17 year old med student?

[SoonerTexan]

DH started today, and one of the presentations gave some class statistics, including the oldest (37 if anyone is interested) and youngest students. Apparently there is a 17 year old floating around in there somewhere...DH was floored.

Of course it doesn't really matter, but just curious if there were any in anyone else's programs. I guess younger students are common in Europe?

I hope it is a really mature and really smart 17 year old...not an emotionally immature prodigy they accepted for kicks. We have a very well-qualified friend who is paying out the nose to go to school out-of-state because she didn't get in here...she is going to be so annoyed.

[SuzySunshine]

How big is the class? I wouldn't discount a kid just because of their age. In some countries there is no undergrad, they go straight to med school. They haven't started doing that here randomly, have they?

[SoonerTexan]

220. We were wondering if they were from out of the US--that would explain it.

We were just talking about how young and unprepared we feel at 22, much less 17. I just cant imagine it.

[SuzySunshine]

I don't think just being from outside the US would explain it, I think they still finish high school at 17 or 18. I just wondered if some US med schools had started accepting applicants as a joint BS/MD program like some foreign schools do?? I still think you'd have to be pretty mature but you never know.

[poky]

There was a kid who started here at 18 a couple years before DH started. I don't think it's random, I think it's generally kids who have skipped HS and did undergrad at the ages most people do HS (I worked with a girl who did that at my first job). He'll be smart...maturity's a whole other ball of wax, though.

[McPants]

Of course it doesn't really matter, but just curious if there were any in anyone else's programs. I guess younger students are common in Europe?

They are indeed. Since medicine is an undergraduate program in most European countries, the average age to start studying medicine here hovers around 18-20.

The gf started medical school at age 18 and most of her classmates were around that age. I'm sure there must have been a couple of 17-year-olds in her class too.

In fact I remember reading this story in the news recently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-10637958

[scrub-jay]

I don't think just being from outside the US would explain it, I think they still finish high school at 17 or 18. I just wondered if some US med schools had started accepting applicants as a joint BS/MD program like some foreign schools do?? I still think you'd have to be pretty mature but you never know.

FWIW - I was accepted to one of these programs right out of HS - UC Riverside/UCLA Biomedical program. (I didn't end up doing it because I wasn't a fan of Riverside, CA).

Wow! I wish I had my priorities straight when I was 17

[medpedspouse]

I once had a set of students (all siblings) that should have been in Jr. High when they were in college and applying to med school. All were accepted. The maturity thing comes in different forms...I think they were very mature for their age and I don't doubt they did well academically at school. However, their social maturity was another story...I do not mean that they were playing pranks, etc. - they just were very sheltered. Some mid 20s students freak out at their first pelvic/breast exam. I often wonder how these kids handled this or interacted with patients - how they ever asked those sensitive questions like sexual history, etc.

[Auspicious]

My husband's residency has someone who started residency at 22. She had gone to one of those three-year med schools but we don't know how she skipped ahead the additional years. Both her parents and both her olders sisters are also docs, though. During med school clinical rotations my husband had worked alongside some students from a three-year med schools[ETA: strike that, looked it up and it's a combined seven-year program, three years undergrad] and been mostly unimpressed on the maturity front, but this young'un in the residency was clearly one of the best residents. Husband suggested that they make her one of the next chiefs and found they were already planning that.

She took some ribbing ("So, do you listen to the Jonas brothers?") but my husband put the kibosh on that because he knew if that line of teasing caught momentum they might come after him next.

[SoonerTexan]

Guess it's more common than I thought.

[scrub-jay]

I find it almost stranger that the oldest person in the class is only 37! DH's program has people well into their 50s. There are quite a few who left a career to pursue medicine.

[Momo]

DH was 17 when he began med school. In his homeland they go straight fromHS; it's a 7yr program w/ a "residency" built in. Upon graduating he was thrust into his first attending jod as a hospitalist @ the main heart hospital; he was just 24!

[Pollyanna]

I figure the maturity level of some of the 20somethings were at about tween level so a mature 17 year old would be a step up.

[labmouse]

In our homeland country and many others (india, australia [certain universities], UK), you graduate from high school at 17, pursue a one year matriculation course (age 18), then start a 6 yr med school program, that's why some docs graduate at 24. My DH is 24 and currently doing his PL-1. This hospital also tend to accept international students, so a handful of people there are around this age (26-29 mostly).