MSHQ Podcast Session #10: Interview with the Columbia Postbac

MSHQ Podcast Session #10: Interview with the Columbia Postbac Premed Program
show notes at: http://www.medicalschoolhq.net/session10
Intro Announcement: You’re listening to The Medical School HQ Podcast, online
at http://www.medicalschoolhq.net, session number 10!
Ryan Gray: Hello, and welcome back to another session here at the Medical School
HQ podcast. I am your host, Ryan Gray, and we are THE podcast about medical school.
From the pre-med process through residency, we hope to take your knowledge of
becoming a physician to the next level.
I’m excited about today’s podcast for two reasons:
#1 – we have an excellent guest
interview for you guys today, and #2 – this is our 10th podcast. And in the podcast
world, if you make it to #10, there is a good chance that you’re going to go on to a
successful and long podcast career. So I’m excited that we’re bringing you 10 podcasts.
I’m excited to bring you even more in the future. I hope you guys are enjoying them.
We are up over about 1,300 downloads, so I know people are out there listening. If you
haven’t yet, go into iTunes and give us a rating, a review, and let us know what you
think. 5 stars would be great, and that way other people can find us and start listening
to us as well.
So let’s get on to the interview. I have a great interview today. I have Dr. Victoria
Rosner. She is an Associate Dean and the General Studies Coordinator of Academic
Affairs at Columbia University’s Postbac Program. Dr. Rosner leads the premedical
advising team in support of postbac pre-med students. She also advises a small number
of postbac pre-med students. We began the interview by talking about where most of
these postbac pre-med students come from.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Well, most of our students, not all, but a lot of our students go
into their undergraduate educations thinking that they’re not going to be doctors, that in
fact they’re going to do something else, or sometimes they want to be doctors but they
think that for whatever reason they can’t – it’s not a path that’s available to them. So it’s
only later that they come to realize that they have this passion and vocation for
medicine, and that’s really the origin of a program like ours – of a postbac program.
Ryan Gray: And Columbia was the first postbac program ever. Am I correct?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yes, that’s right. We’re the oldest program in the country and I
believe we’re also the largest.
Ryan Gray: Wow. And how big are your classes?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Well, you mean the classes within the postbac program?
Ryan Gray: Yeah.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: We don’t really… it’s hard to define a particular class because
students go through the program at different rates, but if you were to ask me how many
students are in the program altogether – it's got to be close to 500.
Ryan Gray: Okay.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: That includes students who are in their application year, who
are not actively taking courses, but who are working their way through the application
process to medical school.
Ryan Gray: Okay. And I’ll get into your program in a little bit, but you had mentioned
a lot of the students are people that really didn’t know they wanted to be physicians
starting off. Is that the majority of your students? I know if you look at the AAMC, they
have their big database of postbac programs, and they’re classified as career changers or
people that want to increase their undergraduate grades having taken science courses
before. Do you aim toward one of those groups?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yes. We focus exclusively on the career changers. Most of our
students have not taken any science classes before. Some of them have taken a few, but
for the most part we’re looking at students who have had a shift in their sense of what
they want to do with their lives, which is a very exciting and interesting population of
students to be working with because they’re really people who are thinking very
seriously about trying to construct a meaningful future for themselves.
Ryan Gray: And they are probably very driven as well?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: They are extremely driven. They are extremely bright. They
are highly motivated. They’re really an incredible group. I have so much regard and
respect for the students in this program because they have put everything on the line.
Many of them have turned away from their established careers in finance, in the arts, in
non-profit work, in law. A number of them have previous graduate degrees. And they
realize, "You know what? My path is to be a healer. This is what I need to dedicate my
life to doing," and they put everything else aside. Often they have families. They have
responsibilities. These are not 18 year olds, these are grownups. And they give
themselves over to this incredibly rigorous and demanding program. So you have to, I
think, respect that commitment.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. When you have applicants coming in, and I’m sure you have
discussions with them, people that are solid in their career, making decent money, to
give that up for the postbac program and then for 4 years of medical school and then
residency – if you do the math, I mean, it’s probably about a million dollar swing in
there somewhere. Roughly.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yes. Well, and that’s why it comes as no surprise that the
students in our program for the most part are not going into medicine... it’s not a
financial decision for them – it's a passion decision. And along with that, we noticed
that many, many, many of our students are going into medicine for altruistic reasons.
