Pros and Cons of your DO School

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Bump. Still hoping that someone will be willing to give their opinion of OUCOM... no one has mentioned the school yet.
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I'd like to update this. I was incorrect about the process for choosing rotations, we still have plenty of freedom to rank our preferences. As far as I can see, the only people who are dissatisfied with the process are those who wanted year-long positions and didn't get them because the demand was greater than the supply. I came to this school with the desire to rotate at different types of facilities in different locations, so I did not want a year-long. If it is VERY important to you to rotate at ONE FACILITY, strictly, during your 3rd and 4th years, LECOM-B is probably not the school for you. In regard to technology, I'd like to note that we had one day of access to a new simulation facility, where we were able to practice vital signs, listening to heart/lung/bowel sounds, etc with patient simulation robots. One day doesn't sound like much, but I think that was enough. A simulator is not a replacement for a real patient, and we have opportunities to help out at a local clinic and work with real patients.

If anyone has specific questions regarding LECOM-B, feel free to private message me.


illegallysmooth said:
Just finished first year at LECOM-Bradenton.


Curriculum: Anatomy is lecture-based, PBL for basic sciences, once weekly lectures for Clinical Education and OMM. At the end of first year are mini-courses that rely on lecture and independent reading for Advanced Clinical Nutrition, Ethics and Public Health. Anatomy is FAST - 10 weeks. It is the same course that the course director taught at USF in 20 weeks. It's a lot of work, but the faculty are great, in my opinion. Your success will be dictated by how much time you put in.

I absolutely love PBL. With most PBL exams, there is also some assigned reading, in addition to the topics we picked from cases. I've come to realize I don't learn the assigned reading as well as I do the other stuff, and it's partly because I don't read it to understand the case. If you have a problem-solving, investigative attitude about learning, PBL will be great for you. It's a ton of work, but I LOVE not having lectures for basic sciences. My advisors were great about helping me with any issues I had regarding PBL.

The Clinical Education course needs some work. They have a core faculty, plus guest lecturers that come in depending on speciality. The exams suck, they are not well-written, and sometimes we think they are testing out of a book that was used in previous years, instead of the new one they assigned. The good news is they are listening to our critiques and changing the course a bit. We have "skill session" and "focused exam workshops" to learn history taking and physical techniques. I don't have anything to complain about with that, nor anything to rave about. It's fine.

Our course director for OMM is Dr. Fotop. His lectures are not good, but the guy is awesome. He's a genius with OMM and he's the most personable, coolest prof I've ever met. Written and practical exams are fair.

Technology: Uhh...yeah, well, we download powerpoints from the portal for any lectures. I'm not sure what sort of technology we'll be introduced to in second year. In the lab we had access to Anatomy Revealed, which is a pretty cool anatomy program. At this point in our education, I can't think of much more we'd need as far as technology goes.

Testing: Almost everything is multiple choice. We have practical exams for clinical education and OMM. With PBL, sometimes I'd hear complaints of questions being on the test that the group did not pick. One mistake like that was made for my group, and the course director acknowledged the problem and assured us that those questions are dropped. For anatomy, the "practical" section of the exams consisted of projected photos of cadavers and histo slides. Depending on your eyesight and where you sit, that can be an issue. We had a problem with the perspective of some of the photos, and when we brought this to the professor he changed them to make that easier.

Location: I'm from Buffalo, so this environment is a welcome change. I love it. Most students live closer to the school, but I wanted to be closer to the beach and in a more heavily populated area, so I went further west. My apt complex is called Fountain Lake of Bradenton, and it's great. Bradenton is okay, there are nice parts and crappy parts. There are plenty of areas nearby for fishing, kayaking, hiking, etc. Siesta key is 20 min away, and Sarasota has lots of great restaurants, bars, clubs, etc. For me, being in such a beautiful location, especially with the freedom of PBL, helps me deal with the stress of school. I can start my day by walking around a gorgeous lake, fishing, laying out by the pool, reading on my lanai, or I can take my books to the beach. Also, St. Pete and Tampa are within an hour away.

