Feature

A new kind of physician pipeline

Recent graduates of the BA/MD Scholars Program (7 total)

They’ve been waiting—and working—seven years for this milestone, and it’s finally arrived. The students in the first cohort of the University of Minnesota BA/MD Scholars Program are becoming doctors.

Launched in 2017, the BA/MD Scholars Program provides a unique pathway for high-achieving high school seniors to become physicians. The program invites students from rural areas and medically underserved communities, first-generation college students, and those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who express an interest in meeting the health care needs of Minnesota’s diverse patient population to apply.

“I plan to use the knowledge gained about social determinants of health and the health care system to allow me to better advocate for and with my patients,” says graduate Miller Balley. “Being trained at a university that values primary care inspired me to pursue family medicine, and I am very excited to begin my career.”

These students—buoyed by social support from their classmates, academic support from their advisors, and scholarship support from the Blythe Brenden Scholarship for BA/MD Joint Admissions Scholars—complete a bachelor’s degree from the U of M’s College of Liberal Arts and then move directly into the four-year Medical School program. 

Graduate Victor Furman says that, after initially thinking he’d go into pediatrics, his interests changed over the course of the program. “After starting medical school, I realized I was also interested in adult medicine and considered going into MedPeds (internal medicine and pediatrics),” says Furman. “But then I realized I also enjoyed OB (obstetrics) … [so] eventually I settled on family medicine so I could do a little bit of everything.” 

Explore what these BA/MD Scholars Program graduates have to say about their experiences