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Recruiting the Next Generation of Physicians – During a Pandemic
While the pandemic might have piqued interest in medicine, it also altered the way medical students were recruited to campus.
The College of Medicine Office of Admissions swiftly adapted to more restrictive protocols by shifting to effective virtual strategies. In doing so, the team excelled in fulfilling its annual goals: recruit a strong class, preserve the pipeline for students of underrepresented communities, and extend to the community through outreach.
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“The show must go on,” Dr. Jackson said. “I think what the College of Medicine can really be proud of in terms of reflecting back over its performance during a pandemic is that we were able to preserve the essentials of the recruitment process.”
Dr. Jackson’s team began by training faculty and staff to conduct all-virtual interviews through Zoom. The process required an understanding that every applicant’s remote location would be different. While prospective students couldn’t visit the College of Medicine facilities in person, Dr. Jackson’s team collaborated with the Office of Communications to create virtual tour videos for the college’s sites in Bowling Green, Morehead, Northern Kentucky, and the main campus in Lexington.
The admissions team also used videos to showcase the College of Medicine for high school students in the community. The team was able to convert nearly all of its pipeline programs to virtual platforms, including the annual University of Kentucky Medical Education Development Program (UK MED) program that has attracted underrepresented prospective medical students to the college for more than a decade.
Though it was an undertaking to adapt recruitment processes during the pandemic, Dr. Jackson said the results made it all worth it as the College of Medicine welcomed more outstanding medical students to campus. n
—Wendy Jackson, MD, Associate Dean for Admissions “
