UMKC 6-year BS/MD Program

Pre-Med & Medical School Multiple Degree Programs
4481

@bladerz1
I agree with @Roentgen plan.
I was just about to say that I feel like they would find classes for you to take that summer even if you’re done with both Cell Bio and Orgo.
You have to understand, a lot of UMKC’s revenue (not just the med school, all of UMKC) comes from the med school tuition. Unless you just pay that tuition and take online classes then maybe you can be gone all summer. If you take online courses you do definitely don’t have to be here, there is nothing that happens that summer that requires your physical presence here at UMKC. And trust me I took Comp Science 101 and 102 or classes like that year 4 and finished both in one day, they are super easy.

I think the best course of action is this: find out if you can take Cell Bio in the fall, take orgo in the spring, and then petition to take the summer off. If they deny the petition to take the summer off then go ahead and sign up for online classes. Even if you have to do weekly quizzes, at least you won’t need to be in KC physically and can go do your research fellowship and do online classes from there.

I wouldn’t plan it without consulting with your ETC first though. Like @Roentgen said: you don’t want to piss anybody off, trust me that stuff can follow you.
UMKC is a small small community, everyone knows everyone’s business and if you cross someone the wrong way, trust me the administration knows.

4482

Thank you again @blugrn6 and @Roentgen.

I think what I will do, instead, is take some of those UMKC Internet classes posted earlier that fulfill other degree requirements: Sociology 101, History 101, English 225 for Discourse II (since I have an ACT English > 30, but also because of my AP English Language test) which I can then do in the comfort of my home.

Even if I were to move to KC now, I’d have to move all my things, pay to live in a dorm, then probably move again to another room on a different floor in the fall with roommates, etc. I would think also that I’d have to work pretty hard in my last summer to make a good grade in Cell Bio against Year 2 med students.

For those who might be looking for classes at UMKC this summer: http://www.umkc.edu/registrar/registration/schedule-of-classes.asp

If you go to Pathway, and change the search criteria of Mode of Instruction to either “Online Synchronous Instruction” or “Online Asynchronous Instruction” you can get all the Internet classes that are taught in that semester.

4483

Smart move, @bladerz1.

Be careful not to rush things too fast. The BA/MD program already accelerates things to be able to fit everything into 6 years, with no summers off to veg out and recuperate. A very good skill you will have to learn in this program and even in life, is being able to know when to work hard, when to play hard, and truly sustaining your endurance and energy long-term through all 6 years. Another skill worth mastering is when to “freak out” and when to let things roll of your shoulder because there are are way too many frustrations (big and small) at UMKC to lose your cool on every single one. You’ll blow an aneurysm before you graduate, if you don’t.

One of my greatest times with friends in the program was starting in Year 1 through the first half of Year 2, in terms of getting to have a LOT of fun times, without having to go into study overload. Having friends who “force” you to go out keeps you from reflexively isolating yourself, and it builds better friendships. That doesn’t mean you should procrastinate to the point of having to cover 3 weeks of lectures in 3 days before an exam (I definitely do not recommend this), but you can very easily have a good “work-life balance” those years, do well on exams, and have a good social life. It’s not a zero sum game where not having a social life leads to good grades, and having a social life leads to poor grades.

You can’t study all the time 24/7 and expect it to not affect you personally or your med school performance in some way. This is regardless of whether you came to UMKC or went to another place for medical school. There are studies on this, in terms of amount of studying, brain fatigue, and performance. It’s not a linear curve to infinity. The smartest people in our class weren’t the people who only studied all the time, with no real breaks or relaxation.

Since you’re into learning things in the summer, here are some actually useful things to learn:

  1. Learn how to drive (yes, there are some people who at age 18 still hadn’t driven yet) since you’ll be doing a lot of driving in KC and that will be your main way to get around to different hospitals, and even in Year 1 when you have to to go to the medical school to the Media Center to review things for Year 1 Anatomy Lab outside of class: http://med.umkc.edu/memc/

  2. Learn how to cook basic meals - I don’t know if you’re allowed to cook in the dorms (we weren’t), but when you move into apartments after Year 1 if will be very helpful. Eating out all the time gets very expensive, and eating fast food all the time will make you lethargic. Hopefully the dorm food has improved since I was there.

  3. Learn how to do laundry properly (your mother won’t be there to do it for you and don’t be the kid who takes all his laundry home to have his mom do it for him there)

  4. Learn how to do basic chores - vacuuming, ironing/folding clothes, washing dishes, cleaning up after yourself, etc. – all the things your parents do for you that you didn’t notice up until now

  5. Learn how to exercise and do it consistently to incorporate it into your life – whether that’s weightlifting, aerobic exercise, pilates, etc. as you’ll have easy access to Swinney Gym.

  6. Learn good stress management/relaxation skills – for some people that’s exercise, for others it’s yoga, breathing techniques, etc. whatever.

That should be enough for now lol.

