Present: Chase, Lawson, Watson, Koroly, Berns, Harrell, Davidson, Butson, Genuardi, Goldfeder, Pauly, Rathe,Allen
Absent: Cheong, Lind, Lowenthal, Moore, Normann, Israel, Desai, Hurt, Bottom, Duerson, Harman, Hill, Karle, McElroy, Rarey, Romrell, Rowe, Schmidt, Suter, Wright
Guest: Dr. James Deyrup
Announcements:
Dr. Genuardi announced at Jacksonville's most recent meeting whereby the approved a resolution that 3rd years should not be doing dictation and 4th years will be monitored by each department. The reason for this change is due to the fact that dictation numbers were being given out inappropriately.
Dr. Berns announced that he is waiting to hear the results of AAMC meeting. Two thoughts from the meeting were Doris Kerns Goodwin gave a talk at the AAMC about elections some odd years ago and the second is that the health commissioner of Washington, D.C. talked about how the city is dealing with anthrax. He gave a good speech, dissuading public panic and stated that the challenge is to stop people from worrying whose worry won't do any good but to let the officials worry for them.
Dr. Goldfeder announced that the Alachua County Medical Society meets tonight on bioterrorism. If interested, please come to the meeting.
The 4th year students announced that they are starting interviews and it's going well.
Dr. Watson gave his thoughts from the November AAMC meeting. He stated that Dr. Goodwin's talk was the best that he has ever heard. While it was not possible to tape her speech, you can read her autobiography on the internet entitled "Wait until next year." There were also relaxed round table discussions with people giving their views as to the future of medical education and the direction of research, and the possible benefit in the future to the genome project. They seem to emphasize that we are at the very beginning stages. Progress was made on the professionalism project, and two major themes came out of the meeting: taking hold nationally was mission based budgeting, and the idea of an education center which started in 1992. Second, Tony Windebank from Mayo is making headlines with it, talks about education center approach to medical education, which concepts were from here. UF is well recognized.
The Agenda
The topic for discussion at today's meeting is where we are on our admission requirements for medical school. Dr. Deyrup is our invited guest and will talk on the requirements for medical school and the policy.
Dr. Rooks raised the question of who decides what the admission requirements are for medical school. Dr. Watson remarked that it is clear that people who had not had biochemistry still did okay but it was more difficult for them and they had to work harder. It soon evolved where 2/3 to 3/4 of the students had a biochemistry. The University of South Florida already required biochemistry.
Dr. Deyrup stated that the decision was made by his group that biochemistry should be a requirement for admission to medical school. The Medical School Objectives Project (MSOP) 3 is now coming out with a basic science education statement that they refer to in their introduction that perhaps it is time to look at the graduation results. We are moving toward genetics, molecular biology, etc., but it's implied that it's a good time for the faculty here to work with faculty on campus to design better courses on a premed level.
Dr. Berns remarked that the focus should be on sciences that will be useful in medical school. Dr. Rooks asked the committee, in terms of how you look at prerequisites, do you need a whole year of 'Intro to Botany' or would it make more sense to concentrate on genetics? Dr. Rooks sees the situation as two issues:
Dr. Deyrup stated that students who are residents of the state apply to all 4 medical schools. If any one of these institutions make any new requirements it becomes a defactory requirement for all.
Constrained by the MCAT--if MCAT requires physics, organic chemistry, etc., then what you do will be irrelevant. If you feel there ought to be changes, the pressure should be on MCAT people to evolve in that direction because it will make schools…..He further stated that he sat on the GPEP committee and asked if they needed organic chemistry to become a physician. One problem to be aware of is the changing picture of undergraduate education, particularly at large schools. There is an increased number of multiple choice exams. Re organic chemistry, it does not limit itself to multiple choice exams, as there are skills that are valid within that requirement. A useful thing to do is to do something dramatic, like saying these are requirements but we do entertain applications from those that do not have these requirements but have other skills that should be viewed. A small number who did not go the science route hasvethe intellectual capacity to do well. In Dr. Deyrup's opinion, the Admission Committees should be looking at characteristics, not just at MCAT score. At this point, Dr. Watson remarked that he and Dr. Berns believe in flexibility at the admissions level.
Dr. Rooks asked how do we make this transition when students do not like to do integrative things and this is disturbing in that our premed process doesn't condition our students to do the kind of learning we want them to do?
Tim Jones (4th year) stated that you are predetermined for multiple choice tests until somewhere in the first year you are presented with max amounts of information and that's where you learn to become a self-learner, to learn on your own, understanding the concepts beneath things, getting the details down. In the third year, students are ready for oral examinations.
Debbie Chase (student). The requirements you need a strong basis for the sciences; premedical mentalities are to jump through the hooks, take the multiple choice tests. When it comes to critical thinking on exams, they can't handle it.
The Critial issue, according to Dr. Watson, begins from kindergarten to the two years of medical school. Our education is bottom up. In third year to start clinical thinking, it's a top down process. You have to start thinking in a completely different way. Most can make the transition. It is critical in the first two years that we help students make that transition
Bill Allen remarks that he thinks students, whatever their background, need to have a basis in the sciences and show it. He has discovered that there are certain students that do get by without having to write essays, a lot of them cannot think. They are encouraged to have to major in the sciences. Maybe we should look more at people who have become self-learners in a graduate field, or who did well in say, anthropology, social sciences, or humanities. Let it offset the high GPA that was just memorization. Or, maybe we should require some upper division courses to force them to get outside their comfort zone. Students need to learn to think about human problems as well to prepare them for the 3rd year.
Dr. Genuardi's says he has an undergraduate degree from UF in English. Twenty years later the most useful courses I took were not physics, etc. but the upper level courses.
Matthew Lawson (student) says that making students think critically on their exams. The large minority think you could dump multiple choice. 40-50 people in my class don't like multiple choice exams and are advocating more short answers on exams by putting on some short answer questions. In terms of critically thinking,we are doing it the wrong way. We need to get students to think critically from day one.
Dr. Watson stated to the committee that Sig Normann writes thought-provoking
questions. He also said that there are internal problems as a large number of
basic science courses recycle old multiple choice questions.
Dr. Davidson said we should take responsibility for what we do in the first
2 years. He asked the students attending this meeting if making the first two
years pass/fail would have made a difference, as it would have allowed for more
small group discussions. Tim Jones said that he thought the students not have
the incentive to work hard the first 2 years,and that this was a hard question
to answer. MattLawson did not agree that the first two years should be pass/fail.
Dr. Koroly remarked that the important prerequisite is research (for medical school). One thing we can do for our students is to strongly encourage a research experience where they work one-on-one to learn, to have an opportunity to speak in small groups, to produce a paper, to be involved in the professionalism that's involved with the research activity. This is an important opportunity to offer an undergraduate.
Dr.Deyrup endorses that concept. I want to see excellence demonstrated. Dr. Rooks thanked Dr. Deyrup for coming and offering his thoughts and comments.
Dr. Burchfield said preference will be given to those that show independent learning (scholarly). He added that this could be add this to the catalog. Dr. Berns remarked that it would have to go before the Executive Committee and the Faculty Council. Dr. Watson stated again that we have flexibility and that we do not want to put undue pressure on the Chair of the Admissions Committee.
Dr. Deyrup commented that the committee could request an essay from the student on application to the medical school on what types of independent things they have done that they feel demonstrated that they are in control of their own education.
Dr. Rooks will discuss the comments made today Ira Gessner and report back to the committee at some point.
Meeting adjourned at 8:40 a.m.