Admission interventions are not without limitations. The status of education in some states means that some interventions need to occur as early as middle school. This means quite a number of years between 7th grade and graduation from residency. It is possible with such prolonged contact between higher education and students, to socialize them away from the areas of greatest need. Programs with the least contact with medical schools have been the most effective. Interventions in small colleges have had the greatest impact in Pennsylvania and Nebraska. Programs involving native Americans and minorities have had the least. Often the minorities admitted to medical school have been urbanized natives and socialized minorities that do improve distribution and access, but not to the same degree as those from the most underserved populations. Also the impact of such programs involves more than just medical students, since many feeder programs impact multiple health careers and the location of other young professionals. The strength of such interventions is in their low cost and their connections with small colleges and other efforts across education and communities. The Nebraska and West Virginia partnerships and some of the AHEC programs have been successful in these areas. Inner city feeder programs have also been successful.
Understanding the Location of Physicians
Hope: Students From the Underserved, For the Underserved
Students at LSUS prepare for MCAT
Sarah Reilly Pancoast
Posted on July 5, 2003
To administrators the program is called the Educational
Familiarization Program; to the participants it is MCAT - Medical College
Admission Test - boot camp.
"We live, eat and breathe MCATs," said participant Nga Huynh, 22.
Its 25 students spend more than 12 hours a day, five days a week for seven weeks
in class. They study biology, chemistry and physics as well as test preparation
at LSUS through a program sponsored by LSU Health Sciences Center Office of
Multicultural Affairs.
The program is part of the department's Partnerships in Science Education
Pipeline and focuses on giving disadvantaged students the opportunity to take a
prep class. The goal is to increase diversity in the medical community by
helping these students prepare for medical school admissions.
In order to apply students must have a 3.3 grade point average and be a
Louisiana resident. Preference is given to applicants who qualify as
disadvantaged, for example their family had financial difficulty or they perform
poorly on standardized tests.
"It's a race-neutral program that reaches out to disadvantaged students," Hal
Meekins, coordinator for the program, said.
While taking the course, the students receive a stipend to cover their room,
board and materials as well as have a little left over when they are done.
Covered by a federal grant, the program runs between $3,500 and $4,000 per
student, said Shirley Roberson, director of multicultural affairs at LSU Health
Sciences Center.
Population parity, or the ethnicity of doctors mirroring that of their patients,
is a primary goal, Roberson said. Disadvantaged children who become doctors also
tend to give back to the medical community in another needed way.
"They are more likely to go back to rural and inner city areas that they came
from," Roberson said.
The familiarization program is seven years old and typically six or seven
participants get into medical school each year, Roberson said. Of those who get
in, Roberson said none have dropped out.
Lorenzo Foster, 22, is one of Roberson's successes. He will start medical school
at LSUHSC in the fall. After taking the program, he was accepted into three more
medical schools.
Most participants who do not enter medical school go on to study medicine in a
different discipline, Roberson said, such as pharmacology or nursing.
With the long school days and five practice MCAT exams on Saturdays, the course
offers students a dose of reality, Roberson said.
The students have little time for a life outside of their studies. They live
together in LSUS apartments. Their walls are covered with formulas.
But boot camp classification aside, several students said the grueling schedule
would ultimately benefit them.
"It's an intense pace," Martin Brantley, 26, said. "But it's a pace you set
yourself ... it's about how much you are willing to push yourself."
Students can take a little time for soul searching, participant Micheal
McConnell, 31, said.
"You get a good idea of what is required of you ... it's a great time to say
'What is my destiny in life?"'