PREPROFESSIONAL HEALTH
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The Dordt Difference If your goal is admittance into a professional school, the comprehensive training provided at Dordt College can pave the way to medical, dentistry, optometry, graduate, or veterinary school, as well as pharmaceutical or physical therapy programs. Professional schools want to train leaders. Students accepted into professional programs must demonstrate not only excellent technical skills, but also sensitivity to social issues, relationships, and community involvement—characteristics best developed at a comprehensive institution where a core curriculum is an integral part of the program. Dordt’s core courses and reformational perspective will give you a framework and knowledge base for pre-professional study. Taking rigorous, hands-on science courses along with courses in history, English, communication, philosophy, psychology, and the arts—all taught in the light of God’s Word—will open your eyes and heart to the needs and concerns of others and the many ways you can honor God in a profession in the health sciences.
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT Tracy Peterson Keizer (’04) chose a major in psychology as her path to the medical field. Keizer credits her professors with helping her see the importance of a broad foundation in psychology and sociology as well as biology for practicing medicine. Today, as a physician assistant in Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, she works alongside an attending physician caring for patients with diagnoses of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Keizer is the lead advanced practice provider in the department and the director of the physician assistant/nurse practitioner post graduate psychiatry fellowship training program.
PRE-PROFESSIONAL HEALTH PROGRAMS
DORDT’S ADVANTAGES Dordt’s science programs offer rigorous, hands-on learning in the classroom and in the lab. You’ll work closely with professors who are engaged in teaching and research. They’ll expect you to work hard, but our smaller institutional size means that you’ll get regular personal attention and develop close mentoring relationships with faculty, allowing you to develop greater expertise in your field. They are readily available to help you examine study habits and identify problem areas so that you can successfully fulfill your calling. The Christian foundation offered at Dordt College will help you establish a foundation for your thinking and work. You’ll come to better understand the complexity and interrelatedness of health issues, learning to treat the whole person, not just injuries or disabilities. You’ll need good grades to get into a professional program, but it will take more than grades to get accepted into a program. You’ll need to demonstrate personal involvement and commitment. Dordt is large enough to offer a wide variety of opportunities—journalism, theatre, athletics, music, volunteering, student government—and small enough to make it easy to get involved.
• Pre-chiropractic • Pre-dental • Pre-medical • Pre-physician assistant • Pre-pharmacy • Pre-physical therapy • Pre-occupational therapy • Pre-optometry • Pre-veterinary
GETTING IN Each professional school has its own specific course requirements for its program, all of which can be fulfilled at Dordt College. Our students have been very successful in gaining admission to professional schools. Over the past 15 years, 80 percent of medical school applicants from Dordt gained admission, compared with a national average of about 40 percent. Graduates have been accepted at medical schools such as the University of Iowa, University of Minnesota (Twin Cities and Duluth), Des Moines University, and Loma Linda University. All but two graduates from our pre-physical therapy program in the last 15 years have been admitted into a physical therapy graduate program. One of our graduates, Troy Vander Molen (’94), was named the outstanding physical therapy student by the faculty of the University of Iowa physical therapy school. Most graduates of Dordt’s pre-veterinary program have earned a spot in the vet school of their choice based on their strong science background and hands-on experience. Dordt’s location means an abundance of opportunities for preveterinary students, from riding along with a local vet to doing an individual study at an internationally known embryo transplant center or veterinary pharmaceutical manufacturer. “We have been pleased with the quality and background of the pre-veterinary students that attend Dordt College,” says Donald Draper, associate dean at Iowa State University. “Their knowledge and experience in agricultural- and biological-based sciences is evident.” Students in our pre-dental, pre-pharmacy, and pre-optometry programs have had similar success in gaining admission to professional schools.
ADVISORS Pre-chiropractic program advisor: Dr. Tony Jelsma, Ph.D., McMaster University Pre-dentistry, pre-optometry, and pre-pharmacy program advisor: Dr. Darren Stoub, Ph.D., University of Rochester in Rochester, New York Pre-medical, pre-physician assistant program advisors: Dr. Carl Fictorie, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, and Dr. Robbin Eppinga, Ph.D., University of Iowa Pre-occupational therapy program advisor: Dr. Mark Christians, Ed.D., University of South Dakota Pre-physical therapy program advisor: Chad Hanson, B.S., Washington State University Pre-veterinary program advisor: Dr. Duane Bajema, Ph.D., Iowa State University July 2015