What is the hardest thing about being a pre-med student? Is it: A) taking incredibly difficult classes like organic chemistry, B) having to take the seven-hour-long Medical College Admission Test in hopes of scoring high enough to get into medical school, C) the pressure of constantly comparing yourself against your fellow pre-med students or D) all of the above, but especially C.

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If you said D, congratulations! You get nothing. However, you have discovered — or if you’re a pre-med, reaffirmed — the fact that there is an issue within the greater pre-med community: Pre-med culture is often highly toxic, and encourages its members to tear each other apart rather than lift one another up.

I speak from personal experience. As a transfer student, I was taken aback by just how different the environment was between my previous institution and USC. Don’t get me wrong; both colleges required their students to be hard-working and driven in order to succeed as pre-med students and people. However, there was one marked difference: Whereas University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa students are often open and willing to help one another, USC students are afraid of “ruining the curve” and thus do not see the value in doing so.

“I’ve been in situations where my peers deliberately give me the wrong answers when I’m asking for help to try and bring my grade down because they believe I’m going to be their competition,” said Aime Radilla, a junior majoring in human biology. “It is a very toxic environment.” 

Students are the ones who are let down most by competitive environments that constantly reinforce the idea that “collaboration” is the second-worst C-word known to mankind. In reality, collaborative teamwork is quite beneficial for students. 

A study done by Stanford University researchers found that people who worked together to tackle a difficult task persisted 48-64% longer than those who worked alone; in fact, they even performed better. It is especially unsettling that an entire generation of future doctors is actively being discouraged from collectively working with one another, given that physicians often have teams of nurses, physician assistants, technicians and even other physicians to rely on. 

“There’s definitely been times where I felt like there was some toxicity; but then again like, some pre-med kids and pre-med culture in general are very competitive — very much ‘dog eat dog,’” said Jasmine Ahdoot, a sophomore majoring in health and human sciences. 

What is especially depressing is that pre-med students often adopt this cringeworthy attitude as early as freshman year, a time when many new students are entering a tumultuous and important time in their development as scholars and people.

“I think it was my first real [chemistry] class and I walked into the lab; I walked in, and I was really confused on what we were supposed to do in the lab,” said Melissa Alvarez, a sophomore majoring in human biology. “I asked this girl if she could help me, and she looked at me, just laughed and rolled her eyes, and she’s like, ‘Figure it out.’” 

When pre-med students are faced with discouragingly high levels of internal competition, it encourages them to leave the pre-med track. While there are, of course, people who drop it because they realize the path to becoming a doctor isn’t for them, it cannot be denied that toxic pre-med culture also pushes potential doctors out of the system entirely.

To make matters worse, the American Medical Association has released a statement addressing the physician shortage in the United States. 

“It’s an urgent crisis … hitting every corner of this country — urban and rural — with the most direct impacting hitting families with high needs and limited means,” said AMA President Dr. Jesse M. Ehrenfeld.

This kind of systemic failure cannot change without people taking the steps to improve internally. Pre-med students should have more empathy toward one another and understand how different circumstances can still bring this rather fractionated community together.

“What I would love is for everyone to understand that we all come from different backgrounds, we all have different goals, so [that] we are all just more open to just giving out advice and being a little more supportive,” Radilla said.