All Posts Tagged With: "medical school"
Doctor offers second opinion on medical school interviews
Multiple Mini Interview criticized (and defended)
Photo courtesy of Tulane Public Relations on Flickr
Medical school applicants at the University of British Columbia will no longer take part in a block-building exercise, reports the Vancouver Sun.
But the other exercises that make-up the school’s Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) process are here to stay, according to Dr. Joseph Finkler, associate dean of admissions at UBC.
The news comes after Dr. Brian Day, former head of the Canadian Medical Association, wrote an editorial in the B.C. Medical Journal, calling the MMI process “contrived, artificial, and bizarre.”
The MMI, now the norm in Canada, requires that applicants move through several different stations to be assessed by interviewers who attempt to discern motivation, social concern, creativity, maturity, integrity, empathy and more.
Continue reading Doctor offers second opinion on medical school interviews
Get them where they live
New program shows less-wealthy kids a path to medicine
Photo by Richmond Lam
Ridge Cross-McComber is about as blasé as your average overachiever when it comes to his laundry list of goals for the next few years and beyond. He’ll finish his year at Montreal’s Dawson College, move to Vanier College for either nursing or pure and applied science, then go to medical school to become a surgeon. After that, he’ll practise medicine in Kahnawake, his hometown. “I want to be a role model for my community,” says the 17-year-old, sitting in a café in the native reserve near Montreal. “It’s something I want to do for my town and my people. I want to show that I can do this.”
As far as medical school goes, history and statistics are stacked against Cross-McComber. Wealthy students tend to be overrepresented in the field, for one. According to a study by the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, nearly 45 per cent of medical students come from families making over $100,000 a year. (Only about 26 per cent of Canadian families are in this demographic, according to the AFMC study.) And while medical schools are decidedly less uniformly Caucasian than they used to be, the AFMC study indicates that many visible minorites continue to be under-represented.
What to do if you don’t get into medical school
From the 2011 Maclean’s Professional Schools Rankings
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Roughly three-quarters of medical school applicants are rejected each year. Bummer. Luckily for them, wannabe doctors have better alternatives than ever. These four professional health care programs can be completed in just a few years, are in high demand, and pay well directly out of school. That means graduates can start paying off their student loans while medical residents are still driving beat-up old cars to 24-hour shifts.
Health Care Manager
The Job: Health care managers work in hospitals, medical clinics and nursing homes where they direct teams of health care providers. Their job is to make sure patients get excellent care and, simultaneously, that Canadians get good value for the nearly $200 billion they spend on health care each year.
Continue reading What to do if you don’t get into medical school
A doctor in seven years? Sign me up
New program combines undergraduate and medical school
Photo courtesy of Tulane Public Relations on Flickr
Imagine if there were a way to train doctors more efficiently, effectively, and at a lower cost, increasing the number of primary care providers while decreasing the amount of debt that students face. In other words, imagine a system that benefits patients, doctors, and the health care system.
Officials at the University of Texas (UT) believe they can do just that.
A new program pitched for 2013 will reduce the number of years that are required for students to earn a bachelor’s degree and a medical degree by spreading medical education across seven years, instead of putting most of it in a four year program that follows a BSc. The class would start with 60 freshman who are guaranteed a spot in med school if they do well in the first three years.
There may be fewer electives than a normal science degree, but there will still be some flexibility built into the program, including an entire year to “explore an area of interest” such as public health or medical research.
“Medical education, in general, takes too long, costs too much, it’s redundant, and it also doesn’t necessarily prepare people for practice in the 21st century,” Dr. Kenneth Shine, the UT’s executive vice chancellor for health affairs explained to The Austin American-Statesman. Other UT campuses are planning to try a similar model for nursing and pharmacy students.
The idea of reducing the time it takes to graduate from medical school isn’t exactly new, but it’s not very common. At least one three-year medical program can be found here in Canada. McMaster operates on an 11 months-a-year basis that allows students to qualify for the MD degree at the end of the third academic year. So do roughly 15 per cent of American schools. But the idea of combining undergraduate and graduate has so far been limited to places like Australia and Ireland. This may be a North American first.
Considering that it takes at least eight years between high school and medical residency, there’s another potential benefit to shortened programs for both patients and taxpayers. If doctors enter the workforce a year earlier and stay working a year longer, it would make life easier for the roughly 2-million Canadians who want a family doctor but can’t find one.
