You do not have to be a biology major to be a physician. Specializing in the humanities and being pre-med can be both possible and achievable. To help learners in those areas, Wake Forest has lately released the Interdisciplinary Humanities Pathway to Medicine program or IHPM that allows learners who major in the humanities guaranteed admittance to Wake Forest University of Medicine upon completing this program. Applications must involve two faculty recommendation letters and an article. A maximum of five learners will be approved by IHPM for this program at the end of their sophomore year.
The guiding committee for this program includes director of the Wake Forest students and put in interdisciplinary humanities Tom Phillips, director of the Wake Forest humanities institute Mary Foskett, director of the health professions program Pat Lord from the Reynolda Campus and Sean Ervin, Gail Cohen and David Grier (associate dean of admission) of Wake Forest University of Medicine. “The program appeared from a year-long interdisciplinary discussion that started among WFU staff and directors in the college and at the School of Medicine,” said Foskett. Medical school admissions are certainly aggressive. Wake Forest Medical School generally gets over 8,000 programs per cycle for 120 available seats. However, there is an increasing interest in expanding the higher education student body.
“When I look at somebody, I think, ‘are they going to bring something into the class that is different?’” said Grier. “With this program, you definitely bring something different into the class. This program will promote a different type of variety in instructors we do not usually get.” While humanities learners add an exclusive viewpoint to medicine, staff stress that IHPM is not the only road to an effective medical profession. “It should be highlighted that our program is one road to medicine. We’re not saying that it’s the best road,” said Foskett. The current field of medicine, however, identifies the significance of the holistic approach. “We want to move away from the mechanistic way of considering medicine,” said Ervin. “We’ve kind of lost touch with this other way of considering the person.” Faculty also highlight that this program is a mutual connection between the college student and the medical school. Thus, while the medical school will guarantee approval, there is a firm dedication expected from the student.