I am becoming more and more confused on the appointment(s) of most members of the University of South Dakota medical school admissions committee. Continuing with my pledge to expose the unqualified nature of this committee, the publications of Ms. Ann Settles are outlined below. As you can see there is not much to report. To qualify as a publication, the manuscript must be peer-reviewed and available through PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez).
As you will remember, Ms. Settles holds a Masters of Science degree. In an earlier post, it was suggested by a current University of South Dakota School of Medicine first year medical student that Ms. Settles was qualified because her husband (sadly deceased) earned a PhD. My wife is a vascular surgeon; does this uniquely qualify me to perform surgical procedures?
Ann Settles MS, Instructor, University of South Dakota School of Medicine
Publications: ZERO
First Author: ZERO
Senior Author: ZERO
I do not even know how to comment on the appointment of an individual who has not contributed one novel, hypothesis driven, peer-reviewed publication in her entire career. How is this individual qualified to: (1) be appointed as a member of the “faculty” within the School of Medicine, (2) appointed to the Admissions Committee of the SOM? Apparently, minimum qualifications are neither required nor observed at the University of South Dakota.
In short, this individual is NOT QUALIFIED to sit in a position of decision-making for applicants, especially considering her LACK OF credentials and the fact that many applicants have vastly superior credentials and academic degrees.
It is time for the South Dakota Legislature and the President of the University of South Dakota to act and remove this committee!
Of course, if we have reported any errors on Ms. Settles credentials, she is certainly open to e-mail me (gerry.gilbertson@yahoo.com) and provide links to peer-reviewed published articles.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
A Dean Without Credentials
The University of South Dakota School of Medicine’s Admissions Committee authorship listing reads like that of Letterman’s Top Ten list. So that all readers can observe the incompetence of this assembled “committee,” we are going to publish each PhD members academic publications as a single post. We won’t bother with the MD members … they have no publications of significance. To qualify as a publication, the manuscript must be peer-reviewed and available through PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez).
Paul Bunger PhD, Dean of Admissions, University of South Dakota School of Medicine:
Publications: 10
Publications as First Author: 2 (c.1981 and 1982)
Publications as Senior Author: 1 (c.1979)
From what has already been displayed in this blog, Dr. Bunger is hardly qualified to be listed as an Associate Professor, member of the Medical School Admissions Committee, or Dean of Admissions in the School of Medicine. From our analysis, it would seem that Dr. Bunger is a failure as a scientist and has been provided an “administrative” position to continue to put food on the table for his family. I wonder if these same types of people (i.e., unqualified) are not the same types of people responsible for the dismal economic conditions we are currently experiencing in the USA. Simply, we as South Dakotans MUST STEP-UP and remove these UNQUALIFIED individuals from office.
Dr. Bunger’s last peer-reviewed scientific publication was in 1999. I ask you, is this individual really considered competent to sit in such an important position? Scientifically he has contributed nothing to the scientific and medical community in over a decade. Moreover, his last publication as First Author was TWENTY-SEVEN years ago! This individual is NOT QUALIFIED to be a member of the academic faculty!
Paul Bunger PhD, Dean of Admissions, University of South Dakota School of Medicine:
Publications: 10
Publications as First Author: 2 (c.1981 and 1982)
Publications as Senior Author: 1 (c.1979)
From what has already been displayed in this blog, Dr. Bunger is hardly qualified to be listed as an Associate Professor, member of the Medical School Admissions Committee, or Dean of Admissions in the School of Medicine. From our analysis, it would seem that Dr. Bunger is a failure as a scientist and has been provided an “administrative” position to continue to put food on the table for his family. I wonder if these same types of people (i.e., unqualified) are not the same types of people responsible for the dismal economic conditions we are currently experiencing in the USA. Simply, we as South Dakotans MUST STEP-UP and remove these UNQUALIFIED individuals from office.
Dr. Bunger’s last peer-reviewed scientific publication was in 1999. I ask you, is this individual really considered competent to sit in such an important position? Scientifically he has contributed nothing to the scientific and medical community in over a decade. Moreover, his last publication as First Author was TWENTY-SEVEN years ago! This individual is NOT QUALIFIED to be a member of the academic faculty!
Friday, March 27, 2009
For Scientists these Individuals Sure Lack Qualifications
Howdy All,
Substantiating our claims that the current PhD faculty members (and the MS) sitting on the University of South Dakota School of Medicine are unfit for membership, we have gathered information concerning their research funding.
In general the success of a PhD scientist(s) (as those on the admissions committee claim to be) career is judged by both the scientific and academic community on the basis of two principle factors: (1) number of peer-reviewed novel & hypothesis driven research publications (usually not including review articles) and (2) funding sources. In general, categories (1) and (2) go hand in hand. We demonstrate our expertise and knowledge through public dissemination of both publications and discoveries (sometimes patents are included, but they are usually associated with cited publications). In reviewing the funding and publication histories of the PhD committee members, I think you will be shocked and amazed by their lack of both fundamental tenets of scientific success.
The two most common and certainly high dollar amount of funding sources for a typical academic research scientist are through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). In many cases, investigators have funding sources from private foundations, of course, we do not currently have that information available (though it is a public record document and we will post soon). Any mentioned PI can respond with an e-mail claiming significant funding sources and I will post once verified.
NIH and NSF funding sources were queried from the years 1990 – 2009. You can access each respective database at the following websites:
NIH = http://crisp.cit.nih.gov/crisp/crisp_query.generate_screen
NSF = http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch
Paul Bunger, Associate Professor - No NIH or NSF funding
Ann Settles, Instructor – No NIH or NSF funding
Evelyn Schlenker, Professor –
NIH: ADAPTATION RESPIRATORY PATTERN GENERATOR HYPOXIA (10 month research grant, expired May 2006), THE CNS AND HEART FAILURE (12 month research grant, expired June 2005), SEXUAL DIMORPHISM IN THE CONTROL OF VENTILATION (3 year research grant, expired 1997)
Maureen Burton, Instructor – No NIH or NSF funding
John Thomas, Professor – According to USD website, not currently involved in research. No funding from either NIH or NSF.
Barry Timms, Professor – No NIH or NSF funding
Adhar Manna, Assistant Professor – No NIH or NSF funding.
David Maddox – Apparently this individual is no longer employed by USD.
Looking at the lack of accomplishments (we will post their publication records shortly), to even call some of these individuals scientists would be a stretch of the term. Their qualifications in research are limited at best, and their qualifications to sit on an admissions committee for a School of Medicine are just unacceptable.
I will make an exclusionary comment on one individual … Professor Evelyn Schlenker. Dr. Schlenker does have a publication record, not an extensive record, but at least a record far more comprehensive than her committee member colleagues.
Substantiating our claims that the current PhD faculty members (and the MS) sitting on the University of South Dakota School of Medicine are unfit for membership, we have gathered information concerning their research funding.
In general the success of a PhD scientist(s) (as those on the admissions committee claim to be) career is judged by both the scientific and academic community on the basis of two principle factors: (1) number of peer-reviewed novel & hypothesis driven research publications (usually not including review articles) and (2) funding sources. In general, categories (1) and (2) go hand in hand. We demonstrate our expertise and knowledge through public dissemination of both publications and discoveries (sometimes patents are included, but they are usually associated with cited publications). In reviewing the funding and publication histories of the PhD committee members, I think you will be shocked and amazed by their lack of both fundamental tenets of scientific success.
The two most common and certainly high dollar amount of funding sources for a typical academic research scientist are through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). In many cases, investigators have funding sources from private foundations, of course, we do not currently have that information available (though it is a public record document and we will post soon). Any mentioned PI can respond with an e-mail claiming significant funding sources and I will post once verified.
NIH and NSF funding sources were queried from the years 1990 – 2009. You can access each respective database at the following websites:
NIH = http://crisp.cit.nih.gov/crisp/crisp_query.generate_screen
NSF = http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch
Paul Bunger, Associate Professor - No NIH or NSF funding
Ann Settles, Instructor – No NIH or NSF funding
Evelyn Schlenker, Professor –
NIH: ADAPTATION RESPIRATORY PATTERN GENERATOR HYPOXIA (10 month research grant, expired May 2006), THE CNS AND HEART FAILURE (12 month research grant, expired June 2005), SEXUAL DIMORPHISM IN THE CONTROL OF VENTILATION (3 year research grant, expired 1997)
Maureen Burton, Instructor – No NIH or NSF funding
John Thomas, Professor – According to USD website, not currently involved in research. No funding from either NIH or NSF.
Barry Timms, Professor – No NIH or NSF funding
Adhar Manna, Assistant Professor – No NIH or NSF funding.
David Maddox – Apparently this individual is no longer employed by USD.
Looking at the lack of accomplishments (we will post their publication records shortly), to even call some of these individuals scientists would be a stretch of the term. Their qualifications in research are limited at best, and their qualifications to sit on an admissions committee for a School of Medicine are just unacceptable.
I will make an exclusionary comment on one individual … Professor Evelyn Schlenker. Dr. Schlenker does have a publication record, not an extensive record, but at least a record far more comprehensive than her committee member colleagues.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
A Change in this Blog
Hi All,
We are making some critical changes to the blog. For now, please e-mail any comments to me at:
gerry.gilbertson@yahoo.com
If you want, you can use any number of anonymous e-mail providers ... just do an anonymous e-mail search on Google.
The individual gerrygilbertson5@aim.com is constantly posting irrelevant materials. On multiple attempts we have asked him to stop. His posts do not bother us, but they are clogging up and distracting from other people's relevant posts. We just do not have time for his childish responses.
We have his USD IP Address and a complaint is being drafted under the Federal Computer Communications Harassment Act. This individual is jeopardizing his position at USD and we will seek full prosecution.
We hope to have the comment lines open soon ... keep in touch.
We will be firming-up and posting the radio show broadcast time and date shortly.
We are making some critical changes to the blog. For now, please e-mail any comments to me at:
gerry.gilbertson@yahoo.com
If you want, you can use any number of anonymous e-mail providers ... just do an anonymous e-mail search on Google.
The individual gerrygilbertson5@aim.com is constantly posting irrelevant materials. On multiple attempts we have asked him to stop. His posts do not bother us, but they are clogging up and distracting from other people's relevant posts. We just do not have time for his childish responses.
We have his USD IP Address and a complaint is being drafted under the Federal Computer Communications Harassment Act. This individual is jeopardizing his position at USD and we will seek full prosecution.
We hope to have the comment lines open soon ... keep in touch.
We will be firming-up and posting the radio show broadcast time and date shortly.
A Respectful Response to a Busy USD SOM Student
The following commentary was e-mailed to me. I will respect this students wishes to remain anonymous.
Mr. Gilbertson,
Issue 1: I understand and respect your concerns regarding the admissions committee for the Sanford SOM. However, I disagree with your method and some of your critiques.
Answer: Busy Student, I respect your option to disagree and I will reply in a courteous manner. By no means do I intend for all readers to agree. Contrary to popular opinion, President Barack Obama won the US Presidency by a slim margin of ~ 7% of the popular vote. To this point, approximately 50% (slightly less) of the voting public did not support the election of President Obama, but we recognize he is the Commander-in-Chief. The same principles apply to my blog and the administrative action we are taking with the South Dakota Legislature. We are simply trying to implement social and administrative change in the actions of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine.
Issue 2: As a current student of an affiliated program, I feel the need to protect my name as a student and future health care professional. I would write a comment on the blog, unfortunately google IDs for my email address include my name.
Answer: I understand and I am not asking ANY student to take a chance of faculty repercussion. When I distributed the link to this blog, I felt that it was only proper and necessary to include as many students to which e-mail addresses were publicly available. However, I do point out that as a future physician you are going to encounter numerous situations when you will have to defend your actions and action that you feel are in the best interest of your patient. My point, make your stand and if you feel you are correct, defend your position.
Any and all students of SOM are welcome to respond to this blog and are free to do so under the premise of anonymity. Please, please, please abide by the rules of the blog. Your comments must be factual. You are welcome to post your opinions (I am), but make sure you can back-up your comments with facts.
Issue 3: As I have schoolwork to do, I am unable to do as thorough an investigation as you have, so pardon my methodological flaws.
Answer: Please, please, please concentrate on your school work. Let me and my legal colleagues take action on this matter. However, by all means, feel free to take a contrary position (if you feel we are wrong) and write your legislative representative (either State or Federal). A lot of young men (mostly men) gave their lives defending the principles and freedoms of this Country and one of those freedoms is Free Speech (1st Amendment).
Issue 4: A simple google search yields your name as primarily a hospital administrator. So, I can understand your desire for QA measures being put into place.
Answer: I am not the hospital administrator to which some have referred. I am just a citizen concerned about the healthcare and well-being of my fellow South Dakotans. This system (i.e., USD SOM) is corrupt and it needs to be changed.
I have listed my background and motives in earlier posts … so I will not bore the audience in repeating. I am certain that the fake Gerry will be chiming in (and yes, I will delete his comments).
Issue 5: The reason why I am disrupting my studies tonight to respond to your blog is to speak in favor of Ms. Settles, who was frowned upon in one of your entries.
Answer: You are certainly welcome to defend Ms. Settles. To clarify, I never “frowned upon” Ms. Settles as you imply. I simply pointed out that this individual, in my opinion, is not qualified to sit in a decision making position on an MD admissions committee, regardless of what courses she teaches.
We are in the process of compiling a list of multiple public medical schools and the qualifications of the admissions committee members. So far, we have not encountered a similar system as employed by USD. Once the list is fully compiled, we will make that list available to the general public. You can imagine most Universities are none-to-pleased about having to turn over this list, but under the Federal Freedom of Information Act, they have no choice. We are also working on obtaining the lists from all private institutions that receive Federal research or support dollars.
Issue 6. Ms. Settles is the coordinator of the Gross Anatomy class. While she "only" has an MS, she is a knowledgeable anatomist and an excellent instructor. (As the class was team taught, myself and others in the class found her to be the most comprehension-focused of the instructors--if people had concerns to understanding how to learn, she was able to take a different track to get us there.) Gross Anatomy in medicine programs is considered to be one of the big "weed-out" classes. If you cannot do well in Gross, your stay in the program will be short or extremely painful. As lead instructor and class coordinator, her input is vital to graduating educated physicians.
Answer: You might be very true in your assessment of Ms. Settles abilities as an anatomist. However, a major red flag goes up when an individual who did not go through the rigors of graduate or medical school or who in some cases has lesser academic credentials than some of the applicants sits in judgment of applicants. Our point is that she is just not qualified to sit on this committee.
Clearly, the USD faculty have limited her position on the faculty roster and have capped her tenure as an Instructor.
It would seem to me that an admissions committee member should have the essential qualifications as the applicants. I have opened this blog to the USD Admissions Committee members to post the dates that they completed the MCAT, their respective GPAs, etc for public scrutiny. These are essential positions determining the vital public health of the Citizens of South Dakota, and we should know who is making these decisions.
In earlier posts, I brought about the issues that none of the USD School of Medicine faculty have any formal training in Public Health (at least no one publishes an MPH or MS in Public Health, Epidemiology, etc) … does this not alarm you?
Issue 7: Another concern I have with your discussion on this topic is your focus on those who were excluded. Did you sit in on their interviews? Interviews are important, and while an interview may not show how they might interact with you in a personal or work environment, it may show how a person deals with stressful situations (necessary for the practice of medicine).
Answer: I’ll be brief on this answer … I could address multiple points but it would turn out to be a thesis.
I did not sit-in on the student’s personal interviews.