First female neurosurgeon from University of Alberta
Woman joins elite group of doctors
Alberta’s 50-year-old neurosurgery program has it’s first female alumnus. Dr. Jenny Souster has completed her seven year residency with the University of Alberta. ”The neurosurgery program has been here (at U of A) for 50 years and they’ve had a few women enter the program, but they didn’t make it through to the end, so I’m the first one to actually finish,” Souster told the Calgary Herald. Neurosurgery, which mends brains and spinal cords, is one of the most difficult specialties to learn. There are only 270 fellows of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada who are listed as neurosurgeons today. Most of them are men.
There’s something worse than physics on the MCAT
Hint: it’s not chemistry.
Photo courtesy of Nic's events on Flickr
Ever since I started studying for the MCAT, I’ve been worried about the physics section.
Apparently it’s just an irrational fear. Whenever I’ve brought it up here in my blog, most commenters have assured me that the physics questions are so basic, Forrest Gump could answer them all correctly and have enough time left over to start narrating his life story to the person sitting next to him. Which, of course, is why everyone who writes the test gets a perfect score on the physics section.
It turns out I might have been worrying about the wrong section. Apparently the lowest-scored section on the MCAT isn’t the physical sciences. Or biological sciences. It’s the verbal reasoning section.
According to this chart from the AAMC, verbal reasoning had the lowest mean score among test takers in 2010. The physical sciences, which consists of general chemistry and physics questions, had a mean score of 8.3. The verbal reasoning section had a mean score of 7.9 (this is on a 15 point scale). And Examkrackers claims that the average score on verbal reasoning is a 61 per cent.
For some reason I always thought that verbal reasoning was the section that most people could expect to score decently on. Perhaps it’s because, unlike the physical or biological sciences, there isn’t any specific background knowledge required.
But after looking at some practice problems, I think I’ve realized why it’s the toughest section. Most of the questions were apparently designed by Confucius, with some editorial input by Yoda and Master Po.
For instance:
1. According to the passage, an image is a versatile tool that:
A) is always visual, never abstract.
B) can be either abstract or visual.
C) is always abstract, never visual.
D) is neither visual nor abstract.
That leaves me with a new hobby for this summer. Instead of whining about physics, like I’ve been doing for the past couple months, I plan to whine about verbal reasoning instead.
McGill medical school apps. up 50 per cent
School says dropping MCAT was successful
The number of applicants to McGill’s medical program 50 per cent higher this year and officials are attributing that growth to the fact that they dropped the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) requirement. The number of students vying for the program’s 183 spots rose from 1,689 last year to 2,538 this year. Only 500 will be interviewed.
“It was successful beyond our wildest dreams,” Dr. Saleem Razack, assistant dean of admissions, equity and diversity at McGill told the Montreal Gazette, referring to the decision to drop the test that most English-Canadian medical schools and nearly all American medical schools require. “The MCAT is seen as a barrier — it is expensive to write and we find our new multiple mini interviews have a great ability to predict the future performance (of applicants).” It’s especially problematic for francophone students, he says, as there is no French-language MCAT test.
Dr. Maureen Shandling, former associate dean of admissions at the faculty of medicine at the University of Toronto told the newspaper she doesn’t believe that multiple mini interviews can replace the MCAT entirely. Instead, she says multiple mini interviews should be “complementary.”
Should physics be on the MCAT?
Unless the patient is on a train, physics doesn’t help
Train photo courtesy of kaffeeeinstein on Flickr
I forgot how much I hate physics.
If studying for the MCAT only included biology, chemistry, and verbal reasoning, I might have a serious shot. But throwing physics into the mix has me worried.
Way back in first year, almost three years ago, I thought I was saying goodbye to physics. Forever. After writing my exam, I would never have to see its face again. No more calculating the distance traveled by a projectile. Or determining how long it takes a soccer ball thrown from a height of 80 metres with an initial velocity of 10 metres per second to reach the ground. As for those two trains —the ones that are speeding towards each other, with hundreds of hypothetical passengers’ lives at stake — who cares what their final speed is, or how long it takes them to collide? Not me.
At least, I didn’t care until this summer. Now that I’m studying for the MCAT, physics has returned from the past — like a bad guy in an action movie who I thought was dead, but instead of shooting him a second time (just to be sure), I turned my back and didn’t notice the ominous music.
