2009-2010 UC Berkeley & UCSF Joint Medical Program

Now that we're getting well into interviews, I thought that I would start this thread to give people a forum to discuss and ask questions about the Berkeley/UCSF Joint Medical Program.

For those that don't know about this program, it is a dual degree program where you receive a Masters of Health and Medical Sciences from Berkeley and your MD from UCSF. You spend the first three years at Berkeley doing preclinical coursework that is 100% PBL, taking classes for your master's degree, and formulating and executing a master's thesis research project. You then move over across the SF bay and join the UCSF class for your last two clinical years. You are a fulltime enrolled UCSF med student and UC Berkeley grad student at the same time, and have access to / the benefits of both campus. I could go on about it for hours, so you should just check out the basic info at the Berkeley and UCSF websites:

http://jmp.berkeley.edu/
http://medschool.ucsf.edu/admissions/degrees/Curriculum.aspx#mdms

For those who are interested/intrigued, are interviewing, or are contemplating acceptances to the JMP, feel free to PM me for any questions or my honest opinions. (I'm now a first year at this program). When I was applying, I was pretty annoyed at the lack of "insider information" (aka actual student's perspective) available on the web about the program. Because it is such a unique medical experience, I think it is especially important for those interested to be able to talk to current students. Hopefully this will help to remedy that for this year!

Latuza said:

sounds like a very selective program. How many ppl applied and how many accepted?


If you're not considered for the JMP, are you still considered for MD-only at UCSF?

Is there a tuition break for JMP students versus MD-only students!

Do you need to have a lot of public health background to apply?

Thanks! I hope you enjoy JMP!

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To apply, you need to receive a secondary for UCSF (I don't actually know off the top of my head how many secondaries are sent out for UCSF) and you are required to write an additional 1 page essay about how the program will fit for you. After that, about 75 people get interviewed, and about 20 get accepted, with an additional 5 or so off the waitlist, totaling 25 acceptances. Of those 25, 16 matriculate.

The JMP and UCSF are actually two separate application processes once you get past the secondary. That means that you interview at two different locations (Berkeley or UCSF), and you can get an interview at either one and not the other, or both. Its probably good to note that there is no real significant different in prestige between the two. I'd say about half of our JMP class had both UCSF and the JMP as an option, and a number of current UCSF students turned down the JMP. Its really a personal and stylistic preference.

As far as tuition, regular instate rates apply. I believe UCSF comes out to roughly 23k for each of 4 years in state. For the JMP, you spend 3 years at Berkeley where you spend 16-18k a year in-state, and 23k for your remaining two. If getting a dual masters/MD degree is what you are into, this is actually a great deal cheaper even than being a UCSF student who spends a year at Berkeley getting an MPH because of professional fees that make the MPH much more expensive. I'm not actually sure how much it is for out of staters, but I imagine its comparable to private school tuition.

As an added bonus, you get $2000 as a "technology grant" to spend on buying a laptop, software, etc and $2000 automatic funding for your research anytime during the program

You don't need a public health background to apply. The school certainly attracts public health focused med students, but there are a good number into public policy, med anthropology, social entrepreneurship, clinical research, gender studies, basic science research, sociology, you name it. Its true that the JMP tends to attract students who are into the social sciences/humanities as well as the biomedical sciences, but there was even one year where a quarter of the class were basic science lab researchers.

I hope this answers your questions. Keep them coming!

byron said:

What's the interview like?

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The interview is pretty standard as med schools go - you interview on the Berkeley campus (at the School of Public Health building) and have two interviews, a lunch with a student, and a non-interview one on one meeting with the JMP curriculum director so you can learn about the unique PBL curriculum in more detail.

The major differences are that there isn't an "interview day" with many other interviewees - you are usually the only one interviewing on a given date. Also, both interviews are "closed file" meaning the interviewer has not read you application/secondary materials beforehand. If memory serves, I believe the interviews are 45-60 min. You also have 30 minutes to observe a PBL setting with the current students, to see how the groups actually go about working with the cases, witness the group dynamics with the professor, etc.

