U. of Texas - San Antonio Long School of Medicine

[Music] From Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, this is the All Access Med School admissions podcast. Hello again everybody, I'm your host Christian Esman and I'm the senior director of admissions and financial aid here at the med school and my gosh that is a funky tune. I could have let that intro go and go but had to jump in and start talking so it's great to be with you again today to talk about another medical school and before we do that though I want to point you to a couple things in the show descriptions. One would be the recording that was done of the Young Physicians Initiative that took place. It was a panel that the students at the Medical School at Wake Forest in North Carolina hosted. They have this group called the Young Physicians Initiative and I was on a panel with a friend of mine from the University of Rochester School of Medicine Dr. Christine Hay back on March 1st and so if you missed that panel that night they put the recording up on the YouTube's so you can go check that out there or you can relive those memories all over again and so there's a link in the show description for that and then the other thing I wanted to remind you about is of the double AMC's virtual fair coming up on March 28th in 29th so 2 day thing so the first day is a series of panels with admissions deans and directors in the afternoon Eastern time and covering all different kinds of topics in yours truly will be on one of those panels and I'm going to be on the first one that kicks off the day I think it's at 11 a.m. Eastern time and I'm on a panel with the Dean of Admissions from the University of Florida's Med School and the chair of the admissions committee at the Floyd College of Medicine at Washington State and it's going to be moderated by one of my good admissions friends who's the Dean of Admissions at the University of Vermont so I'm really looking forward to that. Then day number 2 is when the fair is and so the fair has over 90 schools participating in it and it's free and so on the next day on the 29th if in between classes or you're hanging out at a coffee shop or you're at your desk in your dorm room or something, jump on and go shopping for some med schools and so you can hop in and out of these virtual booths and talk or chat with admissions people and sometimes medical students are involved in that process so I really encourage you to do that. It's a very easy way to get some information about some medical schools and to get some questions answered and again it's free so you'll find the registration instructions in the show description for that so hope you can join us there. Alright so we're here today to talk about another medical school, the long school of medicine down in Texas so let me start by giving you a little bit of background on this medical school located in San Antonio, Texas, the JoR and Teresa Luzano Long School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health San Antonio is the largest trainer of physicians in South Texas, many of whom actually remain in San Antonio and the region to practice medicine. They were founded in 1968 and the school's main teaching hospital is the UT San Antonio Health System where they have approximately 950 residents and fellows in over 85 specialties. The Long School of Medicine is ranked one of the top three in the United States for Hispanic students by Hispanic Business Magazine. The mission of the school of medicine is to serve the needs of the citizens of Texas by providing medical education and training to medical students and physicians at all career levels and fostering an environment of lifelong learning that is flexible and emphasizes professionalism with special with a special commitment to the preparation of physicians in both the art and science of medical practice conducting biomedical and other health related research with particular attention to translational research delivering exemplary healthcare and providing a responsive resource in health related affairs for the nation and the state with particular emphasis on South Texas. They teach the circle curriculum which applies basic science concepts to disease and healing building a strong foundation of medical knowledge right from the start. Circle CIR CLE is a acronym for curricular integration, researchers, clinicians, leaders and educators that is delivered by a strong and supportive faculty with numerous opportunities for building clinical and research skills. The Long School of Medicine accepts applications from states outside of Texas but is limited to 10% of the class coming from other states. They do not accept applications from international students but they do now consider DACA students eligible for acceptance. While they accept applications from Canadian residents they must have US or dual citizenship. They also participate in the TMDSAS, the Texas Medical and Dental Schools and Application Service which we talk about during our conversation and they require Casper that situational judgment test for those who are invited for interview. They also require a standardized one-way video upon invitation for an interview so we talk about both of those two things too during our conversation. This year they received over 5,200 applications and will interview approximately a thousand for a class size of 240. Their MD-PhD program is one of 46 MSTPs in the country and they are awarded a training grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences that financially supports trainees in the program. So there is a little bit of background on the med school and we'll go into greater detail about those aspects during my conversation with my guest today. My guest today is the Associate Dean for Admissions and Outreach, Dr. Judy Ann Kellewey. She is also an ophthalmologist and has an academic appointment as a full professor of ophthalmology. Interestingly, Dr. Kellewey got her bachelor's and master's degree in education at the University of Houston and was a kindergarten teacher for 10 years before she began pursuing her dream of being a physician. She received her MD from the University of Texas Medical School in Houston which is now called McGovern and completed her residency there as well and specializes in diseases and surgery of the retina-invitrius. Before taking her post as the Dean of Admissions at Long in 2016, she was on the admissions committee at McGovern for many years and ultimately became their assistant Dean of Admissions. She is a fantastically interesting, knowledgeable and down-to-earth person that you are going to love hearing from today. Alright, so get ready to hear more great things about the Long School of Medicine with Dr. Judy Ann Kellewey. Let's go. Well, Dr. Kellewey, it's so nice to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Christian. I'm excited. I'm excited to talk about Long School of Medicine. Please call me Judy Ann. Okay. Alright. Well, thank you. Well, I'm glad you're excited to talk about Long School of Medicine because that's why we went through all this trouble to get you here. And I have a ton of questions for you. But before we get into that, I want to ask you a little bit about yourself. I first want to ask you, what attracted you to Long School of Medicine? Like, well, you're initial kind of excitement and impressions when you joined there. Yeah, that's a great question because I spent my life in Houston, born and raised deep roots, deep, deep roots. People used to ask me how long have you been here? And I'd say, well, I was born on the third floor. And I'm going to die here in the Archimedes Clinic on the seventh floor, but not anytime soon. Deep roots in Houston and very connected to the medical school, which is a great medical school. But I loved my admissions work, loved it, have loved it since the 90s. And this was an opportunity to be in a leadership position and do it almost full time. But I had to know I was very happy in Houston and had to know that I was coming to a place where there were great things going on and potential for even more great things to happen. And I was really, I have friends here, admissions in Texas. We're very connected in a lot of ways. We get together all the time. So I had friends here and all that, but just didn't realize all the great things that were going on at the school. So