Using MMI Comments for Medical School Admissions Decision-Making.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Introduction Multiple mini-interview (MMI) comments can help to reveal an underlying personality or behavioral flaw that the numerical scores are not designed to illustrate. The importance of the comments provided by interviewers has not been documented in the literature. This study sought to examine whether MMI comments influenced admission committee decision-making. Methods Five thousand de-identified interview comments from a subset of 625 medical school applicants were reviewed by study raters who followed a rubric that outlined scoring assignments based upon the number of positive and negative statements made by MMI interviewers. The presence of extremely negative MMI comments was also evaluated. Results MMI score strongly correlated with MMI comment score assigned by the raters and contributed to overall committee score and decision for acceptance or rejection to medical school. The presence of one negative outlier comment score alone did not impact committee score or acceptance; however, when extremely negative attributes were identified by study raters within an outlier comment, this was associated with a reduction of final committee score and higher incidence of rejection. Conclusions A strong correlation existed between the MMI comments and overall MMI score. Both MMI comments and MMI scores predict acceptance to medical school. The additional value of the MMI comments lies in the extremely negative outlier comments.

Do audition electives impact match success?

PURPOSE: The authors sought to determine the value of the audition elective to the overall success of medical students in the match. METHOD: The authors surveyed 1,335 fourth-year medical students at 10 medical schools in 2013. The study took place over a 2-month period immediately following the match. Medical students were emailed a 14-question survey and asked about audition electives, rank order, and cost of 'away' rotations. RESULTS: One hundred percent of students wishing to match in otolaryngology, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, radiation oncology, and urology took the audition electives. The difference by specialty in the proportion of students who took an audition was statistically significant (p<0.001). Of the students who auditioned, 71% matched at one of their top three choices compared with 84% of non-auditioners who matched to one of their top three choices (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Students performed a large number of 'away' rotations as 'auditions' in order to improve their chances in the match. For certain competitive specialties, virtually all students auditioned. Overall, students who did not audition were just as successful as or more successful than students who did audition.

Teaching medical students how to teach: a national survey of students-as-teachers programs in U.S. medical schools.

PURPOSE: A number of U.S. medical schools started offering formal students-as-teachers (SAT) training programs to assist medical students in their roles as future teachers. The authors report results of a national survey of such programs in the United States. METHOD: In 2008, a 23-item survey was sent to 130 MD-granting U.S. schools. Responses to selective choice questions were quantitatively analyzed. Open-ended questions about benefits and barriers to SAT programs were given qualitative analyses. RESULTS: Ninety-nine U.S. schools responded. All used their medical students as teachers, but only 44% offered a formal SAT program. Most (95%) offered formal programs in the senior year. Common teaching strategies included small-group work, lectures, role-playing, and direct observation. Common learning content areas were small-group facilitation, feedback, adult learning principles, and clinical skills teaching. Assessment methods included evaluations from student-learners (72%) and direct observation/videotaping (59%). From the qualitative analysis, benefit themes included development of future physician-educators, enhancement of learning, and teaching assistance for faculty. Obstacles were competition with other educational demands, difficulty in faculty recruitment/retention, and difficulty in convincing others of program value. CONCLUSIONS: Formal SAT programs exist for 43 of 99 U.S. medical school respondents. Such programs should be instituted in all schools that use their students as teachers. National teaching competencies, best curriculum methods, and best methods to conduct skills reinforcement need to be determined. Finally, the SAT programs' impacts on patient care, on selection decisions of residency directors, and on residents' teaching effectiveness are areas for future research.