We have an extremely strong and vibrant student organization called Social Justice
Medicine. All of our students are involved in volunteering in a variety of clinical and
research settings. These are students who are going into medicine because they want to
make the world a better place. And many of them are already engaged in that kind of
work. It’s really an amazing, amazing thing.
Ryan Gray: That’s awesome.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: It’s incredible.
Ryan Gray: I wish more people would take some time off and be more nontraditional. I think medicine as a whole would benefit from that.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Well I think one of the reasons that our students are so
successful in the application process to medical school is that medical school Deans of
Admissions are happy to have students who are a little bit more seasoned, who they
know have thought carefully about the decision to commit themselves to an extremely
demanding career. And you bring a certain level of maturity and reflection to the
process. Not that you can’t find that in a traditional undergraduate, but it’s common in
postbac students.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. What would you say… actually I’ll get to that later. What is about
an average age for your applicants?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: The average age of our students is about 27.
Ryan Gray: Okay. So significantly older.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: But within that we have students who are a great deal older
than that.
And we have some students who transition directly out of their
undergraduate work, but an average would be 27.
Ryan Gray: Okay. What’s the oldest you’ve seen go through your program?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Oh my goodness. I don’t think I could tell you off the top of my
head, but you know if they're qualified students and they have a good reason for being
here, we want to work with them. We don’t practice age discrimination in this program
– quite the contrary.
Ryan Gray: Yeah, and I think the older the better actually.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: (Chuckling.)
Ryan Gray: There was a great article in the New York Times back in April that talked
about one of your students going through. And they talked a lot about postbac programs
as a whole and how they are very popular, and I think now there are 140 – I looked
yesterday in the AAMC postbac search.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Oh my goodness.
Ryan Gray: Why are they becoming so popular?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Well, with your broad view of premedical students nationally
you might be in a better position to answer that than I would. From my perspective I
would say that students have a lot of things that they want to do with their
undergraduate careers, and they often see that if they’re going to liberal arts colleges,
they might not see that as a time to focus on vocational education. They might prefer to
defer that part of their training and major in whatever it is – Slavic studies, or history, or
anthropology – feeling that that will only enrich their practice as physicians. And then
again, there are students who change careers. It's a tough thing to have to decide what
you’re going to do for the rest of your life when you’re 19 years old.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. Do you think that the economy has any role in that?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: You know – it's very hard to say. We’re always trying to figure
out if there is some relationship between the economy and postbac programs. And I’m
just… I’m not convinced that you can draw any kind of really straight line. I don’t know.
Do you think so?
Ryan Gray: My gut, without any data behind the answer, my gut says yes. Being a
physician is kind of a…
Dr. Victoria Rosner: It’s a recession-proof career.
Ryan Gray: It is a recession-proof career. And you hear every day in the news that
Obama care and our healthcare system is going to be short X number of physicians and
you’re not making the big bucks that you used to make, but you live comfortably and it’s
a choice I think many people make for that reason.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: There is a school of thought that says that when there is a
recession people go to graduate school. And they hang out and they try to wait out
downturns in the economy, but I have certainly never seen a student come into my office
and give that as their reason for coming to the postbac program. For our students, their
relationship to medicine is intensely, intensely personal. Some of them have seen a
family member go through a very serious medical crisis and that is what has inspired
them to change their path. Some of them have wanted to be doctors all their lives, but
have never been in a financial position to pursue the profession, and finally their hour
has come. These are the kinds of things we hear. Not so much, "Oh well, it’s a bad
economy, so I’ll be a doctor."
Ryan Gray: Yeah. That’s interesting. I wonder… I kind of like to play devil’s advocate
sometimes. I wonder… obviously they want to put their best foot forward on the
application and during the interview process, but nobody will ever know what their true
intentions are. But – I think when you get to a program as esteemed as yours; I think
you are getting the best of the best that truly want to go through for the right purposes.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Our students are so extraordinary and they bring such an
incredible range of interests to their studies. I always say at orientation that I could take
any given incoming class of Columbia postbac students and found a small nation.
Because we kind of have one of everything – we have opera singers, we have chefs, we
have physical therapists, we have lawyers, we have people who are in construction – we
have everything. So it’s an extremely diverse and interesting group.
Ryan Gray: Wow. I want to focus on you for a little bit, and not necessarily for you,
but as you're a pre-med advisor, and your bio says you lead the premedical advising
team for postbac pre-med students, but when you look at your background… I mean,
you teach graduate and undergraduate courses in late 19th and early 20th century
literature and culture.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yes, I’m also an English professor. I wear many hats.
