Category: medical education

Mount Sinai admitting medical students without Organic Chemistry or the MCAT

From today’s NY Times on line, here.

Money quote:

The students apply in their sophomore or junior years in college and agree to major in humanities or social science, rather than the hard sciences. If they are admitted, they are required to take only basic biology and chemistry, at a level many students accomplish through Advanced Placement courses in high school.
They forgo organic chemistry, physics and calculus — though they get abbreviated organic chemistry and physics courses during a summer boot camp run by Mount Sinai. They are exempt from the MCAT. Instead, they are admitted into the program based on their high school SAT scores, two personal essays, their high school and early college grades and interviews.

Flexner II Continued: AAMC/HHMI report on medical school training

Money quote:

The report, “Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians,” is based on recommendations from a 22-member committee of researchers, physicians, and science educators.

The committee members hope that by focusing on a dynamic set of competencies, rather than specific courses, they will open the door to more innovation in both premedical and medical curricula, and make it easier for premeds to take a variety of nonscience, liberal-arts courses.

Medical Education Reinvented

Here’s an interesting look at some of the big changes that are taking place in medical education as the YouTube generation heads towards the clinic and hospital bed.

One of the most exciting things about the current crop of the medical schools is that they’re coming on-line at the same time as the entire medical curriculum is undergoing a reinvention. We’ve called this change “Flexner II” elsewhere in this blog.

Jim

Financial Times on doctors with MBA’s

This is an issue that I talk about quite a bit with colleagues: the notion that as we train a new generation of physicians, they will need a constellation of skills above and beyond their classical medical training. One such area has to do with business know how. Today’s Financial Times (click on the link above) has an excellent article about this new niche in business education.

Money quote:

In the fast-changing world of modern healthcare, the job of a doctor is more and more like the job of chief executive. The people who run hospitals and physicians’ practices don’t just need to know medicine. They must also be able to balance budgets, motivate a large and diverse staff and make difficult marketing and legal decisions.