I am not certain I agree with you on the importance of an interview. In most cases, the interviewer has 30 minutes to 1 hour to Q/A the applicant. I am positive that most experts in the field of interrogation would agree with me that this is not ample time to find-out that someone is. In short, I am not a big fan of or believer in the personal interview.
Letters of recommendation are much more important evaluators of the fitness of an applicant. What bothers me is that a majority of applicants are just out of their undergraduate studies and most have a letter written by their Organic Chemistry professor or Biology professor. These individuals write dozens (sometime hundreds) of letters. Most of these letter go like this: “Suzy Q was in my course XXXX-101, she earned a grade of “A.” I was able to interact with Suzy Q during the semester. I think she will perform acceptably during her studies at your medical school. Suzy has a GPA or 0.00 and scored 10s on the MCAT.” I ask you, what good is a letter like this? Each of the individuals who contacted me about the practices of the USD SOM have stellar letters of recommendation and incredible work experiences post-undergraduate studies.
Based on your argument, if interviews are so capable of weeding-out applicants, why are there so many “arrogant” individuals in your current SOM class (at least according to your classmate Michael’s earlier post)?
What types of stressful situations were you exposed to in your personal interview that would lead your interviewers to believe that you would be able to handle a stressful medical procedure or situation? Would a PhD or a MS interviewer have those same insights as an MD interviewer?
Let me throw this one out to you. One applicant to the USD SOM is a decorated officer in the US Military. He served two involuntary tours in Iraq – Fallujah to be exact. He has command experience in a battlefield situation, yet he was rejected by Admissions Committee. Do you feel that you or any of your fellow students are more qualified than this individual? Did you put your life on the line to defend the principles of this Nation?
Maybe, your argument on the importance of the interview holds less water than you originally thought … but this is just my opinion.
Issue 8: I have sat through graduate school interviews that I thought I did very well in, to get a rejection letter saying I needed to work on my interview skills. I have personally conducted interviews for a Residency program in my life prior to entering a graduate program. Would some of those [MBBS] and MDs resent my only having had a bachelor's degree having a say in their admission to a residency program with hundreds of applicants and only 7 spots. Absolutely. However, does that mean that my ability to understand someone who had 4 weeks of class and 6 weeks of experience in a field I had 8 years of experience working in, having worked with practitioners of various backgrounds and education levels and seeing who succeeded and failed was not a valid perspective? I think not, and neither did the residency program who selected me as an interviewer.
Answer: As I have stated in previous posts, I am a huge fan and supporter of community members at large sitting on admissions committee’s. Membership on such a committee is a major responsibility and we must be humble on our opinions. I hope before you passed judgment on the applicant that you reflected on your own experiences and made a decision based on your heart and conscience.
Issue 9: As for the comment about the admissions program being comprised of people from the Vermillion and Sioux Falls areas, as the committee is made up of people who work at the SSOM, why wouldn't they live near to where they work?
Answer: I have no problem that members of the admissions committee are from the Sioux Falls/Vermillion areas. My central argument is that the admissions committee is ONLY composed from people living in these areas. A MAJORITY of South Dakotans (>80%) do not live in these areas. With this in mind, shouldn’t the admissions committee of the ONLY Medical School (that is charged with safeguarding SD medical education program) in South Dakota be comprised of member of the greater community? Shouldn’t the admission committee contain members from SDSU or Augustana? In fact, many of the faculty members at these two institutions have higher academic credentials than the faculty members of the USD SOM. Shouldn’t there be members from western South Dakota. Shouldn’t there be a member representing the 9% of the SD population that is associated with one of American Indian Tribes (a population that is 100% medically underserved)?
Our state legislators travel from throughout the state to the Capitol, why can’t we have other members travel to the USD for a few days of interviews. I guarantee you that a majority of individuals, if asked, would gladly serve on this important committee.
Issue 10: Mr. Gilbertson, while I understand the point you are trying to make, I disagree with your concerns.
Answer: You are welcome to disagree, but I caution you in disagreeing with these important concerns over the health and well-being of South Dakotans. We, as a nation (but more as a State) are in an ABSOLUTE health care crisis. South Dakota is a medically underserved State and we have serious public health issues (type II diabetes is just one of many examples). We need primary care physicians and we need a Medical School and an Admissions Committee that understands these important and fundamental issues.
Mr. Gilbertson,
Issue 1: I understand and respect your concerns regarding the admissions committee for the Sanford SOM. However, I disagree with your method and some of your critiques.
Answer: Busy Student, I respect your option to disagree and I will reply in a courteous manner. By no means do I intend for all readers to agree. Contrary to popular opinion, President Barack Obama won the US Presidency by a slim margin of ~ 7% of the popular vote. To this point, approximately 50% (slightly less) of the voting public did not support the election of President Obama, but we recognize he is the Commander-in-Chief. The same principles apply to my blog and the administrative action we are taking with the South Dakota Legislature. We are simply trying to implement social and administrative change in the actions of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine.
Issue 2: As a current student of an affiliated program, I feel the need to protect my name as a student and future health care professional. I would write a comment on the blog, unfortunately google IDs for my email address include my name.
Answer: I understand and I am not asking ANY student to take a chance of faculty repercussion. When I distributed the link to this blog, I felt that it was only proper and necessary to include as many students to which e-mail addresses were publicly available. However, I do point out that as a future physician you are going to encounter numerous situations when you will have to defend your actions and action that you feel are in the best interest of your patient. My point, make your stand and if you feel you are correct, defend your position.
Any and all students of SOM are welcome to respond to this blog and are free to do so under the premise of anonymity. Please, please, please abide by the rules of the blog. Your comments must be factual. You are welcome to post your opinions (I am), but make sure you can back-up your comments with facts.
Issue 3: As I have schoolwork to do, I am unable to do as thorough an investigation as you have, so pardon my methodological flaws.
Answer: Please, please, please concentrate on your school work. Let me and my legal colleagues take action on this matter. However, by all means, feel free to take a contrary position (if you feel we are wrong) and write your legislative representative (either State or Federal). A lot of young men (mostly men) gave their lives defending the principles and freedoms of this Country and one of those freedoms is Free Speech (1st Amendment).
Issue 4: A simple google search yields your name as primarily a hospital administrator. So, I can understand your desire for QA measures being put into place.
Answer: I am not the hospital administrator to which some have referred. I am just a citizen concerned about the healthcare and well-being of my fellow South Dakotans. This system (i.e., USD SOM) is corrupt and it needs to be changed.
I have listed my background and motives in earlier posts … so I will not bore the audience in repeating. I am certain that the fake Gerry will be chiming in (and yes, I will delete his comments).
Issue 5: The reason why I am disrupting my studies tonight to respond to your blog is to speak in favor of Ms. Settles, who was frowned upon in one of your entries.
Answer: You are certainly welcome to defend Ms. Settles. To clarify, I never “frowned upon” Ms. Settles as you imply. I simply pointed out that this individual, in my opinion, is not qualified to sit in a decision making position on an MD admissions committee, regardless of what courses she teaches.
We are in the process of compiling a list of multiple public medical schools and the qualifications of the admissions committee members. So far, we have not encountered a similar system as employed by USD. Once the list is fully compiled, we will make that list available to the general public. You can imagine most Universities are none-to-pleased about having to turn over this list, but under the Federal Freedom of Information Act, they have no choice. We are also working on obtaining the lists from all private institutions that receive Federal research or support dollars.
Issue 6. Ms. Settles is the coordinator of the Gross Anatomy class. While she "only" has an MS, she is a knowledgeable anatomist and an excellent instructor. (As the class was team taught, myself and others in the class found her to be the most comprehension-focused of the instructors--if people had concerns to understanding how to learn, she was able to take a different track to get us there.) Gross Anatomy in medicine programs is considered to be one of the big "weed-out" classes. If you cannot do well in Gross, your stay in the program will be short or extremely painful. As lead instructor and class coordinator, her input is vital to graduating educated physicians.
Answer: You might be very true in your assessment of Ms. Settles abilities as an anatomist. However, a major red flag goes up when an individual who did not go through the rigors of graduate or medical school or who in some cases has lesser academic credentials than some of the applicants sits in judgment of applicants. Our point is that she is just not qualified to sit on this committee.
Clearly, the USD faculty have limited her position on the faculty roster and have capped her tenure as an Instructor.
It would seem to me that an admissions committee member should have the essential qualifications as the applicants. I have opened this blog to the USD Admissions Committee members to post the dates that they completed the MCAT, their respective GPAs, etc for public scrutiny. These are essential positions determining the vital public health of the Citizens of South Dakota, and we should know who is making these decisions.
In earlier posts, I brought about the issues that none of the USD School of Medicine faculty have any formal training in Public Health (at least no one publishes an MPH or MS in Public Health, Epidemiology, etc) … does this not alarm you?
Issue 7: Another concern I have with your discussion on this topic is your focus on those who were excluded. Did you sit in on their interviews? Interviews are important, and while an interview may not show how they might interact with you in a personal or work environment, it may show how a person deals with stressful situations (necessary for the practice of medicine).
Answer: I’ll be brief on this answer … I could address multiple points but it would turn out to be a thesis.
I did not sit-in on the student’s personal interviews.
I am not certain I agree with you on the importance of an interview. In most cases, the interviewer has 30 minutes to 1 hour to Q/A the applicant. I am positive that most experts in the field of interrogation would agree with me that this is not ample time to find-out that someone is. In short, I am not a big fan of or believer in the personal interview.
Letters of recommendation are much more important evaluators of the fitness of an applicant. What bothers me is that a majority of applicants are just out of their undergraduate studies and most have a letter written by their Organic Chemistry professor or Biology professor. These individuals write dozens (sometime hundreds) of letters. Most of these letter go like this: “Suzy Q was in my course XXXX-101, she earned a grade of “A.” I was able to interact with Suzy Q during the semester. I think she will perform acceptably during her studies at your medical school. Suzy has a GPA or 0.00 and scored 10s on the MCAT.” I ask you, what good is a letter like this? Each of the individuals who contacted me about the practices of the USD SOM have stellar letters of recommendation and incredible work experiences post-undergraduate studies.
Based on your argument, if interviews are so capable of weeding-out applicants, why are there so many “arrogant” individuals in your current SOM class (at least according to your classmate Michael’s earlier post)?
What types of stressful situations were you exposed to in your personal interview that would lead your interviewers to believe that you would be able to handle a stressful medical procedure or situation? Would a PhD or a MS interviewer have those same insights as an MD interviewer?
Let me throw this one out to you. One applicant to the USD SOM is a decorated officer in the US Military. He served two involuntary tours in Iraq – Fallujah to be exact. He has command experience in a battlefield situation, yet he was rejected by Admissions Committee. Do you feel that you or any of your fellow students are more qualified than this individual? Did you put your life on the line to defend the principles of this Nation?
Maybe, your argument on the importance of the interview holds less water than you originally thought … but this is just my opinion.
Issue 8: I have sat through graduate school interviews that I thought I did very well in, to get a rejection letter saying I needed to work on my interview skills. I have personally conducted interviews for a Residency program in my life prior to entering a graduate program. Would some of those [MBBS] and MDs resent my only having had a bachelor's degree having a say in their admission to a residency program with hundreds of applicants and only 7 spots. Absolutely. However, does that mean that my ability to understand someone who had 4 weeks of class and 6 weeks of experience in a field I had 8 years of experience working in, having worked with practitioners of various backgrounds and education levels and seeing who succeeded and failed was not a valid perspective? I think not, and neither did the residency program who selected me as an interviewer.
Answer: As I have stated in previous posts, I am a huge fan and supporter of community members at large sitting on admissions committee’s. Membership on such a committee is a major responsibility and we must be humble on our opinions. I hope before you passed judgment on the applicant that you reflected on your own experiences and made a decision based on your heart and conscience.
Issue 9: As for the comment about the admissions program being comprised of people from the Vermillion and Sioux Falls areas, as the committee is made up of people who work at the SSOM, why wouldn't they live near to where they work?
Answer: I have no problem that members of the admissions committee are from the Sioux Falls/Vermillion areas. My central argument is that the admissions committee is ONLY composed from people living in these areas. A MAJORITY of South Dakotans (>80%) do not live in these areas. With this in mind, shouldn’t the admissions committee of the ONLY Medical School (that is charged with safeguarding SD medical education program) in South Dakota be comprised of member of the greater community? Shouldn’t the admission committee contain members from SDSU or Augustana? In fact, many of the faculty members at these two institutions have higher academic credentials than the faculty members of the USD SOM. Shouldn’t there be members from western South Dakota. Shouldn’t there be a member representing the 9% of the SD population that is associated with one of American Indian Tribes (a population that is 100% medically underserved)?
Our state legislators travel from throughout the state to the Capitol, why can’t we have other members travel to the USD for a few days of interviews. I guarantee you that a majority of individuals, if asked, would gladly serve on this important committee.
Issue 10: Mr. Gilbertson, while I understand the point you are trying to make, I disagree with your concerns.
Answer: You are welcome to disagree, but I caution you in disagreeing with these important concerns over the health and well-being of South Dakotans. We, as a nation (but more as a State) are in an ABSOLUTE health care crisis. South Dakota is a medically underserved State and we have serious public health issues (type II diabetes is just one of many examples). We need primary care physicians and we need a Medical School and an Admissions Committee that understands these important and fundamental issues.
To the USD Individual Posting Himself as "Me"
Howdy Followers,
The recent comments by the USD faulty member who is posing as me (Gerry Gilbertson) have been removed and will continue to be removed until this person uses his own identity. He comments that this blog is nothing more than lies, but he can't reveal his identity? He claims to have match statistic knowledge, but does not provide that information? He makes a lot of claims without being able to back them up.
As I posted at the outset of this blog, as moderator and owner of the blog, I reserved the right to remove unfounded comments. I am exercising that right!
Mr. Anonymous posted that he was unable to find me in some magical Harvard Alumni database. Well, let's be honest, there is no alumni database available to the general public. Just another example of Mr. Anonymous talking out of his rear orifice.
The intent of this blog is to discuss issues about the USD SOM Admissions Committee and their lack (at least in my opinion ... you are welcome to disagree) of qualifications to sit on this committee. We will be presenting this issue to the legislature and requesting that over-sight in employed. Of course, you are all welcome to take a pro/con position on our attempts. However, we will be victorious and we will safeguard the public health of South Dakota.
As a final point, Mr. USD Anonymous, thanks for logging in and commenting from work ... we have your USD IP Address!
The recent comments by the USD faulty member who is posing as me (Gerry Gilbertson) have been removed and will continue to be removed until this person uses his own identity. He comments that this blog is nothing more than lies, but he can't reveal his identity? He claims to have match statistic knowledge, but does not provide that information? He makes a lot of claims without being able to back them up.
As I posted at the outset of this blog, as moderator and owner of the blog, I reserved the right to remove unfounded comments. I am exercising that right!
Mr. Anonymous posted that he was unable to find me in some magical Harvard Alumni database. Well, let's be honest, there is no alumni database available to the general public. Just another example of Mr. Anonymous talking out of his rear orifice.
The intent of this blog is to discuss issues about the USD SOM Admissions Committee and their lack (at least in my opinion ... you are welcome to disagree) of qualifications to sit on this committee. We will be presenting this issue to the legislature and requesting that over-sight in employed. Of course, you are all welcome to take a pro/con position on our attempts. However, we will be victorious and we will safeguard the public health of South Dakota.
As a final point, Mr. USD Anonymous, thanks for logging in and commenting from work ... we have your USD IP Address!
