UMKC 6-year BS/MD Program

Pre-Med & Medical School Multiple Degree Programs
7041

@BAMDHopeful,

I believe UMKC has made all Summer Semester 2020 courses online now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.umkc.edu/summer/

You can see the UMKC course schedule here. Select 2020 Summer Semester for the “Term” field and select Undergraduate for the “Course Career” field:
https://umkc.umsystem.edu/psp/prdpa/EMPLOYEE/SA/c/COMMUNITY_ACCESS.CLASS_SEARCH.GBL?AITS_HDR_CODE=2

Registration dates:
https://www.umkc.edu/registrar/registration/registration-dates.html

If you have a registration “hold” on your account, check with your ETC or your Peer Mentors on how to get that “hold” lifted so you can sign up for classes. In the past, that “hold” was lifted when you attended one of the orientations in-person at UMKC, but that might not be the case now due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

7042

Thank you@Roentgen! You are always so helpful!?

7043

Hello @Roentgen - How do you rate the 2020 match list at UMKC?

7044

Hey @naive33,

You can see my post here in terms of my summary assessment: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22666219/#Comment_22666219

I’ll be posting a more detailed analysis of the UMKC 2020 match list sometime tomorrow.

7045

Hi @Roentgen,
My daughter is getting problem to get registered. We send email to admission office, but not get ansered yet.
She send email to her ETC. ETC replied and informed that they do not have assess to admission office group, but said they are looking into it.
Can you please see…?
How to clear this hold, when admission office is not replying?

7046

@15match,

Does it say in the portal on Pathway what the “hold” on your daughter’s account is that is preventing her from registering for classes? Like for what reason?

You can get in contact with the UMKC Volker campus (main campus) Office of Registration & Records (rather than the Office of Admissions, which isn’t really involved here), & they’ll be better able to tell you:
https://www.umkc.edu/registrar/about-us/contact-us.html

They’re closed right now, but you can email them today and then call them tomorrow during the hours of operation listed there.

7047

@Roentgen, @UIC4lyfe , @WGSK88 …Thoughtful and informative discussion from various sides re residency match 2020. Thanks! My questions:
i) So where does an average student from this program match, then?

ii) Is the match inferior in terms of % of students matched in specific areas/ to specific institutions relative to, say, nearby state schools Mizzou, Univ of Oklahoma, UNMC etc? Is there comparative analysis of that sort available? And if so, do the UMKC matches look much inferior?
Thanks!

(On the debate re UMKC match list etc: My limited opinion/ understanding so far: I generally agree that this program is tough and requires a lot of sacrifice. And even then, the residency results might not be as good as going to a strong state school. But many students who go in here are clear upfront that they want to go into medicine; they save a couple years which can be used to pay off loans sooner; plus, even for regional students, they save about $150-$200K upfront (relative to an alternative where you go to an ivy/ private undergrad+ state med school etc). But on the flip side, you will likely not land a residency at an ivy, nor will you be the next Dr. Anthony Faucci! It is important to accept these trade-offs and realize both the pros n cons of the program. This program is a “fit” for certain type of student, with a certain type of goal/ ambition; though I hear from my child who is here of several kids who gave up ivy league admission to come here).

7048

2020 Match List analysis - Part 1 of 2

Class of 2020 Match List
Internal Medicine - 30
Pediatrics - 13
Med-Peds (combined residency) - 1
Psychiatry - 5
Obstetrics & Gynecology - 5
Family Medicine - 9

General Surgery - 7
Plastic Surgery - 1
Orthopaedic Surgery - 5
Urology - 1
Thoracic Surgery - 1

Emergency Medicine - 6
Diagnostic Radiology - 5
Ophthalmology - 2
Anesthesiology - 6
Dermatology - 1
Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation - 1
Child Neurology - 1
Neurology - 3

Oral Surgery - 3
Ophthalmology Research - 1

As students are comparing medical schools at different BS/MD programs (if you’re lucky enough to be in the position of having several Bachelor/MD acceptances in the first place, and it’s perfectly fine if you don’t), residency match lists will be one factor that you will look at. If you’re someone who has not gone thru medical school and does not know any physicians or those who are currently in medicine, it can be very difficult as a layman to properly interpret and reach proper conclusions from match lists for a particular school when making medical school matriculation decisions.

