In 1985, CAHCMP launched a most unique program, in partnership with one of the consortium medical schools, the Chicago Medical School (CMS), to strengthen the qualifications of college graduates who had not been previously successful in gaining admission to medical school. The major objectives of the Post Baccalaureate Program (PB) are to implement effective strategies and activities that will:

1. facilitate the admission of unsuccessful CAHMCP health professional applicants; and

2. enhance retention or readmission of underrepresented minorities who are facing dismissal or that have been dismissed from professional schools.

Both objectives will be met through CAHMCP's provision of individualized support, reinforcement activities and formal “pre-admission” programs conducted at CAHMCP's IIT facilities, Chicago Medical School, Rush Medical College and other medical schools closely affiliated with the PB program. The program effort, specific to unsuccessful candidates, the Pre-Matriculation Program, will operate essentially in three forms:

PB-I:  Post-Baccalaureate health career aspirants with minimal or no
     basic science coursework

PB-II:  Unsuccessful health or medical career applicants

PB-III:  Pre-matriculation coursework at the medical school level

An individually-structured curriculum plan will be configured to enable each participant to demonstrate his/her capability to perform consistently above peer level, as determined by performance over a three-quarter (21+ hrs) or five-quarter (25-30 hrs.) course-taking experience at Chicago Medical School. Students completing pre-requisite work or retaking basic science courses are selected for Staff Internships during which emphasis is placed on self-diagnosis/assessment of the academic, financial, and/or personal problems that interrupted their pursuit of a health career or impeded their acceptance into medical school. Based on this assessment, a combination of the following activities are pursued: additional course work, individual study projects, research experience, community projects, pre-course study, partner/group participation and MCAT self-study.

The Chicago Medical School is our chief resource to pre-matriculation and re-matriculation students. More specifically, these students are allowed to enroll in the school's most rigorous first-year courses in order to gain admission consideration, readmission consideration, or to determine the success of our remediation efforts. Students performing at a 'B' level or better in their three quarter course sequence (21+ hrs.) are formally admitted as bona fide, regular medical students and given credit for all such courses completed while in the pre-matriculation component. CAHMCP participants can also enroll in a Summer Pharmacology course at Rush Medical College for credit. All other courses and auditing opportunities are implemented through the resources of Northwestern University, Loyola University and the University of Illinois medical schools. A typical pre-matriculation student is an unsuccessful medical school applicant and college graduate who majored in biology or chemistry at a large, public university. Always such students will have met all the course requirements for admission, but evidence modest overall GPA's or borderline MCAT scores that render them un-competitive for direct admission to medical school. Since, so many of these students have been in the CAHMCP pipeline since high school or even as Young Scientist Program participants, we know that they have the intellect and motivation to be successful in medical school. They simply need the extra boost and opportunity that our PB program provides.

In order to enhance retention rates and facilitate re-admission, the PB component has established an Academic Progression Partnership that will provide resources for students who encounter academic or personal problems and help need coping with the prospect of academic failure. The format calls for the inter-institutional sharing of resources to provide support services for URM students in order to insure on-time graduation and dramatically reduce attrition.

AP-I: Med students who are currently experiencing academic difficulty.

AP-II: Med students who are at the point of dismissal or who have been
     recently dismissed.

The typical Academic Progression participant is a non-CAHMCP student currently enrolled in a medical school who came to CAHMCP by referral from a fellow CAHMCP student or through a professor or student affairs administrator at his/her school. The participant is recognized as someone in need of the support services that CAHMCP provides in order to improve the prospect of continuing study at or of being re-admitted to medical school. In the past, The Chicago Medical School has been the sole resource and advocate for retaining worthy students so far into the MODVOPPPP pipeline. It is our fervent intent to challenge and organize the resources of all eight Illinois medical schools to adopt similar approaches to a vexing problem.

Post-Baccalaureate Colloquium in the Basic Medical Sciences

The Post Baccalaureate Colloquium in the Basic Medical Sciences (CBMS) is a natural progression of the Post-Baccalaureate Program to an even more specialized teaching/learning program service. Three distinguishing aspects of the CBMS are (a) self-teaching program (b) integrated modular instruction and (c) teaching/learning grand rounds. There is no doubt regarding the correlation between the quality of teaching and flexibility that allows for attention to students with special needs for mastery success. We intend to maximize both and provide integrated teaching/learning wherein basic science disciplines are related to each other and learned in the context of 'real-world' situations at the mastery level.

Thorough conceptual comprehension of these topics is essential to successfully complete the course of medical professional study. Some are able to master these topics without assistance, but most benefit from disciplined self-study programs, supplemental instruction, group review, or more in depth and individual attention in order to fully grasp these concepts. Through the Workshop and Start-Up Tutorials, the Post Baccalaureate Colloquium in the Basic Medical Sciences intends to offer that extra help needed to better prepare each student for the rigorous academic expectations of a required, credit-bearing academic course.

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