4484

Thank you @Roentgen, I definitely have to work on those things for sure. Luckily, I am in-state so I get the benefit of being close to home and paying lower tuition. I just don’t want to have regrets on things in the curriculum that I can possibly change if I take the right classes, at the right time, or ahead of time (like getting that first summer to do research at a great place, and taking online classes if I have to be enrolled).

It’s just a little stressful to have to have to go thru this program, work hard, and have to make up on my own some of UMKC’s weaknesses, rather than have it readily available.

Every other summer in the program, there are School of Medicine science requirements or clinical rotations. I honestly thought it would have been better to do it during a required Year 4 summer campus, but leaving then for research would count against my months I’m allowed out-of-town that year, in case I decide to do an out-of-town board prep course like you did. It’s much easier to do that research during that first summer, when besides undergraduate classes, I would have nothing else.

I was reading this about their goals for their medical school including research and for attrition: http://med.umkc.edu/docs/SOM/Strategic_Plan_2010-2015.pdf. I’m guessing this started in 2010 and was to be achieved in 5 years time. Do you think they’ve achieved those things in those 2 areas?

@blugrn6 or @Roentgen, are there are lot of students in a med school class, who compete against each other, when trying to get involved in research opportunities to publish? Like for example, having very few research faculty and hordes of med students coming in, trying to get their names on something, so they can apply to that competitive specialty? If you establish yourself as wanting to go for something competitive, does the med school administration understand this when scheduling your curriculum later in Year 4/5/6 or do they care?

Most BS/MD programs and traditionals, students can learn all about and participate in research during their undergraduate years, before heading off to the medical school and then really getting involved in clinical research. Do faculty understand that some of us have done no research at all? How much hand-holding is there or is it all on your own? Or are you put on a project that is a little easier?

I saw some of the research from the 2015 Health Sciences Research Summit this month:
http://med.umkc.edu/students-participate-in-2015-health-sciences-research-summit/

Are there a lot of basic science labs, as I saw posters titled, “Pathological Changes in the Heart of CUX-1 Transgenic Mice,” “Incidence of Pulmonary Fibrosis in Lungs of CUX-1 Transgenic Mice,” “Smooth Muscle Actin (SMA1) Stain Lungs and Heart on Strains of CUX-1 Transgenic Mice,” “A mouse model of diabetes-accelerated atherosclerosis exhibits elevated endothelial cell Vcam1, Icam1 and Ccl2 expression: Possible role for hyperglycemia in combination with inflammation,” “Regulation of locomotor activity to amphetamine injection by acid-sensing ion channel 1a and 2 in adult mice,” “Maspin Expression of Pancreatic Inflammation in an Obese Strain of Mice,” etc. etc.

Why would people participate in this basic science research if it doesn’t really apply to a specific specialty?

Are the Sarah Morrison Research Award and the Health Sciences Research Summit the only research events that happen at UMKC?

Do you recommend getting involved in Interest Groups or UMKC med organizations earlier or later?

4485

The competition for research is not that “cut-throat”. What you will realize as soon as you get into a basic science lab is that it takes a crap ton of effort and dedication on your part to get a project finished. Anyone who is willing and able to do that, especially the students at UMKC, is a rare breed. No one in my class wants to spend that kind of time to get true research done. Most students want to get in and get a publication out to put on their CV and move on with life. So yea, easier projects are that have fast publication potential but no substance are hard to secure because its a first come first serve basis.
The true projects that take years to publish in, no one is competing for those, trust me.
No one wants to sit in the the lab at 10:30 pm on a Friday with 27 excels sheets open trying to finish a project when your friends are sending you drunk snapchats. I speak from personal experience, basic science research takes lots of time. You have to be ok with devoting a chunk of your life on an experiment and then either hitting an dead end or getting negative results and moving on to a second project. Not a lot of people are willing to deal with that.

Everyone knows that you have no research experience. That’s part of research. Learning the techniques, messing up some experiments and starting over, and if you hit a problem, trying to resolve it first yourself before running to your mentor.
For example: they will teach you how to do it once, or give you a sheet that walks you through how to do it, and then you figure it out yourself. If you can’t seem to move past a problem, you find them and they help out. But figuring it out on your own is the best part of research. It makes you a problem solver not a problem creator. Unless you’re just really clueless in the lab, no one wants to get annoyed every 2 mins, that gets old for the research mentors real fast.

Again as I stated before, getting published in basic science is incredibly impressive, regardless of your speciality. My research mentor told me that having a paper published in basic science is at some institutions the equivalent of adding 5-10 points to your step 1 score. Everyone in the world of medicine knows how painstakingly annoying and tedious it is to do basic science research. Obviously having it in the specialty of your choice is ideal, but that’s not always available so you settle for next best. Again, having some research is better than having no research.

Sarah Morrison and Research Summit: yes they are only for UMKC students. Aka you have to apply for them and they are only granted to students who are doing research under a dedicated UMKC faculty. Can’t do research, at lets say Johns Hopkins for a summer, and get a sarah morrision award, it is meant for students who are doing research at UMKC.

