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.