Health
Careers at
2009-2010
|
|
Prepared
by Dr. Stan Eisen, |
Links
to
University Home Page
School of Science Home Page
Updated: August 13, 2009
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
This
booklet is for students who are interested in a career in the health sciences.
It includes summaries of the required courses for specific health-related
professional schools, the number of hours, and the names of those courses as
they are listed in the CBU catalogue. Although the focus is on the various colleges
at the
A.
Your Facebook presence may be
damaging to you and to your friends.
Thisi s adapted from an e-mail sent to me by Barbara Huntington, PHP Director at SDSU:
Hi Students,
This is urgent. At the conference for admissions officers and preprofessional
health advisors in
1. Don't post anything you wouldn't want your mother, your boss, an
admissions officer, or me to see. (Please don't block me or I won't be
able to warn you if something could hurt you.)
2. Go through all your pictures of anything that might be even slightly
inappropriate (folks looking drunk, holding bottles of liquor, in revealing
clothes, discussing parts of anatomy, using foul language, etc) and take off
all the tags--especially of people applying to health prof. schools. Even
if the picture itself is ok, take off the tags if it is in a group of
pictures that might lead one to believe the person was at an inappropriate
place/party.
3. Then go back and erase any of those kinds of pictures or pix of
friends in groups of those pictures.
4. Take out any comments that look like you are trying to be sneaky, or
you wouldn't want the schools you or your friends are applying to to see.
5. Some of your friends are applying now, so don't wait.
I realize everyone is enjoying all the fun stuff (and you should) at the end of
school, but you also don't want to brand CBU as a party school of students who
might not show the best judgement in posting on Facebook because YOU ARE FROM
CBU AND WILL BE JUDGED AS A PRODUCT OF THAT SCHOOL --Best wishes on
your finals and have fun (but be discrete).
B.
Question 1:
How many post-high school years of education are you willing to
tolerate? +
Question 2: Are you
people-oriented or thing-oriented?
|
|
How many post-high school years of education are you willing to tolerate? |
|||
|
Are you People- or Thing-Oriented? |
1-3 |
4-6 |
7-8 |
>8 |
|
People-Oriented |
Licensed Practical nurse |
Genetic Counselor Physical/ Occupational Therapist Bachelor's of Science Nurse |
Veterinarian Dentist Nurse practitioner Optometrist Pharmacist |
Pediatrician Internist Family Medicine |
|
People-oriented more than Thing-Oriented |
Dental Hygienist Phlebotomist |
Park ranger Zoo curator Speech pathologist |
Research scientist |
Oncologist |
|
Thing-oriented more than people- oriented |
X-ray technologist |
Fisheries/ Wildlife Biologist Medical Technologist |
Geneticist |
Surgeon |
|
Thing-Oriented |
DNA technologist Quality control lab tech |
Medical Office Manager |
Bio-statistician |
Radiologist |
C. Entering Medical
Student Expectations
|
Entering Medical Student
Expectations – excerpted from a joint report from Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians, a joint publication
of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute (HHMI) – 2009. |
|
Notwithstanding the focus
of this initiative, the committee believes that the specific guidance and
recommendations presented for undergraduate competencies are not limited to the
student engaged in premedical education, but are also valuable for the
subsequent study of any career in the health or life sciences.
Overarching Competency at
the Time of Entry into
Demonstrate both knowledge of
and ability to use basic principles of mathematics and statistics, physics,
chemistry, biochemistry, and biology needed for the application of the sciences
to human health and disease; demonstrate observational and analytical skills
and the ability to apply those skills and principles of biological situations.
Competency E1: Apply quantitative reasoning and appropriate
mathematics to describe or explain phenomena in the natural world.
Learning Objectives:
1.
Demonstrate quantitative numeracy and facility
with the language of mathematics;
2. Interpret data sets and communicate those
interpretations using visual and other appropriate tools;
3. Make statistical inferences from data sets;
4. Extract relevant information from large data sets;
5. Make inferences about natural phenomena using mathematical
models;
6. Apply algorithmic approaches and principles of logic
(including the distinction between cause/effect and association) to problem
solving;
7. Quantify and interpret changes in dynamical systems.
Competency E2: Demonstrate understanding of the process of
scientific inquiry, and explain how scientific knowledge is discovered and
validated.