Part of interpretation of a school’s match list involves:

  • []knowing which are the good residency training programs in each individual specialty, with the top-tier programs in each specialty (regardless of institution) being the most competitive
    [    ]seeing geographically where most students/graduates from that school end up matching esp. in competitive areas (i.e. California) and in which specialties in those areas
    [li]looking at several years’ worth of match lists to see their past “track record” in being able to sending graduates to specific specialties/regions/program institutions[/ul][/li]Top-tier doesn’t necessarily automatically mean Ivy League name prestige, although it can sometimes be true. Particular residency programs can also be more competitive for other reasons: easier residency lifestyle, geography (i.e. being located in sunny California or in a bustling city like New York City), etc.

    It’s more helpful to notice match trends overall rather than to hyperfocus on any one particular person’s match or only on any one particular year in evaluating a school. For example, noticing 1 hard-hitting stellar match and then extrapolating it to the entire student body/the medical school/yourself is probably not a wise idea, as you don’t know the entire story behind it (unless you ask/email the person), i.e. did research at the NIH, did an audition elective rotation, have a personal/internal connnection, etc.

    Context is always helpful in terms of evaluating any particular person’s residency match.

    For example:[ul]
    []Did that person have to take a year off from the BA/MD program to get some research publications under his/her belt in order to come back and hopefully match into a specific specialty?
    [    ]Is that person part of the military match?
    []Did that person couples match with someone else in the same class?
    [    ]Did that person want to follow a spouse from a previous class and thus do residency in the same area?
    []Was that person geographically restricted in some way (i.e. wanting to be closer to family; having a significant other not in medicine, who has to find a job in the area where the person matches)?
    [    ]Did that person do an audition rotation (or research)at the place where they matched and knocked their socks off?
    []Were they an MD-only student, who may have done quite a bit of research or had ancillary degrees?
    [    ]Was that person unable to match from the previous match cycle year and had to apply again?

All these factors can play into a med student’s match which is the result of a computer algorithm that incorporates an applicant’s rank order list, a residency training program’s rank order list of applicants, and the computer spits out the best possible outcome taking into account both lists. Keep in mind if someone currently in the class applied but didn’t match into any training position, even for the the first year of internship, you will not see their name on this list.

Things you won’t be automatically able to see in a medical school’s match list for a particular year:

[ul]
[]Whether the specialty the person ended up matching into was that person’s #1 preferred specialty or whether they ended up matching into a backup residency specialty, whether that’s simultaneously applying for 2 specialties or not applying at all for their #1 preferred specialty and instead applying for their #2 preferred specialty that they’d like (or at least be ok with and are more competitive for), or going thru the SOAP process (formerly called “The Scramble” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Resident_Matching_Program#Failure_to_match).
[]Where that residency program was ranked on the applicant’s rank list (whether it’s their first choice or last choice).[/ul]
Different BA/MD classes have different personalities. For example, one year a lot of people may want to go for more primary care oriented type specialties or one year may have a lot more people going for surgical specialties, which may not be the case in other years.

Med students also take other things into account, besides just the residency training program itself, when it comes to coming up with a rank list and matching with programs: geographical considerations, wanting to live closer to family, spousal considerations, the standard of living of the city - since you’ll be making a relatively low resident’s salary, during residency training. There are also rankings of residency hospitals/programs which you can see from USWNR: http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals and Doximity: https://residency.doximity.com/, which varies by specialty.

