Minutes of the Council Meetings >>

M I N U T E S
MEDICAL SCHOOL FACULTY COUNCIL
Speaker's Meeting
TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2004
SCCC 1537

1. Call to Order

A quorum being present, the meeting was convened at 4:45 P.M.

Action on the April 20 minutes was deferred to the next meeting.

Animal Resources Committee
Action on this written report was deferred to the next meeting.

Executive Curriculum Committee
Action on this written report was deferred to the next meeting.

Executive Promotions Committee
Dr. Multach was not in attendance to present his annual report. He will be rescheduled to attend the next meeting.

Honors Program in Medical Education
Dr. Benedetto, Chairman of the Honors Program in Medical Education Committee, presented his annual report to the Council. He explained that the HPME is responsible for the selection of students to two of the honors programs; the Honors Program in Medical Education (HPME), where high school seniors are selected to begin the 6-year program in the fall, and the Medical Scholars Program (MSP), where first year undergraduates are selected for a 7-year program. The Committee has 14 members and two student representatives.

This year, 154 high school seniors applied for the HPME. The Committee interviewed each of the 154 applicants and ranked 78 of them. This was the second year that the HPME accepted out-of-state applicants. As a side note, Dr. Benedetto explained that since the program has been accepting out-of-state applications, there has been an increase in the number of applicants and increase in the size of the Committee. Last year there were 17 ranked out-of-state applicants and this year there were 24 ranked out-of-state applicants. This year, the application submission, review, and voting was all done on-line. Thirty-three students were accepted into the HPME this year, which is the highest acceptance rate thus far. There is a plan at UM to increase the HPME. The median SAT scores for this year’s population were in the upper levels (1480) and the math scores were almost perfect (780). Twenty of the 33 students accepted the invitation to the program. The number of students who accepted the invitation is not significantly different from the prior years. Students who choose not to accept the invitation to UM usually end up going to a four-year college like Northwestern or Boston University. Twenty of this year’s applicants had perfect SAT scores. Dr. Benedetto was asked how many minority students applied to the HPME. He wasn’t exactly sure, but he thought it was very few, maybe one or two per year.

This year, 30 UM undergraduate students chosen on the basis of their performance were considered for the MSP and 11 were accepted with a median GPA of 3.9 for the group. So far six students have accepted the invitation to enroll in the MSP. The program was willing to accept more applicants this year for the MSP, but still ended up getting about the same number of applicants as in the past. It was asked if the students were bound by the decision to enter the MSP once they accept the invitation. Dr. Benedetto said no, and that it was rare for a student not fulfill their agreement.

Dr. Benedetto summarized the issues that the Committee dealt with over the past year.

1. Online Voting: All of the voting was performed on-line for the first time. Overall, this went pretty well. Dr. Benedetto felt the on-line review process increased the participation of the Committee members. They are working eliminating a few glitches and adding an edit function for next year.
2. Student Counseling: There were concerns about the counseling provided to the HPME and MSP students, especially in the area of course selection. It was felt that greater emphasis and resources needed to be dedicated to this area.
3. Admissions Personnel: Unlike the past, there are currently no personnel in admissions that are specifically dedicated to the HPME. This has resulted in recruitment and miscommunication issues with the main campus. The Committee has heard complaints that the admissions office has not been promptly answering students’ calls. There are concerns that this may cause frustrated students to go elsewhere.
4. Admissions Criteria: Being charged with the responsibility to admit the most mature and capable students to the HPME, the Committee feels that the 3.4 GPA for admission to medical school “sets the bar too low” for an honors program.
5. Program Performance Data: Despite repeated requests, the Committee has been unable to obtain data on HPME and MSP student performance in medical school. The Committee would like to be able to identify variables among the high school and undergraduate applicants that may indicate success or failure in medical school.

HPME students who have academic difficulties are required to meet with Dr. Benedetto. Academic difficulty is defined as a student falling below a 3.4 cumulative GPA, having a semester GPA that is below 3.4, or having a semester with lower academic performance than the prior semester. This usually is only an issue for the HPME students. The MSP students are chosen on the basis of their academic performance in college whereas HPME students are recruited while still in high school.

Further addressing the issue of student counseling, Dr. Benedetto stated that he was not sure that these students were getting a lot of input when choosing their classes. For example, he has seen a student taking four science courses all during one semester, which results in a drop in academic performance. It was questioned why these students were not required to meet with an advisor prior to choosing their classes. Dr. Benedetto did not know how these students are assigned to an advisor or who the advisors for the HPME are. Dr. Mallery used to be the advisor for these students, but he is not the current advisor.

There was also a recent issue where a student required psychiatric care. The problem was not identified and the student did not receive the proper care. There are a special, handpicked group of students and the advisors should be knowledgeable of the program criteria. These students are young (and therefore more likely to have maturity issues), high performers and should be assigned to a specific group of advisors that are educated on how to guide this special group.

