If youre applying to medical school, or even considering it, you should approach the process with all the essential information. There are some assumptions that youll findonce you get into your researchjust dont hold up.

A recent series of episodes in the AMAs Making the Rounds podcast examine medical school admissions and shed light on some myths surrounding the process. In the episodes, experts from medical school admissions consultancy MedSchoolCoach LLC, discuss some of the common misconceptions premeds hold about the application process.

Science majors are more common, but many admissions offices value well-rounded students who follow their passions.

I thought going into my undergraduate that I had to pick one of those hard science majors, said Kathryn Henshaw, a Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) coach at MedSchoolCoach who earned her bachelors degree from the University of Miami in 2018.

I ended up picking two of those, Henshaw said. I've studied biochemistry and neuroscience, but I really wish I had studied creative writing and that's one of my biggest regrets is not realizing that I could have studied creative writing and written poemswhich is something that I love to doand also pursued my premedical track. I think students should be more aware of this, because it is something that would be fun, add to your education and overall make it a more positive experience for your undergrad.

Grades matter. In fact, surveys of program directors put them at the top of the list of factors that evaluate the strength of an application. That having been said, you dont need four years of straight As to be a physician.

A good GPA is a 4.0, but not everybody can get there, said Sahil Mehta, MD, the founder of MedSchoolCoach. He noted that the Association of American Medical Colleges puts out these stats every single year, which I think gives a super helpful starting point for people to understand how competitive it is. The average applicant has around a 3.5.

The average of those admitted is around a 3.7, Dr. Mehta said. You really, as a premed, need to have even a 3.5 to even have a whiff of an opportunity. Really, I would say a good GPA, you're aiming more towards a 3.7, 3.8.

The MCAT is broken into four sections: biological and biochemical foundations of living systems; chemical and physical foundations of biological systems; psychological, social and biological foundations of behavior; and critical analysis and reasoning skills. A strong undergraduate course load in one of the traditional sciences will not prepare you for all of them. In fact, basic science knowledge, when paired with diligent MCAT prep, can probably be enough.

The MCAT tests basic science, Dr. Mehta said. These are sciences that you can do in one-year classes, right? The MCAT doesn't test biology 301. It tests biology 101. Even if you're a nonscience major, you're going to take biology 101 as a premed and you're going to have all the knowledge you need to do well on the MCAT.

You can also listen to the full episode onApple Podcasts,Google PlayorSpotifyand explore ourCareer Planning Resource.

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3 misconceptions undergrads have about applying to med school - American Medical Association

The city of Wichita has an agreement with a development group to convert four downtown buildings into a medical school, student housing, a culinary school and a hotel.

The city council has approved an agreement with Douglas Market Development, which owns the four buildings. The former State Office Building will be converted into the Kansas Health Science Center, and the former Sutton Place building will be remodeled to have 119 units for student housing.

The former Henrys building at 124 South Broadway will be converted into a commercial kitchen and culinary school, and the former Broadway Plaza Building at 109 South Broadway will be remodeled into a 119-room hotel that will be operated as a Marriott hotel.

Assistant city manager Scot Rigby said construction on the medical school is expected to begin by March, 2020, and the first class will begin in August of 2022. Work on the other buildings will also begin by March and they would be ready for occupancy in 2022. The entire project is a $90 million investment.

Jason Gregory with the Downtown Wichita organization said the project will bring life back to four vacant buildings and it will strengthen the Douglas Avenue and Williams Street corridors.

(above image is a rendition of the State Office Building as the medical school)

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Construction to begin next year on medical school in downtown Wichita - KFDI

Harvard Medical School student Chloe Li typically dressed in scrubs or an efficient, professional outfit as she went about learning to care for patients in the intense, year-long clerkship program where I teach.

For her capstone presentation on graduation day, though, she wore a cream-colored wrap-around dress of luscious silk, tasteful jewelry and an up-do hairstyle. She had clearly put a lot of care into these preparations. She was a knock-out.

After the presentations, I gave Chloe a huge hug and congratulated her on her top-notch delivery of Cultural and Language Barriers in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast Cancer. And, as the mother of four daughters in their 20s, I spontaneously added: You look absolutely gorgeous tonight!

