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chemistry

What are pre-med and pre-health professions?

So, you want to be a physician.  

Or a nurse. Or an epidemiologist. Or a veterinarian. Or a physical therapist. 

You can get into these careers, and many others, through the pre-health professions program at the University of Tulsa. 

What can I do with a pre-med degree? 

Now is an ideal time to consider a health care career. Employment in health care-related professions is expected to grow by 15% through 2029, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  

close-up shot of three people in hospital scrubs with arms crossedAnd while “physician” may be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a medical career and a pre-med program, there’s a lot more to health care than being a doctor. If you love working with patients, but aren’t up for four years of med school on top of four years of college (and then residency to boot), you can pursue dozens of avenues that can be just as fulfilling. 

As a student on a pre-health track, your pre-health advisor will work with you to ensure you’re taking the classes you need to reach whatever career you’re interested in. With your degree, you can go on to be a pharmacist, physician assistant, public health worker, dentist, optometrist or many more different health professions. 

Before we go on, let’s clear one thing up: If “doctor” is your dream job, you may be wondering about getting a pre-med major. But at most colleges, there’s no such thing. In fact, whether you want to be a doctor or go into another health profession, you can major in whatever you want as long as you take all the prerequisite courses you need to qualify. Because so many of those courses are science-related, students on a pre-health track often find science degrees attractive. 

If you wanted, though, you could major in accounting or chemical engineering and apply to med school. You simply need to work with your advisors to ensure you meet your degree requirements and the prerequisites for admission to your target health professions school. 

As part of the pre-med program, we’ll start advising you in your freshman year about what courses you’ll need to take. If you do want to go to medical school, our health professions committee will look at your grades to give you an idea whether you’re likely to be a good candidate. Medical schools are notoriously selective; fortunately for you, TU students have had a lot of success getting in. On average, 70% of TU students who apply to med school are accepted. 

A pre-health degree gives you a wide array of options. Some require further education; for some, you can find job opportunities right out of college.  

If you’re on a pre-health track at TU, we recommend you take: 

  • One year of chemistry 
  • One year of organic chemistry 
  • One year of physics 
  • One year of biology (Intro to Molecular and Cellular Biology, then Introduction to Organismal and Evolutionary Biology) 

If med school is your goal, you should also take classes in biochemistry, psychology and sociology; if you’re headed to a professional school, a class in genetics may also be required. Certain programs need a year of calculus. Ethics and sociology classes may also be a good idea. 

We know that’s a lot. Yet, in this competitive field, you may want to go even further. Admissions committees love to see students who really got into their work, either by taking as many relevant classes as possible, or by working on a student research project.  

Student research at TU 

At TU, you’ll get the chance to do real, meaningful work in the lab. Undergraduate research is a hallmark of our program. In the past, TU students have won Goldwater and National Science Foundation scholarships and awards. And the experience has served countless students who have gone on to grad schools and beyond. 

Some of these opportunities include: 

Experiences like these do more than round out a résumé. They lead to even bigger opportunities down the road, and give you a head start on finding the health science career that fits your goals. 

Roberts selected as Oklahoma Chemist of the Year

The Oklahoma section of the American Chemical Society (ACS) has named Kenneth Roberts, University of Tulsa Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the 2020 Chemist of the Year. The distinction is a once-in-a-lifetime honor awarded to chemists who have established national and international reputations in the advancement of chemistry and science.

oklahoma chemistRoberts is the current TU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry chairperson and has served on the faculty for 18 years. He also has mentored students as the TU student local ACS section adviser. Nearly 100 students from his research group have presented at the Annual ACS Meeting.

Research from his early career is based on the origins of cancer from chemical carcinogens using low-temperature fluorescence spectroscopy. That initial investigation led to further studies in chemical carcinogenesis and other bio-analytical studies such as the pharmacology of antibiotics during labor and delivery. Other research areas have included using luminescent nanoparticles to detect pathogenic bacteria and viruses, development of nanostructured third generation photovoltaics, hybrid photovoltaic/solar concentrators, materials properties under stress and environmental chemistry of Oklahoma water sources. His research is expansive, but one of the most enjoyable parts of his career involves “working on important projects with students in the laboratory.”

I’m very honored although it’s more of an award to all of the students as much as to me,” Roberts explained. “My achievements are their achievements.”

oklahoma chemistDale Teeters, a former colleague and past department chairperson, said the award is very much deserved by Roberts.

“He is internationally known for his research in nanotechnology and environmental chemistry,” Teeters stated. “He has used his knowledge of water chemistry to serve the state of Oklahoma by leading a team of researchers and environmentally aware Oklahomans in the monitoring of water resources in Oklahoma. The state will benefit from his efforts in Oklahoma water quality research for generations to come.”

 

 

Student-led team publishes national paper on inquiry-based learning in chemistry

When an undergraduate student approached University of Tulsa Assistant Professor of Chemistry Erin Iski with a new strategy for laboratory learning, no one expected the idea to result in almost four years of research and a published paper. But that’s exactly what happened when Iski encouraged chemistry and music education major Greg Jones and chemistry doctoral student Jesse Phillips to pursue a new project.

“Using a Guided-Inquiry Approach to Teach Michaelis–Menten Kinetics” was published in the American Chemistry Society’s Journal of Chemical Education on July 3, explaining how Iski, Jones and Phillips applied a guided inquiry-based system of lab instruction to this specific type of physical chemical kinetics.

“My research with former TU Professor Justin Chalker had led me to perform kinetics experiments to investigate the efficacy of a molecule as an enzyme inhibitor,” Jones said. “For me, it was these research experiences that formed the foundation of my chemistry education at TU.”

A teaching tool Iski described as “fun and different,” the strategy involved two components: an inquiry-based exploratory approach to lab data collection and asking students to create their own experimental design involving Michaelis-Menten kinetics and inhibition.

