Medical School Admissions: Defining the Future of Healthcare Delivery in the United States

Abstract

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Issue: Systemic health disparities in the U.S. are unlikely to be successfully addressed without evidence-based, multilevel policy interventions. To date, most research investigations and policy interventions have been focused on incentivizing career choice aimed at ameliorating health disparities and correcting medical bias in practicing doctors. Much less work has been undertaken on utilizing educational policy, practices and data to affect positive change "upstream" of the current practicing healthcare workforce. An underutilized area in educational policy and predictive analytic use is in the medical school admissions process. Admissions policies for selective educational institutions have been tailored in the past to provide for the public good and therefore represent a natural first intervention area. Evidence: In the past, numerous policies have been enacted to incentivize physician behavior in ways to produce more primary care physicians, increase the physician work force in underserved areas, and in general improve health care equity. Despite these interventions, health disparities because of physician workforce shortcomings persist. With regard to medical school admissions approaches, several current and past standards have demonstrated that the selection process can be modified to alter the incoming cohort of student-doctors. Implications: We propose that medical education policy has not been sufficiently leveraged to act in concert with existing health service-based interventions. Specifically, we argue the medical school admissions process represents an underutilized opportunity to fundamentally change the physician workforce and address downstream health care system issues. Expanding what may constitute desirable for selection based on societal needs versus academic credentials is one possible remedy to the current approach. An opportunity also lies in leveraging the power of large data methods to provide predictive analytical input into the admissions process. Reconceptualizing the admissions process in these ways could allow for a complementary strengthening of the current programs designed to ease health disparities. In addition to the continuation of current diversity-enrichment programs in health professional education, expansion to more novel and cross-disciplinary solutions, such as those discussed in this article, could be actively encouraged.