Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine

[MUSIC] >> From Case Buster Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, this is the All Access Med School admissions podcast. Hello, everybody. I'm your host, Christian Esman, and I'm the Senior Director of Admissions in financial aid here at Case. Back in May, I hosted a webinar for the listeners of my show and was so thrilled to see so many attendees from across the United States and some other countries. Kind of blew my mind. I really enjoyed the opportunity to share with them more about our school. And then at the end, we had a really lively and fast paced Q&A discussion. I chose fun. I was trying to keep up with all the questions coming in and try to get to them all. But we didn't get to everyone, but at the end, so that was really fun. So if you attended the info session and you're listening right now, I want to give you a big thank you for taking a little time out of your day to join me. Now, some people contacted me and they said they had some conflicts. They couldn't attend that night. They're asking me, "Are you going to do plenty of recording it?" And so I did hit the record button. And thankfully, everything went as planned. There weren't any internet, you know, mishaps or miscues. And I didn't say anything. I didn't want to, so I was really happy with the way it turned out. So if you missed it and you want to go back or you want to go back and relive those memories again, you can find the link to the YouTube video in the description of this episode. So check that out. Okay, so you're here listening right now because you want to learn more about Kaiser Permanente. So let me give you a little background on them before you hear about my guest. Located in the city of roses and the center of the San Gabriel Valley, the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine calls Pasadena, California their home, which is approximately 11 miles from downtown Los Angeles. While many people know Pasadena for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Rose Parade, it's also home to other nearby universities, including Caltech and the University of Southern California, which KPSOM, you'll hear us call KPS, everyone's in a while. Has a partnership with for some dual degree opportunities. They also have a partnership with UCLA, which isn't too far down the road. And we talk about these opportunities during our conversation today too, so stay tuned. Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine is a very new school and just opened their doors in July of 2020. The mission of the medical school is to provide a world-class medical education that ignites a passion for learning, a desire to serve, and an unwavering commitment to improve the health and well-being of patients and communities. They strive to matriculate, inestimated 48 to 50 bold, talented and diverse students with a readiness to become a change agent, physician leaders who are committed to ensuring equitable health and well-being for all patients and communities. Their educational approach will be forward-thinking and forward future-facing. Of special interest, matriculated students are provided with full tuition coverage for their four-year enrollment period for their first five classes, so it's entering in 2020 through 2024. An occasion I talk a little bit about this too. Additionally, substantial need-based grant aid is available to assist matriculated students with a living expenses, which is something we also talk about today. KPSOM is a private institution and accepts applications from those outside of California, but they do not accept our applications from international applicants, including Canadians. They do, however, accept applications from applicants with the DACA status, though. The school was recently named the sixth most diverse medical school in the nation, and second in California by U.S. News and World Report as part of the 2023 best medical school rankings. In 2021, Kaiser Permanente received approximately 11,587 applications, interviewed over 700 applicants for a class size of 50, 52% of that class were women, and 40% self-identified from groups underrepresented in medicine. Now, let me tell you a little bit about our guest today, Agesia Lanier. Agesia Lanier is an admissions counselor and recruitment coordinator with Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. In these roles, roles, Agesia guides and counsels prospective pre-medical school applicants through the admissions process, and she's responsible for creating the Office of Admissions Recruitment Strategy. She's also the staff advisor for the admissions ambassadors, which is a group of current students who participate in various activities with the Office of Admissions. Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente, Agesia worked as the assistant director for nursing and transfer admission at Mount St. Mary's University. MSMU is sometimes called there in Los Angeles as well. In this role, Agesia guided and counseled prospective nursing applicants through the admissions process. She also supervised a small team of transfer admissions counselors. Agesia graduated from Mount St. Mary's University in Los Angeles with a degree in the Bachelor of Arts and Business Administration with an emphasis in management. She also holds a Master of Education and Higher Education from Abilene Christian University, located in Abilene, Texas. Agesia earned yet another degree with a Master of Science degree in Counseling Psychology at Mount St. Mary's University. So as you'll hear, she is a delight to talk with, and I hope you get to meet her someday too, and you'll hear how you can do that near the end of our conversation. So here we go. Hi, Agesia. Thanks so much for joining me today. I'm really thrilled. I can't tell you how many people listeners have texted me or emailed me and said, "Please get Kaiser Permanente on if you can." And so this is a big win for me. This is a big get. So thanks for being here. