Oct. 29, 2015 For the first time, aspiring doctors will be tested on their
understanding of how social issues and behavior affect people’s health in
addition to traditional science topics like biology.
Next year’s incoming class of Texas medical students will be the
first to take a newly revised Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) designed to test their cultural
competency as well as their science-based knowledge. The new MCAT, changed for
the first time in 30 years, gauges students’ knowledge of self-identity, social
stratification, and multiculturalism, and has them apply those factors to
certain scenarios.
“There’s a large body of research in medicine showing how so many
other things — poverty, access to safe housing and communities, greater
education, and other social determinants of health — are key drivers of health
care costs and mortality, and they really can’t be ignored in looking at how to
find the doctors of the future and how we are going to train them,” says Rodney Young, MD, a
practicing family physician and chair of the Texas Medical Association Council
on Medical Education.
The new exam is part of a broader effort by the Association of
American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the nation’s medical schools to improve
the medical school admissions process. The goal is to attract well-rounded
future physicians by reviewing the applicant’s life experiences, personal attributes,
and academic accomplishments.
Educators say about 65 percent of the questions on the old test
were straightforward knowledge-based questions, whereas about 65 percent of
questions on the new exam test students’ ability to think on their feet through
critical-thinking-type questions. The questions come in forms ranging from science-related
vignettes to reading passages that require students to know the formulas and
concepts discussed and tie some meaning to them. The new test is anticipated to
take more than 7.5 hours to complete, compared with the current four-hour exam.
“The balance that the new exam has in terms of testing the natural
and non-natural sciences and critical analysis is meant to communicate that
medical schools are looking for applicants who are well-rounded and have a
variety of interests and experiences,” says
Karen Mitchell, PhD, MCAT director at AAMC.
Texas medical schools will accept and evaluate scores from the
current as well as the revised MCAT exam until 2020. To help schools transition
to the new MCAT, AAMC will provide schools with percentile ranks from the old
MCAT and the first few administrations of the new test, to show how students
generally scored compared with fellow test-takers. Dr. Young says the new MCAT
reflects a continuing effort to find and train candidates in a field that itself
is evolving — medicine. “The goal of the MCAT has always been to develop a test
that helps us identify and pick the people best-suited for careers in medicine,”
he says, “and the new changes reflect the fact that those best-suited for
medicine are not only found in the group who can post the highest science
scores.”
TMA
is the largest state medical society in the nation, representing more than
48,000 physician and medical student members. It is located in Austin and has
110 component county medical societies around the state. TMA’s key objective
since 1853 is to improve the health of all Texans.
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Contact:
Brent Annear (512) 370-1381; cell: (512)
656-7320; email: brent.annear[at]texmed[dot]org
Marcus
Cooper (512) 370-1382; cell: (512) 650-5336; email: marcus.cooper[at]texmed[dot]org
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