When you choose a doctor, do you look at what medical school they attended? Does that affect your decision?
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It does not affect my decision.
Edit: Well, unless it says they went to Murphy Online University for Med School... As long as they went to a reputable college or university, I don't care.
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No, not at all.
Eta: if I needed something very specialized or big and scary done, I might look at where they did residency...but med school? No. That really has nothing to do with practical medical skills, it's just base knowledge.
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Yes, I look at medical school, post graduate training and type of degree.
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Nope - I don't even notice where they went to school!
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@mediagirl: What do you consider reputable? What if it was a foreign country and you don't know if it's reputable?
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Sort of, if someone went to an obscure school, I might keep looking unless they got great reviews. On the other hand, I live in CT and a lot of the Drs graduated from Yale, and just because they went to Yale does not mean I would choose them as my doctor.
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@Silva: Same answer if it was foreign country?
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Living in Nashville I prefer a doctor who did Med School and Residency at Vanderbilt
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It never occurred to me to pay attention.
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I rarely look for a primary care doctor or pediatrician. I will consider it for specialty practice though- for example I see a specialist annually and there are only two programs in the US that deal with the reason I go to this type of specialist. It's a waste of my time to go to someone who doesn't have an affiliation with one of those programs. (The others I am sure cover it but it's a new area and I would rather just go to the best.)
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@littlek: I think I would research the school and could find out if it was that way.
To be honest, I chose our pediatrician's practice for the morals of the practice, not for where the doctor's went to school. I didn't even research where they went to school until later. If it was a solo doctor with his/her own practice, I would have looked into it.
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Never. I don't know where any of my doctors went to med school. In addition, I think where they did their residency is probably more important than where they went to school. In any case, the vast majority of the doctors we use have come through word of mouth recommendations.
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Having lived in a foreign country, I absolutely checked where the doctors I chose for my son and I went to med school. I didn't have much choice, honestly, but I did choose doctors that attended either Swiss, German or Austrian med schools because I was comfortable that they would be up to speed on the practices in the country where I was living.
For our US doctors, I look, but I place much less weight on it.
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@littlek: I'd still be more interested in residency. There aren't enough medical school slots in the US for the number of physicians we need. I think there are probably some fine physicians who completed med school in the Caribbean schools or whatever.
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@littlek: I need an eye procedure and was referred from my regular doctor to a specialist. I looked up the specialist and saw his degrees are all from universites in Mexico, that I know nothing about.
I'll admit--it made me nervous--I assume he had to pass exams here in this country and I couldn't find online where he did his residency. In the end, I decided to schedule the consultation and then make a decision (I have an appt next week). If I don't feel 100% comfortable, I'll find someone else.
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Not beyond pure curiosity.
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@Silva: I know nothing about the medical field, so forgive my ignorance, if you graduate from med school are you guaranteed a residency somewhere? Or can you graduate and no one will give you a residency? I know there are more prestigious places to get your residency.
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@littlek: you are not guaranteed a residency. Many people, particularly those going into competitive specialties, do not match and have to try again later, or choose a different field.
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@littlek: I'm also paranoid because not too long ago in my area, an Indian doctor (dental school in India) killed a woman from excessive bleeding because he was removing all her teeth in one procedure (for dental implants).
Apparently, that's not standard practice and it being in the news really made me start paying more attention to this stuff.
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No. I ideally make my doctor decision based on recommendations from friends. I did look up my OB's training b/c I was curious where he has lived before.
@LittleK: you aren't guaranteed a residency. In fact, some people end up waiting a year to apply again. When my friends have described the placement process, it reminds me a lot of Greek rush!
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@littlek: The foreign docs who make me leery are those like the Indian docs (as in graduated from medical school in India). . . because they are not required to attend undergrad . . . they go straight to med school!
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@Silva: That makes sense. I assume then if you are going into a more general practice there are more spots available since I would assume it's less competitive than a specialty.
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For example: primary care is not very competitive, and it's what my husband wanted to do, so we made his residency list based primarily on location (and the programs he liked the most). A friend went into neurosurgery, and just basically listed all the programs he'd be willing to go to and hoped he got one. Same with orthopedics, dermatology, etc.
two people from my husbands class didn't match at all. -
@MsLipGloss: That's scary.
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@littlek: yes. The ones that pay more and have fewer call hours tend to be the most competitive....
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@Silva: Gotcha, thanks!
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Honestly where they did their residency (actual training) is more important so I look at that more. My husband and brother are doctors. Medical school you can just have good college grades and be a moron and get into a good school. Residency is based on medical school, board scores, and recommendations from doctors you work with in med school.
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@littlek: just wanted to add, don't just look at the name of the program. Many residency programs are attached to schools, and people often make the assumption that good college = good residency program. For example, the state university that my husbands programs is attached too doesn't have the fanciest sounding name, but the residency program he is in is consistently ranked as one of the best in the country. Different programs invest in different things, and for primary care you want a school that focuses on that, not necessarily research (which many big name schools put their money in).
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@Silva: same
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@Silva: Thank you!
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@winniebee: same. I am comfortable if a doctor attended a medical school in the Caribbean, for instance, but their residency was stateside.
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Nope does not make a difference to me.
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No that wouldn't matter to me, honestly I have no idea where our doctors did go to school.
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Doesn't matter to me. I do look purely out of curiosity.
I work in a clinic and we have a lot of doctors who attended school outside the country, but that hasn't affected their medical care.
What bothers me more is when patients ask to see a white or "American" doctor.
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@winniebee: seriously, my husband graduated at the top of his med school class, was in the honor society had his choice of residency programs and stellar recommendations from docs....and it took him three tries to get into medical school.
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Nope, it doesn't matter to me
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@Mrs. Pen: whhaaaat? People actually ask that?
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I look because I'm always curious if we trained in places where we might know the same people
(I'm a physician)
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Nope. I work with doctors every day, and some of the worst ones went to the 'best' schools. I only look at their residency placement.
(I'm a physician)
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