Ryan Gray: And that goes back to my question, or not my question, but my statement
earlier, and I don’t think I made that statement earlier here, but pre-med advising as a
whole – I wonder how people get into pre-med advising. How did you end up where you
are?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Well, for me, I was actually an undergraduate and a graduate
student at Columbia. And as a graduate student, as part of your… as a PhD student, as
part of your training, you begin teaching classes at the university. You teach… in
English, which is my discipline, you teach composition and introductory literature
classes. And it was at that point that I was exposed for the first time to the School of
General Studies, which is where the postbac program at Columbia is housed. So the
School of General Studies is really a very unique college on the undergraduate national
scene in the United States, insofar as we are a college for non-traditional students. All of
our students have had breaks in their education. Many of them started careers before
deciding that they did in fact want to pursue a college degree. We have a large number
of student veterans who served the country and then decided when they’re done with
their service it’s time for them to get an education. And you can see how the postbac
program obviously fits into the School of General Studies, because we’re a program for
nontraditional premedical students. But the point is that for me as a graduate student, I
started teaching students from the School of General Studies, and I immediately sort
of… I fell in love with the school. I went to Columbia College, which is Columbia’s
traditional college. But at the School of General Studies I found this… you know…
almost this social experiment. We are the only college like this in the Ivy League. We
are the destination for non-traditional students who want to have a rigorous, elite,
education where they are in the same classes with the same professors and the same
curricula as traditional students.
So long story short, I loved teaching these students. And when I had the opportunity to
make my career advising these students, making policy for the school, I leapt at it. I
think it’s an incredible population that is really transformative and very much the
direction of where I think American higher education is going.
Ryan Gray: Okay. Is there a pre-med advising body out there that pre-med advisors
get information from? And this is more for my own knowledge.
Dr. Victoria Rosner:
advisors.
Oh yes.
There is a National Association for premedical
Ryan Gray: Okay.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: We attend the conference. There are 4 full-time advisors in the
program, in addition to a range of people at the School of General Studies who offer
support services to postbac students. And so the pre-med advisors – we're all active in
that organization.
Ryan Gray: Okay. Very cool.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yeah.
Ryan Gray: You had mentioned earlier that it’s kind of hard to put a number on each
of your classes because they’re kind of in different parts of their studies.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yes.
Ryan Gray: Is there a kind of year-round admission process there? Or are they
starting at the same time and then going at their own pace. How does that work?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Most of our students come in in the fall term. They start in
September. We do offer an accelerated track through the postbac program and those
students begin their work in January. So they spend 3 traditional semesters and a
summer term studying, whereas the students who come in September spend 4
traditional academic semesters – fall, spring, fall, spring.
Ryan Gray: Okay. So a year and a half versus 2 years?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yeah. But people sometimes take longer. You know, a number
of our students are working full-time while they’re going to school. And those students
may choose to take a couple of classes a semester in the first stage of the program. In
the second half of the program we require the students attend full time.
Ryan Gray: And why is that?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Because we think it’s important for their applications to be able
to demonstrate that they can manage a very serious load of real science courses to
demonstrate to medical schools that they’ll be prepared for the full-time curriculum in
medical school.
Ryan Gray: Okay. That makes sense.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: We think so.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. Good job.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Thank you.
Ryan Gray: Part of the curriculum, actually part of the application process, is showing
that you’ve had experience in the medical field, that you’ve been out shadowing
physicians, and know what it’s like on a day-to-day basis. Is that stuff that’s built into
your curriculum? Do you have affiliations setup with physicians to send students out to
hospitals and to clinics?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: We, so, it’s a great question. We require that all students in our
program complete a minimum of 120 hours of clinical work during the time that they
are enrolled in the program. In order to support them in acquiring that experience, we
have, well – obviously our students have access to the largest municipal hospital system
in the United States – but we have a very active and robust database of clinical
opportunities with new things coming in every week. We post them on the websites,
students apply, and then we also have standing relationships with programs in a
number of New York City hospitals where we place large numbers of students. You
know, we want students to be able to pursue their own interests. So we will support
them in seeking out the perfect opportunity for them, or of they’re not sure what they
want to do, we will help them enroll in, like I said, one of the programs where we
maintain standing relationships.
