End admission quotas at UA medical school
The Traveler Editorial Board
Issue date: 12/5/08 Section: Opinion
The UA School for Medical Sciences has secured funds to build a satellite campus in Fayetteville, which is an enormous step toward increasing the diversity of options the UA in Fayetteville offers its students.
However, accessibility to the UAMS Little Rock campus is not the main issue for students striving to attend medical school. The problem lies with the admission policy for Arkansas students at UAMS.
Currently, the policy is that UAMS admits students in Arkansas based on the area of the state they reside. Per state law, the school seeks a proportionally equal number of students from the four congressional districts in Arkansas.
This policy gives students in poorer areas of the state, who might not have had equal access to the kind of high-quality education required to be competitive medical school applicants, a chance they otherwise might not have had to succeed in the medical profession. While that is laudable, it does not necessarily justify turning down students who live in more privileged parts of the state who have higher MCAT scores and more impressive grades, and who have reliably demonstrated knowledge that would prepare them for work in the profession of saving lives and caring for the American people.
Doctors and surgeons top the list of the most important professions in the country, and students attempting medical careers have the potential to end life-threatening diseases. But many of these students might be held back from the opportunity of beginning their careers at UAMS because of this state-sanctioned quota.
In an October article of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Richard Wheeler, UAMS executive associate dean, said that ending the policy of reserving spots at the school for students from specific areas of the state has "become less of a priority over the last year."
But perhaps it should be a top priority. Though giving students the opportunity to pursue a profession that could help their particular area of the state is great in theory, only about 28 percent of medical school graduates from 1996 to 2000 actually returned to their home districts to practice.
In light of this statistic, the state of Arkansas deserves to be treated medically by the most qualified and brightest doctors for the job. And the best way for that to happen is not through quotas.
However, accessibility to the UAMS Little Rock campus is not the main issue for students striving to attend medical school. The problem lies with the admission policy for Arkansas students at UAMS.
Currently, the policy is that UAMS admits students in Arkansas based on the area of the state they reside. Per state law, the school seeks a proportionally equal number of students from the four congressional districts in Arkansas.
This policy gives students in poorer areas of the state, who might not have had equal access to the kind of high-quality education required to be competitive medical school applicants, a chance they otherwise might not have had to succeed in the medical profession. While that is laudable, it does not necessarily justify turning down students who live in more privileged parts of the state who have higher MCAT scores and more impressive grades, and who have reliably demonstrated knowledge that would prepare them for work in the profession of saving lives and caring for the American people.
Doctors and surgeons top the list of the most important professions in the country, and students attempting medical careers have the potential to end life-threatening diseases. But many of these students might be held back from the opportunity of beginning their careers at UAMS because of this state-sanctioned quota.
In an October article of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Richard Wheeler, UAMS executive associate dean, said that ending the policy of reserving spots at the school for students from specific areas of the state has "become less of a priority over the last year."
But perhaps it should be a top priority. Though giving students the opportunity to pursue a profession that could help their particular area of the state is great in theory, only about 28 percent of medical school graduates from 1996 to 2000 actually returned to their home districts to practice.
In light of this statistic, the state of Arkansas deserves to be treated medically by the most qualified and brightest doctors for the job. And the best way for that to happen is not through quotas.
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