"...We'll Build Our Own Damn Medical School"

A California Assemblywoman, who is also a physician, recently introduced a bill to force the hand of the University of California in hopes of opening a medical school by next year in an underserved area of California. 

Since 1960, the University of California has been the only public education system authorized to confer medical degrees in the state. However, a new bill, introduced by Jasmeet Baines, a family physician and Democrat representing Kern County's city of Delano, allows California State University, Bakersfield, and the Kern Community College District authority to establish a medical school if the University of California doesn't do so within a year. 

In 1978, the Fed formally designated Kern County an area with a physician shortage. The County is located in the California Valley, which has fewer than 45 primary care physicians per 100,000 people compared to 156 per 100,000 across California.

Dr. Bains was quoted as saying, "If the UC won't build it, we'll build our own damn medical school."

Match Week is Here

Match week has arrived, having officially started at 10 AM EST today when applicants received notifications indicating whether they'd matched. Those who didn't obtain a position can participate in the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP), which will proceed from today through Thursday. (If you're interested in the ins and outs of SOAP and its universally disliked predecessor the Scramble, take a look here.)

This Friday, March 20, applicants will learn where they've matched. 

Good luck!

Sesame Street Can Help You Write a Great Medical School Personal Statement

I learned an interesting fact years ago: When small children don't understand something, they will simply tune it out and start to engage in another activity. That's why great shows like Sesame Street use professionals to make sure their content is precisely age-appropriate. Children - and adults - don't like being confused, and you can’t blame them.

In their personal statements, some medical school candidates make the mistake of referring to an accomplishment without explaining it. This is understandable since we are all intimately familiar with what we've done. The problem is that the vast majority of application readers are way too busy to do independent research or go back and forth checking an applicant’s supporting documents if she writes something that isn’t crystal clear.

I remember a talented candidate I advised who showcased an award she had won. She listed the name, but didn’t explain what it was. When I asked her, she told me the award was an academic honor given to only the top 1% of students out of several thousand. I was impressed! And, I asked her to rewrite the section so that her admissions readers would give her the credit she deserved for that extraordinary accomplishment. Because the medical school admissions process is so competitive, what you fail to adequately explain counts against you.

On a related topic, don’t expect a reader to understand something in your essay because it’s explained in your AMCAS activities. Different faculty members will approach the application in different ways, so – to get “full credit” for your accomplishments - you need to assume that your reader is seeing your essay first, independent of your AMCAS activities. Ensure your personal statement can stand alone and doesn't rely on your AMCAS Activities section for clarification.

Contact me for help with your written materials. I have read thousands of essays, and I personally review every document sent to me.

Fellowship Match Data is Out

Take a peek at the NRMP's recently-published Results and Data: Specialty Matching Service. This information is not as granular or useful as Charting Outcomes of the Match (focused on the residency Match), but it's still helpful to see what percentage of a subspecialty goes unfilled. (Geriatrics had 77% unfilled in the most recent cycle. Gastroenterology had 1.5%.) The trends year over year are also instructive.