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. So before we get into everything about your medical school, I like to kind of hear more about the people behind the curtain, that the admissions curtain. And so a minute ago before we hit record, you were kind of telling me that you've been there. Kaiser is a baby school, and it's relatively new, but you've been there since really from the ground up. Like you're telling me like you started there when there was a hole in the ground as far the building goes. So how did you wind up there? How did you wind up in admissions? What do you like about it? Oh my goodness. Well, let's start off how I wound up in admissions. Actually, that's something that most people would know about me by looking at me. I've been in higher education for about 16 years now. And I didn't start off in admissions. I started off in academic advising. So my first, my first real job in a higher education was with Long Beach State as an academic advisor, and I did that for about three years. And then wanted to try something else. So I tried my hand in admissions and went to my alma mater, Mount St. Mary's University Shoutout, and started in nursing admissions. And I did that for about eight years as the assistant director for nursing admissions and loved every minute of it. Nursing is a very interesting process, but no different from this process as well. And yeah, that is how I started in in higher ed. Getting into this position, I actually got an email from LinkedIn about a position, this position that I have now. And I kind of actually ignored it. And I had two other colleagues come to me and say, you know, I saw this position on LinkedIn. And I think like this is perfect for you, you should you should apply. And I'm not even looking for a job. Like, I'm good. But you know, I was like, why not? It's Kaiser Permanente. And, and honestly, my mother, her younger sister, my great aunt, they all retired from Kaiser Permanente. So I'm very well-keying with Kaiser Permanente, literally grew up within the system and had great doctors. And I said, you know, that would be really cool to be a part of destiny. Kind of reaching out to you and saying, I think so. The Kaiser, come the Kaiser. So few interviews, it was, it was a few interviews. And next thing I know, I'm here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man, that's cool. What a great story. So you, we were talking before, you're you're a lifelong Californian. What do you do for fun? What do you call fun? And at home there. And right now, I think because when I'm just coming out of COVID and mandates are a little harder in California than in other places, just trying to reconnect with life outside my apartment. So I like to really spend time with family. Yeah. I think it's the little things that you're enjoying. I'm enjoying now just spending time with family. I love movies. I love going to the movies. That's something I think we took for granted. I love sports. I love watching football basketball. You name it right now. Rams are chargers. Oh, Rams. The world champion. Super bowl champion. Rams. That theme is beautiful. It is a beautiful stadium. And long time, I would say born and raised a Laker fan. I just saw LeBron James and the Lakers last night here in Cleveland. And I think they won. I think they did. Yeah. I think they did. Anyway, but no, it was LeBron was back home. His mom was there. You know, I'm still, hey, the guy brought us a trophy. So he's still good in my book. We just, we're just going on to you for a while. Let's, before we get into the admissions part of, of your program, let's talk a little bit about the highlights of your curriculum. And I want to tell our listeners, you guys have a beautiful website. I mean, it's really nicely laid out. It's organized. And it really has a lot of information on there that's not overwhelming. This nice video is embedded in stuff. So please, like, I'll link to it in the show notes so people can check it out directly. But why I really learned a lot, just kind of doing my homework and going through it is really a pretty sight. When it comes to the curriculum, what are those kind of highlights that you want prospective applicants to know about? I would say just right off the top of my head, you know, you are going to get to interact with patients early on. You are literally going to be in the clinical setting week three of your school week. So I think that is something that definitely makes this unique. Your first two years, you're going to be focused on family medicine and internal medicine. Second year, you get, we add specialties to that. You're going to have rotations in OB-GYN, psychiatry, and even emergency medicine as well. And then in your third and fourth year, you're still able, still doing clinical work. But now you get to venture outside of the six sites that we've designated for our students. Because we wanted them to have a good diverse population that they're working with. But they get to go outside of Kaiser if they'd like to maybe focus on their specialties that they're interested in. So I think that's one big thing. Another big thing about our curriculum is our students are learning anatomy with virtual reality and simulation. And we do not have a cadaver lab and that is unique to our school. So that is something that is, it is a beautiful, it's called the Anatomy Resource Center. And every time I go, there's always something amazing to see. But you know, I think students learning and using technology that they're probably going to use when they get out into the real world. I think that is a really good benefit for our future graduates. Yeah. Can I interrupt you for a second? I will tell you that there is a section on Kaiser's website about the Anatomy curriculum. And there's a there's a video in there. And it kind of shows you this resource center that engaged is talking about. And it's cool. Like it's it. And there's from what I saw, like it's almost, if you've ever seen that, there's that that exhibit called body world. It's like plasticized like humans that have donated their bodies to this. And it looks like those body world people in your resource center. Is that kind of like what that is? That is exactly what it is. We have human specimens in the anatomy resource center. They're called placidates. And they are designed to last for a very long time. So, you know, our students can go back and say, Hey, this is what I was looking at. This is what I was studying. That's a conversation, right? Because we do VR portion of our anatomy curriculum too with Microsoft HoloLens. And I don't I couldn't tell what kind of VR you guys were using. But but I think that's a conversation in the anatomy world that maybe we don't have to have students in gross to section like we always have had like traditionally that there's other ways of for students to learn and see anatomical structures than being in a classic category to section lab. So, but yours was you from telling listeners, you have to go watch this because it's really it's unique. It's it's a gauge was right. It's very unique the way that they approach this. So sorry to interrupt you, but I had to jump out at me. Now, I will say this for students that, you know, what if you really do want to have that experience? We have so many different different institutions that we're connected with. For example, Caltech is is literally a mile away from us. And we actually have an empty PhD program with Caltech. If you need to do work or you want to do research or you want to use a wet lab, we have all those resources available. So it's there. But yeah, that is something I wanted to make sure yes, it is now. And they also saw like you also have a partnership with like UCLA and USC for master's programs too. That's great. Yes, we did. So that's one of the benefits of kind of