Over the span of his 50 year career, Dr. James Weiss has reviewed literally thousands of medical school applications in his 18-year role as Associate Dean of Admissions at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is known to dispense a wealth of advice and stories generously, especially to aspiring medical students.

Occasionally we will share Dr. Weiss’ views in an informal conversation we call “A Word With Jim.”

Jon:
Let’s say I’m a college undergraduate, or even a high school student, and know I want to become a doctor. You have said that experience with service activities, humanistic endeavors, and clinical exposure are highly desirable in the eyes of admissions committees. Can you expand on that a little bit for me? What would that look like?

Jim:
The opposite of that is somebody who's interested only in science or math. I hate to use the word ‘geek’ because it's insulting, but a narrow background is less desirable than a background where the candidate has pursued a non-scientific endeavor. Because what committees like to know is what kind of a person is the whole person, and most importantly, is this person really dedicated to a career in medicine, which is difficult and time consuming. What are his or her qualifications besides the MCAT and the sciences? Is he or she someone who can relate to patients? It’s a special skill. If an applicant came to me, I would recommend that they become well-rounded in this respect.

Jon:
Gotcha. So how does one get examples of an ability to relate to patients? If you were going to advise someone on these kinds of humanistic endeavors, what would be some examples of that?

Jim:
Well, certainly exposure to clinical medicine, in one way or another, would be a very, very beneficial thing for an applicant to pursue, and to make certain that he or she is comfortable around patients. The experience must be sustained over a prolonged period of time. They don’t have to be directly involved with patient care, changing pajamas, cleaning bed pans, and the like. But they need to have the personality traits that gives them, and ensures comfort on their part, in talking to a patient who is ill. They need to be prepared for the unexpected, too.

Students also need to show a committee or an advisor that they’re not going to turn off a patient. That they aren’t going to say something inappropriate. Maintaining one’s equanimity is a minimal requirement to be suitable for medicine. In fact, equanimity is the byword in medicine.

Jon:
I would imagine to some degree, a medical school candidate has to know that they're comfortable with the squeamish, with the surprise, the calamity, with the emotion that goes into this profession.

Jim:
Precisely. Here's a true example. When I was a student, I was on rounds on the medical floor with six or seven of my fellow students, plus residents and interns. We went into the room of a young man who was not in control of himself. I don't remember his primary illness. But he seemed rather short-tempered, and he took a urinal and flung the contents at one of my contemporaries, one of my fellow students.

Jon:
That wasn't nice.

Jim:
No, it was not nice. Now there were a bunch of us in the room, and I think it might have hit more than one person. One student reacted very badly and started yelling and using obscene language at the patient, and almost picking a fight with him. The rest of us cleaned ourselves off and, fortunately, had the self-control to say nothing. That encounter was remembered by the faculty. And this particular student was, in the course of time, found to be completely unsuitable for patient care. Instead of a clinician, he became a bench researcher.

That patient unknowingly did the medical profession, and the student, a big favor that day.

Experts are divided as to why, but applicants to medical school soared by nearly 18% last year, an all-time record high. That’s more than double the previous high set in 2007-08. The number of accepted students and new enrollments also set record levels, making the first-year class of 2021 the largest and most diverse of any previous year.

Whether it was the pandemic, a shift to remote interviews, or as a response to social justice issues that boosted the unprecedented number of motivated, aspiring doctors - if you’re one of them that’s good news, right?

Well, yes. And no.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the increased competition has made it harder for candidates to get accepted. The number of accepted students increased by more than 2%, but medical schools haven’t expanded class sizes significantly, owning to the need for larger spaces and classrooms, added equipment, and additional faculty.

In his role as Associate Dean for Admissions at Johns Hopkins Medical School, Dr. James Weiss led the recruitment of more than 2,000 medical students. He has since turned that expertise into Med School Advisory, a small consultancy he founded to coach aspiring medical professionals through what can be a daunting admissions process.

The essence of his guidance follows the same philosophy he practiced at Hopkins, “Admissions committees don’t particularly love narrow-minded ‘geeks,’” said Dr. Weiss. “Reviews of each candidate must go well beyond GPA and MCAT scores, taking into consideration the individual’s life circumstances, community service and leadership activities. Service activities, humanistic endeavors, and patient care exposure are highly desirable in the eyes of admission committees.”

Over a deli sandwich the other day, my friend Jim told me the story of an eleven year-old boy who, many years ago, was stricken with a ruptured appendix. A ravaging abdominal infection took hold; the antibiotics of the day were all but powerless. The ensuing three-month long fight from his hospital bed would change the course of this young boy’s life. His brutal experience with a serious childhood illness forever shaped his view of what an exceptional doctor looks like.

That eleven year-old boy, as it turns out, is my friend Jim, also my-father-in law. He is highly respected and well-known by the medical community as Dr. James Weiss, acclaimed cardiologist and the former Associate Dean for Admissions at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

In his book, “The Rare Find, How Great Talent Stands Out” author George Anders writes of Dr. Weiss, “Without that illness, ‘bedside manner’ might never have been more than a passing phrase to him. Without that illness, he might have taken the easy route of guiding Hopkins’s admissions committee toward picking strictly the candidates with the best grades and scores, rather than looking for the ones with the most caring souls, too.”

In his leadership role in overseeing admissions at Hopkins, Dr. Weiss personally reviewed thousands of medical school applicants and in so doing, the school earned a national reputation for detecting the spark in candidates that other schools would overlook. (Indeed, that expertise is why he was featured in the aforementioned book.)

Dr. Weiss is most proud of his recognition as an early pioneer and champion of diversity, winning an award from the Association of Black Cardiologists in 2004. A few years ago, at a celebration honoring Dr. Weiss’s work in Admissions, a colleague wrote of him, “A tireless champion of diversity in the admissions process, Dr. Weiss emphasized that reviews of each candidate go beyond GPA and MCAT scores, taking into consideration the individual’s life circumstances, community service and leadership activities.”

If anyone knows what it takes to get into an outstanding med school, it’s Dr. James Weiss. That is why I am super proud to tell you I am helping Jim launch his own consultancy, called Medical School Advisory. It is borne from his experience as an eleven year-old, and his career passion to find and champion the candidacy of the best future doctors from, as he puts it, “Every walk of life.”