Maybe the First Sensible USD Commentator
Michael,
You make great points and I will try to comment consistently and concisely. The point of this blog is to expose the faculty admissions committee of the USD SOM. I am not personally attacking anyone on this blog. My comments are made without passion or prejudice. The point of this blog is to draw the attention of the appropriate elected individuals to make change in the USD system.
My comments are centering on the PhDs of the admissions committee and the fact that the admissions committee does NOT represent the whole of South Dakota. I think you will agree with me that the population of SD does not just reside in Vermillion or Sioux Falls.
This is grass-roots at its best! :>)
Issue 1: Wow, sounds like this person didn't get accepted into medical school.
Answer: You make very good points concerning the people skills required of a good physician. I could not agree with you in a stronger or more supportive fashion.
I must continue to point out that I am not an applicant … just a humble journalist (as far as this blog is concerned).
Issue 2: As a medical school student currently, I was denied admission from a number of schools. All you focus on is the academics, the numbers. You pay no attention to the fact that maybe these people who were denied (to me it sounds like you are included) were deficient in many other areas such as volunteer work, shadowing, and most important, people skills. I have a number of students in my class who are very intelligent, but are completely oblivious to social situations. They more than likely got in based on grades, but in my opinion will not make excellent doctors.
Answer: This blog is focusing on the potential to make social change in the operations of the USD School of Medicine. You focus on the core of the charge. If the faculty making the decisions are not as qualified (or less qualified) than the individual applicants, then how are they capable of making admissions decisions. It has been the central argument of this blog that a majority of the current admissions committee is just not qualified. Of course, there can be differing opinions on this issue.
Each of the students who have come to me concerning these specific issues have excellent academic qualifications, excellent research experiences, excellent volunteering experiences, and wonderful people skills.
I agree with you that too many students gain admission to MD programs who just do not have the appropriate people skills, They are smart people by all means, but they need a little honing.
Issue 3: MD's, no matter what level, are qualified to select other MD's.
Answer: Maybe yes maybe no. I think there needs to be more transparency on this issue. Not all MDs are created equally.
Issue 4: There is a difference between someone who dreams of being a doctor and one who can be a doctor. If that doesn't make sense to you, you probably are the one dreaming.
Answer: Are you certain that I not a physician? Take caution in your answer and be able to back-it-up before you post it.
Issue 5: The credentials these individuals have show their dedication to their field and their knowledge of what it takes to achieve the distinction.
Answer: Dedication? If they are PhDs in the natural sciences, why do they not have significant and published research experiences? Where are their publications to prove their expertise. If I earned a PhD at the University of Phoenix, would this qualify me to teach within the USD SOM? How about a mail-order PhD, does this qualify me? Am I qualified to teach within the USD SOM if my only accomplishment is completing a MS or PhD or an MD but never practicing in my field?
Issue 6: CME (continuing medical education) is required of all medical personal.
Answer: CME is only required of practicing medical professionals.
Issue 7: There are things that I am learning now that will be obsolete in 20 years. Does that mean I am a worse physician that a new medical school graduate? NO! Experience matters in medicine and it is the difference between life and death.
Answer: You are absolutely correct. Experience is a very valuable tool. There are lessons that you will learn that will be proven wrong in twenty years … I am certain of this. When I was “learning” human medicine it was thought that cardiomyocytes were terminally differentiated and that upon damage (e.g., aMI) were not able to regenerate. Today, we know that cardiomyocyte regeneration and remodeling occurs post-MI.
Hmmmm, maybe I know something about medicine and biology!
Issue 8: If you didn't get accepted into medical school maybe it is YOUR experiences that are lacking and not THEIR credentials.
Answer: Be careful on your assumptions.
You make great points and I will try to comment consistently and concisely. The point of this blog is to expose the faculty admissions committee of the USD SOM. I am not personally attacking anyone on this blog. My comments are made without passion or prejudice. The point of this blog is to draw the attention of the appropriate elected individuals to make change in the USD system.
My comments are centering on the PhDs of the admissions committee and the fact that the admissions committee does NOT represent the whole of South Dakota. I think you will agree with me that the population of SD does not just reside in Vermillion or Sioux Falls.
This is grass-roots at its best! :>)
Issue 1: Wow, sounds like this person didn't get accepted into medical school.
Answer: You make very good points concerning the people skills required of a good physician. I could not agree with you in a stronger or more supportive fashion.
I must continue to point out that I am not an applicant … just a humble journalist (as far as this blog is concerned).
Issue 2: As a medical school student currently, I was denied admission from a number of schools. All you focus on is the academics, the numbers. You pay no attention to the fact that maybe these people who were denied (to me it sounds like you are included) were deficient in many other areas such as volunteer work, shadowing, and most important, people skills. I have a number of students in my class who are very intelligent, but are completely oblivious to social situations. They more than likely got in based on grades, but in my opinion will not make excellent doctors.
Answer: This blog is focusing on the potential to make social change in the operations of the USD School of Medicine. You focus on the core of the charge. If the faculty making the decisions are not as qualified (or less qualified) than the individual applicants, then how are they capable of making admissions decisions. It has been the central argument of this blog that a majority of the current admissions committee is just not qualified. Of course, there can be differing opinions on this issue.
Each of the students who have come to me concerning these specific issues have excellent academic qualifications, excellent research experiences, excellent volunteering experiences, and wonderful people skills.
I agree with you that too many students gain admission to MD programs who just do not have the appropriate people skills, They are smart people by all means, but they need a little honing.
Issue 3: MD's, no matter what level, are qualified to select other MD's.
Answer: Maybe yes maybe no. I think there needs to be more transparency on this issue. Not all MDs are created equally.
Issue 4: There is a difference between someone who dreams of being a doctor and one who can be a doctor. If that doesn't make sense to you, you probably are the one dreaming.
Answer: Are you certain that I not a physician? Take caution in your answer and be able to back-it-up before you post it.
Issue 5: The credentials these individuals have show their dedication to their field and their knowledge of what it takes to achieve the distinction.
Answer: Dedication? If they are PhDs in the natural sciences, why do they not have significant and published research experiences? Where are their publications to prove their expertise. If I earned a PhD at the University of Phoenix, would this qualify me to teach within the USD SOM? How about a mail-order PhD, does this qualify me? Am I qualified to teach within the USD SOM if my only accomplishment is completing a MS or PhD or an MD but never practicing in my field?
Issue 6: CME (continuing medical education) is required of all medical personal.
Answer: CME is only required of practicing medical professionals.
Issue 7: There are things that I am learning now that will be obsolete in 20 years. Does that mean I am a worse physician that a new medical school graduate? NO! Experience matters in medicine and it is the difference between life and death.
Answer: You are absolutely correct. Experience is a very valuable tool. There are lessons that you will learn that will be proven wrong in twenty years … I am certain of this. When I was “learning” human medicine it was thought that cardiomyocytes were terminally differentiated and that upon damage (e.g., aMI) were not able to regenerate. Today, we know that cardiomyocyte regeneration and remodeling occurs post-MI.
Hmmmm, maybe I know something about medicine and biology!
Issue 8: If you didn't get accepted into medical school maybe it is YOUR experiences that are lacking and not THEIR credentials.
Answer: Be careful on your assumptions.
Some are more Comfortable in the World of Opinion Instead of Fact
This blog is purely meant to be an avenue of exposure to the unqualified admissions practices and unqualified admissions committee members that composed the University of South Dakota School of Medicine. It would seem that some individuals are taking this blog as a personal attack. No such personal attacks have occurred. The members of the admissions committee that have been brought to light in this blog are public servants, thus by the nature of their positions they are subject to public criticism.
Issue 1: Calling me a coward is not very professional of you. Again I think this proves a couple of my points. First off, that having "my name and e-mail address [which] are complete, published, and available through the website," does not make me any less anonymous. In fact, having you say nothing about yourself is quite frustrating. I guess the old adage is true 'what comes around goes around.'
Answer: I am not going to continue this debate with you. Again, my credentials (academic or otherwise) are of no consequence to this debate. It is not a me vs USD issue. This blog centers around exposing the frauds of the USD admissions committee and their incompetence and unsuitability of sitting on this admissions panel.
You are welcome to contact me at gerry.gilbertson@yahoo.com
Issue 2: Who makes personal attacks on anonymous posters if he/she is calm, collected, and reasonable as you so claim?
Answer: This blog has been calm and civil from its start. At no point did I make a personal attack against you. I have only requested that you substantiate your claims.
About Issue 1: You still hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Your motives are still in question, and you haven't done anything to change that.
Answer: I have thoroughly explained my motives. When you read the NY Times or any other newspaper do you question all the motives of the authors? Maybe, you should read the article, think about the content, agree or disagree with the authors points-of-view or conclusions.
About Issue 2: This issue really "has nothing to do with rejection letters?" I'm not sure if I buy what you are trying to sell Mr. Gilbertson. Why bring up this issue now? What sparked it? I just ask so we can clarify your motivation.
Answer: I only responded to your point(s). In an early comment you claimed that I was an applicant or that maybe I had a son or daughter who was rejected. You claimed to have knowledge about March rejection letters. You seem to claim that you have inside knowledge that only a member of the USD School of Medicine Admissions Committee would know. I brought that issue forward, suggesting that you might be a member of the Admissions Committee … you have denied this association.
About Issue 2: You now claim to be a journalist. That's funny Mr. Gilbertson. After a short google search I have not been able to find any of your writings. I am going to put that claim into the lie category until proven otherwise.
Answer: As always, you are welcome to assume anything you so choose. The blog is only meant to be informational. Additional Legislative action is moving forward. Legal suits on behalf of those supporting this blog will probably be following shortly.
I think it is interesting that you claim that my credentials are fabricated and yet you are hiding your identity and using my name as your identity. Interesting!
About Issue 3: Yes, we've heard about the 'supporters' before. Still no concrete evidence, just a claim. Also, I think you are just taking the words of the president to fit your unique scenario about being upset by the admissions committee. If you were truly worried about state accountability, you would not have narrowed in on the medical school admissions committee. Now Mr. Gilbertson, please be honest, would you be so kind as to tell us the REAL reason you are upset? I would bet not.
Answer: Like many Americans, I have supported Government transparency. When you have a non-accountable system that hides behind doors, there is nothing left but assumption of corruption. It is time we, as Americans, start exposing all individuals who participate in these actions. The USD is a PUBLIC institution, responsible to the Citizens of South Dakota. This is not YOU LITTLE PRIVATE UNIVERSITY. We have the right and responsibility to constantly provide oversight of all governmental and public agencies.
About Issue 4: Really Mr. Gilbertson, an 'investigative journalist' who has no articles cited online? What other claims are you going to make before you collapse under a pile of lies?
Answer: I think you claimed that PubMed was not all inclusive of biomedical research publications and you discounted publications as a source for credentialing. You provide an exception for the admissions committee, but then you hold me to a different standard. Next thing we know, you will be spouting that black Americans should have separate eating facilities or positions on public transportation.
About Issue 5: So, in short you're saying you have no background in medical school policies, the medical world, or biology. Sounds like you are not qualified to give an opinion on the matter. You mention an academic experience at a top-five biomedical research institute (no name given), then dodge whether it was in science or journalism.
Answer: Never made any of “these” claims. I have a very broad background in the biomedical sciences and I have both studied and been trained at three of the top ranked educational institutions in the USA. Harvard is one of them. In terms of medical school policies, I have been involved in reformation of programs from New York to California. I have fought for admissions causes for American Indian applicants and other minority applicants. One of my backgrounds is medical reporting. Some very talented and highly trained MDs have been excellent journalist and science writers: Michael Crichton ring a bell?
There is no dodging of questions. I have answered all points addresses. The only dodging on issues and comments are from people like you who hide their identity.
As I said, a Live Radio broadcast will be held next week. You are welcome to call in.
About Issue 6: Back to the emotionally charged issue. Calling people a coward, yet hiding in anonymity your self? "Lighting a fire" on the issue at 3 AM? These acts point towards emotion Mr. Gilbertson not reasonable. As a seasoned investigative journalist, one would think that you would be able to notice that in your writing.
Answer: I have not been emotional in this blog … sorry if you have interpreted the blog postings as emotional. As for responding at 3:00AM, sorry I was fast asleep. Maybe, the host server is abroad? Maybe, I am currently out of the country.
About Issue 6: Also, I am flattered that you think I am one of the highly qualified individuals on the admissions board.
Answer: Okay, if you are not a member of the faculty why are you so passionately charged on this issue. The blog is simply a blog. We are attempting to make social and political change. I think in a short time-frame you will find-out how powerful grass-roots movements like this can be when well orchestrated.
If you are not a member of the faculty, then all the issues and statements of [facts] that you supposedly claim about residencies, qualifications, etc are bunk. Clearly, if this is the case (that you are not a faculty member) then you have no qualifications to comment-on.
About Issue 7: You obviously do not know how the Sanford SOM works. Again showing that you probably do not have the knowledge to be 'lighting a fire' on this issue.
Answer: Well, since you are not a faulty member then I too assume that you know nothing about USD SOM. However, I think my knowledge of the administration and its internal workings and policies is quite solid.
About Issue 8: No Mr. Gilbertson there is no critical flaw in my argument. The argument was that the students graduating from the Sanford SOM are very competitive at a national level as shown by their match statistics. I said nothing about the amount of students going into primary care, or coming back to South Dakota after residency. Those stats are available if you choose to find them. Once you do find them, you'll clearly see that they support the fact that the administrators are doing a wonderful job upholding the mission of the school. I find it rather odd that an 'investigative journalist' did not do his homework before writing all of this.
Answer: Please, direct me to these references. I am in the progress of contacting the institutions you previously mentioned. When the data comes back, I will post it.
I think my homework thus far has been dead-spot-on. Clearly, my writings have irritated you.
About Issue 9: I did not quote a statistic, and that is why you are unaware of it. Mr. Gilbertson, please don't take my comments out of context. I was stating that the competitiveness of the school, as shown by match statistics has excelled at a national level. As an investigative journalist, how come you have not found the over arching problem with the US News and World Report ratings? Seems as though you only use the statistics that support your argument while leaving others out. If you are truly about enlightening the South Dakota public, maybe you might want to start by putting in all of the facts. That shouldn't be difficult for a journalist.
Answer: “We are all entitled to our individuals opinions, but not to our individuals facts.”
About Issue 10: Again, I am only as anonymous as you. No credentials, no articles, no biography? This should leave South Dakotans suspect of your motives.
Answer: My name and e-mail address is clearly posted. Anyone can contact me. Please feel free to e-mail me your academic credentials and I will gladly assemble the course work against mine and publish. The only caveat I state: when my academic credentials and experiences out-weigh your credentials and experiences, you are required to resign from your faculty position. There is your ultimate challenge.
Issue 1: Calling me a coward is not very professional of you. Again I think this proves a couple of my points. First off, that having "my name and e-mail address [which] are complete, published, and available through the website," does not make me any less anonymous. In fact, having you say nothing about yourself is quite frustrating. I guess the old adage is true 'what comes around goes around.'
Answer: I am not going to continue this debate with you. Again, my credentials (academic or otherwise) are of no consequence to this debate. It is not a me vs USD issue. This blog centers around exposing the frauds of the USD admissions committee and their incompetence and unsuitability of sitting on this admissions panel.
You are welcome to contact me at gerry.gilbertson@yahoo.com
Issue 2: Who makes personal attacks on anonymous posters if he/she is calm, collected, and reasonable as you so claim?
Answer: This blog has been calm and civil from its start. At no point did I make a personal attack against you. I have only requested that you substantiate your claims.
About Issue 1: You still hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Your motives are still in question, and you haven't done anything to change that.