One thing I wanted to make clear as I have before, is that my analysis of this year’s match list is not meant to be a personal judgment of the students themselves. It’s not meant as a personal attack or criticism. My goal is to try to point out trends compared with the school’s prior Match lists and compared to other medical schools. It is also helpful to those who may be considering a particular specialty and need to see a school’s prior track record in getting students into that specialty or in particular geographic areas, which will be relevant in their decision making. If you’re someone who is not at all sure what specialty you want and thus don’t want to feel restricted in any way (and you don’t have to know at this point at all by any means), looking at match lists to see the distribution of matches a particular school is able to get, in terms of specialties and programs, is important.

That being said, I kind of think of the match lists as sort of turning on the tv about a minute before the end credits come on, and trying to figure out the plot from the tv show that happened 29 minutes before. You guys are seeing the final product, but you don’t see the years before that went into initially creating that product – studying for basic science courses, taking Step 1, clerkship performance, audition rotations, taking Step 2 CK, research and any publications that came from it, how the person decided which specialty to shoot for and when they decided, how much geography came into play, whether people couples matched, what backups were seriously considered, etc. which also has an effect on the end match, although you can still note common trends from year to year.

7049

2020 Match List analysis - Part 2 of 2

So in our strongest specialty at UMKC, both in terms of the number of people who matched into that field, as well as to our student’s overall exposure in the curriculum, Internal Medicine (IM), the programs our students were mainly able to match into were at lower-tier & middle-tier (although a select few stronger middle-tier at places like UAB, Baylor, & UC-San Diego) IM programs, excluding the 2 matches at Mayo and Michigan (both of which are Midwest programs like UMKC and matched into by AOA students). No top-tier places on the coasts like Hopkins Osler, Mass General, UCSF, Brigham and Women’s, Duke, Penn, etc. In the past, we have had 1-2 students in a particular year match into places like Mayo and Wash U for IM (again in the Midwest) which in recent years tends to be AOA candidates.

Keep in mind, in comparison to traditional graduates, we do 4 more months of inpatient Internal Medicine than everyone else, not including our weekly half-day IM clinics for 4 years, at which other schools, at most, do one month of ambulatory clinic. I think this confuses applicants & parents, since the amount of Internal Medicine education we get at UMKC is much more when compared to other medical schools, so you’d think that we’d be matching more people into very strong middle-tier and top-tier IM institutions easily in this field, since we get the additional IM exposure and maybe greater confidence that students at other schools don’t get heading into IM residency. Of course, it’s much more complicated than this, which I won’t go into here, but clearly just having more student curricular exposure is not the only factor in selection for the top-tier IM residency programs, or it’s not enough on its own to justify taking someone, as that’s what residency training is for, in which the learning curve is very steep and thus people at other schools can catch up quickly. Most people going for IM tend to go with the intention of becoming subspecialists thru fellowship - Cardiology, GI, Heme/Onc, Allergy, etc. although people also can become hospitalists as well.

For Pediatrics, most students matched into middle-tier Pediatrics residency programs, with two top-tier program matches (one student being AOA and the other having quite a bit of research productivity). In Peds, the rate of subspecializing after residency is different from IM, as the income factor discrepancy isn’t as pronounced in the Peds world from generalist to specialist, as it can sometimes be in the IM world. In Obstetrics & Gynecology, we had 5 people match, all in lower-tier programs.

As is pretty typical for our student match lists, very few in total of our students go for Surgery, whether that’s General Surgery or the surgical subspecialties (Urology, ENT, Plastics, Neurosurgery, Cardiothoracic, Orthopaedic Surgery), for a total of 15 this year, as our school’s overall emphasis is much more on Internal Medicine (thru the Docent system) and primary care specialties (Family Medicine and Pediatrics). Our only surgical residencies we have at UMKC are General Surgery and Orthopedic Surgery. For all the others, you will be dependent on institutions outside of UMKC for matching into that field. Most of the General Surgery matches were in lower-tier programs, outside of one middle-tier and one military match. Orthopaedic Surgery matches were mainly in lower-tier and middle-tier (and those in the middle tier were AOA candidates), except the one top-tier match which was by an AOA candidate. Both the Plastics & Urology matches were AOA candidates.