it was, it was, it that certainly made the transition easier. Yeah. What makes you especially proud or are glad that you work at the school? Yeah. This is, you know, and a common other common question related to this is if you ask people what's their favorite thing? What do they say? And they say the people, the people, the people. It's a very nice community overall in San Antonio, very friendly city. In fact, America's favorite city, and America's friendliest city, we make those national geographic lists all the time. But on this campus, people are so respectful. Everybody's voice is heard. People support each other. What can I do for you? How can I help you? Not only among the students, which happens a lot. But, you know, faculty, staff, leadership, you know, it's just a great place. Yeah. I can feel that vibe from just looking over your website. It's very people oriented and kind of picked that up. Something else that's on your website is you have your, there's a profile page for Dr. Judy and Kelleoway. And it has, you have three interesting fun facts. And I'm not going to give them, read them all because I want people to go and find it on their own. Okay. One is that you said you have an amazing autographed baseball collection. And I'm a huge baseball fan. Are you? Yeah. So you sounds like you had boys who played ball. And so what kind of, what are your favorite autographs that you have that are? Oh gosh. I love that question. Thank you for giving me a chance to talk about my, I think it's the world's best, you know, personal baseball collection. It started because my husband used to be a secret service agent and secrets servants agents don't always, the bold is not always the weapon. It's sometimes a baseball. And so there was a lot of trading of signatures among them. But that's how it started decades ago. Maybe with Ronald Reagan being one of our first because he was on a protective detail for President Reagan. But then things evolved at the top of my list of favorites. There's not ever just one, but it's Charles Barclay. So Charles Barclay was playing his last game in the rockets stadium. And my husband had our son, big son on his shoulders. And my son was waving the baseball and a marker. Charles Barclay picked up one thing to autograph and it was Sam's ball. That was so, so I love that one. I have some sections of actors, people in movie and theater. I have Jimmy Stewart. We have. Oh my gosh. Bill Murray. We also have some politically related ones because of the secret service connection. So I have Colin Powell and all the presidents actually call the all of the presidents since Carter Ford. We go back to that. I have the munchkins from the Wizard of Oz in that theater group. And I have a nice collection of astronauts. I used to run an astronaut's training program in Houston. And that's that's kind of a fun story. But I've met Shannon Lucid and Peggy Whitsitt. You don't know the names unless you're like into the NASA thing, but just brilliant people. So smart and so nice. And so that part of the collection is a lot of fun too. So it's amazing fun fact. Yeah. Yeah. So there's so many layers that I could spend another half hour just let's go down the astronaut route. And now it I understand your other fun fact is related to meeting presidents. And now I think I know why, but we can. That's another story. I'm sure. Yeah. I can I just say that one more section. I had patients who were Holocaust survivor. So I have Helen Colin who wrote a book. She was the happiest most joyful person you would ever want to know. So I have her autograph. And then I had several patients who were liberators and in World War II to come, you know, help save the world from that thing. So those are special to me too. I guess the moral of the story is carry a baseball and a sharpie with you. I have people who sign it, you know, it's just whether they're a ball player or a political figure or somebody else. For the students at my house. Yeah. So I have some from gatherings with students and things. Yeah. Yeah. You might just inspire a new tradition that I might try to pick up because it's nice to have that around because we have some baseballs for my son's teams that we all signed at the end of the end of the kid. The boys are also at the end of the year, but now I'm kind of keep on around for other things. Yeah. Thanks for that one. Welcome. Please use it. So glad I asked that. All right. Well, that was fun. I guess let's make a switch here and talk a little bit about something else that you care very deeply about. And that is your school of medicine. And let's start with first with those curricular highlights. When you're out meeting prospective applicants and talking to them at fairs or in front of audiences and parents and primates and stuff, what are some of those things you'd like them to know about your curriculum that maybe kind of differentiates you compared to other schools? Yes. Great. I love to talk about the highlights. I think we do some things in very strong ways. So it may be a common thing, but I think we're really good at it or and I do think we have quite a few things that are unique. I like to start and I often say at interview days during that presentation that we have some themes here in the curriculum and the extra curricular things in the themes are we give our students the precious resource of time. So we have things like a dead week to study. We're organized in modules. Okay. To start with. And we renovated our curriculum and modernized it 11, 12 years ago now. 11 years ago we implemented after two years and it was like just raised with a Z. Just we started completely from scratch took two years said what is the best way to do this, which is a nice thing to be able to do, right? So we give our organized in modules according to organ systems. So we give our students time to study. There's plenty of memorizing that goes on in all medical schools, but you need so much time to assimilate all this information so that you understand concepts rather than like you're guessing at a right answer. So we have some flexibility in the curriculum. There's a four month period we're about a year and a half for the pre clerkship. We call it pre clerkship because we're clinical. We don't call it pre clinical because we're clinical from day one. Okay. Integrating, not just all of the topics in a certain, in a certain section like the histology, the anatomy, the pharmacology, the physiology, that's all integrated when we're talking about the heart, but we also then integrate the clinical aspects. So it doesn't come as a new thing two years down the road. So we call it the pre clerkship curriculum. We're like big on that terminology. So there's a lot of flexibility after those modules. We finish in February with that pre clerkship curriculum and then people have dedicated step study time, nothing going on. They turn off all notifications and have very good study habits to get ready for step. But even that, most people do that soon after the pre clerkship and then jump into other things. So we're finished in February third year doesn't officially start until July. So technically they could have all that vacation time or do lots of electives, but people are very busy during that time doing all kinds of things. And you can push some of that time down into the third or fourth year event. Okay. So you've got this four months, four months of flex time. And half of the class, almost half the class starts the third year early. So that's nice flexibility there. Lots of people work on dual degrees, on global health or community service learning projects or other things that they're working on. So that's a precious resource of time. We also have a theme that we listen to our students and we help them create. Another theme is collaboration. We're a military city. So we borrow I borrow this military phrase. We lift as we climb. So we're climbing up the mountain, but we're bringing our friends and peers and colleagues with us. So that everybody achieves in the best way possible. We do some fun things and some serious things. So I'll take a breath in you. That's a wonderful way to kind of orient people to what's important to you and their curriculum. And a couple of things that jumped out at me that I saw on your website was the TBL learning. There's a really nice YouTube video and I'll put