Considering Ross for research opportunities; are dismissals from Ross common?

[Devotchka]

I'm a pre-vet student at UT Austin; I'm considering Ross SVM because Dr. Charles Rupprecht is a member of the faculty, and I am VERY interested in rabies research. I came across this rant by a former student, http://www.stopdevry.net/ross.html and was curious to find out if anyone knows the other side to the story.
I have had some undergraduate issues due to severe life-changing traumas, but have saved my GPA from being affected much and I have a reasonable amount of clinical experience. Needless to say, I'm not looking to Ross as a last resort, but as a private institution with the funds and faculty to allow me to explore research interests. (The accelerated time frame also appeals to me!)
It would be ridiculous to expect DVM's out of every single accepted student, but do students at Ross who are not failing really have to worry about unjustified dismissal?
If anyone thinks that Ross may not be a good choice for research, please let me know why.
I am open to suggestions of other veterinary schools, if anyone knows of one that conducts rabies research in areas other than vaccination.
Lastly, if you are a Ross SVM student/graduate with good things to say or advice, I'd love to hear from you too!

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[allieh8607]

Feel free to message me in addition to my comment. Ross has made leaps and bounds in their research department in the last year due to receiving limited accreditation. The area we were lacking in was research so that department has significantly improved. Dr. Rupprecht is great, I had him in my Intro to Research class (a required course in the curriculum now) and he is so proud of his work and you can tell in the way he lectures. However, St. Kitts is a rabies free island so I'm not sure how much you would be able to work with it here. I think anyone interested in research would do well here. They are always emailing out requests for students that want to get involved in research projects. They have built a special research building and we were just granted a charter for the Phi Zeta Veterinary Honor Society, which promotes research and scholarly activity...that organization is expected to really take off on campus in the upcoming semesters. They are also working on a postgraduate Master of Science by Research degree program...I'm not sure if it is a dual degree program or not though. As for that article, it's a very old article and it gets mentioned all the time. I have never heard of someone being dismissed from the program for a non academic reason but then again, I don't hear much gossip so I guess there could be things I don't know about. I feel that things are very fair here. That person was obviously very upset at whatever situation he got himself into, as he obviously invested a lot of money only to end up in a pretty low place so of course he is going to publicize it as much as possible and try and get media attention.

Like I said feel free to PM me with any other questions. I have another message I need to respond to but hopefully I can get to them before this semester gets too crazy

 

[Must Love Dogs]

I didn't realize that St. Kitts was rabies free...that's awesome! I'm in Grenada at SGU, and it's pretty big issue here, so I guess I assumed that a lot of the other Caribbean islands had issues with it as well.
(Sorry to interrupt the thread. I just found that to be an interesting fact!)
Just to throw my 2 cents in there, it seems like Ross is constantly trying to take steps to improve their program, and it seems like they've even made some improvements since I applied a couple years ago! Also, I just recently went to a lecture done by a Ross alumni, who said that the school has really built up since they had been there. Definitely do your research on your potential school(s), talk to some current students, and see which program fits you the best (and where you have the best chance to get in). All in all, I think it would be safe to say that any school that has made it through and received AVMA accreditation is a pretty good school that could turn you into a great vet one day!
Wish you all the best!

 

[MooVet]

do students at Ross who are not failing really have to worry about unjustified dismissal?

I wouldn't call what the guy in that article described not failing or unjustified. He was failing his clinical rotations. You still earn grades during your fourth year at most schools, and it is possible to reach your fourth year and fail out. It doesn't happen often, but it is possible. Given the description of his own shortcomings, I would imagine that this guy really had no idea what he was doing in the clinic and was becoming a liability risk. I would not call that an unjustified dismissal.