Don’t be a year 1 or 2 student and come to an interest group meeting. Honestly people are going to laugh at you. Some interest groups just kick year 1 and 2 students out completely, its way above your level at that time and its just not necessary. Instead focus on activities that are geared towards your class: go to Sojourner Health Clinic and learn how to triage people, go to APAMSA meetings and get involved in health fairs, go to GlobeMed meetings and get involved in their clean water project in Africa, etc.
Sure if there is a suture workshop that Surgical society is hosting, you can go to that. Or if the ophthalmology group is having a wet lab with eye dissection that would be cool to go look at but going to Post match panels or general elections will be waste of your time. Start going to that stuff Year 3.

FYI: UMKC undergrad has a “roo fair” where various organizations will have booths where you can go talk to them about what they do. The school of medicine does it its own “roo fair” where med school organizations will come recruit year 1-2 students. That’s probably the best place to start.

4486

@bladerz1,

So I’ll try to be systematic in answering your questions overall, although @blugrn6 did a great job in addressing this.

Sarah Morrison Research Award is only for Years 3-6: If you win, you get a $1,500 stipend for a small research project w/a research mentor at UMKC. http://med.umkc.edu/ora/student_awards/

Student Research Day used to be where students did an oral presentation of their research in front of a panel of judges for 1st/2nd/etc. prize. That format has changed somewhat and it’s apparently also been renamed since 2012, to the Health Sciences Student Research Summit, probably since all health science schools are across from each other now in one place. You can see previous Summit poster topics here: http://med.umkc.edu/ora/studentsresdayarch/.

So in looking at your link from this year, I’ve never really understood BA/MD students who take part in basic science research that isn’t directly applicable to a specific clinical residency - the ones with Dr. Molteni and Dr. Herndon. If anything they tend to be more like Pathology research projects. It is possible that these were projects they worked on since Year 1 or maybe they did a research month. The people I’ve seen usually do this type of research are the ones who have no idea what specialty they want, but still want to do research, and while they do have correlation with IM: Cards, Pulm, Endocrine, GI, you’d be so much better off doing clinical research, i.e. Cards – St. Luke’s w/ Dr. Spertus, Pulm at TMC w/Dr. Salzman, GI w/Dr. Clarkston. In that list, there was one basic science project that was done as part of a 3 month research program at UWash (A highly ranked medical school in terms of research), sponsored by the NIH. A lot of times basic science projects can be put on a CV to later apply and do a research year in the HHMI-NIH Research Scholars (Cloister) Program.

In general, realize that research is in addition to your residency application. So at the end of 6 years, you’ll want:[ul]
[]good grades as demonstrated by your cumulative GPA (in this program, it’s your letter-graded undergraduate/medical school grades in all 6 years together)
[]as many “Honors” grades as you can get starting in Year 3 in medical school courses as well as clinical rotations
[]strong Step scores, especially on Step 1
[]great letters of recommendation - currently the max allowed is 4 — these will all be from clinical physicians who have observed you in a clinical context: your Docent, your Year 5 rotations, or on Year 6 out-of-town electives in the fall[/ul]
Very few people in med school, get the highest grade in every course/clerkship they attempt, especially in Year 5 clerkships when most of your grade hinges on subjective evals. So you don’t have to be “perfect”. But research won’t make up completely for big deficiencies in course grades, clerkship grades, or Step scores, when it comes to applying to a competitive specialty. It’s pretty much extra frosting on a baked cake. Your mileage will vary in terms of non-competitive specialties with research (since it’s not a requirement to match), but in those specialties, it can only help (Peds, IM, etc.) to get into higher ranked programs.

So the criteria you want to hopefully meet when it comes to doing research are:[ul][]The research actually applying directly to the specialty that you’re trying to get into[]Get something tangible out of it: an abstract, a poster, an oral presentation, or a publication[/ul]Just saying you participated in research with nothing to show for it isn’t enough. You want something tangible - a product. As @blugrn6 said, having some research is better than having no research at all (even if you change your mind when it comes to your specialty), but if you satisfy both criteria above, your application, as a whole, will be a lot better off, and you’ll get the most bang for your buck.

In terms of basic science vs. clinical research, basic science research is most respected because everyone knows it takes a LONG time to publish and even longer if your research mentor is aiming for a high impact (highly prestigious) journal: Nature, Cell, etc. Ask any postdoctoral (PhD) fellow working in a lab. It takes a heck of a lot of hours, sometimes things have to be redone or reanalyzed, bc a result didn’t come out the way you want, etc. You have the potential to hit a lot of walls in terms of being able to move forward with something tangible.

