NYU Applications Down by 5.7%

2006 application volume to the New York University School of Medicine is about 5.7 per cent lower than last year, the NYU campus paper reports.

Assistant dean of admissions Joanne McGrath told the Washington Square News that 7,572 applications were received for fall 2006 admission, compared to 8,027 the previous year.

The NYU School of Medicine enrolls 160 first-year students each year.

Source: "Grad School Applicants Not Affected by Strike," by Brittani Manzo - the Washington Square News, April 24, 2006

Rochester & Albany Focus on Geriatrics Training

Health care managers see a 'wave' of demand on the horizon for physicians who know how to deal with the special needs of elderly patients -- and medical schools are scrambling to produce M.D.s with that expertise.

The number of Americans who are 85 or older is expected to have grown by 50 per cent between 2000 and 2010, according to a January 2006 report by the American College of Physicians. Doctors who understand the diseases and conditions that afflict older patients will be increasingly sought after. For example, geriatric specialists need to be especially sensitive to drug interactions, given the large number of prescriptions that many older Americans are on. They also need to be able to accept that the best course of action for a patient may be to ameliorate discomfort, rather than to seek a cure for an underlying condition.

To meet the growing demand for geriatric specialists, the American Board of Internal Medicine now requires internal medicine residents to gain at least one month's experience in geriatric care as part of their training.

A number of medical schools offer specialized geriatric care programs. Albany Medical College assigns residents in its family and community medicine program to follow nursing home residents during the last two years of their residencies. They conduct home visits in order to gain experience with giving care in residential and clinical settings, and learn about end-of-life issues such as hospice care and family mediation.

The University of Rochester School of Medicine has taken a different approach to encouraging residents to choose geriatrics by expanding its faculty in that field. The idea is to provide more interaction between residents and faculty in order to highlight the high degree of job satisfaction that geriatric specialists typically feel. Geriatricians tend to have the highest job satisfaction rating among U.S. physicians.

Source: "Medical Schools Try to Lure Students into Geriatric Studies," by JoAnne McFadden - the Business Courier (Cincinnati), April 21, 2006

Yale SOM Accepts 4.8% of '06 Applicants

The Yale School of Medicine has accepted 4.8 per cent of its applicants for 2006 admission -- 176 applicants from a pool of 3,698. The School plans to enroll a class of approximately 100 students from those admits.

59 per cent of the 104 applicants who were offered admission are women, and roughly 30 per cent represent minorities.

The applicant pool included 151 current students and alumni of Yale. 32 of them were accepted. The head of the health professions advisory program at Yale's Undergraduate Career Services office told the Yale Daily News that a growing number of Yale undergrads are applying to medical school. Nationwide, medical school applications are up by about 4.6 per cent.

Richard Silverman, the SOM's Director of Admissions, noted that almost 60 per cent of the admitted students were not coming directly from an undergraduate program. Some who did apply during their senior year in college had requested a deferals to pursue fellowships or other opportunities. Silverman noted that the SOM now automatically grants a deferral to any accepted student who enters the Teach for America Program.

(Source: "Med School Admits 176, 59% Women," by Steven Siegel - the Yale Daily News, March 31, 2006