Ryan Gray: Okay.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: But we think it's essential that students complement their
science studies with real time with patients, and getting some exposure to their
profession as it's practiced every day.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. And partly because, again that’s what makes a good application,
but I think there is a large part that you need to know for yourself if you’re going to
actually like what you’re doing. It’s well and good to say, "Oh I want to be a doctor," but
to actually know what a doctor does every day.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: And then I also think for our students it is by and large one of
their favorite parts of the program because it gives real context for them to go to biology
class and learn about the various organic processes, but then to go to the hospital and
see how that science translates into medical research and medical practice.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. What percentage of students actually finish the postbac program?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: We have – actually we have very, very good retention in this
program. Our attrition rate is very low and it's attributable to a number of factors, but
it’s a handful of students who leave the program on a semester-by-semester basis. So
the vast majority finish.
Ryan Gray: Okay. What… Would you say there is a general theme behind the people
that drop out or don’t finish?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: I would say there are 3 or 4 main reasons that we see. The
single biggest one would have to be that life gets in the way. A student will have a parent
who develops an illness and needs their care or they get… just life stuff… they get sick,
there is an issue with their children, they need to relocate because of a partner, or a kind
of life change reason is probably the single biggest reason. Sometimes although we work
with the students very closely on financing the program, unfortunately there are
sometimes students who are not really financially able to finish the program and they
need to transfer to some place that’s less expensive than we are I guess. So we see a
little of that. Sometimes we get students who decide, you know what, they don’t want to
be doctors. They thought they did, but they really want to do something else. And we
are all about helping students find their way. So we don’t see that as a bad outcome. We
help… we talk to students and counsel them, and try to help them figure out what the
next step is for them.
And then there are always a few students who struggle academically in the program and
find that this is really not the place for them. So like I said, very low attrition, but that
would probably be a good summary of the reasons why someone might leave the
program.
Ryan Gray: Okay. For students that are coming in maybe fresh out of undergraduate
like you said, majoring in some kind of English or some other weird romantic
language…
Dr. Victoria Rosner: (Chuckling)
Ryan Gray: (Chuckling) …and they’re coming in. Maybe they knew they wanted to be
a doctor and they just wanted to get more diverse studies like you had mentioned
earlier. Transitioning into a science-based curriculum, what kind of struggles are they
having?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: So I think you can think of it in two different ways. First of all
there are students who have been out of school for a while and they just need to
transition back into being full-time students and reacquiring that student identity. And
the other is, as you mentioned, for students who have really never taken… you know,
they took their science requirements as undergraduates, but past that they’ve never
done any science study. And we try and… we do a lot in the postbac program to support
students as they make that transition. We, through our Academic Resource Center,
through our Postbac Coaching Program, we have whole seminars on transferable skills.
How do you take the skills you’ve acquired studying the humanities or the social
sciences and put them to work for you as a scientist? What is the best way to study for
the sciences? How do you get used to doing problem sets, to the different modalities of
scientific instruction? We have people on our academic resource team meeting with the
students. We also have successful postbac students who are mentoring current students
and giving them advice on how to be successful in a program like this. We put these
students in through a very, very rigorous academic program. But we don’t send them
out there alone, we give them a lot of support to try and ensure that they’re successful
with us.
Ryan Gray: Okay. Along the way, do you guys offer MCAT prep type stuff, or are your
classes geared toward MCAT prep?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Our classes are very much geared toward MCAT prep and our
faculty, in fact, are just right now doing a pretty serious review to prepare for the advent
of MCAT 2015 because we are going to be seeing some serious changes in the test and
we need to make sure that our students are prepared for it. And then we also counsel
students on strategies for preparing for the MCAT. Every student is assigned a
dedicated advisor who stays with them through their time in the program and who can
give them suggestions about preparation methods, timing, when is the best time to take
the MCAT, what are some ways to prepare. We host panels where previous students
who have been successful with the test, come in and share their experiences with current
students and talk about the best ways to prepare and how to supplement what they’re
getting in the classroom. Stuff like that.
Ryan Gray: Okay. Then they take the MCAT, and now it's application time. Is this
kind of the period… you had mentioned there is a year off or something, you had
mentioned earlier.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yes, the glide year. And all of our students who don’t apply for
linkage admission, have a glide year. Because as you know, I’m sure, the medical school
application cycle is lengthy.
Ryan Gray: Yes.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: It takes more than a year from the time you submit your
applications to the time that you hopefully matriculate into the school of your choice. So
first of all, we offer glide year counseling so that we maintain a separate database of
glide year opportunities because we really urge students to spend that glide year
fruitfully doing something that’s related to healthcare and so we place students in really
interesting opportunities both locally, nationally, and internationally. And then of
course, we’re working with the students very closely through every stage of the
admissions process and writing committee letters in support of their applications.