I would take that article with a grain of salt. For one thing, as allieh8607 already mentioned, it's old. Ross is accredited now, so that means you're going to get roughly the same experience at Ross that you would at any other accredited school. For another, it sounds like this guy was ridiculously unprepared for vet school and he's doing whatever he can to avoid accepting the blame for it. He arrived at Ross with ZERO veterinary or animal experience (he admits that he didn't even know animal science was a major!) and then was shocked when the faculty didn't sit him down and painstakingly teach him every little clinical skill that his classmates already knew. True, he wasn't able to go get the experience himself during breaks like students at other schools would, but that's something he would have known long before he was accepted and it's definitely not the school's fault. The fact that he went into fourth year knowing that he didn't have the necessary skills and chose to just fumble through, rather than making a solid effort to learn on his own time, is really telling IMO.

There was a really good discussion about clinical skills and new graduates recently that you can read here: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/deficient-basic-skills-coming-out-of-vet-school.1064753/ The general consensus is that it is the student's responsibility to learn and practice clinical skills, and that happens outside the classroom at most schools. Regardless of which school you go to, it's your responsibility to learn the material. If you can handle taking on that personal responsibility then I don't think you'll have any trouble at Ross.

 

[MassDVMMPH]

When I went to Iowa State, if you made it to fourth year you were assured of graduating. If you failed a rotation, which a few of my classmates did, the school just made you repeat it until you achieved a passing grade. I am not sure if this is still true or if it is the case at other schools or not. During the first three years at Iowa, if you flunked any course in the curriculum, you were dismissed from the program - you could reapply but, if you were accepted, they made you start the entire program over again (in other words, if you flunked a course in the second semester of third year and were accepted back into the program, you would be returning as a first year). Realistically, I don't think anyone would be able to afford that - the people in our class who flunked a course in the first three years never returned.

 

[dyachei]

I wouldn't call what the guy in that article described not failing or unjustified. He was failing his clinical rotations. You still earn grades during your fourth year at most schools, and it is possible to reach your fourth year and fail out. It doesn't happen often, but it is possible. Given the description of his own shortcomings, I would imagine that this guy really had no idea what he was doing in the clinic and was becoming a liability risk. I would not call that an unjustified dismissal.

I would take that article with a grain of salt. For one thing, as allieh8607 already mentioned, it's old. Ross is accredited now, so that means you're going to get roughly the same experience at Ross that you would at any other accredited school. For another, it sounds like this guy was ridiculously unprepared for vet school and he's doing whatever he can to avoid accepting the blame for it. He arrived at Ross with ZERO veterinary or animal experience (he admits that he didn't even know animal science was a major!) and then was shocked when the faculty didn't sit him down and painstakingly teach him every little clinical skill that his classmates already knew. True, he wasn't able to go get the experience himself during breaks like students at other schools would, but that's something he would have known long before he was accepted and it's definitely not the school's fault. The fact that he went into fourth year knowing that he didn't have the necessary skills and chose to just fumble through, rather than making a solid effort to learn on his own time, is really telling IMO.

There was a really good discussion about clinical skills and new graduates recently that you can read here: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/deficient-basic-skills-coming-out-of-vet-school.1064753/ The general consensus is that it is the student's responsibility to learn and practice clinical skills, and that happens outside the classroom at most schools. Regardless of which school you go to, it's your responsibility to learn the material. If you can handle taking on that personal responsibility then I don't think you'll have any trouble at Ross.

the only issue I have with this line of thought is that if it is so important to the school that you have these skills (animal experience or vet experience) why would you accept a student without it?

 

[MassDVMMPH]

the only issue I have with this line of thought is that if it is so important to the school that you have these skills (animal experience or vet experience) why would you accept a student without it?

Um... they wanted the kid's money? But seriously, most people are not great at clinical skills during the fourth year (heck, they are still new to most people and placing a catheter with two residents hanging over your shoulder - often giving conflicting advice - does not usually help matters any). You only get really good at them once you start practice.

 

[MooVet]

the only issue I have with this line of thought is that if it is so important to the school that you have these skills (animal experience or vet experience) why would you accept a student without it?

Is it really any different than accepting students with low GPAs though? You wouldnt necessarily blame the school if someone with a less than stellar academic background wound up failing out because they weren't prepared. Ross has always been known as the school that takes chances by accepting the "less qualified" applicants. I don't think it's that much of a stretch to apply the same line of thinking to veterinary experience.