Learning Objectives:
1. Develop
observational and interpretive skills through hands-on laboratory or field
experiences;
2. Demonstrate ability to measure with precision,
accuracy, and safety;
3. Be able to operate basic laboratory instrumentation
for scientific measurement;
4. Be able to
articulate (in guided inquiry or in project-based research) scientific
questions and hypotheses, design experiments, acquire data, perform data
analysis, and present results;
5. Demonstrate the ability to search effectively, to
evaluate critically, and to communicate and analyze the scientific literature.
Competency E3: Demonstrate knowledge of basic physical
principles and their applications to the understanding of living systems.
Learning Objectives:
1.
Demonstrate understanding ob mechanics as
applied to human and diagnostic systems;
2.
Demonstrate
knowledge of the principles of electricity and magnetism (e.g. charge, current
flow, resistance, capacitance, electrical potential, and magnetic fields);
3.
Demonstrate
knowledge of wave generation and propagation to the production and transmission
of radiation;
4.
Demonstrate
knowledge of the principles of thermodynamics and fluid motion;
5.
Demonstrate
knowledge of quantum mechanics, such as atomic and molecular energy levels,
spin, and ionizing radiation;
6.
Demonstrate
knowledge of principles of systems behavior, including input-output
relationships and positive and negative feedback
Competency E4: Demonstrate knowledge of basic principles of
chemistry and some of their applications to the understanding of living
systems.
Learning Objectives:
1.
Demonstrate knowledge of atomic structure;
2.
Demonstrate
knowledge of molecular structure;
3.
Demonstrate
knowledge of molecular interactions;
4.
Demonstrate
knowledge of thermodynamic criteria for spontaneity of physical processes and
chemical reactions and the relationship of thermodynamics to chemical
equilibrium;
5.
Demonstrate
knowledge of principles of chemical reactivity to explain chemical kinetics and
derive possible reaction mechanisms;
6.
Demonstrate
knowledge of the chemistry of carbon-containing compounds relevant to their
behavior in an aqueous environment.
Competency E5: Demonstrate knowledge of how biomolecules
contribute to the structure and function of cells.
Learning Objectives:
1.
Demonstrate knowledge of the structure,
biosynthesis, and degradation of biological macromolecules;
2.
Demonstrate
knowledge of the principles of chemical thermodynamics and kinetics that drive
biological processes in the context of space (i.e. compartmentation) and
time: enzyme-catalyzed reactions and
metabolic pathways, regulation, integration, and the chemical logic of
sequential reaction steps;
3.
Demonstrate
knowledge of the biochemical processes that carry out transfer of biological
information from DNA, and how these processes are regulated;
4.
Demonstrate
knowledge of the principles of genetics and epigenetics to explain heritable
traits in a variety of organisms.
Competency E6: Apply understanding of principles of how
molecular and cell assemblies, organs, and organisms develop structure and
carry out function.
Learning Objectives:
1.
Employ knowledge
of the general components of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, such as
molecular, microscopic, macroscopic, and three-dimensional structure, to
explain how different components contribute to cellular and organismal
function;
2.
Demonstrate
knowledge of how cell-cell junctions and the extracellular matrix interact to
form tissues with specialized function;
3.
Demonstrate
knowledge of the mechanisms governing cell division and development of embryos;
4.
Demonstrate
knowledge of the principles of biomechanics and explain structural and
functional properties of tissues and organisms.
Competency E7: Explain
how organisms sense and control their internal environment and how they respond
to external stress.
Learning Objectives:
1.
Explain maintenance of homeostasis in living
organisms by using principles of mass transport, heat transfer, energy balance,
and feedback and control systems;
2.
Explain physical
and chemical mechanisms used for transduction and information processing in the
sensing and integration of internal and environmental signals;
3.