Ryan Gray: Okay. You had mentioned linkage. Explain what linkage is for people
that might not know that.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: So for students who for one reason or another would like to
avoid the glide year, or for students who are very, very clear about what their first choice
is for where they want to go to school, we have linkage agreements with about a dozen
schools and this is sort of like early admission for medical school. You apply to one
school, to your linkage school, while you’re still doing coursework, so that you’re eligible
to matriculate with no break. You finish your postbac studies in May and you begin
medical school in August if you’re accepted to the linkage program.
Ryan Gray: That would seem to me to be the kind of the win-win situation. Are the
majority of your students doing that, or no?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: No, it’s always a minority. It’s a more difficult way to get into
medical school because you’re taking your MCATs early; you’re going through the
application process while you’re still in coursework. Many students are not willing to
commit themselves to just a single institution. They want to apply a little bit more
broadly and see what happens, but for the students for whom it's right, it’s really right.
It’s one of those things that’s quite self-selecting. And we have a range of institutions
that we have agreements with so that students really have a nice choice. Well, we're
going through the linkage process now, so it's all very fresh with me, but we have linkage
agreements with Brown, with Columbia’s School of Physicians and Surgeons, with
Cornell, and then we have a recently incarnated agreement with Columbia’s dental
school because we do have pre-dental students as well, so that’s a nice option for the
right student.
Ryan Gray: Okay. Along with dental students do you have any other pre-health?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yes we do. We have small but sturdy numbers of students who
are interested in doing osteopathic medicine, who are interested in veterinary medicine,
students sometimes who want to go into PA programs, physical therapy, occupational
therapy – again the numbers are extremely small, but they are part of our pre-health
community.
Ryan Gray: You had just mentioned osteopathic. Do you guys differentiate between
students that want allopathic versus osteopathic?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: We don’t differentiate, but we are prepared to advise students
who are interested in either or both.
Ryan Gray: Okay. And you have students coming in saying, I want to be a DO, I want
to be an osteopathic doctor.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Sometimes. They come in and they say that the philosophy of
osteopathy is more to their liking than allopathic practice. And we’re open to that.
Ryan Gray: Okay. Yeah.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: And we have a medical school fair once a year that’s sponsored
by our student association, the premedical association, where we bring a whole range of
schools in to meet with the students. This year, we’re going to have I think upwards of
50 schools represented and it’s a nice opportunity for the students who aren’t sure what
track they’re on or exactly what they want to do to meet a lot of people and get
information about a lot of different schools and consider their options.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. Very good. So then, the application process is complete and I’m
assuming you have some interview advising, and all that fun. Mock interviews, and…
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yes. We do mock interviews and we also have a workshop
called "Mastering the Art of the Medical School Interview," that’s very popular with the
students. And we’re also beginning to prepare the students specifically for the MMI
format, the Multiple Mini Interview, as we see that begin to grow in popularity among
medical schools.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. And the reason that it's growing in popularity – there is some
research that shows that it actually selects a better applicant. Have you seen that
research?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: I have. I have.
Ryan Gray: You disagree with it?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: I'm not going to wade into that controversy. Let’s just say that
if the medical schools are doing it, we’re going to make sure our students are ready.
Ryan Gray: Okay.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: And I’m looking forward to doing the mock interviews for the
Multiple Mini Interviews. I think that’s going to be great fun.
Ryan Gray: Yeah, and for people who don’t know what the Multiple Mini Interview is,
it's kind of like speed dating.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Yes, exactly, speed dating for premedical students. You have a
whole bunch of different scenarios and a whole bunch of different interviewers and a
few minutes to answer each question that’s thrown at you.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. I think it’s great. Just like being on rounds.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Did you go through Multiple Mini Interviews?
Ryan Gray: I did not.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Okay.
Ryan Gray: Luckily. I don’t know how I would handle it.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: We get you ready.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. So I’m assuming that a large percentage, if not 100%, of your
graduates get into medical school somewhere, sometime.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: The vast majority, yes, absolutely.
Ryan Gray: Okay.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Because they’re wonderful, wonderful students. They are the
best and brightest of the premedical community and medical schools are very open to it.
Ryan Gray: Yeah, and that brings me to what I want to ask. The students that you’re
getting – what are you looking for in the applicants to Columbia’s postbac program?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Well, obviously they need to have strong academic credentials.