Cost: The loans are more than enough to live on. The LECOM's the cheapest DO school, but it's still expensive.

Faculty: Mostly good. I've never had a negative interaction. They seem open and willing to hear what students have to say. The faculty that I don't like so much have been very minor players in the grand scheme of things, but the big guns - the directors for anatomy and PBL - they are awesome. I've heard other things about the administration, but I can't speak about that from personal experience.

Study areas: Library is nice, but chilly, like most of the school. No eating or drinking in PBL rooms, which sucks. But hey, everything's clean. The PBL rooms are quite nice, and lots of people study in the cafeteria.

Clinical rotations: They just changed this, and I'm not super happy about it, although I'm sure some people are. Previously, students basically had to set up their own rotations with affiliates for core rotations, and with whoever they want for electives. Now, we will be telling LECOM what geographical area we'd like, and they will match us up with affiliates. I was planning to do my research and set myself up with the places I wanted, and now I won't have a choice except to tell them I want to stay in the Tampa Bay area. The biggest critique of the old system was that students had to do too much themselves and they wanted more help. Well, now you don't have to do anything really.

Housing: No campus housing. Most people seem satisfied with their apartments. There's plenty of affordable housing in the area. Some students get together and rent condos or houses.

Social scene: Uhh, I'm not as plugged into the social scene as a lot of people. I moved here with my boyfriend, and we don't live in one of the complexes where most of the students are. I have a small circle of close friends, and that's more my style. But if you're coming here alone and looking to make a crap load of friends, it seems easy to do. There are lots of clubs and events all the time.

To sum up:

Curriculum: A
Location: A+
Cost: B
Faculty: A-
Housing: A-
Study space: B+
Social scene: A
Reputation: B
Overall: A-
Click to expand...
 
Also, can anyone post a review of lecom erie???
 
Been a while since I've logged in to SDN...Here's my quick review of KCOM. I am currently a first year student.

Curriculum: ALOT of the curriculum has changed from the previous year. From what I heard, the curriculum has DRASTICALLY improved from what the class of 2014 faced. Currently region/systems based. For instance, we learned about the anatomy, histology, physiology, and biochemistry of the GI tract all at once. So, the concepts of each region/system are reenforced in your brain constantly. In my opinion, the curriculum/schedule for my class was well-designed. Also, no mandatory attendance or formal dress-code (huge for me). OTM is pretty good.

Technology: Laptops required. Wireless campus. Computer lab with free printing. Anatomy lab now has two computers for each cadaver. Histology lab is completely digital. About a dozen human simulator patients. Alot of standardized patient exam rooms. Also, access to a 3D anatomy program (VERY helpful) and Acland's Anatomy videos are available.

Testing: Quizzes before each histology and anatomy lab. A half-day of multiple-choice block exams every 3-4 weeks. Block exams test on all the material covered for those 3-4 weeks. Cumulative, multiple-choice, whole-day final at the end of each quarter. Personally, I prefer this testing style. It gives you the flexibility to study for what you wish between blocks. Contrary to what some people believe about blocks, virtually no one crams last minute. That would be academic suicide. There's always material to study. IMO much, much better than taking multiple test per week and cramming for each one.

Location: Rural Missouri in a town with ~19,000 people (+ATSU and Truman State Students). I'm from a big city with "climate-controlled" weather year around. The town has just enough things to do, which keeps me focused on school. Honestly, the adjustment to weather isn't so bad (I haven't experienced winter yet), and neither is the adjustment to "rural" life (it's not as rural as I had in mind at first). And not having to drive in traffic everyday is nice. Personally, I wouldn't settle down here, but it's not bad at all for 2 years.

Cost: I think it's pretty average for a private medical school (~45k/year). I've heard of higher.

Faculty: For the most part, the lectures are good. A couple of professors are so-so when it comes to lectures (and need to improve). One is absolutely excellent. The professors have an open door policy and stick around for questions after each lecture. Like a poster said before me, they do have a genuine interest in the students and want you to succeed. The student government here does have voice, and the teachers/administration does listen to the students.

