I'm going to revamp Medical School

01-21-2025

In an alternate life, I could see myself as a doctor. I see it as the ultimate form of altruism, an individual who gives their life to help others. The only thing stopping me from doing it in this life is the process. The typical pathway to becoming a doctor is as follows:

Earn a bachelor's degree (4 years)
Attend and finish medical school (4 years)
Residency training program (~2 years)
Fellowship (~2 years)

12 years! And that's just the time required, The average cost of medical school in America is $235,827 [link]. Factoring in the cost of an undergraduate education, and the appreciation of loans, and the salary you are foregoing for 4-6 years by foregoing a typical job, that makes the total opportunity cost of going to medical school more than half a million dollars!

Given the massive barrier of entry and countless extra hours expected from doctors even after going through school, it should come as no surprise then that the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has projected that the United States will face a physician shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036 [link].

So, what can we do about it? Well, first, I think that we need to make it shorter. Much shorter. And also cheaper. Advancements in AR/VR technology should be more than capable to speed up the learning process for medical students, taking them through specialized, practical trainings to practice procedures thousands of times. Personalized learning tutors can also present information in unique ways to better stimulate understanding of the biological systems and processes at play in the human body. Massive vector databases full of accurate, up-to-date, medical information should be available in all medical facilities, aiding professionals and medical residents with information search and filling knowledge gaps while also mitigating the risk of hallucinations. These tech=first solutions could massively discount the cost of medical school as well, making it reasonable for students to want to attend regardless of their economic upbringing. While I do agree that multiple steps are required in this process (schooling, shadowing, residency, etc.), I firmly believe that the end-to-end process is unneccessarily long (and expensive) and could be improved upon greatly.

Although I think that technology can play a role in improving the schooling process for doctors, I don't quite believe it will be able to fully replace them (at least in my lifetime). Doctors at their core are good humans capable of creating deep empathetic relationships with their patients, and this makes them incredibly hard to be replaced by digital alternatives. There's something raw and incredibly human about being sick and going to the doctor to find out what's wrong, and I just don't think that computers will be able to compete with humans here just yet.

Making medical school more afforable and much shorter is a vision I think is worth fighting for. I'm committed to making this a reality, and infusing technology into parts along the way to ultimately reimagine the process from the ground-up. Imagine a world where kids and teenagers alike dream to be doctors, just as they were to be astronauts was when I was young or to be influencers today. It's already hard enough to choose to dedicate your life to serving people, it shouldn't be long and expensive too.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks, months, and years as I try to make this a reality. If this sounds cool to you and you want to help make this happen, or if you are a medical student with more to share on the topic, please reach out!

Disclaimer: I have not gone through medical school, this is purely speculative and based off of conversations I have had with current/former medical students and observations I have made.