Pre-Medical Preparation in Microbiology among Applicants and Matriculants in Osteopathic Medical School in the United States.

It is recognized that medical school curricula contain significant microbiology-related content as part of the training of future physicians who will be responsible stewards of antimicrobials. Surprisingly, osteopathic and allopathic medical schools do not require pre-medical microbiology coursework, and the extent to which medical students have completed microbiology coursework remains poorly understood. In this report, we show that fewer than 3% of applicants and matriculants to osteopathic medical school (OMS) have completed an undergraduate major or minor in microbiology, and fewer than 17% of applicants and matriculants to OMS have completed one or more microbiology-related courses. These data demonstrate limited pre-medical microbiology-related knowledge among osteopathic medical students, which may be associated with an increase in perceived stress when learning this content or during clinical rotations as well as a potential lack of interest in pursuing a career in infectious diseases.

Quantitative Description of Medical Student Interest in Neurology and Psychiatry.

CONTEXT: Given the well-documented shortage of physicians in primary care and several other specialties, quantitative understanding of residency application and matching data among osteopathic and allopathic medical students has implications for predicting trends in the physician workforce. OBJECTIVES: To estimate medical student interest in neurology and psychiatry based on numbers of applicants and matches to neurology and psychiatry osteopathic and allopathic residency programs. Also, to gauge students' previous academic experience with brain and cognitive sciences. METHODS: The number of available postgraduate year 1 positions, applicants, and matches from graduating years 2011 through 2015 were collected from the National Matching Services Inc and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine for osteopathic programs and the National Resident Matching Program and the Association of American Medical Colleges for allopathic programs. To determine and compare osteopathic and allopathic medical students' interest in neurology and psychiatry, the number of positions, applicants, and matches were analyzed considering the number of total osteopathic and allopathic graduates in the given year using 2-tailed χ2 analyses with Yates correction. In addition, osteopathic and allopathic medical schools' websites were reviewed to determine whether neurology and psychiatry rotations were required. Osteopathic medical students' reported undergraduate majors were also gathered. RESULTS: Compared with allopathic medical students, osteopathic medical students had significantly greater interest (as measured by applicants) in neurology (χ21=11.85, P<.001) and psychiatry (χ21=39.07, P<.001), and an equal proportion of osteopathic and allopathic medical students matched in neurology and psychiatry residency programs. Approximately 6% of osteopathic vs nearly 85% of allopathic medical schools had required neurology rotations. Nearly 10% of osteopathic applicants and matriculants had undergraduate coursework in brain and cognitive sciences. CONCLUSION: Osteopathic medical students demonstrated greater interest than allopathic medical students in neurology and psychiatry based on the proportion of residency program applicants but similar interests as measured by matches. Required rotations did not appear to influence students' interests.

A Quantitative Examination of Undergraduate Neuroscience Majors Applying and Matriculating to Osteopathic Medical School.

Undergraduates choose to become neuroscience majors for a number of reasons including future career goals. Faculty and administration of undergraduate neuroscience programs understand that many neuroscience majors have aspirations of applying and matriculating to medical school (Prichard, 2015); however a quantitative understanding of this particular student population remains unknown, especially in the context of the national growth in undergraduate neuroscience education (Ramos et al., 2011). In the present report, we use medical school application data to establish a novel quantitative understanding of the number of neuroscience majors that apply and matriculate to osteopathic medical school. Our data indicate that a substantial number of neuroscience majors do indeed apply and matriculate to medical school compared to other majors in the life sciences, math and physical sciences, and humanities. These data are relevant to faculty and administration of undergraduate neuroscience programs and suggest that when programmatic, curricular, and training decisions are made, they should be made in the context of the diverse motivations and professional goals of neuroscience majors including careers in medicine. Finally, our novel quantitative approach of determining student motivation and professional goals based on application/matriculation data, can complement traditional methods such as surveys and questionnaires and can be used to determine the extent to which neuroscience majors apply to other professional and graduate degree programs.