a link to it in the description for it. And it's about describes this individual readiness assurance tests as well as team readiness assurance test. I rat T rat. Is that what you call it? Yes, that's it. It's the I rat T rat. It's really a fun thing. And I like to say that there is magic on Fridays. And it's the I rat T rat. So you come in and you will take a six or eight question quiz for 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes at the beginning of that day. And you take that on your device. It's a little scratch off system. So it's kind of like the lottery, you know, you scratch off your correct answers and you submit that on your device. But then that's not the magic. Then you come back to one of your teams, all in that pre-clark ship, all in all those months, you're gonna be on six or seven teams. It's a big class so people get to know each other through this teamwork. So you get with one of your teams. That's seven or eight people. And you take the same quiz. So gosh, you could get another answer correct or two, right? That's not the magic either. The magic is from week one, from the first time this Irat T-rat is happening. You are talking with your colleagues and saying, you can say, I don't know what is happening in number two. Where was I when we had that conversation, I don't understand it at all. Can somebody please explain it to me why is the answer not C? Why do y'all all say it's A? And so the students are talking to each other. They're not afraid to say, I don't know. They're not afraid to be vulnerable. So it's a really nice collaborative and team building thing to come up with the answer. Because teamwork is important to us. We weigh that team quiz more. It's weighted more than the individualized readiness test. So that's a good thing. Sounds like the students not only teach one another, but they also can learn from one another. Absolutely. Absolutely. You might be wondering where was I on this topic, but the next week you've got it. So you say, I know that this is C. And let me draw it out for you and see if you don't agree. It's very nice. And the team can kind of talk it through and go, yeah, we all have consensus on that. That's why, yeah, that sounds really cool. Yes. How about something else that was a highlight for me was that your school seems to incorporate a lot of ultrasound in the curriculum. Can you tell us more about that? Yes. We were one of the first schools in the country to start a full ultrasound curriculum. So it's used all through four years. And the residents also in all of the program, many, I would say most of the programs had access to that ultrasound lab. It's a dedicated-- that's a little bit unique also. It's a dedicated lab. You walk into this giant room and it's got machines all over the place. So they will learn to use this tool effectively to help diagnose their patients, and to do therapeutic things back in the day. When I had to put in a central line, for example, I reviewed my anatomy very carefully. Looked at that anatomy on the person by said a little prayer so that I wouldn't hit the wrong thing. But now they are ultrasound guided. So that is so much better for the patients and gives us the satisfaction for that reason. It's used in quite a few of the modules, looking at the vascular system, the heart, just head to toe. The abdomen is a big one. Right. Sounds really cool. It's very fun. And they have a great interest group. They have a great interest group. And they do an ultrasound escape room every Halloween. And I've not had a chance to enjoy that yet. But this is-- Sounds cool. Yeah. It sounds cool. It's a lot of fun, they say. What about-- how do our students from affinity groups supported at your school? Yes. Yes. Lots of support. We have lots of support. We have a very strong office of inclusion and diversity. So they work with all of the student groups. We have student groups, SNMA, LMSA, just-- I can't name them all. The women, APAMSA, for Asian Pacific American people. We have all the religions represented. We have Jews and Muslims and Christians and Catholics. They've got a separate group. So it's very active. They all have faculty involvement. They all have missions in their particular areas. The LGBT pride is a big group here. And those students, that was initiated maybe 10 years ago. And those students-- this is under the theme, we help our students create. We take your ideas. And we help you make those manifest. So the pride group started a pretty well-renowned now pride clinic in the city. So it's very busy. They created-- when they did that 10 years ago, they also developed a safe space training. So people who work in that clinic and when we work with all of our patients, we have training that tells us how to treat people in the LGBTQ+ community and everyone, right? How to treat people with dignity and respect and use the right language, pay attention to the right things. It sounds like you're-- is that under the student affairs, kind of realm? But ultimately, it sounds like the school fosters creativity in students wanting to-- We have an idea. Let's talk about it. Let's see if we can make it, put it together, and make it something special together. And some happen under student affairs, but some happen under our Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics. Lots of support there, too. So those themes run through the curriculum. They're embedded already in the curriculum, but there are so many electives and things that they can do through those. It sounds cool. Yeah. Really cool. You mentioned support a minute ago or just a moment ago. And one common question, and I know we get from our perspective students is about health and wellness. And that seems to be a theme that's pretty strong from the homework that I did. Would you be able to talk a little bit more about what that looks like? Yes. I always say I need to go study more and pay attention to what Dr. Maseric is doing. She's our director of wellness under student affairs. And she came on board. That position was opened two or three years ago. And oh my gosh, there's just always something going on. I get the listserv notices, right? That I'm copied when the students are sent some information. They do such fun things. Food networks, activities, financial wellness. So what they do is they look at all areas of wellness. You might not eat spiritual wellness, but another person does need spiritual awareness. So we have resources for academic wellness, physical wellness, spiritual wellness, financial career planning, kind of wellness is included. We give our students a thing called headspace. We pay for all of our students to have headspace, which is some tool that many of them use for focus, sometimes meditation, that kind of thing. What else? We've got a goal under under wellness. There's a golds gym beach bowling ball court out there by the golds gym. It's supposed to be a really good-- I don't go to that one. I go to another one, but it's supposed to be a really great golds gym with a nice pool. What else? There are intramurals. I love-- I love to tell people-- maybe we'll get into the library a little bit later, because I think our medical library is just the greatest. But we have a meditation and prayer room on the quiet floor of the library. And we do have students who have prayer that they want to do at certain times of the day or season's that kind of thing. So they don't have to go to the stairwell to be quiet and spiritual. So all kinds of-- Very thoughtful. All kinds of wellness, yeah. There's-- since we're talking about it so much, I'll include a link, again, in the show notes. There is a whole page that goes over your student wellness offerings. And so I'll link to that. So if people want to take a little bit deeper dive into the things that-- some of the things you touched on, and there's others as well-- You're talking about-- before we move on, you're talking about the library. I love libraries. I'm a library nerd. Tell me more about the medical library. OK, so you'll have to come visit. You know, it's a great place to visit anyway. But the library-- so we're five schools in this institution, medical school, dental, nursing, health professions, and the graduate school. So we have 9,000 students on this campus. So the library is a hub of activity all the time, but they do some really great things. We have