 

[dyachei]

Is it really any different than accepting students with low GPAs though? You wouldnt necessarily blame the school if someone with a less than stellar academic background wound up failing out because they weren't prepared. Ross has always been known as the school that takes chances by accepting the "less qualified" applicants. I don't think it's that much of a stretch to apply the same line of thinking to veterinary experience.

If they know a student wouldn't be likely to finish the program and accepted them anyway, there is a predatory component to that. I agree blame is with the student. However if Ross accepted a student like that I would have some questions about their admissions policies

 

[Devotchka]

Dr. Rupprecht is great, I had him in my Intro to Research class (a required course in the curriculum now) and he is so proud of his work and you can tell in the way he lectures. However, St. Kitts is a rabies free island so I'm not sure how much you would be able to work with it here. I think anyone interested in research would do well here.

I'd imagine he wouldn't want to stop research especially since Ross is scheduled to open a BSL 3 facility in 2015, sufficient to contain rabies.

It did sound to me like that angry guy was absolutely unprepared when it came to animal experience. It seems that undergraduate education has little to do with what veterinarians deal with, aside from labs and advanced biology courses. It would make sense to place clinical and general animal experience slightly over undergraduate education, unless they had awful study habits. I'd be much more comfortable in a clinic with someone who competently handled animals and sharps, and got a C or two, over one with a perfect GPA who had difficulty handling animals and needles.

I didn't realize that St. Kitts was rabies free...that's awesome! I'm in Grenada at SGU, and it's pretty big issue here, so I guess I assumed that a lot of the other Caribbean islands had issues with it as well.
(Sorry to interrupt the thread. I just found that to be an interesting fact!)

I read somewhere that Dr. Rupprecht is doing vaccine research on islands near to St. Kitts that have rabies outbreaks. Before I found that he teaches at Ross, SGU was looking like my top choice school. Is rabies among the human population in Grenada a problem? Do you know much about research opportunities at SGU? (I KNOW I'm SO weird.. picking the Carib schools as my top choices ) I may apply to some US schools (for the sake of my boyfriend), but living, studying, and researching on an island is much more appealing! Thanks to everyone who replied and put my worry at ease!

 

[crazycatlady]

..

 

[LetItSnow]

If you show up to vet school having no idea how a vet clinic works, you're starting out waaaaaay behind your classmates and will struggle pretty hard once you've gotten to your clinical year.

I agree with your general point, but as a tangent, the above isn't really true. You do start out behind classmates with a lot of clinical experience, but you'd be surprised how much ground you can make up during vet school if you try. I basically had zero clinical experience prior to vet school, and I'm in my fourth year, and I'd say my clinical skills are at least average now, and above-average in some areas. The difference is that I had to spend significant chunks of time working on it whereas someone who came into school with a history may not have.

Pre-vets often make too much of the whole clinical skill thing. (And I did too when I was a pre-vet.)

 

[psilovethomas]

I don't know. I kinda feel bad for the guy. I've been working in private practice as an assistant/tech for 8 years and there are still a lot of things I have not yet done or feel comfortable/competent doing. I don't want to say MSU babies us, but they kind of do. We started our first year with a clinical skills lab where we were taught restraint and blood draws- something I would expect a pre-vet student to be able to do. We are required to perform certain tasks (blood draws, exams, etc) before we can go onto the next year. I wonder if Ross (at the time) had a similar system. I am sure they do now, especially since they are accredited. It's almost like this guy fell through the cracks, or maybe he let himself do so. I agree that you should have some degree of experience before coming to vet school, but you also go to vet school to learn how to do certain things, and everyone comes in with a different experience level. So all students should be taught even the most basic of skills. But to admit a student with no clinical experience is just....not a good plan for the success of that student.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I agree with your general point, but as a tangent, the above isn't really true. You do start out behind classmates with a lot of clinical experience, but you'd be surprised how much ground you can make up during vet school if you try. I basically had zero clinical experience prior to vet school, and I'm in my fourth year, and I'd say my clinical skills are at least average now, and above-average in some areas. The difference is that I had to spend significant chunks of time working on it whereas someone who came into school with a history may not have.

