One of the interesting things in New Mexico

U of New Mexico admits the oldest allopathic medical school class in the
nation with 44% over age 29 years at graduation. This is twice the
allopathic average of 22%. The top allopathic private schools have 17%
older.

At the U of NM older applicants are encouraged and may have a wide range of
origins and backgrounds. I think that there may be some older admissions
tracks (post bac?) , but have not yet obtained details.

Osteopathic schools have about 35 - 45% older, allopathic schools that
graduate the most distributional physicians and family physicians have 25 -
40% older.

Family medicine grads average about 28% older. Only Psych and Neurology
have similar older age types.

When comparing specialties, board scores, and age of the grads (average for
all in a specialty) there are strong correlations. The % in a specialty
also correlate with school MCAT, and mean age of the class. MCAT and
younger age tend to be selectivity factors along with higher status
origins. Older age, lower MCAT, lower board scores, and humble origins also
go together. Those most likely to have slightly lower MCAT, older age, are
more likely to have people careers and
http://www.unmc.edu/Community/ruralmeded/age_divisions.htm

Group I Increase With Age at Graduation - with each year older at medical
school graduation the percentages of total students in this age group
found in the following increase
Office Family Medicine
Office Rural FM
Rural Out of State Born
All Family Medicine
Office PC Underserved
Rural Careers (all physicians in rural locations)
Rural Born %
Child Psychiatry
Office Rural Pediatrics
Rural Internal Medicine
Rural General Surgery
Bottom Quartile County birth %
Rural Instate Born
General Anesthesia
Emergency Medicine
General Psychiatry

Careers involving people and more general areas are more likely in this
group. The rural origin percentages are included for comparison. Rural
origin and lower income origin students are delayed in entry and increase
in percentage rapidly, catching up by the usual age admission, for those
that gain admission at all.

Age does reflect barriers to entry but also is not pure since some decide
late for medicine in addition to those with delay. Those with research
careers also enter medicine at later ages, but are usually limited to the
top 21 research schools that graduate 50% of researchers.

The older age theories do fit with child development (Hart, Meaningful
Differences) Those delayed in development and not catching up by age 8 are
stuck in a rut as all social status groups have similar velocities of
learning from age 8 to adult. This means that the top status children enter
medical school early (as actually found in foreign born admissions in US MD
schools) and that those with lower income and rural origins enter later
when they burn additional years to catch up. This is seen in older
graduates in these groups and the collection of these different types known
as family medicine. This is also seen during medical training as certain
groups continue to improve from MCAT to boards to residency.

Catching up during college also limits the college performance predictions
of the SAT or ACT to low levels of correlation 0.12 or so. The MCAT does no
better. Individual factors are more important longer term.

Holding medical students to a rigid time line with admission by age 22
right after college makes it impossible for those most different to catch
up with no admissions of older graduates. Younger age applicants also have
higher scores.

Broad admissions focused on student characteristics rather than specific
age or scores results in somewhat different group of physicians. This is a
group more likely to reflect the demographics of a state, rather than just
the top status in the state, nation, or planet.

Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
[log in to unmask]
www.ruralmedicaleducation.org

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