Premedical program effective in increasing admissions to health professional schools

The Special Premedical Studies Program (SPSP) has been successful in preparing Aboriginal students in Canada for admission to medicine, dentistry, medical rehabilitation, and pharmacy at the University of Manitoba. The success rate for admission to these faculties is 20%. There is a higher failure rate in the basic years of medical/dental education, but remediation has been 100% successful. Failure rates in the clinical years do not differ from those of the mainstream population. Grade point averages and MCAT scores are given less weight in the special consideration category of application at the University of Manitoba. SPSP students can and do apply to this category. The higher rate of first unsuccessful attempt in the basic years of medical education specifically can be attributed to a variety of factors, including reading skills. Although the numbers are small, we show that there is a correlation between the comprehension score of the Nelson-Denny test and the verbal score of MCAT. But there was no difference on the average between verbal score in MCAT and pass/fail in basic medical years. Students who scored above the 80th percentile on the comprehension portion of the Nelson-Denny test were successful in their first attempt at examinations in medical school.