Jeremy Law has wanted to become a doctor ever since applying to college as a high school senior. But now as a first-year medical student, he is unsure about which specialty to pursue.
Law, a student at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, has until his third or fourth year of medical school to settle on a specialty. But if he went to Stanford University, under the School of Medicine’s new curriculum, he would have to choose a concentration by the end of his first year.
Beginning this year, first-year students at Stanford’s medical school must decide on one of eight “scholarly concentrations,” ranging from women’s health to bioethics to immunology.
This policy was created “to form areas of concentration in which there are experts,” said Patricia Cross, associate dean of medical student research and scholarships at Stanford.
Cross said Stanford, the first medical school to require concentrations, hopes to create an environment where students and faculty can devote more time to their medical interests.
“The whole goal is for students to find something they have a passion in,” said Cross, who also directs the scholarly concentrations program.
At medical schools across the nation, including Feinberg, students do not have to declare concentrations but do have several options for specializing.
Feinberg’s joint program for a medical degree and master’s degree in business allows students to pursue careers in medical administration, and the joint medical and master’s in public health program allows students to pursue careers in that field.
“There’s increasing interest over the past decade or so over dual-degree programs,” said Raymond Curry, Feinberg’s executive associate dean for education.
But Curry said he is not sure what advantage there is in forcing students to choose one area of medical expertise or another.
In addition to having dual-degree programs and research opportunities available, Curry said NU also hopes to establish a thesis option so medical students can concentrate on a specific topic.
But at NU the program might be a harder sell.
“If you go in with the idea of having a specialization, it could be very confusing and disappointing,” said Lalitha Sitaraman, a Weinberg freshman in her first year of NU’s Honors Program in Medical Education — which means she will also attend Feinberg. “If I were to decide today, I would say I wanted to be a surgeon, but tomorrow I may decide to be a pathologist.”
Steve Ortiz, a first-year Stanford medical school student, said he thinks the new curriculum is a good idea.
“It gets students thinking about their futures in medicine early on,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.
Ortiz said by having an early trajectory in their education, students can get a deeper knowledge of a specialty subject.
He added that students can change their concentrations, although switching will cause them to lose time that could be spent completing course work and research requirements.
Christina Yang, a Weinberg senior and third-year HPME student, had a similar view to Ortiz, and she said choosing a specialty early helps students to focus their interests.
“By the time someone is reaching medical school, he or she has already considered half of those areas, even if only abstractly,” Yang said. “Stanford is saying narrow it down to what aspects you are interested in and then choose a specialty from that.”