Pre-vets often make too much of the whole clinical skill thing. (And I did too when I was a pre-vet.)

+1000

I'd never stepped foot in a vet clinic as anything other than a client prior to vet school. I had pretty good clinical skills from shelter/spay neuter work, but I had no idea how vet hospitals worked (not did I care). But that didnt hold me back in clinics at all. I spent a lot of my free time during earlier years building quality experience, which is much easier to do as a vet student than as a prevet. And plus, tech/receptionist =/= doctor. Very different skill sets that are needed/important. There were certainly people who did really poorly because they went into clinics thinking it would be their time to shine due to previous experience (i.e. not the best students during didactic years, but had been a tech for years). Unfortunately being able to restrain dogs well doesn't make up for having good clinical sense or drug/disease knowledge. Of course there were students who had 0 clinical skills and never acquired them through school who struggled as well so it goes both ways.

 

[DVMDream]

But to admit a student with no clinical experience is just....not a good plan for the success of that student.

This is the vast majority of the students at the UK schools. However, there are many opportunities to gain these experiences so they do end up getting some clinical experience prior to vet school. The difference between UK and US schools is that UK schools make it mandatory that you gain experience during breaks while US schools allow you to do what you want during summers. You have to be proactive about your education in order to get the most/best experience that you can.

 

[psilovethomas]

You have to be proactive about your education in order to get the most/best experience that you can.

Well, of course. A lot of us American students get a lot of good experiences over summer breaks- RAVS, interning with specialists, going back to our clinics to work. And, if I remember correctly, the UK students get time off or allotted to complete EMS training. Ross students only get 2 weeks off between semesters. That's barely enough time to destress from the past semester, let alone go home and visit with family and friends. Where's the time to get extracurricular experience? Ross should have taken that into account when they offered admission to this student. I'm sure Ross has great clinical skill labs now, but I do not know what Ross was like before it was accredited (when the guy in the article attended Ross). Again, I feel like he fell through the cracks.

Even if you are not performing the procedure, it is still helpful to have at least seen it before.

 

[DVMDream]

Well, of course. A lot of us American students get a lot of good experiences over summer breaks- RAVS, interning with specialists, going back to our clinics to work. And, if I remember correctly, the UK students get time off or allotted to complete EMS training. Ross students only get 2 weeks off between semesters. That's barely enough time to destress from the past semester, let alone go home and visit with family and friends. Where's the time to get extracurricular experience, especially in a third world country? Ross should have taken that into account when they offered admission to this student. I'm sure Ross has great clinical skill labs now, but I do not know what Ross was like before it was accredited (when the guy in the article attended Ross). Again, I feel like he fell through the cracks.

UK students don't get time off for EMS it is completed during summer and Christmas breaks. They do also provide an Easter break that US students do not have, but outside of those additional 2-3 weeks (depending upon the school) they have the same amount of time as US students off in order to complete the EMS.

Maybe, he did "fall through the cracks". But he also knew how much time he had for breaks prior to attending Ross. So blaming Ross for short breaks when students are aware of that is silly. And how exactly did he act on clinics? Did he really attempt to get help or ask people to show him? Or did he just keep his head down and attempt to go through the motions? Also, Ross never dismissed him from school. Sounds like it was the US school (sorry I can't remember which one it was now). Also, he claims it was his technical skills that got him dismissed, but was it? Or did the school recognize some lack in clinical judgement or knowledge? As with all stories, there are 2 sides and we are only hearing his side of the story, which I am sure is heavily biased.

 

[psilovethomas]

UK students don't get time off for EMS it is completed during summer and Christmas breaks. They do also provide an Easter break that US students do not have, but outside of those additional 2-3 weeks (depending upon the school) they have the same amount of time as US students off in order to complete the EMS.