The problem is that the last time we saw each other, it didn’t end very well. Every time I tried to patch things up, physics would bring up the centrifugal force. Now, I’m asking myself: why is physics even tested on the MCAT?
Biology makes sense. Mostly. Some of the specifics seem a little irrelevant, like the details of cellular metabolism, but hey, med school is all about biology, right? And as much as I hate chemistry, I grudgingly accept the fact that it has a place in med school, too. Sure, I’d like to lie to myself and claim that chemistry has no real-world applications in medicine. But then I’d have to ignore the existence of pharmaceuticals (even the boring sections in my organic chemistry textbook are important for future doctors).
But for some reason, back when the MCAT was being created, someone stupidly invited physics to the party. I just don’t see how physics can help a doctor treat their patients. Unless the patient is a passenger on a train. A train that is heading south at a velocity of 80 kilometers per hour, on the same tracks as a train that is heading north at a velocity of 72 kilometers per hour…
No more 24-hour shifts for Quebec residents
Could the ruling have implications across the country?
Quebec hospitals will have six months to reduce 24-hour medical resident shifts to a maximum of 16 hours, ruled an arbitrator in a grievance case led by the Fédération médecins résidents du Québec against the McGill University Health Centre yesterday. Arbitrator Jean-Pierre Lussier agreed with the argument put forward by former McGill employee Dr. Alain Bestawros that hospitals are violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by failing to protect their employees’ health. Their evidence was that medical residents are 2.3 times more likely to crash their vehicles after working 24-hour shifts. In addition, they argued that patients’ rights are violated by the fact that doctors make more more errors when they’re tired from day-long shifts. “We know it is dangerous for patients and residents,” Dr. Charles Dussault, president of the Fédération médecins résidents du Québec told the Montreal Gazette, who also said he is pleased by the ruling. Because the decision was based a Charter principle, Dr. Bestawros hopes it sets a precedent for other provinces.
Should med school be free in Canada?
A solution to Canada’s doctor shortage?
Could Canada’s health care crisis be solved by making medical school free?
An article in the New York Times argues that huge debts are part of the reason why many doctors pursue highly paid specialties rather than primary care. In other words, the high cost of med school is funneling new doctors away from the places we need them most—namely, as general practitioners.
According to the article, in addition to shifting more doctors into primary care, making medical school free would also attract more college graduates who are discouraged by the huge costs.
The article notes that there have been other attempts to shift doctors towards primary care. Here in Canada, Manitoba medical students can have their tuition fully paid if they agree to work in areas-in-need. It’s part of a strategy to help every Manitoban find a family doctor by 2015.
Of course, the article is focused on American medical schools, which charge more (and sometimes significantly more) tuition than their Canadian counterparts. On average, it’s $38,000 per year in the States for med school, while here in Canada it’s closer to $15,000. But it’s still an interesting idea.
Grad school: not just a plan B for med school applicants
What you need to know about MD-PhD programs
Thousands of students apply to medical school across Canada every year, and the vast majority of them will never even make it to an interview. The chances of success improve for repeat applicants, but the fact remains: even with high marks and stellar extracurricular activities, applying to a Canadian med school is an uphill battle against discouraging statistics. After completing their undergraduate degree and receiving a rejection letter, the big question facing these students is: now what?
Mike Saccone, a fourth-year Health Studies Co-op student, already has a plan B.
“My back-up plan is research based. I will pursue a Masters in Health Research Methodology from McMaster University,” he says. The Masters degree could even hit two birds with one stone.
“Hopefully, this will improve the chances of me getting into medical school, along with fulfilling a degree requirement that I will eventually pursue.”
Saccone says he was exposed to both sides of medicine- research and patient care- while working with a research-focused orthopaedic surgeon, and then working with a surgeon whose primary focus was on patient care.
Colleen Shortt, a fourth year Health Studies and Gerontology student, isn’t considering research as a backup plan to med school. She recently applied to graduate school programs at the University of Toronto, the University of Western Ontario, and McMaster, and is hoping to pursue a career in cancer or HIV/AIDS research. Shortt says that once she’s through grad school she may be interested in applying to med school.
“I thought about applying to med school and originally it was my plan A. But once I started looking into research opportunities I found that this may be a more effective way of reaching more people.”
Khuram Bhatti, a fourth year arts and science student, says he has considered numerous programs and careers, including optometry or pharmacy, and even programs in the States.
