L Want You
Tommye Hope
In his research, he and his colleagues have found that when faced with decisions, CEOs rarely give weight to the wants and needs of stakeholders, largely because there is little value or profit incentive to do so.
Before you explore and compare different schools, first decide what you're looking for in a school. Ask your parents to do the same thing. Then compare your answers and come to some agreement as to what you want in a school. Search for a school that fits you well academically, socially and culturally:
- athletic offerings
- campus safety
- campus setting (urban, suburban, small-town or rural)
- diversity of student population
- extracurricular organizations and events
- faculty experience and expertise
- financial aid availability and deadlines
- geographic location
- housing availability and cost
- length, time and location of classes
- number of students enrolled
- percentage of graduates employed within one year
- percentage of students who graduate
- percentage of students who return the following year
- programs of study, majors, and course selection
- school facilities and equipment
- school or program reputation
- student-to-faculty ratio (class size)
- support services (meals, counseling, job placement)
- transportation availability and cost
- tuition and fees
- Why do I want to go to college?
- What do I want to get out of college?
- How will college help me work toward my goals?
- Which college will best/least help me work toward my goals?
- What are the advantages/disadvantages of going now rather than later?
- Does it matter how many students are enrolled with me?
- Do I want to be with students who have diverse ideas, viewpoints and backgrounds?
- In which type of campus setting am I most/least comfortable?
Make an Educated Decision It's good to have options when choosing a college. Applying and being admitted to more than one school allows you to compare how much financial aid you would receive from each school and determine the cost for you to attend.
If you qualify for financial aid, you will receive a Financial Aid Award Letter from the school. This letter outlines the specific financial aid programs for which you're eligible and the dollar amounts you will receive if you attend that school. How much you're eligible to receive will vary by school due to the differences in the school's overall cost and how they put together your financial aid package.
Choose your school based on everything you know, including the price, and confirm your plan to attend that school. Most schools ask for a deposit to reserve a place in the class. Also, you should send a note to the schools you do not plan to attend, declining their offer of admission and/or financial aid.
For many years, Kaj Johansen, MD, FACS, and David Heimbach, MD, FACS, of the Department of Surgery at the University of Washington, Seattle, provided the "little red book" as a resource to medical students who were applying for residency programs in general surgery. The book, "So you want to be a surgeon," proved to be very popular and a great help to students who wanted to select programs to which they could apply. With Drs. Johansen and Heimbach's permission, the American College of Surgeons created an online version of the book that contains expanded content, including information about all the surgical specialties that admit PGY 1 residents. We are pleased to present the "little red book" to medical students and their advisors in an electronic format for ready access. Moreover, this version, "So You Want to Be A Surgeon: An Online Guide to Selecting and Matching with the Best Surgery Residency" is updated on a continuous basis. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Good hunting!
This section of the American College of Surgeons website has been developed to help you decide whether you are physically, intellectually, and emotionally suited to be a happy and successful surgeon. If that is the case, the information presented here about the surgical specialties along with a searchable database will help you find optimal graduate medical education opportunities. Much of the information presented here is available elsewhere; however, this online guide was assembled to make your search easier.
The medical student interested in a career in surgery should be familiar with the qualities and demands required of a successful, satisfied surgeon. These qualities and demands are covered in Section I. For those still stimulated by the challenge of surgery after thoughtful reading of Section I, there are suggested questions that you should ask of yourself, and attempt to answer, in order to select residency programs suited to your needs. These residency programs are presented in Section II with a chronology of the application and interview processes to make the processes as efficient as possible. In Section III you will find a description of the surgical specialties. Links are provided to important information about the specialties and the programs, and the answers to questions about programs you consider.
In evaluating programs, you will find helpful information in the "Program Requirements" section for each specialty, posted on the website of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The ACGME is the home of the Residency Review Committees (RRCs) for each specialty; the RRCs set the rules by which programs must abide and serve to maintain quality in every accredited program. You will find additional links to this site as we get into specific specialties and programs. In addition, the section for medical students on this website has good basic information on selection of programs and the application and interview processes.
To assist you in finding the best possible match for your surgery residency, information on the various surgical specialties is provided. These surgical specialty descriptions were developed from definitions set forth by the American Board of Medical Specialties, the nationally recognized authority on the topic.
In reading through the training requirements for each specialty, we encourage you to remember this: that a surgery residency is not a surgical career. Once your residency is finished and you begin surgical practice, you will have a larger measure of control over your schedule and your life. Members of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Young Surgeons want you to remember that surgeons have active family and personal lives too. In addition, some have submitted their own personal descriptions of their respective surgical specialties in which they explain the advantages and benefits of their chosen specialty.
When candidate Trump told people he had their backs, many believed him. His agenda of restricting trade and immigration and bringing back manufacturing jobs appeared to directly and concretely address their problems in a way that talking more abstractly about boosting growth or redistributing income does not.
There was a predictable divide in the political opinions of focus group members, as well as in the degree to which they believed that the new administration was on the right track. Many were reluctant to discuss politics, knowing how divisive the topic can be. But when they did voice a political opinion, it typically related to how ineffective, untrustworthy, and out-of-touch they believe government is, especially at the federal level.
Participants believed that employers are trying to skimp on providing the wages and benefits they once offered by hiring temporary, part-time, or contract workers. When asked what should be done in addition to providing better pay and benefits, a few even specifically suggested the approach I emphasize in my book: encourage businesses to share profits, provide broad-based stock options, and offer matching 401k contributions to more workers.
Individuals I talked with were extremely divided on whether taxes should be increased or lowered. As noted earlier, many believed that taxes on modestly-paid individuals should be lowered. Yet, when confronted with the fact that the federal debt was large and growing, and that new tax cuts would be expensive, quite a few resisted the idea that anyone needed to pay more.
Many participants liked the idea of a flat tax. I was surprised that they mentioned this idea, which implies that everyone would pay the same percentage of their income in taxes. But it dovetails more with a value added tax, the equivalent of a national sales tax, than with a progressive income tax. It might be regressive but need not be if the revenues are used to benefit the bottom half and an income or wealth tax is preserved for those at the top.
This summary of what I learned comes with many caveats. Though I spoke to a few dozen people in three states, their voices are of course not representative of the whole country, and interpreting what they said is inevitably somewhat subjective. However, I think too few of us take the time to listen to what those we think deserve better really want. Like many researchers, I have scoured the literature and the data on these issues and written it all up in a book. Listening to these forgotten Americans reinforced many of my ideas, suggested that others may be nave, and above all, deepened my understanding.
The idea of want can be examined from many perspectives. In secular societies want might be considered similar to the emotion desire, which can be studied scientifically through the disciplines of psychology or sociology. Alternatively want can be studied in a non-secular, spiritual, moralistic or religious way, particularly by Buddhism but also Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
In economics, a want is something that is desired. It is said that every person has unlimited wants, but limited resources (economics is based on the assumption that only limited resources are available to us). Thus, people cannot have everything they want and must look for the most affordable alternatives.
d3342ee215