Answer: I have thoroughly explained my motives. When you read the NY Times or any other newspaper do you question all the motives of the authors? Maybe, you should read the article, think about the content, agree or disagree with the authors points-of-view or conclusions.
About Issue 2: This issue really "has nothing to do with rejection letters?" I'm not sure if I buy what you are trying to sell Mr. Gilbertson. Why bring up this issue now? What sparked it? I just ask so we can clarify your motivation.
Answer: I only responded to your point(s). In an early comment you claimed that I was an applicant or that maybe I had a son or daughter who was rejected. You claimed to have knowledge about March rejection letters. You seem to claim that you have inside knowledge that only a member of the USD School of Medicine Admissions Committee would know. I brought that issue forward, suggesting that you might be a member of the Admissions Committee … you have denied this association.
About Issue 2: You now claim to be a journalist. That's funny Mr. Gilbertson. After a short google search I have not been able to find any of your writings. I am going to put that claim into the lie category until proven otherwise.
Answer: As always, you are welcome to assume anything you so choose. The blog is only meant to be informational. Additional Legislative action is moving forward. Legal suits on behalf of those supporting this blog will probably be following shortly.
I think it is interesting that you claim that my credentials are fabricated and yet you are hiding your identity and using my name as your identity. Interesting!
About Issue 3: Yes, we've heard about the 'supporters' before. Still no concrete evidence, just a claim. Also, I think you are just taking the words of the president to fit your unique scenario about being upset by the admissions committee. If you were truly worried about state accountability, you would not have narrowed in on the medical school admissions committee. Now Mr. Gilbertson, please be honest, would you be so kind as to tell us the REAL reason you are upset? I would bet not.
Answer: Like many Americans, I have supported Government transparency. When you have a non-accountable system that hides behind doors, there is nothing left but assumption of corruption. It is time we, as Americans, start exposing all individuals who participate in these actions. The USD is a PUBLIC institution, responsible to the Citizens of South Dakota. This is not YOU LITTLE PRIVATE UNIVERSITY. We have the right and responsibility to constantly provide oversight of all governmental and public agencies.
About Issue 4: Really Mr. Gilbertson, an 'investigative journalist' who has no articles cited online? What other claims are you going to make before you collapse under a pile of lies?
Answer: I think you claimed that PubMed was not all inclusive of biomedical research publications and you discounted publications as a source for credentialing. You provide an exception for the admissions committee, but then you hold me to a different standard. Next thing we know, you will be spouting that black Americans should have separate eating facilities or positions on public transportation.
About Issue 5: So, in short you're saying you have no background in medical school policies, the medical world, or biology. Sounds like you are not qualified to give an opinion on the matter. You mention an academic experience at a top-five biomedical research institute (no name given), then dodge whether it was in science or journalism.
Answer: Never made any of “these” claims. I have a very broad background in the biomedical sciences and I have both studied and been trained at three of the top ranked educational institutions in the USA. Harvard is one of them. In terms of medical school policies, I have been involved in reformation of programs from New York to California. I have fought for admissions causes for American Indian applicants and other minority applicants. One of my backgrounds is medical reporting. Some very talented and highly trained MDs have been excellent journalist and science writers: Michael Crichton ring a bell?
There is no dodging of questions. I have answered all points addresses. The only dodging on issues and comments are from people like you who hide their identity.
As I said, a Live Radio broadcast will be held next week. You are welcome to call in.
About Issue 6: Back to the emotionally charged issue. Calling people a coward, yet hiding in anonymity your self? "Lighting a fire" on the issue at 3 AM? These acts point towards emotion Mr. Gilbertson not reasonable. As a seasoned investigative journalist, one would think that you would be able to notice that in your writing.
Answer: I have not been emotional in this blog … sorry if you have interpreted the blog postings as emotional. As for responding at 3:00AM, sorry I was fast asleep. Maybe, the host server is abroad? Maybe, I am currently out of the country.
About Issue 6: Also, I am flattered that you think I am one of the highly qualified individuals on the admissions board.
Answer: Okay, if you are not a member of the faculty why are you so passionately charged on this issue. The blog is simply a blog. We are attempting to make social and political change. I think in a short time-frame you will find-out how powerful grass-roots movements like this can be when well orchestrated.
If you are not a member of the faculty, then all the issues and statements of [facts] that you supposedly claim about residencies, qualifications, etc are bunk. Clearly, if this is the case (that you are not a faculty member) then you have no qualifications to comment-on.
About Issue 7: You obviously do not know how the Sanford SOM works. Again showing that you probably do not have the knowledge to be 'lighting a fire' on this issue.
Answer: Well, since you are not a faulty member then I too assume that you know nothing about USD SOM. However, I think my knowledge of the administration and its internal workings and policies is quite solid.
About Issue 8: No Mr. Gilbertson there is no critical flaw in my argument. The argument was that the students graduating from the Sanford SOM are very competitive at a national level as shown by their match statistics. I said nothing about the amount of students going into primary care, or coming back to South Dakota after residency. Those stats are available if you choose to find them. Once you do find them, you'll clearly see that they support the fact that the administrators are doing a wonderful job upholding the mission of the school. I find it rather odd that an 'investigative journalist' did not do his homework before writing all of this.
Answer: Please, direct me to these references. I am in the progress of contacting the institutions you previously mentioned. When the data comes back, I will post it.
I think my homework thus far has been dead-spot-on. Clearly, my writings have irritated you.
About Issue 9: I did not quote a statistic, and that is why you are unaware of it. Mr. Gilbertson, please don't take my comments out of context. I was stating that the competitiveness of the school, as shown by match statistics has excelled at a national level. As an investigative journalist, how come you have not found the over arching problem with the US News and World Report ratings? Seems as though you only use the statistics that support your argument while leaving others out. If you are truly about enlightening the South Dakota public, maybe you might want to start by putting in all of the facts. That shouldn't be difficult for a journalist.
Answer: “We are all entitled to our individuals opinions, but not to our individuals facts.”
About Issue 10: Again, I am only as anonymous as you. No credentials, no articles, no biography? This should leave South Dakotans suspect of your motives.
Answer: My name and e-mail address is clearly posted. Anyone can contact me. Please feel free to e-mail me your academic credentials and I will gladly assemble the course work against mine and publish. The only caveat I state: when my academic credentials and experiences out-weigh your credentials and experiences, you are required to resign from your faculty position. There is your ultimate challenge.
We are going LIVE!
Hello All,
Next week this blog will be going live as a radio broadcast. Once the 800 number is set-up I will post. Everyone is welcome to call in during or after the show. We will try our best to answer everyone's questions, comments, points-of-view. As a warning, anyone who become out-of-control or does not back-up their statements with citable facts will be cut-off.
Faculty are, of course, welcome to present their views. I will provide priority screening for the first two broadcasts to any USD School of Medicine Admissions Committee members.
Next week this blog will be going live as a radio broadcast. Once the 800 number is set-up I will post. Everyone is welcome to call in during or after the show. We will try our best to answer everyone's questions, comments, points-of-view. As a warning, anyone who become out-of-control or does not back-up their statements with citable facts will be cut-off.
Faculty are, of course, welcome to present their views. I will provide priority screening for the first two broadcasts to any USD School of Medicine Admissions Committee members.
Clarification to a Faculty Member Who Wishes To Use Others IDs
Issue 1: “Well Mr. Gilbertson, it sure is easy to hide behind the cloak of anonymity yourself. It's funny that you criticize everyone for having a lack of credentials or being emotional.”
Answer: I am not hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. My name and e-mail address are complete published and available through the webite. I do not hide my responses and I do not curb my intent.
Issue 2: “You have to admit Mr. Gilbertson the timing of your blog is a little suspect. It is the end of March. The time when rejection letters go out, and now all of the sudden you are upset about the qualifications of the admissions committee?”
Answer: This blog has nothing to do with rejection letters. As I have stated I am not an applicant, just a citizen watchdog. A number of extremely well-qualified individuals and applicants that were rejected from the USD School of Medicine came to me and I reviewed their credentials. Comparing “their” credentials with the available information of the “admitted” students it seems that there is something suspect about the process. As a journalist, I began to investigate this issue. In the course of my investigation a lot of interesting data points became apparent. The lack of qualifications of this committee and the faculty of USD School of Medicne glowed like a beacon for lost ships. These issues need to be brought to the attention of the Citizen of South Dakota. The USD is OWNED by the Citizens of South Dakota and its programs should reflect the greater interest of SD.
Issue 3: “You seem to be the only person upset by this issue - although you've stated many are but have only posted comments about those who disagree. Why are you bringing this up now?”
Answer: A compendium of supporters will be available shortly. We have to be careful not to violate the 1974 Federal Data Privacy Act of all students. Also, there is a pending lawsuit coming at the State of South Dakota and the Regents of the University of South Dakota.
As to you question … “why now”. It is time that the citizens take back our country. We have a President that preaches governmental transparency. Without transparency there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY and there is a greater chance of corruption. The members of the USD School of Medicine need to be held responsible for their decisions. If they are qualified to make “these” decisions, then they should have no fears of retaliation for their decisions.
Issue 4: Mr. Gilbertson, you make all of these great claims and yet you yourself never substantiate your claims with your credentials or pubmed publications (the supposed hallmark of a good educator). Why is that?
Answer: An investigative journalist does just that, investigates. We find facts and we report them. We are on a mission to bring to light issues that the public might find of interest. In the course of our reporting and investigation we hope to make positive change and that our audience is enlightened by our studies.
The facts are still undisputed. The majority of the USD School of Medicine Admissions Committee faculty are just not qualified to make the decisions they are charged with. A majority of these individuals has never studied medicine. A majority of the PhD committee members earned their diplomas in non-medical school departments. A majority of the admissions committee members do not have a publication track record to indicate their suitability to sit in judgment of applicants.
Issue 5; What background do you possess that will allow us to look past the time coincidence into the real meat of what you are really saying? What is your degree? What is your biology/medical background? Where are your pubmed publication cited? It seems as though you demand these things from your critics, yet do not state any of your CV yourself.
Answer: As a journalist I am simply pointing out the obvious facts of the case. You want to turn this into a me versus them argument. A good prosecutor does not take a case personally, we just defend the law’s.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, anyone is welcome to post their academic credentials. If you would prefer, you can e-mail them to me with a standard student data confidentiality release authorization. Take the challenge and I will gladly post my academic achievements. In the end, I will certainly humble most (if not all).
As for me, personally, one my academic experiences include a top-five biomedical research institute (where I graduated Summa Cum Laude).
Issue 6: As for not being emotionally charged. This blog drips emotion. What kind of answer is "Right back at you!"? How does this portray a reasonable and logical argument? To many readers including myself, this blog just seems like a large batch of sour grapes. Obviously this is just a subjective statement based on opinion. But again, your motives and timing do seem rather suspect.
Answer: These are just responses and there is no anger or personal emotion wrapped up in the responses. I am just pointing out the facts and in many cases clarifying unfounded (and in many cases) and absolutely incorrect statements.
My posts have been nothing short of lucid arguments. Obviously, I have lit a fire on this issue. Clearly, you are a member of the admissions committee or a faculty member at USD and you are taking this blog as a personal attack either upon yourself or your colleagues. Instead of defending the action and blindly looking onto your own reflection, take a moment and analyze the situation. Look at the credentials of the individuals I have pointed out, and question the obvious. In the end, once you remove your emotion and “loyalty,” I think you will come to the same conclusions as the originators of this blog. We are not just one person writing this blog.
Issue 7: Lastly, I have a short argument for you. If the admissions committee is so under-qualified to select students to finish medical school (according to your hallmark standard of pubmed publications) why is it that a majority of medical students graduate?
Answer: Regardless of the medical school, most students do graduate. Medical schools invest so much time and money into each admitted student that they cannot afford to have students drop-out of the program. In many cases (most), students who fail a course are allowed to re-take the course. The institution will provide tutors and extra measures for students not making the grade. Most medical schools do not provide an A-F grading schema, but administer a High Pass, Pass, No Pass system.
Issue 8: Moreover, why did so many MS4's these last few years match into competitive specialties at top universities across the US? Places like Mayo, U of Texas, Dartmouth, and Michigan State, in specialties like ANES, DERM, NeuoSurg, ENT, and Radi
Answer: Please qualify your sources. In fact, you make a critical flaw in your argument and you have mis-understood the mission of the USD Schoolof Medicine … to educate primary care physicians that will predominantly serve the citizen of South Dakota. Recently, I was provided a copy (which I will post shortly) of the USD School of Medicine’s Secondary Application and there are a number of specific questions on this application inquiring about a students motives to serve as a primary care/rural medicine physician. Your argument, if true, that some many USD student further specialize in the areas of medicine that you quote, just further points to the admissions committee and the University’s failure to follow the South Dakota Legislatures guidelines on the specific mission of the school.
Of course, I will investigate your claims at each institution that you name and will report back how many USD MDs achieved residencies at each institution.
To understand what is comprised of a primary care physician see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_care_physician
Issue 9: It would seem to me if the admissions committee is not qualified to pick students, than the competitiveness of the school at a national level would suffer. Yet it has excelled. Why is that?
Answer: I am unaware of this statistic that you have quoted … please provide a national ranking of the USD School of Medicine … and in what areas of medical practice it has achieved this recognition. According to US News and World Report (2008), the USD School of Medicine overall ranks #105 out of 123 surveyed medical schools.
Issue 10: Good day Mr. Gilbertson, I hope this blog helps you sleep at night.
Answer: please use your own name and ID from now on. By the way, I sleep great at night! :>)
Answer: I am not hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. My name and e-mail address are complete published and available through the webite. I do not hide my responses and I do not curb my intent.
Issue 2: “You have to admit Mr. Gilbertson the timing of your blog is a little suspect. It is the end of March. The time when rejection letters go out, and now all of the sudden you are upset about the qualifications of the admissions committee?”
Answer: This blog has nothing to do with rejection letters. As I have stated I am not an applicant, just a citizen watchdog. A number of extremely well-qualified individuals and applicants that were rejected from the USD School of Medicine came to me and I reviewed their credentials. Comparing “their” credentials with the available information of the “admitted” students it seems that there is something suspect about the process. As a journalist, I began to investigate this issue. In the course of my investigation a lot of interesting data points became apparent. The lack of qualifications of this committee and the faculty of USD School of Medicne glowed like a beacon for lost ships. These issues need to be brought to the attention of the Citizen of South Dakota. The USD is OWNED by the Citizens of South Dakota and its programs should reflect the greater interest of SD.
Issue 3: “You seem to be the only person upset by this issue - although you've stated many are but have only posted comments about those who disagree. Why are you bringing this up now?”
Answer: A compendium of supporters will be available shortly. We have to be careful not to violate the 1974 Federal Data Privacy Act of all students. Also, there is a pending lawsuit coming at the State of South Dakota and the Regents of the University of South Dakota.
As to you question … “why now”. It is time that the citizens take back our country. We have a President that preaches governmental transparency. Without transparency there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY and there is a greater chance of corruption. The members of the USD School of Medicine need to be held responsible for their decisions. If they are qualified to make “these” decisions, then they should have no fears of retaliation for their decisions.
Issue 4: Mr. Gilbertson, you make all of these great claims and yet you yourself never substantiate your claims with your credentials or pubmed publications (the supposed hallmark of a good educator). Why is that?
Answer: An investigative journalist does just that, investigates. We find facts and we report them. We are on a mission to bring to light issues that the public might find of interest. In the course of our reporting and investigation we hope to make positive change and that our audience is enlightened by our studies.
