One med school, hold the pre-med

For more than 50 years, students who want to be doctors have dreaded two things above all else: organic chemistry and the Medical College Admissions Test ? better known as the MCAT.

But there is one program out there that allows students to skip both of these prerequisites, though it’s been a pretty well-kept secret. The Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City admits a quarter of its class without the traditional pre-med background.

Students apply in their sophomore or junior year of college, and pledge to major in the humanities or social sciences. The lucky few admitted via this program get to skip organic chemistry, physics, calculus and the MCAT.

The program has been operating for ten years; results show that doctors who began as humanities students end up doing just as well as their peers who took the traditional pre-med courses as undergrads.

We discuss the program with the dean for medical education at Mt. Sinai Medical School, Dr. David Muller, along with Kate Pier, a second year medical student who applied through the Humanities and Medicine program.