Explain how
living organisms use internal and external defense and avoidance mechanisms to
protect themselves from threats, spanning the spectrum from behavioral to
structural and immunologic responses.
Competency E8: Demonstrate an understanding of how the
organizing principle of evolution by natural selection explains the diversity
of life on earth.
Learning Objectives:
1. Explain how
genomic variability and mutation contribute to the success of populations;
2. Explain how evolutionary mechanisms contribute to
change in gene frequencies in populations and to reproductive isolation.
III.Criminal
background checks are now routine
One of the sessions at the NAAHP conference
in 2006 was devoted to the issue of criminal background checks. Robert Sabalis, Associate Vice President of
the Section for Student Affairs and Programs
for the Association of American Colleges gave a presentation on that
subject, based on an article he wrote which was published in the June 2006
issue of The Advisor.
The AAMC started addressing the issue of
criminal background checks for accepted applicants because of a number of
factors:
1.
State
legislatures’ consideration of statutes that would mandate such checks;
2.
Clinical
institutions (hospitals, in particular) which require such checks for medical students completing clinical
rotation in their facilities;
3.
Recent reports by
local and national media of criminal activities involving enrolled students.
The AAMC Executive Council decided to establish
criminal background checks on accepted applicants to accomplish 4 goals:
1.
To bolster the
public’s continuing trust in the medical professions;
2.
To enhance the
safety and well-being of patients;
3.
To ascertain the
ability of accepted applicants and enrolled medical students to eventually
become licensed as physicians; and
4.
To minimize the
liability of medical schools and their affiliated clinical facilities.
These background checks:
·
Will be iniaited
at the time of first acceptance by a medical school, or for a wait-listed
applicant, at the request of a medical school admissions officer;
·
Would NOT be a
component of the application, interviedw, or selection processes for medical
school, but would be a mandatory component of the pre-matriculation process for
each accepted applicant;
·
Would provide
medical school admissions committees with a complete list of offenses and
adjudications;
·
Would allow a
medical school to withdraw an acceptance;
·
Would allow for
the applicant to file an appeal.
At this point, approximately ¼ of the 125
AAMC-member allopathic medical schools in the
For
more information, read Sabalis, R.
(2006). Criminal Background
Checks: Meeting the Expectations of the
Public and the Needs of the Profession.
The Advisor 26(2):5-8.
IV. Some General Recommendations
In
the July 1996 issue of Issue Focus, a publication
of the Association of American Medical Colleges, there was an article regarding
the qualities that medical schools are looking for in their candidates. These
qualities can be applied to any other health-related profession:
How
Do Medical Schools Select Tomorrow’s Doctors?
Medical
school admissions committees face the challenge each year of assembling an
entering class of students who will best fulfill the mission of the school and
serve the nation’s diverse population. To meet this challenge, the admissions
committees select candidates based on a comprehensive review of each
applicant’s total academic and personal qualifications. Among the
qualifications they examine are an applicant’s:
- scholarship
- accomplishments
- intellectual curiosity
- emotional maturity
- character
- interest in medicine
- sensitivity to others
- communication skills
- critical thinking and problem-solving skills
- sense of caring for others, and
- commitment to service
Admissions
committees gather much of this information from the detailed application each
medical school applicant completes. These applications include a personal
statement from the candidate, his/her academic, extracurricular and volunteer
history, letters of recommendation, transcripts and a report of standardized
test scores. Admissions committees also may interview applications to explore
their qualifications further.
The Biology Department recommends that you
send your application to the appropriate school or Application Service as
soon as possible. All of the colleges at UT -
College of Allied Health Sciences
- Clinical Laboratory Sciences: March 1 and September 1
- Cytotechnology: December 15
- Dental Hygiene: February 15
- Health Information Management: March 1
- Medical Technology: December 1
- Occupational Therapy: January 15
- Master's in Physical Therapy (entry level): January 15
- Physical Therapy M.S. (for people who already have a BS in PT):
March 1 & Sept. 1
- Interdisciplinary Program: March 1
- Anatomy and Neurobiology: May 15
- Biochemistry: March 1
- Biomedical Engineering: May 15
- Dental Sciences: May 15
- Epidemiology: May 15
- Health Science Administration: March 15
- Microbiology: May 15
- Nursing Ph.D.: January 15
- Pathology: February 1
- Pharmaceutical Sciences: March 15
- Physiology & Biophysics: May 15
We also recommend that you submit your
list of references to the Director of Preprofessional Health Programs as soon
as possible, in order to ensure a prompt response should you receive a request
for supplementary information. Please use the CBU preprofessional evaluation
request form, which is attached at the end of this booklet.