Maybe, he did "fall through the cracks". But he also knew how much time he had for breaks prior to attending Ross. So blaming Ross for short breaks when students are aware of that is silly. And how exactly did he act on clinics? Did he really attempt to get help or ask people to show him? Or did he just keep his head down and attempt to go through the motions? Also, Ross never dismissed him from school. Sounds like it was the US school (sorry I can't remember which one it was now). Also, he claims it was his technical skills that got him dismissed, but was it? Or did the school recognize some lack in clinical judgement or knowledge? As with all stories, there are 2 sides and we are only hearing his side of the story, which I am sure is heavily biased.

He claims that he was never really given a reason why he was dismissed. So, I guess it could have been for anything. I agree, we don't really know what happened. But it just really sucks that no one advocated for him- not even Ross. Where was he to turn to? Each entity just pointed at the other and said "it was them, not us." The university has some responsibility to say "why" and "this is how you could have done better." I'm sure this is very one-sided and biased, but it's still something that Ross students need to know about. Attrition rates at Ross are higher than normal- cause? unknown..apparently.

 

[DVMDream]

He claims that he was never really given a reason why he was dismissed. So, I guess it could have been for anything. I agree, we don't really know what happened. But it just really sucks that no one advocated for him- not even Ross. Where was he to turn to? Each entity just pointed at the other and said "it was them, not us." The university has some responsibility to say "why" and "this is how you could have done better." I'm sure this is very one-sided and biased, but it's still something that Ross students need to know about. Attrition rates at Ross are higher than normal- cause? unknown..apparently.

Again, he claims he was not given a reason. He could have been and just not be stating that reason. And now he is upset and retaliating.

I don't know why Ross' attrition rates are higher but I bet it has to do with a combination of various things. Island life, different country, third world country, culture shock, adjustment being hard, people not realizing how vet school really is, people changing their minds, students struggling, health problems, etc.

 

[MassDVMMPH]

Just to give another point of view, my vet school allowed ECFVG students to do rotations alongside their fourth year students and a few of our professors were, quite frankly, unbelievably hostile to them. They would treat the students from our university very fairly during rounds, but the foreign graduates were routinely ridiculed and berated. I was really taken aback by some of their behavior toward these students at the time. I think it is important to note that most of our profs treated everyone the same - only a few were like this to the foreign graduates - but it wouldn't surprise me if this guy ran into a few such profs at the vet school he attended for rotations.

 

[allygator13]

Just to give another point of view, my vet school allowed ECFVG students to do rotations alongside their fourth year students and a few of our professors were, quite frankly, unbelievably hostile to them. They would treat the students from our university very fairly during rounds, but the foreign graduates were routinely ridiculed and berated. I was really taken aback by some of their behavior toward these students at the time. I think it is important to note that most of our profs treated everyone the same - only a few were like this to the foreign graduates - but it wouldn't surprise me if this guy ran into a few such profs at the vet school he attended for rotations.

I'm just curious how long ago this was since I will be one of these students...

 

[MassDVMMPH]

Well over a decade ago - again, it was not the majority of profs who did this. There were a few clinicians who were against having ECFVG students at the school and they were the ones who gave them a bad time.

 

[allieh8607]

I don't know why Ross' attrition rates are higher but I bet it has to do with a combination of various things. Island life, different country, third world country, culture shock, adjustment being hard, people not realizing how vet school really is, people changing their minds, students struggling, health problems, etc.

DVMD is right- In the year that I've been here I've only heard of one person that actually failed out of the program entirely. Everyone else that I've heard of leaving the program was due to transferring, medical issues, homesickness, changing their minds, etc. Do I know every student that leaves the program? No...so there could be more due to academic reasons. But attrition does not equal failure, so while yes Ross may have a higher attrition rate, there are so many more factors than failure that could be the cause.

 

[Panderson]

To me, this man seemed very book smart, but was not good at applying his knowledge. What's to say that he wasn't a very good physicist or software developer and wanted a career change, only to get washed out?