Medicine

Competencies and Program Objectives

All HMS medical students are expected to demonstrate mastery of the School’s six competencies for the MD degree: medical knowledge, critical thinking and inquiry, patient care, professionalism, interpersonal and communications skills and organizational and social determinants of health care. These competencies inform the program objectives, which, in turn, drive the learning objectives for each course and clerkship.

MD Program Objectives

Medical Knowledge. All students are expected to achieve an understanding of established and evolving biomedical, clinical, social, behavioral, and population sciences, and demonstrate the ability to identify and assess new information relevant to a question and to apply this knowledge to clinical problem-solving and scientific inquiry.

By the time of graduation, all students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of established and evolving biomedical, clinical, social, behavioral, and population sciences.
2. Apply their understanding of biomedical, clinical, social, behavioral, and population sciences to problems in clinical medicine.
3. Integrate biomedical, clinical, social, behavioral, and population sciences into the care of individuals and populations.
4. Identify and critically appraise new information that is relevant to a biomedical or clinical question.

Critical thinking and inquiry. All students are expected to be able to evaluate, analyze, and apply knowledge, to identify gaps in their own learning, to focus on personal growth and lifelong learning, and to engage in scholarly inquiry aimed at advancing knowledge in the ultimate service of relieving human suffering.

By the time of graduation, all students will be able to:

1. Evaluate, analyze and apply new knowledge with advances and discoveries in biomedical science.
2. Identify gaps in their knowledge and skills so as to continually advance their professional development.
3. Apply the skills necessary for continuous personal growth and lifelong learning.
4. Engage in scholarly inquiry with a goal of advancing knowledge in the service of the mission of medicine.
5. Design, perform and analyze experiments to address emerging challenges affecting human health in preparation for a career as a physician-investigator. (HST Only)

Patient care. All students are expected to demonstrate the ability to provide evidence-based, compassionate care for patients that is appropriate for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of illness and the promotion of health, and to work effectively as part of a team with other health professionals.

By the time of graduation, all students will be able to:

1. Provide compassionate, patient-centered care in order to promote and improve health.
2. Obtain and collect information from patients and other sources relevant to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of common and urgent conditions, including the performance of diagnostic procedures.
3. Interpret, analyze, assess, and prioritize relevant data to establish a diagnosis and management plan, including the initiation of appropriate interventions.
4. Work effectively as part of an interprofessional team to ensure safe and appropriate patient care.

Professionalism. All students are expected to demonstrate a commitment to the highest standards of professional responsibility, integrity and accountability; adherence to ethical principles; self-awareness; and moral reasoning in relation to patients, colleagues, and society.

By the time of graduation, all students will be able to:

1. Exemplify the professional values of medicine, including compassion, integrity, social responsibility and respect for all persons.
2. Demonstrate the responsible behaviors expected of physicians, including accountability, patient confidentiality, punctuality, and the prioritizing of the needs of others.
3. Demonstrate and embody ethical standards, principles and moral reasoning in all professional interactions with patients, families, colleagues, and society at large
4. Apply the skills and incorporate the attitudes needed to maintain and promote personal wellness.

Interpersonal and Communications Skills. All students are expected to demonstrate effective verbal, nonverbal, and written communication skills, and to build collaborative and trusting relationships with patients, families, and colleagues.

By the time of graduation, all students will be able to:

1. Form collaborative and trusting therapeutic relationships with patients and their families.
2. Effectively communicate with patients and families to promote informed consent and shared decision making, with appropriate disclosure of sensitive medical information.
3. Effectively communicate medical information in verbal and written form with fellow health professional colleagues to advance patient care.
4. Demonstrate the interpersonal skills required to be an effective contributor or leader on a health care or other professional team.

Organizational and Social Determinants of Health Care. All students are expected to demonstrate an awareness of and responsiveness to the larger systems in which illness is experienced and in which care is delivered. In recognizing the social determinants of health and health care, they will demonstrate sensitivity to diverse populations, whether based on ethnicity, culture, gender, economic status, or sexual orientation.

By the time of graduation, all students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate the skills needed to advocate for patients to improve health outcomes at the individual and society level.
2. Demonstrate the ability to operate effectively within health systems and also to improve those systems with attention to quality, safety, and value in the delivery of patient care.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of and sensitivity to the social determinants of health and opportunities to address health disparities.
4. Provide care with cultural humility and appreciation of the needs of diverse populations.

