When Christopher Beach talks about why he became a physician, he insists it was a broken ankle in 1989 that kept him from playing soccer in the NCAA Final Four.
“If I didn’t break my ankle in my junior year, I have to say that I might not be a doctor today,” said Beach, a Rutgers and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School graduate and vice chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
“I was playing soccer at Rutgers – one of the top soccer teams in the country – and at the same time was accepted into a new, very competitive medical school program," Beach said. "I couldn’t do both.”
With a new appreciation for being accepted into the Joint Bachelor/Medical Degree Program – launched in 1988 by Rutgers and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School – Beach hunkered down on his studies and matured during his time on the injury list.
During his senior year at Rutgers, ankle healed, he became captain of the men’s soccer team and led the Scarlet Knights to the National Championship Game that year.
“Professional soccer and being on a national team was something exciting to think about at the time, but I knew that soccer would not be a lifelong career and medicine would,” he said.
Beach is one of only 309 students, out of 971 applicants, over the last 24 years to be accepted into this rigorous medical school program that allows undergraduates to take one year of medical school courses – counted as electives toward an undergraduate degree – before graduating. It also waives the Medical College Admissions Test (MCATS) requirement for those accepted into the program and enables students to finish college and medical school in seven years instead of eight.
The program has changed in structure over the past quarter of a century. When Beach was selected, he split medical school classes between his junior and senior year. Today, students apply at the end of their sophomore year and begin their medical school education as college seniors on the New Brunswick Campus.
“A student that goes into the BA/MD program at Rutgers is the type of kid who jumps off the bus from high school; slides right into Rutgers and doesn’t miss a beat,” said Bruce Babiarz director of the Health Professions Office at Rutgers and co-director of the joint Rutgers-RWJMS program. They have to be smart, positive people with good social skills who don’t shy away from hard work.”
Applicants – who besides being high academic achievers, have been concert pianists, NCAA athletes,
community service volunteers, research assistants and youth group counselors – need a minimum cumulative and science GPA of 3.5 and five faculty recommendations to be accepted into the program. They must also be able to successfully complete seven, six minute, mini-interviews in which they are given two minutes to read a question and then deliver thoughtful, convincing answers.
Sonia Garcia Laumbach who started the program in 1995 was just that type of student. Born in Cuba to parents who didn’t have the opportunity to attend high school she commuted each day from Elizabeth to New Brunswick. She received her undergraduate and medical school degree and completed a residency in family medicine, she says, because she was given the opportunity to participate in the program.
"The BA/MD program allowed me to transition smoothly from my undergraduate education to medical school at a time when I felt I was eager for more exciting challenges," Laumbach said. "And I was able to save both time and tuition costs by completing one year of medical school while I was still an undergraduate. Overall, the BA/MD program was the most attractive of the many options available to me."
Today, besides caring for patients as part of Family Medicine at Monument Square NCQA level III Patient Centered Medical Home of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Group, Laumbach works as assistant dean for student affairs at the medical school and is co-director of the BA/MD program where she offers advice and support to those who are hoping to follow the same path.
“What we are trying to do is to attract bright, mature, highly motivated students with excellent interpersonal skills to medicine early on in their college career and get them interested in the program,” she said.