In this episode, co-host Abhishek Sripad, MD sits down with host Dr. Omar Young for an in-depth conversation on holistic review in medical school admissions. Dr. Young shares his personal journey into medical education and what led him to focus on admissions practices and evaluation frameworks.

Together, they unpack the concept of holistic review, offering clear takeaways for listeners and explaining how it addresses long-standing flaws in standardized testing and score-based evaluations. The discussion traces the evolution of admissions frameworks, examining the advantages and shortcomings of traditional models and the challenges institutions face when adopting holistic review.

The episode also focuses on real-world implementation, from training individual interviewers to balance experiences, attributes, and metrics, to guiding program leaders in developing mission-driven value statements and program-wide evaluation strategies. This conversation provides practical insight for anyone involved in medical education, admissions, or applicant evaluation.

Timestamps:

1:50 How did you get involved in Medical Education?

6:12 What is holistic review?

8:34 Step 1 Testing Experience

11:23 Medical School Testing Flaws

12:45 Benefits of Hollistic Review

15:30 What Hollistic Review Does

18:18 Omar Young Real life Example of Hollistic Review

21:11 Advantages to the older framework

23:00 disadvantages of evaluating via scores

25:36 Alignment Check-Index

27:50 How would you instruct/guide the individual interviewer to conduct their interviews?

32:50 as a program leader, how do you move towards developing holistic review as the method of applicant evaluation for the entire program?

40:10 Med Ed Moment