Ezekiel Emanuel suggests shortening medical school by a year.  In his JAMA piece, he writes, “Shortening medical school training to 3 or 4 years might reduce the maturity, life experience, and socialization of practicing physicians who might start practicing as young as 26 years of age. Certainly clinicians would be younger, but that should not be conflated with immaturity.”

I think a better idea would be what “Skeptical Scalpel” suggests on a guest post on my site.

Shorten undergraduate training instead.

There are several 7-year combined undergraduate-medical doctorate degrees in this country, where one year is shaved off undergraduate studies.  I completed one such program at Boston University.

Skeptical Scalpel writes:

“Who says that medical students need to have a bachelor’s degree in anything? If for some reason that is still desired, students could attend college through the summers to pick up enough credits for a degree …

… Several European countries use similar models and seem to have healthy citizens.

Shortening or accelerating the undergraduate experience would save a year or two of tuition expense, accomplish the desired saving of time, and not disrupt the four-year medical school cycle.”

It makes sense.  The downside is that students need to know they’ll be entering medical school right after high school, which isn’t always the case.

More combined degree programs would hasten the training of those who do know they want to become a physician early on and help address the physician shortage.

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