A
growing number of professional schools are subscribing to application services,
which serve as a central distribution office. The applicant fills out a primary
form, specifies the schools to which (s)he wants the application to go, and
submits it to the central office. Copies of your file are then sent to the
respective schools.
The following quote, which appeared in the
October 1996 (Vol. 4, No. 1) issue of the AAMC Newsletter for Prehealth
Advisors, pertains to the purpose of the secondary application, which some
schools send out following receipt of the initial report from AMCAS:
"Considerable variability exists with
regard to the purpose of the secondary application. At some schools, there is a
desire for additional information not included on the AMCAS application. Some
of the desired information may relate specifically to the individual medical
school. At other schools, particularly schools with very large applicant pools,
the secondary application helps to identify those who are interested enough in
the school to take the time to complete the responses to special questions. At
still other schools, there is an initial cut in the application pool made based
on criteria set by the school and secondary applications are sent only to
individuals who pass this cut. Finally, some state schools use information from
the secondary application to determine whether the applicant qualifies as a
resident of the state."
V. Medicine:
REGARDING THE COMPUTER-BASED FORMAT OF THE MCAT:
For more
information or to register, go to http://www.aamc.org/mcat
.
The
transition to a computer-based format has been 10 years in the making, and has
been tested for the past three years.
Advantages
of a computer-based format:
- More days /
year (24), although not dates are scheduled for all Prometric test
sites;
- It allows for more months
for test dates, rather than just April and August, as is done now;
- The test day will be
shorter, by around 2 hours, and the exam itself will be a shorter exam,
allowing for more weekdays to be used;
- More dates in April, May,
July and August;
- Creature comforts, e.g.
air conditioning and heating, will be more consistent;
- Test stations will have
more privacy, with completely isolated or partial carrels;
- Quieter tests, with
headphones (presumably to eliminate extraneous noise and not for music)
will be allowed;
- Keyboarding for entry of
writing sample. No spell check, but easy editing. No problems
with hard-to-read handwriting;
- No perceived inequities or
errors with time allowance (the terminal will cut off at the end of a
section’s permitted time)
- Short turn around for
posting of scores, with a projected turn-around time of 2 weeks;
- Tests in August and Sept
yield scores for Medical Schools early in the fall. (currently August test
scores are not available until October);
- Allows applicants to
retake tests sooner than before (if openings exist) and will know of the
need sooner.
- More dates on Saturdays,
reducing the likelihood of having to miss class/work to take the exam.
Disadvantages
- Fewer seats on any given
day. Sign up as early as you can;
- Typing only for entry of
writing sample.
General Info
- Students who have taken
the computer-based test gave positive feedback;
- While taking the exam, you
will be able to go back to review, change or add answers to questions
during current section (just as with paper versions)
2009
test dates
- Fri. May 22
- Thu., May 28
- Thu., June 18
- Thu., July 2
- Fri., July 11
- Thu., July 30
- Fri., July 31
- Wed., Aug. 5
- Thu., Aug. 6
- Fri., Aug. 14
- Fri, Aug. 21
- Tue., Aug. 25
- Thu., Sept. 3
- Fri., Sept. 4
- Thu., Sept. 10
- Sat., Sept. 12
For more information, go
to http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/mcatschedule.htm
On the wish list for far
future is a way to assess communication beyond writing sample.