If your goal is to get your name on something relatively quickly and then move on, then basic science research isn’t for you. I don’t think I knew anyone who did basic science research thru the Basic Medical Sciences department (outside of Ophtho/Neurosci/Anesthesiology) who published in a journal (they usually had research posters). That being said it’s not necessary to do basic science research. Doing clinical research can be just fine for your purposes. For example, for PM&R, clinical research is fine, if you even decide to do research (right now, it’s not that competitive although it is starting to get more competitive due to lifestyle).

So as @blugrn6 said, most UMKC BA/MD students aren’t going to flock to research (basic science or clinical) very early on, especially as a Year 1. Everyone is so happy to have “made it” (little do they know what is to come, lol), so to speak, that most are trying to get a good footing to adjusting to college life, the dorms, and getting a grip on their academics. A lot of where you study, your actual classes will be on the undergraduate campus. Outside of Fundamentals, everything else meets on campus. That’s why at least in the first semester, it’s not necessary to have a car, although I still recommend it. Very few students will have the endurance to go to classes, study, and then drive to the medical school (unlike Mizzou at Columbia, the undergrad and med school are NOT on the same campus) to do basic science research. Year 1 is the easiest year by far, and most people want to soak it up.

Here are the places in Kansas City in which you can possibly participate in research:

Stowers Institute for Medical Research - http://www.stowers.org/
I honestly don’t know what positions they would have for a graduated high school student with no real research experience. I believe most of their research is in basic science.

UMKC School of Biological Sciences - http://sbs.umkc.edu/
This is all basic science research, although some can be applicable to human medicine. Many if not all the SBS PhD professors (who teach your undergrad science courses) have their own research labs. I’ve never heard of a student participate in that research because there isn’t much protected time in the BA/MD curriculum to be able to work on their research for an extended period of time and those professors realize this.

UMKC School of Medicine/u
Clinical & Basic Science research. Research done with faculty in the BMS dept. is relatively useless for your purposes to match into a specific specialty. The 2 exceptions here are Ophthalmology and Neuroscience/Anesthesiology. I would look under the “Departmental Research Initiatives” tab on the side: http://med.umkc.edu/bms/, to see what interests you, but it’s only in like 4 specific areas.

http://med.umkc.edu/ora/student_overview/
http://med.umkc.edu/research/
http://med.umkc.edu/ophthalmology/vision-research-center/
http://info.umkc.edu/cures/?page_id=12
http://www.umkc.edu/mubig/default.asp

KU School of Medicine
http://www.kumc.edu/school-of-medicine/departments-centers-and-institutes.html (Dermatology is a division under IM)

Most people who participate in research here will do it in one of the clinical departments. It’s entirely up to them whether to even offer you research opportunities as you are a visiting student here.

4487

@bladerz1,

I largely agree with @blugrn6 regarding the specialty interest groups. As a Year 1 or Year 2, there is almost no point into going to those meetings re: match and residency stuff, as most of the stuff they’ll be talking about is way too far in advance for you. Most, if not all, officer positions will be taken up by those in Years 3-6 for their CVs for the match. It might be helpful though to find out about community service activities to participate in: i.e. Sojourner Clinic, Free Eye Clinic, Kids Enjoy Exercise Now (KEEN), etc., learning about clinical research that you can maybe get involved in, if not as a Year 1/2 then later. Oh, and free food. Free food (usually pizza) is always good. lol.

In Years 1-2, in terms of organizations, as @blugrn6 said, I would get more involved in the non-specialty UMKC med organizations: http://med.umkc.edu/sa/student-organizations/ (AMSA, APAMSA, MSAC, etc.) They even have more fun stuff now that didn’t exist before at UMKC like Globemed, etc. Alpha Phi Omega (APO) which is more on the undergrad campus is always a popular option also. You’ll make friends and relationships with your classmates and upperclassmen working together which will be helpful later on, as well as just being fun in general.

I would also add that you might want to join some of the Honor Society organizations at the undergraduate level: http://catalog.umkc.edu/division-of-student-affairs-enrollment-management/student-involvement/campuswide-honor-societies/. We joined things like Golden Key Honor Society: http://umkc.goldenkey.org/, Mortar Board: http://umkcmortarboard.■■■■■■■■■■/, and Omicron Delta Kappa: http://odk.org/circle/umkc/. AOA is the only Honor Society at the medical school level.

In reading this that you mentioned: http://med.umkc.edu/docs/SOM/Strategic_Plan_2010-2015.pdf,

As far as “Attrition in the BA/MD program will be less than 15%”, they’re not even close to reaching goal. If anything, there are probably more people who left because of moving the Anatomy block earlier to Structure Function rather than where it was before. As far as “The school will graduate an average of 105 medical students annually”, I don’t know how much of a trend this has been. Most classes, are in the high 80s. I think this year’s class (2015) is an exception of about 112 students who matched and will graduate, but realize this includes people who are MD-only students who join the class at Year 2 Spring, and also includes those BA/MD students who have extended from previous classes.

4488

@Roentgen, is there a lot of time to participate in basic science research, realistically? Or if I wanted to take part in clinical research starting in Year 1, but I have no idea as to the residency specialty I want to pursue, what should I do?