In terms of the more ancillary specialties: Rads, Ophtho, Anesthesia, Derm, PM&R, etc., with two of these specialties being very competitive (one of which we have a home residency in - Ophtho), you can see we tend to have a much lower total number of people entering these fields, for a variety of reasons. Those in the 2 very competitive specialties in this category coming from UMKC tended to be those who were more academically competitive and more often AOA. Radiology residency, has gotten MUCH less competitive over the years in terms of matching (it used to be on par with Derm), with the competitiveness now having shifted to Interventional Radiology, which now has its own separate residency track (it used to be a highly competitive fellowship after completing Diagnostic Radiology residency). So accordingly, our match lists have opened up to more people being able to match into Radiology coming from UMKC. For Ophtho, both were AOA candidates, with one being an MD-only student with several publications at the place of matching at a top-tier institution. For Derm, it was the AOA candidate w/a few research publications completed at the place where she eventually ended up matching. For Anesthesiology, it was mainly lower tier programs except for the top-tier match which was the AOA candidate. For Emergency Medicine, it was mainly lower tier programs except for the top-tier match which was the AOA candidate.

One thing I did notice in this year’s match is how much being AOA dictated being able to match beyond just the lower-tier programs. In comparison to years past, there were quite a few examples of students who were maybe not AOA, but were still matching into at least strong middle-tier, if not higher tier, programs but that didn’t seem to be the case this year. This might be just a one off fluke event or this might be due to the residency match getting tighter due to more newer medical schools being built in the last decade and thus more incoming med school classes who then later enter the match. I would NOT read too much into this particular characteristic this year.

I would say overall for this year’s match list, taking into account the overall breadth & variety of specialties matched into, residency program institutional caliber (even for the non-competitive specialties), geographical distribution, I would say this year’s match list overall is below average/weaker compared to previous years’ match lists for UMKC. Keep in mind that UMKC Med has always been a smaller, lower-tier medical school so the spectrum of specialties / programs that a student is able to match into coming from here (even with taking a year off for research) will be different than medical schools that are middle-tier/solid middle-tier and those in the top-tier.

7050

Is there any value in taking a summer class before starting in the fall. I ask this since there is such a long break March thru August for students (since our high school will not open this semester). On the one hand, I feel that my son should enjoy his time off before a rigorous 6 year program. However, if taking a class will help lessen the load next year, it may be worthwhile. Is there any easy class that may be good to do over the summer at the local community college.
On a different note, how do students get selected for AOA. Especially now that Step 1 is pass/fail? Is it based primarily on grades?

7051

@wichita,

Please see my post here on that:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22717729/#Comment_22717729

It really depends which degree he is doing (BA in Liberal Arts, BA in Chemistry, or BA in Biology). You can see those curriculum plans/major maps here: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22691084/#Comment_22691084

You can see the current criteria for AOA here:
https://med.umkc.edu/docs/sa/aoa_bylaws.pdf

Step 1, for AOA consideration currently, is more on passing it on the first attempt.

7052

@Roentgen,

Thanks for the very helpful information. From looking at all the major requirement, it seems that you do not need to take Biology 108 if you are a liberal arts major. Is that correct? If that is the case, would that be a disadvantage when they take cell biology if they have not taken Biology 108.

Do you know how the year 1 and year 2 students are coping with the online classes currently. I am also concerned if there will be a second wave of coronavirus this fall once all the kids get back to school and there may be more school closures. Is there a robust online system in place. I am concerned about it. I know that no one can predict what will happen but would be nice to know how UMKC is planning for it.

7053

@wichita,

Correct, if you’re doing the BLA (Liberal Arts) you do not take Biology 108 (General Biology I). Yes, it’s really weird that UMKC BA/MD students do not all take at least General Biology I before jumping into Biology 202 (Cell Biology) and Biology 206 (Genetics).

IMHO, I think they should, but that’s a lecture for another day (and it’s something that course directors in the School of Biological Sciences have advised the medical school to incorporate because our BA/MD students come in with different biology backgrounds from high school, but it’s been hard to do bc the 6 yr program curriculum is already packed). Would BA/MD students do better in Cell Biology if they had Biology 108 under their belt? I think so. In terms of disadvantage, I’d say it’s something that is surmountable for our students.

