Premedicine

The importance of diversity in the physician assistant (PA) profession is well understood. Some of the benefits of diversity include improved patient care and patient satisfaction. In recent times, efforts at increasing diversity in PA education have involved implementing a holistic admissions process and targeted recruitment of applicants who are underrepresented in medicine. Historically, postbaccalaureate programs have been an effective tool for increasing enrollment of both underrepresented and disadvantaged matriculants in medical school...

The purpose of this pilot was to identify the effects of a 4-credit interdisciplinary undergraduate course focused on communication strategies to enhance spiritual care at the end of life. The course provided students with opportunities to enhance their ability to communicate empathically with individuals facing the end of life. Evidence-based content focused on ways to live each day with hope and gratitude, strengthen relationships, create a legacy, and find meaning and purpose in life and death. Narayanasamy's (1999) Actioning Spirituality and Spiritual Care Education and Training in Nursing model guided project development...

The global obesity epidemic is the subject of an immense, diversely specialized research effort. An evolutionary analysis reveals connections among disparate findings, starting with two well-documented facts: Obesity-associated illnesses (e.g., type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease), are especially common in: ( i ) adults with abdominal obesity, especially enlargement of visceral adipose tissue (VAT), a tissue with important immune functions; and ( ii ) individuals with poor fetal nutrition whose nutritional input increases later in life...

BACKGROUND: Expanded insurance coverage will likely increase the demand for primary care physicians in the United States. Despite this demand, the number of medical students planning to specialize in primary care is decreasing. OBJECTIVE: To explore premedical students' attitudes toward the primary care specialty. METHODS: Students enrolled in premedicine at a large Midwestern university were invited to complete the Primary Care Attitudes Survey (Cronbach α=...

BACKGROUND: This study was conducted to identify predictors of self-reported academic performance in undergraduate medical students at Hawassa University. METHODS: An analytical cross-sectional study involving 592 undergraduate medical students was conducted in November 2012. The academic performance of the study subjects was measured by self-reported cumulative grade point average (GPA) using a self-administered questionnaire. Data were entered and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 16 software...

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Educators are increasingly being encouraged to use more active- and problem-based-learning techniques and assignments in the classroom to improve critical and analytical thinking skills. Active learning-based courses have been purported to be more time consuming than traditional lecture methods and for many instructors have therefore proven difficult to include in many one-semester science courses. To address this problem, a series of assignments was developed for use in a basic microbiology course involving sophomore-, junior-, and senior-level students from five different biology majors (environmental science, biology, biochemistry, premedicine, and physician assistant)...

D. Keith Kleven, MS, PT, ATC, delivered the Ron Peyton Award Lecture at the Combined Sections Meeting in San Francisco in February. Kleven is the fifth recipient of the Sports Physical Therapy Section's Peyton Award, which was named for its first recipient and the first chairperson of the Sports Physical Therapy Section, Ronald G. Peyton, MS, PT, ATC. Kleven graduated from Brigham Young University with a BS degree in premedicine in 1967. He earned a certificate of physical therapy at Childrens Hospital School of Physical Therapy in 1969 and a MS degree in health, physical education, and zoology from Brigham Young University in 1970...

It just so happened that in the inaugural medical education issue of the September 2005 Journal of the National Medical Association, we interviewed Dr. J.W. Carmichael. Xavier University of Louisiana is the only black Catholic University in the United States and is located in the recently devastated city of New Orleans. As many of you may recall, Carmichael is the director of Xavier University's premedicine program. The university's premedicine program has supplied American medical schools with more than 90 black students per year for the last decade...

This interview of Dr. JW Carmichael was conducted for this special issue of the Journal of the National Medical Association, which highlights American medical education and the experience of African Americans. It was conducted by George Dawson, MD. He serves as editor of the Art in Medicine, History and Health Tidbit sections of the Journal of the National Medical Association. In terms of producing biology and chemistry majors, and, most importantly, from our perspective, premedicine students, the Xavier program is second to none...

Medical schools must become more successful in training minority faculty. Minority faculty development programs at schools of medicine must involve trainees from the undergraduate years (if not before) through junior faculty and must involve MD and combine-degree (MD-PhD) students. The authors describe the comprehensive minority faculty development program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, which involves minority undergraduates, medical students, residents, fellows, and faculty. This program provides the administrative staff and research methodologists to assist trainees at all levels across all departments in the school of medicine...

The performance of three groups of medical students was evaluated at the end of one phase of their studies--after 2 years of premedicine. The aim of the study was to determine whether any of the assessment methods--secondary school grades, entrance examination or test for proficiency in the English language, used for selection of medical students, could reliably predict student performance in the early stages of their education. A significant correlation was found between secondary school grades and the entrance exam on the one hand and grade point average (GPA) on the other...

Premedical advisors can carry out many varied activities, but all require commitment, resources, and personal interest. Premedical and health career advising appear to be most successful when the task is not assigned to one individual, but is assumed as a university responsibility. Also, premedical advisors seem to be valued more and to have fewer conflicts when they are known by health professional schools and work together with them. Medical schools have a responsibility to assist and support premedical advisors more than is done at present...