study pods. People were falling asleep in the study pods. So the director said he was thinking about putting in a nap room. For people. But when you walk in, there's a great big lobby and a big big screen TV. But in that lobby, we have art exhibits all the time from local artists and traveling collections. Some beautiful things. We just got rid of a-- or just ended one that was geodes and sort of integrated in arts, in paints, and other media. We in that lobby, there we had big world cup. that was awesome. So the library had food, prizes, big screen. They had the schedules and the brackets and everything. That was really fun. They had several weeks ago. They had, they're always doing something really fun. They had a majong thing. And so they set up tables and they had people who knew majong and other people who wanted to learn it. It's great. They have, I always go like this and point. Right outside my window here are bicycle desks and treadmill desks so that you can get up and move. What do you mean? Like in the library or outside? No, right here there's a beautiful view. A little past the parking lot. You have a view of the trees and you can get up from your study place and it's in the library and you get to look out the window and take a break while you get on the bike or treadmill. Or you can put your, you know, whatever you're studying in front of you. That's so cool. Isn't that neat? They have individual rooms, lots of booths, lots of group work, but individual rooms where people can plug in. We have big whiteboards everywhere. We have game carts on every floor. So if you want to get up and work on the jigsaw puzzle, that's your brain break. It's really a great place. Yeah, I'm excited. I want to come to San Antonio for other reasons, but while there it's stopped by the med library. Oh, that's cool. It's a great resource. Oh boy. Let's say I think the last thing before I kind of wind down the curricular highlights that I wanted to ask you was something that I found unique. In addition to the other things we've talked about in this podcast work that I do, I do a lot of homework into schools websites as I'm learning more about them before I meet my guests and talk to them. And a lot of schools say things like leaders for tomorrow and become a leader here blah, blah, blah. But when I look at their curricula, I don't see a whole lot of leadership training like embedded in it. But when I was looking at your website, you have something called professional identity formation. And that has some aspects of leadership training in it. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that is like? Yes. So you know, we see applicants on the interview day and they have already developed a lot of professional identity. They think of themselves as professionals. And I don't know if they realize at that point how much they're going to grow through medical schools to grow that professionalism even more. It happens because medical school is hard. It's challenging. And it's not just academically challenging. They're going to have, you know, they're going to have grades that they are disappointed in. And areas they want to do better in or, you know, a test that was a surprise and they weren't prepared. And next time they'll know what to do. It's hard because when they get into the patient care aspects, not all patients do well, you know, some are very challenging there. So you learn, you learn through those challenges. And what we want our students, this is still sort of an overall view. But it is embedded in many components of the school. We want them to get the best lessons out of those challenges. You can meet a challenge and withdraw from it. You can meet a challenge and not have the right conversation, not have the right words to talk to a family or a patient about the bad news that you must deliver. You might, you might withdraw because you feel so bad. Imposter syndrome, right? You'll so bad. And you're the only person who can't do well and you're feeling bad about that. So we don't let that happen. We have a robust four year mentoring program. We have people walking into our offices all the time. The student affairs, the whole team has office hours. But people walk people don't have to pay attention to the alpha hours. And people are emailing, calling and walking in all the time for questions and happy news and things that are challenging. So we want our students through those challenges to grow into the best possible professionals with the best possible coping skills because we've presented them with those options. Yeah. Well, I'm, that's an interest of mine. And I would like to see that incorporate a little bit more and not only our school, but other schools as well. And so I was really, I have a professional identity formation, and V right now. So for your school, Judy, and as we've, you've done a really nice job of hitting some, hitting it out of the park on some highlights. Is there anything before we talk about the admissions piece that we didn't touch on that you wanted to, when you're thinking about getting together a day that you wanted to make sure you express to people that are listening about the curriculum. So if you don't mind, I'd love to add a couple of things. Yeah. We, we touched on when we were mentioning the Pride Clinic and the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics. Under their guidance, we have helped students under that theme of we help our students create. We have eight community clinics. So we do a really strong job at getting to people in our San Antonio community that need us. We, we are a big city. Second largest in Texas, actually, but we have something. That's saying something. Yes, it's very analysis. So, but we have, it's a big city, but we have some of the poorest zip codes in America. So there are lots of people out there who need us, but a student has an idea. They get with their friends and they say, let's make this happen. I'm with you on this. So they'll come to leadership or find faculty members to make it happen. And that's how we have a Pride Clinic. That was a student-born idea. Our refugee clinic was a student-born art idea. Our women's wellness clinic, women in recovery was a student-born idea. And they're more popping up all the time. So I did want to mention that. It's, it's, it's a great thing. The Center, can I say this also? We have, you know, schools call them different things, tracks, or scholarly concentrations. We call them an MD with distinction. So the people, for example, who created that Pride Clinic years ago, because of the education piece, they earned an MD with distinction in medical education. Other people can earn an MD with distinction in research, but also community, the four areas of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics. So they can earn a distinction by working on a project in, in a project in arts and humanities, ethics, global health and community service. So they can really, you can do one global health trip or you can make a project out of it. So, and that's the students are very active in the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics. Yeah. Great. That's neat stuff. Yeah. And our GME record is very strong. And really me, Michael? So let's tell people what GME. Yes. Yes. So that's graduate medical education. So that's the residency level? Yes. That's resident. Where are you going to be and where are you going to go? So I think through a very strong curricular piece and then very strong support and career, I call it career D&D, career decision-making and development. I think we're really good at that. And we have for a big class, we have a great record of getting everybody into a great residency. So, at the time we're recording this, it's in a couple days, and next day is in a couple days. That's right. It's such times. It's an exciting week. Yeah. So for listeners, just a little bit of like nomenclature, if they've not heard of this, if you hear, if listeners hear you GME, that means undergraduate medical education, which means medical students. And then GME is what I just saw the moment ago for residency. So that's just some new, that's not new to us, but it might be new to some listeners that are maybe younger pre-meds, just kind of getting into this. And if you hear you GME and GME thrown around, that's what that means. Yeah. Well, listen, let's