Then I noticed that two female associate program directors and a male clerkship director were standing nearby. Oy. A bit self-consciously, I inquired, I hope its OK for an attending physician to tell a medical student she looks gorgeous!

One of the associate program directors responded, Are you kidding? All weve been talking about is how beautiful she looks!

Chloe beamed and thanked us for noticing. The lone male just stood there with a pleasantly neutral expression on his face. Everyone had the same thought at the same time --it's true, I checked: "He has no option but to stay silent in this situation."

I could not help but tease him, an old friend who'd been my fellow resident a quarter century ago: What, come on, you dont think Chloe looks beautiful?

He paused, chuckled and protested, There is absolutely no right answer here!

Everyone laughed as we headed off to dinner. But I cant stop thinking about this 30-second intersection in time and space.

It felt liberating to acknowledge the usual eggshells underfoot, and then crush those eggshells, just like a wineglass at a wedding. Our male colleague (father of grown kids and co-founder of a center for mindfulness and compassion) chose to make a joke rather than join the circle of compliments. And he nailed that joke.

The punchline reflected the complex and problematic nature of todays social norms, and we could joke about them because we had known Chloe for a year, and each other for much longer, and had made ourselves vulnerable at many junctures as we struggled and learned together. Our laughter was permeated by a deep sense of trust and respect something our highly relationship-oriented program, the Cambridge Integrated Clerkship, aims to instill as students follow "their" patients under close faculty mentorship over time and across venues of care.

Far Fewer Words To Say They Care

At the same time, we were tacitly acknowledging that in this #MeToo day and age, male faculty members have access to far fewer words to tell female students that they care for them.

In October 2018, The New England Journal of Medicine published an article entitled Mens Fear of Mentoring in the #MeToo Era - Whats at Stake for Academic Medicine? This important piece made visible the reality that men in positions of power are often afraid to engage in mentoring relationships with women, with the unintended consequence of negatively impacting these womens careers.

Our graduation day interchange made me wonder whether there is something at stake beyond academic advancement. What is the cost to female students ability to learn, to their sense of connectedness to the profession, to their psychological well-being, if their faculty mentors are too cautious to fully engage in authentic relationships with them?

Ive heard of male attending physicianswho wont ask a female student a second question on rounds if she gets the first one wrong so as not to be perceived as bullying. A colleague from another institution once told me he didnt offer a female student a ride home in a terrible thunderstorm because he feared the perception of impropriety. I personally know a young pre-med woman whose male mentor will not meet with her unless her peer a young man who tends to dominate the conversation is also present. The mentor does, however, meet with him alone.

Is this what the antithesis of sexual harassment looks like in our world?

Dont get me wrong. This is by no means a call for men in power to be able to freely compliment womens appearance. And we must not stop rooting out abuses of power. The small minority of physicians who sexually harass their junior colleagues have no place in medicine, and important measures are being put in place to allow for confidential reporting and other forms of protection.

But I worry that when there is too much second-guessing, constant concern about accusations of harassment, too many prohibited words or topics that shift and morph constantly, a casualty of these prohibitions may be expressions of deep caring.

Dont be surprised if people dont cry with each other when a patient dies, or if they stop laughing together uncontrollably at silly jokes. Dont be surprised if medical education becomes less fun and meaningful.

My wise colleague Ed Hundert often quotes the old adage, You cant teach a stranger an important truth.I dont know what its like to work in Hollywood or the corporate world, but learning to be a physician requires intimate engagement with human stories and bodies, with suffering and ambiguity, and sometimes even with miracles.

The cultivation of such practical wisdom is the life-long pursuit of the good doctor, and it is hindered by unclear rules and intimidation.

A "Can't Stop Thinking About It" Moment

A few days after graduation, I shared a draft of this piece with Chloe and my colleagues, and asked about their take on the encounter. For each of them, it had been a significant "cant stop thinking about it" moment.

My male colleague thanked me for expressing things he could never say in public. My two female colleagues invited me to go out for a glass of wine to talk about the struggles and joys of a life in medicine. Chloe gave me permission to use her name and responded with a lovely email, drawing particular attention to the trusting, longitudinal relationships we intentionally cultivate in our model of medical education:

In the moment, I wanted so much to tell [the male clerkship director] that I had always known he regarded me with respect and care," she wrote. "The male physicians I look up to as mentors are probably continuously navigating such uncomfortable, unclear situations. I have never felt ill-treated in any way by any of these faculty members, but I feel that even if I had, I would have been able to tell them so, without fearing for my position or grade or safety. The ability to speak up with knowledge that you will be heard and without fear of retribution evens any field."

She added that if, however, she doesn't know a faculty member and has no context for a comment "whether its 'You look nice today!' or 'That was a dumb thing you said on rounds,' I am anxious about the intent behind the comment.

We have a ways to go. Even as a female faculty member, I worried (albeit for a quick second) that my own impulsive outpouring of pride and love on graduation day might have been perceived as inappropriate.

Chloes obvious gratitude made me toss the notion aside, but thats how it should be in medical education and in life, I think noticing our own moments of potential insensitivity, reflecting on them and adjusting if necessary. Apologizing if warranted.

In our institution, we provide forums for both students and faculty to confidentially share the day-to-day ethical challenges they encounter in medical culture: to problem-solve, role play and figure out how to do the right thing in this circumstance, with this individual. The #MeToo era raises similar questions:If what is an act of kindness in one circumstance bestowing a small gift or giving a hug, say can be considered a potentially career-ending interpersonal violation in another, how do we navigate these uncertain waters?

My male colleague was correct, there is no one right answer here. Maybe its not answers we need, but better questions to guide us. Maybe we can consider this one together: If faculty members' fear may be negatively impacting the development of our students, what would bravery look like?

Elizabeth Gaufberg, M.D., MPH, is an associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance, and a senior consultant with the Association of American Medical Colleges.

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Medical Education In The #MeToo Era: 'No Option But To Stay Silent'? - WBUR

Democratic presidential candidates former Vice President Joe Biden (left), Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (right) debate different ways to expand health coverage in America. John Minchillo/AP hide caption

Democratic presidential candidates former Vice President Joe Biden (left), Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (right) debate different ways to expand health coverage in America.

The Democratic debate is less than a week away, and it's likely that health care will once again take center stage. Once again, the candidates will spar over the best way to achieve universal coverage. Once again, the progressives will talk up the benefits of "Medicare For All" while the moderates attack it for its high cost and lack of choice. Just like the last debate. And the one before.

But it's not the repetitiveness of the health care debate that bothers me. As a medical student, what bothers me is that the current health care debate is myopically focused on health insurance.

Although health insurance coverage is important, it's only part of the picture. If the goal of our health care system is to keep Americans healthy, insurance will only get us so far. Health is about much more than access to health care.

Asthma triggers when you're homeless

Take the case of a patient I helped treat this past summer, a young man in his early 20s who came into the emergency department experiencing severe shortness of breath. I could hear him wheezing before I even walked into the room.

He was sitting on the stretcher, breathing rapidly, and leaning forward with his hands on his knees the classic "tripod" position signifying respiratory distress. After the resident physician and I determined he was having an asthma attack, we controlled his symptoms with steroids and inhalers and monitored him until he improved.

As I was preparing to discharge the patient, I briefed him on some of the asthma triggers he should avoid. When I advised him to keep the windows closed to minimize his exposure to pollen, he told me that the shelter where he was staying didn't have air conditioning. It was 83 degrees outside that day.

Health insurance couldn't prevent his next asthma attack. He needed a better and more stable housing situation.

Food deserts and no ride to the doctor

The same was true for a second patient of mine who was admitted to the hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening complication of diabetes resulting from poor blood sugar control. After he recovered, we discharged him home to a food desert, a neighborhood where grocery stores and fresh-food markets are scarce and where following a low-carbohydrate diet is next to impossible. Health insurance cannot solve the food insecurity in his community.

Nor could health insurance enable a third patient of mine who'd had vascular surgery to re-open a blocked artery in his leg to return for his follow-up visit. Had he done so, we would have caught his post-operative infection early. As it happened, however, he had no way of traveling the 15 miles from his home to our clinic, and his infection worsened to the point that we had to amputate two of his toes. Health insurance didn't address his transportation barriers.