Study areas: There were some new study/breakout rooms built last year, so there are plenty of places to study. A good about of the breakout rooms have a flat-screen television with a computer. All of them have white-boards. You can control the temperature. The only time it gets hectic, space-wise, is finals.

Clinical rotations: Plently of locations throughout the country. As a first year, I can't comment on them directly, but I've heard that they're great!

Housing: On campus housing is available, but it fills up extremely fast. Regardless, there is an abundance of decent, cheap housing around.

Social scene: Clubs/organizations on campus are very active. So are intramurals. Plenty of school-sponsored events. As far as the town goes, there are a couple of pretty good bars in town, and there are some decent food joints (key word is decent....I do wish the restaurants in town were better...but as a med student, I cook for the most part anyways). Alot of outdoor activities. Keep in mind Truman State University is also here in Kirksville.

Final Scores:
Curriculum: A
Location: B+
Cost: B
Faculty: B/A-
Housing: A
Study space: A
Social scene: B+
Reputation: A+
Overall: A-
 
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I find it interesting how everyone seems to rate their own school as A-/A .....
 
Whats especially interesting is that people are requesting multiple reviews of the same school and there are schools out there with 0 reviews.
 
fletchffletch said:
gonna go ahead and bump/+3 this
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Everyone begs for it, so here it is. I will say that I am a 3rd year currently and I am out floating in the nebulous sea of clinical rotations. Some of what I’ve experienced is already outdated given the rapid modifications of curriculum we have (I will comment on that).

Curriculum: Changes all the damn time. But thats a good thing. The school is still young and the current pre-clinical dean is huge about trying to hear what people want and make changes accordingly. When I went through it was a year of basic sciences, mostly by PhDs, and then a year of system-based lectures by clinical physicians (primarily). Back then anatomy was amazing, Physio was a waste of time, Histo/Path was actually really good but its so damn hard, micro/immuno are amazing, OMM is mostly subpar. Second year we added an AMAZING course of clincal systems. Many people will disagree with my enthusiasm for it, but those many people slept through the class rather than attending (its physicians teaching it, so its done before their office hours) and missed out on how clutch it really was. The one real upside was that though there were ups and downs my two years, the pre-clinical dean was incredibly receptive to comments and if you actually went out and laid out your concerns to him he would modify things (assuming your concerns were convincing and not a waste of his time) to try to make it better for everyone. Now I hear that my classes general complaint, that we had far too many hours without a lot of focus, is being addressed in the current classes. They now have more focused education with all of the “background science” being covered by iTunes University. Basically taking all the low-yield data and making it be study-on-your-own video lectures. We also added conrad fischer (Kaplans physio guru) as our new physio doc. Thats huge. Wish I got more time with Fischy.

Technology: The general stuff you’d expect. Bunch of desktops available in the library. Wireless everywhere (I mean everywhere). Histo and path are run with microscopes hooked up to computer programs to give you better image quality. Tablets available in the anatomy lab to look up material as you cut. Everything from the lectures are recorded and streamed over the internet if you want to rewatch them. A bunch of technique simulation models. A couple sim-men (and sim-babies) to practice your EM skills on. Pre-clinical dean has a cooky obsession with technology so you get the iTunes U, you get a twitter account from him, you get other weird techno-babble from him. IDK what else one can expect from technology, but we don’t have any deficits.

