Medical Student Power Clicks

Powerful information to help today's medical student excel in medical school

Getting into Medical School

In efforts to gain admission to medical school, premedical students sometimes forget to reflect on the meaning and significance of their varied experiences in community service, research, and extracurricular activities. In "Do it for the right reasons," Georgia McLendon, an undergraduate student at Duke University, reminds us that it's about more than checking off items on a checklist.

 

 

Preclinical Success

Although research has shown that medical students value the guidance and support of a mentor, many students do not have one. Medical schools have responded by creating mentoring programs. At the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, four advisory colleges have been established, and two faculty mentors have been appointed for each college. In a recent article at the UCSF website, students, faculty, and administration discussed the program, and how it has benefitted students. If you would like to initiate a relationship with a mentor but are not sure how to proceed, our book, Success in Medical School: Insider Advice for the Preclinical Years, offers detailed advice on how to intitiate, cultivate, and nurture a mentor-mentee relationship. Mentoring is introduced in the first chapter of the book (Page 9), and we have made the chapter available to you on our website.

USMLE News

 

Are you interested in practicing in Israel? U.S. physicians who have passed the USMLE within the past decade are now eligible to be licensed in Israel. “We are trying to make it easier for Israeli graduates who completed their medical studies in the US and also for new American immigrants," says Dr. Amir Shannon, the head of the Health Ministry's Medical Professions Licensing Department, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.

 

Residency Match Success

The 2013 AOA Match Results are now available. Congratulations to all osteopathic students who matched. I had the great opportunity to work with some of these applicants, and was impressed with the contributions they had made in community service, patient care, teaching, and research as students. A phone call from an applicant who has matched never gets old! It's always a joy for me to share in the excitement.

 

Increasing Competition for Residency Positions

 

According to the AAMC, the United States will have a shortage of 90,000 physicians by 2020. In the mid-1990s, the AAMC urged medical schools to expand enrollment. Class sizes have increased, and eleven new schools have opened their doors with several more in position to do so in 2013. Last week, the University of Texas at Austin announced plans to begin enrolling students at their new medical school in 2015 or 2016.

 

Total enrollment at osteopathic schools has also increased. Twenty percent of all U.S. medical students are now training in osteopathic schools. As with allopathic schools, there has been a considerable increase in the number of first-year positions through expansion of class size and the development of new schools. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, more schools may be on the way in Utah.

 

Rising enrollment in medical schools has not led to a corresponding increase in the number of first-year residency positions. “This won’t amount to a single new doctor in practice without an expansion of residency positions,” said AAMC President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, MD in an American Medical News article. Expansion of positions is tied to the availability of funds for graduate medical education from the federal government.

 

For residency applicants, this has led to increased competition for the available residency positions, a situation that is likely to get worse in the near future.