Pre-Medical

About the Profession

Medical doctors are professional focused on promoting, maintaining, and/or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments.  In addition to direct patient care, doctors can conduct medical research, teach, and/or run medical centers.  There are two pathways to becoming a physician: allopathic medicine, which leads to an M.D. (medical doctor) or osteopathic medicine, which leads to a D.O. (doctor of osteopathic medicine).  Either pathway allows for physicians to work in one or more specialties:

  • Anesthesiology
  • Dermatology
  • Family and General Medicine
  • General Internal Medicine
  • Obstetrics and Gynecology
  • Pediatrics
  • Psychiatry
  • Surgery

Preparation Starts Now

From the time you begin college, you are assembling a complete dossier with which to apply to medical schools.  Applicants are expected to have:

  • Completed a bachelor's degree in any major, though many of SUNY Geneseo medical school applicants complete a major in Biology, Chemistry, Anthropology, or Psychology
  • Completed medical school course requirements
  • Achieve excellent grades; overall and science GPAs should, at a minimum, be at a 3.5 for allopathic schools and a 3.3 for osteopathic schools
  • Earn a good score on the MCAT; ideally scores should minimally be a 508
  • PreMed Committee Letter; Letters of Recommendation in Interfolio are required for the PreMed Committee Letter (two science faculty, one non-science faculty, and one clinical)
  • Involve yourself in sincere, sustained health-related shadowing, volunteer, and research experience

Course Requirements

Start planning as a first year student to meet the following course requirements for medical schools.  Below are the courses at SUNY Geneseo that are recommended you complete to prepare for the MCAT and meet medical school requirements (please note, there may be some variation in course requirements for medical schools, so be sure to check the requirements of the schools you plan on applying to):

Course Requirements

SUNY Geneseo

Notes
One year of Biology BIOL 117, 119, and 116 (lab)

Pay attention to course offering schedule (i.e. Fall/Spring)

One lecture with the lab can count as an N/ General Education requirement
One year of General Chemistry CHEM 116, 118, and 119 (lab)

Pay attention to course offering schedule (i.e. Fall/Spring)

One lecture with the lab can count as an N/ General Education requirement
One year of Organic Chemistry CHEM 211, 213, and 216 (lab) Pay attention to course offering schedule (i.e. Fall/Spring)
One year of Physics

General Physics:

PHYS 113, 114 (lab), 115, and 116 (lab)

 

Analytical Physics:

PHYS 123, 124 (lab), 125, and 126 (lab)

Pay attention to course offering schedule (i.e. Fall/Spring)

One lecture with the lab can count as an N/ General Education requirement
One year of English INTD 105 and one ENGL course  INTD 105 is the Basic Communication General Education requirement
One semester of Math  

Some schools specifically require statistics and/or calculus

This could count toward the R/ General Education course requirement
One semester of Biochemistry* BIOL 335 or CHEM 300

If not a BIOL major, you will need special permission.

Offered in the fall.

Pre-req: BIOL 300, which also has a prereq of BIOL 222, so plan accordingly.
One semester of Psychology* PSYC 100  
One semester of Sociology*

SOCL 100

 This could count toward one of the S/ General Education course requirements

*Courses generally not required by medical schools, but MCAT covers this material.

It is recommended that course requirements are completed at SUNY Geneseo, but there are instances where a student would need to complete one or two courses elsewhere.  If that is the case, it is suggested that coursework be completed at a four-year higher education institution.  All course requirements must be taken for a grade and demonstrate mastery, no lower than a C, for most professional schools.

For further information about allopathic schools, visit Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).  For osteopathic schools, American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM).