학술논문
College preparation for a medical career in the United States.
Document Type
Academic Journal
Author
Malvitz M; University of Michigan Medical School Department of Neurology, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.; Khan N; University of Michigan Medical School Department of Neurology, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.; Morgenstern LB; University of Michigan Medical School Department of Neurology, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.; Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
Source
Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE
Subject
Language
English
Abstract
Purpose: A college degree is required to enter medical school in the United States. A remarkably high percentage of students entering college have pre-medical aspirations but relatively few end up as medical students. As an "applied science", education about medicine is usually thought to be beyond the purview of a liberal arts curriculum. Students therefore receive little education about a medical career, or information about the many alternative careers in health science. Instead, they take courses for Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) preparation and medical school application prerequisites in biology, chemistry, physics, and math. These classes give them little insight into a real medical career. The current report considers this mismatch between student needs in health science and available resources in colleges across the United States.
Methods: A Collective Case Series framework was used to obtain qualitative data. Key informant interviews were requested from a convenience sample of representatives from 20 colleges, with six colleges providing extensive data. Three institutions collected data specifically on students who matriculated college interested in a career as a physician.
Results: At these schools, one-half to one-quarter of students who said they were interested in medicine at the beginning of college ended up not applying to medical school. At each of the six schools, we saw a wide range of generally sparse academic and professional advising involvement and a very limited number of classes that discussed concepts directly related to careers in health science.
Conclusions: Looking at this data, we provide a novel conceptual model as a potential testable solution to the problem of an underexposed and unprepared student population interested in medicine. This includes a brief series of courses intended to inform students about what a career in medicine would fully entail to help foster core competencies of empathy, compassion and resilience.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Malvitz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Methods: A Collective Case Series framework was used to obtain qualitative data. Key informant interviews were requested from a convenience sample of representatives from 20 colleges, with six colleges providing extensive data. Three institutions collected data specifically on students who matriculated college interested in a career as a physician.
Results: At these schools, one-half to one-quarter of students who said they were interested in medicine at the beginning of college ended up not applying to medical school. At each of the six schools, we saw a wide range of generally sparse academic and professional advising involvement and a very limited number of classes that discussed concepts directly related to careers in health science.
Conclusions: Looking at this data, we provide a novel conceptual model as a potential testable solution to the problem of an underexposed and unprepared student population interested in medicine. This includes a brief series of courses intended to inform students about what a career in medicine would fully entail to help foster core competencies of empathy, compassion and resilience.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Malvitz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)