being in that greater Los Angeles area and having those those big universities partners nearby. So I that jumped out at me as well. So we were saying we just kind of jumped into this to talk about the curriculum. But I didn't mention that it's called inspire. And so it stands for and I wrote this down. I didn't have it memorized integration, nurturance, which I thought was nice. Scholarship, public population health, innovation, resilience, and equity. That's right. Yeah. So what are what are some when they're in the first two years? How often are they in class? Is it all day? Is it in the morning or so that afternoon? I would say it is mostly in the morning. You're in class afternoons that is usually reserved for their their personal time or maybe they're studying or maybe they're meeting that their affinity groups, things like that. But mostly your your labs, your your discussion, all all those classes are going to be in the morning setting. Yeah. And it seemed to be a lot of case-based learning. Is that? It is case-based. We will actually tell you that we do not have lectures. You are going to be studying in a case-based format. You receive a case. You get together with your group, which is usually about eight to ten students. And yeah, you discuss your case with your facilitator or your professor. And you have pre-work. So you are expected to come in ready to work. So I think sometimes because we do a lot of small group case-based learning too and it's I try to emphasize and I bet you guys do too that if you're if you like lecture style and you're saying we don't have lectures here. So I think I think it's kind of buyer beware be you know you should know if you don't like small group learning that that's all you have. And this is why I tell you know all the students all the time you need to be aware of the granular of the schools that you're looking at. Yeah. If you're not a small group kind of person, this may not be a good fit. Yeah. Yeah. So and that's okay. I mean that's why there's 140 plus med schools out there. Exactly. We're not trying to get you into one place that you might not be a good fit for because of the way you prefer to learn. Okay so another common question that we get a gaysia it from prospective applicants is how do they get involved in research at your school. So what does that look like? So every student is required to complete a scholarly project in order to graduate and you actually will start thinking about your topics in your first year. By your second year you have your faculty mentor that you are going to be connected with. So if this is maybe a special maybe an area that you're interested in maybe it's a specialty that you're interested in they'll connect you with a particular faculty member. And you will have the chance to pursue additional in-depth scholarship worthy of publication. You'll have access to substantial resources of the school and Kaiser Permanente to help you with the school project. A scholarly project in other words you're not going to be left alone. We don't want anybody thinking that. And then at the end of your third year we're hoping that we will be able to have an academic symposium where our students can present their work. And you also have something really good and something tangible to share when it is time for those interviews for residency programs. So you have a ton of ways to get involved with research. That's one part but if outside of the scholarly project there are ways to get involved with research and we have a whole department set aside for that which is our scholarship and research department. Cool. You have researchers scholarly projects baked in and something else I saw that's baked in is service learning. What does that look like? Yes so during the students first two years our curriculum will situate them every month at one community health clinic to address the needs the community has identified. These partnerships are intended to extend the experiences of our students that our students have with the Kaiser Permanente centers that they're already in. So in other words the six sites that we've designated for them to rotate through those clinics are in the same service area. So that's that diverse population that they were involved in. You're going to see that but see it in a different aspect. You're going to see it in the clinic format. We don't want our students going in thinking that they're just going to go in and solve a problem right away. There's time for them to get to know the clinic, to get to know the patients, to get to know the staff and what their needs are. And then that second year they're actually starting projects with the clinic and doing things to help that particular location. So the goal is we want them to understand the interplay of social and environmental influences on health and will be. That mean that's a great way to get them not just seeing patients but also being a part of the community and being out there and getting kind of the lay of the land because I got to looking at your demographics of your students. They're not all from California. I mean they come from all over the United States. So this is a new hometown for a lot of people that are coming there. So to get them out in the community a little bit in a different way, I think when I was reading it, we're like, this is a very holistic approach to getting students oriented and involved because I think a lot of the students that we see, they want to come and they want to get involved in their communities. And so for them, it's already baked in. They don't have to go like knock on doors and try to find places to work with and stuff. It's already there for them to get right into it. So I guess just something else that I wanted to ask you, what about how are students, when it comes to student life? How are your students from affinity groups supported within the school? Like are students who are minority students or LGBTQ students? How are they supported within the program? We have an amazing student affairs division and within that division there is the office of student engagement and their director Laura Hamilton is great with our students. They really take care and listen to their needs. But setting up, we have several affinity groups that are available for our students to connect either culturally or just maybe they want to connect by just a different specialty as interest that they have. There are so many affinity groups and special interest groups at our school. There's actually a moratorium right now because we only have two cohorts. So we have to slow down on how many groups we were creating, but the beauty of that is if there are five students that are interested in the same thing, they can actually create a group. So that gives them, you know, community and we also have groups, affinity groups that are faculty and staff based that are pretty much like the counterparts to some of these