mility . For example , former US military personnel may have had immersion in cultures unlike their own during deployments abroad . The upward trend of US military experiences in our matriculants is likely related to our WVU SoM Special Operations Medic Pathway program , which was initiated in 2018 , to mentor former and current military personnel in the medical school application process .
The current literature about gap years mainly addresses the potential benefits of taking a gap year or years , mostly in the realm of psycho-social attributes . In their qualitative work , Rashid and Kimble identified six areas that were impacted in a generally positive manner for medical students who participated in a gap year . 4 These areas include adaptability , professionalism , understanding the real world , goal refocusing , resilience , and motivation . 4 Higher emotional intelligence has been reported to occur in residents who had a history of taking a gap year before medical school matriculation . 5 Medical students from the United Kingdom self-reported increasing maturity and independence as a major benefit to taking a gap year . 6 A potential negative included having difficulty returning to the student role after having time away from studies . Guang and colleagues found less burnout in third- and fourth-year medical students who had taken a gap year before medical school matriculation . 7 It must be kept in mind that any benefit attributed to the gap year may be due to other unaccounted for factors . 8
The AAMC reported that 66 % of matriculated medical students in 2020 had one or more years pass between college and the start of medical school . 2 This frequency of gap years reported nationally aligns with the frequency of our total applicants but is significantly higher than the total rate ( 42 %) for our matriculated students . When considering gap year rates of our in-state versus out-of-state matriculants , the out-of-state rates ( 58-62 %) are better aligned with the national data ( 66 %) than the in-state rates ( 45-54 %). Since there are two state-sponsored allopathic medical schools and one osteopathic medical school in WV , competition to recruit in-state students to any of the schools is
50 % 45 % 40 % 35 % 30 % 25 % 20 % 15 % 10 % 5 % 0
FIGURE 1 : Frequency of types of gap year experiences from 2019 to 2021
Medical Employment
Education Research Non-Medical Volunteerism Military Employment high and there may be less of a need for in-state applicants to pursue a gap year . In-state applicants have three state medical school options in a state with a total population of less than 2 million residents . Our most frequent length of the gap time slightly differs from the national data in that one to two years is the most common time frame nationally versus one year for our data .
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TABLE 1 : Medically related gap year employment
Emergency Medical Technician Medical Assistant Nursing Assistant Laboratory Technician Physician Assistant Phlebotomist Exercise Physiologist Dietician
2019 2020 2021
One limitation of our study is that our data is from matriculants at one state allopathic medical school , which may not be generalizable to all medical schools . Although , there are a relatively high number of outof-state matriculants at this one state medical school ( approximately 50 % of the student body ), and the vast majority of applicants are out-of-state . The mission , vision , and strategic plan of WVU SoM focuses heavily on providing excellence in patient care , education , research , and service to the community . Each medical school has its own mission , and the types of experiences during gap years for matriculated students may differ based upon the values of the individual institution . Another limitation is that information was gathered from written applications only ; information contained in a written application may not be able to fully elucidate the reasons for the gap year . More information is garnered from the interview , and information obtained from interviews was not considered in our study .
Pre-medical advisors who mentor pre-medical students must keep in the forefront that medical school admissions personnel perform holistic review , a process that considers the applicant ’ s experiences , attributes , and academic metrics . Each applicant will be reviewed in light of their own circumstances . The effect that the role of the coronavirus disease ( COVID-19 ) pandemic has had or will have on gap year experiences is unknown at this time , as the types of available ac-
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