Advising and Developing the Pre-Health Professional Student

Pre-health professionals are undergraduate college students who intend to pursue a career in healthcare and thus must develop and attain numerous competencies, including science-based knowledge and professional attitudes and behaviors, to reach their goals of advancing the health and well-being of individuals and communities. Despite significant demand for healthcare professionals in the workforce, including medicine, nursing, and numerous other health-related fields, admission to health professional graduate programs is highly competitive, with less than half of all medical school applicants gaining admission annually. The application process is nuanced, complex, and costly, which can often be a significant barrier to otherwise highly qualified students, particularly those from backgrounds underrepresented in the healthcare workforce. This book serves to inform undergraduate administrators, faculty, and staff in the development of students who wish to be future health professionals so they may best support students to successfully navigate through the complex academic and professional development and application process.

This book offers new pre-health professional advisors, as well as more seasoned advisors and other administrators, a resource to assist them in their professional journey (regardless of their prior training or lack of available mentorship) and to ensure that all students who wish to pursue health careers are well-prepared to do so. This publication provides readers with a better understanding of models of academic and career advising specifically for undergraduate students looking to enter the healthcare workforce, current practice and research regarding academic and extracurricular preparation of undergraduate students to enter health professions, the complex and time-sensitive nature of the application process for most health professional graduate programs and how to make students more competitive applicants, and additional considerations for special populations, including students currently underrepresented in the health professions. It is ideal for faculty and staff pre-health advisors, college faculty, Deans of Undergraduate Studies, academic affairs, student affairs (living and learning communities), high school guidance counselors, career counselors, university and community college advisors, and international students.