groups as well to provide support to our students as well. That's great. Because I saw on the website, there's a thing called that out list that you could students could sign up for or get involved in to get more information from KP about like those things. So I think students can look into that too. When it comes to academic support, what if what if a student is struggling? How do they get help along the way? So just like your undergraduate, undergraduate experience, you know, we have all the same resources that you would have had at your undergraduate institution. We have our academic advising center. We have our career advising center and our academic advising office. This is where you can go and be able to get resources if you need tutoring, if you have a mentoring program, a peer-to-peer mentoring program. So we have all the same resources that you would have and that you're used to at your undergraduate institution. One thing we didn't talk about, but I did mention it in the intro is that Kaiser has the small classes right now. There's about 50 students per class. So there is sounds like a lot of one-on-one opportunities for students to be close with faculty and advisors and stuff. One thing that has become a hot topic in the last couple years, primarily it was influenced by COVID was student wellness. And it sounds to me from my homework that Kaiser is big on student wellness. I mean, I saw a picture on your website of people doing like yoga on a roof someplace of the building or something like that. Look really pretty outside and stuff. So what's the student wellness program kind of like there? Wellness is pretty much, you know, baked in for lack of better words into the curriculum. That is something that is actually my favorite thing about a curriculum that we wanted to make wellness a part of the curriculum is part of our education. There's so many things I could talk about about it, but I would say what I would highlight would probably be our reach program. Oh yeah. Over the four years at the school, you'll be our students participate in a five module learning series called Reach and Reach Dance for Reflection, Education, Assessment, Coaching and Health and Wellbeing. And this takes place every quarter in one week blocks and emphasizes personal and professional development. Now this is actually probably something that's really a favorite time for our students for one they're not in classes during the week. They are with their reach coaches and our reach coaches are Kaiser Permanente physicians who have been trained. They have been trained to be coaches and mentor our students and you have this mentor throughout your entire academic career. So I think of it as this is going to be an automatic person who's going to be your cheerleader, your person who's going to support you. They're going to help you talk about reaching your goals, setting goals for self-reflection and helping you to develop into the future position that you are going to be. So this is I think the best way I really love that they have this part and I think this is probably what you're me to working for this institution. Yeah, I'm going to put links again to some of these things like the research component, the scholarly project and service learning and the reach program because again, these things really kind of jumped out at me. That's what's kind of nice about kind of cool about a brand new school is that you're you've pulled probably a lot of best practices together from med schools around the country and built this really innovative curriculum based on best practices and we didn't have to like say, oh, this is how I've always done it. Now we're going to change it. We got to figure it out how we're going to squeeze it in because we're able to build a sense starting from scratch. So and there's some some great diagrams and their websites that kind of lays out how the curriculum kind of marches forward and stuff. So I want people to go look at that closely. The last thing I got I got to I have to ask you about. Agasia is when I logged on to M.S.R. to look at your M.S.R. page right at the top. This is a pretty picture of your building and it says like it passed within a California and it says tuition and fees zero dollars. And from what I read, the first five classes do not pay tuition and fees tuition and fees, but you're on the hook for your living expenses. Tell us a little bit more about that. I can definitely tell you more about that. So yes, that is correct. Our first five cohorts are attending school for free. You are receiving a tuition scholarship. So yes, all your tuition fees are weighed. Now when it comes to living expenses, we actually have grants available for students to apply for to cover living expenses as well based on needs. So we do have that. And I would say a substantial amount of grant aid is available for our students. So that's we don't want you worrying about money when you're here. We want you to focus on learning and trying to become that doctor that you want to become. Yeah. And not only is it the tuition way the students are also receiving free healthcare as well. I thought that was great. I mean, you're Kaiser Permanente. Exactly. And I was like, oh, that makes so much sense. Give them, give them health insurance. And like really. Oh, that I was like, oh my gosh, that's brilliant. Wow, what a great deal. So what's the time frame for this tuition waiver? So 2024 is supposed to be the last class that will have this tuition waiver. However, I will say there has been discussion. Many people would really like to see this continue beyond 2024. So that is in the works. Let's say to be continued. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's that's great. I mean, I have to believe that that's why I saw how many applications you got last year was around 11,000. Maybe that has something to do with it too. You would think it would. Honestly, when I speak to a lot of, you know, perspective applicants tuition is that it comes up, but that's not the first thing that comes up. Well, that's good. I really love that, you know, we have a lot of things that people do. Yeah. Apply for and tuition. I think this is like a happy bonus. Yeah. Big time big, big, big happy bonus. Yeah. All right. So we've kind of touched, tried to touch all the bases around the diamond about the curricular highlights, the gazes or anything that we didn't touch on that when we were, you know, getting ready to come talk today that you wanted to make sure we chatted about. You know, I would say, and I would be wrong if I didn't say that only because my department is connected to this department, but the, the school was founded to change medicine for the better. And it is why equity inclusion and diversity is central to organizing our principles and how we approach the design of the entire medical school. You know, our mission is to provide a world-class medical education