I studied biochem in undergrad and my classes were full of premed students.

I loved the subject and nerded out about the course material - I spent my time designing my own experiments around gene cloning that took several semesters to run. They were sharing last year's tests with their frat buddies and laughing at us nerds.

I've never looked at doctors the same way again after college. I looked up to them as a child, yet after seeing how the sausages were made, I started to doubt everything.

I frequently ask doctors, who spend all of ten minutes with me while the nurses do all the work, about the molecular specifics of what they're talking about. They talk down to me as if they're explaining to a child, yet they're frequently quite wrong. I'm not trying to sound superior to them, but I'm shocked they seem to care so little about the subject. It doesn't give me much hope about what they know and their abilities or competency.

I suspect surgeons and specialists are a different breed and aren't like this at all.

And to be clear, this isn't everyone. But it does seem to be the majority I've interacted with throughout my life.

When they act disgruntled at patient interaction, I detest that their profession tries to cap the number of med students per year. We should be letting in as many med students as we can take. We should let doctors from overseas immigrate and easily become practicing doctors here in the US. We should provide easy paths for nurses to become doctors.

The premed students in my university were chiefly concerned about money and prestige. They drove BMWs gifted to them by their parents and laughed at what I drove and how hard I studied. I had to put up with their bullying for years. I know not everyone who studies to become a doctor is like that, but it permanently skewed my view of their profession.

Well, I guess it would be nice if the graduation cutoff were above the level of “knows what rhabdo is”