A. Allopathic Medicine
Most allopathic medical schools, including UT -
Number Crunching
101: What It Takes To Get Into Selected
Allopathic Schools
|
State |
School |
Mean GPA |
Mean VR |
Mean Writing Sample |
Mean Physical Sciences |
Mean Biological Sciences |
|
|
UAMS |
3.63 |
9.0 |
NA |
9.0 |
9.0 |
|
|
Emory |
3.75 |
10.1 |
P |
10.8 |
10.8 |
|
|
Tulane |
3.5 |
10 |
NA |
10 |
10 |
|
Mass. |
Harvard |
3.8 |
10.5 |
NA |
11.7 |
11.8 |
|
|
U
of Miss |
3.65 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
NA |
|
|
St.Louis
U |
3.68 |
9.4 |
Q |
9.9 |
10.2 |
|
|
|
3.8 |
11.0 |
NA |
12.3 |
12.5 |
|
|
ETSU |
3.5 |
9.6 |
NA |
8.9 |
9.3 |
|
|
UT
- Mem |
3.55 |
9 |
O |
9 |
10 |
|
|
Vanderbilt |
3.73 |
11.2 |
NA |
11.2 |
11.2 |
The
following table shows the number of people who applied to allopathic medical
schools using the AMCAS service, the changes per year, the number of
matriculants entering medical school, and the ratio of matriculants to
applicants from 1992 to 2001.
|
Application Year |
Number applying |
Change since previous year (%) |
Number matriculants |
Change since previous year (%) |
Ratio Matriculants/ Applicants (%) |
|
1992 |
37,402 |
---------------- |
16,289 |
|
43.6 |
|
1993 |
42,806 |
14.44 |
16,307 |
-0.11 |
38.1 |
|
1994 |
45,360 |
5.97 |
16,287 |
0.12 |
35.9 |
|
1995 |
46,586 |
2.70 |
16,253 |
0.21 |
34.9 |
|
1996 |
46,965 |
0.81 |
16,201 |
0.32 |
34.5 |
|
1997 |
43,016 |
-8.41 |
16,165 |
0.22 |
37.6 |
|
1998 |
40,996 |
-4.70 |
16,170 |
-0.03 |
39.4 |
|
1999 |
38,443 |
-6.23 |
16,221 |
-0.32 |
42.2 |
|
2000 |
36,089 |
-6.12 |
16,301 |
-0.49 |
45.2 |
|
2001 |
34,859 |
-3.41 |
16,365 |
-0.39 |
46.9 |
|
What They Want |
# of Hours |
What We Call It @ CBU |
|
Biology w/Lab |
8 |
BIOL 111 Lec & Lab BIOL 112 Lec & Lab |
|
General Chemistry |
8 |
CHEM 113 Lec & Lab CHEM 114 Lec & Lab |
|
Organic Chemistry |
8 |
CHEM 211 Lec & Lab CHEM 212 Lec & Lab |
|
Physics |
8 |
PHYS 201 Lec & Lab PHYS 202 Lec & Lab |
|
English/Literature* |
6 |
ENG 111 ENG 112 |
|
Electives |
52 |
Free to choose |
*” Facility in the
use of both oral and written English is considered highly essential to the
successful study of medicine. Introductory freshman English (six semester
hours) will meet the admission requirement. Students who qualify for
advanced placement credit in English will not be required to take additional
English courses, although such students are encouraged to do so.”
