Medical schools aim to take bright students and transform them into physicians prepared for the transition to residency training. Still, that requires a certain skill set from first-year medical students.
Laid out by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the premed competencies for entering medical school consist of a list of 17 skills the ideal medical student should possess. The list is broken down into three groups: Preprofessional competencies, thinking and reasoning competencies, and science competencies.
For incoming medical students, the list offers a range of skills upon which one can brush up on in the weeks prior to starting medical school and the opening weeks of undergraduate medical training.
Professional competencies
This group of competencies is the largest and most broadly interpreted list of competencies. Eleven of the 17 competencies the AAMC highlighted fall into this category. Here’s the list of skills and key traits the AAMC highlights for medical students to meet expectations in each arena:
- Commitment to learning and growth: Key traits in this competency include practicing self-reflection, pursuing opportunities to improve knowledge and seeking out and implementing feedback.
- Self awareness: Reflecting on assumptions and staying open to others’ perspectives.
- Empathy and compassion: Understanding others’ feelings, showing care and wanting to ease distress.
- Ethical responsibility to self and others: Acting with honesty, integrity and sound judgment.
- Interpersonal skills: Reading social cues, managing emotions and treating others with respect.
- Oral communication: Speaking clearly, listening actively and adjusting when barriers arise.
- Reliability and dependability: Taking responsibility, following through and meeting obligations on time.
- Resilience and adaptability: Adjusting to change, recovering from setbacks and seeking support when needed.
- Service orientation: Committing to something larger than yourself and helping communities.
- Teamwork and collaboration: Working toward shared goals, sharing information and exchanging feedback.
- Understanding others: Understanding that people’s backgrounds and experiences shape behavior and interactions, and demonstrating respect and curiosity about others’ perspectives.
How one goes about gaining these core competencies can vary, but a number of them are possible to hone through volunteer work. Medical schools often have a number of opportunities for students to get involved, such as free clinics.
At the University of Kansas School of Medicine, the JayDoc Free Clinic offers medical students a unique opportunity to strengthen many of these competencies from day one. Run entirely by students, JayDoc provides free care to underserved populations in Kansas City while giving future physicians hands-on experience in teamwork, communication, service orientation and adaptability.
As a second-year medical student, AMA member Ella Wright was one of JayDoc’s executive directors
“Going to JayDoc really reminds you why it all matters,” said Wright who is now in her third year of undergraduate medical training. “We're not doctors yet. Someday we're going to be. But this allows us to start practicing to be a doctor and start to develop those skills. It brings the science and the humanity together and reminds you why it's all important.”
The University of Kansas School of Medicine is a member of the AMA UME Curricular Enrichment Program, which provides on-demand education through a micro-learning approach to help medical students distinguish themselves for residency and succeed in medicine. Educators can assign specific elements such as healthcare business fundamentals and developing leadership skills and receive reports on student progress, track via a dashboard, send reminder emails and customize reports. Schedule an introductory call now.
Science competencies
The science competencies expected from medical students were likely covered in your undergraduate training or in some form of your preparation for the Medical College Admission Test. Science competencies provide an essential foundation for learning in medical school. They involve drawing on knowledge from the natural and behavioral sciences and applying that knowledge to questions of health, well-being, and disease. Two of the 17 core competencies fall into this category.
- Living systems: Key traits incoming medical students display in this arena include applying knowledge and skill in the natural sciences to solve problems related to molecular and macro systems, including biomolecules, molecules, cells and organs.”
- Human behavior: Applying knowledge of self, others and social systems to solve problems related to the psychological, sociocultural, and biological factors that influence health and well-being.
While all the competencies are rooted in a student’s scholastic experience, these two are the most rooted in a prospective medical student’s formal education. Portions of human behavior may be related to the structural and social determinants of health, which are possible to explore through your own volunteer work or lived experiences.
Thinking and reasoning competencies
While they may be a little less fact and knowledge driven than the science competencies listed above, the thinking and reasoning competencies also tend to be arenas students build through their scholastic endeavors.
The list of competencies and the list of behaviors that demonstrate as listed by the AAMC includes:
- Critical thinking: Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
- Quantitative reasoning: Applying quantitative analysis and appropriate mathematics to describe or explain phenomena in the natural world.
- Scientific inquiry: Applying the scientific process to synthesize information, solve problems, frame hypotheses, and communicate scientific knowledge.
- Written communication: Effectively conveying information to others by using written words and sentences.
The AMA Succeeding in Medical School series offers tips and other guidance on a wide range of critical topics, including preparing for USMLE exams, navigating clinical rotations, publishing scientific research, and maintaining optimal health and wellness.
How med student expectations are evolving
Prior to 2025, the AAMC’s premed competency model included 15 factors. The updated framework expands the list to 17 and chiefly revises the professional competencies to better reflect how medical education and healthcare have changed, including greater emphasis on communication, teamwork, cultural humility, empathy, accountability and adaptability.
A 2025 paper published in Academic Medicine detailed the process of amending the competencies and the logic behind the updates. The authors offered several examples of why the updates were necessary, including a need to better understand how socioeconomic factors influence one’s health and an increasingly diverse range of patients that requires skills such as cultural humility and understanding.
The author’s highlighted the role the competencies should play for medical school applicants during the applications process and their continued relevance to medical student development after they matriculate to medical school.
“During their preparation for medical school, applicants should engage in self-reflection to identify their strengths and development needs and seek out experiences to improve their understanding and proficiency in those competencies,” the paper’s authors wrote. “Importantly, however, the purpose of the competency model is not to suggest a premedical student’s development is ever complete. Rather, the competencies reflect core values that will remain important throughout a medical student’s education, training, and career in medicine, and they will be expected to progress in each one.