“Here in this department, we’re progressively improving laboratory procedures, which are almost always very arcane — they don’t tend to work,” Iski said. “As faculty, we focus mostly on lecture and that takes most of our time, but students spend three hours every week in labs.”

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Guided, inquiry-based learning

Phillips, who completed his Ph.D. degree in chemistry in May and now works as assistant director of research and development at Xcaliber International in Tulsa, said physical chemical kinetics is a challenging concept to teach at the undergraduate level. However, by using a guided inquiry approach, student post-assessment scores recorded after the two-week Michaelis-Menten lab rotation improved greatly compared to pre-assessment marks. Students were provided material to review at home on their own time in preparation for the lab series. Week one involved designing and implementing a method to collect data on a simple kinetically-driven chemical reaction and then develop a means to inhibit this Michaelis-Menton enzymatic reaction as well as identify the type of inhibition in week two.

“I was present for the entire lab and tried to direct students in a way that would facilitate good results without explicitly telling them what to do,” Phillips explained. “Determining the type of inhibition they needed to prevent a chemical reaction allowed them to learn a lot about the overall kinetics process. They may not have even realized they were learning chemical kinetics in a more efficient way.”

The spike in post-assessment results suggests students learn more when the instruction is self-directed, Phillips said. “Students have a greater uptake of knowledge when they’re in charge of their own learning it versus sitting in a lecture hall where it can be more difficult to follow the instruction.”

kineticsChemistry and biochemistry juniors participated in the lab experiment, and the assessment results of 37 students from two iterations of the lab were featured in the ACS paper. Research that is focused more on education in chemistry rather than experimental surface chemistry in a traditional sense is what distinguishes the paper from other published projects in her research lab, Iski explained. Instead of proposing an exact series of steps paired with specific lab instructions, students were given more freedom to solve a question by examining the Michaelis-Menten kinetics and understanding the potential reactions on their own. The research showed learning in an inquiry-based way helps students understand Michaelis-Menten kinetics more effectively.

“This is a topic I also teach in lecture but in a lecture you have maybe 20 minutes on a concept, sometimes 30, so you don’t have time to get into the nitty-gritty about how you would actually measure the kinetics in a real setting,” Iski said. “This new idea of students developing their own experimental designs has been growing in the education literature over the past 10 years, and publication in July, during the summer, is a good time to catch the interest of professors who are working on their syllabi for the upcoming fall.”

Valuing the undergraduate perspective

What makes the research paper even more relevant is the fact that Jones, an undergraduate at the time, is the one who initially proposed the idea to help fellow undergraduates grasp such a tough chemistry concept. “Greg came to Dr. Iski and me while he was working in our lab and proposed using this type of inquiry-based lab to teach chemical kinetics,” Phillips said. “We worked together on the project while I completed my Ph.D.”

As the physical chemistry lab teaching assistant for the physical chemistry lab, Phillips facilitated the experiment, while much of the initial prep work was completed by Jones. “Greg created a rubric we used to make sure the grading was very uniform in an attempt to prevent outliers when collecting data from students, grading lab reports and scoring pre- and post-lab assessments.”

A team effort for a universal technique

Once Jones completed his two undergraduate degrees in 2016, he was accepted to graduate school at the California Institute of Technology where he is currently pursuing a doctorate in chemistry. Despite the distance, Jones and Phillips kept the project going with weekly Skype updates, tweaking the experiment from iterations one and two, double-checking each other’s lab analyses and making additional lab changes based on what Phillips experienced in the lab. Other TU chemistry and biochemistry faculty, such as Associate Professor Robert Sheaff and Professor William Potter, contributed to improvements in the lab.

“Inquiry-based laboratories bring raw creative design and evaluation skills to the forefront of the educational experience, not only making for better chemists, but undergirding a strong liberal arts education that should be the mission of a university,” Jones said.

After three years of data collection that indicated the success of a guided, inquiry-based lab, Jones and Phillips developed the charts and graphs, gathered statistics, drafted the first version of the paper for Iski to review and began the diligent process of publishing a paper in a nationally known and peer-reviewed scientific journal.

“It’s definitely a universal technique that can be used for anyone in the scientific field to get a better understanding of many different scientific subjects,” Phillips said.

One of the main takeaways from the paper, Iski said, is that Jones and Phillips “worked very hard and iteratively improved the lab over the course of three years, something that took significant effort and time.” The inquiry-based concept generated a 10-point jump in conceptual understanding between iteration one and two, and the group has several ideas for a third version. “It’s positive in the field to see that you don’t just write a lab and let it sit and never make any improvements to it. We can use it once and then use the students’ responses to make it stronger for the next time. We don’t live just in research land or education land, it’s the two coming together and that’s why I like how these two students took up the project and said, ‘let’s publish this.’”

 

TU students place first and second at statewide research competition

Two students from The University of Tulsa College of Engineering and Natural Sciences received top honors at the 2019 Research Day at the Capitol in Oklahoma City.

sarah gutierrez
Gutierrez with Chancellor Glen D. Johnson

Chemical engineering junior Sarah A. Gutierrez of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and chemistry junior Marjorie Sheaff of Owasso, Oklahoma, were among 22 undergraduate students representing 16 Oklahoma colleges and universities at the event in March. Gutierrez won first place in the research-intensive campus category for her plasma catalysis research. Sheaff earned second place in the research-intensive campus category for her conductive 3D printing research.

marjorie sheaff
Sheaff with Chancellor Glen D. Johnson

They presented competitive research posters to the State Legislature and the public during the annual event, sponsored by Oklahoma NSF EPSCoR, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and the National Science Foundation. The event is designed to raise awareness of the outstanding research that is taking place at Oklahoma’s colleges and universities.