AAMC “Personal Competencies”
You may be happy to hear that the process of medical school admissions will most likely become more holistic in the coming years; the AAMC is encouraging medical schools to view applicants in terms of their overall academic and personal competencies, not just as a set of numbers (GPAs, MCAT scores, etc). An AAMC committee was recently asked to study the topic of personal, qualitative characteristics that we might all agree our physicians should possess. For the complete report of this committee, called the Innovation Lab, see The MR5 Innovation Lab Working Group's Recommendations. Please note that since this report was published by the AAMC, the list of personal competencies has grown from six to nine. As of March 2012, the nine competencies are: Integrity & Ethics, Reliability & Dependability, Service Orientation, Social & Interpersonal Skill, Teamwork, Capacity for Improvement, Resilience & Adaptability, Cultural Competence, and Oral Communication.