A lot of these students seemed to be either a.) already set on coming to BCM but wanted a refresher or b.) deciding between BCM and another school (specifically UT Southwestern). Needless to say, we did our best to showcase Baylor Med and Houston. My group went over to Texas Children’s Hospital and toured several facilities with a pediatrician. We had mock IPS (integrated problem solving) and PPS (physician-patient-society) sessions, showed a bit of 12 Days, had a student panel and several faculty members give speeches, had an apartment fair, a basic science tour, etc.

In the end, I just hope everyone goes where they’ll do the best and be the happiest – they’re all going to be amazing doctors either way.

…I’m so lucky to be a medical student here.

I suppose I’m in a good position to address this question having nearly completed the basic sciences. In retrospect, BCM’s tried and proven curriculum is simply… for lack of a better term… magical. I really have no idea how we’ve learned so much by being in class for such a short amount of time (relatively speaking)!

We’re in class for only four hours of lecture a day, and on certain days, labs are built into that time. This translates to having an enormous amount of free time on most afternoons to use as we see fit. And this is where one of the hallmarks of BCM’s curriculum becomes apparent – flexibility.

All medical students are smart. They’re dedicated. They’ve proven themselves through grade school and college to overcome challenges successfully. So why should a medical school subject them to hours upon hours of lecture, when in reality, each student has a slightly different way he or she learns the best. The flexibility we receive at BCM empowers us to explore different ways to learn the material. Group studying, reviewing structures in the anatomy lab, independent studying, and rewatching lectures by video streaming are all methods routinely used by my classmates to gain a better grasp of the material. This simply wouldn’t be possible if lectures ran from 9 to 5.

So with all this free time, can students still excel on standardized exams and match to awesome residencies? Well, quite frankly, yes. BCM has consistently scored well above the national average on the Step I, and consequently, had some incredible matches. We’re just a bunch of happy, fun-loving, and ridiculously good looking students ( ) who live by the “study hard, party hard” mentality. Or maybe that’s just my class.

• Lecturers say things like “I’m motivated by the fact that I’m hot, and I need to take off my clothes.”
• When in doubt, you know it’s vimentin positive.
• You’re taught ten things monocytes can become but are likely to get asked for fifteen things they can become on an exam.
• You would rather sell your first born rather than live a life of shame for missing a question on cilia.
• When leaving a block party, you calculate exactly how many days are left till the next one.
• “Positively elegant” is a complete sentence.
• The first thing you do after opening a PowerPoint file is look at the slide count… even before the title of the lecture.
• You live on a steady supply of candy for student affairs, coffee from the alumni office, and lunch from various meetings/seminars.

That’s all for now, but I’ll keep adding more content to this post in the future.

BCM’s interview day is incredibly special. How many second year students (MS2) even have the opportunity to interview medical applicants at other schools? I’m sure you can think of a few, but for the most part, it’s a relatively short list.

I opted out of interviewing for a PRN (peer-resource-network) student mentor position because I think my enthusiasm for BCM and knowledge about Houston will be far more advantageous to the admissions committee. I also plan to spearhead a surgical coop with Methodist Hospital with several of my classmates starting in the fall, so I should be able to sufficiently balance my time between the adcom and coop without much added stress.

Next year is looking to be great!

I’ve received e-mails from people over the block (mostly current applicants) with regards to BCM’s future as a medical school. Some are speculating that the medical school and graduate school will split and be sold off to other institutions. Others are saying that the medical program will be abandoned entirely. While these sentiments may be a product of the Houston media, I personally feel they’re flat-out wrong. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see how the general public is responding to Baylor College of Medicine.

As far as the new rankings, BCM is #33 in primary care and #24 in research (link to info). This is a pretty drastic drop from #17 in both primary care and research in 2009, but in all fairness, I think it can be ascribed, in part, to the hype of the Rice-Baylor Med merger (and other associated talks… like with Baylor University in Waco) falling through.

Dr. Butler, our interim president, was kind enough to share his views regarding the new ranks via an e-mail this morning. Here’s a section I found very interesting:

For the survey that was completed for last year’s ranking (2009), Baylor changed its reporting on NIH research dollars to include only the research activity in its primary affiliated hospitals. Consequently, we did not include NIH funding that M.D. Anderson Hospital receives which had been included through 2008. This resulted in a substantial decrease in the dollars reported in that category, but did not significantly change the college’s overall ranking last year because of the two-year average. This year, the change in the NIH research activity had a more significant impact. Based on our current NIH research grants, we will have much stronger numbers to submit for next year’s U.S. News survey.

This year’s U.S. News ranking does not measure what has been occurring in recent months as we faced a leadership change and financial difficulties. We have confronted those issues head on and I can assure you that BCM’s decline in this year’s U.S. News rankings does not reflect a decline in the quality of education. It is important that we remain focused on our plan for the future, share positive messages with our colleagues around the country, and not let this temporary fall in a listing cloud our thinking.

