To Med school without science!
It is hard to believe. Getting admission into a Med school without the hard sciences, that is, Organic Chemistry and Physics. And more shockingly, no pre-med exam. Yes, you needn’t write the dreaded MCAT.
Oh, sure, there is a catch: you have to be a very bright Humanities student.
Where? The Mount Sinai medical school on Upper East Side, Manhattan has this Humanities and Medicine Program. 35 students every year, each with a 3.5 grade average. The results of a study published in Academic Medicine show that the academic performance of students passing the MCAT and those who jump in directly is equivalent.
These are the arguments that support the program: Taking in students for the med-degree based grade-point average, performance in organic chemistry/Physics and MCAT excludes a lot of bright kids wanting to do medicine. It makes medicine an unattainable sphere, not a science that affords an insight to the biology of human disease, not an area of exploration and discovery or a chance to provide a way to heal.
There is one more thing: pre-med courses and top scores in MCAT do not ensure a doctor comes into the field with a mission to heal or has the interpersonal skills to comfort the patient. Ability to read the blood analysis to determine treatment does not automatically make the doctor a caring, well-rounded human being. Is single-minded focus on hard sciences enough to make a complete healer?
There are schools that admit students into the medical program without MCAT. But they too insist on traditional science grades in high school.
The question that Mount Sinai program explores is this: Is MCAT the only way to assess the students aptitude to be a healer? Are there other methods to judge a student’s readiness to take on this mission? Shouldn’t humanities part of the preparation for human care?
CONTINUED…