The facts are still undisputed. The majority of the USD School of Medicine Admissions Committee faculty are just not qualified to make the decisions they are charged with. A majority of these individuals has never studied medicine. A majority of the PhD committee members earned their diplomas in non-medical school departments. A majority of the admissions committee members do not have a publication track record to indicate their suitability to sit in judgment of applicants.
Issue 5; What background do you possess that will allow us to look past the time coincidence into the real meat of what you are really saying? What is your degree? What is your biology/medical background? Where are your pubmed publication cited? It seems as though you demand these things from your critics, yet do not state any of your CV yourself.
Answer: As a journalist I am simply pointing out the obvious facts of the case. You want to turn this into a me versus them argument. A good prosecutor does not take a case personally, we just defend the law’s.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, anyone is welcome to post their academic credentials. If you would prefer, you can e-mail them to me with a standard student data confidentiality release authorization. Take the challenge and I will gladly post my academic achievements. In the end, I will certainly humble most (if not all).
As for me, personally, one my academic experiences include a top-five biomedical research institute (where I graduated Summa Cum Laude).
Issue 6: As for not being emotionally charged. This blog drips emotion. What kind of answer is "Right back at you!"? How does this portray a reasonable and logical argument? To many readers including myself, this blog just seems like a large batch of sour grapes. Obviously this is just a subjective statement based on opinion. But again, your motives and timing do seem rather suspect.
Answer: These are just responses and there is no anger or personal emotion wrapped up in the responses. I am just pointing out the facts and in many cases clarifying unfounded (and in many cases) and absolutely incorrect statements.
My posts have been nothing short of lucid arguments. Obviously, I have lit a fire on this issue. Clearly, you are a member of the admissions committee or a faculty member at USD and you are taking this blog as a personal attack either upon yourself or your colleagues. Instead of defending the action and blindly looking onto your own reflection, take a moment and analyze the situation. Look at the credentials of the individuals I have pointed out, and question the obvious. In the end, once you remove your emotion and “loyalty,” I think you will come to the same conclusions as the originators of this blog. We are not just one person writing this blog.
Issue 7: Lastly, I have a short argument for you. If the admissions committee is so under-qualified to select students to finish medical school (according to your hallmark standard of pubmed publications) why is it that a majority of medical students graduate?
Answer: Regardless of the medical school, most students do graduate. Medical schools invest so much time and money into each admitted student that they cannot afford to have students drop-out of the program. In many cases (most), students who fail a course are allowed to re-take the course. The institution will provide tutors and extra measures for students not making the grade. Most medical schools do not provide an A-F grading schema, but administer a High Pass, Pass, No Pass system.
Issue 8: Moreover, why did so many MS4's these last few years match into competitive specialties at top universities across the US? Places like Mayo, U of Texas, Dartmouth, and Michigan State, in specialties like ANES, DERM, NeuoSurg, ENT, and Radi
Answer: Please qualify your sources. In fact, you make a critical flaw in your argument and you have mis-understood the mission of the USD Schoolof Medicine … to educate primary care physicians that will predominantly serve the citizen of South Dakota. Recently, I was provided a copy (which I will post shortly) of the USD School of Medicine’s Secondary Application and there are a number of specific questions on this application inquiring about a students motives to serve as a primary care/rural medicine physician. Your argument, if true, that some many USD student further specialize in the areas of medicine that you quote, just further points to the admissions committee and the University’s failure to follow the South Dakota Legislatures guidelines on the specific mission of the school.
Of course, I will investigate your claims at each institution that you name and will report back how many USD MDs achieved residencies at each institution.
To understand what is comprised of a primary care physician see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_care_physician
Issue 9: It would seem to me if the admissions committee is not qualified to pick students, than the competitiveness of the school at a national level would suffer. Yet it has excelled. Why is that?
Answer: I am unaware of this statistic that you have quoted … please provide a national ranking of the USD School of Medicine … and in what areas of medical practice it has achieved this recognition. According to US News and World Report (2008), the USD School of Medicine overall ranks #105 out of 123 surveyed medical schools.
Issue 10: Good day Mr. Gilbertson, I hope this blog helps you sleep at night.
Answer: please use your own name and ID from now on. By the way, I sleep great at night! :>)
Use Your Own ID Please
There are a number of cowards posting to this website. One individual has the audacity to simply make-up a new user ID and claim it as Gerry Gilbertson5. Please, use your own name and ID.
The comment on Paul Bunger as the Dean is correct, as too is Gerry Gilbertson5's comments on the other dean. My comments were directed at Paul Bunger and the Admissions Committee.
The comment on Paul Bunger as the Dean is correct, as too is Gerry Gilbertson5's comments on the other dean. My comments were directed at Paul Bunger and the Admissions Committee.
Academic Qualification of a Medical School Dean
One commentor made a brazen statement concerning the presumed "limited" time availability of medical school dean to perform academic research or clinical duties (etc) with all compounding issues surrounding a deans responsibilities. This particular commentor framed his point that it was nearly impossible for Paul Bunger to participate in academic, hypothesis driven research due to his dean's schedule. Of course, I countered that statement and I offer the following biographies to qualify my statements. Of course USD is NOT: Harvard, Stanford, or Johns Hopkins. But, would-it-not stand to reason that if dean's of these respective institutions can carry out their duties as a dean and still maintain highly successful academic (and clinical) research careers that the dean of USD and the faculty of the USD School of Medicine should be able to perform at some similar level?
Philip Pizzo, MD -- Dean, Stanford University School of Medicine
source: http://med.stanford.edu/leadership/dean/dean_bio.html
Philip A. Pizzo, MD, became dean of the Stanford School of Medicine in April 2001. Before joining Stanford, he was the physician-in-chief of Children’s Hospital in Boston and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Pizzo is recognized for his contributions as a clinical investigator, especially in the treatment of children with cancer and HIV.
Pizzo received his undergraduate degree from Fordham University and an MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, a teaching fellowship at Harvard Medical School, and a clinical and research fellowship in pediatric oncology at the National Cancer Institute. Pizzo served as head of the institute’s infectious disease section, chief of the NCI’s pediatric department, and acting scientific director for NCI’s Division of Clinical Sciences.
Pizzo devoted much of his distinguished medical career to the diagnosis, management, prevention and treatment of childhood cancers and the infectious complications that occur in children whose immune systems are compromised by cancer and AIDS. Pizzo and his research team pioneered the development of new treatments for children with HIV infection, lengthening and improving the quality of life for children with this disease. His research soon led to important clues about how to treat HIV-positive children and adults, and how to manage life-threatening infections. In 1988 Pizzo published the first article in the New England Journal of Medicine on antiviral therapy of HIV in children. He is also the author of more than 500 scientific articles and 14 books.
Pizzo has received several awards from the U.S. Public Health Service, including the Outstanding Service Medal in 1995. He has been cited in Best Doctors of America since 1995, and in 1990 was declared “Washingtonian of the Year” by Washingtonian Magazine for helping to found the Children’s Inn, a temporary home for children undergoing treatment at the National Institutes of Health and their families. He is a member of a number of prestigious organizations and in 1997 was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Edward D. Miller, MD -- Dean, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
source: http://webapps.jhu.edu/jhuniverse/information_about_hopkins/about_jhu/principal_administrative_officers_and_deans/edward_d_miller/index.cfm
Edward Miller was named chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine, the 13th dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and vice president for medicine of The Johns Hopkins University in January 1997. His appointment followed a yearlong national search for the first CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, an organization that formally integrates operations and planning of the School of Medicine with The Johns Hopkins Health System and Hospital to ensure their continued preeminence in education, discovery and patient care.
Under his aegis, both The Johns Hopkins Hospital and the School of Medicine consistently are ranked among the very best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, and the school continues to rank at the top in NIH research funding. Johns Hopkins Medicine's expansion in the past decade ranged from Maryland to Singapore. Currently, Miller is implementing a master plan to replace aging facilities on the East Baltimore medical campus and is cooperating with the city and state on development of a life sciences park adjacent to the campus. To ensure that Johns Hopkins Medicine plays a leadership role in protecting patients, Miller has established the Center for Innovation in Quality Patient Care.
An anesthesiologist who has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific papers, abstracts and book chapters, Miller joined Johns Hopkins in 1994 as professor and director of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. He was named interim dean in 1996. He came to Johns Hopkins after eight years at Columbia University in New York, where he served as professor and chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Prior to that, he spent 11 years at the University of Virginia.
Miller's research has focused on the cardiovascular effects of anesthetic drugs and vascular smooth muscle relaxation. He has served as president of the Association of University Anesthesiologists, editor of Anesthesia and Analgesia, and editor of Critical Care Medicine. He served on the board of the International Anesthesia Research Society and was chairman of the FDA's Advisory Committee on Anesthesia and Life Support Drugs.
Miller is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. He is also a member of Maryland's Health Care Access and Cost Commission and is on the boards of the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Mercantile Safe Deposit and Trust Fund.
Born in February 1943 in Rochester, N.Y., Miller received his A.B. from Ohio Wesleyan University and his M.D. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He was a surgical intern at University Hospital in Boston, chief resident in anesthesiology at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, and a research fellow in physiology at Harvard Medical School. He and his wife, Lynne, have four adult children.
Jeffrey S. Flier, MD -- Dean, Harvard School of Medicine
source: http://hms.harvard.edu/public/news/bio.html
Jeffrey S. Flier was named the 21st Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University on July 11, 2007. Flier, an endocrinologist and an authority on the molecular causes of obesity and diabetes, is also the Carolyn Shields Walker Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Previously he had served as Harvard Medical School Faculty Dean for Academic Programs and Chief Academic Officer for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a Harvard teaching affiliate.
Flier is one of the country’s leading investigators in the areas of obesity and diabetes. His research has produced major insights into the molecular mechanism of insulin action, the molecular mechanisms of insulin resistance in human disease, and the molecular pathophysiology of obesity. He was one of the first to demonstrate that diet-induced obesity in rodents is associated with increased leptin expression, and that short-term starvation is associated with decreased leptin expression and blood levels. His proposal that leptin serves as a switch from the fed to the starved state has fundamentally shaped the discourse of the field.
Flier was born in New York City. He received a BS from City College of New York in 1968, and an MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1972, graduating with the Elster Award for Highest Academic Standing. Following residency training in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital from 1972 to 1974, Flier moved to the National Institutes of Health as a Clinical Associate. In 1978, he joined the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, serving as Chief of the Diabetes Unit at Beth Israel Hospital until 1990, when he was named chief of the hospital's Endocrine Division.
In 2002, Flier was named Chief Academic Officer of BIDMC, a newly created senior position responsible for research and academic programs. He worked with Beth Israel Deaconess academic department chairs to ensure the quality and breadth of academic programs at the Medical Center, through which most Harvard Medical School students pass. He also served as the formal liaison to Harvard Medical School, sitting on the Council of Academic Deans.
Flier has authored over 200 scholarly papers and reviews and has held many editorial positions, including Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, and has served on the Editorial
Boards of Molecular Endocrinology, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, and the American Journal of Medicine. He is currently on the Board of Consulting Editors of Science Magazine.
An elected member of the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Flier’s honors also include the Eli Lilly Award of the American Diabetes Association, the Berson Lecture of the American Physiological Society, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Athens. He has been the recipient of a five-year $500,000 Unrestricted Metabolic Research Grant by Bristol-Myers Squibb and the 2003 Edwin B. Astwood Lecture Award from the Endocrine Society. In 2005, he received the Banting Medal from the American Diabetes Association, its highest scientific honor.
Flier, the father of two, lives in Newton, MA with his wife Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, MD, who is also on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and with whom he has collaborated on research in the area of neuroendocrine control of body weight.
Philip Pizzo, MD -- Dean, Stanford University School of Medicine
source: http://med.stanford.edu/leadership/dean/dean_bio.html
Philip A. Pizzo, MD, became dean of the Stanford School of Medicine in April 2001. Before joining Stanford, he was the physician-in-chief of Children’s Hospital in Boston and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Pizzo is recognized for his contributions as a clinical investigator, especially in the treatment of children with cancer and HIV.
Pizzo received his undergraduate degree from Fordham University and an MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, a teaching fellowship at Harvard Medical School, and a clinical and research fellowship in pediatric oncology at the National Cancer Institute. Pizzo served as head of the institute’s infectious disease section, chief of the NCI’s pediatric department, and acting scientific director for NCI’s Division of Clinical Sciences.
Pizzo devoted much of his distinguished medical career to the diagnosis, management, prevention and treatment of childhood cancers and the infectious complications that occur in children whose immune systems are compromised by cancer and AIDS. Pizzo and his research team pioneered the development of new treatments for children with HIV infection, lengthening and improving the quality of life for children with this disease. His research soon led to important clues about how to treat HIV-positive children and adults, and how to manage life-threatening infections. In 1988 Pizzo published the first article in the New England Journal of Medicine on antiviral therapy of HIV in children. He is also the author of more than 500 scientific articles and 14 books.
Pizzo has received several awards from the U.S. Public Health Service, including the Outstanding Service Medal in 1995. He has been cited in Best Doctors of America since 1995, and in 1990 was declared “Washingtonian of the Year” by Washingtonian Magazine for helping to found the Children’s Inn, a temporary home for children undergoing treatment at the National Institutes of Health and their families. He is a member of a number of prestigious organizations and in 1997 was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Edward D. Miller, MD -- Dean, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
source: http://webapps.jhu.edu/jhuniverse/information_about_hopkins/about_jhu/principal_administrative_officers_and_deans/edward_d_miller/index.cfm
Edward Miller was named chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine, the 13th dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and vice president for medicine of The Johns Hopkins University in January 1997. His appointment followed a yearlong national search for the first CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, an organization that formally integrates operations and planning of the School of Medicine with The Johns Hopkins Health System and Hospital to ensure their continued preeminence in education, discovery and patient care.
Under his aegis, both The Johns Hopkins Hospital and the School of Medicine consistently are ranked among the very best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, and the school continues to rank at the top in NIH research funding. Johns Hopkins Medicine's expansion in the past decade ranged from Maryland to Singapore. Currently, Miller is implementing a master plan to replace aging facilities on the East Baltimore medical campus and is cooperating with the city and state on development of a life sciences park adjacent to the campus. To ensure that Johns Hopkins Medicine plays a leadership role in protecting patients, Miller has established the Center for Innovation in Quality Patient Care.
An anesthesiologist who has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific papers, abstracts and book chapters, Miller joined Johns Hopkins in 1994 as professor and director of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. He was named interim dean in 1996. He came to Johns Hopkins after eight years at Columbia University in New York, where he served as professor and chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Prior to that, he spent 11 years at the University of Virginia.
Miller's research has focused on the cardiovascular effects of anesthetic drugs and vascular smooth muscle relaxation. He has served as president of the Association of University Anesthesiologists, editor of Anesthesia and Analgesia, and editor of Critical Care Medicine. He served on the board of the International Anesthesia Research Society and was chairman of the FDA's Advisory Committee on Anesthesia and Life Support Drugs.
Miller is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. He is also a member of Maryland's Health Care Access and Cost Commission and is on the boards of the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Mercantile Safe Deposit and Trust Fund.
Born in February 1943 in Rochester, N.Y., Miller received his A.B. from Ohio Wesleyan University and his M.D. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He was a surgical intern at University Hospital in Boston, chief resident in anesthesiology at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, and a research fellow in physiology at Harvard Medical School. He and his wife, Lynne, have four adult children.