“I am considering schools such as the osteopathy programs in the United States, or other types of up and coming schools which have a schooling regiment which is sort of ‘newer,’ comparatively to something such as the MD career field.”
For med school hopefuls who don’t make the cut, pursuing a grad school program is a win-win: it improves their chances on a second application, and at the same time, they’re developing the skills for a different career path. Many med schools look for research or medically-related experience, and some even award additional points to applicants who have completed a graduate degree. McMaster gives an additional 1% to the pre-interview score of MSc students, and an additional 4% for PhD students. Others, such as the University of Toronto, lower the GPA cutoff for graduate students.
Keith Colaco, a third year Biomedical Sciences student, says that although he has always wanted to attend med school and become a physician, in high school he considered becoming an optometrist because of the challenges of pursuing a career in medicine.
“As I started taking more medically-related courses in university, volunteering in hospitals and speaking to medical students, I quickly changed my mind because I was so intrigued by the field and strongly felt the need to help those with medical problems.”
This summer Colaco will be working at the Holland Orthopaedic and Arthritic Centre in Toronto, where he hopes to gain insight into pursuing a medical career. Ultimately, he may combine his passion for medicine and research.
“I am very interested in clinical research rather than focusing on just research in the lab because I have always enjoyed interacting with patients in past volunteer experiences,” he says. “By working in a patient-care setting, it allows me to evaluate patients and conduct research at their bedside.”
Students like Colaco, who want to combine research with patient interaction, are in luck: an MD-PhD program offers the best of both worlds, allowing students to complete the MD curriculum while pursuing a PhD, training them for careers ranging from medical research to the design of healthcare delivery systems. Most of the programs describe their graduates as ‘clinician-scientists,’ with the curriculum juggling between academic course work, training in basic sciences and research, and clinical rotation. Dr. Norman Rosenblum, Director of the MD/PhD Program at the University of Toronto, says that applicants should have “considerable background with some area of science” in addition to experience that “demonstrates an interest in medicine and a knowledge of the clinician-scientist role.”
Some programs, such as the “MD Plus” Leaders in Medicine program at the University of Calgary, go beyond the basic sciences and allow students to pursue any graduate-level field of interest, including a Masters in philosophy or business.
Most med schools across Canada offer the MD-PhD program, with many being created in the past several years. The only drawback? Getting in is even tougher than med school. The program requires students to be accepted into both a medical and a Masters program (or in some cases, a graduate program) and enrollment is extremely limited, with most MD-PhD programs only having enough spots for a handful of students. For example, there are only five spots available in the University of Toronto MD-PhD program, while the University of Ottawa program only has room for four.
Which medical students get their residency of choice?
University of Ottawa tops the list
1. University of Ottawa 97.2
2. Memorial University 96.8
3. Dalhousie University 95.5
4. McMaster University 94.8
5. McGill University 94.6
6. University of British Columbia 94
7. University of Toronto 93.4
8. University of Western Ontario 93.4
9. University of Alberta 92.7
10. Northern Ontario Medical School 91.5
11. Université de Montreal 90.9
12. University of Manitoba 90.2
13. University of Calgary 90.2
14. Université Laval 89.5
15. International Schools 88.9.
16. Université de Sherbrooke 87.3
17. University of Saskatchewan 85.7
18. Queen’s University. 84.9
The arts are useless and science is uncreative
Would you want your heart surgeon to be a ‘creative entrepreneur’?
Can a 4.0 GPA be a bad thing? A guest lecturer in one of my courses thinks so. In a lecture about “Mistakaphobia,” he argued that part of life–and therefore a part of being a university student–is making mistakes and growing from your experiences, taking risks and learning how to live in the real world. Perfection isn’t something you should strive for, because without mistakes you can’t learn anything. Instead of aiming for that 4.0 GPA, university students should accept mistakes as “opportunities.” It’s all part of a “creative entrepreneur” mentality.
I don’t have a 4.0 GPA, but it’s not for a lack of trying. And although I don’t know anyone who would disagree with the idea that making mistakes and taking risks are all part of living in the real world, as someone who’s planning on applying to med school next year, I need the highest marks possible if I want any hope of actually making it in. I’m sure anyone else who’s getting ready to apply to graduate school or professional school feels the same way. The problem is, there are plenty of applicants with 3.8+ GPA’s who aren’t nerdy little hermits with underdeveloped social skills and a lack of creativity. Out of the thousands of people applying to med school every year, plenty of them have high marks, but I don’t assume a correlation between high marks and low levels of “creativity.”
