with local physicians in Fort Worth and all across North Texas,” said Singh. “I believe that there is power in a collective voice and organized medicine provides medical students and physicians the opportunity to advocate for change on a local, regional, and national level. This motivates me to work harder and give back by mentoring other students to find their voice through the AMA-MSS on healthcare advocacy topics they are passionate about.”
This piece was originally published in the January/February issue of the Tarrant County Physician. You can read find the full magazine here.
The residency application process has changed significantly over the past several decades. I remember a grey-haired attending telling me that when he applied to residency, it consisted of hopping in a car, driving down the freeway, and requesting meetings at hospitals he encountered along the way. A strong handshake later, and the promise of training in the specialty of his choice was secured. Since then, the Match process has been transformed with the stratification of candidates by board examinations which dictate competitiveness for certain specialties. We are under pressure to shine starting on day one, with no assurance that our labors will be rewarded by placement into a residency program.
The class before mine underwent the pomp and circumstance of their Match days at home, sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic. My class is interviewing for residencies through virtual platforms. We do our best to capture the vibe of a program through an online tour of a hospital recorded on a GoPro camera attached to a resident’s forehead. Our webcams are always on, and we exercise our zygomatic muscles to maintain a soft smile throughout the events of the day. We try our hardest to convey ourselves in the best light possible, both figuratively and literally (many of us have invested in elaborate lighting set-ups).
This is not an indictment of the residency programs whose attention we are vying for. These are unique times, and residencies face similar obstacles to those encountered by the applicants being interviewed. As we evaluate a place we may call home for the next three to six years, residency programs are navigating how to choose a class of interns without meeting them in person. Then there is the additional challenge of representing the program’s values and culture on a screen. Many have attempted to replicate pre-interview dinners with meal delivery gift cards or virtual resident speed-dating. One residency even sent a care package with personalized memorabilia from their city.
Although we have lost the ability to explore our future landing spots during the “golden year” of medical school, there are still many silver linings to consider. Instead of having to coordinate plane rides and lodging, applicants can interview from coast to coast in the comfort of a home setting. For students under financial strain, there are fewer restraints on our ability to consider programs that are farther away. Then there’s the benefit that few will admit—wearing shorts or yoga pants out of view of the camera frame during your interview.
While this certainly is not how I dreamed my fourth year would go, I nevertheless feel grateful. Leaders in graduate medical education are creatively finding ways to help us make informed decisions about the next step of our training. As we interview with leaders in our respective specialties, we reflect on the rollercoaster journey of medical school and the plethora of lessons learned. In the process of making our rank list, we ask ourselves hard questions about what our priorities are. How do we envision our professional identities and who are the people we want to be around during the formative years of residency training? I look forward to the day when I can be the grey-haired attending who wistfully shares stories of virtually interviewing in the midst of a global pandemic.
By most objective measures, medical school education has become more competitive, more expensive, and more mentally taxing than ever. Compared to even twenty years ago, medical students and residents find themselves more debt-ridden and “burned out.” Nevertheless, we seem to casually accept these conditions as inherent to the medical school experience, going so far as to glorify them as rites of passage and necessary to becoming a good doctor. For most of us, getting into medical school was met with such relief and deference that anything that followed was just a corollary to being inducted into such a small and prestigious group. Every medical student is grateful for the opportunity to realize his or her dream of becoming a physician and helping others, but the narrative that accompanies what it means to be a medical student must be recalibrated to better reflect the real-world conditions.
Let’s begin with cost. In 1989, the cost of attending a public and private medical school was roughly $6,600 and $18,300 per year, respectively. Today, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the average cost at those same schools is $36,755 and over $60,000 annually. That’s an increase of over 550 percent for public schools and 327 percent for private schools over a span of thirty years. For reference, the inflation rate over that same time period was 107 percent. Moreover, the median student debt for students in 1989 was around $50,000 and $28,000 for public and private schools, respectively.1 In 2018, the average medical school debt across all institutions rose to $196,520.2 Highlight the point further, the average debt incurred by the 2018 graduating class at Rocky Mountain Vista College of Osteopathic Medicine was $364,000! Despite these substantial increases in tuition costs and overall cost of living expenses over time, resident physician salaries have remained stagnant for the last forty years.1 By any metric standard it is clear that medical students today are starting behind the curve financially compared to a generation ago.
Despite these substantial increases in tuition costs and overall cost of living expenses over time, resident physician salaries have remained stagnant for the last forty years
In addition to the increased financial burdens, medical students face an increasingly rigorous and competitive residency application process that emphasizes elite performance on standardized exams. The United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 is the first standardized exam medical students take in their second year and is considered the single most important academic benchmark when applying for residency. In fact, it is cited by the AAMC as the most important scoring criterion when considering applicants by program directors across all specialties. Unsurprisingly, the USMLE Step 1 average has increased dramatically in direct response to the emphasis placed on it by program directors. In 1993, the minimum score to pass was 176; that number increased to 194 in 2017. The mean score in 1992 was 200; today the mean score is 231, and at the current trend the average will be 250 in 2030.3 The term “Step 1 Mania” has gained traction among medical academic communities due to the noticeable and dramatic psychosocial effect that Step 1 performance has on students. These effects include increased risk of burnout, depression, and suicide, all despite the fact that little correlation has been established between Step 1 scores and physician competency.4 That is not to mention the massive revenue streams generated by the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) in administering the exam and selling practice exams to students. In fact, this year represents the first year that the NBME generated more revenue selling practice exams than they did on Step 1 exam fees.5 The over-emphasis on Step 1 scores along with the continually increasing averages translates to a hyper-competitive residency application process and reflects the current trend of students going into higher paying specialties in place of primary care fields to pay off their increasing debt.
As future physicians, we are trained to gather as much data from the patient as possible in order to make an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan. Likewise, in order to fix the current system, it’s important we start gathering accurate data. This article is not meant to be prescriptive. It is meant to provide insight into the trends and patterns that govern the current environment of medical and post-graduate education. We can continue down the path of treating the symptoms of the current system with an endless stream of wellness lectures, or we can try to implement systemic changes that address the underlying pathology. Whether it’s mitigating the cost of school tuition, increasing resident physician wages, or re-evaluating the residency application process to put less emphasis on a single exam score, we need to start confronting the foundational issues of our medical education system for the well-being of its constituents.
References
1. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 1988-89 through 2009-10 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, “Fall Enrollment Survey” (IPEDS-EF:88-99); “Completions Survey” (IPEDS-C:89-99); “Institutional Characteristics Survey” (IPEDS-IC:88-99); Fall 2000 through Fall 2009; and Spring 2001 through Spring 2010. (This table was prepared October 2010.)
3. Carmody, J. B., Sarkany, D., & Heitkamp, D. E. (2019). The USMLE Step 1 Pass/Fail Reporting Proposal: Another View. Academic Radiology, 26(10), 1403–1406. doi: 10.1016/j.acra.2019.06.002
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