Hey everyone. Today I leave for Nashville to fly to Maryland for that UMBC thing. I made another entry because I remember some other things that Dr. Hadley from LLU said. On Sabbath, Dr. Hadley was invited to the chair of our Biology department’s house for dinner. The chair, Dr. Paul, in turn also invited a couple of Biology majors to the potluck also to I guess just fellowship and talk personally with Dr. Hadley and his wife. I wasn’t there for the first 3 hours, because I was at another potluck, but when I came I did get a good amount of information. Dr. Hadley talked about a couple of things:
1) He talked about how he was at some conference in California, where the admissions deans of all the medical schools in Southern California met. He is not the admissions dean, but he was filling in for his admissions dean. Well, he had only been a dean for about 3 months, and the admissions dean from USC (I can’t remember which one) came up to him and said, “Are you Dr. Hadley, the new dean of Loma Linda?” And he told her yes. Then she proceeded to tell him how envious she was of his job. He then asked her why, since certainly, LLU didn’t have the financial backing that their school did. She told him that she envies LLU because from the beginning, it has always been very clear what kind of students LLU is looking for. What kind of values, ethics, and practices they are looking for in their students, and their clear cut focus on mission work. She said at her school, it seems like every year they are changing what kind of students they want. One year they want people with amazing life experiences, the next year, they want older students, married students, and more minorities, etc, etc. So yeah, Dr. Hadley said it was nice that the other schools looked at LLU that way.
2)He also told us that he has looked at study, after, study, after study, and he has not seen any correlation between MCAT scores and being a good doctor, or board scores and being a good doctor. He reminded us that it is possible to determine that quality of a doctor by surveying their colleagues, patients, staff, teachers, attendings, etc. But yeah, he also said that they HAVE seen a correlation between how well you do on your MCAT score and how well you do on your Step I board scores. He exclaimed that it truly pained his heart that they couldn’t actually quantify the quality of a doctor early on, but he said they still must have some cut off points. He also said that that really is what the interview is for. They are just really looking to see that you aren’t some kind of super intelligent nut job or jerk.
3) He also said that when you go to interview for residencies, they definitely aren’t looking at your MCAT scores, and they are kind of looking at your board scores. What they are really looking for he said is your ability to work with others, and your performance with patients. He said that if the deans notice that they have some kind of introvert with no bedside manners, they will usually try to guide him/her to radiaolgy, anesthesiology, or pathology.
4) I also asked him about how I would go about answering the “What’s the biggest problem in healthcare today” question. And he said that of course it’s the 40 million uninsured Americans that is the answer. And that something must be done, and he thinks that the ultimate path is going to be socialized medicine. He said if physicians could somehow offer care to all Americans, and chose not to (i.e.- wasn’t willing to make a sacrifice to make that happen) then that is morally incomprehensible. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about socialized medicine, but he does make a point. If our purpose for being doctors was to help as many people as possible, and we overlooked an opportunity to provide care to all of America, it would seem kind of wrong. Now I know that socialized healthcare isn’t as clean cut and dry as Dr. Hadley makes it seem, but it makes for a compelling argument.
5) He also said that the reason why a lot of people don’t get accepted to Loma Linda is because of their answer to their question, “Are you will to abide by LLU’s non-alcohol policy?”. He said really, all they want is a simple answer, “YES”. But he said that a lot of people, and sadly a lot of Adventists give conditional answers like, “Yes I will abide, but only if LLU continues to uphold the standards of the church”, or “Yes I will abide, but only if LLU makes sure that the other students in my class abide.”. He said that when people put things like that down, no matter if they are Adventist or not they aren’t going to take them.
6) He also said that his job is kind of hard, especially as an Adventist, because when a Adventist family’s son or daughter doesn’t get in, and they know Dr. Hadley, they will call him to ask him why their, highly qualified son/daughter didn’t get in. He said that usually it’s because that person BLEW the interview. He said that his first cousin (while he was Dean), whose last name was also Hadley didn’t get in because she blew the interview, and there was really nothing he could do. So yeah, the interview is very important .
Anyway he said some other things, but yeah I can’t remember it. On another note, this Mayo Clinic thing that is happening on Sunday at my school is REALLY REALLY serious. The Dean of Mayo Medical school is coming, the Assistant Dean of the Mayo Medical school is coming, the Dean of the Mayo Graduate school is coming, and the Director of Diversity of Mayo is coming. They will be talking about how to write personal statements, interviews, their school, and they will also be holding mock interviews on Monday. Oakwood is a very small school, and I know its only the Lord’s blessings that is opening up doors like this. I’m really just excited about Mayo’s prestige. I don’t think I would want to go there. A couple of kids from my school have done research there, and they said that first, the closest Adventist church is like 1 ½ hours away, and there are no black people with in a 50 mile radius. Not the kind of environment I want to be in. Anyway, I’ll write about my experiences at UMBC later. Peace.
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