Testing: Testing is done on mondays. 1st year you have a bunch of classes so expect a test (or 2 or 3) almost every Monday. With that said, 1st year tests are short and to the point since they are 1 subject tests (exception: neuroanatomy. HUGE tests). 2nd year nearly all of your classes are in the systems-based format so you end up with a test every 2-3 weeks. But they are long as hell. You can “cram just over the weekend” a bit more 1st year. 2nd year its pretty much required to be studying every day just to keep up and get the core information under your belt for the week long crunch the week before the test. Quizzes happen frequently. They range from totally insignificant to worth bonus points. It really varies by class but they’re nothing to get worked up over in any class unless you’ve not been paying attention in lecture

Location: NYC. And for that matter 125th street, at least around the school, is a fun area. But the real selling point of the school is all of NYC. I don’t really need to expand on why this is so awesome. Obviously those who really prefer rural environments or will have too much baseline stress in a heterogenous community (harlem definitely is) may want to consider elsewhere. But despite what people’s knee-jerk reactions are, 125th street is the main drag and commercial district of harlem. Its clean, full of brand name stores, and safe. But some people will never shake the preconceived biases and there are always a few (5-8) in each class who will always hate the area for reasons that everyone else just chuckle at. It is what it is.

Cost: With all the fees and such comes out to 38 or 39K. They “raised” the tuition a couple K last year, but really all they did was combine the fees into the tuition. They used to advertize a very low tuition of 32K, but had 5K in fees divided unevenly across all the years. The actual tuition raised a little bit, but what they really did is put all the fees into the tuition cost and stop joking around and making believe the cost of attendance was 32K. Still cheaper than most private colleges.

Faculty: World Class: Anatomy, Physiology
*Very* Good: Micro, Immuno, Most of the clincal systems staff, Half of pathology
Good: the other half of pathology. Pharm. OMM (sometimes)
Poor: Behavioral Med (We have a new doc, so this may have changed), OMM (the other times) Clinical Systems (on rare occasions)

Study areas:14 rooms on the main floor. Another 8 or 9 on the “lunch room” floor (pharm students will fight you for these). A library made of glass, its pretty cool. A lunch room that I personally prefer using because the TVs and the gym there give me stress relief when pulling long term study bouts, and its pretty empty when class is over.

Clinical rotations: About ½ are in NY (Queens, Staten Island, Rockland County, A few small Manhattan sites for specific things) and ½ are in North Jersey. A few sites exist for those who desire to travel are available in Utica, Binghamton and Philadelphia. These are excess sites and no one *has* to go there, its 100% elective to go there. People always do though because the hospitals have a very strong reputation. I like to point out that unlike most schools, our hospitals are all very close by. I mean, *very* close by. The farthest core hospital is 22 miles away and most are <10 miles from the school. We can honestly say that our entire class could (but doesnt because people elect to go to binghamton and utica) fit within a 20 minute driving radius of manhattan. Some sites (Staten Island, St. John’s Trinitas) are very strong and classic residency-training sites. Some are very strong because they are hospitals that let you fulfill the classic resident role (a lot of the NJ ones), and these are supposedly about to open residency programs to become more classic. But right now they offer a more hands-on education. A few of the new ones are strong in some areas and terribly weak in others. We’re piggybacking these hospitals to the stronger ones so that people only go to the incomplete hospitals for strong departments and go to a different hospital for the fields that the original doesn’t do so well. Thats the risk of adding lots of new hospitals (what we’re doing) it takes a year to figure out what depts work and don’t work at each hospital before you can adapt the rotation schedules appropriately. I should add above that the students at SIUH, StJohns, and Trinitas are there because they preferred the more classic education and those who chose the jersey ones are generally really loving the hands-on approach. It may or may not have been the schools intent, but it really plays to the two schools of thought in most students minds: do you want to get as much academic exposure as possible, or as much hands on treatment exposure as possible.

Housing: The school kicked around the idea of purchasing a building for school housing. I’m pretty sure that won’t happen though. It’s NYC. If you’re willing to look (a lot) you’ll find a good deal you’ll love. If you’re willing to look at least a little, you’ll find someplace you’ll like and can afford. No matter what, you’re in NYC.

Social scene: NYC. Seriously. We party.

Final Scores:
Curriculum: A (some celebrity docs in the house)
Location: A+ (unless you like rural, then C+)
Cost: B
Faculty: A-
Housing: B- (because of cost and the stress of getting an apartment)
Study space: B
Social scene: A+
Reputation: B or B+ depending on how much you drink the “we’re making huge stride” kool-aid. I do personally. Plus, we’re new.
Overall: do the math.
 
