Tulsa Community College Hosts Conference For Medical School Hopefuls

Students interested in medical school attended a conference at Tulsa Community College (TCC) to learn more about how they can prepare for the job on Saturday.

Organizers hope this seminar will help students interested in medical school plan out their future and address the growing shortage of doctors in Oklahoma.

Students talked to medical school advisors and current medical students about what they could expect to see.

“They kind of made me a guideline of what to expect going into medical school and money wise, it’s expensive, so they really helped me with that part of knowing where to go to get scholarships,” said Maria Feliz, a student at TCC.

For some, getting into medical school can seem daunting.

Current medical students advised prospective students that it’s important to start thinking about the future now.

“I would say that one of the big takeaways would be to get started early, like we’ve mentioned in the program so far, it’s a long process, so I would say understanding, not just the answers to the questions they are hearing today but what questions to ask,” said Cade Church, a medical student at the OU-TU School of Community Medicine.

Event organizers said they wanted to put this event together to help ease the information gap students in community colleges often face before transferring.

“Often, what we see in the transfer process is students are going to their transfer site, starting over,” said Julie Porterfield, the Dean of Science and Aeronautics at TCC. “It’s like they are freshmen all over again. So what we are trying to do, is ease that stress on a student.”

They also hope to see inspiring students go into the field so they can close the gap of the doctor shortage in Oklahoma.

All 77 of Oklahoma’s counties are either entirely or partially designated as “Healthcare Professional Shortage Areas.”

“In the hopes of doing programs like this, is so that students from these communities can go on to successfully apply and complete medical school and then return to their home areas to practice to help correct that shortage in medically underserved areas,” said Sarah Brubaker with the Health Professional Student Association.

This is the first conference they have held as part of the Undergraduate Medical Accelerator Program (UMAP), but they say they are hoping to expand it in the future.