To Be...A Spartan MD

The Michigan State University College of Human Medicine (CHM) will be this year's site for the Great Lakes Native American Medical School Applicant Workshop. The event will be held from April 1-3. The multi-day workshop will be hosted by CHM in partnership with the University of Minnesota Medical School Center of American Indian and Minority Health , University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences , University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine , and University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Native American Center for Health Professions (NACHP) .  With various representatives from each of the host institutions in attendance, this is an excellent opportunity for pre-health Native American students from across the region to meet faculty and staff. Students will be offered in-depth application tips regarding the MCAT, personal statement, interviews and more.  Workshops will also be dedicated to research, funding, and career de...

The Michigan State University College of Human Medicine (CHM) offers two special opportunities for early assurance of medical school admission to the college. Applicants who fit certain criteria may begin submitting their early assurance applications beginning on Monday, December 21st. The deadline to complete a no-cost online application is Friday, February 19th. Application is open to students in their junior year (or the year prior to completion of their undergraduate degree). Procedures for applying to the two programs slightly differ as each is intended for a different group. The Early Assurance Opportunity (EAO) is for MSU undergraduate students . Beginning this year, students from Bay College and Northwestern Michigan University can also apply to EAO via a special arrangement between the colleges. Along with submitting an application, students applying to EAO must also submit official transcripts directly to the CHM Office of Admissions. In addition, letters of ev...

A student knows well that once you reach the Thanksgiving holiday, winter break is not too far behind. Many students find winter break to be a welcome respite from college life. The winter break gives students time to relax — free time to unwind a bit should always be a priority. Whereas spring break is typically a week or two, winter break may be up to three or four weeks for many. So some students hoping to eventually apply to med school may wish to use this lengthy free time to strengthen their individual profile. Especially when it comes to preparing for the med school application process, free time is important. Here are five things you can do during winter break to help your med school application:   Volunteer Abroad: Alternative Winter Break Schools across the country offer various programs that will allow you to serve at locations across the globe. Volunteering abroad can go a long way when it comes to one's individual growth and experience. Independent organ...

MSU has officially announced a new agreement that will allow MSU medical students the chance to gain clinical experiences in Cuba. Come April 2016, future physicians from the College of Human Medicine as well as the College of Osteopathic Medicine will get an in-depth look at the Cuban health care system, largely regarded to be among one of the best in the hemisphere. Collaboration between MSU and Cuba isn't technically new as courses and experiences in Cuba have been offered for several years. However, this partnership is different in that MSU is the first collegiate institution to solidify medical elective in the Caribbean nation. “This is a first, though, for American medical students to be able to walk the halls of three of Cuba’s main hospitals in Havana and receive credit for the experience,” said William Cunningham, assistant dean for the College of Osteopathic Medicine in West Michigan. Read the official announcement here .

No one can better represent what it is like to be at the MSU College of Human Medicine (CHM) than our great students. From here on out, the CHM Office of Admissions will begin enlisting the help (and voices) of our students to periodically offer an inside look at what being in med school here is all about. Students at different levels and various backgrounds will touch on their experiences and ambitions.  We are glad to have second-year student, Sheri VanOmen, kick us off. Here, Sheri introduces herself and recounts her experience going through the application process.    *** As all medical students know, there was once a time when we thought of medical school as some far off, magical, smarty-pants place. Let me repeat: far off. It didn’t seem real that I might one day be learning medicine from some of the best physicians. The admissions process was motivating, stressful, intimidating, and inspiring all at the same time. But as I now reflect back, it was ...

Interested in applying to the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine (CHM)? Would you simply like to learn more about the nation's pioneer in teaching community-based medicine? Are you following us on Twitter ? Even under normal circumstances, potential medical school applicants typically have lots of questions about the schools they're interested in applying to. We thought the time couldn't be better to facilitate a discussion about CHM, especially considering the college is undergoing a few changes around here (new curriculum, new premedical requirement models, new biomedical research facility, new community campus sites, etc.). Join us for a good ol' Twitter chat. The Twitter chat will be hosted by the CHM Office of Admissions on Monday, October 5th at 6pm (ET). Several students and admissions staff will be on hand to answer questions under the CHM Admissions twitter handle: @MSUMDadmissions. What is a twitter chat/tweet chat? A Twitter chat...

You've studied hard and taken the MCAT. You've gathered all the necessary forms, letters, and paperwork. You've written a solid personal statement and submitted your AMCAS application. You've thrown you're hat into the application process. What's next? Whereas the AMCAS is a centralized application service, individual medical schools will now have applicants submit school-specific applications that supplement the primary. These are referred to as secondary applications. Medical schools tend to send out secondary information within a few weeks or even days of receiving the verified AMCAS application. Which applicants receive the secondary may differ depending on procedure. Most medical schools, including the MSU College of Human Medicine (CHM) , will automatically provide a secondary application to all applicants. Other medical schools, however, may screen applicants upon receiving verified AMCAS files. In this case, only those they consider top candidat...

