I would like to propose an exciting opportunity; a chance to truly influence the composition of the medical student body at The Netter School of Medicine. The following is a statement featured prominently on our website; “Our focus is on primary care. Our vision is to be a model for educating diverse, patient-centered physicians who are partners and leaders in an inter-professional primary care workforce responsive to health care needs in the communities they serve. We want every one of our graduates to practice clinical medicine.”

We currently receive over 7000 applications for 90 positions in each entering class. This number minimally reduces to more than 6000 secondary applications and from this number we interview approximately 600 applicants to fill each entering class. The vast majority of applicants indicate an interest in primary care to align with the stated Mission of the School of Medicine and hopefully to be selected for an interview. The sheer volume of applications precludes a careful read of every application to truly identify those applicants who demonstrate a special affinity for and an interest in a career in primary care. The literature tells us that there are certain demographic characteristics and life experiences of applicants that correlate with an increased likelihood of pursuing a primary care career.

Here is what we need: we would like to identify 10 clinicians  to each review 50 applications, over a 2 month block of time (typically over the summer), to seek out applicants from a predisposing background and expressing a substantive and demonstrated interest in primary care that merit an interview. We have been assured that our recommendation will significantly impact the ultimate interview decision. This is our chance, as “in the trenches” practicing primary care clinicians, to actually influence the pool of applicants interviewed and ultimately accepted to the School of Medicine.

When first starting out to do this, each application should take approximately 15 minutes to review. We anticipate that the time required to accomplish this would be 10-11? hours over the 8 weeks. We would ask you to view a webinar or meet on campus for a 1 hour “training session”.  The application review can be done via the internet at any time and any place convenient to you.  At the present time we are unable to offer compensation for your contribution. I am, however, actively lobbying for a stipend for this work AND pursuing grant opportunities to assess whether this approach ultimately yields increased numbers of matriculated students that select primary care GME residency training (family medicine, general pediatrics, and general internal medicine/geriatrics). When this strategy has been deployed at other schools it has had a meaningful impact on primary care career selection.

Please click here<https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HNM7RF6> to access a very brief survey monkey (2 questions!) soliciting your interest.  Please take a moment to complete it, and do not hesitate to contact me with any questions at [email protected].

Thank you,

H. Andrew Selinger MD
Chair, Family Medicine
Frank H. Netter School of Medicine