Med school easily fills seats for low-income students
A new initiative at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine has allowed six students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds who would not otherwise have been awarded a seat at the medical school to begin their studies at the college this month.
The College of Medicine made a decision last spring to start reserving six of its 100 seats for Saskatchewan residents from households that bring in less than $80,000 a year. Under the Diversity and Social Accountability Admissions Program (DSAAP), which came into effect for students applying to begin their medical education this fall, all applicants are first considered under the regular admissions process.
Qualified applicants who are not accepted and who declare they come from a household with an annual income of less than $80,000 are then reconsidered for the six reserved seats.
This year, 58 applicants requested to be considered under DSAAP and 37 were deemed to qualify for the program.
Six of them were accepted into the school and another six were wait-listed.
Preston Smith, dean of the College of Medicine, said he was “not surprised at all” that the school filled its reserved seats.
“There’s a large pool of smart people out there who don’t have the socioeconomic advantages of the people that usually get into medical school,” he said.
Research in Canada and the United States suggests that, in general, medical students come from families that are wealthier than the population as a whole.
A 2012 study that looked at the demographics of students at eastern Canadian medical schools found that 17 per cent of students came from households that made at least $150,000 a year.
Across the country, only three per cent of families met that threshold.
Smith said that’s not acceptable. “I really feel that the medical community should reflect the community they serve,” he said.
Students considered under DSAAP fill out a survey about their socioeconomic background and their responses can bolster their application.
The survey asks, among other things, if applicants are single parents, were raised by single parents, are refugees or the children of refugees, spent time in foster care, came from communities of fewer than 4,000 people, or have parents who did not go to university.
Before DSAAP launched, the College of Medicine reserved 10 of its 100 seats for Indigenous students and 10 for students from outside Saskatchewan.
Now, 10 seats are reserved for Indigenous students, six for Saskatchewan students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and five for students from out of province.
The remaining 79 seats go to the most competitive Saskatchewan applicants.
Smith said it made sense to re- duce the number of out-of-province seats to accommodate applicants who qualify under DSAAP.
“We’re trying to train doctors for Saskatchewan, so the more of our own that we train, the more likely we are to keep them in Saskatchewan,” Smith said. “I’m happy for the best and brightest in Canada to want to come to Saskatchewan, and there’s a few seats reserved for them, but that’s not what we are here for as a medical school. We’re here as a medical school to train doctors who are going to stay in Saskatchewan.”
Smith spoke to The Starphoenix this week from Switzerland, where he was accepting the 2018 ASPIRE to Excellence Award in Social Accountability.
The award is supported by the International Association for Medical Education and presented annually to a medical, dental or veterinary school that demonstrates deliberate and sustained efforts to integrate social accountability into all of its functions.
Smith said DSAAP is one example of how the medical school demonstrates social accountability.
Other examples include requiring first-year students to take part in a poverty simulation workshop and the school’s certificate in global health program, which sees 15 students a year complete six-week placements in rural Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan and internationally.