Can You Spot and Mould Soul,  Humanity, and Bedside Manner in Future Doctors?

A most intense young man,

A soul-eyed young man,

An ultra political, super-aesthetical young man

An out-of-the way  young man.

W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911), Patience

Can the MCAT identify that ethereal mix of scientist, humanist, and spiritual that makes  a good doctor?

Elizabeth Rosenthal, MD, “Moulding a New Medical Student,” New York Times,  April 15, 2012. 

April 16, 2012-  Elizabeth Rosenthal,  medical doctor, dermatologist,  and full time journalist ,who writes often in the New York Times,  reports in the Sunday Times about the new MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test).

The new MCAT, used to sort the wheat from the chaff among prospective doctors,  will be 6 1/2 hours long instead of 4 1/2 hours for the  old MCAT. It took more than 3 years to design.   It will place more emphasis on the social sciences,  humanities, psychology, and emotions.  The idea behind the new test  is to select and produce a caring  doctor  who knows just as much  about the patient’s  holistic  life as about technology and science. The new test will potentially miminize technological skills and maximize the healing  arts.

Will the new MCAT work?  Will potential doctors have time in undergraduate years to master both the hard and soft sciences?  No one knows.  As Dr. Rosenthal says,  this is “uncharted territory.” Will the new MCAT  help find  those students,  more and more of whom are “later bloomers,” who have lived a little longer among the rest of humanity than the youngsters applying for medical school?

I  have no idea.   But I found the following statistics fascinating, intimidating, and even a little disturbing.

Table 1

Total Number of Applicants	Accepted	Rejected	Men Accepted	Women  Accepted
43, 919	20,176	23, 743	10,193	9,037

Table 2

Majors	Accepted	Rejected	%  Accepted
Biological Sciences	22,863	10,228	69.1%
Social Sciences	5,107	2,323	68.1%
Physical Sciences	4,670	3,25	65.9%
Humanities	1,999	1035	65.8%
Specialized Health Sciences	1,268	443	74.1%
Math and Statistics	387	200	65.9%

Table 3

Major	GPA, mean, maximum, 4.0, of those accepted	MCAT, mean, maxixum, 45 of those accepted
Biological   Sciences	3.68	30.9
Humanities	3.66	31.7
Math and Statistics	3.66	32.6
Physical Sciences	3.66	32.2
Social Sciences	3.63	31.1
Specialized Health Sciences	3.66	29.4

 Table 4 (Cecilia Capuzzu Simon,  "A Second Opinion: The Post-Baccalalaureate," New York Times, April 15, 2012)

Mean GPAs and MCAT score by age	GPA (Grade Point Average)	MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test)
Under 20	3.81	31.5
20-22	3.77	31,4
23-25	3.64	31.0
26-28	3.49	30.4
28 and over	3.47	30.4

Table 5

Applicants by Race/Ethnicity	Applicants/Accepted	% Accepted
White	27,373/13,290	48.6%
Hispanic	3,459/1,701	49.2%
Others	1,892/909	48.0%
Non-US	1,647/310	18.8%
Asian	9,980/4542	45.5%
Black	3,640/1437	39.5%
Overall	47,991/22,189	46.2%

 Will the new MCAT change the mix of medical students taking the MCAT?  Will it attract more minorities? More people versed in the humanities?  More later bloomers? Better future doctors?

For some reason, I doubt it.   This opinion reflects my prejudices.  I have never been impressed that straight A students make more humane doctors.   Kindness, humanity, and good sense do not necessarily correlate with grade point average.   
In fact straight A’s may reflect a report card mentality and a false barrier to selecting good doctors.   Straight A's  by themselves never made anybody a good doctor.  In fact, some of the most successful practitioners came from the middle of lower reaches of their medical school  class.  

Give me a  well-rounded solid B student over the straight A nerd. In my day, a GPA of 3.0 was considered good enough to be considered for medical school. Today you need a 3.5 GPA to make the grade.   Do I detect a whiff of GPA inflation in the modern era?  I notice older students tend to have slightly lower GPA and MCAT scores.  That doesn’t bother me.   They make up for it with life experience and determination to become a doctor in spite of their age.

Tweet: The new  MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test), 3 years in the making, is designed to pick individuals who may become more humane doctors.