Carver College of Medicine’s family-medicine program and the reputable doctors who graduated from the program influenced medical student Kendall Keck’s decision to attend the University of Iowa’s medical school.
A recent study ranked the Carver College of Medicine as one of the top 20 “social mission” medical schools based on the number of graduates who practice primary care, work in shortage areas, or are members of minority groups, said Fitzhugh Mullan, an author of the study that was published in Annals of Internal Medicine on June 15.
“The social mission idea is timely as we approach reforming health care,” Mullan said. “As top schools continue to be opinion leaders and trendsetters, I would like to see trends include a robust curriculum that includes social mission.”
One way to encourage students to go into this area of the field is exposing them to shortage areas — those lacking a sufficient number of doctors — during their first or second year, Mullan said.
Second-year medical student Keck said he had to explore summer programs to gain that exposure.
“My first year was mostly classwork with a few lectures on areas that need work but no first-hand experience,” he said.
Keck is spending his summer participating in a Medical Education in Community Orientation, a program in Iowa that sends students to underserved communities to shadow doctors.
All students spend roughly 16 percent, or eight weeks of their third year, in underserved areas of the community, said Peter Densen, the executive dean of the medical school.
“We do have that in the curriculum, just not an early in-depth exposure,” he said.
While it is not required for first- and second-year medical students to serve in the community, Densen said, the school is looking to make some changes in curriculum.
“The college is looking into some aspects related to the study, but they will not go into effect this year,” he said. “We are very pleased to be identified as one of these schools that can be singled out for its mission commitment to the community.”
Along with working in primary care or underprivileged areas, the study evaluated the number of students who were members of underrepresented minority groups, which is approximately 10 percent of the UI medical students.
“It seems like the variety of people is pretty vast,” Keck said. “I have met people from different areas and different backgrounds.”
Roughly 70 percent of students admitted to Carver are from Iowa, a quite homogenous state, and therefore a large part of the class will never be underrepresented minorities, Densen said.
“We think it’s remarkable that our score is driven by the number of primary-care doctors and physicians practicing in underserved areas,” he said. “This does not exclude underrepresented minorities, but it is not a driving factor.”
The UI medical school admissions follow guidelines from the Association of American Medical Colleges, and Densen does not expect the study causing admission requirements to change.