Cedarville Magazine, Spring/Summer 2015

Andrew Barfell ’11, a third-year medical student at the University of Cincinnati, also found himself among a very elite few. “It’s not super common for undergrad programs to have human anatomy-based classes,” he noted. “There are a couple schools that make you do a zoology program, so a lot of my peers had done work on animal structures, but very few of themhad done anything with human cadavers.” Offering human structure and function courses where students actually interact with human bodies is just one way that Cedarville’s premed track is giving students a running start in the high-pressure world of the American medical school. Numbers Don’t Lie According to the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), there were 49,474 applicants to med school in 2014. How many were accepted? A striking 43.2 percent were given the green light to attend med school last fall, or 21,355 applicants. This wasn’t a blip in the numbers, either. Over the course of five years, from 2010 to 2014, the acceptance rate at American medical schools has been about 45 percent. In contrast, 79 percent of Cedarville’s premed track applicants have been accepted into medical school over the same five-year period, putting its acceptance rate percentage in the rare air of some of the highest-rated premed programs in the country, such as Duke University (85 percent) and Cornell University (67 percent for 2010). Former Yellow Jackets are now preparing for careers in medicine all over the Midwest and beyond — University of Michigan, Indiana University, University of Iowa, the Medical University of South Carolina, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (in conjunction with Case Western Reserve University), and Temple University. “If you are getting almost 80 percent of your seniors into medical school, that’s a number any institution would be proud to have,” said Geoffrey Young, AAMC’s Senior Director of Student Affairs and Programs. He served as Dean of Admissions at the Medical College of Georgia – Georgia Regents University and on admissions committees at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University, and Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. “Medical school is extremely competitive. To have that rate would suggest the students are academically well prepared and engaged in the kinds of experiences medical schools are seeking in their applicants.” Solid Beginning Premed students at Cedarville typically earn a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and take medical school track courses. During third year, students interact with human bodies in the Structure and Function I and II courses. “Cedarville’s human anatomy course is a lot more intense than other programs,” Barfell recalled. “[Assistant Professor of Biology Cindy (Myczka)Wingert ’01] had us learn all the muscles, the bones, landmarks on the bones; we memorized the origins, insertions, the actions of all the muscles, innervations, and blood supply [of all the muscles]. It was really extensive and a lot of it stuck with me. WhenAndy Johnson ’14 showed up the first day of gross anatomy class at theUniversity of MichiganMedical School last fall, he was caught off guard. “About half of my classmates have degrees in the realm of biology from schools like Harvard, Yale, and Michigan,” he said. “Very few had ever seen a cadaver before, and even fewer had spent significant time studying a cadaver like each anatomy student does at Cedarville.” by Clem Boyd THE ADVANTAGE: FROM CEDARVILLE TO MED SCHOOL Cedarville Magazine | 9