In the tutorial that took place after the lecture, where students and TAs were able to discuss the ideas with each other, I found it interesting that a lot of people seemed to think it had to be one way or the other: embracing a 4.0 GPA is somehow a rejection of the arts, and it’s only smug science students who get high grades. Discipline and a work ethic shouldn’t be rewarded–they should be stigmatized. If you have anything higher than a 2.8 GPA, you’re not creative or intellectual. You’re afraid to take risks and live in the real world–a robot who’s just following instructions. Part of a flock of sheep.
Yeah, sitting in that tutorial, I felt like I was in enemy territory. It was very uncomfortable. Kind of like if you were sitting in the middle of a crowded cafeteria and suddenly, everyone started declaring Holy Allegiance to the Underground Mole King, and all traitors should be TORTURED AND MUTILATED AND CHEESE GRATED TO DEATH. It was one of those, “I wish I had a jet pack” kind of moments.
I also found it interesting that some of the students also had obvious contempt for the sciences, and seemed to think that all science students are disrespectful of the arts. Like we all get together in Nerd Conferences and make fun of arts students behind their backs, and say things like, “How can a course in philosophy lead to a viable career? If a textbook doesn’t contain at least a couple equations and words like ‘entropy,’ it’s a joke.” At least, I know none of my friends in the biomedical sciences think that way.
Not to mention, med schools are increasingly embracing non-traditional backgrounds. More and more schools are dropping science prerequisites and MCAT requirements. And every med school across Canada looks at more than just marks. Extracurricular activities, life experience and even essay-writing skills are often evaluated, and although the exact weighting formula varies depending on the school, all of these non-academic criteria are important. Of course, it’s wrong to think that a doctor with a background in the arts would automatically be more creative, innovative and people-oriented than someone from the sciences. Just like it would be wrong to assume that someone with a science background is automatically harder working and more disciplined.
The point is, it doesn’t have to be one extreme or the other. In a field like medicine, the ‘entrepreneur’ mentality is definitely a valuable asset. After all, lots of scientific discoveries were mistakes to begin with. And new, innovative surgical techniques are the result of experimentation. But I’m sure those medical researchers and surgeons had high GPAs.
At least I feel better about my physics and organic chemistry marks now. Apparently I can make a political stance out of it. Any low marks I’ve ever gotten were a deliberate choice. I was learning how to be an entrepreneur.
Mind you, if I was having open heart surgery, I wouldn’t want my surgeon to be a “creative entrepreneur.” I’d want them to be a perfectionist who had a 4.0 GPA. Someone who is afraid to make mistakes.
U of T aims to limit drug company influence
Course on pain management to be revised
The University of Toronto plans to revise a course on pain management in the faculty of medicine in order to limit influence, or the perception of influence, from pharmaceutical companies. The case centres around complaints about a book that is copyrighted by Purdue Pharma that was distributed to students by one of the authors who had visited the university as a guest lecturer. The story raises questions over whether younger doctors are more willing to prescribe narcotics than more senior physicians.
From the Canadian Press:
A complaint about perceived drug industry involvement in a pain management course for medical students has prompted the University of Toronto to revamp its curriculum.
An informal inquiry into the complaint about potential conflict of interest, lodged earlier this year by an unidentified student and two doctors in the faculty of medicine, has set out clear guidelines about how the course should be taught, by whom and with what sources of funding.
The complaint centred around students being provided a book on managing chronic pain that was funded and copyrighted by the maker of the prescription pain killer OxyContin. The book had been brought in by a non-faculty lecturer with financial ties to the drug company.
In a report obtained by The Canadian Press, inquiry head Lorraine Ferris says “time is of the essence” in revising the interfaculty pain curriculum, a 20-hour course jointly taught to medical, dental, pharmacy and nursing students.
Ferris, associate vice-provost in the department of Health Sciences Policy and Strategy, said by email that she found no evidence of wrongdoing or actual conflict of interest. “However, I was troubled by the perception of conflict of interest and therefore my recommendations … addressed this issue.”
. . .
Dr. David Mock, dean of dentistry at Canada’s largest university, said the four faculties involved in the centre are in the process of implementing the recommendations.
“I think this is a good thing,” said Mock. “I’m not looking at this as a hand-slap for the centre. I think what we’ve done is move it into the more modern governance system that we are developing at the university.
