Saturday was a day for tough sells at the University of Minnesota Medical School's Duluth campus.
During the Rural Pre-Med Summit's morning sessions, 120 prospective students hoped to get a leg up on their competition by getting advice on how to become a more appealing medical school applicant -- no small feat, given the hordes of applicants chasing the handful of open spots.
Later, the tables were turned and school administration and faculty members pitched to students the idea of practicing family medical care in rural communities, which the Duluth campus was founded to provide. It's not a glamorous field, though, and the field sometimes loses students to higher-paying or more urban-oriented fields.
Getting into medical school is a difficult proposition. There were 1,330 applicants for the 58 positions the Duluth campus had open in this year's class, said Dr. Lillian Repesh, associate dean of admissions and student affairs.
Nationally, about 17,800 students enrolled in medical schools in 2007, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. That's out of 42,300 applicants.
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Students interested in medical school have to start by building a strong undergraduate record that's heavy in classes like biology and chemistry. And the closer their grade-point average is to the perfect 4.0, the better.
Next comes the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, a standardized multiple-choice test that can last up to five hours. Erik Scharrer, a first-year medical student, said he started studying for his April exam in January and hit the books three times a week for several hours at a time.
A general application and a personal statement follow. And if an applicant is lucky, an interested school will ask for a second application and perhaps an interview.
Some applicants must wait a full year after their application to hear a school's decision.
"They want to find out how to become a better applicant because [medical school is] very, very competitive right now," Repesh said.
fulfilling a mission
For its part Saturday, the Duluth campus had to champion the benefits of practicing family medicine in a rural area -- more patient interaction and variety, for instance -- in an era in which medical school debts are easier to pay off with the salary of a specialist practicing in a city.
Repesh called rural family practitioners "the first line of care."
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"It's really a tough job because someone comes to you with a set of symptoms and you have to make the difficult decision: Is this something I can treat, or do I need to make a referral?" she said.
"People like to be cared for where they're from," said Dr. Glenn Nordehn, an assistant professor at the medical school who also practices at a clinic in Moose Lake.
About half the students who begin their studies on the Duluth campus migrate to fields other than rural family medicine.
The prospective applicants listened to a panel of rural physicians talk about their work. They then visited four breakout sessions, each on an area of medicine a small community family physician might encounter.
In a session on medical imaging, Dr. Jeff Adams added a water-based jelly to an ultrasound wand and placed it on the chest of volunteer Eric Scrivner, a first-year medical student.
On a nearby screen, a grainy black and white picture of Scrivner's heart, grainy but palpitating visibly, appeared.
"Who wants to try?" Adams asked, before handing the wand to Elizabeth Swift, a prospective applicant from Yankton, S.D.
Swift, who is just beginning the medical school application process, said she found the Rural Pre-Med Summit to be informative.
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"I really enjoyed the breakout groups, which were really hands-on," she said. "And talking to faculty was really helpful."