The last WesternU-COMP review was about 3 years ago, can anyone write up a more recent review?
 
jd1031 said:
Been a while since I've logged in to SDN...Here's my quick review of KCOM. I am currently a first year student.

Curriculum: ALOT of the curriculum has changed from the previous year. From what I heard, the curriculum has DRASTICALLY improved from what the class of 2014 faced. Currently region/systems based. For instance, we learned about the anatomy, histology, physiology, and biochemistry of the GI tract all at once. So, the concepts of each region/system are reenforced in your brain constantly. In my opinion, the curriculum/schedule for my class was well-designed. Also, no mandatory attendance or formal dress-code (huge for me). OTM is pretty good.

Technology: Laptops required. Wireless campus. Computer lab with free printing. Anatomy lab now has two computers for each cadaver. Histology lab is completely digital. About a dozen human simulator patients. Alot of standardized patient exam rooms. Also, access to a 3D anatomy program (VERY helpful) and Acland's Anatomy videos are available.

Testing: Quizzes before each histology and anatomy lab. A half-day of multiple-choice block exams every 3-4 weeks. Block exams test on all the material covered for those 3-4 weeks. Cumulative, multiple-choice, whole-day final at the end of each quarter. Personally, I prefer this testing style. It gives you the flexibility to study for what you wish between blocks. Contrary to what some people believe about blocks, virtually no one crams last minute. That would be academic suicide. There's always material to study. IMO much, much better than taking multiple test per week and cramming for each one.

Location: Rural Missouri in a town with ~19,000 people (+ATSU and Truman State Students). I'm from a big city with "climate-controlled" weather year around. The town has just enough things to do, which keeps me focused on school. Honestly, the adjustment to weather isn't so bad (I haven't experienced winter yet), and neither is the adjustment to "rural" life (it's not as rural as I had in mind at first). And not having to drive in traffic everyday is nice. Personally, I wouldn't settle down here, but it's not bad at all for 2 years.

Cost: I think it's pretty average for a private medical school (~45k/year). I've heard of higher.

Faculty: For the most part, the lectures are good. A couple of professors are so-so when it comes to lectures (and need to improve). One is absolutely excellent. The professors have an open door policy and stick around for questions after each lecture. Like a poster said before me, they do have a genuine interest in the students and want you to succeed. The student government here does have voice, and the teachers/administration does listen to the students.

Study areas: There were some new study/breakout rooms built last year, so there are plenty of places to study. A good about of the breakout rooms have a flat-screen television with a computer. All of them have white-boards. You can control the temperature. The only time it gets hectic, space-wise, is finals.

Clinical rotations: Plently of locations throughout the country. As a first year, I can't comment on them directly, but I've heard that they're great!

Housing: On campus housing is available, but it fills up extremely fast. Regardless, there is an abundance of decent, cheap housing around.

Social scene: Clubs/organizations on campus are very active. So are intramurals. Plenty of school-sponsored events. As far as the town goes, there are a couple of pretty good bars in town, and there are some decent food joints (key word is decent....I do wish the restaurants in town were better...but as a med student, I cook for the most part anyways). Alot of outdoor activities. Keep in mind Truman State University is also here in Kirksville.

Final Scores:
Curriculum: A
Location: B+
Cost: B
Faculty: B/A-
Housing: A
Study space: A
Social scene: B+
Reputation: A+
Overall: A-
Click to expand...

:thumbup: Thanks!!
 
Any KCOM student that can comment on the [ATSU] Student Housing? I know it fills up fast, but I wanted to know if anyone has an opinion on the quality of the apartments?
 
Let me give you my thoughts on Western University COMP NorthWest (Oregon site):

Curriculum: Mirrors the Pamona campus, in fact most of the classes are streamed to you from there. Periodically the lecturers will come up and talk in person. Its fully accredited as of a month ago and you do have faculty up here. They are working on making it so that 50% of the lectures are live in Oregon and the other 50% are from Pamona.

