Session 245 In this week's episode, we have two guests coming on the show. Dr. Scott Wright is the executive director of the TMDSAS (Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service. He talks about the Texas medical school application. Our second guest is Enrique, the man behind the TMDSAS podcast. It offers a valuable resource to students thinking of applying to medical school, nontrads included. But before that, listen to this week's episode of the Specialty Stories podcast (Session 34) where we interviewed a gastroenterologist who specializes in interventional endoscopy. Also check out the other podcasts we have on the MedEd Media Network. If you're thinking about going to medical school, check out AMSA PremedFest which will be on November 4-5, 2017 at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Gain insights into how you can best present yourself as a medical school candidate, how to succeed in the toughest classes you'll ever take, and how to emerge from the experience as a healthy, happy physician which a lot of people aren't doing right now. Explore topics like cornea transplantation, genetics, and narrative medicine. Also get a chance to suture and splint and much more. I will also be there and talk about the interview process. Save some money off the registration fee and use the discount code MSHQ17 until October 25, 2017. Back to our episode today, let’s go behind the scenes in the TMDSAS process. If you're hoping to apply to medical schools in Texas, and even if you're not applying in Texas, go check out this episode. [03:30] Why TMDSAS Stands Alone Representing the 50th year of the TMDSAS in 2018, Dr. Wright explains that the precursor to TMDSAS known as the Medical and Dental Application Center began in 1968. This is five years prior to when AMCAS started. Alongside this, Texas began the idea of centralized application service for the school in Texas. So Texas basically pre-dated the AMCAS. The state legislature of Texas limits the number of non-residents that can go to a medical school in Texas to 10%. "Only 10% non-residents can enter or be in the classes for the Texas medical schools." This behooves the Texas schools to have a rich pool of applicants from inside the state. This is good for schools for them to be able to say that they're getting largely Texas residents applying. This does not suffice to say that non-residents can't apply. But because of the limitations the legislature puts on the medical schools, it benefits all of them to have a centralized application service just for the Texas schools. Moreover, they work diligently to keep the cost low. They have a flat fee. So to apply to all medical schools in Texas, there is a flat fee of $150. To apply to an equivalent number of schools to AMCAS would be $500-$600. Since they're only serving Texas schools, they're able to keep the cost low. "We are Texas. We have to do things differently." [06:44] TMDSAS Exceptions and New Texas Residents At this point, all Texas schools are state-supported except for two private schools, Baylor University and University of Incarnate Word Osteopathic Medical School. The legislation only affects the publicly supported schools. So both of these schools do not participate in the TMDSAS. TMDSAS doesn't get any funding from the State of Texas but they are funded strictly through application fees from the students. "We try to keep the cost low to encourage applications from anyone who's interested." They're able to keep the cost low by a small staff and not having a lot of overhead costs which AMCAS does. While AMCAS has a fee assistance program, they don't but they try to keep the cost low for everyone. They want students to feel comfortable applying in $150 as a plausible amount to commit to applying to a total of ten medical schools in Texas. As far as new residents are concerned, Dr. Wright says that as long as you meet the residency requirements, TMDSAS doesn't flag the application of new Texas residents. [10:05] How t