Successful matriculation through medical school can be
achieved through paths other than the traditional undergraduate premedical
education track with its courses in organic chemistry, physics and calculus. In
fact, medical students who major in the humanities or social sciences can
perform just as well as those who enter medical school with traditional premed
majors. And, perhaps not surprisingly, humanities majors are more likely to choose
primary care specialties. Those are the key findings from a study published in
the August Academic Medicine.
According to the study by researchers at the Mount Sinai
School of Medicine of New York University in New York City, nontraditional and
traditional premed majors had no significant differences in clerkship or
commencement honors or in graduating with distinction in research.
The nontraditional majors did, however, gravitate to
residencies in primary care and psychiatry and away from surgical subspecialties
and anesthesiology.
"It is clear that relieving students of the burdens of
traditional premed requirements in college will provide them the opportunity to
pursue multiple and more diverse paths to success in medical school," the
researchers said.
According to the study, medical education leaders have long
questioned the value of traditional premed requirements for practicing
physicians or scientists, but little has been done to challenge the prevailing
wisdom.
