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Medical school

2,454 articles · Since 2004

Students, educators, and physicians writing on KevinMD about medical school: admissions and what they select for, the cost of tuition and the debt it leaves, the curriculum and what students say it does and does not teach, Step 1 and the test-prep industry, pass/fail, mistreatment and depression in training, the match, Caribbean schools, and what should change. Most contributors are students writing while still in school, many of them anonymously. For what physicians have said about paying off that debt and the money decisions that follow, see Physician personal finance: what physicians say about their own money, in their own words. For a maintained record of what students and physicians have said about medical school on KevinMD since 2004, see Medical school: what students and physicians say, in their own words. For what physicians and deans have said for and against affirmative action and diversity in admissions, see Race and medicine: what physicians say, in their own words. For what international and Caribbean graduates have said about the Match and visas, see Immigration and medicine: what physicians say about immigrant doctors and immigrant patients, in their own words.

Latest articles

Medical education

A $480 editing fee and the fairness of academic publishing

After nearly four decades in medicine, I have had more than my fair share of encounters with academic publishing, some pleasant and some less so. I spent the earlier part of my career in academic medicine and, even after moving…

After nearly four decades in medicine, I have had more than my fair share of encounters with academic publishing, some pleasant and some less so. I spent the earlier part of my career in academic medicine and, even after moving into private practice, I never quite shook the urge to write. These days I gravitate toward essays and books, but working alongside students has pulled me back into case reports …

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A $480 editing fee and the fairness of academic publishing

Medical education

AI in health care education must point back to the source

When health care students turn to AI for help with a difficult medical concept, a quick answer is only part of what they need. They also need confidence that the information is accurate, aligned with what they are learning, and…

When health care students turn to AI for help with a difficult medical concept, a quick answer is only part of what they need. They also need confidence that the information is accurate, aligned with what they are learning, and that it comes from material they can trust.

In health care education, students are learning material that will shape how they think, communicate, and care for people throughout their careers. Educators …

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AI in health care education must point back to the source

Medical education

Chronic curiosity is a diagnosis worth keeping for life

ChatGPT once diagnosed me with chronic curiosity. I've been thinking about that diagnosis ever since, so I wanted to sit with it a little longer. Typically, the word "chronic" comes with a bad connotation. All it really means is that…

ChatGPT once diagnosed me with chronic curiosity. I’ve been thinking about that diagnosis ever since, so I wanted to sit with it a little longer.

Typically, the word “chronic” comes with a bad connotation. All it really means is that something is going to be with you forever but won’t shorten your life. If anything, chronic curiosity might extend mine; it means my brain is always working harder than baseline. …

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Chronic curiosity is a diagnosis worth keeping for life

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Medical education

Should medical student research be banned?

I run student and resident research projects as a trauma surgeon. For years the emails trickled in. This year they do not. Students arrive with a question and a draft and ask to be put on a paper. Large language…

I run student and resident research projects as a trauma surgeon. For years the emails trickled in. This year they do not. Students arrive with a question and a draft and ask to be put on a paper. Large language models made literature searches, coding, chart review, and a first manuscript cheaper. They noticed.

On August 20, Will Flanary, better known as Dr. Glaucomflecken, titled a podcast episode “Medical Student …

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Should medical student research be banned?

Medical education

Clinical experience for pre-meds shapes career choices

An excerpt from The Premed Paradox. As I had seen my senior residents do in the past, and without a second thought, I picked up the sterile gauze, folded it over to create a padded protection from the glass of…

An excerpt from The Premed Paradox.

As I had seen my senior residents do in the past, and without a second thought, I picked up the sterile gauze, folded it over to create a padded protection from the glass of the lidocaine vial, and snapped off the top as required. To my absolute shock, I immediately felt the glass tip of the vial penetrate both gauze padding and sterile glove, …

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Clinical experience for pre-meds shapes career choices

Medical education

Lessons from a pediatrician in conversation with her son

Intro My son is presently in his second year of internal medicine residency. When he was about to enter medical school, my older son thought it might be interesting for this "about to become a doctor" and his mother, "a…

Intro

My son is presently in his second year of internal medicine residency. When he was about to enter medical school, my older son thought it might be interesting for this “about to become a doctor” and his mother, “a long-time doctor,” to have a conversation about the journey. I realize now after transcribing and editing our conversations that this was much more than my life as a pediatrician; it was …

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Lessons from a pediatrician in conversation with her son

Medical education

5 competencies the future of medical education requires

Medical education has always carried an enormous responsibility: deciding what a future physician needs to know. For generations, the answer seemed relatively straightforward. Give medical students a rigorous foundation in anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, and other basic sciences.…

Medical education has always carried an enormous responsibility: deciding what a future physician needs to know.

