Medical Careers

An admissions officer just sent me this link about at study showing that "the emotional distress of law students appears to significantly exceed that of medical students and at times approach that of psychiatric populations." Wowza.

I won't argue with their empirical findings, but I do question the underlying reason they offer:The problem with most law schools, the authors write, is that they place little emphasis on hiring faculty members with proven records of teaching excellence. Instead, they tend to “emphasize theoretical scholarship and the teaching of legal theory, and many hire and reward faculty primarily based on scholarly potential and production,” say the authors. Observers suggest, they add, “that such priorities and processes train students to ignore their own values and moral sense, undermine students’ sense of identity and self-confidence, and create cynicism.”That's the state of affairs at just about all the major research universities, all of which reward scholarship and theory above teaching and insist on moral relativism, both at the graduate and undergraduate levels. If that causality holds true, then everyone coming out of Harvard or Columbia or Stanford would be just as much of a basketcase. So there must be something special about law school. I'm open to theories.

I'll throw this one out there: In my experience, the majority of law school students have absolutely no good reason to be there. I've heard over and over again from applicants how they have no idea what they want to do with themselves but expect to figure that out in law school. It doesn't matter how many times I tell them that's a really boneheaded plan (and so passive -- who wants to wait and see where the tide drops them off three years and six figures later?). Some of that angst and indecisiveness and failure to plan and path-of-least-resistance mentality must play itself out during law school (and certainly afterwards).

Mind you, I've worked with pre-med and med school folks as well, and there are lots of med school students who are there only because their parents pushed them into it. All the professions suffer from that problem to some degree, and perhaps it's worse with law school and med school.

Reader Dominic writes in to share his thoughts on nurse anesthesiology. Six figures to work six months out of the year? Not bad.Great job on the blog!  Since it sounds like you've transitioned from advising mainly law and business school applicants to the broader role of career counselor, I thought I'd share with you some career information that might be of interest to your clients and blog readers.

I was wondering if you've looked at or advised clients to consider nursing, particularly nurse anesthesiology.  Several family members of mine are in the healthcare field, and they're always nagging me, my siblings, and cousins to pursue nursing so I thought I'd pass along the information. I know I don't want (and can't handle) a job in the healthcare field, but for someone looking for a combination of job security, ease of entry, flexible work hours, the opportunity to help others, and money (although the base salary is modest, if willing, a nurse can more than make up for it in overtime hours) I can't think of a job out there that can match nursing.

With regards to nurse anesthesiology, it's the highest paid nursing specialty.  According to a 2005 study by the American Medical Group Association, the average mid-level salary for a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) is $140,396.

I know it's only anecdotal evidence, but for what's it worth I have an uncle who's a nurse anesthetist in McAllen, TX and his base salary is $200,000 a year.  The payscale can get this high if you're willing to relocate to more remote areas or to non-major cities.

The best part about it in my opinion is that he only works the equivalent of 6 months out of the year.  He has a lot of flexibility over his schedule.  For instance, he might work 7 days straight for 12 hours a day and then take the entire next week off, or he'll work 3 days a week for 12 hours and schedule some on-call duties during another day.

With all the time my uncle has, he spends it running a CRNA staffing agency, traveling, and dabbling in other businesses like real estate and retail.  For him though, the best part about nursing is that the demand is so great he knows he can get a job pretty much anywhere there are hospitals.

Of course, like any job there are some drawbacks:  1) it lacks prestige (there's still some stigma against male nurses) and 2) you need to have thick skin when doctors are yellling at you.

Overall, I think it's a great career for the right person though.Thanks Dominic!

It takes about seven years to become a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA). The certification requires (among other things) a bachelor of science degree in nursing (BSN) as well as a masters in nurse anesthesia. Here is a list of schools that offer Nurse Anesthetist programs. For more information, see the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists.

Thomas Kostigen reports on a study by the Academy of Management Learning and Education, which surveyed 5,300 graduate students in the US and Canada and found that "graduate students in general are cheating at an alarming rate and business-school students are cheating even more than others." Cheating was defined as "plagiarizing, copying other students' work and brining prohibited materials into exams." (I assume they mean "or" rather than "and" -- any one of those would strike me as cheating.)

The findings: "More than half (56%) of MBA candidates say they cheated in the past year." The percentage of cheaters among other graduate disciplines:

54% - Engineering50% - Physical Sciences49% - Medical and Health Care45% - Law43% - Arts39% - Social Sciences and Humanities

Interesting that Journalism was left off that list. I'd be curious about that statistic, given the slew of made-up stories at famous newspapers in the last few years (although the mother of all hoaxes may still be Janet Cooke's "Little Jimmy," the fictitious eight-year old heroin addict she invented for the Washington Post back in 1981).

Also noteworthy in this article: "what's holding many professors back from taking action on cheaters is the fear of litigation." I'd venture that fear of litigation (and plain old laziness) is also what's behind rampant grade inflation.

And finally: does this mean that people will finally stop portraying lawyers as the quintessence of ethical sleazemongering? Looks as if doctors, scientists, and engineers may be faring worse in that department.

One of the most exciting aspects of choosing a career path during and after college is thinking creatively about ways to combine your passions. Why choose between medicine and business, for example?

Apparently, there is enough demand in the marketplace for transplant administrators that business schools are taking heed. According to BusinessWeek, this fall three out of 40 health-care MBA students at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University will be undergoing interdisciplinary training at this intersection of medicine and business:

Essentially, these administrators are responsible for understanding enough of the clinical aspect of a specific type of organ transplant to oversee the business side of everything from organ donation to the purchase of new technology. Over the last 15 years, advances in the clinical aspects of transplanting organs, and the associated business goals, have created demand for transplant administrators at more than 250 transplant hospitals in the U.S., which usually have managers for every organ. These administrators can command six-figure salaries from the start if they have the right training, says Edward Zavala, who created the course and will be teaching it.