Paging Doctor Undergrad: Rutgers-Camden's BA/DO Program Puts Students on Path to Physician Faster

CAMDEN – Career paths aren’t often direct. But there are those select few whose paths take shape early on in life.  For six Rutgers–Camden students, becoming physicians is no longer some lofty goal; it’s less than seven years away.   

Managed by the Rutgers–Camden Career Center, a combined bachelor’s degree and doctor of osteopathic medicine program provides streamlined undergraduate study on the Camden Campus with a traditional four-year curriculum at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford.

According to Rutgers–Camden Assistant Dean James Marino, who serves as the Campus’ premedical advisor, admittance to this program is highly competitive – a 1920 score on the SAT is the minimum – so of course it boasts top achievers from across the Garden State and beyond.

“These are students who are motivated, talented, and absolutely positive that they want to practice medicine,” notes Marino.  “This program produces a tight-knit cohort of like-minded students that begin thinking like future doctors from day one.”

Current candidates hail from already science-rich educational backgrounds that include completion of Princeton University-funded advanced placement courses; “mini” medical schools through Robert Wood Johnson; externships at various hospitals; and medical summer camps in foreign locales.

First-year candidate Amar Bhagat of Morganville, NJ learned of his desire to practice medicine, not from his family’s long history in the field, but from his own encounter with a dead body at St. George’s School of Medicine on the Island of Grenada in the West Indies.

“It was one thing to discuss disease and death over a family dinner of puri (bread) and sahk (vegetables) or peruse through the medical books amassed in my father’s library. But to stand two inches from a pale, smelly, rotting human being with various and sutures is a tell-tale sign. Does this interest you or revolt you?” he remarks.

Bhagat graduated from Freehold High School’s Medical Sciences Learning Center, a specialized four-year program of just 43 students. Curriculum included advanced studies in the sciences as well as a year-long research class with a presentation at a medical sciences symposium his junior year and an externship at a local hospital his senior year.

All students enrolled in the Rutgers–Camden BA/DO program now enjoy working with their left brains as they fulfill their electives in the humanities on the Camden Campus. Topics of courses candidates currently study include the graphic novel, French theater, and great leaders in history. These students aren’t just over achievers in the sciences; there are several candidates who have yielded impressive feats in the arts.

For instance, two candidates have more than a decade of experience in Bharatnatyam, a south Indian dance, including enduring “Arangetram,” a three-hour dance performance to become professional dancers.  One is a solo pianist, another an Indian classical music singer, and even still, one who has recorded thousands of songs and is somewhat of a celebrity in Pakistan.

 

Mesum Nakvi, known professionally as Mesum Abbas, has sang for the Shiite Islam community in crowds of more than 10,000 and has culled celebratory reviews by The New York Times. In his application essay Nakvi writes, “I want to become a doctor because my father always tells me, ‘People already look up to you – from below the stage – now give them a reason to do so.’”

Caring for their future patients is something the Rutgers–Camden students take very seriously, even now as undergraduates. While the group might not agree on the specialty each will practice eventually, they’re all united in the kind of doctors they want to be: the kind that is always armed with relief through massage.

Osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM), which carries out the philosophy that good health involves many aspects of a patient’s life, including their emotional and spiritual states, is a core difference in how DOs and MDs are educated.

“Osteopathic medicine does a lot of hands-on things,” points out second-year candidate Rajvi Vora, who recently travelled with the Rutgers–Camden cohort to UMDNJ’s Stratford campus to for an OMM lab. “You get to learn all the different parts of the body, parts of the spine, and parts of the back… They taught us here that there are many little different ways to massage and align parts of the spine. This could really help with movement and posture and it’s something we’re going to try to utilize as doctors.”

Current members of the Rutgers–Camden BA/DO program includes four first-year candidates: Amar Bhagat (Morganville, NJ); David Luor (Cedar Knolls, NJ); Meet Parikh (Paramus, NJ); and  Bansari Trivedi (Syreville, NJ); and two second-year candidates: Mesum Nakvi (Monroe Township, NJ) and Rajvi Vora (Marlton, NJ).

For more information on the program, including how to apply, visit http://cc.camden.rutgers.edu/students/gradschool/JointBADOProgram.htm.

 

Media Contact: Cathy K. Donovan
(856) 225-6627
E-mail: catkarm@camden.rutgers.edu