The Rutgers–New Brunswick Health Professions Office, a program which benefits from donor support and alumni connections, helps students and recent grads to find medical jobs. Dr. Niranjana Rajan-Mohandas was struggling to find the right person to fill an open medical assistant position. A pediatrician who earned her medical degree at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in 1994, she wanted someone motivated and bright. Then it clicked. “I needed a gap-year student,” says Rajan-Mohandas, who has operated Plainsboro Pediatrics—a busy suburban practice in Plainsboro, New Jersey—for 21 years.
Gap-year students—college graduates taking a year before going to medical school— were Rajan’s ideal candidates. The new hire would get the hands-on clinical experience that’s a key part to the medical school application process, while the doctor would get an employee who was interested in learning more about the medical field. “This is a pool that would provide me with highly motivated and intelligent people who wanted to be in health care,” Rajan-Mohandas says. To read the full story.