that ignites a passion for learning, a desire to serve, and an unwavering commitment to improve the health and well-being of patients and communities. And I have to say that is something that that's also what, what, what has me, what, why I'm here. Yeah. I want to be a part of the school that is, is really trying to bring about change within a medical profession. Yeah. Well, it sounds like they're putting their money where their mouth is. I mean, really, I mean, they're, it's, it's not just, you know, window dressing. Their mission statement is, it means a lot. So, um, all right, let's, let's switch gears here. Let's put on our admissions hats. And I got to tell you, I think you're the first school that I've met with that does not require organic chemistry or biochemistry. And in fact, you require, there's a requirement for a behavioral or social science course and a humanities course. Yes. Not OCam and BioCam. Tell us why, like, what's the, this is, this is so against the green. You know, I, I would say honestly, our requirements are somewhat similar. It's not that it's not there. And we're not looking for it. You know, that you're, you're, you need to go into the TPM cat, right? You needed for the MCAT. But we're, we're not going to require it. You know, I think we feel like you will have enough foundation with either a general can, we recommend it. It is a recommended course, but it is not a requirement. So we're not worried. We, we're pretty confident we get to students and they, they are amazing students that we have some farm. Yeah, it's kind of like you, you know, you have to take these classes in preparation for the MCAT, but you don't care how you get there, whether it's one semester of OCam or you take two, your schools on quarters or, you know, you take one quarter semester of BioCam, you, you know, you have to have that language under your belt to do well on the MCAT. But I do, I do think it's pretty cool that you require a social science and you require humanity's course. And I think that really speaks to your approach to your holistic review process for applicants. You know, I mean, and I liked this comes up in every conversation I have with people like, oh, we do the last year review. And I know that kind of frustrates applicants sometimes because it seems kind of nebulous. But everybody does it a little bit differently, but your sites come out and say, we do value academics. Like that's important to us, but so is everything else. And you know, and I just, I thought that was great that you're, you come out and say that that everything else is important too. So tell us what you got 11 plus thousand applications last year. Was it kind of that high this year for 2022? Yeah, really close. And what we're going to publish that in probably about late June that'll that'll come out, but we were pretty close. Yeah. And interview close to 700 peopleish or so, a little over 700. Yeah, a little over 700. Can you talk about maybe what, what do you think kind of distinguishes somebody in the application pool that gets one of those interview slots? So we definitely are looking for applicants who are excellent critical thinkers. We want, you know, someone who is mature and adaptable. You need to have a desire to serve, you know, to drive in a diverse and inclusive environment. I think that's important. Also, you have to demonstrate humility as well as a commitment to leadership and advocacy. You need to value coaching and small group learning. We talked about that earlier. You have to be a good team player. Appreciate an experiential curriculum and demonstrate a desire to become lifelong learners. Those are all like, I could go on, but I would say those are the box. I mean, if you check in boxes, I mean, the things you just mentioned there, tie back to their curriculum. Yeah, right? I mean, because you said, you know, for reach, you get a coach. And so you got to be coachable. And I think what we mean by that, and I'm going to put, I'm just going to, what, what you might mean by that, is like, do you take advice? Do you? Exactly. How do you take feedback? Are you self-reflective? And are you, do you have humility to say, you know what? I'm not perfect. There's some things I got to work on. And I think those are when, when she's saying those things, like they're tying stuff back to what they value and that makes students successful in their curriculum. Exactly. You know what I mean? And you got to be mature and adaptable now. Yeah, I mean, adaptable. Like, how do you deal with ambiguity? Right? Like, are you, if, if you like your person that kind of maps out your entire day or your entire life, and then I'll sudden it goes, you know, how do you handle that? Because when you're a physician, your day is not going to always go the way you would plan. So how do you kind of handle sometimes some of that ambiguity? So I think being adaptable is a really, a really key point there. So I guess students, applicants kind of demonstrate that through their experiences, right? Maybe through their writing, right? Through their writing, we see that in their activities that they're writing about. You know, honestly, when we're asking you, you know, why do you want to become a physician? That should be seen in your personal statement and in your activities. It should be throughout your application. Yeah. Yeah. I just like oozing it all out, all over the place. I mean, yeah. So I'm trying to help our listeners kind of, when, when you hear schools say those kind of things like these are the things that we value really comes out then in your writing, because this is how you tell us or tell them that you have done some of these things, how you've demonstrated them. And because I get that question a lot to like, what helps the students stand out in the application process? I'm like, well, if you think about it, I'm at it. You and I are on a panel a couple weeks ago. And I was on a panel in another week later with another group and it was with med students. And I'm like, somebody asked like, what makes those applicants stand out in the process? I'm like, well, let's ask these med students, how many of you shout out? They all raise their hand. How many of you volunteer in the community? They all raise their hand. How many of you involved in research? They all raise their hand. How many of you, you know, like, there's a lot of things that pre-meds do that are similar. So what makes you stand out is, I think, how do you write about them? Because that informs us, you, me, that what you've taken away from these and then how it might match into our curricular spaces. So that's how I think when you were saying earlier to like read mission statements, read their vision statements. This is what kind of tying into what they're looking for in their applicants. What do you, what do you guys think about virtual shadowing experiences? I saw that you you guys recommend them to what's