Technical Standards
Technical Standards
Minimal Technical Standards for Admission, Matriculation, and Ongoing Enrollment
Technical standards are the non-academic skills and abilities necessary for the successful completion of the course of study in osteopathic medicine. The Meritus School of Osteopathic Medicine (MSOM) is committed to equal access for all qualified applicants and students. Minimal Technical Standards (the “Standards”) state expectations of MSOM students. The Standards provide sufficient information to allow the candidate to make an informed decision for application. MSOM students must be able to meet all of the Standards, with or without reasonable academic adjustments (accommodations). Academic adjustments can be made for disabilities in some instances, but a student must be able to perform in a reasonably independent manner. Applicants and current students who have questions regarding the technical standards, or who believe they may need to request academic adjustment(s) in order to meet the standards, are encouraged to contact Learning and Disability Resources. Procedures to apply for academic adjustments are found within this handbook.
Every MSOM student is expected to possess those intellectual, ethical, physical, and emotional capabilities required to undertake the full curriculum and to achieve the levels of competence required by the faculty. The holder of a doctor of osteopathic medicine degree must have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to function in a broad variety of clinical situations and to render a wide spectrum of patient care.
Categories of Technical Standards
MSOM’s minimal technical standards are as follows. The examples mentioned are not intended as a complete list of expectations, but only as samples demonstrating the associated standards.
- Observation: Students must have sufficient vision to observe demonstrations, experiments and
laboratory exercises. Students must have adequate visual capabilities for proper evaluation and
treatment integration. They must be able to observe a patient accurately at a distance and up
close. - Communication: Students should be able to hear, observe and speak to patients in order to elicit and acquire information, examine them, describe changes in mood, activity, and posture, and
perceive their nonverbal communication. Students must also be able to communicate effectively in English, in oral and written form, with staff, faculty members, patients, and all members of the
health care team. - Motor: Motor skills include reasonable endurance, strength and precision. Students should have
sufficient motor function to execute movements reasonably required for general care and emergency treatment. Such movements require coordination of both gross and fine muscular activity, equilibrium, and functional use of the senses of touch and vision. - Sensory: Students need enhanced sensory skills including accuracy within specific tolerances and functional use for laboratory, classroom and clinical experiences. Students who are otherwise qualified but who have significant tactile sensory or proprioceptive disabilities must be evaluated medically. These disabilities include individuals who were injured by significant burns, have sensory motor deficits, cicatrix formation, or have malformations of the upper extremities.
- Strength and mobility: Students must have sufficient posture, balance, flexibility, mobility, strength and endurance for standing, sitting and participating in the laboratory, classroom and clinical experiences.
- Intellectual, conceptual, perceptual, integrative and quantitative: These abilities include reading, writing, measurement, calculation, reasoning, analysis, and synthesis. In addition, students should be able to comprehend three-dimensional relationships and to understand the spatial relationships of structures. Problem solving, the critical skill demanded of physicians, requires all of these intellectual abilities.
- Behavioral, emotional, and social: Students must possess the emotional health required for full utilization of their intellectual abilities; the exercise of good judgment; the prompt completion of assignments and other responsibilities, especially those attendant to the diagnosis and care of patients; and the development of mature, sensitive, and effective relationships. Students must be able to tolerate physically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding challenges and workloads and be able to adapt to changing environments, display flexibility, and function in the face of uncertainties inherent in patient care. Compassion, maturity, honesty, ethics, concern for others, interpersonal skills, interest, and motivation are all required personal qualities. Students must be able to successfully endure the physical, intellectual, and emotional demands of the medical education curriculum and process as well as the medical profession.
Osteopathic physicians utilize touch as part of the osteopathic approach to diagnosis and treatment. As part of the educational process, MSOM students must be able to tolerate both being touched and touching fellow students of both sexes to acquire the palpatory skills necessary for diagnosis and treatment. These labs are done with supervision in a professional setting. Dress code for lab is gym shorts, underwear, T-shirt, and sports bra. In clinical skills and osteopathic manipulative medicine laboratories, students are required to participate in the examination of, and being examined by, fellow students of both genders who may be partially disrobed.
Applying for Academic Adjustments
The institution remains open to possibilities of human potential and achievement, providing support for students with disabilities. Students who have questions regarding disability-related academic adjustments, or who wish to make a request, should contact the Office of the Dean. Communications regarding disability and potential academic adjustments have no bearing on the candidate applicationprocess. The process for requesting academic adjustments is published in the MSOM Student Handbook.