Jeffrey S. Flier, MD -- Dean, Harvard School of Medicine
source: http://hms.harvard.edu/public/news/bio.html
Jeffrey S. Flier was named the 21st Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University on July 11, 2007. Flier, an endocrinologist and an authority on the molecular causes of obesity and diabetes, is also the Carolyn Shields Walker Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Previously he had served as Harvard Medical School Faculty Dean for Academic Programs and Chief Academic Officer for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a Harvard teaching affiliate.
Flier is one of the country’s leading investigators in the areas of obesity and diabetes. His research has produced major insights into the molecular mechanism of insulin action, the molecular mechanisms of insulin resistance in human disease, and the molecular pathophysiology of obesity. He was one of the first to demonstrate that diet-induced obesity in rodents is associated with increased leptin expression, and that short-term starvation is associated with decreased leptin expression and blood levels. His proposal that leptin serves as a switch from the fed to the starved state has fundamentally shaped the discourse of the field.
Flier was born in New York City. He received a BS from City College of New York in 1968, and an MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1972, graduating with the Elster Award for Highest Academic Standing. Following residency training in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital from 1972 to 1974, Flier moved to the National Institutes of Health as a Clinical Associate. In 1978, he joined the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, serving as Chief of the Diabetes Unit at Beth Israel Hospital until 1990, when he was named chief of the hospital's Endocrine Division.
In 2002, Flier was named Chief Academic Officer of BIDMC, a newly created senior position responsible for research and academic programs. He worked with Beth Israel Deaconess academic department chairs to ensure the quality and breadth of academic programs at the Medical Center, through which most Harvard Medical School students pass. He also served as the formal liaison to Harvard Medical School, sitting on the Council of Academic Deans.
Flier has authored over 200 scholarly papers and reviews and has held many editorial positions, including Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, and has served on the Editorial
Boards of Molecular Endocrinology, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, and the American Journal of Medicine. He is currently on the Board of Consulting Editors of Science Magazine.
An elected member of the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Flier’s honors also include the Eli Lilly Award of the American Diabetes Association, the Berson Lecture of the American Physiological Society, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Athens. He has been the recipient of a five-year $500,000 Unrestricted Metabolic Research Grant by Bristol-Myers Squibb and the 2003 Edwin B. Astwood Lecture Award from the Endocrine Society. In 2005, he received the Banting Medal from the American Diabetes Association, its highest scientific honor.
Flier, the father of two, lives in Newton, MA with his wife Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, MD, who is also on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and with whom he has collaborated on research in the area of neuroendocrine control of body weight.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Identity of the Admissions Committee Members
Just so we are all on the same page of discussions the identity of the USD School of Medicine Admissions Committee members are:
Paul Bunger, PhD
Ann Settles, MS
David Munson, MD
Michael McHale, MD
Walter Carlson, MD
Vance Thompson, MD
Evelyn Schlenker, PhD
Maureen Burton, PhD
Ali Jassim, MD, PhD
Aaron Shives, MD
Lisa Miller, MD
John Thomas, PhD
Barry Timms, PhD
Adhar Manna, PhD
Vicki Walker, MD
David Maddox, PhD
Interestingly, greater than 95% of these individuals reside in either Sioux Falls (most of the MDs) or Vermillion (all of the PhDs). According to the 2006 US Census data, the State of South Dakota has 781,919 residents, 18% living within the Sioux Falls areas and 8% living within the Rapid City area. How is it that the admissions committee is only composed of individuals who represent eastern South Dakota? To the best of our knowledge and available residency research, not one member of this admissions committee lives west of the Missouri River. This unequal distribution of members leaves greater than 80% of South Dakota unrepresented on this fundamentally important committee.
Clearly, it is time for the Citizens of South Dakota to ORDER the Legislature to command a change.
Census Source data available at:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/46000.html
Paul Bunger, PhD
Ann Settles, MS
David Munson, MD
Michael McHale, MD
Walter Carlson, MD
Vance Thompson, MD
Evelyn Schlenker, PhD
Maureen Burton, PhD
Ali Jassim, MD, PhD
Aaron Shives, MD
Lisa Miller, MD
John Thomas, PhD
Barry Timms, PhD
Adhar Manna, PhD
Vicki Walker, MD
David Maddox, PhD
Interestingly, greater than 95% of these individuals reside in either Sioux Falls (most of the MDs) or Vermillion (all of the PhDs). According to the 2006 US Census data, the State of South Dakota has 781,919 residents, 18% living within the Sioux Falls areas and 8% living within the Rapid City area. How is it that the admissions committee is only composed of individuals who represent eastern South Dakota? To the best of our knowledge and available residency research, not one member of this admissions committee lives west of the Missouri River. This unequal distribution of members leaves greater than 80% of South Dakota unrepresented on this fundamentally important committee.
Clearly, it is time for the Citizens of South Dakota to ORDER the Legislature to command a change.
Census Source data available at:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/46000.html
Hiding behind the cloak of Anonymity
Salvete Icterus (either an Oriole or a Jaundice),
Your comments seem to be filled with vent and anger. However, keeping with the nature of this blog, I will try to attempt to answer some of your questions and comments.
Issue 1: I would be interested to see your grades, MCAT score, recommendations, research experience, and other supporting data that say that you are in fact a great candidate.
Answer: My grades and academic credentials are not germane to this blog. Though, for argument sake I will point out that I graduate Summa Cum Laude from a top five-biomedical research institute in the United States. If you care to identify yourself and post your own academic credentials, I will gladly post mine … I am certain I will fend well.
Issue 2: You state that MD's are not qualified to sit on admissions to a medical school.
Answer: At no point in time did I state that MDs are not qualified to sit on the admissions committee. What was stated is that certain MDs who sit on the admissions committee of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine are not qualified for a variety of reasons. You claim that the qualifications of the MDs sitting on the admissions committee are absolute, however, no one qualifies this statement. You provide no instances or facts. In essence, you argue on a pointless and a baseless statement.
You mention that before the MCAT, admissions were based on GPAs alone, yet you do not qualify this response or even when the MCAT became a standard examination. Several top-tier medical schools no longer require (under absolute conditions) the MCAT (Stanford, UPenn, Johns Hopkins, Texas System). I would assume that you do not even understand or know the history of the MCAT.
You make claims that the admissions committee has absolute (maybe divine) abilities to determine what students will and what students won’t “make the grade.” Yet, there are thousands of conditions where medial students who scored high on the MCAT dropped out of medical school because they were unable to complete the curriculum. There have been countless numbers of admitted medical students who have been removed from the program due to criminal activity. There have been numerous medical students who have been removed from programs for crimes including: rape, sodomy, and child molestation. And, there have even been medical students that were expelled from medical programs for serious violation of HIPAA (check your facts before you open your yapper). In fact, one medical student, at the USD, seriously violated HIPAA (and a dozen other laws) when he discarded confidential patient files in a convenience store trash dumpster.
Issue: “I would argue that they went through Medical school before you graduated high school.”
Answer: I am not sure how you based your medical school/high school analysis since you do not have all the information available. You really lessen the credibility of your essay when you make statements that you cannot remotely back-up. The first issue you would learn in law school is to remove the emotion from your writing(s).
Issue: While before the MCATs admissions mainly relied on GPA and other supporting information, they still did a fine job of making sure that those who could not make the grade did not receive admission.
Answer: You clearly do not know the history of the MCAT nor understand the issues of academic grade inflation. I am interested in your statement indicating that “they” did a fine job on selecting those applicants that could “make the grade.” How I would love to have that magical ability to tell into the future. Based on your argument no student should ever fail out of medical school, because the admissions committee has the ability to just know who is qualified and who is not!
Issue: They know far more than you about what it takes to make it through medical school
Answer: I wish I had your insight and knowledge. It must be amazing to make statements without any facts. When did you go through medical school?
Issue: As for the PhD's and Master of Science on the committee. Most if not all of the people on the admissions committee teach courses in the medical school curriculum. They have anywhere from 5-20 or more years experience in this capacity.
Answer: What qualifies these individuals to teach a medical school curriculum? There is a massive difference in subject matter relevance between biochemistry for biochemists and biochemistry for medical students. Just because one has taught for a number of years does not qualify them as experts in the field. I have read the bio’s of each of the admissions committee members who hold teaching appointments at USD and there is nothing in their academic credentials that would lead me to believe that someone could read the same textbooks that the faculty are copying their lecture notes from and do without the faculty member. What textbooks have these faculty written? What faculty member(s) manuscripts have been cited and published and used in the standard medical school curriculum? You seem to make a lot of emotional statement (because you think they sound good), but have no sources of fact.
Issue: Again this gives a lot of experience that dwarfs yours and others in comparison.
Answer: How many times are you going to make unqualified statements? What experience. Where are the documents to back-up these claims.
Issue: They know what each student has for qualifications and they also see how well the students do in their courses and others. All of this information helps make them even better at their job of screening out applicants who will have trouble or not make it through medical school.
Answer: Wow! Again, where does one get this crystal ball? When I finished graduate school I did not see anyone walking away with this mind-telling and ability-knowing ball.
Okay, but let’s examine your argument a little closer. This knowledge that the faculty supposedly have should then be near absolute. Maybe, if as you claim, then the defense attorneys should have legal recourse to litigate the educators for mistakes that a physician makes in his/her career. The faculty have this knowledge (as you state) to decipher out the capable students from the non-capable?
Maybe, if a medical student fails a course or drops-out of the program the faculty should be held responsible or punished for this action. Obviously, with this fortune-telling ability they should have been able to predict these occurrences.
Issue: Their research experience has nothing to do with this fact.
Answer: We live in academia to perform novel, hypothesis driven research. For PhDs who are employed in a research driven field (such as the sciences), we are judged by our ability to formulate and test hypothesis. Our only record is our publication track. Clearly, this faculty has a limited publication track.
If these faculty are experts in their respective fields, as you claim, then I would see no reason why they do not have a publication record to substantiate these claims.
Issue: However many have successful research and are prolific writers.
Answer: Where are your facts, where is your evidence. Please do not reply back with papers written 10+ years ago.
Issue: Not all articles are readily available on pubmed.
Answer: Where are they cited?
Issue: I digress; many of them have research in areas that are only a hop, skip, or a jump from translational research.
Answer: Please provide citations and facts. I am not aware of any research protocols from the current admissions committee that have ever been translated (as you claim) into mainstream medical practice.
Issue: Many of the SD faculty also have large research grants, which shows that on a national level judged by their peers they are successful and therefore deserve these large funds.
Answer: Please provide links and citable references … I cannot find these research grants as you claim. Please do not provide references to endowment funds.
Issue: The admissions committee is set up so that one individual serves 3 years and then is replaced by another.
Answer: Many of the admissions committee members have been sitting on the admissions committee for 10+ years. Once again, you make statements without providing details. I have the list for the past 15 years … care to challenge me?
Issue: The pool of qualified individuals again all meet particular criteria that I have kind of alluded to in this last paragraph.
Answer: What are these criteria? Who set the criteria?
Issue: Are you doing any work at comparing to other medical school admissions committees?
Answer: Absolutely.
Issue: Did you apply to any other schools?
Answer: Not an applicant.
Issue: Do you think Deans have much time for medical practice/research all while teaching courses and also serving in their administrative roles?
Answer: Hundreds .. most at the finest universities have research roles, clinical practices, and productive research laboratories.
Issue: Do you have the grades, MCAT scores, and other pertinent supporting information for everyone that has been accepted in the last 5 years and for everyone that has been denied?
Answer: Yeap … Under the Federal Freedom of Information Act this information is available and is in my possession. Also, AMCAS publishes a very nice compendium of statistical information relate to this topic.
Issue: You mentioned pubmed, in which if you do a simple search will bring up many publications that address the correlation between MCAT score and USMLE I and II scores as well as success in residency programs. This research is obviously based on credible information, so I ask where is your credible information.
Answer: Yeap, there have been a lot of papers that have concluded this same result (check to see who funded the studies though) and there have been an equal number of research papers (also available through PubMed) that come to the complete opposite conclusion. The same argument holds true for the GRE and LSAT.
Issue: The MCAT is difficult for a reason, medical school is worse. If one cannot make the grade on the MCAT you will have little chance in medical school.
Answer: Hold your horses on that one. If this were the case then 10s and below on the MCAT would signify high risk of medical school failure … this is just not the case. The MCAT average for USD was about 9 (and has been lower prior to computerizing the MCAT). Also, we should then start rejecting a large majority of black and American Indian applicants, as their GPAs and MCAT scores tend to be much, much lower (check out AMCAS for these statistics). Also, females tend to have lower science GPAs and MCAT scores than males, but the admissions rates are at least 50/50 or higher favoring the female gender.
I think your argument is critically flawed!
Issue: The sheer amount of material covered just in the first two weeks of medical school dwarfs an entire semester of undergraduate or even graduate course work.
Answer: Maybe at your undergraduate institution … but not most. I think a lot of PhDs would disagree with your statements … at most major universities the PhD students and the MD students sit in many of the common courses.
Clearly, you make super-hero statements on this issue … you should check your facts … or provide a course syllabus in comparison to a major universities syllabus for a similar course. I think you will find out quickly how ludicrous your statement(s) is/are.
Issue: In regards to talking about fundamentals of medicine and biology: you left out anatomy, biochemistry (still existed before the dawn of molecular biology), pathology-the bulk of medicine, pharmacology, microbiology, psych/advanced behavior, neuroanatomy, immunology (sorry but this has not been an area of science that we have been completely in the dark on by any means even before 1984) and all the other clinical skills.
Answer: You make an argument that has no fundamental basis. Each of the fields that you mention are interlinked. The fields of molecular medicine are truly the new fields that are less than 25 years old. Have you heard of personalized medicine, siRNAs, genomics or modern drug development? The field of immunology has been “known” for quite sometime, however, the molecular mechanisms of immuno-gene rearrangements and immunobiology are in their genesis, and were not known or capable to be studied before modern super-computers and advanced molecular techniques. We have come a long way since Danny Koshland’s discoveries.
Issue: Just because PCR was not invented (you are wrong on the date) 1971, credited in 1983 however. It does not make them unqualified. If you believe you become obsolete just because new things are discovered after you are done with school then you should not be in an MD, PhD, MD/PhD, or masters program even. In the professional world you are constantly learning.
Answer: Nope, sorry, you are wrong. The formulation of the mechanism of PCR was not “discovered” and released to the public until about 1983/84. The ’71 paper described a mechanism that was similar to PCR, but an unrealized concept that did not realize the necessity for Taq Polymerase.
Never made a mention about life-long learning … just that these people on the admissions committee (especially the MDs), probably, have little or no experience in the fundamental of modern biology.
Issue: I am also concerned that you are speaking so badly about a group of people which includes one of the major experts on mitochondria who was one of the pioneers who helped increase our knowledge of that important organelle.
Answer: I never spoke badly about anyone. This is not a blog about personal feelings. “If it’s too hot in the kitchen, get the hell out!” I am simply pointing out facts … and sometimes the truth hurts. Anyone from the faculty is welcome to comment on this blog. We will be hosting a call in radio show and anyone is welcome to comment. More on that to come.
Who is this “world-expert” that you mention? Please, before you throw out a name, understand that my background in the History of Science and Medicine is quite profound. Just because someone things or professes to be an expert, does not mean they are. Were they published in Science, Cell or Nature? Are they cited as principle references in current texts on the subject?
Issue: Speaking of individuals with out of country education. Are you qualified to say that a person with a PhD from india, iraq, china, or the UK is not as good as a person with a PhD from the US.
Answer: I never made any negative statements on the goodness of individuals. I did make statements on the quality of education that one might have from these countries (and other) that you have mentioned. Without question, there are a lot of very smart people all over the globe. I made a statement that these individuals just do not appear to have the necessary qualifications to sit on a medical school admissions committee if they do not have the proper training, experiences, or education similar to the applicants.
