The Kaplan Team is often cited as why schools stay with Kaplan, year after year. At Kaplan, there’s an expert at the heart of everything we do, whether it’s leading a class or developing innovative tools to help your students achieve their career goals. With our “Meet the Kaplan Experts” blog series, we introduce you to Kaplan’s extensive network of faculty, medical, and educational experts and delve into their diverse areas of expertise so that you can learn even more about your Kaplan team. This week, we're pleased to introduce you to Brandon McKenzie, Manager of Content and Curriculum for Pre-Med Programs.

Tell Us About Your Experience in Medical Education

Who or what experience inspired you to pursue a career in education? 

Looking back, whether it was tutoring classmates in junior high, teaching swimming lessons in high school, or instructing standard first aid courses in university, I’ve always sought out and enjoyed teaching. So I wouldn’t say I pursued a career in education, but rather it was the natural next step. Now, as far as what keeps me in this field? It’s the science and the students!

How long have you worked for Kaplan and what drew you to your current role?

I’ve been at Kaplan for over seven years (eight if I include my time as a student)! In 2014, I taught my first MCAT course in person and within a year I began teaching online. The shift to the online environment allowed me to work with teams from all around Kaplan North America! For the next five years I split my time between Academics and Content Development, which allowed me to teach the courses that I helped build—If that sounds awesome to you, I think so too! It really balanced my interests: exploring the sciences, distilling the content for the MCAT level, and science communication. Nowadays, as a Content Manager I’m able to leverage my experience from in the classroom and behind the scenes to continue to innovate our Kaplan products and their delivery to our students.

Which innovations do you wish you’d had access to when you were in university?

Have you ever been confused about something, only to have a friend or tutor rephrase the concept in a simpler way? Or even better, explain it in a context that you’re already familiar with? Moments like these are the reasons why I love teaching, and with the improvements of technology, these moments are beginning to happen without live instruction!

The key to achieving this is recognizing that scientific knowledge is cumulative; the more you know about a topic, the easier it is to learn more about it. But the opposite is also true, learning a concept that requires foundational knowledge is nearly impossible to comprehend without the needed background information. An exciting innovation is the refinement of formative assessments and ever growing data sets. We now have the tools to be able to identify where and when students get derailed in their understanding and deliver remedial assignments when they need it. Exciting!

Share your insights into the Medical Education Industry

What is the most important issue that professionals in your industry should be talking about today?

The ever-changing role of physicians in medicine. Decades ago physicians were expected to be vast repositories of knowledge, being able to diagnose and treat diseases from experience and memory. But with the advent of the internet and powerful diagnostic tests, physicians were no longer expected to be walking textbooks. Instead, physicians became problem solvers who were able to seek out needed information and draw conclusions when presented with data. 

Fast forward to present day, not only do physicians have knowledge at their fingertips, so do patients, and everyone in between. In this age of information, there is misinformation. So more so than ever physicians need to be educators and advocates for their patients. It’s no longer enough for physicians to know the right answers and have the correct information. They must also be able to explain or even convince their patients towards the correct course of action.

Advice

If you could offer one piece of advice for educators preparing for their students for their MCAT test or medical school admissions, it would be:

This advice is a two-parter: 

#1. Reframe your view of successes and failures. In academics these concepts have fixed meanings, you either progress or you regress. But once outside of academics, there is a shift, your successes and failures aren’t permanent but rather a snapshot of where you are now. For many, studying for the MCAT is one’s first encounter with this shift. When you encounter failure in your MCAT studies, recognize that it’s just a roadblock, one to be overcome as you work towards your next success.

#2. My second piece of advice is an extension of the first, but hopefully more applicable. Reframe your view of multiple choice questions. Let’s do some counting: 

• How many multiple-choice questions have you answered in your academic career? Likely thousands. 
• Of those thousands, how many were in an examination setting? I’d guess most of them. 

This association between multiple choice questions and exams can lead to one counterproductive practice —saving practice questions and practice tests until you are “ready.” But here’s the thing, you won’t get ready for the MCAT until you start taking practice questions and practice tests. So, you just have to begin!

And finally, is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers?

I suspect many of our readers are either studying for a standardized test or will be doing so shortly. So I’d like to take a moment to remind them that, “you are not your score, there is more to life than the MCAT.” 

At first this statement sounds a bit obvious, and perhaps a little defeatist. You may think, this advice is only applicable if you receive a bad score, but that’s not the case. Here’s the reality: studying for the MCAT is hard, getting into medical school is difficult, and as a result you will run into obstacles... everyone does! When these inevitabilities happen, you’re going to need something outside of the MCAT, outside of medical school applications to keep you going when these pillars of your life get stuck. When this happens, lean on your family and friends, ask for help, and remember that no one accomplishes hard things by themselves.

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