Bye-Bye MCAT's, Hello Language Study: Big Changes Afoot in Med School Admission?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>For years I've questioned whether the traditional medical school requirements truly help to breed the best physicians. This excerpt, below, from today's Chronicle of Higher Education leads me to believe that others are sharing these thoughts.</p>

<p>Are sweeping changes afoot for future MD's?</p>

<p>
[quote]
In Medical School's New Admissions Program, Mandarin Counts More Than MCAT Score</p>

<p>By Katherine Mangan</p>

<p>A sophomore English major who plans to study Mandarin but skip organic chemistry might seem an unlikely medical-school candidate, but next year, she could have a good shot at getting into the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.</p>

<p>The New York school is introducing a flexible admissions program for half its incoming students, who will be able to skip the Medical College Admission Test, forgo traditional premed requirements, and be accepted in their sophomore year in college, as long as they maintain a 3.5 grade-point average through their senior year...

[/quote]

<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/In-Medical-Schools-New/137605/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://chronicle.com/article/In-Medical-Schools-New/137605/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>I think it’s rather risky to skip Orgo and then only be qualified to apply to one SOM. Taking foreign languages is very good, but it’s not necessary to skip the pre-reqs in order to do so. </p>

<p>If SOMs want students to be better communicators then they can require some FL credits and other desired courses.</p>

<p>I think eliminating the science prereqs is risky. those areas are taught in med school, so if a student has no aptitude for those subjects, it’s best to know that prior to med school enrollment.</p>

3

<p>Does anyone have any idea of the thinking behind the Mandarin suggestion? Spanish I understand, but Mandarin? How about Hindi?</p>

4

<p>MCAT is already changing to accommodate the societal changes and need for doctors to be socially aware. </p>

<p>Is this is just the school’s way of saying we will turn out acupuncturists? I just don’t get the removal of science requirements.</p>

5

<p>Don’t the senior advisors know how to use the search function? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1466381-its-time-reform-medical-education.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1466381-its-time-reform-medical-education.html&lt;/a&gt; Jeez. :-P</p>

<p>Plu, there are LOTS of chinese people in NYC. Growing up I heard mandarin on the subways all the time - much more frequently than hindi but who knows if that’s representative.</p>

<p>mom2,
given that the program appears to admit during sophomore year, one could still take orgo after not getting in and still go straight out. Also, it appears not that program is eliminating science pre-reqs, just changing them. As I said in the other forum, genetics and stats would be much more useful pre-reqs than orgo and calculus. Also, wouldn’t their humanities and medicine program have failed if the pre-reqs were that critical?</p>

6

<p>I know this proposal is coming from a great medical school and surely has been thought out and researched and whatever else before getting to this point in their program. I also know that my bias is one in favor of the current system, probably because I did it and have every reason to believe I’ll be just fine. It’s also probably not fair to try to transport vague conclusions about my own program to another program. But here are some thoughts anyway:</p>

<p>1) I don’t think the point of taking orgo for med school is to memorize complicated reactions so you can use them at some point in the future. I think the point is to prove that you can handle a wickedly challenging class that requires you to basically learn an entire new language on the fly in a competitive environment. HELLLLLLLLO what do you think med school is? Almost the same thing. Or at least, very close. I personally like the orgo requirement for that very reason.</p>

<p>2) I’m not convinced students who forgo studying science except for the premed prereqs are equally prepared for med school as their peers who studied science. Perhaps this has more to do with my perceptions of the individuals who go to my school who didn’t study science in undergrad and doesn’t actually reflect on their training. But it sure seems like a helluva coincidence that 6 out of 7 people who have voluntarily dropped out over the past two years chose humanities majors and didn’t think their science prep was adequate. </p>

<p>3) While medicine isn’t entirely science, a lot of it is science. Think about all the research, evidence-based practice guidelines, pathology, etc that are the foundation of the practice of medicine in the United States! I think it’s a foolish move to shy away from a strong science foundation and a difficult admissions test in favor of letting applicants do whatever they want (and maintain a 3.5) and still get in. Who knows, maybe I’m just irritated that science education and policy is borderline pathetic in this country, and it bothers me that now even medical school is thinking about shying away from science. Science isn’t bad!</p>

7

<p>IME, a sophomore who “plans to study Mandarin” and isn’t a native speaker has zero chance of reaching proficiency by the end of senior year. After two years of double-credit Mandarin, you know a couple of polite ways to say, “I don’t understand” and “Can you speak more slowly.”</p>

8

<p>So what it boils down to is another affirmative action program, that discriminates against native English speakers.</p>

9

<p>There are already too many med school applicants with Mandarin language background. They are already ORM; and they do not have enough powerful politicians to represent them so it is unlikely they will be benefited by affirmative action at all.</p>

