Category Archives: Undergraduate Medical Education

I’m a hospitalized patient who wants to survive.  Please send me that female doctor with high USMLE certifying exam scores. 

Researchers assessed mortality and length of stay (LOS) for nearly 200,000 patients hospitalized in Pennsylvania for five common diagnoses who were cared for by physicians certified in either family medicine or internal medicine.  Average inpatient mortality was about 2%.  After … Continue reading

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More On The Problems of US News & World Report Rankings 

A student and a faculty member from Duke have written a succinct and practical critique of US News and World Report (USNWR) rankings.  Duke University School of Medicine, along with many other institutions recently, has withdrawn from participation in the … Continue reading

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From Community College to Medical School

A study of 2.1 million medical school applications from 2018-2020 using data from the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) found that applicants who attended or took courses in community college (about 35% of all applicants) were less likely to … Continue reading

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Teaching Clinical Reasoning Early  

Clinical reasoning is either not explicitly taught or taught to more experienced learners.  In this study, educators at Weill Cornell medical school assessed the impact of a theory-informed clinical reasoning curriculum for first year medical students before they’ve had much … Continue reading

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Are the Increasing Numbers of Out-of-State Students at State-“Supported” Medical Schools a Good Thing?

This nationwide study of US MD-granting schools reports two concerning and possibly related trends.  Over the past 15 years or so, the number of out-of-state applicants and matriculants to state-sponsored schools has gone up substantially.  This is generally helpful to … Continue reading

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What Do Teaching Evaluations Evaluate?

In this readable commentary about the value of teaching evaluations(TEs) by students, the authors summarize a lot of evidence suggesting that TEs measure a lot of things other than teaching, for example attractiveness and charisma, and that they should not … Continue reading

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It’s A DIY World for Medical Education Researchers

Medical education research lab is an emerging model for conducting medical education research. Defined as a distinct research team led by single or multiple PIs to study specific problems, medical education research lab is a strategic attempt at overcoming the well-recognized … Continue reading

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MCAT, Grades Are Predictive Of Important Outcomes After All! 

The investigators examined Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores and undergraduate grade point averages (UGPAs) from a large representative sample of students in US and Canadian MD-granting schools, and looked for correlations to multiple educational outcomes.  These outcomes included:  numeric grade in … Continue reading

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Who Are Our Medical Students (By Family Income)?

Students from high-income households are very over-represented in US medical schools.  This is a conclusion from a comparison of US Census subjects to matriculating US allopathic medical students who reported race/ethnicity and parental income on the 2017-19 AAMC Matriculating Student … Continue reading

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Point-Of-Care Ultrasound:  Progress And Problems

Ultrasound: The good news is ultrasound usage in the medical school curriculum has experienced a two-fold increase since 2014, according to a recent survey of clinical directors and curricular deans at 154 medical schools.  The bad news is there is … Continue reading

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