Several weeks ago, we posted about the two dual-degree programs offered at the MSU College of Human Medicine and the opportunities they can present for those pursuing either an MD/PhD or an MD/MPH . Add another option to the mix. The College of Human Medicine Office of Admissions would like to introduce our third dual-degree option: the MD/MBA . Increasing interest in MD/MBA dual degrees is encouraging universities across the globe to implement programs that train physicians and medical scholars in business. Advanced research and technology along with evolving healthcare laws and regulations have more and more physicians looking to acquire deeper managerial skills as well as a better understanding of the business of healthcare. An MBA provides management training that enhances physicians' understanding of the larger impact the business of healthcare has on patient care. While trained physicians diagnose and treat human disease, they also run the hospitals, medical u...

The MSU College of Human Medicine (CHM) has officially announced a pact making the Detroit-metro area the site of an additional community campus. The college and Providence-Providence Park Hospital (PPPH) have come to an agreement that will give sixty third- and fourth-year medical students the opportunity to receive clinical training in Southfield, MI. While the new addition will be CHM's seventh clinical community campus , this will be the college's first partnership in Southeast Michigan. Both parties agree that the partnership is a great fit with CHM's mission of providing a community-based approach to health care. Dr. Robert Flora, Providence's Director of Medical Education, says he's been impressed with CHM's "drive to help people with less access" to a good standard of health care. “This partnership with Providence-Providence Park Hospital is the result of shared goals to educate medical students within a health care system that valu...

Sonia Kumar is a fourth-year MD/PhD student The MSU College of Human Medicine (CHM) offers a number of special programs that are available to students with a wide range of interests. Within those programs, our dual degree options are an important part of our identity, as we work to enhance our student's abilities in the fields of both research and health policy. There are two dual-degree options for applicants to consider— MD/PhD and MD/MPH . MD/PhD The Director of the US National Institutes of Health and former head of the Human Genome Project, Francis S. Collins, is a physician-geneticist who recently published a piece titled, " Why the World Needs More Scientists ." It's a good read. Collins says he's "convinced that rigorous, well-designed research is essential not only for the discovery of new ways to detect, treat, and prevent disease, but also for the most efficient development and cost-effective dissemination of such advances to the ...

The Michigan State University College of Human Medicine (CHM) has officially broken ground on a new research facility set to be completed in late 2017. Ushering a new chapter in CHM history, the $88 million project will further a vision from Dean Marsha Rappley to increase CHM's research imprint. There's no better place for such an initiative than on Grand Rapids' thriving Medical Mile. Once finished, the research facility will be a good complement to the Secchia Center , located just up Michigan Avenue. The new research facility is part of a long-range strategy that began in 2005, when health and community leaders worked to bring medical education to the city. CHM expanded to include campuses in Grand Rapids and Lansing and moved its headquarters to the Secchia Center. Completed in 2010, the Secchia Center was built for medical education yet no accommodation was made for research laboratories. The Spectrum Health-MSU Alliance was established to draw academic...

The MSU College of Human Medicine Office of Admissions is proud to announce that we've officially launched our new website! While you can still find us at mdadmissions.msu.edu , the website address is one of only a few traits to carry over to the new site, which was in the works for a year. Beyond the cleaner layout, potential applicants or those at any phase of the admissions process will find the site to be much easier to navigate and digest. The prior version had a ton of information that needed to be condensed and repackaged. Eliminating redundancies and mapping out better direction were goals to remedy the difficulties visitors found in perusing through the prior site's content. Adding an outdated layout to the equation, it was surely time for a more modern look and feel. In addition to the new look, we've also included several new elements including social media integration and more user-friendly capabilities. For instance, expandable menu options will allow ...

After fourth-year College of Human Medicine (CHM) students enjoy their commencement ceremony with friends and family this weekend, the Class of 2015 will also be eyeing the next step and first as official physicians — residency. This past March, 178 soon-to-be Spartan MD's had their residency placements confirmed. As usual, the 2015 Match season was one of great pride and joy. Approximately 34% of the seniors will remain in Michigan for their graduate medical education. The remaining 66% of students will be training in many other states across the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and West regions at some of the most competitive residency programs in the nation. New Spartan MD's will be moving on to serve patients all across Michigan in both urban and rural communities. Beyond state lines, graduates will be headed to many of the nation's major cities like Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, San Diego, Denver, ...

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 ...

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 ...

It is now just over a month before the MCAT2015 is finally launched on April 17th, cementing one of the biggest revisions to the exam in its history. Make no mistake: the revisions are extensive...but for good reason. Beyond the particular emphasis on biological and physical sciences of past versions, the new MCAT will now also emphasize behavioral and social sciences. Still, specific prescribed material is only a portion of the next version's focus. The new MCAT will also assess competencies that are becoming increasingly important to success in medical school and beyond. They'll surely help you here at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine . Per the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the new exam is "Designed to help better prepare future physicians for the rapidly advancing and transforming health care system." The medical education community by and large supports this transition. So what has changed and how should a perso...