4489

@bladerz1,

The most time you’ll ever have to participate in basic science research in the BA/MD program is really from Years 1-3, although I would say it might be pretty difficult to do during Human Structure Function when you have 4 subjects going on at the same time (Gross Anatomy, Histology, Physiology, some leftover Biochem). That course series also has a much faster testing frequency, with exams usually every 2 weeks, as they have to have enough grades in one section to justify calculating a grade for you to move on to the next section in the series. I think it is possible to do basic science research during Year 3, when it stretches out more in terms of exams, but you’ll also have a half-day per week clinic. You can maybe do a lot of it early on during Year 4, but most students don’t want to risk it too much in terms of time commitments that year, because of having to also prepare for USMLE Step 1 - to review or learn things they should have learned but may not have been taught in class. Year 5 you can pretty much forget about it, and by Year 6, you won’t care once you’ve submitted your residency applications electronically in September.

So clinical research is pretty hard to do as a starting Year 1 because you have no idea what a specialty is like in real-life day to day (which would give you an idea if you’d like it enough to do it for the rest of your life). You also don’t have much of an overall knowledge base in terms of medicine or even know how to do a starting medical literature search. Doesn’t mean there aren’t mentors who won’t take you, but realize you’re still 17/18 years old at this point, and there’s a chance you may be viewed as an undergrad student, and told to come back as a Year 2, maybe Year 3, as @blugrn6 mentioned.

I do recommend though that if you do get involved in a clinical research project, it helps if it can apply to more than 1 specialty. For example, if you like dealing with children but also have an interest in Radiology, then get involved in a Pediatric Radiology project. So later on, if you decide you hate Pediatrics as a residency (for whatever reason) but you love Rads, you still have something in that field that applies and vice-versa if you were to shoot for Rads, and then find it to be very boring or were to realize you’re not competitive enough for it, but still had an interest in Pediatrics overall, it still helps toward your application. Certain disease entities are treated in a multidisciplinary fashion, where several medical specialties come together to treat them, not just one, so you’re covered either way.

While you may not know the residency you want, you’ll have natural interests that you gravitate towards and you can get on projects that combine those interests. There are also some fun quizzes you can take online which can give you an idea of certain specialties that might fit you well: https://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/specialties/

4490

@Roentgen, @UMKCRoosMD,

I looked at the match lists previously posted from 2003 to 2015 that were posted. Do you feel like UMKC’s residency match lists have improved a lot since when you graduated from the program, even though UMKC’s average board scores, are still relatively low, or at least seem to be below the national average? Is it pretty much up in the air or risky, if a UMKC student in Year 4/5 decides to go for a residency specialty that is competitive and ultimately end up unmatched? I’m trying to assess risk vs. benefit with $60,443/year tuition for medical school at a place that doesn’t seem to be a well-known school by other programs and is an unranked medical school and don’t know how much will change in the future. Are students not concerned about this?

@blugrn6, I don’t know if you saw @bladerz1’s question but if you establish yourself as wanting to go for something competitive, does the med school administration understand this when scheduling your curriculum and rotations, in Year 4/5/6 or do they care? Do you get some control of the order of your rotations in Year 5?

Does the administration sit down with you to tell you what specialties you should apply for? Also on the MSPE what happens if there is a mean comment on an evaluation that isn’t true? Do they remove it so it won’t hurt you in your residency interviews? How do you deal with residents who might be mean or lousy and not grade you fairly?

4491

@PinkPrincess2014

So I think in my mind I answered the question but forgot to actually type it lol.
The med school is not going to change your schedule based on what you want to do with your life. People change their mind more often than you think. For them to make your whole schedule and make the effort to accommodate you and then you changing your mind last min and wanting a complete overhaul is a pain.

Most of the students in my class decided what they want to do after their cores this year. And there are plenty of examples of students who were gung-ho one speciality, formed their entire application in it, and then took general surgery and have now fallen in love with it or took peds and loved it, and swore never will they work with kids their entire life before that. It happens more frequently than people realize. There is no way the med school can create and predict who is being honest about their speciality choice and who is not when they divide you into teams as a third year and decide your docent schedule for the rest of your med school career.

With that said almost everyone needs to deal with some kind of a DoRo inconvenience year 6:

  • June/July - miss out on elective time
  • Aug/Sept - ideal time to do aways, unless your doing ophtho in which case you want June/July cuz the app is due Late July/Early august vs. mid sept for the rest of the specialties
  • Oct/Nov - this is probably the best one to have I guess, don’t really see an issue with this cycle
  • Dec/Jan - peak interview season, you’ll be missing a lot of days and depending on your docent that’s ok or is hell
  • Feb/march - you have doro during match season when most people are on chill electives
  • April/may - you have doro during when everyone else in your class is on vacay and getting drunk in Cabo on the class trip

Again for each person there is a different reason to not like one doro cycle vs. another. The med school is not going to change that based on personal preference, that would never work out.