Some courses that may be worth taking in the
relatively sheltered undergraduate environment:
|
Biology ·
Vertebrate Embryology (BIOL
211) ·
Medical and Scientific
Terminology (BIOL 213) ·
Genetics (BIOL 311) ·
Microbiology (BIOL 321) ·
Animal Histology (BIOL 414) ·
Immunology (BIOL 415) ·
Cell/Molecular Biology (BIOL
421) |
Chemistry ·
Biochemistry (CHEM 315 &
316) Other ·
Economics of Health and
Healthcare (ECON 323) ·
Literature (virtually any upper-level
English course) ·
Personal Finance (FIN 346) ·
Foreign language (especially
Spanish) ·
Medical Ethics (PHIL 322) |
Admissions
to all professional schools is extremely competitive. For example, the following data pertains to
the
|
|
University
of |
|
University
of |
|||
|
Application
cycle |
#
of Applicants |
#
of Available spaces |
#
of Applicants |
#
of Available Spaces |
#
of Applicants |
#
of Available spaces |
|
1993-1994 |
896 |
165 |
1898 |
60 |
|
|
|
1994-1995 |
2320 |
165 (1st year
of AMCAS) |
2232 |
60 |
|
|
|
1995-1996 |
2337 |
165 |
2090 |
60 |
890 |
150 |
|
1996-1997 |
1959 |
165 |
1826 |
60 |
906 |
150 |
|
1997-1998 |
1767 |
165 |
1570 |
60 |
757 |
150 |
|
1998-1999 |
1700 |
165 |
1574 |
60 |
664 |
150 |
|
1999-2000 |
1637 |
165 |
1464 |
60 |
560 |
150 |
|
2000-2001 |
1529 |
150 |
1131 |
60 |
673 |
150 |
|
2001-2002 |
1600 |
150 |
1144 |
60 |
755 |
150 |
|
2002-2003 |
1354 |
150 |
1033 |
60 |
675 |
150 |
|
2003-2004 |
1268 |
150 |
995 |
60 |
693 |
150 |
|
2004-2005 |
1051 |
150 |
1187 |
60 |
694 |
150 |
|
2005-2006 |
1268 |
150 |
1225 |
60 |
949 |
160 |
|
2006-2007 |
1477 |
150 |
n.a. |
n.a. |
1249 |
160 |
|
2007-2008 |
|
|
|
|
1542 |
160 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The
As
you can see, Admissions Departments will have no difficulty in filling the
available spaces with qualified students.
The challenge to you is to present yourself as well as possible:
1) Try to find work, either as a paid employee or as a
volunteer, in a clinic, practice, or hospital in your field of interest. That way, you can demonstrate to the
Admissions Committee members that you know what you're getting yourself into,
and you want it;
2) Visit the schools.
This is not difficult if you're interested in a program at UT -
3) Submit your application as soon as possible, as
discussed above;
4) Do some kind of preparation for the aptitude test. This may mean enrolling in a Kaplan study
course, or working through a book on your own.
You may not learn any more than you already know, but it helps to
organize your thoughts and to take exams;
5) Create for yourself a more professional-sounding e-mail
address. Here's what Adam Pack, PHP
Director at Utica College in New York had to say on the subject: "People
who certainly CAN benefit from a two address system are the students with email
addresses like (none of these are made up - the information after the '@' is
deleted to protect their anonymity) "village_idiot",
"SweetSexxxtoy", "XXXgurl", and others. At my gentle
suggestion, they now have a second, more professional-sounding address with
which to correspond with grad schools and my committee..."
How
important is it to be prompt in the submission of your AMCAS application and
evaluation request form? Here's a
timeline for applicants applying to medical school from the Admissions Office
of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center:
|
What you should be doing |
When you should finish doing it |
|
AMCAS Application
|
5 June 2007 |
|
AMCAS Application Deadline |
15 November 2007 |
|
Processing of AMCAS
Application Materials
|
June 2007 through January 2008 |
|
Notification of Interviews
|
September 2007 through February 2008 |
|
Pre-professional
Evaluation Deadline
|
1 March 2008, depending on when you receive a secondary application |
|
Admissions Committee
Decision
|
October 2007 through March 2008 |
|
Deadline to Receive
Notification of Admissions Committee Decisions 1. Final decisions completed
and remaining applicants notified in writing |
1 April 2008 |
|
Applicants Who are Not
Offered Admission
|
April 2008 through August 2008 |
|
|
February 2008 through March 2008 |
|
Financial Aid Priority
Deadline
|
End of February 2008 |
|
Deadline to Withdraw
Acceptance
|
15 May 2008 |
|
Final Official Transcript
Deadline
|
31 July 2008 |
|
These allopathic medical schools WILL be
using AMCAS to facilitate the delivery of Letters for
2010. |
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