Issue: Do you even know any of these individuals?
Answer: Some of them.
Issue: All of these individuals are more than qualified and are far more intelligent than you give them credit.
Answer: Each individual is welcome to post their presumed qualifications in the website.
Issue: The individual in question with a masters of science. Do you know anything about this person?
Answer: Yeap!
Issue: If you do your research you will see that this person's husband was a PhD who formerly taught and designed much of the curriculum for gross anatomy. You will also find that this person has been teaching gross anatomy for decades. It does not take an MD or a PhD to know ones anatomy. What it takes is experience and I am sure this person can point out and talk about anatomy better or at the same level as many physicians and PhD's.
Answer: Maybe her husband was qualified. Just because she married a PhD does not make her qualified.
Issue: How does being an augie graduate, SDSU graduate, or clergy member qualify anyone to be on the admissions board?
Answer: What are the qualifications of the current committee members. Does this medical school not represent the people of SD? Shouldn’t members of other institutions, who following your above arguments should be equally qualified, sit on the admissions committee to assure a fair and balanced selection. Shouldn’t members from the community, to which will be medically served, sit on the community?
Issue: Apparently they know what it takes to make it through medical school? Explain that one for me.
Answer: When did a majority of the current admissions committee go through medical school? Right back at you!
Conclusion:
Clearly this author has some real issues. For most of the post only emotional statements were made and no real facts were presented. The point of this blog is to expose the underlying issues of the USD School of Medicine. It is the principle hypothesis of this author (a citizen of SD) that the USD School of Medicine is failing in its mission to educate and provide quality physicians to/for the people of the State of South Dakota. We deserve better than this.
Your comments seem to be filled with vent and anger. However, keeping with the nature of this blog, I will try to attempt to answer some of your questions and comments.
Issue 1: I would be interested to see your grades, MCAT score, recommendations, research experience, and other supporting data that say that you are in fact a great candidate.
Answer: My grades and academic credentials are not germane to this blog. Though, for argument sake I will point out that I graduate Summa Cum Laude from a top five-biomedical research institute in the United States. If you care to identify yourself and post your own academic credentials, I will gladly post mine … I am certain I will fend well.
Issue 2: You state that MD's are not qualified to sit on admissions to a medical school.
Answer: At no point in time did I state that MDs are not qualified to sit on the admissions committee. What was stated is that certain MDs who sit on the admissions committee of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine are not qualified for a variety of reasons. You claim that the qualifications of the MDs sitting on the admissions committee are absolute, however, no one qualifies this statement. You provide no instances or facts. In essence, you argue on a pointless and a baseless statement.
You mention that before the MCAT, admissions were based on GPAs alone, yet you do not qualify this response or even when the MCAT became a standard examination. Several top-tier medical schools no longer require (under absolute conditions) the MCAT (Stanford, UPenn, Johns Hopkins, Texas System). I would assume that you do not even understand or know the history of the MCAT.
You make claims that the admissions committee has absolute (maybe divine) abilities to determine what students will and what students won’t “make the grade.” Yet, there are thousands of conditions where medial students who scored high on the MCAT dropped out of medical school because they were unable to complete the curriculum. There have been countless numbers of admitted medical students who have been removed from the program due to criminal activity. There have been numerous medical students who have been removed from programs for crimes including: rape, sodomy, and child molestation. And, there have even been medical students that were expelled from medical programs for serious violation of HIPAA (check your facts before you open your yapper). In fact, one medical student, at the USD, seriously violated HIPAA (and a dozen other laws) when he discarded confidential patient files in a convenience store trash dumpster.
Issue: “I would argue that they went through Medical school before you graduated high school.”
Answer: I am not sure how you based your medical school/high school analysis since you do not have all the information available. You really lessen the credibility of your essay when you make statements that you cannot remotely back-up. The first issue you would learn in law school is to remove the emotion from your writing(s).
Issue: While before the MCATs admissions mainly relied on GPA and other supporting information, they still did a fine job of making sure that those who could not make the grade did not receive admission.
Answer: You clearly do not know the history of the MCAT nor understand the issues of academic grade inflation. I am interested in your statement indicating that “they” did a fine job on selecting those applicants that could “make the grade.” How I would love to have that magical ability to tell into the future. Based on your argument no student should ever fail out of medical school, because the admissions committee has the ability to just know who is qualified and who is not!
Issue: They know far more than you about what it takes to make it through medical school
Answer: I wish I had your insight and knowledge. It must be amazing to make statements without any facts. When did you go through medical school?
Issue: As for the PhD's and Master of Science on the committee. Most if not all of the people on the admissions committee teach courses in the medical school curriculum. They have anywhere from 5-20 or more years experience in this capacity.
Answer: What qualifies these individuals to teach a medical school curriculum? There is a massive difference in subject matter relevance between biochemistry for biochemists and biochemistry for medical students. Just because one has taught for a number of years does not qualify them as experts in the field. I have read the bio’s of each of the admissions committee members who hold teaching appointments at USD and there is nothing in their academic credentials that would lead me to believe that someone could read the same textbooks that the faculty are copying their lecture notes from and do without the faculty member. What textbooks have these faculty written? What faculty member(s) manuscripts have been cited and published and used in the standard medical school curriculum? You seem to make a lot of emotional statement (because you think they sound good), but have no sources of fact.
Issue: Again this gives a lot of experience that dwarfs yours and others in comparison.
Answer: How many times are you going to make unqualified statements? What experience. Where are the documents to back-up these claims.
Issue: They know what each student has for qualifications and they also see how well the students do in their courses and others. All of this information helps make them even better at their job of screening out applicants who will have trouble or not make it through medical school.
Answer: Wow! Again, where does one get this crystal ball? When I finished graduate school I did not see anyone walking away with this mind-telling and ability-knowing ball.
Okay, but let’s examine your argument a little closer. This knowledge that the faculty supposedly have should then be near absolute. Maybe, if as you claim, then the defense attorneys should have legal recourse to litigate the educators for mistakes that a physician makes in his/her career. The faculty have this knowledge (as you state) to decipher out the capable students from the non-capable?
Maybe, if a medical student fails a course or drops-out of the program the faculty should be held responsible or punished for this action. Obviously, with this fortune-telling ability they should have been able to predict these occurrences.
Issue: Their research experience has nothing to do with this fact.
Answer: We live in academia to perform novel, hypothesis driven research. For PhDs who are employed in a research driven field (such as the sciences), we are judged by our ability to formulate and test hypothesis. Our only record is our publication track. Clearly, this faculty has a limited publication track.
If these faculty are experts in their respective fields, as you claim, then I would see no reason why they do not have a publication record to substantiate these claims.
Issue: However many have successful research and are prolific writers.
Answer: Where are your facts, where is your evidence. Please do not reply back with papers written 10+ years ago.
Issue: Not all articles are readily available on pubmed.
Answer: Where are they cited?
Issue: I digress; many of them have research in areas that are only a hop, skip, or a jump from translational research.
Answer: Please provide citations and facts. I am not aware of any research protocols from the current admissions committee that have ever been translated (as you claim) into mainstream medical practice.
Issue: Many of the SD faculty also have large research grants, which shows that on a national level judged by their peers they are successful and therefore deserve these large funds.
Answer: Please provide links and citable references … I cannot find these research grants as you claim. Please do not provide references to endowment funds.
Issue: The admissions committee is set up so that one individual serves 3 years and then is replaced by another.
Answer: Many of the admissions committee members have been sitting on the admissions committee for 10+ years. Once again, you make statements without providing details. I have the list for the past 15 years … care to challenge me?
Issue: The pool of qualified individuals again all meet particular criteria that I have kind of alluded to in this last paragraph.
Answer: What are these criteria? Who set the criteria?
Issue: Are you doing any work at comparing to other medical school admissions committees?
Answer: Absolutely.
Issue: Did you apply to any other schools?
Answer: Not an applicant.
Issue: Do you think Deans have much time for medical practice/research all while teaching courses and also serving in their administrative roles?
Answer: Hundreds .. most at the finest universities have research roles, clinical practices, and productive research laboratories.
Issue: Do you have the grades, MCAT scores, and other pertinent supporting information for everyone that has been accepted in the last 5 years and for everyone that has been denied?
Answer: Yeap … Under the Federal Freedom of Information Act this information is available and is in my possession. Also, AMCAS publishes a very nice compendium of statistical information relate to this topic.
Issue: You mentioned pubmed, in which if you do a simple search will bring up many publications that address the correlation between MCAT score and USMLE I and II scores as well as success in residency programs. This research is obviously based on credible information, so I ask where is your credible information.
Answer: Yeap, there have been a lot of papers that have concluded this same result (check to see who funded the studies though) and there have been an equal number of research papers (also available through PubMed) that come to the complete opposite conclusion. The same argument holds true for the GRE and LSAT.
Issue: The MCAT is difficult for a reason, medical school is worse. If one cannot make the grade on the MCAT you will have little chance in medical school.
Answer: Hold your horses on that one. If this were the case then 10s and below on the MCAT would signify high risk of medical school failure … this is just not the case. The MCAT average for USD was about 9 (and has been lower prior to computerizing the MCAT). Also, we should then start rejecting a large majority of black and American Indian applicants, as their GPAs and MCAT scores tend to be much, much lower (check out AMCAS for these statistics). Also, females tend to have lower science GPAs and MCAT scores than males, but the admissions rates are at least 50/50 or higher favoring the female gender.
I think your argument is critically flawed!
Issue: The sheer amount of material covered just in the first two weeks of medical school dwarfs an entire semester of undergraduate or even graduate course work.
Answer: Maybe at your undergraduate institution … but not most. I think a lot of PhDs would disagree with your statements … at most major universities the PhD students and the MD students sit in many of the common courses.
Clearly, you make super-hero statements on this issue … you should check your facts … or provide a course syllabus in comparison to a major universities syllabus for a similar course. I think you will find out quickly how ludicrous your statement(s) is/are.
Issue: In regards to talking about fundamentals of medicine and biology: you left out anatomy, biochemistry (still existed before the dawn of molecular biology), pathology-the bulk of medicine, pharmacology, microbiology, psych/advanced behavior, neuroanatomy, immunology (sorry but this has not been an area of science that we have been completely in the dark on by any means even before 1984) and all the other clinical skills.
Answer: You make an argument that has no fundamental basis. Each of the fields that you mention are interlinked. The fields of molecular medicine are truly the new fields that are less than 25 years old. Have you heard of personalized medicine, siRNAs, genomics or modern drug development? The field of immunology has been “known” for quite sometime, however, the molecular mechanisms of immuno-gene rearrangements and immunobiology are in their genesis, and were not known or capable to be studied before modern super-computers and advanced molecular techniques. We have come a long way since Danny Koshland’s discoveries.
Issue: Just because PCR was not invented (you are wrong on the date) 1971, credited in 1983 however. It does not make them unqualified. If you believe you become obsolete just because new things are discovered after you are done with school then you should not be in an MD, PhD, MD/PhD, or masters program even. In the professional world you are constantly learning.
Answer: Nope, sorry, you are wrong. The formulation of the mechanism of PCR was not “discovered” and released to the public until about 1983/84. The ’71 paper described a mechanism that was similar to PCR, but an unrealized concept that did not realize the necessity for Taq Polymerase.
Never made a mention about life-long learning … just that these people on the admissions committee (especially the MDs), probably, have little or no experience in the fundamental of modern biology.
Issue: I am also concerned that you are speaking so badly about a group of people which includes one of the major experts on mitochondria who was one of the pioneers who helped increase our knowledge of that important organelle.
Answer: I never spoke badly about anyone. This is not a blog about personal feelings. “If it’s too hot in the kitchen, get the hell out!” I am simply pointing out facts … and sometimes the truth hurts. Anyone from the faculty is welcome to comment on this blog. We will be hosting a call in radio show and anyone is welcome to comment. More on that to come.
Who is this “world-expert” that you mention? Please, before you throw out a name, understand that my background in the History of Science and Medicine is quite profound. Just because someone things or professes to be an expert, does not mean they are. Were they published in Science, Cell or Nature? Are they cited as principle references in current texts on the subject?
Issue: Speaking of individuals with out of country education. Are you qualified to say that a person with a PhD from india, iraq, china, or the UK is not as good as a person with a PhD from the US.
Answer: I never made any negative statements on the goodness of individuals. I did make statements on the quality of education that one might have from these countries (and other) that you have mentioned. Without question, there are a lot of very smart people all over the globe. I made a statement that these individuals just do not appear to have the necessary qualifications to sit on a medical school admissions committee if they do not have the proper training, experiences, or education similar to the applicants.
Issue: Do you even know any of these individuals?
Answer: Some of them.
Issue: All of these individuals are more than qualified and are far more intelligent than you give them credit.
Answer: Each individual is welcome to post their presumed qualifications in the website.
Issue: The individual in question with a masters of science. Do you know anything about this person?
Answer: Yeap!
Issue: If you do your research you will see that this person's husband was a PhD who formerly taught and designed much of the curriculum for gross anatomy. You will also find that this person has been teaching gross anatomy for decades. It does not take an MD or a PhD to know ones anatomy. What it takes is experience and I am sure this person can point out and talk about anatomy better or at the same level as many physicians and PhD's.
Answer: Maybe her husband was qualified. Just because she married a PhD does not make her qualified.
Issue: How does being an augie graduate, SDSU graduate, or clergy member qualify anyone to be on the admissions board?
Answer: What are the qualifications of the current committee members. Does this medical school not represent the people of SD? Shouldn’t members of other institutions, who following your above arguments should be equally qualified, sit on the admissions committee to assure a fair and balanced selection. Shouldn’t members from the community, to which will be medically served, sit on the community?
Issue: Apparently they know what it takes to make it through medical school? Explain that one for me.
Answer: When did a majority of the current admissions committee go through medical school? Right back at you!
Conclusion:
Clearly this author has some real issues. For most of the post only emotional statements were made and no real facts were presented. The point of this blog is to expose the underlying issues of the USD School of Medicine. It is the principle hypothesis of this author (a citizen of SD) that the USD School of Medicine is failing in its mission to educate and provide quality physicians to/for the people of the State of South Dakota. We deserve better than this.
From the mind of a 22 year old
I received the following e-mail from Mr. Harvey Oliver (a first year USD medical student). One of the first issues that I must point out is the inability of Mr. Oliver to form a logical argument or a proper sentence structure. To answer Mr. Olivers questions:
Issue 1: "any of you read this blog?"
Answer: Yes, in under twelve hours quite a number of people (both within and outside SD) have answered to this blog. My e-mail address has seventy two responses ... mostly positive. For those who have e-mailed in responses, I will post the responses onto the blog-site.
Issue 2: "Is it a joke?"
Answer: This blog is NOT a joke. The issues that are being raised and will continue to be raised until significant changes are made in the USD admissions committee. The facts of this medical school and its administration are being presented to the Citizens of South Dakota so that they are aware of who is responsible for the generally poor conditions of SD public health. It is easy to sit in judgment of others when "you" do not have to public display or defend your credentials to the constituents. Let's have a system of transparency so that we can minimize levels of corruption.
Issue 3: "The comments make NO sense. The faculty hasn't taken the MCAT? WHY would they, they are not medical doctors, and you take the MCAT to get INTO me school!"
Answer: The points laid-out in the essay are facts. I am not certain how they do not make sense to Mr. Oliver. Clearly, the academic qualifications of most of the admissions committee members are sub-par. For those of you not familiar with PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez) check out the academic publications of "your" faculty. Investigate what their qualification are and how they are suited to hold a position on the admissions committee.
