Even in medical school, sometimes less is more.

Three-year medical degree programs are becoming more common, and new research now shows that student outcomes in at least one of those programs are on par with those in traditional four-year programs.

“For the vast majority of students, with the right mentoring and the level of follow-up that can occur earlier, they can easily graduate in three years,” said Dr. Joan Cangiarella, director of the School’s accelerated medical degree access program. Grossman of New York University. of Medicine, which has offered a three-year program since 2013.

“The world of general medicine has been stuck on the four-year (curriculum) for 100 years,” he said, noting that because three-year programs are not the norm, some residency directors may be skeptical of regarding graduates of accelerated programs. “We want to make sure people know that these (three-year) students are just as good.”

Emerging data appears to support that, according to a study from New York University’s medical program that Cangiarella and a team of other researchers published in the peer reviewed journal Academic Medicine last month.

Examining seven years of student outcomes, researchers found that graduates of New York University’s three-year medical program achieved similar outcomes to their four-year peers in medical school and early residency, including in licensing exams.

In fact, according to the study, three-year students scored on average about one percentage point higher on their pre-internship exams than those in the four-year program.

And although accelerated students earned slightly lower scores on the Step 1 and 2 medical licensing exams, which test basic scientific and clinical knowledge, and on a portion of the comprehensive clinical skills exam, they received comparatively higher scores on the exam. of Step 3, which assesses in-depth clinical knowledge.

The study also found that, compared to internal medicine residents who graduated from the four-year program, interns from the three-year tracks performed slightly better on milestones set by the Accreditation Council for Medical Education. Graduates, including those related to patient care. , medical knowledge and professionalism.

“The clear success of our accelerated system has led to important changes in our overall curriculum,” said Dr. Elisabeth Cohen, co-author of the study. said in a press releasenoting that starting in 2023, NYU will allow “all students to graduate in three years if they so choose, whether they proceed directly to residency here or are assigned elsewhere.”

Save money, start working sooner

When NYU’s three-year program was first launched more than a decade ago as part of a broader medical school effort to expand affordability and revamp the curriculum, it was one of the few programs of this type in the country. There are now more than 30, including Texas Tech University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Davis.

Proponents of accelerated medical degree programs say they save students a year of tuition costs and get them to work as doctors faster. This is significant, given that most physicians average more than $200,000 in student debt and work for relatively low wages during residency programs, which can last three to seven years, or longer, depending on the specialty.

“Graduate education has become longer and longer. And when you get to your specialty, most of your learning happens during residency,” said Cangiarella, who is also a member of the Accelerated Medical Pathways Programs Consortium. “How long do we want it to take to get people to become doctors? As long as they have achieved their (core competencies), the next phase of learning will occur during residency.”

Dr. Dorothy Andriole, senior director of medical education research at the Association of American Medical Colleges, said some students may be better suited for an accelerated program than others.

“For those students who are fairly sure of their major choice from the start, and because a large proportion of these programs have direct paths to their residency programs (including those at NYU) at the same institutions, and they know where they want to stay geographically, it’s a great option to consider,” he said, noting that such a setup allows students to familiarize themselves with the department before residency.

While a three-year program may mean less tuition revenue for a medical school, it offers numerous potential institutional advantages. It can help institutions distinguish themselves from other programs, attract a more diverse pool of applicants, and receive grants or philanthropic donations in support of curricular innovation.

“The programs build the reputation that the school is innovative and student-centered and can create visibility among applicants,” according to a article published earlier this year in the diary Medical Sciences Educator. “As a result, the school is able to recruit higher caliber students to all of the programs it offers who would not otherwise attend.”

The document also noted that some three-year programs have exceptionally diverse student bodies; Twenty-nine percent of students in Penn State’s accelerated family medicine program come from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine, as do 90 percent of those in the UC Davis program.

But Andriole pointed out potential disadvantages for students who enroll in a compressed program.

“They simply may not have the same amount of time to take electives, explore rotations, conduct research, and other enrichment activities that they would otherwise want to do during medical school,” he said. “It’s a great program for select students.”

Not ‘under the time gun’

For Dr. David Rhee, clinical instructor in the Division of Cardiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, who was part of the inaugural class of NYU’s three-year degree program, enrolling in The accelerated program has been one of the best decisions of his career, by far.

New York University School of Medicine was left without registration in 2018, but it was still expensive when Rhee introduced it years earlier. He was immediately drawn to the possibility of saving a year of tuition and loans by enrolling in the three-year program.

“It also gave me a little flexibility,” he said, adding that he used the year he earned to take on the chief resident position (and pursue his interests in medical education and administration) after completing his internal medicine studies at three years. residence. “If I had been under time pressure, worried about finishing my training so I could start making money, I wouldn’t have done that.”

The year Rhee spent as chief resident strengthened his passion for training the next generation of physicians, he said. He now believes the entire health system would benefit from more widespread adoption of the three-year medical school program.

“The problem is that its implementation requires a herculean effort and the support of all the people is needed,” he said. “But once you can design it and execute it, students will benefit, doctors will benefit, and ultimately it will help patients.”