I’m honestly not sure, because this has never really happened at UMKC before and going to online just started a few weeks ago in March. The school does have capability to record lectures and to do exams online, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Right now everything has been flipped to completely online work. The bigger issue for Year 1 and 2 BA/MD students will be the Docent / Fundamentals of Medicine coursework including going to respective hospitals. I would THINK by August we’d be somewhat back to normal when it comes to students being physically on college campuses, but I think that’s all up in the air at the moment.

7054

Hello. I got in to the BA/MD program and am planning to attend! I have a question on AP credit transfer that I am hoping a current student or coordinator might be able to answer. I am planning to do a Biology major. I looked at the major map: https://cf1.umkc.edu/majormaps/maps/2017-2018/SOM_BA_MD_Bio_2017_2018.pdf

I have already taken AP US History, AP World History, AP Human Geo (got 4 and 5’s). I am signed up to give the AP Gov exam and AP Macro exam next month. I wanted to know if I will be able to get credit for AP Gov and AP Macro or since I already have taken 3 APs in social studies, its pointless to take another AP social studies.

If this question should be posted in another thread, please let me know. Thanks!

7055

Congrats on your admission!! The link below shows which AP exam/scores they will accept for credit. I’m a parent of a student so my knowledge is limited. I think you have to have a certain number of “Focus A, B, and C” courses, and some of the SS courses you mentioned are listed as different focus courses. Remember, you are allowed only 30 hours total of exam credit. I would rec taking the AP exams if it not too much work for you. You probably already paid for the exams and you only need a score of 3 to get credit. The academic advisor will probably email you in the summer after they get your official AP scores and together you will decide which scores are best suited to apply for credit. I remember that for my DC it was better to use the AP stats credit vs AP calc credit and it was good that they took the 3 different types of AP physics exams given only one fit for the degree. The upperclassmen will invite you to a GroupMe chat for your class and you could post your question to them. They will be a supportive resource.
https://www.umkc.edu/registrar/transfer-credit/test-credit.html

7056

@ZoyaS
This is the most recent major map for Biology. You had the map from 2017/18. It might be the same.
https://cf1.umkc.edu/majormaps/maps/2019-2020/SOM_BA_MD_Bio_AY1920.pdf

This is the one for Chem
https://cf1.umkc.edu/majormaps/maps/2019-2020/SOM_BA_MD_Chem_AY1920%20.pdf

This is the one for the BLA
https://cf1.umkc.edu/majormaps/maps/2019-2020/SOM_BLA_MD_AY1920.pdf

Some kids come in with so many credits that they can get a BA in Bio and Chem. I’m not sure if it helps in the long run.

7057

Thanks for your posts, @plantar! People are probably coming to this thread now and may not have seen my previous posts addressing testing & transfer credit, so appreciate your help.

The only thing I would add where you said “I would rec taking the AP exams if it not too much work for you. You probably already paid for the exams and you only need a score of 3 to get credit,” is that for AP Chemistry starting in 2012, a “3” on the exam no longer gives you full credit for General Chemistry I & II + Labs, like it used to. A “4” gives you one semester’s worth of credit + Lab, and a “5” gives you both semesters of credit + both Labs.

Also, with respect to the BA in Bio and BA in Chem and getting both of them, in terms of the residency match itself, there is no added benefit per se. Of course, students may have other reasons to want to do it.

7058

Thank you for the information @plantar and @Roentgen! I really appreciate your insights.

7059

@Roentgen,

Would I be able to reapply in the fall if I go to a private university i.e. Saint Louis University? Or do I need to go to a public university in the UM System?

7060

Hey @catmouse,

Yes, you’d be able to reapply to the BA/MD program in the fall, even if you were to go to SLU. My references with respect to coursework within the UM System schools were more w/regards to transferring GPA/grade points specifically and having that count at UMKC.