The anatomy lab is on steroids. We have Dr. Benninger who we "stole" from OHSU. The guy writes and edits Netters. You WILL know you anatomy at the end of that class, of course it is cadaver dissection.

Over all the faculty really, really want you to succeed and they will bend over backward to make sure that you have what you need to do so. Its a smaller campus and you will NOT get "lost between the cracks" if you have a problem.

Location: Lebanon, OR. You are in a small town of about 15,000 people. Plenty of time to study without distractions and a great family location if you are married with kids (1/3) of my class is. There is NOT a lot of crime here, but property crime does exist sort of. If you need a bit of the college life still then Corvallis is 20 minutes away and many of the younger students choose to live there. They have a little of everything that you need in Corvallis (dinning, music, arts, hospitals, etc.)

The campus is A building currently, good for those who are directionally challenges, you wont get lost here. There are several plans to build up the field across the road. I think they are planning a pharmacy school, a VA hospital (construction starts in a year for that one) and several other buildings. Construction is always going on and this campus will be awesome in a few years.

Do I like it here? Yes, but I'm a classic non-trad and so are many of my class mates (average age for my class is 28).

Cost: Expensive, around $46,000 a year. No different from the Pamona campus.

WesternU is one of the more expensive DO schools. Loans are NOT a problem but try to take out as little as you can. Lebanon is cheaper living so it makes it easier to NOT max out what your allowed to take out.

Faculty: Outstanding. Our clinical professors are the cream of the crop. They go out of their way to help you if you need it. Our Dean keeps her office open and is very approachable. Our science faculty is lacking at this campus. Their working on it, but if your interested in research you may want to go down to California for the summer. The exception would be the anatomy research. Dr. Benninger has that up and running and is already recruiting students. Otherwise, the Pamona campus is much better suited for this.

Reputation: Solid for Western University in general. The curriculum is the same and the rotations sites were set up before they even opened the doors in Oregon. The Lebanon campus is new so they are still building up their reputation and developing more sites.

Clinical Rotations: I'm a first year so I don't know much about this one currently. From the 3rd and 4th years who started the NW track and did their first two years in Pamona and are now doing rotations in OR, they like it. Rotations sites are all over the north west including; Eugene, Bend, Seattle, Portland, Medford, Corvallis, etc. A lot of them have enjoyed a mixture of city based rotations as well as rural rotations. They're still expanding our sites as well.

Housing: Cheaper than a big city but your still on the west coast. Average 1 bedroom that is a nice apartment is about $500-$700 a month depending on what facility your in. I'm in a 3 bedroom for $900 a month and I have one room mate. I was paying triple this when I lived in a large city.

Study areas: Not so great. Too many students for too few desks. You can go study at OSU though. That has been really nice.

Social Scene: Post exam parties are at the local Irish pub and personal parties. Everyone is pretty social here since its a small scene. My class mates are mature individuals who take care of each other when we need to. Corvallis offers a better night scene if that's what you need. We sort of have a dress code but not really, just don't were clothes that are offensive or have holes in them.

Local Hospitals: We have one in Lebanon (small community hospital). The VA is planned for across the street and building is in the works so there will be more. Rotations are all over the place so if you want to go to Portland or Seattle you can.

Board Prep: Not sure.

Specialty: WesternU in general sends its students into all specialties but there is a focus on rural primary care here in the north west.

So here are my grades:

Curriculum: B+
Location: B
Cost: C-
Financial Aid: B
Faculty: A
Reputation: B (still being built up)
Technology: A+
Study Space/Library: C
Library technology/Resources: B+
Rotations: (not sure yet, I'm a first year)
Social: B
Hospitals: B-
Post Grad: (not sure yet)

Overall Grade: B
 
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In my honest opinion, if I were to repeat the application process again, I would go to the CHEAPEST DO school because in the end, it's really up to you to make the grades, the letters, etc. If you're reaching for the dream specialty or the dream institution for residency, you can always showcase there. It's not the school that will get you the residency of your dreams, but your own dedication and willpower. Good luck.
 