In my opinion, a major drawback about the interview is that you don't actually visit the UCSF campus. Pretty silly, given that if you are accepted you will spend 2 years there and get your MD from there! If you don't also have an interview for traditional MD or MSTP at UCSF, I reccommend taking the time to call the UCSF admissions folks and ask if you can get a tour of their campus (I personally didn't do this, but I imagine they would be very accommodating for a JMP applicant).

wildlifeiskey said:

What sort of master's degree can you obtain here? This seems to be separate from the MD/MPH program - is this true?

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It is indeed separate from the MD/MPH program. You get a M.S. in Health and Medical Sciences from UC Berkeley. The reason for this generalized Master's degree is that students can choose to focus their master's education on a broad scope of topics that may or may not include Pub Health topics - health policy, sociology, med anthro, basic sciences, health econ, epi/biostats, health and human rights, etc. This, to me, is really a major advantage: you are able to take a very multidisciplinary approach to your degree if you choose, or you can make it as specific to one discipline as you choose. In the end, you will tie it all together based on the master's thesis you write, so you have a goal that will keep you from losing focus.

From my understanding, a similiar thing is done now in other public health schools which award MHS degrees (masters of health science) as an alternate to the MPH degree, even though the specific natures of these degrees vary from school to school.

austinap said:

Are you a student in the program? Do you feel you miss out on being part of the 'normal' medical program? With only sixteen people in each class it doesn't give you a lot of options for study partners, etc. Sure, there are a lot of other things going on at Berkeley, but it is nice to have a few people in your class that you get along with well. That would be my only concern.

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I am currently a first year in the program. This was a big concern of mine when I made my decision, as well, and it is a very fair concern to have. For me, I came to the realization that the JMP is a very specific and unique program in so many ways, that it tends to be a self selecting group of people that decides to attend. Not to say that people end up having similar backgrounds or that classes end up being homogenous (they most certainly aren't). Most of the students, however, will be interested in health from a social justice angle, or will more often than not have some sort of international health experience, or will have some interest/experience with under-served communities, etc. Most will speak another language, especially Spanish. (Obviously these characteristics are found in other med school classes and aren't unique only to JMP students, but these are just some of the obvious similarities that come to mind for our class).

The average age tends to be a little older in the JMP as well. I know students in our first year class range from age 23 - 30, and the mean age for an entering class is 25 or 26 (nat'l average is 24 I believe). There are other classes with ranges up to age 36. This means that many people bring to the table varied work / life experiences, and most aren't straight out of undergrad.

To make a long story short, even though there are only 15 other students, if the JMP sounds appealing to you, chances are you will also like your classmates and find them a very cool group to be around. I decided that going to a school with 100+ people, I would probably still end up with a dozen - 20 people who I would consider close friends anyway. In the JMP, there are 16 people, but you end up getting to know them VERY well, almost like a tight knit family.

Of course , the question is, what if there is that ONE person that you just can't stand? Luckily, I haven't had to deal with situation (not yet at least). But you can say that it is an early introduction to the rest of your medical career, that even if you don't personally like someone, you will have to learn how to work with them and have mutual respect in a professional environment in order to function as a team that prioritizes the well being of your patient. You will have to learn how to deal with eachothers differences, and come to a point where you can function together on a daily basis, rather than just choosing to ignore them for the rest of your 4 years because you decide you don't like them.


I can really only speak from my short time as a first year (since June 09, since we start anatomy early), but so far our group of 16 gets along great, has parties together, studies together often, goes out at night, goes hiking, hangs out in SF etc.

As far as knowing other UCSF people, it really depends on your class. Some JMP classes have lots of friends across the bay in the traditional MD program, and some classes stick to the east bay scene. My year personally has a lot of people (including me) who have friends in the traditional program, and we interact with them quite often.

Most students really take the bulk of their classes in Berkeley, and cross the bay to UCSF for conferences, speakers, meetings with professors, or their thesis research. However, as a fully enrolled UCSF student you are welcome to take any elective offered on campus there.

There are email strings sent out about UCSF wide events all the time, and JMP students often go to those events in SF. Also, a quarter of each JMP class is involved in the PRIME- Underserved program which has students in both the UCSF trad class and the JMP, so a lot of connections are made that way as well.

questions99 said:

Hey gringochino thanks for all the info. You're awesome . Like the sn lol
i was just wondering if you knew how many people applied to the JMP. I know you said that 75 get interviews but wondered how many of the 1400-1500 who receive secondaries apply. Ooh and i wonder too how many actually submit the secondary who receive it, which i bet are many to regular ucsf since there are no required essays. Also, is it just me or do pple say "jump" when you talk about it? Lol

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I've heard that some 300+ JMP applications are received post UCSF secondary, but I've actually never clarified this with the admissions folks.