Fortunately, all three patients were insured. Indeed, I'm grateful to attend medical school in Massachusetts, which has achieved near universal health insurance coverage. But sometimes insurance isn't enough. I constantly see cases like these in which acute health problems arise due to factors seemingly unrelated to medicine. Universal coverage, while a worthy goal, does not translate into universal health.

Who will fix holes in the social safety net?

A recent study that rated U.S. counties based on health outcomes found that access to medical care accounted for only 20 percent of a county's score. The other 80 percent was more readily attributable to social and economic factors like the ones affecting my patients, including housing instability, food insecurity, and access to transportation.

The health care dialogue in this political race has been dominated by the notion that we need to cover everyone, a principle I fully support. But even if we achieve that, it will only get us a fraction of the way to our goal of better health for all Americans. The German health care system is widely praised for its universal coverage, robust primary care, and low out-of-pocket costs for medical care. But it is nonetheless plagued with health disparities. In some cities, life expectancies of neighboring communities differ by up to 13 years.

To neglect these social factors in our public discourse on health care would be a mistake, not only because they are important to public health but also because policymakers are often better equipped to tackle social factors than they are medical ones. Evidence suggests that providing stable housing to homeless populations in urban areas, for instance, contributes to significantly reduced mortality.

Insurance coverage is a critical determinant of health. We should discuss it. But candidates for president should also discuss their plans to strengthen communities by addressing homelessness, food insecurity, and the other social factors that underpin America's health gap.

Thus far, these issues have received scant attention in the Democratic primary race and in the larger political dialogue about health care. We need to broaden the conversation from a narrow discussion of health insurance to a holistic conversation about health.

Suhas Gondi is a third-year medical student at Harvard Medical School. A version of this essay originally appeared in Undark, the online science magazine.

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Good Health Insurance Isn't Enough To Fix Holes In The Social Safety Net : Shots - Health News - NPR

Of the nearly 45,000 people who hold a Virginia medical license, only about 8% identify as African American. And that percentage is even smaller among younger physicians.

When 22-year-old Jared Bourke walked across the stage and became a graduate of Hampton University in 2018, he already had his eyes set on another graduation: VCU's School of Medicine class of 2022. His goal: Wearing a white coat.

You have to be fairly intelligent and use your brain, but you also have to be a people person and use your character to care for people. So, for me, thats the beauty of medicine and thats why this is the field for me, says Bourke.

The now 24-year-olds aware of all the barriers standing in the way of black medical students. There's the possibility of getting into immense debt, although most medical students expect some debt.

And if finances don't hamper aspiring black medical students, then there's the imposter syndrome that Bourke says many struggle with. "The first day of class was Monday and it was Saturday. I literally broke down in my car, on the way here (VCU). I'm not an emotional person, but I broke down in the car because I was like, yo, I'm really about to do what I've been trying to do since I started school. Like am I really smart enough to be here?"

One of the largest deterring barriers are the lack of African-American physicians serving as mentors.

In 2018, The Virginia Department of Health Professions (VDHP) conducted a "Physician Workforce Survey" where just over 33,000 physicians responded. Just under 1,700 respondents identified as black or African American in a state whose African American population exceeds 1.6 million, according to census data. That number is on the verge of decreasing even more as one-third of all physicians plan to retire before turning 65.

Researchers at VDHP say the overall number of practicing physicians in Virginia may be lower than 33,000 because some of those physicians have the license to practice in Virginia, but may live in another state or work on a military base.

"I grew up in Lawrenceville Virginia on the campus of St. Paul's College and my next door neighbor was a Dr. Clifton Nelson. He was a family doctor and he was the role model that I grew up with and wanted to be like him," Dr. Michele Whitehurst-Cook recounts. She's been practicing family medicine for 37 years.

She didn't tell me how much longer she'd practice medicine, but she did tell me about the watershed moment she had in high school program that provided training at VCU. "Once I spent six weeks here, seeing patients watching doctors do rounds helping nurses out, I realized that I wanted to really be involved in health care wanted to be a physician," says Whitehurst-Cook.

She attributes her medical school success to the African American physicians who nurtured her interest in Richmond and to her childhood neighbor, Dr. Nelson. But having a physician as your neighbor, especially in rural parts of Virginia, is a rarity. It's also a rarity for an African-American patient to have an African-American doctor.

In the Commonwealth, the black doctor to black patient ratio is approximately 1 doctor for every 1,000 patients. Meanwhile, the approximate ratio for white Virginians is 1 doctor for every 400 patients. And if you look at health disparity data it shows that if people are cared for by doctors who look like themselves they have a higher comfort level. They're willing to share more information. They're more trusting of their advice and health outcomes are actually better, says Whitehurst-Cook.

She says increasing the pool size of medical school cohorts and continual investment in pipeline programs will help close that ratio gap.

Policy experts like Lauren Powell, Director of the Office of Health Equity for the Virginia Department of Health, point to similar programs, but say that doesnt address structural issues. If we think about the criteria to get into medical school there historically has been a very heavy emphasis on the MCAT, MCAT scores and GPAs- how well you do doing the impact is really kind of a question of how much resource or how much money you may have to be able to really prepare.

Powell says its her job to make sure folks living in the poorest parts of Virginia have the same chance to achieve health and wellness as affluent Virginians. True health equity, as she puts it.

She believes focusing on population health and health equity, at the structural level, are the best ways to curve health outcomes for Virginians across the state. "Employment, food security, right. Reliable transportation, affordable and safe housing- All of these things combined together to really propel your health or to hinder your health," says Powell.

She admits its hard work in a burnout profession, across ethnicities, but says doctors and policy experts have to take the lead. Second year medical student Jared Bourke wants to be that doctor. A doctor who leads and empathizes with patients on a human and cultural level.

This report, provided byVirginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from theVirginia Education Association.

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Improving the Doctor to Patient Ratio in the African American Community - WVTF

Between 2010 and 2019, the average number of applications submitted by medical students who want to match into ob-gyn residency programs has more than doubled, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

An ambitious project proposed by residency programs within the specialty aims to simplify the Match process by reducing applications and creating a more equitable interview invitation system. Spearheaded by the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics (APGO) and the Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology (CREOG), the program has received a $50,000 planning grant from the AMA Reimagining Residency Initiative.

The APGO programdubbed Right Resident, Right Program, Ready Day Oneis one of three programs to receive planning grants from the AMA. In total, the AMA Reimagining Residency Initiative awarded $15 million in grants to institutions who will aim to transform residency training to meet the workforce needs of Americas current and future health care system.

With the increasing number of applications submitted by each student, the process of securing a residency position has become more stressful. Final-year students spend a significant amount of time and money on the application process.

In the 201819 application cycle, students applying to ob-gyn programs submitted an average of 61.3 applications. Programs have seen a remarkable rise in the volume of applications. That number has grown from an average of 155 applications per program in 2010 to 438 in 2019, according to AAMC data.

That volume has created an environment in which program directors have less bandwidth to consider applicants holistically, defaulting to an evaluation process that overemphasizes test scores and increases stress in applicants.

Theres been a lot of writing in the literature recently about how this process needs to change, said Maya Hammoud, MD, president of APGO and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Michigan Medicine. With support from the AMA, we have started a five-year process by taking small steps to make sure we have all the stakeholders on board. At the same time, we are implementing small changes now to reduce anxiety among students. But this will not be an overnight process. It took many years to get to this point; it will take many years to get out of it.

To get the project off the ground in its early stages, the projects leaders are making sure to get buy-in from key stakeholders such as medical school deans, clerkship directors, residency program directors and representatives from the National Resident Matching Program.

A significant number of ob-gyn residency programs have already adopted suggested interventions that will standardize the residency application process. The three biggest changes are:

APGO has laid out longer-term goals for its efforts to reduce the stress involved with Match. These include development of additional application review metrics to encourage a holistic review of residency applications, an applicant compatibility index to help students with program selection, and an optional early match program within the specialty intended to reduce the number of applications needed for a successful Match.

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The Match process is packed with stress. Ob-gyns aim to fix it. - American Medical Association