By
Cyndy Cole
Arizona Summer Wildcat
Program helps students pass MCATS, examine health careers
On Friday, she'll suture pigs' feet and learn about cell structures.
Last week, she wrapped fellow students in casts.
This is the life - for the past six weeks, at least - of Mona Anand, one of 41 students from across Arizona participating in a UA program designed to help increase the number of minority and first-generation college students, as well as students from rural areas who apply to medical school.
The Arizona Health Sciences Office of Minority Affairs' Minority Medical Education Program is sponsoring the six-week program, held at the University of Arizona College of Medicine through July 20.
"I wanted to see what the (Medical College Admission Test) and med school application process would be like," said Anand, a molecular and cellular biology junior. She will take the MCAT in April.
"At the UA, we usually have 500 (medical school) applications for 100 slots," said Andrew Huerta, MMEP coordinator in the Office of Minority Affairs.
With a program like MMEP, medical school is a little more accessible for minority students.
Of those participating in the program since 1994, nearly half were accepted to a medical school, and 47 percent of those students were accepted by the UA College of Medicine, Huerta said.
Four days per week, Anand and her classmates debate, take tests and practice medical procedures, teaching themselves with the guidance of a student facilitator.
First, MMEP students map out a concept, like how a part of the nervous system works, and then generate questions about how systems in the body work together. Each student is assigned a question to research and present to the class. After presentations, the students take mock MCATs focused in the areas that were presented. They debate which answers are correct, then record what they've learned in journals - and then the process starts again.
And the process, according to some students, is fast and furious.
"I was like 'holy cow!' MCAT already?" said Alexis Hale, a post-baccalaureate student at Arizona State University and Scottsdale Community College.
But despite the fast pace, Hale said she was excited about being admitted to the program.
"I jumped up and down about 150 times when I found out that I got in," Hale said.
Despite concerns about the pace of the program, Nancy Ortiz, an undeclared Pima Community College sophomore, said she sees the benefits as well.
"It's not like you're learning and regurgitating what you learned," she said. "You're involved with the material."
Students begin each day at 8 a.m. and end at 4:15 p.m. Then many head back to UA's dorm, Gila Hall, where non-local students are housed for the duration of the program, and start studying for the next day.
"We've all pulled all-nighters," Ortiz said.
In the afternoon, MMEP students work on their medical school applications, practice interviewing and do other work on getting accepted, Huerta said.
On July 6, MMEP students got the chance to leave the classroom and tour clinics in the Pascua Yaqui Indian reservation, Nogales, Ariz. and Nogales, Sonora to observe differences in medical practices.
After completing the program, Alejandro Villegas was accepted to the medical school at Temple University. Villegas has since returned twice to be a facilitator.
"I'm indebted to this program to a certain degree because they molded me as a medical student," Villegas said. "Thanks to this program, I'm in medical school."
Villegas said he wants to become an emergency physician, and also educate the Hispanic community about diabetes.
Though the program helps students get into medical school, Huerta said there is "no guarantee" that anyone will get in.
But Hale, who wants to be a pediatric reconstructive surgeon, doesn't need a guarantee.
"We are definitely getting into med school. No maybe about it. Definitely," she said.
