UMass Medical School welcomed 162 members of the School of Medicine Class of 2021 to campus on Wednesday, Aug. 2. The new class of medical students is the largest in the school’s history.
Students came from across the country as well as Massachusetts to attend UMMS, numbering 31 from out-of-state and 131 from the commonwealth. This is the second year that the school has accepted a limited number of highly qualified students from other states.
New this year, 22 entrants are enrolled in the inaugural cohort of the innovative Population-based Urban and Rural Community Health (PURCH) track, which will train these students to be primary care doctors in urban and rural community health. They will spend their first two years focused on basic science at the Worcester campus, with years 3 and 4 largely spent completing clinical rotations at the new UMMS-Baystate campus in Springfield.
The SOM Class of 2021 comprises 70 men and 92 women; six are commencing studies in the combined MD/PhD program. Seventeen students come from groups underrepresented in medicine, and 26 were the first in their families to attend college.
Also setting a new record, 24 class members attended University of Massachusetts undergraduate campuses, underscoring the commitment of the commonwealth’s only public medical school to provide affordable medical education to residents.
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