yaktor said:
DOstudentTCOM said:
yaktor said:
Hi DOstudent,
I got accepted to TCOM, another DO school and a school in the caribbean. I'm trying to decide where to go. I was hoping to stay in the U.S., but I also really want to become an MD. What do you think I should do?
Also, why shouldn't I go to TCOM? Since I'm in-state, it is far cheaper than my other two options or reapplying.
I think your message got cutoff. Sorry, why don't you like TCOM? Do you think I am better off reapplying, going to TCOM, or going to the caribbean? Thanks,
-yaktor
The upcomming year will be better. I dont have a lot of time to respond right now since we have an exam but I promise you if you send me another message in a week I will tell you how its getting better .
short list
better things about next year:
1-summer break getting longer (this is not a being lazy thing this is important bc the degree of burnout, no matter how dedicated you are will become a factor)
2-no preceptorship requirement- seems like a good thing, but in all honesty, in your first year you really dont know enough and are not allowed to do enough to actuallly benefit from preceptorship, also you are not given enough time off to do it, you sometimes end up doing it when you shouldn't because you're in school and lose VERY VALUABLE STUDY TIME.
3-supposedely classes like community resources, ethics, bioresearch, etc are going to be cut back. These are interesting classes and if you had the time to sit and learn about this stuff it would be great, however you NEED AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE TO STUDY bc there is just too much information (without even including the omm material) to learn.
What you need to look at that may still suck:
1- Some medical schools offer their students a set of notes/packet for them to use throughout the year. TCOM will at times post powerpoints before classes, however there will be numerous times (especially second year) when they will not post the powerpoints because they call it a CIL (look at the schedule) and expect you to read the material and be prepared ahead of time (this is bull) so that you can come in and test your knowledge by answering the cases (which sometimes "CIL's" are linked to a quiz, and if you had the powerpoint ahead of time, you'd be able to focus on what you have to study). Another problem with not having the CIL is that you have to type as fast as possible to try and get all the case details down so that you can later use them to study the material for the exam especially since this school likes to assign reads from Cecils internal medicine and Robbins pathological basis of disease (look the books up on amazon) which is simply more than you need. Ask doctors that you know or people that recently graduated what they think about a factuly that pushes students to use Cecils to study from and Robbins instead of using outlines, powerpoints, or notes. With that said, most students meet upperclassmen and ask around for notes and that is what really makes up the vast majority of their study material, because most questions (assuming you have the right material) will come from that and it is just not necessary to read cecils or robbins textbook- you're better off reading baby robbins and using outlines made by previous students.
2- How many hours of interesting courses such as community resources, ethics, bioresearch, biostatics (the way its taught here will not prepare you for boards), etc you will have during the week. There is simply TOO MUCH MATERIAL (this is without even counting omm) to have to learn to be adding classes such as these.
3- The OMM department here is simply too inconsistent. Their questions repeatedly have multiple answers at times with the explanation for why a certain choice over another was chosen being because thats what the factulty member decided to be the right answer. There will be numerous questions where something will be written on one slide which would hint at you to choose one answer versus another, yet a different powerpoint will have something written that will lead you to choose another answer. This department is currently run by a lady named Dr. Henzel, feel free to ask non-class officers for their oppinion about this lady. Just say, "I have a friend of mine that went here, he's a "third year" (this way they dont try to ask you for whom your friend is) and he says Dr. Henzel is really crappy with the way she runs omm. Keep in mind that you are dealing with medical students whom will not be straight forward with you if they dont know your stance because we dont want you to go running to the administration to tell them well so and so told me this school sucks, because, guess what, IT WILL COME BACK TO US (hence my anonymous name).
4. Is there anything that is being done to solve the issue about not having CIL's before classes. If they tell you that there is the study guide with everything you need on it, this is bull. I have their study guid and guess what, most of the powerpoints I use are not from the study guide since they are not scribed, complete, and also entire powerpoints are missing from it. The excuse they will give you is "we here at tcom have found a way of teaching callled "adult learning" this is code for we dont want to be responsible for what is on the powerpoint in case we write a faulty question we dont want you to pin us on what we have on our powerpoint so we'll just not give any of them out". I am telling you to do this just so that they will be aware that you are not completely clueless as to what is going on at this school, this is your life and your career and where you will be for the next 4 years, you should have a quality education. They will tell you that the board scores have inceased since they've implemented this new style of learning/teaching , this is true, and the reason is because TCOM is in the TMDSAS application pool, most students that dont get into an MD school are the ones that end up comming here, this is just the way things work, not because this school is inferior, in fact due to a lot of this, we are actually forced to adapt and learn the same information in less time than at other schools, which in the end forces us to be better students (not than those at other schools) than we would have been had we been at a different medical school.
PS- if this is the only school you get into (vs 250K at the carribean that you will have to pay) my suggestion is to come here, simply because it is cheaper and because you will pass, and also because the school has been getting drastically better since the previous year's dean (Dr. Dubin) left to go to rocky mountain vista (the DO colorado school) where he is currently getting paid a lot more (irregardless of what you get told by others, this i know for a fact). If you look this guy up, you will see a nice guy (whom has added numerous students on facebook) with lots of nice quotes. Keep in mind that this is a medical school with students that would love a recommendation from the assistant dean i think is what his actual position was or the dean of student affairs, I mean think about how nice it would have been to have a recommendation from the Dean of your university while you were applying to medical school saying how much of a hard worker you are and how smart you are (dont ever underestimate the power of a premed/medical student to be an asskisser). Lastly, I have a TON OF ERROS ON THIS MESSAGE, I have a neuro pathology exam this friday to study for and as usual this school has not supplied us with the material needed to do well, so I'm forced to use what I'm hoping will cover the test questions. The reason being that we've been told to read Cecils book of internal medicine (over 100 pages of reading) in a week..lol..which you may be able to read, but to read and to retain are two different things. Good luck , work hard, study harder, and hope for the best. If you heard different from someone about anything I wrote above, keep in mind this is my personal opinion, I dont care to know what you heard (I'm not trying to offend you but I only made this account to get both sides out on this school ), I dont care to know what I miss-spelled ( i can see all the dam red myself), and lastly if your response is man you really wanted to be an MD and this is why you're writing this, 1- yes I did want to be an MD, 2- no this is not why I'm writing this 3- Im happy with being a DO because I actually wanted to be a physician not an MD not a DO (dont lie to yourself, we both cover the "entire" body, the days of focusing strictly on the disease are long gone and if you know a doctor that gave you blah blah blah for x disease instead of asked you about your life, feelings, etc , deal with it, and find a different doctor or tell whomever you know to find a different doctor, there are plenty of doctors (DO and MD) that care about their patients.
. Is getting into a TRI very easy to do and does it make it a lot easier to match the 2nd time?