been your, your opinion on those. I think we've been seeing those quite more frequently these last, last year. Definitely been seeing this more frequently. And, you know, honestly, we have, we, we're fine with it. You know, we know that COVID kind of gave us that curve. Well, no one was expecting. And I think I was really just amazed that the opportunities that popped up after the fact, you know, it didn't stop students from, okay, well, I guess I can't shadow. No, students got out there and said, well, is there a way I can do this virtually. And if we saw that, we, to us, that says, you took the initiative and went a step beyond and said, I can still do this. Yeah, again, I think I'm glad you kind of reinforced that too. Because we, I've been here from other people too. It's like, yeah, it really comes back to the quality of it. Like, you know, you took, you took the initiative, you gave it your best shot. What was the quality? Would you take away from it? So, so yeah, I think we'll be seeing those maybe a little less frequently in the next few years. But I think if I'm asking that because we're going to see students with the have had COVID disruptions in our pools for like the next two or three years. So we're going to see, so if perspective applicants had virtual shadowing experiences and they were kind of want to, well, do we not value them anymore? I think we still value that. Absolutely. Yeah. I saw on your website, a geisha, that you do some kind of like Web, we monthly webinars or office hours. You want to talk about that? We do both. And actually, those are my babies. Those are my, I really love connecting with our students. And when, you know, we were shut down, we were closed. We wanted to still remain, you know, connected to our perspective applicants. We don't want to just shut down completely from them. So from that, we started virtual office hours. And it started weekly. But due to scheduling, you know, we had to go by weekly, but I wanted to commit to that. And every other Wednesday, from 11 to 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, we connect. And I started seeing more people join. I started seeing, you know, the same people will come back. So we have dubbed the office hours our pre-med support group. And it's like, get on. We're just like, this kind of start happening. You get on, you know, I like to give, you know, where we are in the admission cycles. So giving them, you know, heads up like, hey, especially for someone who's in the admission cycle, they get an update. And then I just basically open it up to general questions and kind of let them steer where we are. So at any given time, you know, during a interview season, it's going to be mostly interview questions. You know, when we have those secondary applications that are going out, we get a lot of those questions. So I love how it kind of flows with the rest of the admission cycle. And it just, it just warms my heart because I really do feel close and connected to those students that do come on. And it's gotten so popular that we have adjusted and started adding new dates and new times like an evening format. But yeah, that's our office hours and information sessions. This is, if you want to learn more about the school in general, we do monthly information sessions where you will hear everything about school. You hear about reach. You'll hear about our anatomy resource center. And you hear about the curriculum. And then you have a chance to ask questions. So those are monthly and we will post those on the website. I got to give better of doing further out, but, you know, we definitely posted before the next month comes up. But yeah, that is something that we wanted to keep for us to offer to your applicants just so they can check in with you and just, you know, maybe get a little bit of reassurance or because we know this, this process is very long and it creates anxiety. And if they could check in with you, just to kind of ask a question or two to get some clarification on things, I'm sure that really means a lot to them. Wanted to give them a human touch. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can't get any more human than that. I mean, that's really nice. They can just check in with you. That's so cool. That is so cool. That's great. All right. I want to ask you about your interview day. So it looks like we do, you do a hybrid of MMI and the traditional one on one interview. So what is that? How does that kind of flow? How many MMI stations do you have? And if I'm having a one-on-one interview, who am I interviewing with? Like what's, well, how's that all shake out? Oh, yeah. So interview day, I will say first, you know, prepare for that whole day. Set that whole day aside. If you receive an interview invitation, well, first of all, congratulations. That means that's big. We want to get that up, but set aside the entire day, because we're going to be early, we're going to start early, and then we're going to end in the afternoon later in the afternoon. So I always like to tell people don't plan anything that day. You want to be prepared? Yes, we have a hybrid approach. So you will have and this could change because we're going back to in person. But think of it as right now about five or six MMI stations, multiple many interview stations, and then you have one traditional interview station. Your MMI station, this is where you're going to get a scenario, and it is based on several themes. You get two minutes to read the scenario, and then you get seven minutes to discuss with your interviewer. And this is considered a blind interview, meaning that that interviewer has not had access to your application. So you get to make that first impression right then in there. Your traditional interview, little different. It is one on one. I think a lot of people probably prefer the traditional interview because it is more personal. They have had access to your file. So this is an open file interview. And it's about about 29 minutes, you know, and it's 29 because we're very to the minute for our rotations. It's not 30 minutes times up at 29. It is times up is at 29. That that extra minute is for you to rotate to your next station. You know, this is where we can get a little bit deeper and start asking about your personal statement. Maybe they want you to, you know, go a little bit deeper and talk about something there or maybe they want to focus on your activities. So a lot of people really do like the traditional interview. The rest of the day, after that is over, yeah, you can breathe. You get to connect with some of our current students. We have a current student panel. You get to connect with our curriculum dean, our student affairs dean, and even our dean CEO, Dr. Mark Schuster, he has never, he never misses an interview day. I have seen this man actually, you know, come on and he was at an airport and he never misses an interview day because he