switch gears here a little bit. And now that everybody's jazzed up about all the cool things you guys have going on down there. Let's talk a little bit about the admissions process because it too has some uniqueness to it compared to us outside of Texas. First of all, you participate in as do many other schools in Texas, the TMDS, Texas Medical Dental service. Let's see what it's called. School application. service there we go. All right. Tell us a little bit about how that works. Yes. It's, it is a system, an application service that was set up probably 20 or 25, I think more than 20 years ago. So maybe 25 years ago. And it happened. It was created because so many of our applicants applied geographically. So they apply within the state. And it's a great way then to shuffle out many, many applicants distributed across the TMDSS schools, not all the schools in Texas belong to the TMDSS application service. Most do. But most do. Right. Just an isolated one here and there we're like everybody to join. But so in that process, you for one very reasonable fee. I was going to look that up. I think it's about $200 or something. You apply to I think it's 14 schools now. I always have to recount because we've had a bunch popping up most recently recently Baylor joined us. They were joined our application service and came from the AMP. Yeah. That's a big one. And then UT Tyler has opened. So they just this was their first year. So they joined us. So they're about 14 schools or so. Go look on the website to check it out. So with one nominal fee, you can apply to one or all of those schools. So that's very economically beneficial. Yeah. But then you get invited for an interview all through the interview portion of the season, which usually nowadays is into January a little bit. And then you're deciding. I hope people will keep good notes and you leave a schools interview day and you need to write things down because months later, the application service, the TMDSS is going to ask you for your ranked list. So you will present to them. You will submit a ranked list of preference. And the and the schools then we put in a big list of all the people that we have interviewed. And then the matching the computer formula is exactly the same as the residency matching program that's happening this week. The national residency matching program. So it's the same formula. Very student driven. It's very it looks at the applicant preference first. And there are some great videos on the TMDSDS website that break some break into some details to explainable better. But wow. That's the service. We kind of I think we like it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How does how does it work then? Okay. A couple questions come to mind. If somebody gets matched to maybe not their top preference or second or third choice. Yes. Do they have the ability to like stay on a wait list at maybe their top choice and then they could eventually somehow wind up there. Yes. Absolutely. So yes, this is a good message. I love to get this part of the message out. Yes. Created. Over. Yes. It is not over on match day on TMDSDS match day, which this year was the first Friday and March. It is not over. We have so many emails. I'm very disappointed. I didn't match on like boy, it is not over yet. We have all of March April May and June to go through and there is going to be turnover. There's turnover all across Texas and all across the country and many, many, many people get in off that wait list. So you do have what happens in Texas is you'll rank those the applicant will rank their preferences. And if you get in, if you rank five schools because you interviewed at five schools and you are matched with number three four and five school number four and number five go away. Okay. Not have access to you anymore and you don't have access to them anymore because you've ranked this school. But you are open to number two and number one. Most of our schools, most of us, if and so let me just speak for myself, but I don't think this is that uncommon. Long School of Medicine, if we have screened you and we love what we see and we've towed, you know, we've invited you for an interview. We are keeping you on the wait list unless you choose to decline that position or you're happy with where you match now and that kind of thing. So we will keep all of our interviewed people on the wait list. In Texas, we have those traffic rule guidelines just like the Amcast system and they are sort of coordinated a little bit. So April 15th, I believe, is an Amcast date where schools, if you're holding more than three, you should hold three schools and get rid of, turn those back, turn those positions back in and then on April 30th by midnight, you choose one school. But it's still not over on May 1st. There's a lot that can happen. So those are some high points. Yeah, let me ask you one more question about this. If I'm ranked number three and I'm on the wait list and but I really want to be at number one, which is UT long, can I, you know, can you want to hear from me or is it automatic? Like I'm in a slot and if you get to me, you'll tell me I can't, I can't adjust that by telling you I love you. Right. So those letters of intent and letters of interest, what we, what I like to tell people is that the committee has done their evaluation, the committee has met and we went through a formal process. So I can't say that a letter of interest or intent is going to make a difference. But when we go, we do not keep a rank list. So when we go into our wait pool and look at applicants, you can upload an update letter to tell us about publication or new research or new adventure that you're having and you can upload letters of interest or intent. So in the wait pool period, we see that with the application materials. So it may or may not make any difference down the road, but we certainly accept them. Yeah. Okay. That's really cool. I'm glad glad to know that. And I think probably people listening or two who might find themselves in that situation someday, we've, we've kind of gotten a little bit ahead of where, you know, about that's kind of the end point. But what about from the screening process? I probably one of the most common questions that you and I receive when we're out and about meeting pre-medical students is, what are you looking for? What, you know, what, what, what, what makes a student stand out an applicant stand out that makes you want to invite them to interview? Yes. It's a really hard question sometimes to answer. Do you have an answer or do you answer something that in particular you are looking for? Yes. It is a hard question to answer. And I, I love for pre-meds to know that you've got all these things that you're advised to do. You, you have an idea of all of the ways to build a strong application. But we don't, and I don't think that this is very different than many other schools. We're looking for your journey. We're looking, you know, there are so many ways to use this medical education of yours. You could be small town doctor or strive to be the dean of a medical school or somewhere in between with academic medicine or public health. There are just so many things that you could do. So we are not looking for this many hours in healthcare experience, this many hours in community service. Those are, I think, two of the most important because you really need to know what you're getting into. Right. And we want people with a heart to serve. You can't serve in medical ways yet. So you might be living, the life you want to leave is at live as close as possible by giving. So those are, those are important pieces. But we have had people, for example, with little community service, some medical, you know, some healthcare so they know what they're getting into. But they are a discoverer. They are a scientist. They have tons of research, tons of great research. That's, that's, if you don't have it, it's not a deal breaker for us. If you have it and that's your strength, then we're going to, we're going to, at long school medicine, help you with that strength, do something great with that at the end. People don't have research, but they have tons of community service. We figure maybe that's the way you're going to serve the world as a great physician is in service, you know. So, so you need to take what you love and make the most of it. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like a strengths-based approach. Yes. Yes. Instead of a deficit-based approach, like, well, they don't have a lot of research. So, you know, but it's, it's just, it's the strengths-based view. I like that. Yeah. I like the term. I haven't used it, but that's exactly what we do. Because I feel like, our mission statement is there, and it's, but I think it's broad enough, and our curriculum has so many components to individualize your education that we can, we can get you down that road. Yeah. When, when you mentioned medical, so it sounds like you value But down the middle that you've mentioned community service and research kind of on that say the book ends, but down the middle there were you did mention that having medically related experiences seems to be important to you. As you said, so you know what this student does what they're getting themselves into. But you don't quantify it with like a number of hours. Right. And how does this is just a question that I'd love to answer to with you, but then how do you determine if somebody knows what they're getting themselves into? How does that bleed through when you're reading the application? Yeah, so that is that is such a great question. And I think that a big thing I tell Premads everywhere is that reflection needs to be a big part of your path because we're and here's one, there are many ways that reflection shows not just in your big personal statement, you know, the major one. It shows all over the place, including other person application and your interview. When you have reflected and asked yourself every time you add something to your log, every time you add something to your personal biography, what did I get out of this? How do I value this? What is meaningful in this experience to me? How does it help me get down my path? And we know the meaning. If you say I was a scribe and I was, you know, in the room with the doctor and I took notes, we kind of know that. We kind of know what that is. We're in creating medical school applications. We know what a scribe does. So what's more important is what did you get out of that? And I tell you an example that humbled me greatly is I saw an experience long time ago. So no offense, anybody, well, and I'm going to redeem myself in the end here. There was some experience. There's a medical assistant in my personal experience. I didn't run into medical assistants too many, too often in ophthalmology. There didn't have a good clue. But the ones that I did, perhaps I wasn't connected to really. I didn't see what they were doing for the team. I didn't put much value on it. I interviewed a woman, a young lady wanting to be a doctor and she went on as all we talked about. And it filled up an hour because she told me all of the things, all of the responsibilities that she had, how she contributed to the team, how she trained new team members. I was like blown away. And that was my first big lesson, kind of a slap in the face. Like it's the applicants meaning that we're looking for it, not my meaning. So yeah, so that's what I like to tell people. I'm so glad that you emphasized the self-reflection piece because that's where it really boils down to. And this comes up frequently. And so I love that it's a continued theme from your voice as well. The self-reflection is such an important thing to start to practice. And I was listening to a podcast this morning when I was on the elliptical. And I heard it was about self-reflection and the gentleman speaking, he called it knee search instead of he's like, people do research, but self-reflection is like knee search. I love it. Oh, that's such another cool way of describing it to people. Because sometimes self-reflection sounds kind of abstract and hard to like, well, I got to think about myself. But what if you put it knee search and you thought about researching yourself about who your self is and how to become a better self and ideal self and real way. So anyway, I can go down that road. I love it. I'm using that one too. Yeah. I research. I it wasn't mine, but I had to pass it along to it. Since it came up out, it was such a different way of describing self-reflection. Okay. Oh boy, I'm so excited about some of this stuff. Okay. How about me ask you another common question that we get from applicants is, you know, sometimes people take the MCAT and doesn't go as well as they'd hope the first time around. And how do you, how do you, you as the dean of admissions, what do you tell students who've taken the MCAT more than once? How do you view it when you're screening applications? If they have it twice, maybe three times, do you have kind of a threshold that makes you nervous after a certain number? There might be a person or two on the committee who becomes nervous at a, you know, a point but our viewpoint is most of us look at that as persistence and determination. And you know, I didn't, I, I love to talk to pre-meds because my pre-med journey was difficult and I applied three times. I don't know how many times I took that MCAT. Finally, I, I convinced somebody, you know, that I might be good and they let me in at the government actually, but I, so what I tell pre-meds though is you can't, it's like no other tests that you've taken is you've taken the SAT maybe except now the ACT and SAT are becoming optional for so many schools. We have to take that into consideration. But it's not like any other standardized tests that you've taken. You really need to devote some time to it and do it the right way. I'll get into a couple little details here. So when you're, when you're tackling the MCAT and you get a score that you're disappointed in and you have to tackle it again, you have to fit some pieces together like what was missing, what did you do wrong? It does make people a little nervous when they see two or three MCATs that haven't changed too much. But there are I keep lists and we have a couple of videos on our channel of tips from the pros. People who re-evaluated that test and did it a completely different way and incorporated more full-length tests or more quizzing or more actually logging what you got right and wrong to know why the answer, why the ABC are the wrong answer and why D was the right answer. Those are some good things. People need to tackle all of the components like test anxiety, time management. I just spoke to a pre-med yesterday. She told me she was building her stamina. Then the first test like wiped her out and she was ready to like give up halfway through. So you need it for stamina. But I think the most important thing to tell people like I don't think the MCAT's going away at least it's not going away anytime soon. And I think that this is a very important piece to remember is that all of this work, all of these new study skills and stamina and positive attitude and all that stuff, organized plan, all of those things that you're doing now to take all of this great body of information, understand it and give it back as a test, you know, as a test score is what you're going to do from day one in medical school. It's fast paced, it's high volume, it's deeply complex. You need to pull it all together because you're going to have a quiz in a week. You need to pull it all together because your midterms coming up, right? So those skills that you learn with accomplishing the MCAT in a successful way are going to help you in medical school. And I think that the positivity piece from what I learned as not so successful at first met the pre-med is that I hated the idea of a standardized test and would just tell myself, I just don't do well on standardized tests and I tell students now or pre-meds, you have to get rid of that mentality and you love it. Even just fake it until you do love it. And don't do all the biology because you do well, you love biology and you're doing well and you hate the physics. So do the physics and do the physics quizzes. Yeah, make a terrible grade at first but watch yourself grow and tell yourself how much you love it and how much you're going to rock that exam when the time comes and I think that that's a huge piece. There is research that shows positivity changes the way you perform. Absolutely. And I just read a book on it called positivity and it is a thing and you, it's athletes do it. I mean, when we're talking