Besides, even if you want to do something competitive, that doesn’t mean that everyone else in your class that wants to do peds or IM etc, doesn’t want time to do away rotations as well. Ideally everyone wants June - Sept off because that’s ideal for application season but realistically not everyone can get that.

I will say though, besides the DoRo thing, the school is very proactive about getting you what you want when you want it. AKA working around your DoRo schedule.

Here are a few things with that.

  1. UMKC is not going to sit with you and tell you what specialties to apply to. First off, scheduling is done by the administration, they are not involved in the match process at all or even in the medicine field, they have no idea what it takes to make in one field over another. Secondly, that stuff is something you can ask your docent for advice, or even your attendings on your elective. And its just part of medical school, figuring out your likes and needs (what you like to study, what kind of clinical setting you want to practice in, etc) and then narrowing down what you want to do with your life.
  2. Once you decide you want to do a X,Y, or Z speciality its up to you to find mentors (we have discussed this one at length before) and then figure out what the idea schedule for you would be.
    I will say this: most students who don’t get their schedules they want (and this is now, I can’t speak for the past) are the ones that are lazy and no proactive about it. I go find my ETC and set up a meeting the instant they send an email that says: time for you to set you schedule for the next year. I don’t miss a beat. In fact once I knew what I wanted I told my ETC my ideal schedule for Year 6, during my Year 5 scheduling meeting and I told him as soon as the request forms are open, you don’t need to meet with me, you go ahead and do what you have to do to get me into those things. Not everyone is like that. I have friends who get emailed the day AFTER the last day you are supp to meet with your ETC and then they are are stuck with the left overs. Early bird gets the worm, and you just gotta fight for it. It makes sense, not everyone can take Surgery together at the same time first, someone has got to budge.
    Even if I put in my requests ahead does that mean I got everything I wanted: no. But for the most part the majority of my schedule was where I needed it to be.

And I don’t know about other schools but I feel like this is true about scheduling anywhere you go. Granted the exception at other schools is this:

  • You have 5 more free months (most schools only do a month of family and two months of medicine vs we do six months of medicine and two months of family)
  • They don’t have a set DoRo schedule they need to work around, so they have more flexibility in terms of what goes where

Your evals have two sections:
Summative Comments: ideally where your evaluators are asked to highlight your strengths
Formative comments: where they list things you can improve on (these are not on the MSPE).

You have 30 days after receiving your rotation grade via Oasis to petition and get something you don’t like removed from your comments, after that you are screwed. So if you don’t like something, better get it out of there.
They have told us this year that we can start reading our MSPE’s starting July and help edit them as we please, so I’m sure if something does not make sense, they would change it.
They said it becomes an issue if you bring it up after its already been sent out. They can’t pull it back and send out another one, but you can help edit before they get sent out.
How much of that is true, i’ll let you know after the application season this year haha.

4492

@PinkPrincess2014,

That question is a little complex. What specialty a medical student goes for as a Year 6 (M4 / MS-4 in traditional medical schools) and matches into on Match Day (and thus the entire Match List) is impacted by a LOT of factors. I may like Neurosurgery, but if I can’t stand to be a resident for 7 years AFTER graduating medical school, then becoming a board-certified neurosurgeon practicing in the United States isn’t in the cards for me. There is a LOT of self-selection bias that occurs for a U.S. senior medical student when it comes to going thru the Match - a lot of that can be seen from that person’s application at that time. In the Match, you also have the option to apply to your primary specialty and to a “backup” specialty, if you were not to match into your primary specialty, if you so choose.

Did that student choose their specialty because they genuinely wanted it, or because it was the best specialty they could get into without going unmatched, based on how their application looked? Did that person choose the field because they genuinely liked it or more due to lifestyle concerns, especially when they get older? Did that person match there because that was the best institution they could get into? Or do they have a significant other who can easily get a job there? Or they wanted to match at a place very close to family for residency and then go somewhere else for fellowship? Were they couples matching? Did they do an audition elective there, impress their socks off, causing them to be ranked high enough to match? Did that person go unmatched on so-called “Black Monday” and have to enter the Scramble (now called the SOAP) to get into an internship/residency spot before Match Day which is now on Friday? Was that person in the top, middle, or bottom of the class? Was that person AOA (even then - AOA doesn’t entitle you to a residency position in the field of your choice although it can help immensely)

As @blugrn6 said, most students are pretty sure of their specialty after completion of their Year 5 rotations. Each specialty: Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, OB-Gyn, Surgery, Psychiatry, and Pediatrics are so very different in so many ways. You will definitely know by the end of that year which rotations you loved and which ones you hated. Or people will do electives in specialty areas that aren’t part of your core rotations, solidifying their choice. There are a select few students who know much earlier on, or at least know they may want to go for something competitive, and will thus contour their CV in a way to go for that field early on (go for officer positions in interest groups, get involved in research in that field, specialty-specific community service, etc.) It doesn’t mean they are guaranteed to get it, but it’s more just setting the building blocks early on since the barrier to entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry) to get a match for certain specialties is a lot higher than for other specialties.