For generations, the answer seemed relatively straightforward. Give medical students a rigorous foundation in anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, and other basic sciences. Build clinical knowledge upon that foundation. Then provide supervised clinical experience until the student becomes capable of practicing medicine. That model has served medicine extraordinarily well.

But the world in which today’s …

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5 competencies the future of medical education requires

Medical education

Monetize clinical expertise without becoming an influencer

Every nurse, pharmacist, PA, and physical therapist in the country has to complete continuing education (CE) hours to keep their license. Those courses don't write themselves, and accreditation rules mean they can't be written by just anyone. They have to…

Every nurse, pharmacist, PA, and physical therapist in the country has to complete continuing education (CE) hours to keep their license. Those courses don’t write themselves, and accreditation rules mean they can’t be written by just anyone. They have to come from a clinician with the credentials to back up what’s being taught.

That’s a standing demand for physician expertise. Most physicians have no idea they qualify.

The obvious thing first: Your …

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Monetize clinical expertise without becoming an influencer

Physician voices

Pre-med regret and the comedian who chose medicine anyway

"Don't tell my parents," Saru whispered as she leaned into my ear as if she was going to tell me her most precious secret. "But what I really want to do is be a stand-up comedian." It was the usual…

“Don’t tell my parents,” Saru whispered as she leaned into my ear as if she was going to tell me her most precious secret. “But what I really want to do is be a stand-up comedian.”

It was the usual scene at a Nepali party. Women were dressed in the latest fashionable saris. Men, at different levels of intoxication, were huddled around laughing at a story. Loud Nepali music blared while …

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Pre-med regret and the comedian who chose medicine anyway

The Podcast by KevinMD

She spent weeks on her personal statement. Then someone asked why she didn’t use AI. [PODCAST]

A resident read a student's personal statement and asked why she didn't just use ChatGPT. The comment landed like a wound. In this episode, certified coach and professor Kathleen Muldoon returns to unpack what a residency personal statement is actually…

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A resident read a student’s personal statement and asked why she didn’t just use ChatGPT. The comment landed like a wound. In this episode, certified coach and professor Kathleen Muldoon returns to unpack what a residency personal statement is actually for, and why an algorithm can’t do it for you. This …

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She spent weeks on her personal statement. Then someone asked why she didn’t use AI. [PODCAST]

Medical education

Medical infographics now look right without being right

I recently found myself doing something almost every medical student has done before a presentation: searching online for a diagram that could explain a complex concept more clearly than words alone. What surprised me was not the number of infographics…

I recently found myself doing something almost every medical student has done before a presentation: searching online for a diagram that could explain a complex concept more clearly than words alone.

What surprised me was not the number of infographics available. It was how difficult it had become to determine who created them, where the information came from, or whether the content had been reviewed by anyone with medical expertise.

In the …

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Medical infographics now look right without being right

Medical education

Clinical uncertainty is missing from medical training

"It still haunts me whether I prolonged his suffering or saved his life." The physician whispered those words, as if he had been carrying that sentence inside him for decades. I expected uncertainty in medicine. What I never imagined, though,…

“It still haunts me whether I prolonged his suffering or saved his life.”

The physician whispered those words, as if he had been carrying that sentence inside him for decades. I expected uncertainty in medicine. What I never imagined, though, was how long and how memorably physicians carried it.

Like many students, I came to medicine with the belief that progress meant getting closer to certainty. Having seen organ trafficking firsthand, I …

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Clinical uncertainty is missing from medical training

Medical education

Why nearly every pre-med now takes a gap year

An increasing number of pre-med students in the U.S. are electing to take a gap year, but is this the best option for them? More importantly, is it best for the medical field as a whole? Many students believe taking…

An increasing number of pre-med students in the U.S. are electing to take a gap year, but is this the best option for them? More importantly, is it best for the medical field as a whole?

Many students believe taking a gap year improves their admission chances. While compounding variables prevent conclusive proof that a gap year directly helps, the extra time is understandably attractive, as it allows students to …

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Why nearly every pre-med now takes a gap year

Medical education

Why blaming doctors makes patients less safe

"People aren't the problem. The problem is the problem." I heard that sentence for the first time sitting in a circle of student desks in a restorative and transformative justice class two years ago. I didn't know then that I…

“People aren’t the problem. The problem is the problem.” I heard that sentence for the first time sitting in a circle of student desks in a restorative and transformative justice class two years ago. I didn’t know then that I was about to spend the rest of my medical training inside an institution that had reached the exact same conclusion decades earlier, and then largely failed to live by it.

