Medical students today are answering the call to heal patients in the tradition of centuries of physicians before them. But they are facing broken health care systems, exponential advances in technology, long-standing inequities in health care delivery, reductions in U.S. federal research funding, the mental health burdens of a demanding profession, and other challenges.
Despite all this, a career as a physician promises the fulfillment of delivering high-quality, equitable, and compassionate care to patients. So prospective medical school students are seeking opportunities and support to gain the knowledge, skills, and resilience to rise to the challenge and reap the rewards.
With more than 12,000 faculty and nearly 4,500 residents, Harvard Medical School offers ample resources to empower MD students to discover and shape their own unique path to becoming excellent doctors, effective leaders, and innovative change-makers.
HMS Dean for Medical Education Bernard Chang spoke with Harvard Medicine News about what the School looks for in applicants beyond meeting the MD program admissions requirements, as well as what students can expect when they get here.
HMNews: What types of students excel here?
Chang: There is not necessarily one type, but it all begins for sure with stellar academics. We have a highly selective acceptance rate, so first and foremost we focus on students whose credentials demonstrate that they can succeed in our demanding curriculum. But that by itself is not enough.
Because of how we teach here, the students who do best are those who can learn effectively by working in small groups with their peers, which I will acknowledge is not everyone’s cup of tea. If you aren’t willing to spend at least several hours a day in person with your fellow students — talking about biomedical science, the social determinants of health, and lived patient experiences with those who might have very different backgrounds and beliefs from you — then HMS might not be the right medical school for you.
HMNews: What does HMS look for in applicants?
Chang: We are looking for students who have the potential to be the future physician leaders in society. When we say “physician leader,” the emphasis is on “physician” above all else. Having the impact on human health that we hope for begins with our students learning to be the most outstanding doctors they can possibly be for their patients. We look for applicants who are willing to put in the immense effort to thoroughly learn the fundamentals of clinical medicine as a foundation for the individual careers they want to pursue.
In our program we need students who are self-sufficient, want to be challenged, and don’t mind being held to high standards. For us, the ultimate stakeholder in our medical education program is not the student but the patient, and we emphasize that from day one.
HMNews: How should students expect to experience caring for patients?
Chang: One of the most distinctive features of HMS is our unrivaled ecosystem of affiliated hospitals and clinics. I like to tell prospective students that we’re a regular-size medical school embedded in an immense complex of institutions all dedicated to biomedical science and clinical practice.
That said, it’s been challenging in recent years at medical schools across the country for practicing doctors, who are busy taking care of expanding patient needs, to have focused, dedicated time to attend to the growth and development of medical students. Our response was to provide support to these doctors, who are on our teaching faculty, so they can meet with our students regularly and get to know them over an entire year. This year we launched an initiative that created a core faculty group who individually mentor students throughout the principal clinical experience. These academic faculty physicians teach and coach our students, work with them at patient bedsides, and observe their progress as they gain the knowledge and skills necessary to become doctors.
HMNews: What is the difference between the two MD curricular tracks at HMS?
Chang: Most of our students are in the Pathways track, which, as the name suggests, allows students to tailor their experience somewhat to their particular interests. This track is characterized by flipped-classroom, case-based collaborative learning in the preclerkship classroom phase of education; an early exposure to longitudinal outpatient clinics; and a number of advanced science and clinical courses following the immersive core clerkship year. Students in Pathways have a wide range of interests and backgrounds but all come together in their shared goal of becoming outstanding physician leaders.
The other track is Health Sciences and Technology, a partnership between Harvard Medical School and MIT. This program is now 55 years old and is most appropriate for students who are future physician scientists, physician engineers, and physician innovators in health care. Students take classes at both Harvard and MIT; have early and repeated exposure to quantitative and computational approaches to medicine, including AI; and integrate biomedical science with social determinants of health in a recently launched, highly innovative patient-centered curriculum.
HMNews: How are HMS students supported academically? How can they find their own path amid a multitude of options
Chang: Because we have a huge body of faculty who are practicing physicians at our clinical affiliates, our size is a wonderful resource. But it’s also a challenge. Because there are so many potential mentors and so many potential resources, it takes help to identify how you can best be successful.
We firmly believe that there’s not necessarily one perfect advisor or mentor and that you need different individuals to help guide the different aspects of what you’re trying to do.
We have society advisors, who are your longitudinal, generalist advisors and your first stop for questions. They get to know you the first week you arrive at medical school and will be with you all the way to graduation. They know you the best and know where you come from and where you’re headed.
Once you’ve decided to go into a particular clinical field, a faculty member in that specialty will advise you on what a career is like in that field and how to be a competitive residency applicant.
Many of our students also have research mentors and advisors who help guide them in their particular path of discovery.
Finally, students can have alumni advisors as well — we have a new MD Connect program that matches students with alumni advisors, and there have been some remarkable success stories of students who have found HMS alumni working in the exact area in which they were interested.
HMNews: How does HMS support student mental health and help students develop tools to stay resilient?
Chang: This is really important, because medical school is hard. It’s part of our responsibility to society to make sure that students are well-prepared for the rigorous practice of medicine. But I can also promise that we provide the support and nurture necessary for every student to thrive throughout difficult educational experiences.
We support student wellness in so many ways. We have a director of student wellness, Jennifer Potter, who leads a team of faculty, staff, and students in creating and sustaining formal wellness programming through the Office of Student Affairs that helps everyone enjoy themselves, become well, and sustain that wellness. We’ve hired students to serve as wellness ambassadors for the first time this year. They have partnered with the School to create and sustain activities for their fellow students that promote well-being.
We support individual students based on their needs by providing medical, psychological, and mental health care through Harvard University Health Services and Harvard’s Counseling and Mental Health Services.
These wellness resources provide a crucial foundation for well-being in students’ future careers. They’re entering a profession that is rife with burnout and mental health burdens because of its demands, its importance to society, the acuteness of illness, and the crises that we face in health care.
HMNews: With the MD program involving so much time and attention, do students get the chance to take advantage of other opportunities at Harvard?
Chang: One of the things that makes the HMS experience special is that we are part of a university that has unparalleled educational opportunities for our students. This can range from registering for a class at another Harvard school to the intensive involvement of a dual-degree program. Is it easy to do as a medical student? No. But if planned well with the help of their advisors, students can create academic schedules that make it possible.
For those seeking social and extracurricular aspects of university life, there are activities with other graduate and professional schools such as councils, mixers, and intramural sports that all allow HMS students to be part of the larger Harvard community.
To find out more about academics, student life, and the application process for the HMS MD programs, visit the HMS Admissions page.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
