The Constitution of AΩA gives many degrees of freedom to each chapter for the process of election of student members within certain firm guidelines. Our process can be summarized as follows:

 

The clerkships all have up to 6 weeks to turn in final grades. At that time, all students who meet ALL of the criteria below will be invited to submit an application to be considered for AOA:

 

1) At least 3 clerkship honors 

2) Passed USMLE Step 1 on first attempt

3) Students who have been referred to the SSPC for any academic or professionalism issue are not eligible 

4) Students who have a record of any significant professionalism issue or have demonstrated a pattern of smaller professionalism infractions as documented by OSA are not eligible

**Step 2 scores are not taken into consideration

 

The application will look at three main areas: service, leadership, and research/scholarship. Applicants will be able to list up to 5 items for each section. Each section of the application gets sent blinded to a sub-committee of AOA members that rate each applicant for that area. The final ratings from each of the sections gets forwarded to the final selection committee. 

 

In addition, each clerkship can submit up to 10 nominations of students that they feel excel in academics, service, leadership AND professionalism. These are NOT students that are only interested in their specialty. All learning community mentors are also able to submit nominations of their students that they feel excel in each of the areas of emphasis.

 

The final selection committee is comprised of residents, faculty, and community physicians that are AOA members. A wide variety of specialties are represented. The final selection committee also looks at the applications in a blinded fashion and receive the ratings from the sub-committees and the nominations from the clerkships and learning community members. The AOA councilor is present at the final selection committee meeting and answers questions that the committee members may have, but does not have a vote. The final selection committee will have access to full course/clerkship evaluations, including all formative and summative statements. The selection committee can select up to 20% of the number of students expecting to graduate that year.

 

Students that will be taking a gap year are eligible to be inducted either the year after 3rd year or in their 4th year.

 

Selection into AOA is based on merit and requires that students have demonstrated the characteristics of excellent physicians in alignment with AOAʻs mission and values. The JABSOM AOA selection committee includes the following characteristics as part of demonstrating excellent physicianship: trustworthiness, character, compassion, knowledge, scholarship, proficiency in the doctor-patient relationship, professionalism, leadership, empathy, altruism, and servant leadership. Therefore, honoring 6 clerkships does not ensure automatic induction into AOA...students must be well-rounded in all of the areas.

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