Pre-Health Care Advising

• Resources for advising Pre-Health Care students
• Overview of the issues related to advising Pre-Health Care Students
• Read More About It! Annotated Resources dealing with this issue

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Congratulations – you’re the new pre-health advisor! Now what?

Ruth O. Bingham

University of Hawaii-Manoa

Beverley Childress

Auburn University

Chair, Health Professions Advising Interest Group

 

There is no degree for this job, no prescribed training, not even a “how-to” manual. People come to pre-health advising from many paths – instructional faculty, professional academic advisors, health practitioners, administrators, graduate assistants, or staff hired specifically for the job. Most pre-health advisors learn on-the-job from fellow advisors, building their expertise based on the experiences and perspectives they bring with them. Welcome!

 

There are as many different ways to do this job as there are people doing it. Some pre-health advisors are instructional faculty in the natural sciences, offering guidance to students who choose to come in for advice. Others are professional advisors who work in a large department that includes full-time advisors, clerical staff, and student assistants; they offer comprehensive pre-health advising, present workshops, conduct mandatory advising sessions, provide committee letters, track students, and compile statistics. New pre-health advisors need to understand how pre-health advising fits into the institution, the models and options available, and the basic components in building a program that will suit the institution, its population and resources.

 

The following is a brief overview designed to make learning the new job easier. A more in-depth article is slated for publication in late 2008.  

 

Step 1: Finding Your Bearings

 

Pre-health advising can be located almost anywhere within an institution: in a specific college or department, in a campus-wide office, in an academic unit or in a student affairs office. It can also be an independent advising program or integrated into the institution’s advising system.

 

Wherever pre-health advising is housed, its location will impact

 

Diagramming the location of pre-health advising within the institution can help answer the following questions:

 

 

Advisors often have to work with whatever structure and model they inherit; however, if the location or structure of pre-health advising is negatively impacting students and their success, advisors can facilitate change by working with their supervisors and other administrators.

 

 

Step 2: The Health Professions

 

There are literally hundreds of health fields. Students will ask about everything under the sun, including familiar fields, such as physician, nurse, or pharmacist, but also alternative medicine and fields such as radiologic technician, nurse anesthetist, medical educator, health administrator, nurse’s aide, or dental hygienist. It is easy to become overwhelmed: how can anyone possibly learn about all of them?

 

The short answer is that advisors cannot know everything but can learn how to find answers by using reference books, online resources, and colleagues’ expertise. In fact, knowing how to find answers is more useful than knowing the answers for two reasons: first, part of advising is teaching students how to find answers for themselves; second, the field of pre-health advising changes rapidly, so it is crucial to check current sources frequently for new information.

 

Pre-health advisors may find it helpful to learn about health fields in terms of the following basic categories. Each field will differ in details, but fields within a category will share similar educational paths, degrees of competitiveness, amounts of direct patient care, and levels of science/mathematics required. These categories do not represent a hierarchy, and it is imperative that they not be presented to students as such. It is also important to remember that there are significant exceptions in each category.

 

Diagnosing/Treating fields entail direct patient care from exceptionally well-educated practitioners. These fields are usually highly selective/competitive, require significant levels of science/mathematics, require or prefer a completed bachelor’s degree, and require a post-baccalaureate degree.  

• Examples: dentists, optometrists, physicians, podiatrists, and veterinarians.

Allied/Associated fields either are allied with or carry out prescribed treatments from diagnosing/treating professionals. These fields require well-educated practitioners and entail direct patient care, usually more hands-on work than in diagnosing/treating fields, and consequently require strong interpersonal skills. These fields are moderately to highly selective/competitive, require moderate to high levels of science/mathematics, and usually begin at the undergraduate level, but can extend to the doctoral level.  

• Examples: nurses, dieticians, pharmacists, genetic counselors.

Rehabilitating fields also entail direct, hands-on patient care from well-educated practitioners. They are usually moderately selective/competitive, but can be highly selective/competitive if the number of applicants far exceeds the number of available seats. Some require a completed bachelor’s degree; others begin at the undergraduate level. Most require moderate levels of science/mathematics and strong interpersonal skills.  

• Examples: audiologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, recreational therapists.

 

Assisting/Adjunct fields support other health professionals and usually entail primarily either direct patient care or hands-on applications. These fields are minimally to moderately selective/competitive and usually require minimal levels of science/mathematics. Some can be completed with just a certificate; others require an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree, or even a bachelor’s degree plus certificate.  