“The course will still be run by the people who know the most about the topic and that’s the people from the Centre for the Study of Pain. The course hasn’t been taken away from them.”
Ferris’s report also said the curriculum should not be “directly funded (in whole or in part) by industry donors who have, or may have, or be perceived to have financial interests in the assessment or management of pain.”
From 2002 to 2006, the pain course was funded by donations, included $117,000 in unrestricted educational grants from four drug companies — Merck-Frosst, Purdue Pharma, Pharmacia Canada and Pfizer — although they had no input into course content. Since 2007, the program has been funded solely from faculty budgets.
Mock said Purdue’s copyrighted book on pain management had been brought in by Dr. Roman Jovey, an unpaid guest lecturer and co-author of the book who left copies “for anyone to take.” Jovey, medical director for a chain of clinics called the Centres for Pain Management, is a member of Purdue’s speakers’ bureau, paid by the company to conduct workshops and lectures.
“It wasn’t distributed by the program,” Mock said of the book. “But we stopped that because, again, there’s reality and there’s appearances and it appeared as if we were pushing the books, so to speak. So we stopped doing that, we stopped before the inquiry.
Hamilton doctor accused of sexually assaulting as many as 17 patients
Secretly videotaped unconscious patient
A doctor in Hamilton is suspected of sexually assaulting over a dozen patients, including at least one that was unconscious at the time of the assault, according to Hamilton police. A news story in the Hamilton Spectator states that the doctor admits to having videotaped a naked, unconscious female patient. The videotape was made in a hospital room in 1997, when Dr. Justin Fuminori Onzuka was a medical resident at McMaster. According to the story from the Spectator, the tape is “about seven minutes long and incorporated into a montage of other pornographic images.” Read the full story here.
Thinking about med school?
Here’s what you need to know
If you’re in high school and thinking about one day applying to med school, here’s what you need to know right now.
It all starts with choosing your undergraduate degree. The first thing to consider: you don’t necessarily have to go into the sciences. Although a degree in the health sciences is the traditional route to med school , it’s certainly not your only option. Most med schools across Canada treat every undergraduate degree equally, and embrace “well-rounded applicants.” Meaning, a degree in music or sociology might actually give you an advantage in terms of standing out from the crowd.
However, there’s a huge barrier facing non-science students: the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), an exam that assesses problem solving, critical thinking, writing skills, and scientific knowledge. In order to score well on the MCAT, med school hopefuls should have at least a basic background in the sciences, something that a music or sociology degree doesn’t exactly cover. Further, many med schools have prerequisite science courses, such as organic chemistry or physics. A more traditional pre-med program- such as the Biomedical Sciences- has the prerequisite science courses automatically built-in, which also has the helpful side-effect of preparing you for the MCAT.
Of course, a music or sociology student can still take these science courses as electives and prepare for the MCAT. Not to mention, some med schools don’t require the MCAT, such as the Faculty of Medicine at McGill and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. The bottom line: although there is no “right” undergraduate degree, when pursuing a non-traditional degree, you have to chase down those science prerequisites and keep the MCAT in mind.
Secondly, pay attention to the details. Specific admissions requirements vary between particular schools, and you don’t want to ruin your chances by missing something minor. For instance, to be considered at the University of Western Ontario’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, each year of undergraduate study must contain at least 3 full course equivalents whose published academic level is at or above the year of study. This means in your second year of study, 3 of 5 full course equivalents must be at the second year or above, and in your third year of study, 3 of 5 full course equivalents must be at the third year or above (in your fourth year, a mix of third and fourth year courses is acceptable).
There are plenty of other details that vary from school to school: Western considers an applicant’s two best years of study (the whole “3 full course equivalents” rule only applies to these two years), whereas McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine considers every single undergraduate course ever taken. Other med schools consider your two most recent years of study, while others let you drop a certain number of low marks.
Most importantly: although high marks will help your chances of success at any med school, they’re only one part of your application. Most med schools consider extracurricular experience and hobbies, volunteer work, medically-related experience, research experience, and so on.
-Photo courtesy of The National Guard
McMaster is watching you
…and your keyboard.
Cheating your way into med school just got a little more difficult.
Instead of the traditional autobiographical sketch, all applicants to McMaster’s medical school must complete the computer-based ‘CASPer’ test, which is defined on their website as a 12 part assessment of “interpersonal skills and decision-making.”