really loves to connect with our interviewees and give them the opportunity to ask him questions. I mean, time out. I mean, it's rare that you'll meet the dean of a med school on an interview day. Because, I mean, that's, that's really unique. So the fact that Dr. Schuster carves out time every interview day to meet and say hi to your applicants is, that's a big deal. Not just hi. He is, you know, starting in and out, you know, hey, I just stopped by. We set aside like a four hour. So yeah, he will tell you about, you know, how he got into, you know, just the position and why he decided to come to the school. And then, yeah, when we open up for questions, they just come left and right. And I'm like, they are so lucky to get, you know, to talk about whatever they want to talk about. And I think a lot of people really do appreciate that as well. After that, yeah, I know it's a full day, but we really wanted to give the students the opportunity to see us, you know, we know we're in new school. And we just wanted to make sure that you have the full approach of yes, this is your interview day. But this is also the school that you're interested in. It's not just about you interviewing with us. You are also trying to get us to know us better too. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. What about next year? So it sounds like we're, you're leaning towards or moving towards in-person interviews. Have you considered a virtual option for those that may not be able to travel or maybe they're out of the country kind of thing? We have. We are considering that. And I think that is something that has come up several times with perspective applicants. And we are we are literally in discussion on that. So to be continued, that will come out. Definitely follow up with your trusted admission counselor. And I will love to tell you more about that. But it is not something that we're, you know, not sweeping under the rug or anything. We definitely are thinking keeping that in consideration. Yeah. What's your advice for students coming to interview Kaiser? You know, I would say, and this is really big and you will hear any one person from our office say this. Be your authentic self. Be your authentic self. We want you to show us who you are. We know who you are, you know, in your application. We've seen that. We've read all of that. But this is your time to express, you know, this is who I am. This is what I'm about. This is what I'm interested in. No one wants an opportunity to come in and basically like check off. We don't, we don't want to walk in checklist. We want your authentic self. Yeah. And this has come up before. And I gosh, I can't remember who I talked about this with. But, you know, there are, we have different selves. Like, so don't bring five o'clock on Friday self. But, but, you know, bring that, that that level of professionalism self, but also, you know, not like you're not stiff as a board self kind of professionalism, but like, you know, who you are and how you want to project and how do you want to be seen by professionals on an interview day? And because, you know, we're all doing this. We're trying to imagine putting you in front of patients. Exactly. And how are patients going to react to you? And, um, and so that's important. And so it, it, they're stressful days. There's no doubt about it. It's a stressful day. But, you know, we do everything we can to try to make you feel comfortable. I can tell you, I will be there on your interview day. I typically host. I, I was virtual host and I'll probably be there in person to host. But we try to make it as comfortable as possible because we want you to feel comfortable to get, you know, ready to just show you who you are. Yeah. It, it, it's so important. I want, I hope people can hear how personable and pleasant you are. I mean, you really are. You seem very affable and approachable. And I, and we, I think most of us have, we try to do that on interview days because we want to see your real self, not stress ball self. And so hopefully, you know, with, you know, people like you there that can help put students at ease and kind of set the tone for the day. That will help them ease into an experience at your school that will allow them to put, you know, their, their best self forward for you to evaluate. So, thank you. I appreciate that. My entire office is like, I believe it. I believe it. I mean, really, it can tell that you're, you're very genuine about it. Because again, like, we all get it. You've been in missions for a long time. We know that this process is tough. And it does create stress. And, but we want to do our best to kind of put students at ease. Any other kind of general interview day tips or advice for students coming to Kaiser Permanente to interview there. Any prep they can do for MMI? Honestly, if you have this opportunity, you know, definitely take advantage if you have an opportunity to do a mock interview, a mock MMI. I think that'll make you feel more comfortable with the format and how things work. But honestly, even if you didn't have that experience, just getting in front of someone else and just practicing and speaking, you're, we're not going to throw you curve balls. We're not going to, you know, ask you something that you won't be able to talk about. Don't, don't worry about that. We just want you to be comfortable and be able to express your thoughts. We give you scratch paper. Actually, we give you really nice notebook and pen, but, you know, you get spread out your note. And, you know, you just have to be able to reflect and share that reflection with your interviewer. And that's all we're really looking for. Yeah. So when you say the format, I mean, I think it's practicing how do you read this particular scenario in like two minutes? And then you get what's, you said seven minutes to discuss, discuss something. So if you can find those kinds of resources, practice resources, I think that's the, it's the, maybe the timing. Part of it, right? Yeah, like how to get like that clock in your head to know, like, okay, I need to start wrapping things up. I might be getting close to my, maybe six, 30, you know, six minutes, 30 seconds kind of things. I'm not, not just going to keep going and going. In the MMI, do the, are the Raiders able to ask, do they ask other questions? Are they just, they're a listener? They kind of kind of keep things moving along. They do, you know, the, the Raider might ask you a follow-up question just to maybe, maybe they might ask you to clarify. And you are able to ask them to clarify as well. These are all kinds of permanent doctors, but they're also faculty members. And many of them have been with us since day one. So their experience and they know, they know this question inside about whatever, you know, the scenario is. So they're, they're friendly. We made sure we got the best interviewers for you. But yeah, they are, they can