Despite a long list of required pre-health courses, many students seeking a career in medicine are able to enjoy study abroad experiences.
Pre-health students are encouraged to study abroad if they want to, but doing so requires careful planning that starts early, said Dan Scheirer, associate dean and chief prehealth advisor at the Office of Health Professions Advising. On average, he estimated that more than half of pre-health students study abroad at some point—in the overall student body, between 43 percent and 46 percent of students will have studied abroad by the end of their time at Duke.
“From the perspective of the pre-med portfolio, [study abroad programs] provide a number of competencies that medical schools are looking for,” Scheirer said. “First is diversity—not in the sense of racial or ethnic diversity, but in the sense of visiting another culture, perhaps learning another language, living with a host family. It also provides them with communication skills, and there’s the academic aspect as well.”
One obstacle facing pre-health students is that prerequisite courses taken at foreign institutions are generally not accepted by medical schools, Scheirer said. As a result, many students take summer courses to catch up on requirements they missed during the school year.
“Not only do we have to worry about our individual major requirements, but we have to fit in all of the pre-health required coursework as well,” said John Park, a pre-med sophomore. “A lot of that required coursework can’t be taken abroad, which really limits kids who didn’t plan on studying abroad from the beginning.”
The pre-health curricular sequence alone does not usually prevent students from going abroad, but it may pose difficulties when paired with other requirements.
“If a student on the pre-health track is also double-majoring or combining course-intensive certificates or minors with his or her major, it may be challenging to fit in a semester abroad program,” said Sarah Russell, director of academic engagement for global and civic opportunities, in an email Tuesday.
Pre-health students must also take into account the timing of certain required classes when considering studying abroad.
One such class is Introductory Biochemistry I, which is offered exclusively during the Fall and the first Summer session and typically sees large enrollments—last semester, the class had 415 students. Introductory Biochemistry II, which is offered only in the Spring but is not required for pre-health students, currently has 27 students enrolled.
Scheirer said the demand for the class may increase as a result of an added biochemistry section on the 2015 MCAT but the Fall and Summer offerings were sufficient for now.
“We definitely recommend study abroad to our pre-health students,” Scheirer said. “If that is something they want to do, it is doable. It is something that they don’t have to give up.”
Contacting the advising offices early is especially helpful, said sophomore Priyanka Krishnan, who said she met with both her pre-health advisor and the global education office about studying abroad.
“Also, talking to other pre-health students who had worked in a study abroad semester was very useful,” Krishnan said. “The key thing for me was that I made a rough map of courses that I needed to take to fit in pre-health requirements and major requirements.”
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