Th e G EM S P r o g ra m
Georgetown Medicine
Laughs are as common as correct answers as student colleagues, two by two, take turns presenting a complex chemical problem at the white board next to a giant screen. Yet, more daunting than the chemical formulas are the learning land mines buried within the language of the standardized test questions and multiple choice answers. While this testing format may seem familiar to some, that may not be the case for minorities or economically disadvantaged individuals raised without an understanding of how to decode the cadence of elite professional school tests.
“You’ve got to have opportunity, talent and luck to get into medical school. You need a break here or there. GEMS students have significant deficiencies in opportunity and luck, but the talent is there. And they are catching up.”
Welcome to the 2011 Georgetown Experimental Medical Studies (GEMS) program class. Thirty-one college graduates are just three weeks into a journey that will end— hopefully—with acceptances into medical school in May. GEMS is Georgetown School of Medicine’s (SOM) groundbreaking, postbaccalaureate experience, which for three and a half decades has altered lives.
A Glimpse into Another Era
—Donald Knowlan, M.D.
The silhouette of an African-American man with an Afro, aviator glasses, shirt, tie and a white physician’s coat is so outdated, it immediately takes the viewer back to August 1976 when the Georgetown Medical Bulletin ran the image on the cover with the headline “Black Men of Georgetown.” The cover story featured a 10-page question-and-answer article with the Georgetown medical student pictured on the cover. The student provided four SOM officials with some insight on the nature of the barriers to learning and difficulties he encountered while making the transition from his middle-class, urban background to the vastly different world on the Hilltop.
Group work and an interactive teaching environment are integral to the GEMS learning experience.
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