• Examples: technologists, technicians, assistants, or aides.

 

Educational fields assist patients and people with their health and with the healthcare system. Selectivity depends upon the program and degree sought, ranging from associate’s to bachelor’s degrees, post-baccalaureate certificates, and graduate-level degrees. These fields require little to no science/mathematics, but some science/mathematics usually provides an advantage. Some require a background in education or counseling, and a strong foundation in the humanities or social sciences is helpful. Strong interpersonal skills are usually essential.  

• Examples: dietary managers, biomedical writers, mental health workers, health educators, health science librarians.

 

Administrative fields assist or manage health organizations, not individual patients. Selectivity depends upon the program and degree sought. Degrees are offered at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Courses in science are advantageous but not usually required. Some degrees require a background in business, which includes mathematics, and most require a strong foundation in the social sciences.  

• Examples: nursing home directors, geriatric care managers, health wellness coordinators, hospital public relations officers, quality assurance directors, medical secretaries, admitting officers.           

 

Affiliated fields are independent but related to health care. These fields vary widely: some require direct patient care while others entail no patient care; some are science-based while others are based more in the social sciences; some are highly selective, others minimally selective. Most fields require a completed bachelor’s degree plus a graduate-level degree, often a Ph.D.  

• Examples: biomedical engineers, biostatisticians, social workers, epidemiologists, athletic trainers, environmental health scientists.

 

These categories provide a way of understanding the breadth of healthcare careers and can make it easier to advise students: as a first step, advisors can learn seven general pathways instead of scores of individual paths. More importantly, these categories can help advisors guide students in finding their best “fit” among healthcare careers – either in a related field within the same category, or in a different category altogether.

 

As examples, a pre-medical student may discover after a year or two that his or her strength does not lie in the sciences and changes to a better fit in an allied or educational field; a pre-nursing student who excels in science discovers while doing volunteer work that he or she does not enjoy nursing and switches to pharmacy; or a pre-medical student who excels in science and loves healthcare discovers he or she is uncomfortable working directly with patients and changes to an affiliated field such as biostatistics or epidemiology.

 

 

Step 3: Eight Essential Steps

 

Although there are scores of different health fields, the basic steps in preparing to enter the fields’ professional schools are often very similar. How well students manage these steps, with the assistance of their advisors, can significantly impact how competitive they will be when they apply.

 

 

 

Step 4: Essential Components of a Pre-Health Advising Program

 

Many of the challenges in pre-health advising come from aspects of the job that lie outside face-to-face advising with students. Part of the job is understanding those aspects and how they impact advising and, ultimately, the students. There is no normative pre-health program; each institution develops a unique structure that works for it.

 

When the structure is not working, however, or when it needs to be improved, assessing the following components may suggest a solution or at least a direction to explore. Understanding these components and how they are functioning can help advisors communicate a program’s strengths and weaknesses to administrators. These components can also guide advisors in creating a plan of action.

 

 

 

Step 5: Advocating for Your Program

 

Pre-health programs thrive only when committed advisors advocate for them on a regular basis. Advisors must find ways to inform administrators about their programs, whether through annual written reports, inviting administrators to visit, or regular meetings. Administrators usually understand the link between funding and accountability, which means that advisors need to maintain statistics on the students’ and the program’s successes, challenges, and needs.

          

 

Step 6: Professional Development

 

Participating in professional development activities requires both time and money, but advisors cannot advise well without the current information, innovative ideas, professional experiences, and collaborations that hone advising skills. A poorly prepared advisor is worse than no advisor at all. To remain abreast of this rapidly-changing field, pre-health advisors should participate actively in professional associations such as the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) and the National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (NAAHP). Both associations provide online and printed materials, conferences, and Webcasts on relevant trends and topics. A wealth of literature about pre-health advising is readily available, and in-state professional schools often sponsor training sessions and open houses. An additional and significant benefit of professional development is the many opportunities to form relationships with other advising colleagues.

 

 

Step 7: Pre-Health Advising Resources

National Academic Advising Association (NACADA):

National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (NAAHP):

General Health Professions References:

Professional Associations:

 

Schools and Colleges, Admission Requirements:

 

Application Services:

Dentistry:     AADSAS https://portal.aadsasweb.org/

Medicine:     AMCAS https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/

      

Websites:

          Physical Therapy:     www.apta.org