Expert: Rolland Puckett - 7/31/2000

Question
Hello Mr. Puckett,
My fiancee is 22 year old foreign born lady, well educated and diligent student in her own native country (Russia).  She is ambitious, self-motivated,  and dedicated to improving herself by education.  She wants to have her chance to try enter medical school here in USA (as immigrant/future citizen.) and compete with everybody else for a spot at the best available schools consistent with her situation.  It is a dream for her. Money is not really a consideration overall.
Assuming that she essentially needs to begin again from the beginning at pre-med level after honing language skills further...
Question - can you suggest an educational plan/method to proceed in order for her to have a good competetive opportunity to find a spot as med student,  and can you also suggest a university community/ies and city/ies in which the goals are best likely to have chance of success, given her background?
Thankyou   William  

Answer
Dear William,

Your fiancee knows that to become a medical doctor is a life's work of great dedication.  The road is long, arduous, and it is expensive.  It was great news to read in your question that money, overall, is not an issue.  The average doctor is $200,000 in debt after graduating from medical school.  Then there is internship, and then residency - which used to be three years, but in most medical disciplines residency is now five or six years.  The salary for a resident is at least sustaining.

I'm sure your fiancee is a quick study and able to digest and retain an enormous amount of information - much more than ever.  The competition is great.  The government, nearly ten years ago, asked medical schools to raise their requirements for entrance, and to graduate ten percent fewer doctors.  I don't know, however, if the schools actually did that.  There does seem to be a glut of doctors in the USA.

In order to get into a fine medical school (there are many) your fiancee must do very well in a good undergraduate school.  With her Russian education, most US colleges and universities will want to test her proficiency in certain courses.  They realize that she may NOT have to take those courses.  No good school wants to place a student from a foreign country in a class which is a waste of the student's time.  The converse is also true.  

If your fiancee does very well in premed she will most likely be accepted at a fine medical school.  Incidentally, her Russian may be of very good benefit in medical school.  A native Russian's language skills can come in very handy these days in many US locations.  She could also make some significant money either tutoring or teaching Russian even in undergraduate school.

There are many fine colleges and universities she could attend for undergraduate studies.  (A college normally grants the bachelor's degree only, which requires four years of study, or five years or so for a double major.  A university is a larger institution which grants graduate degrees in many fields, through the doctorate.)  William, I'm prejudiced, my friend.  My life really began at Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH, about tweny-three miles west of Cleveland.  It is an old and marvelous school without fraternities and sororities, and it is a college of the highest academic standards.  Many greatly notable graduates have come from Oberlin.

It is a rigorous school, let me tell you.  The demands placed on students are great, and the academic atmosphere is highly stimulating, to state the least!  The town is small, but there is no isolation.  The campus is quite beautiful.  There are something over a hundred majors, and the premed students at Oberlin are assured of many good choices of medical schools after graduation.  There is a preeminent conservatory of music at Oberlin, one of the two finest music schools in this country.  The new science complex is under construction.  I have visited many fine campuses in the past four decades, but I've not encountered the great depth and breadth of academic palpability, of student diverseness, and the multiplicity of intellectual pursuit as is so conspicuous at Oberlin.  They will be happy to send you a catalog of course descriptions, and they have a huge website.  The student body, however, is fewer than 3,000.

Let me stress what has been stated already.  A good undergraduate school would certainly want to test your fiancee to determine which courses she would NOT be required to take.  No one wants a student to be in a class which is (for that student) a waste of time.  It's nothing more than a proficiency test to determine a student's academic level.  Perhaps it would be determined that your fiancee would begin at sophomore level, or higher.  She may require a freshman course even though her other courses may be on a third year level.

It is a certainty, William, that your fiancee must attend a good undergraduate school, and that she would be required to achieve a high academic standard to be granted the bachelor's degree (or baccalaureat degree; BS for premed majors), in order to be admitted to a superior medical school - or any medical school at all.  When she graduates from such an institution, your fiancee will receive many offers for internship and residency at the best hospitals in the country.

I wish the very best for you and your fiancee!

Rolland Puckett