Expectations
Candidates for admission are considered comparatively on the basis of academic performance, motivation, maturity, personal integrity, and demonstrated humanitarian qualities. All applicants are expected to have seriously investigated the challenges involved with a career as a physician in the U.S., including observation of doctor-patient interactions, before they submit their application.
Honor Code: The University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) believes that high ethical standards are essential to the practice of medicine. As we aspire to cultivate and maintain a community of professionalism and academic integrity, we place at the foundation of our endeavors and in all of our interactions the ideals of excellence, integrity, respect, compassion, accountability and a commitment to altruism. Through the Honor Code, we attempt to articulate the most basic principles that should guide our professional behavior throughout our education.
Applicants to UWSOM will be made aware of this policy at the time of application to the UWSOM and, as part of the application process, will be asked to sign a statement demonstrating their understanding of this policy and their agreement to abide by the Honor Code. Applicants who are unwilling to sign the code will not be considered for admission.
The UW School of Medicine is looking for individuals who have:
- Academic ability to complete medical training and pass licensure examinations
- Diverse life experiences
- Sufficient knowledge of the practice of medicine to demonstrate that they are making an informed career decision
- Good communication and interpersonal skills
- Awareness of current problems facing medicine and society
- Problem solving and analytic ability
- Familiarity with ethical issues in medicine
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Academic Ability
Applicants must demonstrate they have the academic ability to complete medical school and pass the
USMLE (United States Medical License Examination)
- The USMLE assesses a physician's ability to apply knowledge, concepts, and principles, and to demonstrate fundamental patient-centered skills, that are important in health and disease and that constitute the basis of safe and effective patient care.
- Academic ability is usually evaluated by a combination of GPA and MCAT scores. The table below illustrates the combination of undergraduate GPA and MCAT scores of UW Medical School applicants that were accepted (green) and not accepted (red) in the last academic year. Most applicants who were accepted with lower than average college GPAs had taken additional graduate course work and performed well.
Acc = all those accepted.
Tot = total applied.
Applicants must submit scores from the 2010, 2011, or 2012
Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). This exam must be taken no later than September 30 of the year prior to
possible matriculation.
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Diverse Life Experiences
Important academic objectives are furthered by classes composed of students having talents and skills derived from diverse backgrounds. An applicant will be regarded as potentially contributing to student diversity if his or her background or experience would not ordinarily be well represented in the student body. Factors that indicate this diversity include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Persevering against substantial obstacles such as prejudice or discrimination, economic disadvantage, family or personal adversity or other social hardships
- Having lived in a foreign country or spoken a language other than English at home
- Career goals (with particular attention paid to the applicant’s commitment to public service)
- Employment history
- Educational background (including graduate study)
- Evidence of and potential for leadership (perhaps demonstrated by extracurricular, broad interests and life experiences)
- School, civic, or community service achievement
- Special talents (such as a career as a performance artist)
- Geographic diversity
- Unique life experience
You may find helpful information on the Office of Multicultural Affairs website
Faces of UW School of Medicine: Interviews of University of Washington medical students, faculty and alumni. The video is produced by the UW medical student group Alliance for Equal Representation in Medicine.
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Essential Requirements of Medical Education:
Admission, Retention, and Graduation Standards
The MD degree is recognized as a broad undifferentiated degree requiring the acquisition of general knowledge and basic skills in all fields of medicine. The education of a physician requires assimilation of knowledge, acquisition of skills, and development of judgment through patient care experience in preparation for independent and appropriate decisions required in practice. The current practice of medicine emphasizes collaboration among physicians, allied health-care professionals, and the patient.
Policy
The University of Washington School of Medicine endeavors to select
applicants who have the ability to become highly competent physicians.
As an accredited medical school, the University of Washington School of Medicine adheres to
the guidelines promulgated by the Liaison Committee on Medical
Education (LCME) in "Functions and Structure of a Medical School."
Within these guidelines, the UW School of Medicine has the freedom and
ultimate responsibility for the selection of students, the design, implementation, evaluation of its curriculum, evaluation of students and the determination of who should be awarded a degree.
Admission and retention decisions are based not only on prior
satisfactory academic achievement but also on non-academic factors which
serve to insure that the candidate can complete the essential functions
of the academic program required for graduation.
The school has the responsibility to the public to assure that its
graduates can become fully competent physicians, capable of fulfilling
the Hippocratic duty "to benefit and do no harm." Thus, it is important
that persons admitted possess the intelligence, integrity, compassion,
humanitarian concern, and physical and emotional capacity necessary to
practice medicine.
The School of Medicine, as part of the University of Washington, is
committed to the principle of equal opportunity. The school does not
discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national
origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability,
disabled veteran or Vietnam-era veteran status. When requested, the
University will provide reasonable accommodation to otherwise qualified
students with disabilities. |
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Technical Standards - ADA Accommodations
Technical standards as distinguished from academic standards refer to those physical, cognitive and behavioral abilities required for satisfactory completion of all aspects of the curriculum, and the development of professional attributes required by the faculty of all students at graduation. The essential abilities required by the curriculum are in the following areas: motor, sensory, communication, intellectual (conceptual, integrative, and quantitative abilities for problem solving and diagnosis), and the behavioral and social aspects of the performance of a physician.
- The University of Washington School of Medicine curriculum requires essential abilities in information acquisition. The student must have the ability to master information presented in course work in the form of lectures, written material, and projected images.
- The student must have the cognitive abilities necessary to master relevant content in basic science and clinical courses at a level deemed appropriate by the faculty. These skills may be described as the ability to comprehend, memorize, analyze and synthesize material. He/she must be able to discern and comprehend dimensional and spatial relationships of structures, and be able to develop reasoning and decision making skills appropriate to the practice of medicine.
- The student must have the ability to take a medical history and perform a physical examination. Such tasks require the ability to communicate with the patient. The student must also be capable of perceiving the signs of disease as manifested through the physical examination. Such information is derived from images of the body surfaces, palpable changes in various organs, and auditory information (patient voice, heart tones, bowel and lung sounds).
- The student must have the ability to discern skin, subcutaneous masses, muscles, joints, lymph nodes, and intra-abdominal organs (for example, liver and spleen). The student must be able to perceive the presence or absence of densities in the chest and masses in the abdomen.
- The student must be able to communicate effectively with patients and family, physicians and other members of the health care team. The communication skills require the ability to assess all information including the recognition of the significance of non-verbal responses and immediate assessment of information provided to allow for appropriate, well-focused follow-up inquiry. The student must be capable of responsive, empathetic listening to establish rapport in a way that promotes openness on issues of concern and sensitivity to potential cultural differences.
- The student must be able to process and communicate information on the patient’s status with accuracy in a timely manner to physician colleagues and other members of the health care team. This information then needs to be communicated in a succinct yet comprehensive manner and in settings in which times available is limited. Written or dictated patient assessments, prescriptions, etc., must be complete and accurate. The appropriate communication may also rely on the student’s ability to make a correct judgment in seeking supervision and consultation in a timely manner.
- The student must be able to understand the basis and content of medical ethics. He/she must possess attributes which include compassion, empathy, altruism, integrity, responsibility and tolerance. He/she must have the emotional stability to function effectively under stress and to adapt to an environment which may change rapidly without warning and/or in unpredictable ways.
These essential functions of medical education identify the requirements for admission, retention and graduation of applicants and students respectively at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Graduates are expected to be qualified to enter the field of medicine. It is the responsibility of the student with disabilities to request those accommodations that he/she feels are reasonable and are needed to execute the essential requirements described.
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