follow up with questions, they can ask you questions, you can ask them questions. And you know, you will be able to see the timeline. It's a dialogue that's what we're looking for. So I guess I'm glad I asked that because I don't want listeners to think that, okay, I get two minutes, then I have seven minutes to give it like a seven minute speech. Don't do that. No, no, no, it's a dialogue. It's a dialogue. Yeah. Okay, that's good. I think that should be reassuring to people too. Like they don't have to come up with something they need to talk about for five plus minutes. So we do interview day and we're kind of, we're kind of rounding things out here. We go to missions committee. How often do you put acceptances out? So acceptances began rolling out in October, mid-October. And they are, we are a rolling basis institution. So we're still sending out, I'm still sending out admission decisions now. And that will continue for a while. But yeah, we are, it's done in small batches. Yeah. Give a small class. So you're probably just, you know, you're, you're putting out there as you can. What if, so do you do alternate lists or wait lists? Yes, we do. Okay, what if I'm on the wait list? Do you want to hear from me? Do you want to hear my love letters to Kaiser Permanente? Or are you like, hey, we're good? We know you're interested. So glad you brought that up. That is another big question. So we always get the question of do you accept letters of interest or letters of intent or updates, updates or big? Yes, but only if you have interviewed. Okay. So if you have interviewed, you can send your updates, you can send your letters of interest or intent. If we were taking updates and enter, you know, those letters, that would be my job. Oh my gosh. That would be my job all day. And it's not that we don't want it. It's just, you know, it's more, it's going to be more pertinent, especially when we have you in the interview pool. You're, you're a candidate at that point. We want you to update. I'm hoping you will have an update at that point. You probably apply back in July. Yeah. If I be September, you know, so I'm hoping something's changed. But yeah, yeah, only if we have invited you for interviews in that update. For the perspective of applicants out there, you got, you will, you don't know this yet. But once you start filling out AMCAS, you will quickly realize the depth and breadth of that application. And that's what we get to read then. And so if we were to, like, like, like I just said, we're the same way at case, like, we don't take updates unless you're invited for an interview because we were open up those floodgates and people are updating adding documents and stuff. It's already a deep application. And then we got to go look at your three updates and things like just we, I think we have enough information in that application to render an interview decision. Then we can, you know, and then as we kind of bring people in for interviews, then we can have correspondence that way. But so you guys are okay. If I after I interview, I can stay in touch with you and and there. Okay. I want you to stay in touch. Wait list. I'm like, Hey, you know, I'm still I'm your guy ready to come to Pasadena. You know, in next tomorrow, if you need me kind of thing. You're okay. I want you to do that. I want you to stay in touch after you're going to read. That's we give you our contact information. I don't think people use it enough. Does it get uncomfortable if I come to your office hours sessions? And I'm just, does that okay? Or is that too much? No, that's why we have them. Okay. So yeah, my office hours, you know, we have, we have students that are thinking about applying. We have students that are in the applicant pool. And then sometimes we have people who have interviewed. And it's really a beautiful mix of students because they all get to share their experiences with each other, which is why we call it the pre-med support group. Oh, good. I'm glad I asked that. Then help. That's then I get a clarifying stuff for your applicants that they know that, hey, if they find themselves, you know, I'm waiting right now, like, hey, check in. See if there's any other questions, you know, that've come up since then. But I'll put links into the notes for the description for that page where you have these upcoming office hour pre-med support group chats with you because, again, another unique thing about your school that I don't see too many places. Well, I think that kind of brings us through all our little chapters here of Kaiser Permanente. Is there anything that we haven't, that we didn't talk about? I think we talked about everything. Yeah, that we kind of didn't leave too many stones unturned. And if we did it, you know, that's, you know, we always want you to just reach out, always come to the school first. I know there's a lot of resources that you have. I'm not going to say this particular location or what I'm speaking of. But if you're not sure and you have a question, reach out directly to the school. It's okay. That's what we're here for. That's what they pay me for. Please do that. I would rather you have the right information than you going off of something else. That's not right. And, and, you know, not having the results that you want. So, that's what we do. Come to us, email us. You can come to the virtual office hours. You can come to the information sessions and we'll be here to help you. Yeah. There's your invitation folks. It's right there. She just put it on a big juicy platter and handed it to you. So, you don't hear that too many places. So, okay, so thank you so much. I think it's going to, I think it's going to about do it for our, our talk today. But I, great info. I really appreciate your time. And thanks for being a part of this project. Thank you. And thank you to all your listeners who actually requested us to be on your podcast. I honestly was not aware of it. I'm aware of it now. It's big. And I'm so excited. You know, I told my, my, my dean of admissions when we, we got this, I got the request to do this. I said, you know, funny a few years ago when we first started, we, people weren't responded to my emails or my phone calls to come and recruit and, and look at where we are now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm so happy to add it to the list. And I know there's a lot of people that are, we were excited to hear from you. So, thanks again, Agasha. And I can't wait to see sometime on another panel or person on another meeting in the future. I can't wait. Maybe I'll sneak into one of your office sour things. You should. I really, I really love when advisors and, and other mission people come on, because you can, like, realize that you should come to that too. They really should. Yeah. Oh, okay. There you go, because I'm pre-meditivizing you. Yep. Jump on. Jump on. All right. I'll, I'll see you around the block. See you soon.