In …

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Why blaming doctors makes patients less safe

Medical education

Why residency programs should cap Step 2 CK scores

Every application cycle, graduate medical education (GME) program directors face a familiar question when screening applications submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS): Where should the numerical filters be set? Two recent changes have simplified and narrowed that question.…

Every application cycle, graduate medical education (GME) program directors face a familiar question when screening applications submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS): Where should the numerical filters be set?

Two recent changes have simplified and narrowed that question. USMLE Step 1 is now reported as pass/fail, removing its score variations as a screening variable. USMLE Step 3 scores are rarely available at the time of application, since most applicants …

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Why residency programs should cap Step 2 CK scores

Physician voices

Research integrity and accountability lessons from 2026

Research misconduct deserves scrutiny. But scrutiny should not become spectacle. The landmark 1980s case of U.S. cardiology researcher John Darsee remains a defining example. Auditors found extensive data fabrication, and federal sanctions reached beyond institutional leadership, forcing science research to…

Research misconduct deserves scrutiny. But scrutiny should not become spectacle. The landmark 1980s case of U.S. cardiology researcher John Darsee remains a defining example. Auditors found extensive data fabrication, and federal sanctions reached beyond institutional leadership, forcing science research to confront supervision, authorship, and institutional accountability. The lesson was not simply that one researcher failed. The institution and research system also need safeguards.

Four decades later, the Retraction Watch leaderboard of …

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Research integrity and accountability lessons from 2026

Physician voices

7 lessons from research retractions about integrity

Research retractions are not all misconduct, and a leaderboard is not a verdict. The Retraction Watch database leaderboard, updated August 2026, shows researchers with dozens or hundreds of retractions but also cautions that its ranking is unofficial and shaped by…

Research retractions are not all misconduct, and a leaderboard is not a verdict. The Retraction Watch database leaderboard, updated August 2026, shows researchers with dozens or hundreds of retractions but also cautions that its ranking is unofficial and shaped by what can be verified. Its treatment of the landmark 1980s case involving a Harvard University cardiologist illustrates why raw counts require context. Nonetheless, these cases expose recurring vulnerabilities that every …

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7 lessons from research retractions about integrity

Conditions and diseases

Patent before publication without limiting open science

"Academia produces knowledge brilliantly. It distributes it appallingly," Professor Dorina Buda wrote recently on LinkedIn. The statement made me pause because it brought back two experiences from nearly a decade apart. Both involved the same molecule, peroxynitrite, a peroxy isomer…

“Academia produces knowledge brilliantly. It distributes it appallingly,” Professor Dorina Buda wrote recently on LinkedIn.

The statement made me pause because it brought back two experiences from nearly a decade apart. Both involved the same molecule, peroxynitrite, a peroxy isomer of nitrate. The first occurred when I knew virtually nothing about patents. The second came after I had worked as a patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office …

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Patent before publication without limiting open science

Medical education

Why the physical exam still matters in modern medicine

The moment that changed the trajectory of a 79-year-old female patient's life did not beep, flash, calculate, or appear in an inbox. It did not come from an algorithm or an abnormal lab value. It began quietly, with my mentor's…

The moment that changed the trajectory of a 79-year-old female patient’s life did not beep, flash, calculate, or appear in an inbox. It did not come from an algorithm or an abnormal lab value. It began quietly, with my mentor’s hands resting on her abdomen.

Like my peers at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harlem, I have spent years learning the language of modern medicine: lab values, imaging findings, differential …

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Why the physical exam still matters in modern medicine

Medical education

HBCUs built the doctors America cannot afford to lose

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have served as critical pillars of America's health care workforce for more than a century. Despite representing only a small fraction of U.S. colleges and universities, HBCUs have produced a disproportionate number of Black…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have served as critical pillars of America’s health care workforce for more than a century. Despite representing only a small fraction of U.S. colleges and universities, HBCUs have produced a disproportionate number of Black physicians, nurses, pharmacists, public health professionals, and biomedical scientists. At a time when the United States faces physician shortages, widening health disparities, and declining access to care in underserved communities, …

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HBCUs built the doctors America cannot afford to lose

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