Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) has moved to an online admissions process to continue to recruit talented future doctors from across Qatar and all over the world during the global coronavirus lockdown.
With applicants to the medical college unable to travel to Qatar, the face-to-face on-campus interviews that normally form an integral part of the admissions process could no longer take place. Senior faculty, admissions professionals and ITS specialists at WCM-Q – a Qatar Foundation partner university – quickly moved to set up a process whereby applicants selected for interview could be interviewed remotely using videoconferencing software.
To comply with public health guidelines, WCM-Q decided that candidates who live in Qatar could take their interviews via video-conference in the same way as candidates who live abroad.
Dr Ravinder Mamtani, WCM-Q professor of healthcare policy and research, professor of medicine and vice-dean for student affairs (Admissions), said: “Given the current global coronavirus crisis, recruiting medical students has never been so important and we were, therefore, determined that there must be no disruption whatsoever to our admissions procedure. We also had to ensure that the process remained comparable to the normal one, an important part of which is an interview.”
WCM-Q recruits students from all over Qatar and across the globe to its six-year Medical Programme, four-year Medical Curriculum and Foundation Programme. To apply, students must submit an online application and required documents by the stipulated deadlines, as indicated on WCM-Q’s Admissions website. 
Competitive applicants are invited for an interview, with the final decision on admission made by a committee of senior WCM-Q faculty, WCM-Q students and a representative from the Ministry of Public Health, who now convene via videoconference. The participants report that virtual, online process of conducting Committee on Admissions meetings has been working very well.
Farhan Aziz, director of Admissions at WCM-Q, said: “We have been pleasantly surprised by how smoothly we were able to make the transition to online interviews. Candidates selected for interviews have been understanding about the change to online interviews and some of them have told us that they were relieved not to have the stress of travel during the Covid-19 outbreak. 
“Perhaps the most important aspect is that connectivity or technical issues with the online interviews have not posed difficulties; the interviews have gone well indeed and the quality of modern videoconferencing technology means we are able to get a very good idea of each applicant’s attributes from the interviews.”
“We are all very appreciative of the enthusiasm with which our applicants have embraced the online interviews. The technology has worked very well, allowing the applicants to present themselves to their best and to have engaging interviews with the members of the Committee on Admissions,” added Dr Marco Ameduri, WCM-Q senior associate dean for pre-medical education and Education City collaborative curricular affairs.
Students who complete the WCM-Q Medical Programme receive the same MD degree as their counterparts at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. Graduates of WCM-Q go on to secure places in residency training programmes at elite academic health centres in Qatar and the US. Many of them opt to work in Qatar to serve the health needs of the community here after they have completed their residency programmes.