Pre-Health
Written by Caroline Centeno, '23
I attended the Georgetown University School Of Medicine (GUSOM) Information Session hosted for UVA students and I’m so glad that I did! With Georgetown being one of the highest ranked medical
schools in terms of application volume, I was intrigued to learn what draws so many students to
apply. We heard about the school’s curriculum, programs, academic tracks, and application
process, so I’ll share some of my takeaways from each.
Beginning with their curriculum, GUSOM divides it into 3 different phases: foundational (also
referred to as preclinical), core clinical, and advanced clinical. The foundational phase covers
the basic science courses and foundations of patient care, and takes place during the first two
years of school. You’ll have 6 weeks of content followed by a 2-week study and exam period.
There are also courses outside of the ‘modules’ that serve to discuss topics relevant to
modern-day medicine. Just because this phase is referred to as ‘preclinical’, it does not mean
students can’t or shouldn’t get involved clinically. It’s actually recommended that you get
hands-on experience very early so that you can use this phase to learn what areas of medicine
you’re passionate about and get more out of the later phases. One example of how to do this is
the Hoya Clinic near campus, which students can start working at upon arriving at Georgetown.
The next phase will be focused on these clinical experiences and it takes place your third year.
You’ll complete clerkships in family medicine, internal medicine, neurology, OBGYN, pediatrics,
psychiatry, and general surgery. All but one of their hospitals are located in a 30-minute radius
from the school, which is one of the nice things about Georgetown being located in DC . The
hospitals also vary largely by type, which gives students the chance to learn what type of clinical
settings work best for them. If you’re heavily considering internal medicine, family medicine,
pediatrics, or obstetrics/gynecology, there’s a program called Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship
where students can train in all of those specialties simultaneously as they follow patients
around for 24-weeks at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center in Baltimore, MD. The final
phase of the curriculum – advanced clinical phase – takes place in your fourth year and has two
requirements. First, you must complete two 4-week acting internships, during which you have
full responsibility for the patients you’re assigned to in order to give you a sense of what
residency is like. Second, you must complete a four-week Emergency Medicine Rotation.
Outside of those two requirements, how you spend your time is up to you!
As someone who loves traveling, I was particularly pleased to learn about their international
programs. GUSOM wants their students to think globally and as a result offers several
opportunities to serve some of the world’s most impoverished communities using what they’ve
learned in the classroom and in clinical settings. Students can choose when to engage in such
programs, but they frequently choose to complete them either during the spring break of first
year or the summer between first and second year. One can also engage in an international
rotation during their fourth year.
Another non-core curriculum feature I found interesting is their longitudinal academic tracks.
These are similar to undergraduate minors, and you work on them outside of your regular
courses. The current tracks they have are: health justice scholar, healthcare leadership,
literature and medicine, medical education research scholar, population health scholar,
environmental health and medicine, primary care leadership, and diversity equity inclusion track.
Now for the main reason I attended the session – learning about their admissions process.
Thankfully, Georgetown is one of the schools that have transitioned to reviewing applicants on a
holistic basis. There are 7 aspects that are first considered separately and then brought together
to understand the applicant as a whole. The first aspect is your essays – one will be the AMCAS
essay and the other is a “Why Georgetown?” type of essay. The second component is your
letters of recommendation. Since we don’t have a committee letter at UVA, they’ll be looking for
a maximum of 5 letters, with one coming from a science professor. They recommend that you
choose your writers based on who knows you best, not solely from those difficult pre-med
courses you scored a high grade in. Two other components of their admissions are, of course,
your science GPA and MCAT. I found it noteworthy that although they have on their website
certain values labeled as “not strongly competitive”, there is no screening process for
applicants. In fact, there is a student in their first-year med class who scored below their MCAT
score ‘guideline’, which shows you those values shouldn’t discourage you from applying.
Another component they look for is academic research, and this can be in literally any field you
find interesting. All that matters is that you gain some type of understanding off what’s involved
in research (I say this broadly because that’s exactly what they care about). The final two things
they look for in an applicant are service to the underserved and clinical experience. I know some
schools consider shadowing to be separate from clinical experiences, but Georgetown does not.
They value any type of exposure to patients and healthcare team members, so find what works
best for you.
I hope you now have a better understanding of what makes Georgetown School of Medicine
unique and that this post gave some guidance on whether GUSOM might be a good fit for you!