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Showing posts from April, 2015

CHM Assistant Dean for Admissions Discusses DACA in "DREAMers of Medicine" Post

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The following was written by Dr. Joel Maurer, College of Human Medicine Assistant Dean for Admissions, and was originally posted in March 2015 as part of the "Bioethics in the News" series by The Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences .  In February 2013 while visiting the University of California-Riverside, I presented a program on how to best prepare for medical school. As Assistant Dean for Admissions, I’d given this talk numerous times, and as such felt comfortable addressing questions from premed audiences. It was at that point I encountered a moment of awkwardness…. “Dr. Maurer, does your medical school consider applications from undocumented students?” I’d previously addressed questions about citizenship on many occasions, but never quite in the context of the question at hand. Thoughts began to race through my head… “Undocumented, as in illegal alien? Attending our colleges and universities? Really?” I suddenly suspected that the response that

New MCAT Reflective of Changes To Medicine, Medical School

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Starting in just a few short weeks, a much different MCAT will be administered across the nation. These revisions are some of the most extensive changes to the test in its 80-plus year history. The new test will identify specific competencies whereas previous versions relied heavily on one's grasp of prescribed material. The question for many is...why? All of these changes to the MCAT are spurred on by a domino-effect that begins with the fact that health care is changing. Advancements in medicine and technology are consistently coming at a rapid pace. This is especially true today in the information age. Since the last version of the MCAT was first implemented, medical research and scientific knowledge have taken great strides. Thus, the foundation that tomorrow's doctors need to have is also evolving. Future physicians will need enhanced critical reasoning skills and must also have the ability to apply an even broader set of knowledge to more diverse populations. What