The period between completing the Post-Baccalaureate Premedical Program and entering medical school is known as the glide year(s). During this time, students continue to expand their understanding of a career in medicine and submit applications to medical schools.

The postbac program helps students consider ways to use the glide year to enhance their preparation for medical school, whether it be through employment opportunities, additional courses, volunteer work, research, or graduate studies. Paid positions are often available at Johns Hopkins Hospital, other local hospitals, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and organizations nationwide. Many students continue to work with the faculty sponsors of their Medical Tutorials at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine through the glide year.

Activities and positions that recent students have engaged in during their glide years:

• Motor learning and stroke recovery research at Johns Hopkins
• Obesity prevention with Americorps
• Pediatric quality of care research at Boston Children’s Hospital
• Research on cell phone technology to promote HIV/AIDS patients’ adherence to care at UCSF
• Sickle Cell research in the Division of Hematology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
• Undiagnosed Disease Program disease research at the National Institutes of Health as a Post-Baccalaureate Intramural Research Training Awardee
• Research at Massachusetts General’s Center for Neuroimaging of Aging and Neurodegenerative Disease
• Business services analysis for Department of Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins