Something that has more or less confused me over the past however many years is the MSAR data that specifically shows the percentage admitted students participate in research and the percentage who work clinically. For pretty much every school, it is no less than 90% for research, and often no more than 60% for clinical work. I'm in no way devaluing the importance of research, but moreso fighting for the value of clinical work for applicants. The data is not suggesting that those who participate in clinical work have a disadvantage of course, but it does seem to suggest that if one doesn't participate in research, one might have a disadvantage. More concerning to me is the flip side of the data, that 40% of students have never worked clinically (they may have done clinical volunteering, but that is still quite different). That's always rubbed me the wrong way. Why is it that for PA school, to even be CONSIDERED you need to have thousands of clinical work hours, but for medical school you can get away with...0, especially at top schools which just feels...backwards? Then again, schools are "ranked" primarily on research funding so this adds up. I've just been wondering why this is so, and if it implies that ADCOMs care more about the research funding the school receives than the quality of care that patients will receive. Again, I will reiterate that there are plenty of fantastic clinicians that never cared for a patient before entering medical school, this is just a broader scale observation. I don't think it's a coincidence that, at least from what I've learned from patients, trust has been eroding in medicine, and that patients feel ignored, barely seen by their doctors who just seem more keen to order labs than to order labs AND check in, chat, and get a history and exam. Most of my concern is that people looking at these stats from MSAR might feel discouraged from working in patient care, and sacrifice that time for research. As someone who participated in much of both, I of course see the value in both. At a large scale, though, I do believe if these percentages were switched around, schools would breed better clinicians, and more people would be encouraged to work clinically prior to entering medical school, the advantages of which need no explanation. This discussion has much more nuance than I'm giving it room for, but I wanted to hear thoughts :)