about baseball earlier. So many athletes use visual, like they dream, they would be standing in the batter's box. They're visualizing themself, hitting the home run, hitting a triple, whatever that position, whatever that needs to happen right in that moment in the game. They're visualizing it and they practice this with psychologists to get them there. Pre-meds need to think like athletes sometime. Academic athletes take those types of things that athletes do and train yourself like an academic athlete. Yes. And that just for athletes. Yes. Academic athletes need a two. Yeah, it really works. It really works. So tell me the author on that book please. positivity by Barbara. Okay. Addric Sin. Great. Great. I'm pulling in the show notes. It's a really good book and it's just, it's really, it's really well done. It's excellent. Okay. I love to point people to Sean Acore, ACHOR on TED Talks and I'm sure it's very old now but I love listening to this guy. hilarious. You could just listen to him all day, but he's a wellness guy. And talks about a positive approach. Having your brain set in a positive way to approach the world and things you need to work on in a positive way. And when you smile, even if you just make yourself smile, that feel good. Look at some fun pictures or the funny cat videos or something. You turn on to Learning Center. It's a dopamine cycle, which creates more dopamine and turns on to Learning Centers. So it's all it's it's it's real. It's not just happy, slappy. This is fun. Like there is physiological things going on inside you that can change the way that things happen for you. Yes. Oh, this is I'm so glad you brought this up. Cool. Okay. A couple of things about your admissions process that are I think are important. You are a school that requires the Casper test. Not for at the applications point, but for interviews. Is that correct? That's correct. And then how do you use the Casper exam for those who are invited to interview? Yes. So we are using it in what everybody calls an impressionistic way. It is a we don't do an MMI. Okay. Situational judgment tests. We haven't figured out the logistics for a big interview pool. How to like make that work. Those are situational judgment tests. That's what the Casper is. So this is our replacement. For a standardized way of evaluating the attributes in holistic review that we're looking for. Right. And that the equity collaboration, problem solving resilience, all of those things should show up in that Casper score. We would never. We would never on any one criteria, not on any one criteria. Will somebody out automatically because of the Casper score? Okay. That's really. We're showing for people to hear. Yes. Yes. We don't have a formula to only invite people above a certain. We don't do that. We do because so many schools require the Casper. We do see many, many scores in the screening process. So we're purposefully midway through we go through and anybody, you know, we're looking for metrics, experiences, and attributes, the components of a holistic review. If there are people out there on the edge or they quite have, have it quite been pulled into the interview pool. We will go look for very high Casper scores because if that person has extraordinary collaboration, communication, all of the things we're looking for as evidence in that Z score from the Casper test, we've got to be. Yeah. So and without exception, they are exceptional. So we're, we use it that way. Um, committee meetings, it will come up when people are talking about the personal attributes. A lot of our discussions revolve around personal attributes. Um, humility, organization, all these things and up. And if there is sometimes in disparate interviews, somebody just loves this person. Somebody says, "Well, communication was good or not sure about this attribute or that attribute, we have, we have the the Casper score to add a piece of information for us. And then we also have the so of it to add that piece for us. So it's a standardized one way video interview. So it's like an asynchronous interviews. Yeah. A few years ago, we did that during the COVID years that Vida, it was like, there's somebody you sit in front of your screen. Are you giving a prompt or something that you? Yes. Okay. Yes. So we, so we, we didn't use the Vida. I think we were using actually we had the so V as a pilot for and, and, um, not required component if people wanted to do it. Um, and we didn't join the Vida group and we have not used snapshot either because they were not flexible enough to do it our way. So what we wanted, what happened, how it evolved was in committee over and over again, people would say a committee member would be presenting an applicant and would say, I wish everybody could have met this person. They were phenomenal. And we were all sad that we couldn't all interview the person, right? Um, and the so V then gives us a way to look at people. We don't have secret questions. Um, the seek, I think the questions are out there everywhere and they're important topics that we like. I love question number two. Let me start first starting by saying we give them a lot of intro. We give them a lot of guidance about how to make a successful video. If you want to come back and do it on a good hair day, if you want to make notes, think about the questions and organize your thoughts a little bit better. So we don't need you to have a lot of time to do that. So we don't need to have a lot of time to do that. Not a surprise. Okay. Okay. And it's a two minute video because we want to watch 10 minute videos for 10,000 people. And they'll be there all night. You know, what? It missions committee last and hours and hours and hours. Yes. But we the committee loves it. And it always acts as a positive addition. It's really, um, it's really, really, really important to have a lot of time to do that. And it's really important to have a lot of time to do that. Yes. And waste half the time going, uh, uh, you know, so no, we don't want it to be scared. We want it to really augment that we don't need to make people to make 30 second decisions and come up with the answer. Not until we train you how to be an ER physician. And we'll train you later. That's down the road. Plenty of plenty of time to get you there. Right. Um, let's see. So for your interview day, if we could talk about that a little bit, um, you mentioned. So it sounds like they have two interviews on the interview day. So, um, you guys staying, are you virtual or is it in person or hybrid? I think we'll always be virtual. Okay. So our interview day is all virtual. Um, we try to pay attention to all those things. Everybody's looking at Zoom fatigue, making, you know, a minute is long, um, in Zoom time. So we'll, we'll stay virtual. We were able, um, to create some on campus twice a month. We had on campus events, um, have a nice lunch as a pasta bar. Great, great lunch and tours and getting to talk to our, our students and person and see our beautiful campus. And yeah. So the interview day part is going to stay virtual. Okay. If the on campus thing is that for those invited to interview or just anybody in the pool? Um, that is a good question. So we, we, some schools do accept it only. In our system, we, um, have those days for invited, uh, for interviewees. Okay. But we have another program, a campus visit program where you get a student host. Okay. And do the same thing. We buy a lunch at our little cafe and then they go walk around, walk and talk. So those would be, um, pool, maybe people in the pool who haven't yet been invited. Um, the lunchions are for invited people. Okay. And we do that to include people because they're going to make a ranked list. So we don't want to wait until the acceptance period, you know, uh, or postmatch. We just invite all of those people. I see. I see. All right. Um, as far as the interview day goes, any special tips or things that you like to highlight about your interview day? It's a friendly conversation. And that's why we put our committee online with three fun facts, you know, we want them to see us. It's a, it's a friendly place and it should be a friendly conversation. Um, it's got a little structure in that sometimes we sometimes we use our standardized questions. But a lot of times, I don't get into the standardized questions too much because I'm having fun