Background-- AOA (Alpha Omega Alpha) is the medical honor society. (Think Phi Beta Kappa, but for med students) The top 25% academically of each class is eligible for consideration. Other qualifications include scholarship, leadership and professionalism, although the weighting given to these factors varies by school. About 15-16% of each senior medical school class ultimately qualifies.
AOA is considered a mark of distinction and boosts the CV of students who wish to Match into competitive specialties or at prestigious programs.
Icahn/Mt Sinai recently suspended its AOA program due to significant disparities in ethnic/UiM representation in its AOA cohort. While 35% of Icahn’s medical students are minorities, only 3% of its AOA membership is.
Mt Sinai’s experiences are reflected on a national scale. The JAMA study notes
I know that there is/was an AOA issue at my son’s med school. Those top students that spent their 3rd year at a “distant hospital” were less likely to be selected for AOA than those who did their 3rd year at the univ hospital.
Because the SOM has been growing the med school for some time, they’ve needed to add more hospitals for rotations. Before the med student even matriculates as a MS1, he/she is assigned a hospital for 3rd year rotations. So the assignment location has nothing to do with performance. I think there are 5 hospitals…at least one is 100 miles away, three of them are 60+ miles away. So these students don’t live near the med school/med school hospital for that 3rd year. Those that are assigned to the univ hospital are just better known to those who make these decisions.
We did notice that when my son was applying for residencies, a number of top programs were not (no longer) considering AOA membership.