Iyer/Noguchi on med school admissions: Imaginary Coffee Date pt 2

Amulya and Ken

Amulya Iyer is currently applying to medical schools.  Ken and Amulya have a virtual coffee date about the admissions process. 

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Ken: How did you like your undergrad premed education?

Amulya: I loved my pre-med education at Williams. Apart from a small percentage of science geniuses, most of us will have a similar understanding of science regardless of how much we memorize for the MCAT. We don’t need expert scientists to be good physicians (excluding MD-researchers) we need expert human beings.

What I think will set me apart from other doctors isn’t my science ability, but my people skills. These were developed through English classes, small discussions, and broadening my cultural understanding with classes in Art History and Religion. (half-baked idea: Can we require American pre-meds to go to a third-world country and live there for a month??)

Ken: Totally legit half-baked idea, it gets to the core - pre-med students are living an unreal college life, so that makes us largely unreal humans.  The last med student I want to meet is a 21 year old whose life summary consists of college: classes, token volunteering in a clinic, and partying.

It seems realistic to give students extra points for studying abroad.  Other ideas?

What do these molecules have to do with doctoring?

Amulya: I would get rid of the physics requirement, and instead have all students perform two semesters of original research. Completing an undergrad thesis, and working in a research lab now, helped my understanding of biology and my critical-thinking skills more than any class.

Here’s the question we need to address:

Pre-med students need to feel the freedom to experience college and grow into caring/thoughtful humans and excellent physicians. Med schools need to objectively compare students so they can determine who to accept. How can these seemingly conflicting ideas coexist??

Ken: The pressure HAS to be on med schools to develop creative ways to assess students.  We need some half-baked ideas on creative med school admissions. 

Amulya: OK, right now med schools screen on GPA+MCAT and then go further into essays and letters of rec after they’ve eliminated students with low GPA+MCAT. This is probably done because it’s easier to screen on objective numbers and reject or ‘hold’ students that don’t meet a certain stats cut-off.

My half-baked idea is to turn this paradigm around – what if admissions committees initially were blind to GPA and MCAT and only screened based on essays and letters of recommendation. Then, after the initial screen they could see GPA + MCAT and interview performance to make the final decisions.

Ken: Genius, I love adcoms seeing essays/letters of rec first - it puts everyone's personal side up front.  I feel like some schools are thinking about this, but we need creative ways to get at the heart of each applicant.

don't you want a real human being taking care of this girl?

Amulya: The model for this is University of Southern California. Here are some questions they asked on their secondary application:

1. What are three words that your friend would use to describe you?

2. What is the most fun you’ve had in the last year?

3. Imagine your obligations were cancelled for the afternoon and you had three hours of free time. What would you do?

Skeptics will say these questions have nothing to do with medicine and are inappropriate for a medical school application, but that’s exactly why they are appropriate. These questions get at the humanness of an applicant, which is arguably the most important requirement for being a doctor.

As an admissions committee I don’t care about an applicant’s handling of a moral dilemma or past medical experiences – they’re going to med school to learn that. Instead, I care that my school is full of thoughtful, caring, real individuals.

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Ok this is getting long, so let’s take it to a part 2. Please share your thoughts on fixing med school admissions.

See you on the other side,

from amulya and ken