Totally seperate topic from pre-med discussions.
SDN is a great website. But, I’ve got to say there can be some serious negativity floating around there…
It is expected from the 18-23 crowd. I used to frequent SDN, but stopped posting due to the same attitude you described.
The undergrad demographic gravitating towards premed are often very aggresive, yet not having experienced any “real” hardships and challenges yet at their maturity state, they also tend to be overly dramatic and negative… especially when things don’t go right.
There’s a lot of good information over there, and some of their “admin” types (moderators and the like) are unquestionably top-notch. I’ve also found them to be a useful reference for interview feedback, for which they have a section.
I do find that the signal-to-noise ratio isn’t nearly as good, and the perspective of the posters is often significantly different from mine.
The end result is that I visit for specific purposes, but not all that often. shrug YMMV 
I usually just go there to see what the medical students, residents, fellows, and attendings have to say. I have no interest in what the pre-meds are saying because they don’t really know what they’re talking about when it comes to medicine. shrugs
The only time I’d solicit a pre-med’s opinion/advice/etc. is for something they have already done…IE how to study for the MCAT if they’ve already done so and/or taken it.
For the most part, I’d recommend taking SDN with a grain of salt, since some of the conversations are pretty demoralizing due to the immaturity that infests that place.
You are going to get a lot of people here to agree with you on the negativity of SDN OP but I am not one of them.
I think SDN is okay but you have to take into consideration the popularity and the number of users who use the site. The larger the community the more diversity you will get. Sometimes that can be good and sometimes that can be bad. But like Adam and Tim said there is sometimes some really useful information there that (no offense) you won’t get here. Just like in life you have to take the good with the bad and identify what will be useful to you and the stuff thats just a waste of your time. SDN definitely has some mean folks but I think the majority mean well. Try to focus on that.
I totally agree with you, dude. I guess I was really surprised at how stark a contrast there is between SDN and OPM. I still post on SDN, but I’m learning to take some posters with a grain of salt.
I like the threads about particular schools and the threads for individual classes. It got me connected to the group of folks that I will be going to school with.
I do agree that it’s a mistake to categorize SDN as just one big playpen. It’s a big site and attracts a few ninnies, and you just discount them and move on. There is also a lot of good information there, and winnowing good information from bad is a life skill we all ought to be working on if we don’t have it already.
Essentially a cesspool of racism and negativity IMHO. Not ironically, all that racism and negativity was the primary impetus for founding the website Minorities in Research and Medicine.
Honestly, I can’t think of one useful thing I learned there except that racism is far more alive than I ever imagined and I was a member from 2002 until last Fall. What I really wish is that I could get back all the hours I essentially wasted debating with folks who believe every negative stereotype that exists about people of color.
I think the atmosphere here alone makes it one of the best and most useful premed sites on the web. Ok, so the MCAT thread isn’t as detailed as I would like, but we all already know that practice, practice, and more practice is key for doing well on the MCAT.
I am a minority pathdr and have encountered no racism at SDN. Then again, I visit this site 10 times a day and SDN maybe twice a week. I find most people are pleasant at SDN and I have been a member for a while now. Then again, I probably haven’t had as much exposure to the site as you have.
Thank you for the website on Minorities in Research and Medicine; wasn’t even aware of it. I will check it out!
- the dude Said:
I am a minority pathdr and have encountered no racism at SDN..... Then again, I probably haven't had as much exposure to the site as you have
I'm sure there are others who feel the way you do and I generally think people have different levels of tolerance for things like this. I have pretty much none probably a result of having grown up in Cali in the 60's and 70's followed by living in the deep South.Do a search using the words AA or affirmative action then you'll see what I mean.
Ah. I see a difference in the way I experience SDN. There are some threads I deliberately choose not to read, based solely on the title. Any thread with a title including the words “Affirmative action”, “Minority”, or “MD vs. DO”, though it may contain some useful information, tends to be an enormous ninny magnet. A high post count on such a thread tends to precipitate ninny aggregation and raise the ninny count even further. I avoid these threads, which makes my browsing experience much more pleasant.
I will read some argumentative threads on purpose for the amusement value, but I try to remind myself that’s what I’m doing. I can’t pretend I’m actually trying to obtain information when I read a 300-post thread on what to do if mean people expel you from med school and everyone hates you and it’s not fair.
- samenewme Said:
I will read some argumentative threads on purpose for the amusement value, but I try to remind myself that's what I'm doing. I can't pretend I'm actually trying to obtain information when I read a 300-post thread on what to do if mean people expel you from med school and everyone hates you and it's not fair.
LOL... I can't quite explain why that was so funny, but it was. Very nice, Denise