I expected this number to be higher as well, because you would think that lots of people would apply to the JMP as "another route" to get into UCSF.

Haha, I've never heard people call it "jump". People get real confused when I tell people I'm at the JMP, or a med student at Berkeley, so one finds all sorts of ways to simplify : either simply saying you are a UCSF student, or a dual degree student at the UCSF school of medicine and the Berkeley school of public health.

crx said:

I interviewed for this program last month. I did not know much about it and signed up for it on a whim, but after the interview, it definitely shot up my list, perhaps even over the regular program.

The admissions director told me they interview about 75 for 16 slots though, scary

Gringo, I believe they don't have you visit the UCSF campus because their interviewee pool is a subset of the UCSF interviewee pool, thus they assume you'll also be going through interview day at the regular program and see that campus. I could be wrong of course, as you definitely know more about this than I do, that's just my understanding.

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crx,

You have a point, most of the JMP interviewees are taken from the UCSF interview pool. They do, however, invite some applicants to Berkeley that were not given interviews at UCSF (I was one of these people). So it was pretty funny that I'd only visited my medical school campus for the first time at our white coat ceremony last September!

Some people have PMed me about what other schools JMP students turned down to attend the JMP. A good portion of students in my class were deciding between UCSF's standard MD program and the JMP. I personally was headed for Stanford until I got into the JMP off the waitlist. Other schools I can think of off the top of my head that students had acceptances at and were debating: UCLA, Tufts MD/MPH, Columbia, Stanford, University of Washington, Case Western, OHSU, Yale. All excellent schools, none are "worse" nor "better" than the JMP. But before this turns into a rankings mudslinging thing, keep in mind that the JMP is a pretty unique program, so it will attract a pretty unique cohort no matter what schools an individual was deciding between. I just wanted to answer a question that some people seemed to have on their minds.

athousandyears,

You asked some good questions! I'll answer them in order:

athousandyears said:

Hi GringoChino,
Did you realize or learn anything new from sitting in on a class? did you interact with the class before or after the interview?

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During the interview day, applicants sit in on a PBL session for a half hour. They are asked to not participate in the PBL discussion, and to hold questions for after. I remember talking to quite a few students when I was an applicant, and they were really enthusiastic to talk to me and answer my questions after sitting in. When I sat in on the PBL session, I remember being struck by how much the students drove the process and direction of the case, and how cohesive it all seemed - I was sitting in on a 2nd year class, so by then the PBL group dynamic is pretty fine-tuned. The professor really stepped back from the learning process, only really interjecting when students seemed to be overlooking something or when he had something to share from his own clinical experience that enriched their understanding of the case that they wouldn't have picked up otherwise.

athousandyears said:

Do you have to work to get to know other med students at UCSF outside of JMP? Do you interact with upperclassmen alot (in JMP or UCSF or both) and is it difficult to find student activities to be involved in?

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Yes, unless you already know some students at UCSF campus, it can be difficult to get to know those students. Several of my JMP classmates grew up in SF, and I have some close friends in the regular program, so it's been easier for me. Don't think that you are isolated to a class of 16 though - its easy to be part of the various Berkeley grad student communities (especially School of Public Health) and you have access to all sorts of grad student activities. Also, a quarter of the class is in PRIME, and will serve as a social link to to the main campus since they interact with the UCSF PRIME students.

Also the fact that classes are smaller does mean that you get to know upperclassmen very well. I know some of the 2nd and 3rd years better than I know 1st years. Since theres only about 50 total students at the Berkeley campus, people are always inviting all three classes out to parties and nights out in Berkeley/SF.

athousandyears said:

In your class, how focused were the students at the start: in terms of hitting the ground running with their masters thesis, knowing where they want to be after graduating, who or what departments they want to work with?

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Just like every other medical school, people come in having strong ideas about their direction and their choices of residency, but this often changes, since you really don't know what you want to specialize in until your clinical years.