The average GPA of our students coming in is around 3.6, 3.7. They have very high SAT
scores. But more than that, postbac students, they have great stories. And I always look
forward to meeting the new students every year because their journeys to get to this
point where they’re ready to devote themselves to pursuing a career in healthcare,
they’re always very, very compelling to hear. I mean I had an amazing, amazing student
last year who grew up in Malaysia and her family didn’t have a lot of money. And she
had the opportunity to be educated at a very rigorous school outside her country, and
was in a position to really start earning some income, and she went into business and
made some money and bought her parents a house and put her younger sister through
college and then said, "You know what? I don’t really have a passion for business. What
I love is medicine. I’ve spent these years helping my family and now it’s my turn." And
she came back to start her premedical education at Columbia and she did linkage and
went on to medical school. You know? So it's these incredible, incredible stories that
you hear about how people get to this point that make me so excited to greet every year’s
incoming class.
Ryan Gray: Yeah. Very cool.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Very cool. We had another wonderful student last year who,
after the natural disaster in Haiti, made a trip down there to see what was going on and
found himself so drawn in to trying to help people that, on his own dime, he started
making monthly trips to Haiti in order to volunteer and help out with the repair efforts.
And that led him to finally decide the way he could help the most was to become a
doctor, and so he applied to start here.
Ryan Gray: Wow.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: It’s phenomenal. I mean we have to have so much respect for
our students. They are wonderful.
Ryan Gray: It sounds like it! One final question before we end. And I thank you again
for sharing all of this wonderful information.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Oh, it’s my pleasure.
Ryan Gray: If you had a general advice for any pre-med out there, not just a nontraditional going through postbac, but kind of any pre-med, since you are a pre-med
advisor, what’s kind of a number one thing you would recommend for somebody?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: Oh my goodness. Well I do think it’s very hard to give generic
advice. I mean the reason that we put so much resources into advising in our program is
that all students are different and they have very different needs and they need to hear
different things at different times. But, I mean I guess if I had to say one thing that was
just generic I would say, you know, I know there are times in premedical education
where what you’re learning feels very disconnected from the future that you imagine for
yourself as a medical provider. And that is why I think it is very important to find a way
to spend time in clinical settings whether that’s through shadowing doctors or
volunteering on the wards at your local hospital, but to just… to get yourself out into the
world of healthcare and use that as the engine to kind of drive you through your studies.
Ryan Gray: I like that advice. I struggled with that myself, even in medical school
sitting there learning biochemistry and going, "Uh… I just left the anatomy lab. That’s
much more important than this." So I think that’s great advice.
Dr. Victoria Rosner: You have to make that connection for yourself I think, to keep
your spirits up.
Ryan Gray: Yeah, one quick question that just popped into my mind. The breakdown
between systems-based learning versus more of a traditional curriculum in medical
schools – do you guys cover that at all and do you offer advice to students?
Dr. Victoria Rosner: I would say that so many of the medical schools have either
gone through an aggressive phase of curriculum reform, whether it’s through systemsbased learning or through trying to integrate clinical experience in early phases, or
whether it's by bringing a major research project into the traditional medical school
curriculum. And I think students have to find the program that’s right for them. They’ll
be reading about different programs on the web or investigating resources and
something will click with them and they’ll say, "That’s where I can really imagine
myself." Like, I don’t think I’m in a position to say, you know, well this is the one best
way to educate medical students. I don’t know if there is a one best way, but I think it’s
a very exciting time in medical education in the United States because I really feel that
schools are putting so much energy into thinking about how they prepare future
physicians, and that seems to me a very good thing.
Ryan Gray: Well folks – that was Dr. Rosner. I truly think that if you are a nontraditional student looking for a structured postbaccalaureate program, Columbia is
where you want to go. I think from the interview you can tell that the faculty at
Columbia truly cares about all of their students and takes great pleasure in seeing them
through the program and seeing them get into medical school. It sounds like an
amazing environment to be in. So I thank Dr. Rosner for taking the time to give you, the
listener, some great information about Columbia the program, but just postbac
programs in general. I think there is a lot of great information in that interview if you’re
not going to Columbia.
As always, if you have any questions for us here at Medical School HQ, you can give us a
call on our voicemail feedback line, 617-410-6747, record your question, and we can play
it here on the podcast and give you an answer, so everybody can hear it.
I hope the information provided today will help better guide you on your path to
becoming a physician. Make sure to join us next time here at the Medical School
Headquarters.