Elana Siegel '11 knows many people divide doctors into two camps, a la "Grey's Anatomy": one brilliant and precise but aloof, the other less renowned but down-to-earth and attentive to his patients' needs.
"I want to be both," she said.
Siegel is an applicant for the Humanities and Medicine Program through the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. This program, inaugurated in 1989, allows students to pursue a career in medicine without sacrificing their interests in the social sciences -- requiring only one year of biology and one year of chemistry. Applicants do not have to take organic chemistry, math or physics, and they are forbidden from taking the MCAT.
Mount Sinai's Web site describes the ideal Humanities and Medicine candidate as a student who has "demonstrated an interest and ability in the sciences and math in high school, taken a minimum of science/math courses in college, and have personal attributes that show promise for becoming a compassionate and humanistic physician."
Mary Rifkin, the program's director, said the program looks for many of the same attributes as any other medical program, including GPAs and the SAT. But they also place a lot of emphasis on the intangible qualities of a student. Rifkin said they want applicants to explain their plan and how the program will make a difference in their lives. HM students should be leaders, have a passion and show a sustained dedication to service, she said.
Five or six Brown students apply to the program every year, and usually one is accepted, Andrew Simmons, associate dean of the college for health and law careers, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
Applicants are generally sophomore undergraduates, though some juniors can apply. Applications were due Oct. 15, and those selected for interviews will be informed at the end of November. Between 30 and 35 of approximately 300 applicants will be accepted in late December, with time to plan for the spring semester. Students apply in their sophomore or junior year because otherwise they might have taken the science classes that would disqualify them from the program.
Siegel said she came to Brown definitely considering a pre-med track, "but without the blinders." After talking to Simmons at a concentration fair last year, Siegel decided Humanities and Medicine was the program for her. "I don't see it as a way of getting out of my organic chemistry," she said. "It's about fulfilling my medical career in a way that I want to."
Siegel, whose coursework has covered global health, has extensive community health experience. She attended the Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa in Swaziland, where she spent time working in orphanages where most of the children were HIV positive. Last summer, she helped an NGO in Uganda conduct surveys about malaria, HIV and tuberculosis. Siegel said she doesn't see herself ultimately practicing medicine, but would probably practice for 10 or 20 years with the goal of working internationally in community health and development.
Herald Sports Columnist Ellis Rochelson '09 remembers the day he found out about his acceptance to Mount Sinai: Dec. 27, 2006. "I was checking my e-mail about every two minutes that day," he said.
Rochelson, a theater arts concentrator, said he didn't think of becoming a doctor until he was a freshman at Brown. He then started down the pre-med track until he heard about Mount Sinai from a fellow student in a psychology class who had been accepted into the program.
Rochelson said the program offers a unique opportunity to work with the community in East Harlem, which has dire health care needs, especially concerning obesity and hypertension. He said the program encourages humanistic studies because "too many doctors were coming out cookie-cutter." Rochelson said he likes Mount Sinai's emphasis on humanistic medicine and relating to patients as people, "not just a collection of organs."
Though he called Mount Sinai's program "a backdoor into medical school," Rochelson says the 25 to 30 HM students share the same course load with the about 100 regularly admitted students. An eight-week program at Mount Sinai over the summer prepares the accepted HM students for medical school with classes in organic chemistry and physics. Rochelson spent mornings this summer shadowing doctors of different specialties, an experience that he said "really solidified my decision to become a doctor."