That being said, I think people have pretty strong ideas about what general career paths they want to take outside of strict medicine - some people know they want to do policy, research, international work, etc. This, of course, ends up shaping their master's thesis. I am definitely writing my thesis based on international work I did for a year before med school, and I knew that I would do this coming in.

Apparently, very few students actually stick to the thesis project they proposed in their applications, even if they still do something in the same general topic/region. The first semester of the first year is spent feeling out different ideas, contacting various faculty at UCSF and Berkeley or elsewhere, and in general "shopping around" for a project. I think most students get a solid grasp of their thesis sometime in their second semester of first year.

athousandyears said:

Do graduates place in residencies around the country or stay local?

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Its a mix. Lots of people end up at UCSF for residency, or residencies in the east bay (Highland Hospital in Oakland, for example). A lot of people also end up at top residencies on the east coast and elsewhere. I'll see if I can get last year's matchlist and I'll post it up on here.

athousandyears said:

Do you find yourself in a set role doing PBL, as in, are there dominant speakers who like to explain everything? If you fall behind or don't understand something do classmates help? How competitive are people with each other in withholding information or losing focus on problems? Do you think it varies between years?

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You really don't find yourself in a set role in PBL. As your group develops, it is common to have several in-class "jobs" that everyone rotates through. This includes a facilitator, a case presenter, researchers (who look through book/online references when people want quick answers to what a drug does, etc), time-keeper who sets the agenda, note-taker and so on. No matter what job you have for a given week, you participate in the case discussion equally as everyone else.

Of course, there are going to be people who are more vocal/extroverted than others in every class. However, I've found that everyone really makes an effort to make the group dynamic work. There is time for the students to give eachother constructive feedback regarding their role in PBL, and people take these suggestions seriously. The more vocal people in class have made a conscious effort to give the less talkative more room to participate.

I think this does vary between years, but overall people are very cooperative. The PBL curriculum really does a good job of nurturing this, since noone really benefits from competition in this case (honestly). I've never heard of anyone withholding information, if anything, people are eager to email out to the listserv all sorts of information / helpful websites /study guides that they've come across.

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athousandyears said:

Thanks for the answers!

Do you have advice about what to expect with the interviews?

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Interviewees are invited one at a time, so expect a lot of individual attention. You will have 2 interviews, each are closed file. You will also have lunch with a student to answer any questions, coffee with a faculty member where they will explain the curriculum to you in more detail, and 30 minutes to observe a PBL session.

Interviews, like for all schools, are dependent on the interviewer. Because they are closed file though, make sure you are able to speak cohesively to get across the main things you want them to know that they missed by not reading your file. Don't stress about this too much, but its good to know coming in.

athousandyears said:

Can you explain how "assessment" works compared to traditional grading and exams?

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There are two units per semester, each with an end-of-unit exam. Each exam is made of two parts: a traditional written test that has been compiled from the material presented from the cases, and a case-based exam. The case-based exam is three days long, and is basically a one-on-one version of PBL. The first day, you are presented a case that you have never seen before by your examiner (either UCSF faculty, JMP faculty, or a community clinician). You then have 45 minutes to talk through the case, write up pertinent history, talk about tests you would want to perform on the patient, and figure out what you need to research to understand the case better (example: figure out the mech of action/pharmacology of a drug you've never heard of). Then, you have day 2 free for researching the case and preparing a case presentation. On day 3, you present the case to the examiner, discuss the findings of your research, then talk about your recommended diagnosis and treatment. The examiner then evaluates you and gives you comments and suggestions on how you did.

This may sound scary, but it is actually rather enjoyable, and a way more gratifying experience than just taking a written exam. Plus, this is essentially what you will be doing as a med student /resident when presenting to an attending, so it is great practice and prepares you very well for the wards where you are evaluated heavily on your case presentation skills (so I hear from the JMP alumni).

athousandyears said:

Do you think the case-based curriculum develops different learning skills than a traditional lectures based on systems or topics? Do you find there is less memorization or repetition than a lecture based class? I feel like some material could be more efficient to learn by lectures, is this where the miniblocks come in? If you could talk more about your current class schedule that would be awesome.

