Medscape 2024 Medical Student Experience Survey Save

Medscape has published a survey overview of US Medical Student impressions and experiences, satisfaction, what they think of their education and how prepared are they for the USMLE (boards) and residency.

The survey was done between march and June 2024 and included 768 US medical students; 55% were female and 68% were under age 29 yrs and 22% were 30-34 yrs old. this was a 7-9 minute online survey and they were enticed with the possibility of winning a $150 Amazon gift card.

Key takeaways from this survey:

• About half (47%) of students expect to finish med school with >$200,000 in debt - similar to the 2023 (51%) and 2022 (49%) surveys
• ~25% would either strongly/somewhat discourage others from applying to their medical school
• 76% are very or somewhat satisfied with their med school (14% were disatisfied)
• 69% were prepared or very prepared for the USMLE (11% unprepared, 20% neutral)
• 73% of students were satisfied with their relationship with instructors (10% dissatisfied)
• 42% felt confident in their abilities, while 57% had doubts and identified with the "imposter syndrome"
• 73% were optimistic and were prepared for residency; but 27% felt unprepared
• 32-54% of students worried about: a) work-life balance; b) Stress; c) Clinical competency; d) financial burdent; and e) passing mandatory tests
• 71% have already chosen their career/specialty. Top choices were internal medicine (14%),  family practice (10%), emergency medicine (8%), psychiatry (7%), and pediatrics (7%).
• 76% felt that med school instruction on health inequality was important