I’m done. Nothing in that post follows whatsoever. The assumptions you make a largely wrong, and I’m not going to waste time fixing them. Someone else can educate you on the entirety of how applications to residency work while you made broad assertions based on ignorance to fit a pre-conceived notion. Why should I bother when you assume that I’m saying “I’m the only one smart enough to see this” when step 1 is already going to be completely pass/fail?
All rental trucks. This is why pocketchads makes the big bux.
LOL. Ah, the good ol’ appeal to authority. I’m not even making assertions or assumptions, dude. I’m just going by data that you posted. This should not be that hard to grasp, but if you post data that two variables are correlated to the same third variable, then they are correlated to each other.
To be honest, I’m not even sure you understand the argument.
Let’s recap:
Ikes: I don’t think it should be based on step 1 (which it largely used to be)
Melk: do you have any “data” to back that up
Ikes: Here’s this massive PDF
Melk: Well that’s not evidence of causation, all it shows is correlation. It’s not proof, especially when we’re talking about a bunch of things that are correlated with each other (according to the PDF you posted yourself).
Ikes: Yeah but man, I like know people and stuff,
Melk: That’s great, bro, but that’s not actually “data”
If you think there’s something inaccurate there, please let me know. I wouldn’t want to misrepresent your “argument”.
You could have just lead with “I don’t have any data that shows that, all I have is my anecdotal experience”. There wouldn’t have been much to disagree with there. Especially when you clarified what you meant by largely. If you yourself made decisions largely based on interviews and month-long interactions with medical students, the how “largely” was step 1 really involved? If by largely, you mean “not the most important thing”, then chessmate, I guess.
This is dishonest drivel.
You asked saying we probably didn’t have the data, I gave you the best data we had. I agree it doesn’t prove causation, but it’s not possible to do an RCT with med students scores so 
. My assertion that it’s causative comes from my years in training, my previous job that involved doing this shit, my current job that involves doing this, my current participation in multiple national conferences on the subject where a bunch of us talked about this, and the recent changes that took step 1 scores away precisely because of the reasons I brought up. This is what I do man.
The idea that you think you can challenge this when you probably don’t even know which step exams are pass/fail, when they were pass/fail, or hell, how many step exams there even are is ludicrous and straight up disrespectful. Getting this heated about something you’re so ignorant about is straight up weird.
Hell man, I’ll even posit that this doesn’t really prove anything about standardized testing. I’m baffled at you here.
For someone who agrees with it, you sure spent a whole lot of time arguing about it.
My question was designed to get you to this point quicker. I really didn’t expect all the kicking and screaming along the way.
Now that we’re here. The problem here is that you’re completely inconsistent. I get that the fact that because you believe you’re some sort of expert on this, you’re somehow bound by the rules of logic and consistency that us mere mortals are. But it doesn’t really make a ton of sense to say on the one hand “step one is super duper important” and on the other hand “we strongly preferred people who we liked and rotated with us”. Sure there can be more than one important thing, but it’s almost like you realize that step one isn’t the only thing to consider and that there are other considerations that can override it.
I’m really quite interested in what of the above stuff you think I’m challenging. I’m making two assertions.
-
Getting rid of standardized tests is not a good idea.
-
I didn’t think there was any evidence that programs were making decisions “largely” based on step 1. Although, the way you seem to be defining largely now makes that kind of moot as you seem to be using it to mean “an important factor”. Well, no shit.
Not once. Step 1 was causative. You assertions otherwise are nonsense. That data, again, is the best we have and there was never an argument over whether or not it showed causation.
The show were you talk about something you don’t understand whatsoever while I try to teach you the entire medical education system is over.
FFS, man make up your mind. Which is it:
Just pick one. Flip a coin if you have to.
I made two assertions above. Are they both nonsense? Just the first or just the second?
Both of those statements are true.
Never been an RCT about parachutes either. Survival must only be a correlation
JFC you guys. Take it to DMs or something.
2 Likes
So I ask for proof of causation (remember you said it is what the decision was “based on”), you say you’ve got proof, but it specifically not proof of causation. I then say “Well, that’s what I thought”. And you say “You have no idea what you’re talking about”. FFS, I predicted you wouldn’t have evidence of causation when I asked. That is exactly what happened. And somehow this is proof that I don’t know what I’m talking about. Good talk.
I think the problem here your understanding of the English language.
That’s not the only kind of proof. Let’s say you have a survey of program directors that is published in which they say residency decisions are “largely based on step 1”. That would be proof of causation. And pretty compelling proof. Far more compelling than what you cited, which we are in agreement isn’t about causation.
If I get on your ignore list for this, I understand.
1 Like
What I actually said:
Which makes the English comment especially entertaining.
The assertion about surveying program directors proving causation is factually incorrect, but usmle step 1 is the highest rated factor on exactly that kind of thing.
Yes, and after you posted that, I posted that it’s was correlation not causation (to make it clear what I was after), at which point you went full ikes.
Only person playing stupid definitional games is you. I was just trying to clean up your misunderstandings.
PD surveys, data about the match, and my expertise all say step 1 was super duper important. You, again, don’t know basic facts about anything here discussed.
Oh great, we’ve circled back to square one again. Why the fuck couldn’t you just start here.
- You have a link to any of these “PD surveys”. That’s all I fucking wanted.
- Super-Duper important is not how I initially interpreted your “largely based on”. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this a bunch of times after you clarified more. But if that’s all you meant, it’s pretty meaningless. That’s obviously true. It will still be super duper important when it’s pass/fail because if you fail, you’re (almost certainly) out.
PD surveys don’t prove causation. You’re free to google them anyways and parse what exactly the difference between “super duper important” and “largely depend on” is all on your own.
Jeez. What a shithole.
I could’ve swore they already ditched the ACT for the SAT. Or does ‘ditch’ mean something different here?
You might need to show your work here.
If a survey asks: “Was your residency selection decision largely based on step 1 scores” and 100% of respondents say “yes”, then that’s pretty damn good proof. Maybe they’re lying? In any case it’s certainly a lot more compelling that what you posted.
Here it means they’re ditching both.
1 Like