If U.S. News would factor in student success, you would see Baylor College of Medicine at or near the top based on the success of our students using any of a number of criteria including their pass rate on the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) and their selection for residency training that I recently reported. In fact, it is important to note that our reputation score by residency program directors in the U.S. News survey rose from 3.8 in 2006 to 4.0 for the last two years, which indicates that BCM graduates are excelling in their residency training programs. The true measure of excellence of any medical school is in the achievements of its students.

I couldn’t agree more, Dr. Butler.

Dr. Greenberg, dean of medical education, was kind enough to hold a Q & A session today to address the hospital and other concerns brought up by students/faculty. I also learned some unrelated things about the history of Baylor Med through his responses.

When Baylor Med separated from Baylor University in 1969, several stipulations were laid down for the medical school. First, a certain fraction of Baylor Med’s board of trustees would be comprised of people from Baylor University. Dr. Greenberg acknowledged that while this group is a very small percentage of the board, it’s present nevertheless. Also, if the college of medicine were to ever realign itself with another institution, Baylor University would have to agree with the merger and all associated provisions.

Here is some of the question and answer session:

• Did the student/faculty petitions against the Baylor Med – Baylor University merger have any influence on the final decision?
  • Minimally, but the petition(s) were acknowledged by the board of trustees
• Where does Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) fall into the recent events?
  • TCH has continued to support Baylor Med’s decisions throughout the merger process and actively seeks to work more closely with us.
• Once the financial situation stabilizes, will BCM reopen negotiations with Rice?
  • Probably not, but if it happens, the merger would be on different terms.
• What’s going on with the Baylor hospital?
  • Whether or not the hospital will be built out entirely is still on the table. Decisions will most likely be made in the next six months. If we decide to complete the hospital, it will take another 4-5 years before it’s up and running.
• Can you talk about the drop BCM’s rank as of the last reporting?
  • In the past, BCM had been allowed to count research as MD Anderson (an affiliated institution) towards the rank, but not last year. Good news is that our NIH funding is a little better than last year.
• The NIH alerted BCM about a conflict in interest… can you elaborate? (link to article)
  • NIH alerts BCM about a conflict in interest. BCM has a process in which every faculty member has to fill out a conflict of interest form, and if there’s a discrepancy, it goes to the ethics committee for further evaluation. NIH went in to look at one or two conflict of interests and didn’t like the way we report them. We need to change the process to include a committee re-review of the conflict of interest and send in some paperwork from the past few years.

I think Baylor Med’s main reason for ending the merger negotiations simply boils down to retaining the values which made us great in the first place. Balances and financial practices have drastically improved, and we’re holding our own in terms of positive cash flow. While it’s true that a substantial debt looms overhead, the administration at BCM continue to make strides in what I feel is the right direction.

Unfortunately for students and faculty, we’ll continue to read/listen to more comments by people who live in Houston but don’t have a shred of insight as to what’s going on within the four walls until something more definitive about the Baylor Hospital and financial situation surfaces.

As a student, I’m glad to see some closure on this. I was getting a bit flustered with classmates concerned about merging with Baylor University and how the possibility of newly instated religious parameters would restrict research and evoke a need to transfer elsewhere. Seriously, there are countless people who would kill to attend medical school, let alone Baylor Med (based purely on its location). Oh well… fortunately, that chapter is closed.
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Now that these merger talks are over, we’re back on course to resume our 40+ years of being an independent top 20 institution. We’ve made progress and had some drawbacks, but I firmly believe we’re back on the right path. In due time, the ranks will reflect this improvement.

We are writing to inform you that Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University have ended our discussions about a possible merger of our two institutions. At the same time, both institutions have agreed to develop further our existing academic and research relationship, which has grown significantly over the years.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.There were pros and cons to this merger to begin with, but now I’m glad that the haze has cleared, and we have a final decision. Baylor Med has an interesting future ahead of it! With a fiscally positive year, a recent sum of money given for research, and motivated students, I’m not worried at all about the end of merger talks. In fact, I’m quite optimistic. As an independent institution, BCM has come a long way in the 41 years since it broke off from Baylor University, and I’m confident we can go a lot further.

The Houston chronicle has a great article summarizing the situation.

Yes, as a student at Baylor Med, I’m inherently biased to promote a great image of the school. At the same time, when negative aspects of the school are expressed, I can usually appreciate/relate to them.

The following is a snippet from one of the comments left on the article.

“Sounds like Baylor Med is about down and out. If Rice doesn’t rescue them they can’t survive.”

The preposterous notion that Baylor Med will die without Rice is… ummm… a testament of how juvenile the reader’s knowledge is about the situation. Between a positive fiscal year in 2010 and a profitable outpatient clinic, Baylor is doing just fine. As a student, the idea of a Rice-Baylor merger is almost transparent as it hasn’t affected a single aspect of our education… except for the occasional: “Don’t worry if you break [insert furniture, lab equipment, etc] … Rice will fix it!”

Whether or not the merger goes through (which, personally, I think is just a matter of time), neither institution is facing its demise at the present moment.