But get this: unlike the autobiographical sketch, McMaster can actually tell if you had someone else write it for you.
When an applicant takes the test, their typing signatures are recorded. And if they make it to an interview, they might have to type short-answer responses for “signature comparison.” Apparently, a person’s typing signature is so unique that it can actually be used to sort out the cheaters from the non-cheaters.
Of course, even if they have to type the answers themselves, an applicant can still have someone stand behind them and help out with the test. But according to McMaster’s website, “Research has demonstrated that working in tandem with others does not improve average CASPer scores.”
-Photo courtesy of r3v || cls
So long med school essays
McMaster switches to web-based ‘test’ for choosing applicants
McMaster University says it has found a more reliable way to predict how well a med school applicant will perform in med school. Instead of the traditional autobiographical essay submission that most med schools application across North America still require, McMaster is implementing a new recruitment tool called “CASPer,” a Computer-based Assessment for Sampling Personal characteristics.
All applicants are required to complete the computer-based test, which is divided into 12 five-minute long sections. Eight of the sections include video clips that present applicants with “situational challenges,” and the other four involve “self-descriptive questions.”
The 2010/2011 application cycle was the first to use this new system. Although applicants were also required to submit an autobiographical sketch, they were only used as a “back-up plan” in the event that some sort of problem occurred.
McMaster states on its website that this web-based evaluation of an applicant’s interpersonal skills and decision-making is “significantly more reliable” compared to the autobiographical submissions.
A demo of the system and sample video of what to expect from the on-line evaluation is available here.
Med students at high risk of burnout, suicide
New studies shed light on problems afflicting doctors-to-be
Studies have shown for decades that physicians have higher rates of suicide than the general population (for male doctors, it’s 40 per cent higher; for female doctors, it’s 130 per cent), the New York Times reports. Contributing factors are unclear, but research has traced the roots of it back to medical school, where students enter with mental health profiles similar to their peers, but eventually experience depression, burnout and other mental illnesses at higher rates.
They have better access to health care, but are more likely to cope by drinking excessively or other dysfunctional mechanisms. Despite student wellness programs and confidential mental health services now offered, up to one-quarter of doctors in training still suffer from depression and more than half might be feeling burnout, numbers that are relatively unchanged.
Two new studies shed some light on it. In one survey of more than 2,500 medical students across the country, researchers found that students who suffered from burnout were more likely to admit cheating on tests, lying about the status of a patient’s lab tests or physical exams, and feeling less altruistic about their role as a physician. They were more susceptible to self-centred behaviour. The second study showed that medical students who are depressed, or prone to depression, often believe they’re viewed as inadequate or incompetent. More research is needed, all agree.
Source: the New York Times
Getting into med school
High marks aren’t enough
Even with high marks and impressive extracurricular experience, there are no guarantees when it comes to getting into med school. At least, not in Canada. The harsh reality is, there are far more highly qualified applicants than there are available seats.
The statistics vary from province to province, but as a med school hopeful living in Ontario, my chances are about 19 per cent (or 1 in 5). Yes, this is just a raw number–it doesn’t take grades, extracurricular activities, or MCAT scores into account. For applicants with high (or low) marks, or applicants who are involved in some sort of incredible medical research, the chance of success isn’t 19 per cent. But there are lots of students with impressive GPA’s, great MCAT scores, and plenty of medically-related volunteer work, and they’re all competing for the same number of limited spots.
How can an applicant stand out?
A few years ago when I interviewed Dr. Evelyn Sutton, assistant dean of admissions and student affairs at Dalhousie University, in an article for Maclean’s Professional schools issue, she remembered one successful applicant whose “unique” extracurricular activity made her stand out from the pack: she was a champion skip-rope jumper.
Some med schools, including Dalhousie, still want to see medically related experience on an applicant’s transcript. The important thing to remember: med schools are looking for “well-rounded” applicants.
I’m not suggesting that a med school hopeful should volunteer or suddenly develop a “passion” simply because it might improve their chances of getting in. After all, the admissions board can see right through that kind of act. Trying to be a good Samaritan just because you think it’ll make you look good will probably have the opposite effect.
What does this mean for the rest of us? How can applicants present themselves in the best possible light?
“Don’t be just a computer geek,” advises Dr. Barry Ziola, of the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine, “because computer geeks do not make good physicians.”
-photo courtesy of RambergMediaImages