The question about the MCAT is just that. This is not a difficult question to answer. The faculty claim to have knowledge about the MCAT, in fact, they judge an applicants admission by the arbitrary and un-correlatable MCAT score, yet, to the best of our knowledge none of the PhDs have completed the MCAT and a majority of the MDs have not taken the MCAT prior to the 1990s. Take a minute and think about how modern biology has changed in the last 20 years and how more complex the MCAT has become. When you study these issues and find answers to these questions, one begins to realize how untrained and unaware the admissions committee is with regard to the litmus tests that is used to judge applicants.
I think I pointed out that the MCAT is used as an admissions criteria ... so I do not know how to respond to Mr. Olivers point.
Issue 4: Sorry you were not accepted this year Gerry, better luck next time...you must be a bitter applicant or something?
Answer: Mr. Oliver must have some level of altruism. When I over-looked and reviewed Mr. Olivers academic credentials, I would gesture to note that he is not qualified to sit in the MD program. A 2004 high school graduate, a 2008 USD graduate (biology), and I would bet he has never done anything in his short career. I would venture to bet that he has probably not traveled much outside SD. I would bet that his life experiences are minimal at best, especially compared to other applicants. Mr. Oliver, where are your peer-reviewed publications?
Issue 5: P.S. believe it or not, countries overseas also have institutes of higher learning. And members of the clergy..WHAT??!?
Answer: Yes, there are fine institutions abroad and I did not refute this fact. However, what was pointed out was that three of the admissions committee members have no academic basis in US based education and did NOT attend reputable academic institutions.
Just to enlighten you, the United States Department of Education does not recognize most non-US MDs. The US does recognize the Canadian MD and the UK MBBS. Though, each foreign MD does need to repeat additional training in the US and in many cases need to complete a US based residency program. Not to mention, they also need to pass USMLE.
As for members of the clergy. This is an option for all graduate programs (most highly regarded institutions have members of the clergy on their staff) to employ as a social conscience. The point is to have outside members on the committee that represent the community as a whole.
Issue 1: "any of you read this blog?"
Answer: Yes, in under twelve hours quite a number of people (both within and outside SD) have answered to this blog. My e-mail address has seventy two responses ... mostly positive. For those who have e-mailed in responses, I will post the responses onto the blog-site.
Issue 2: "Is it a joke?"
Answer: This blog is NOT a joke. The issues that are being raised and will continue to be raised until significant changes are made in the USD admissions committee. The facts of this medical school and its administration are being presented to the Citizens of South Dakota so that they are aware of who is responsible for the generally poor conditions of SD public health. It is easy to sit in judgment of others when "you" do not have to public display or defend your credentials to the constituents. Let's have a system of transparency so that we can minimize levels of corruption.
Issue 3: "The comments make NO sense. The faculty hasn't taken the MCAT? WHY would they, they are not medical doctors, and you take the MCAT to get INTO me school!"
Answer: The points laid-out in the essay are facts. I am not certain how they do not make sense to Mr. Oliver. Clearly, the academic qualifications of most of the admissions committee members are sub-par. For those of you not familiar with PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez) check out the academic publications of "your" faculty. Investigate what their qualification are and how they are suited to hold a position on the admissions committee.
The question about the MCAT is just that. This is not a difficult question to answer. The faculty claim to have knowledge about the MCAT, in fact, they judge an applicants admission by the arbitrary and un-correlatable MCAT score, yet, to the best of our knowledge none of the PhDs have completed the MCAT and a majority of the MDs have not taken the MCAT prior to the 1990s. Take a minute and think about how modern biology has changed in the last 20 years and how more complex the MCAT has become. When you study these issues and find answers to these questions, one begins to realize how untrained and unaware the admissions committee is with regard to the litmus tests that is used to judge applicants.
I think I pointed out that the MCAT is used as an admissions criteria ... so I do not know how to respond to Mr. Olivers point.
Issue 4: Sorry you were not accepted this year Gerry, better luck next time...you must be a bitter applicant or something?
Answer: Mr. Oliver must have some level of altruism. When I over-looked and reviewed Mr. Olivers academic credentials, I would gesture to note that he is not qualified to sit in the MD program. A 2004 high school graduate, a 2008 USD graduate (biology), and I would bet he has never done anything in his short career. I would venture to bet that he has probably not traveled much outside SD. I would bet that his life experiences are minimal at best, especially compared to other applicants. Mr. Oliver, where are your peer-reviewed publications?
Issue 5: P.S. believe it or not, countries overseas also have institutes of higher learning. And members of the clergy..WHAT??!?
Answer: Yes, there are fine institutions abroad and I did not refute this fact. However, what was pointed out was that three of the admissions committee members have no academic basis in US based education and did NOT attend reputable academic institutions.
Just to enlighten you, the United States Department of Education does not recognize most non-US MDs. The US does recognize the Canadian MD and the UK MBBS. Though, each foreign MD does need to repeat additional training in the US and in many cases need to complete a US based residency program. Not to mention, they also need to pass USMLE.
As for members of the clergy. This is an option for all graduate programs (most highly regarded institutions have members of the clergy on their staff) to employ as a social conscience. The point is to have outside members on the committee that represent the community as a whole.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Bringing Light onto the University of South Dakota Admissions Panel
This blog will focus on the lack of knowledge and technical experience being provided by the stewards of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine. In general, the citizens of the State of South Dakota should be appalled by the service of this University and its Medical School.
Recently, it has come to my attention that a number of extremely well qualified applicants to the 2009 (and I am absolutely certain that this holds true for previous years) admitting class of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine have been denied admission. When viewing these student’s academic credentials (due to the 1974 Federal Data Privacy Act as it relates to Student Data this information cannot be shared publicly without direct student authorization) it is hard to believe that some students were admitted and others were denied.
It is clear that the faculty and administration of this medical school are providing a complete disservice to the citizens of South Dakota. To say that the members of the medical school admissions committee are under-qualified would be an understatement of great proportion. Most of the members of the admissions committee are just absolutely unqualified to sit in judgment of applicants. Moreover, some of the admissions committee members hold lesser academic credentials than some of the applicants.
To better understand the admissions committee it is relevant to consider each member and their academic credentials. The admissions committee is composed of seven PhDs, seven MDs, one MD/PhD and one Masters of Science. Of the seven MDs it is arguable that only two members are qualified to sit in academic judgment of student applicants. The remaining MDs were all trained prior to the “discovery” of modern molecular biology. As such, it is amazing that these individuals have no background or at best limited knowledge of fundamental principles of immunology or "basic" biology and yet sit in judgment of students who have studied these concepts. The world of biological sciences changed in 1984 (“discovery” of the Polymerase Chain Reaction, PCR) and a lot of what we thought was true about the programming of cellular mechanisms prior to c.1984 has been completely re-written in the textbooks. Sadly, a majority of the MD (and PhD) faculty members have no basis or record of training in these fundamental concepts of medicine and biology. More disturbing, none of the MDs appear to have taken the Medical College Admissions Test (i.e., the dreaded eight hour MCAT) since it was completely re-written (and made far more difficult) in approximately 1994. To this point, we are curious to know when each of the MDs took the MCAT (some never completed the exam) and their achievements on the exam. The MD composition of this admissions committee is clearly unacceptable. What is more amazing, none of the MD members have any training in public health or the practice thereof (this probably explains other health issues in South Dakota).
With regard to the PhDs on the admissions committee the story becomes even more interesting and the tale of unqualified academicians becomes even more disturbing. Of the seven PhDs on the admissions committee a majority are not involved in any type of academic biomedical research and those that are involved in research study fields completely unrelated to the study of practical human medicine. The Dean of Student Affairs, Paul Bunger (Associate Professor), completed a PhD in 1976 at the University of Nebraska and based on records of PubMed has not published a single peer-reviewed scientific manuscript (based on novel research hypothesis) in over ten years. Moreover, Dr. Bunger appears to have been senior author on only one manuscript in his career and that dates to c.1976 (Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1979 Dec 14;91(3):911-8). Clearly, the academic credentials of the Dean should be called into question, as he is certainly unfit and unqualified to lead the medical school admissions committee. Dr. Bunger has no record of academic training or expertise in the fields of education.
There are other serious issues involving the PhD staff. Two of the members have no educational training in the United States. One individual was trained in the United Kingdom and the other was trained in India. Neither individual attended or received a diploma from a nationally recognized institution. An additional member earned a PhD in 1996 and has little to no research experience and is appointed at the lowest academic level of Instructor within the Department of Biological Sciences. To the best of our knowledge, NONE of the PhD staff have ever completed the required MCAT.
If the lack of biological experience and academic technical knowledge in both the MD and PhD admissions committee members isn’t alarming enough, there is more to consider. One of the committee members only holds a Masters of Science degree and is appointed as an instructor. Clearly, this individual is not qualified to command such a position of influence and decision on the admissions committee. Some of the applicants hold an equal academic credential and some hold a higher (doctoral) credential.
Some reading this informational blog might be impressed with the fact that one of the admissions committee members holds a claimed academic credential of the coveted MD, PhD. However, it is important to note that this individual was also trained outside the United States and earned an MD in Iraq. His PhD is from the University of Minnesota, but it is not a true academic PhD that would be normally achieved with five plus years of course work and novel bench-level research and a three to five year post-doctoral appointment. Clearly, this individual is in the same category as many of the other committee members … not qualified.
The intention of this blog is to catch the attention of the Citizens of South Dakota and to bring to their attention that this University and the USD Medical School is failing in its mission to educate the best possible students from throughout South Dakota (another topic we will discuss in an upcoming blog topic). The faculty who comprise the admissions committee are simply NOT QUALIFIED and need to be replaced with members who have the proper academic credentials. Not one member of the admissions committee hails from SDSU or Augustana College. Not one member of the admissions committee represents the public. Not one member of the admissions committee is a member of the clergy. And NO ONE on the admissions committee represents western South Dakota.
The Governor and the State Legislature need to act on this issue and they need to set-up a watchdog system to take back what is so needed and pivotal to the health and well being of South Dakota. The basic health needs of greater than sixty-percent of South Dakota are not being met. It is time the public stands up and takes back control.
To the Citizens of South Dakota, sound off, comment on this blog, and help me make the Medical School, YOUR Medical School, educate people who can competently serve US, South Dakotans.
In closing, anyone is welcome to comment on this blog, however, your comments must be civil, factful, and truthful. Any comments found to violate these three tenets will be summarily removed.
Recently, it has come to my attention that a number of extremely well qualified applicants to the 2009 (and I am absolutely certain that this holds true for previous years) admitting class of the University of South Dakota School of Medicine have been denied admission. When viewing these student’s academic credentials (due to the 1974 Federal Data Privacy Act as it relates to Student Data this information cannot be shared publicly without direct student authorization) it is hard to believe that some students were admitted and others were denied.
It is clear that the faculty and administration of this medical school are providing a complete disservice to the citizens of South Dakota. To say that the members of the medical school admissions committee are under-qualified would be an understatement of great proportion. Most of the members of the admissions committee are just absolutely unqualified to sit in judgment of applicants. Moreover, some of the admissions committee members hold lesser academic credentials than some of the applicants.
To better understand the admissions committee it is relevant to consider each member and their academic credentials. The admissions committee is composed of seven PhDs, seven MDs, one MD/PhD and one Masters of Science. Of the seven MDs it is arguable that only two members are qualified to sit in academic judgment of student applicants. The remaining MDs were all trained prior to the “discovery” of modern molecular biology. As such, it is amazing that these individuals have no background or at best limited knowledge of fundamental principles of immunology or "basic" biology and yet sit in judgment of students who have studied these concepts. The world of biological sciences changed in 1984 (“discovery” of the Polymerase Chain Reaction, PCR) and a lot of what we thought was true about the programming of cellular mechanisms prior to c.1984 has been completely re-written in the textbooks. Sadly, a majority of the MD (and PhD) faculty members have no basis or record of training in these fundamental concepts of medicine and biology. More disturbing, none of the MDs appear to have taken the Medical College Admissions Test (i.e., the dreaded eight hour MCAT) since it was completely re-written (and made far more difficult) in approximately 1994. To this point, we are curious to know when each of the MDs took the MCAT (some never completed the exam) and their achievements on the exam. The MD composition of this admissions committee is clearly unacceptable. What is more amazing, none of the MD members have any training in public health or the practice thereof (this probably explains other health issues in South Dakota).
With regard to the PhDs on the admissions committee the story becomes even more interesting and the tale of unqualified academicians becomes even more disturbing. Of the seven PhDs on the admissions committee a majority are not involved in any type of academic biomedical research and those that are involved in research study fields completely unrelated to the study of practical human medicine. The Dean of Student Affairs, Paul Bunger (Associate Professor), completed a PhD in 1976 at the University of Nebraska and based on records of PubMed has not published a single peer-reviewed scientific manuscript (based on novel research hypothesis) in over ten years. Moreover, Dr. Bunger appears to have been senior author on only one manuscript in his career and that dates to c.1976 (Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1979 Dec 14;91(3):911-8). Clearly, the academic credentials of the Dean should be called into question, as he is certainly unfit and unqualified to lead the medical school admissions committee. Dr. Bunger has no record of academic training or expertise in the fields of education.
There are other serious issues involving the PhD staff. Two of the members have no educational training in the United States. One individual was trained in the United Kingdom and the other was trained in India. Neither individual attended or received a diploma from a nationally recognized institution. An additional member earned a PhD in 1996 and has little to no research experience and is appointed at the lowest academic level of Instructor within the Department of Biological Sciences. To the best of our knowledge, NONE of the PhD staff have ever completed the required MCAT.
If the lack of biological experience and academic technical knowledge in both the MD and PhD admissions committee members isn’t alarming enough, there is more to consider. One of the committee members only holds a Masters of Science degree and is appointed as an instructor. Clearly, this individual is not qualified to command such a position of influence and decision on the admissions committee. Some of the applicants hold an equal academic credential and some hold a higher (doctoral) credential.
Some reading this informational blog might be impressed with the fact that one of the admissions committee members holds a claimed academic credential of the coveted MD, PhD. However, it is important to note that this individual was also trained outside the United States and earned an MD in Iraq. His PhD is from the University of Minnesota, but it is not a true academic PhD that would be normally achieved with five plus years of course work and novel bench-level research and a three to five year post-doctoral appointment. Clearly, this individual is in the same category as many of the other committee members … not qualified.
The intention of this blog is to catch the attention of the Citizens of South Dakota and to bring to their attention that this University and the USD Medical School is failing in its mission to educate the best possible students from throughout South Dakota (another topic we will discuss in an upcoming blog topic). The faculty who comprise the admissions committee are simply NOT QUALIFIED and need to be replaced with members who have the proper academic credentials. Not one member of the admissions committee hails from SDSU or Augustana College. Not one member of the admissions committee represents the public. Not one member of the admissions committee is a member of the clergy. And NO ONE on the admissions committee represents western South Dakota.
The Governor and the State Legislature need to act on this issue and they need to set-up a watchdog system to take back what is so needed and pivotal to the health and well being of South Dakota. The basic health needs of greater than sixty-percent of South Dakota are not being met. It is time the public stands up and takes back control.
To the Citizens of South Dakota, sound off, comment on this blog, and help me make the Medical School, YOUR Medical School, educate people who can competently serve US, South Dakotans.
In closing, anyone is welcome to comment on this blog, however, your comments must be civil, factful, and truthful. Any comments found to violate these three tenets will be summarily removed.
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