All medical schools improve and change in different ways as the years/decades pass, which includes match lists. Curricula change, faculty come and go or retire, new faculty are recruited, research is built up, new buildings and hospitals are built, areas/buildings are renovated, etc. The real question for you, which is harder to answer, is whether UMKC has improved enough to be able to compete in comparison to other medical schools (which are also improving as well). Depending on the specialty fields you may be interested in, this may or may not be the case.

4493

@PinkPrincess2014,

I think match lists for UMKC have improved, but I also think a lot of that has more to do with the type of matriculating medical student coming thru now, not necessarily, because those in the school administration have made major changes, although there are some really great faculty people who head the major Councils - i.e. Evaluation and Curriculum. One of them actually graduated the year ahead of me and went into Med/Peds, and the other I think is just genuinely a nice person who although she isn’t a BA/MD graduate, I think she’s much better than the guy who headed the Curriculum Council before (he’s still there by the way, just in a higher position).

On top of it all, you have a science GPA requirement that rewards studying long hours, memorizing, and regurgitating on exams, when it comes to promotion, and thus can have the unintended consequence of weeding out people altogether who while not bookworms, would make great doctors. That leaves behind people who are more likely to be Type A, more science of medicine oriented (vs. dealing with people oriented), and thus more likely to try to match in the more competitive specialties – due to wanting to be rewarded in some way, for all that studying and delayed gratification. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but the trends in medical education have supported this.

With many more students these days entering college and professional school, it’s more competition for all BS/MD programs as a whole, as more people know about them early on. Even if you look at the composition of the class in terms of in-state:regional:out-of-state vs. when before, when it was just in-state:out-of-state, you’re selecting more students, who due to debt, will naturally go for residencies that are not in primary care. In terms of students, you have a lot more students outside the state of Missouri paying much higher tuition, more superachievers, more valedictorians/salutatorians, more and more of the class from very very well-to-do means financially speaking, etc. since for most families, the BA/MD program can be quite cost-prohibitive, without taking on a ridiculous amount of loans. Much more of the class is also of Asian descent as well (even higher now than it was in my time, which was still much higher than the national average) - not as a judgement call, but more in terms of those who are more likely to stick out and complete the program for a variety of reasons.

I think now UMKC has just recently started a PA program, so as a medical student, I could very much see a 6 year BA/MD student seeing a PA student and thinking to themselves, why go into field that a PA can easily do without doing residency at all? I’ll go into something that a PA student isn’t able to do or not get into as easily.

4494

@UMKCRoosMD and @Roentgen,

In your class, are all the people who got into Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) the ones going for competitive specialties (I guess the 1/6th of the class who get inducted)?

Are they aiming, planning, and preparing for this from the very beginning in Year 1?

4495

@bladerz1,

I honestly, don’t think students were aiming, planning, and preparing for Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) from Day 1 of Year 1. I don’t remember the Junior AOA officers or the AOA Councillor, Dr. Foxworth, ever doing a presentation at a class meeting, explaining how AOA nomination works to the class, although this may have changed.

I think it would drive a lot of people insane to have the mindset of always thinking about AOA, when it comes to every exam, course grade, or clerkship grade – this last one a lot of the times being out of your hands in terms of subjective evaluations from residents/attendings which will contribute the most to your final grade. Sometimes a certain grade won’t go exactly your way, and you have to have good coping skills during the 6 years not to crumble at the first sign of adversity – it’s a good skill as a med student, as a resident, and when you’re an attending practicing medicine.

You’re better off building good study habits in general, and just trying your best on every course/clerkship you attempt, to get the best overall GPA and collecting as many Honors grades as you can, and then let the AOA process work like it does. That’s all you can ask of yourself. You won’t know anytime where you stand in relation to others in terms of rank before Year 5/6 (which by then, it’s already too late to do anything), although people will have many guesses/rumors, some accurate, some not so accurate. Even then, stellar academics aren’t the only criteria, as @blugrn6 mentioned previously.

Not everyone who got AOA went for a competitive specialty, although it was probably more common. There were people who got AOA who went for Pediatrics or Internal Medicine, for example. As @blugrn6 mentioned, even people who go for non-competitive specialties will want to audition rotate in Year 6 at other places, for either good letters of recommendation or to increase their chances of matching there, if they really do well on that elective. It’s not like people who go for non-competitive specialties get to relax in their La-Z-Boy recliner and chill, being assured of matching.

You can see on match lists from this year (2015) and last year (2014), there were people who were not AOA who got into competitive specialties: Plastics, Urology, Derm, Ortho, Ophtho, etc. or got into non-competitive specialties but at competitive institutions: Mayo, Beth Israel Deaconess, UPenn, Wash U, Baylor, etc., so all is not lost just because you weren’t selected for AOA. It isn’t the be-all and end-all of getting the residency of your choice.

