Can You Get Into Medical School With A Degree in Health, Medicine and Society?

A BA in Health, Medicine and Society can be a strong foundation for medical school, especially if you use it to build both scientific readiness and a clear understanding of health in real-world contexts. Medical schools do not require one specific undergraduate major. Still, they do expect applicants to complete prerequisite coursework, perform well academically, prepare for the MCAT and show meaningful commitment to patient care. The key is to treat the major as one part of a broader premed plan, not as a substitute for the full medical school preparation process.

Getting into medical school with a BA degree in Health, Medicine and Society: Is it possible? Yes, getting into medical school with a BA degree in Health, Medicine and Society is possible. Medical schools generally care less about the name of your major and more about whether you have completed required courses, demonstrated academic strength, earned a competitive MCAT score and shown the maturity, service orientation and clinical awareness expected of future physicians.

The AAMC notes that applicants come from many fields, including biological sciences, health sciences, social sciences and the humanities and advises students to choose a major that genuinely interests them while still completing medical school requirements. Individual schools set their own course expectations, so students should check each school’s website and the AAMC Medical School Admission Requirements resource when planning. (students-residents.aamc.org)

That means this degree works well, paired with the required science courses. It will even help you tell a more distinctive story: you are not only interested in disease and treatment, but also in the systems, cultures, ethics, and social conditions that shape health.

The major supports a thoughtful premed identity.

The Health, Medicine and Society program examines medicine from social, historical, ethical, cultural, and policy perspectives. That is useful for future physicians because medical care does not happen in a vacuum; patients bring lived experiences, family pressures, financial limitations, beliefs, fears and community conditions into every clinical encounter. A student in this major will learn to ask better questions about why people get sick, why some patients struggle to access care, and how institutions influence health outcomes.

What courses will you still need?

You will still need to complete the prerequisite and recommended coursework for the medical schools you plan to apply to. Requirements vary by school, but premed students should plan for biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, physics, statistics or biostatistics, English or writing-intensive coursework and behavioral or social science preparation. At Lehigh, the HMS major requires students to also declare a second major.

The AAMC has emphasized that medical schools differ in how they define prerequisites and that some schools are moving toward competency-based approaches rather than a single universal checklist. That makes early planning important, especially if your degree requirements do not automatically include all traditional premed sciences. (aamc.org)

A practical course-planning approach looks like this:

• Map your degree requirements first. Identify which major courses also count toward premed expectations and which do not.
• Add core lab sciences early. Biology, chemistry, and physics sequences often build on one another, so that delays can affect your MCAT and application timelines.
• Confirm each target school’s rules. Some schools have specific lab, AP credit, community college or upper-division expectations.
• Use advising before registering. A pre-health advisor can help you avoid gaps that are hard to fix in your senior year.
• Leave room for upper-level science. Courses such as physiology, genetics, immunology, cell biology, or microbiology may strengthen preparation, depending on your background and goals.

Your application must prove readiness beyond the transcript.

A successful medical school application is more than a degree audit. Admissions committees look for academic ability, but they also want to see that you understand what medicine involves and have tested your motivation through experience.

For a Health, Medicine and Society major, the strongest activities often connect classroom themes to real people. Clinical volunteering, patient-facing employment, hospice service, community health work, public health outreach, crisis support, research, and shadowing can all help you understand the human side of medicine. What matters most is not collecting impressive labels; it is being able to explain what you learned, how you responded to challenges, and why the experience deepened your commitment.

You should also prepare carefully for the MCAT. The exam is designed to assess foundational concepts and reasoning skills relevant to medical school, so students from interdisciplinary majors need to make sure their science preparation is current and complete. (aamc.org)

Use this application-readiness checklist as a starting point:

• Prerequisites completed or clearly planned before application deadlines.
• Strong performance in science courses, not just major courses.
• MCAT preparation is aligned with your coursework timeline.
• Clinical exposure demonstrating your understanding of patient care environments.
• Service experience that reflects humility, consistency, and concern for others.
• Letters of recommendation from people who can speak to your academic ability and character.
• A coherent narrative explaining how this major shaped your path toward medicine.

Is this major better or worse than biology for premed?

It is not automatically better or worse than biology; it is different. Biology may make it easier to overlap major requirements with premed science courses. At the same time, Health, Medicine and Society will give you a broader lens on care, inequality, ethics, and health systems.

The best choice depends on how well you perform, how engaged you are, and how intentionally you build the rest of your application. A biology major with weak grades and little clinical exposure is not automatically stronger than an interdisciplinary major with excellent science performance, meaningful patient-facing experience, and a clear reason for pursuing medicine.

How to make this degree work for medical school

To make this path competitive, be deliberate from your first year onward. Meet with a prehealth advisor, build a four-year course plan, and revisit it whenever you change your target schools or timeline. If you discover gaps late, a post-baccalaureate option or additional upper-level science coursework may help. Still, it is usually easier to plan than to repair an incomplete record later.

Most importantly, use the major to your advantage. Let it help you understand patients as people, medicine as a profession, and health as something shaped by more than biology alone. Then back that perspective with rigorous science preparation, consistent service, and honest reflection.

The short answer is clear: getting into medical school with a BA degree in Health, Medicine and Society: Is it possible? Yes, if you complete the required sciences, perform well, gain meaningful experience, and present a focused application that shows both intellectual curiosity and readiness for the demands of medical training.