talking about something else, you know, in their application. Um, we, our interviewers are committee members. It's a small group. Okay. So that we can stay calibrated. Yeah. Yeah. So that all the training lessons are there in the group. Um, so they know it's supposed to be a nice, friendly encounter. And there are people who have the committee members are all people who have a direct connection with students, the curriculum or residents. Um, even in research, they might, you know, be, um, a researcher, basic scientists even, but they've had students through their lab that they've mentored. Um, those faculty because they're trained and calibrated every week in our discussion. questions, they have all materials in the packet. Our feeling is the applicants have worked a long, long time on all this. So they should see everything that's also have senior students as an interview committee. And so one interview is with the committee member or faculty member. And the second interview is a student. That's great. And they're trained, but they get the biography of all of those wonderful activities and they get a personal statement. Okay, but they don't see the metrics or letters of recommendation. Correct. Same, same here. Yeah. Yeah. But they get enough. I mean, just when we say just the biographer, just like personal statement and extracurriculars, for those that don't get to see it on our end, it's a lot. A lot. You learn about a lot about some of those two components. So I guess, you know, is there anything about your interview day that else you'd like to share or like we already talked about what happens after the interview day. We kind of started with that with the whole ranking process. Yes. Did we cover the things about your interview day that you wanted to share with folks? I think so. I share a lot of this sort of thing that we've been talking about. The curriculum and student life and the city. We try to, we try to keep it efficient. We have an optional session every Friday after our interview days are on Friday. So you're just one day a week, one day a week. And are you there for every interview day? Yes. They get to meet you. Yes. Oh, that's. That's fun. Yeah. Very fine. I see, you know, see, it's great to see new people, but we all, it's fun to see people that we've met at the career fairs and, you know, medical school fairs and it's fun to see people that we know from pre-med activities and things. I'm there, given them a big song and dance. And then in the, in the afternoon, we have a thing called Alliance for Diversity and Culture. So all of our various ethnicity groups show, not all of them show up, but lots of students show up representing their organizations and the applicants can go into breakout rooms and talk to people, you know, talk to people from the various groups. So that's, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. One last thing about your admissions process that I have written down here that wanted to bring up was about jam. Oh, yes. Yeah. And tell us a little bit about what jam is. Yes. I would love to. Jam is a program that was developed by, I call us the four big sisters. It was, or the auspices of the TMDS, but at the time, it was just San Antonio Dallas, Houston, and Galveston in play 20, 20 years ago, almost exactly in 2003. Prior to that, the schools have gotten together to develop a statewide four school at that time, pathway program for people who might need some help getting through this process. People who are in a financially stressed background, a breed to make things a little easier for those students. And the legislature, the Texas legislature adopted that in 2003. I've been involved as I was an interviewer on my committee at that point in Houston, but was involved as a preceptor that jammed summer programs. So what we, it's a, it's a well-funded and growing pathway program. Now we have 11 schools in the mix, including Dell and RGB, our newest UT system schools, but we expect, um, you of age. And it's not, not, it's no longer restricted to the UT system schools. Okay. The schools who joined TMDSS are partners in this pathway program. We accept every year 100 students from colleges and universities across the great state. And to enter the jam program and in their sophomore mid sophomore year, they have two summer programs. So they'll have one as a rising junior and then one as a rising senior at, so the school, the medical schools host those programs. We have our jam students on our campuses for a month where we do academic strength, social skills and attribute building. We do, um, MCAP prep. We do, um, did I say social skills? We have, we have cultural events. We go to the theater and we have an etiquette dinner and painting with a twist and all kinds of many modules and just all kind of great speakers and it's lots of fun. Well, so it's very enriching. It's like a rich man program. Yes, exactly. And those students, once they meet the minimum criteria of metrics and, you know, being, um, growing professionals, um, they are guaranteed a spot at one of these participating medical schools. That's great. We have a separate match for the Jampe students and the Jampe scholars, we call them and, um, yeah. That's fantastic. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful piece of collaboration. You know, who would ever think that 13 different schools across a state could come together to collaborate in, in this kind of way. It's a great thing happened for those. You've done it. Yes. You've done it. That's outstanding. Well, uh, Judy Ann is, we've, gosh, we touched on so many fun things. It's really very, very energizing conversation today. Thank you. Thank you. I'm having me. It was just, it was really a lot of fun. Oh, good. I'm glad to hear that because I, I have enjoyed a time as flown. Um, is there anything that you want to leave people with before we say goodbye? Anything about long or, or about any advice going into medicine, just, just the open kind of question. Yes. So, you know, I have lots and lots of, I'm always full of advice, but I would just say, um, so many of us know from experience and personal experience that this is just a very hard, it's a very hard process. We know, don't we, Christian? We all know in medical schools. We know how hard it is. We know how hard you're working. We know, um, that, you know, you'll have disappointments here and there and maybe some people have to reapply, you know, it just happens. The, we just don't have enough seats right now. I would say stay strong, stay positive, keep your dream in focus and keep up the good work, you know, if you want it to and you listen to all the other pieces of advice there are out there, like on your podcast and so many places, just listen and incorporate that into your path and it'll happen. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for, I want to recognize you showed a little bit of vulnerability. Well, in sharing your personal story and that it wasn't, and I think people should hear that, that, you know, there's no shame in reapplying to medical school. It's hard to get in. It's really hard to get in. And your perseverance and resilience and persistence paid off and now you're the dean of admissions. Yeah. And a wonderful medical school. Yes. So I want students to hear that that look, if it's really hard, we recognize that. Like you just said, I think some pre-match or some of the hardest working students out there. Absolutely. Absolutely. Sometimes it just doesn't go as planned the first time around, but gosh darn it. If you really want this and you, like you said, you heat some advice and listen to people and try to retool some things, it can work out and you can have an amazing career. And you're a perfect example of such an accomplished physician and who's doing wonderful things at the medical education space. What a great story. Thank you. Thank you so much, Christian. Yeah. Well, this has been delightful. Thank you so much, Dr. Calabay. I really appreciate it. Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you for having me. It's been really a lot of fun. Oh, good. Well, thank you. Um, well, I guess we'll say goodbye, but I hope this isn't the last time we say goodbye. So we'll reconnect again soon. We'll I'll see you in the next meeting. This is going to be okay. All right. Take care. We'll see you. Thank you. [Music]