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PBL definitely develops different skills than a traditional lecture based system. Of course, I only have my own frame of reference. It definitely prepares you well for the on-your-feet diagnostic thinking required for the wards (see above).
The kinds of people who PBL is best for are the people who learn best from active engagement with the material. For me, I don't need to memorize as much because I feel as though I absorb more in class. Then again, I am the kind of person who tunes out (and sometimes falls asleep) in long, tedious lectures! For some people, this isn't a problem. With PBL, you have to be okay with learning things a bit out of order. For example, most schools will teach an entire cardiac unit in a semester. In the JMP, you will learn a little bit about myocardial infarctions and EKGs one case (while simultaneously learning about the kidneys and ACE inhibitors, other topics pertaining to the case etc.), and then two cases later learn about the cardiac cycle, then three cases later learn something else about the heart, etc. By the end of preclinical years, you will have learned the same amount as your brethren in SF, but not in the same orderly manner. This sounds terrible to some, and dynamic and exciting to others.
One more thing: you never know what you are going to be studying a given week, as each case is a surprise week by week. This means you can't study ahead of time. Again, some people love the suspense, while others might loathe that they can't be two weeks ahead of the material. Regardless, in some ways it forces you to free up your weekend since you can't study ahead, and spend it relaxing (or working on your master's thesis!). To each their own.
My 1st year required med school schedule: Mon, Wed, Fri we have PBL for 2 1/2 hours. Tuesdays we have clinical skills (3 hrs) or clinical preceptorship (3 hrs), alternating every other week. Thurs we have a 3 hr masters thesis seminar. We also have optional hour long lectures, 3 times a week, on various topics (range from guest speakers, guest patients, lectures on medical topics, etc)
On top of that, we take various non-med classes to fulfill our master's degree requirement. I'm currently taking intro to epidemiology and biostats -multivariate regression analysis. Next semester I'll likely take a medical law class or an MBA school class.
Total, I would say I'm in class 15-20 hours / week.

athousandyears said:

What is the advising system like? Are you assigned mentors?

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Lots of mentorship is at hand, and lots of meetings with your advisors. You have meetings with your PBL advisor, a general advisor, a thesis advisor, a curriculum advisor, and not to mention two different preceptorships each semester.

This is great in a lot of ways to get a tailored, one on one education. However, it can feel a bit diffuse at times, and students need to be pretty self-directed and motivated to really get the most out of the advising system.

athousandyears said:

Are the final two years exactly the same as M3 and M4 of the regular UCSF MD program?

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Yep. Exactly the same. I've heard that some JMP students decide to use part of their UCSF MS4 year elective time to elaborate on their thesis research for the sake of publications. Most students, however, do the same things as other MS3-4 UCSF students.

I do remember them telling me back in the day that UCSF would have to "approve" the JMP decision once they made an offer. From what I gathered then, this is more of a bureaucratic formality between the two campuses - I don't think anyone will get rejected last minute at that stage.

Of course, the real answer is, I have no idea. I don't work in admissions! I personally had my earliest couple interviews in early Nov 2008 (not at the JMP), and found out about the decisions around this date in December right before the holidays. So I would imagine that would hold true for the JMP. Offices will open early Jan before school starts, so I imagine they will send out letters then too.

jerew said:

Recent UCSF acceptee here (not JMP though, didn't apply). I was wondering if you knew of any UCSF students who did basic-science research at Berkeley for a year, like maybe took a 5th year between M2 and M3? I wasn't interested in the JMP specifically, but am more interested in how a UCSF student might go about getting some time in Berkeley's labs if there was something that was interesting.

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Unsurprisingly, there is a lot of collaboration between Berkeley and UCSF. As far as basic sciences go, there is a Berkeley & UCSF MD/PHD program in Bioengineering:

http://bioeng.berkeley.edu/gradhome.php

... and I'm sure there are many more examples. There's a few joint residency programs as well.

I know that a lot of JMP students use their last year (equiv to UCSF 4th year) to continue their research done during their preclinical years - to do a longitudinal study, to polish their work up for journal publications, etc.

I was out of the country when I heard back. They emailed me. Good luck!

Congratulations to the Berkeley / UCSF Joint Medical Program class of 2013/2015! Will start a thread shortly for next year....