<p>Maybe some founders for that particular med school all of a sudden remember what their ancestors needed to suffer through the system slightly less than a century ago?!</p>

10

<p>I was referring more to the Spanish proficiency than to the Mandarin. </p>

<p>We need more doctors in this country to be sure. But not by dropping the standards. Organic chemistry is typically the course that separates the cream from the milk.</p>

11

<p>Mandarin? There are so many Chinese in Med. School, why they need somebody else to study Mandarin, beats me. However, there are people who continue taking Spanish (possibly other languages) while in Med. School. My D. is the one. She was speaking after one semester of Spanish in UG and continue taking Medical Spanish while in Med. School. Frankly, have not asked lately if she is still taking it or done, she started at intermediate level. Orgo was difficult in UG, but so were all Bio classes. There are non-science majors in Med. Schools currently. As long as they take pre-reqs, any majors are OK. It is not such a big deal taking pre-reqs, there are more difficult classes in UG.</p>

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<p>C’mon folks, this is a great idea. Think about it. Talk to any practicing physician today and ask them how much science is needed for their job. Lab technicians with just a 4 year degree know waaaay more about science than your typical physician. That is the truth. </p>

<p>The most science physicians were exposed to were as undergrads. And by the time they got to med school, it went out the other ear.</p>

<p>I’ve talked to doctors and they really have no business talking about science, believe me.</p>

13

<p>Completely disagree. They need science far more than a second language . That’s what interpreters are for.</p>

14

<p>posted this in the other thread by accident:</p>

<p>Kristin,</p>

<p>If that’s the purpose of orgo, then why orgo? Why not computer science or engineering or theoretical mathematics? There are plenty of challenging courses out there. There is also the fact that not all orgos are created equal. The orgo on the MCAT compared to the intro orgo class at Brown is like comparing multiplications tables with three dimensional calculus. I don’t even think the level of orgo tested on the MCAT would have passed my intro to orgo class. I really don’t see the current pre-med system as the best model out there. Is this new proposal the best model? No idea, but I do think it offers things that are better. My gut would say removing the MCAT is the only real problem but as I also said, Sinai has already done that for 25% of their class and the program has been running for ~25 years so I assume it would have been discontinued if it were a problem.</p>

<p>I dove a little deeper and went to the sinai webpage instead of just the link OP gave and here are the program requirements:</p>

<p>"Program Requirements
Prior to applying, students will have to complete either one year of Chemistry or one year of Biology. Once accepted, requirements prior to matriculation will include the following:</p>

<p>One year of Biology
One year of Chemistry
One semester of Physics, or AP Physics in high school with a score of 4 or higher on the AP exam
Two semesters of lab in any science
One semester of Statistics
One semester of Ethics
One semester of Health Policy, Public Health, or Global Health</p>

<p>An in-depth experience in which the student gains experience in human illness</p>

<p>A senior thesis or its equivalent in an area of academic concentration</p>

<p>Students will be strongly encouraged to gain proficiency in either Spanish or Mandarin.</p>

<p>In the six weeks prior to matriculation, FlexMed students who have not had advanced science courses will be required to participate in a Summer Enrichment Program that will provide them basic competency in Cell Biology, Biochemistry, and Genetics.</p>

<p>Admitted students will be required to achieve a ‘B’ in all required courses, will be expected to maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.5, and will not be permitted to take the MCAT."
<a href=“http://icahn.mssm.edu/education/medical-education/programs/flexmed/about-us[/url]”>http://icahn.mssm.edu/education/medical-education/programs/flexmed/about-us&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Literally all that is missing from the standard path is one semester of physics, one semester of math, one year of orgo and the MCAT. In it’s place is a senior thesis, ethics, and health policy classes. The more I look at it, the less revolutionary this honestly is. I would argue the brown PLME program and several other BS/MD programs are a greater departure from traditional pre-med than this program.</p>

15

<p>I think the point is to prove that you can handle a wickedly challenging class that requires you to basically learn an entire new language on the fly in a competitive environment?</p>

<p>Seriously? The argument that it’s the foundation for more advanced classes is a much better one, then. There are other wickedly challenging classes that require you to learn an entire new language on the fly in a competitive environment…like language classes. If med schools wanted to prove you could do the work they could require a variety of things.</p>

<p>There’s also no evidence that non-science majors do any worse in medical school than science majors. If med schools thought so, they would’ve noticed long ago and changed the entrance requirements to only admit science majors.</p>

<p>Also, not every Chinese or Chinese American student speaks Mandarin. Some of them speak English as a native language and even if they do speak Chinese as a native language, there are hundreds of dialects of Chinese.</p>

<p>Also, having an interpreter is not as good as having a doctor who can speak your native language to you. There are studies that show that people do much better with doctors who speak their native language; they are more likely to feel satisfied with them, and more likely to adhere to what the doctor prescribes.</p>

<p>Personally, I think this is great. I think it’s far more important that potential doctors understand health care policy and ethics than if they understand physics, and I always thought it was a shame that medical school students are not required to take any sociology or public health courses. That would help them understand their patients much better than a calculus class.</p>

16

<p>@TatinG- You’re entitled to disagree, but the the reality is that most physicians have no inkling about science. Their jobs really consists of diagnosing and prescribing a course of treatment, much like an auto mechanic. In fact, doctors have much much much more in common with a mechanic than with any other profession. They follow a specific set of protocols over and over again. They don’t know or need to know the chemistry behind the medicine they prescribe or the lab kits they use; they just need to know what it does, not the mechanism on how it works. </p>

<p>The reality is that medical schools should be identified by what they really are: trade schools. And like most trade schools, they will teach what is necessary to do a particular job from scratch. So I think it’s a great idea to put more emphasis on languages BEFORE heading to med school. It will be very relevant in their day to day duties. BTW, most of the science courses that med students took as prerequisites went out the other ear long before entering med school.</p>

17

<p>To OP and all: this is one medical school; to project wholesale changes in how medical school is taught is pushing the bounds of reasonable speculation. Whether you agree with it-or not-it’s just one school.
To NWC: How in the world have you managed to form these assumptions about what physicians do? It’s not trade school, and if your doc doesn’ t have a fundamental grasp of scientific principles, you’ve got a bad physician. And a basic understanding of pharmacology-which last time I checked is all about science-is required to effectively practice medicine. They do need to know the science behind the medicine and behind the lab tests, etc.
No argument that we all-including physicians-ought to learn languages other thant English, but really, keep your opinions which have no basis in fact to yourself.</p>

18

<p>@jalfred- Oh quit crying. I said the “typical” physician knows little about science. And I stand by that…as one who has training in the sciences and has worked for a decade in the STEM fields.</p>

<p>Doctors may seem like they know something about science to a layperson who is not educated in the sciences, but not to me. I quickly roll my eyes at how little they truly know about science.</p>

<p>If it makes you comfortable, perhaps I should have prefaced what I’ve said by adding “IMO”?</p>

<p>BTW, these are message boards. And message boards are full of opinions. That’s what makes them interesting. </p>

<p>Also, I said that medical schools are really trade schools. IMO, the science that is necessary for the medical student should ONLY be taught in medical schools. Because I can tell you that I’ve had, and seen many premeds with A’s know nothing about what they’ve learned when working in a real laboratory. NOTHING!. </p>

<p>IMO</p>

19

<p>

If they were trade schools, they would the the schools which require the students to carry the highest debt and spend the longest time in their youth to get through. They also would be the hardest schools to get into.</p>

<p>If the laguage shared by the physicians and the patients is indeed the most important factor than all other factors, we may as well allocate the quota for the matriculants to med schools according to the ratios between groups of people who speak their native language. Some who benefit fom this movement may be for it and others who are at the disadvantage because of this may be against it.</p>

<p>

Wow! Just Wow!! The poor premeds are really at the lowest rank of the science ladder, according to what you just said. Hopefully, you have never been a professor/instructor or TA for these poor premeds – they tend to suffer enough already even without somebody who look down on them.</p>

<p>Let’s be civil and respect other people’s expertise.</p>

20

<p>There has been a trend in med school admissions to try to accommodate “non-traditional” undergraduate courses of study, other than the traditional Bio/Chem major - that’s ok, as far as it goes.</p>

<p>But before you <em>ever</em> get to a Residency, you’ll need to pass the USMLE exams - here’s step 1:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.usmle.org/pdfs/step-1/2012content_step1.pdf[/url]”>http://www.usmle.org/pdfs/step-1/2012content_step1.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>It’s not all about band-aids; a science background is going to be very helpful to acquire the knowledge necessary to pass these exams. Meanwhile, a second language is great - but which one? </p>

<p>I think there’s a real danger of going too far with this kind of thinking - admitting someone to a very expensive medical school who won’t be able to pass the licensing exam, or who scores so low they’ll never get into a residency isn’t doing anyone any favors. </p>

<p>If you want to admit “unqualified” students (that is, students who don’t do well on the MCAT because they lack the math, chem, and physical science skills tested in the MCAT, but who at least took the pre-requisite courses), then there are thousands that attend Caribbean and Irish med schools that’ll happily take those spots, and will probably be more successful than someone who majored in Theater Arts …</p>