Dr. Lewis recalled that concerns about a lack of mentorship for this group of students have come up in past HPME reports to the Council.

It was questioned if someone from the Council should meet with Dr. Luis Glaser and help identify some potential advisors or if the Council should simply take this issue to the Faculty Senate. The Council came to a conclusion that it was a good idea for them to identify four good counselors to be assigned to the HPME and MSP students. The Council wants to avoid the waste of these students’ potential due to lack of proper guidance.

Dr. Raskin recommended that this issue be brought before the Faculty Senate so that a formal advising group can be created to ensure that the maturity, counseling, and workload needs of the HPME and MSP students are adequately addressed in order to give these students the best optimal chance to succeeded in this program. Dr. Raskin sits on the Executive Promotion Committee and stated that many of the problems they encounter come from the “baby docs” that came out of this program that have not had appropriate advice, appropriate psychosocial evaluation, maturity as it relates to the workload, etc. These issues should be addressed by the advisor.

This motion was seconded and unanimously approved.

It was suggested that the Council identify four potential advisors and pass on their recommendation to the Faculty Senate. It was decided that the Council should approach Dr. Glaser first so he will be prepared when this issue is brought forward by the Senate.

Dr. Benedetto then further addressed the difficulty the Committee was having in obtaining program performance data. All of the seven students that received counseling by the Chairman for academic difficulty this past year had eligible GPAs to enter the medical school in the fall semester except for two who withdrew due to poor academic performance. It was asked if these counseling records continued with the students once they enter medical school. Dr. Benedetto was not sure, but thought that it might be possible to link these records. Dr. Benedetto mentioned that once when he tried to follow through with a student that he was concerned about he was initially denied access to the file. The HPME is never informed about which students turn out to be “problem” students. Dr. Benedetto did one analysis and found that there was an inverse relationship between the SAT scores and problematic students. Students with the higher SAT scores tended to have poor study habits, were more likely to crush under competition, etc. Data are not available to determine if this trend continues into Medical School.

Dr. Raskin stated that when one of these students fails, it’s either due to poor program structure, poor effort on the part of the student, or poor admissions screening tools. He mentioned that another issue with the admissions criteria was that the screening process for the HPME students did not include testing for psychosocial issues or physical disabilities.

Dr. Lewis commented that information should flow freely between the HPME committee and the medical school. There are no data on the problems that these students encounter and how or if the problems were resolved. There is no systematic outcome data (e.g., data on how many students go on to medical school, what is their performance like, how many graduate from medical school, etc). Dr. Mian mentioned that this issue was brought before the Council twice before and no action was taken. Dr. Lewis stated that the Council needed to act on this important issue. There needs to be systematic data collection in order to determine if there is a problem in this program. There needs to be support for the students, communication between the Coral Gables and Medical campuses, and follow-up on the progress and status of these students. Dr. Lewis will schedule a meeting with Dr. Benedetto, Dr. O’Connell, Dr. Mian, Dean Hernandez, and Dr. Raskin to discuss this issue and report back to the Council. The earlier motion will be held until this group reports back to the Council.

Dr. Benedetto was thanked for all of his hard work and for doing an excellent job as the HPME Committee Chair. He was then excused from the meeting.

Dr. Ouellette was scheduled to present on this topic today, but was unable to attend. This topic was deferred to the next meeting.

This topic was deferred to the next meeting.

This topic was deferred to the next meeting.

- Removal of Dr. Mark McKenney
Dr. Mian reported that the removal of Dr. McKenney was not necessary since he was never officially on one of the Standing Committees. The fact that his name was on the roster was a typo. It was questioned if Dr. McKenney should be re-nominated this year. The Committee he was erroneously nominated to is full. Dr. McKenney would not be able to serve this year since he is busy with his duties as Chief of Trauma.

- Appointment of Council Representatives
The following Council members were appointed to serve on these Standing Committees.

Administrative Services: Dr. Ragheb
Honors Program in Medical Education: Dr. Carraway
Library Committee: Dr. Bishopric
Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure: Dr. Young

Dr. Mian questioned if it was acceptable for a Council member to serve both as a Council Representative and a full member of a Committee. It was decided that this was acceptable. Dr. Young will serve both as the Council representative and a committee member on the APT Committee. Dr. Awad is also on both the Council and a full member of the APT Committee.

Dr. Carolyn Cray was suggested as a possible Chair for the Animal Resources Committee. Dr. Mian will contact Dr. Cray and see if she is interested in serving.

It was decided that the Council would only meet once per month over the summer. Many members take vacation, attend conferences, etc. over the summer and it is difficult to get a quorum.

There being no further business to discuss the meeting was adjourned at 5:45 p.m.