Pathways incorporates pedagogical approaches that foster active learning and critical thinking, earlier clinical experience, advanced clinical and basic/population science experiences, and a scholarly project that will allow every student to plan an individual pathway to the MD degree.

HST is offered jointly by HMS and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is oriented toward students with a declared interest in a career in biomedical research or a strong interest and background in physical or molecular science. The HST curriculum is designed to emphasize basic and quantitative understanding of modern biomedical sciences and pathophysiologic processes and a fundamental approach to important concepts in modern biology and biotechnology.

HMS has a three-phase MD curriculum:

• The preclerkship phase, which has two parallel curricular tracks—Pathways (making up roughly 80 percent of MD students) and Health Sciences and Technology, or HST (with about 20 percent of students).
• The principal clinical experience (PCE) phase, which is the 12-month core clerkship year.
• The post-PCE phase, when students take advanced courses, clerkships or subinternships and complete their required scholarly research projects.

There are a few important specifics about each curricular track. Each year, 135 MD students are enrolled in the Pathways program, and they learn alongside 35 first-year HSDM students in the preclerkship phase. Meanwhile, 30 MD students are enrolled each year in the HST program, which directs its programming at students who are already committed to becoming physician-scientists. HST’s preclerkship phase is shared between HMS and MIT, and the MD courses are conducted jointly with medical engineering-medical physics PhD students from MIT.

While the HST track also follows a three-phase curriculum, the first phase is six months longer than Pathways to match MIT’s semester structure and provide time for intensive research. As a result, the PCE phase has two six-month “phase-shifted” admission points: the Pathways students enter each fall and the HST students each spring. Finally, the extra six months of the Pathways post-PCE phase allow for three additional required months of basic and population/social science courses, as well as mentored research experiences.

Selection Factors

Admission to Harvard Medical School is very selective. We seek students of integrity and maturity who have concern for others, leadership potential, and an aptitude for working with people.

The Committee on Admissions evaluates applications based on several factors, including the following:

• Academic records
• Applicant essay(s)
• MCAT scores
• Letters of evaluation
• Extracurricular activities
• Summer occupations
• Life experiences
• Experience in the health field, including research or community work

The Committee on Admissions takes a holistic approach to application review.

We do not pre-screen applications. All applicants who submit an AMCAS application and designate Harvard Medical School will receive our secondary application.

Harvard Medical School does not have a rolling admissions policy. The timing of the submission or completion of an application will not affect the applicant’s chances of receiving an interview invitation. As long as all application materials are received prior to our final deadline, applicants will receive full consideration.

International Students

HMS welcomes applications from international students who have studied for at least one year at an accredited institution in the United States or Canada, and have completed the course requirements. Fluency in English is expected; however, the TOEFL is not required.

While we do accept applications from students with international educational backgrounds, candidates with degrees from accredited institutions in the US and Canada are strongly preferred. Students are required to complete at least three years of college work and a baccalaureate degree prior to matriculation.

A limited number of required courses taken outside the US or Canada may be used to fulfill requirements, determined on a case-by-case basis. Every effort should be made to take the majority of required courses at an accredited college or university in the US or Canada. In any case, at least one year of full-time academic work in the US or Canada is required.

International Students are eligible to apply for need-based financial institutional scholarships and loans

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Generous Aid, Low Debt

Harvard Medical School has one of the most generous MD financial aid programs in the country. On average the HMS Financial Aid Office administers over $36.5 million in loans, employment, and scholarship funding from various federal, private, and school sources to approximately 76 percent of the HMS student body. As a result of our generous financial aid programs, HMS maintains an average graduating debt well below the national average. Students in the HMS Class of 2018 graduated with an average medical debt of $110,548, which compares favorably with the $186,407 national average at private medical schools.

Diverse Student Body

A diverse student body is integral to the HMS mission. We select candidates without regard to their ability to pay for medical school and award financial assistance solely on the basis of financial need. Of our financial aid recipients at HMS, 1 in 5 come from a family whose annual income is less than $50,000 and 50 percent qualify for our Middle Income Initiative. In order to maintain our generous aid program, we require both students and parents to contribute to the cost of attendance to the extent they are able so that we may distribute limited resources fairly and equitably to those with the greatest need.