4496

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4497

@bladerz1,

Same pattern in my class also, as previously described by @Roentgen. I think everyone knew what AOA was by the time maybe Year 3/4 hit, but at least in Years 1 and 2, it wasn’t even necessary to know what AOA was, since it would have had no real impact on how hard we studied regardless, and this was long before a ridiculous required science GPA existed, which was first started in 2000. Our class was quite laid back in terms of overall personality, so I don’t know if incoming BA/MD classes now have changed a lot in this regard. Sometimes too much knowledge and foresight (in planning ahead) can be detrimental to your performance – just more unnecessary stress. Things were stressful enough as it was.

It seems like the requirements for AOA and the actual calculation of overall rank are a lot more spelled out for students now (with the relatively new Latin Honors Summa, Magna, and Cum Laude). Back in my time, the only thing besides AOA was promoting year-to-year with Distinction (mainly based on GPA or getting Honors on certain rotations) and graduating with Distinction (3.6 cumulative GPA; Honors in 7 required rotations in Years 3-6): http://web.archive.org/web/20000831070056/http://www.med.umkc.edu/eval/guidelines.pdf. So u either graduated with Distinction or you graduated routinely like everyone else.

Not all our AOA students went for competitive specialties.

We had one girl in our class out of 4 people that year that matched into Derm and she wasn’t AOA. We had one guy who was AOA, top board scores, who went unmatched for Ortho, and actually ended up in Internal Medicine and then subspecialized. It was actually a much better fit of specialty in the end for him personality wise, which he realized. But like @Roentgen said, AOA is more like a gold star, than an actual requirement for any specialty. If u get it, you get it, if you don’t, you don’t.

4498

Just to add perspective to what they said here is the AOA students from the current graduating class and what/where they matched into

Junior AOA:

  1. Ophthalmology - University of Colorado
  2. Medicine/Pediatrics - University of Minnesota
  3. Internal Medicine - Mayo Jacksonville Florida
  4. Took a year off to do research

Senior AOA:

  1. ENT - UIC Chicago
  2. Internal Medicine - US Air Force, San Antonio
  3. Orthopedic Surgery - UPenn
  4. Pediatrics - University of Cincinnati (#3 in Peds in the nation)
  5. ENT - University of Mississippi
  6. Emergency Medicine - Indiana University
  7. Ophthalmology - Tulane University
  8. Anesthesiology - Mayo Rochester
  9. Internal Medicine - UT Southwestern
  10. Orthopedic Surgery - Brown University
  11. Internal Medicine - Mayo Rochester

Notice the following impressive matches that were not in AOA:
Internal Medicine - Baylor
Pediatrics - Baylor
Plastic Surgery - Wash U
Neurological Surgery - St. Louis University
Urology - University of Minnesota
Dermatology - Indiana University

And many more Anesthesiology, Orthopedic, and IM students who matched at relatively top middle tier programs.

We do get a lecture during our 3rd year about what AOA is, why it’s important, and what qualifies you into AOA. Most students forget about it by the end of the year. If we miss honors in a rotation we don’t get stressed out about it going: “well there goes by chances for AOA”. Honestly, of all the students that applied none of us are even expecting to get it because we know the chances are really slim and the factors that go into the decision are unknown.

Its not even something we worry about honestly. You try to do your best in every class/rotation and try to build a good application. AOA would be a cherry on top of the cake, but not really necessary depending on who you ask.

And by saying this I am not discrediting those who got AOA. It is an IMPRESSIVE achievement and true honor. I am pointing this out to quell the anxiety for students who seem to be preoccupied with it. Of all the things that should worry you about when it comes to matching, AOA should towards the very bottom of that list.

4499

@bladerz1,

I think this was mentioned before, but you can see which people from UMKC got selected for AOA here:

http://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/new_members_2013.html

http://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/new_members_2014.html

http://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/new_members_2015.html

UMKC also tends to release, thru the PRN announcements online, on their website: http://med.umkc.edu/?s=AOA, the students who were selected as well.

For years prior to this, you can look up individuals from prior match lists posted in this thread from 2003-2015 by @UMKCRoosMD, with the “Locate A Member” function on the left hand side here: http://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/index.html, by last name, so you can correlate how AOA students at UMKC did in terms of the match.

As @blugrn6 said, it’s an impressive achievement and honor in and of itself, but don’t get too obsessed with it.

4500

I am currently on the wait list. My cousin (who has been accepted to the program) mentioned that there are 12 OOS students who have been active in the FB group. I know of five people who are OOS state who rejected their admission to the 6 year program. Does this mean that another 5 people will be called from the wait list? Or do they accept more than 15 OOS people and may not call wait list students if all the spots are filled? Just trying to see what my chances could be. I committed to UIUC but would definitely take UMKC if I’m called off of the list. I would be grateful for any help or advice!!