I tell students that as you’re looking at different medical schools CMED, any of the other ones in the state of Michigan or really anywhere for graduate school, a big thing prior to even applying is to learn about what that school is looking for, what that school is about, and what the curriculum is.-Ray Wilson
This past Tuesday, University of Detroit Mercy Pre-Health Department had the opportunity to learn about CMU’s College of Medicine with Assistant Director of Admissions & Financial Aid Ray Wilson. Our very own Pre-Medicine Titan Farzad Baghaie Co-Host this Session. Detroit Mercy Titans if you were unable to attend the session, you will have the opportunity to view the Session in this week’s SWAY! The Information Session covers five key points.
- CMU College of Medicine (CMED) Mission Statement
- About CMED
- CMED Curriculum
- System Based
- Team & problem Based
- Clinical Years
- Admission Requirements
Mission Statement
Central Michigan University College of Medicine’s Mission Statement focuses most on educating and training students from diverse cultures and background and hones in on providing healthcare to underserved populations.
One of our main focuses there is to underserved populations…Underserved medical communities are really the backbone of what the need of the state of Michigan is.
Always when you’re looking at different med schools, start off with their mission statement. Gain a little bit of knowledge just right there because if they put a lot of thought and effort into including it in their mission statement it means that’s who they are and what they’re looking for.
About CMED
“Were pretty much all across the state in some capacity…”
The College of Medicine first class was in 2013. The average class size each year is 104. There are five locations; Mt. Pleasant MI, which is the main campus, Saginaw, Lakeland, Detroit and Midland. Students will attend the Mt. Pleasant location their pre-clinical years, which is year 1-2. During years 3-4, which are clinical years, students will be in one of the four Clinical locations which are Saginaw, Lakeland, Detroit or Midland. CMED has a large number of healthcare affiliations. However, the main ones are Covenant Health Care in Saginaw, Ascension St. John’s in Detroit, Mid Michigan Health in Midland, Spectrum Health in Lakeland, Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Troy, and Ascension St. Mary’s in Saginaw.
Just because you don’t see something listed on here doesn’t mean that students aren’t doing clinical experiences in a variety of different locations. Were pretty much all across the state in some capacity but it just kind of depends on what rotation you’re doing, when you’re doing it and a variety of different factors. Those are some of our primary ones that you’ll be seeing as a student within the college of medicine.
One of our newer ones is Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Troy…Were really proud of that and it’s expanded our pediatric offers significantly in the last year and a half since that affiliation came on board.
CMED Curriculum
Assistant Director Ray Wilson explains how the CMED curriculum is different than the traditional Medical School curriculum. The Curriculum includes System Based and Team Based & Problem Based Learning.
“It’s been proven that this type of curriculum bolts very well for extended learning.”
A. System Based
The System Based are in years 1-2 and includes courses like Essentials of Clinical Skills and Society and Community Medicine.
What ours does and definitely the new trend within the College of Medicine curriculums is to teach it in a system-based approach with longitudinal courses mixed in and what those longitudinal courses are is courses in things like essential for clinical skills which is where you learn things like how to enter a patient’s room and how to take a chart down and just interacting with a patient to begin with…Then as you get into the different systems, you learn how to do an exam in different topics that you’re covering in each specific system moving forward.
B. Team & Problem Based
Team & Problem Based is case based learning formats based on current system rotation. During this time students will be placed in small groups of 13 classmates for the entire year.
Were looking at combining students who come from different undergraduate schools, from different racial and ethnic background, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different majors and minors all of those different things so that you really learn what it’s like to work with new people in a different environment that have different backgrounds because really as a medical professional going forward, that is the most important thing you can possibly learn in medical school is how to work with everyone else. You could never possibly be the expert on everything.
Clinical Years
Students at Central Michigan University College of Medicine completes Comprehensive Community Clerkship during their clinical years. The Longitudinal Clerkship takes place for 5 months and students spend 2.5 days per week with a primary care provider at varied locations across Michigan.
Why do we do that? The biggest thing is that we want to immerse you into the primary care experience and no this not just a family medicine doctor necessarily. It could be an OBGYN, it could be internal medicine, it could be emergency medicine in a smaller community; there’s a lot of different things.
“Primary care by definition is those who we see first!”
We do it for the full five months rather than most programs, a max of 8 weeks because we want you to start learning the trends. We want you to see things that come up on a regular basis.
Admission Requirements
These are the Admission Requirements for CMU College of Medicine.
- Bachelor’s Degree (By time you enroll)
- Minimum of 3.25 GPA
- 500 MCAT
- 3-5 Letter of Recommendation (Secondary Application)
- Secondary Application Essay
- US Citizen or Permanent Resident
- Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident
- Recommend 200+ hours in Clinical, Volunteer/Community Service, Leadership & Research
*Top Tier applicants have 1000+ hours*
Ray Wilson offers advice to students who are applying to medical school.
You need to be strategic about your application…Yes, there is definitely an advantage to applying early but a thorough and really well-submitted application is much better!
Want to learn more about Central Michigan University College of Medicine? Contact them today!! Email: cmedadmit@cmich.edu Phone: (989) 885-7882
If you are in need of pre-health advising and plan to be a University of Detroit Mercy student then schedule an appointment with Carmen Gamlin via https://calendly.com/prehealthadvisor