FEATURE STORY
e m a G l a e R A r e g n a h C r e e Car A NEW POSTBACCALAUREATE PREMEDICAL PROGRAM BEGINS THIS SUMMER Dr. Kate Cooper is staying very busy these days. The Loras College associate professor of biology is looking at her regular schedule of classes for the spring semester and advising students. In addition, she is helping to launch the new postbaccalaureate premedical program for college graduates looking to change their careers to the medical field. “Getting the program off the ground has kept us busy, but we’ve had a very positive response so far,” said Cooper. The new program is geared toward professionals who are looking for a career change into the medical or health professions, including medicine, optometry, dentistry, podiatry, physical therapy, physician assistant or veterinary medicine. “There are really smart people who were English majors or finance majors who realized either towards the end of college or after they had been out for a few years that ‘I really want something else and really want to go into medicine.’ It isn’t about redoing things that you didn’t do well the first time. It is about wanting a change,” Cooper explained. While Loras has already provided graduates with the opportunity to fulfill that core set of classes, this new program provides an enhanced package that helps get them ready for medical school. In addition to course work, pre-med students receive hands-on advice, the program director helps the person make decisions on what they want to do, with shadowing experiences and with studying for the Medical College Admission Test®, or MCAT® exam.
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Spring 2018 | LORAS COLLEGE
Getting the program off the ground has kept us busy, but we’ve had a very positive response so far. The courses available to students in the new program are biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemisty, physics and a few electives depending on what health-care profession they want to pursue.