Curriculum:

1st year- Lecture based, we probably spent 7ish hours a day in lecture. Anatomy is aquality course taught by a well-known professor. Microbiology is pretty much non-existent andthis has hurt students come board time. Testing is done on computers with instant feedback of our scores. This can be good or bad and it is best towait till seeing the average before freaking out.

2nd year- Systems based. Here is Cecil's and Big Robbins, good luck. Oh and there will be many moments where you are not given reading assignments and are just supposed to know what to read or read everything! Few lectures, as most of the year is done independent study. Frustrating exams and grading. Oftentimes faculty will move quizzes from one subject to another so that fewer people have tor emediate. Also, the syllabi state you must pass IM, Path, and Pharm (the 3 components of every system), but the syllabus says nothing about how each of these subjects is 1/3 of your systemgrade. So, some systems you have only about 50 total points in pharm while IM has 150, but somehow they are equal in the end. Therefore, you end up playing some crazy game at the end where you try and figure out what subject to devote more time to because each question in one subject is actually worth more than questions in other subjects. Again, this is not clearly stated in any syllabus and it took us ½ the year to figure it out. Also, it is very unclear how we were graded in clinical skills. Good luck with that one. Overall, a terribly disorganized and frustrating year compounded by the stress of upcoming boards and poor communication.


Location: Yakima, WA. The city is centrally located, so it is relatively easy to get to Seattle or White Pass to do some skiing. The town itself does not have much going on, but is large enough where you can find something to do during your free-time. Beware of the fairgrounds as that is the area of gang activity.


Cost: 43,000. Expensive and the school's mission is to train primary care physicians. This amuses me greatly.


Faculty: Some good, some bad like any other school in the country. The truly disappointing thing, though, is that faculty does not seem receptive to feedback. Being a new school there needs to be the potential for growth and improvement. But, if student feedback is essentially ignored this limits the potential of the school. For example, our student government met with faculty regarding legitimate concerns during 2nd year. Our SGA wasn't allowed to get a word in and was essentially lectured during this meeting and nothing was accomplished. We had continually asked to receive reading assignments on time so we knew what to study and this was a problem all year. This is basic and still we had a problem with it.

Reputation: Too new for a real reputation.
Clinical Rotations: Students scatter throughout a 5 state region. Selection for rotation sites is extremely messed up, unclear, and frustrating. This is where the biggest problem is as things are very inconsistent and the bar set very very low. See my thread on having a nurse as a preceptor in surgery. Some rotations/locations likely have good rotations, others terrible. So, it is basically a gamble. Didactics on Fridays are generally considered to be useless as oftentimes the subject has nothing to do with the specific rotation you are on so people do not pay attention and use it as social hour. Also, the school does not really communicate with students this year. Step 2 CK is around the bend and we have heard absolutely nothing about it. Not how to prepare, not when to take it, nothing. Also, we have heard essentially nothing about scheduling 4th year electives and aways. Basically, you are on your own. If you have a good regional dean, it may help, but don't expect the school to do anything for you this year. Be ready to fork out 43k to teach yourself.
Housing: None on campus, but cheap apartments in Yakima.

Study areas: There are 2 buildings now with plans for an auditorium soon, but study space is very limited. Best to just study at home.

Social Scene: Students hang out at a bar around the corner from the school,especially after anatomy lab. Besides that there are several decent restaurants and hang-out spots in town. Not a great scene, but if you look around you should be able to find something to do.
Local Hospitals: Two main hospitals in Yakima, I do not know anything about how there 3rd year rotations are going though.
Board Prep: The school only gave us 2-4 weeks of real study time for step 1 and still tossed random assignments our way even during the last week of the semester when we should be hitting board study hard; for example, doing a poster presentation on our assigned rotation site. Also, we received conflicting information regarding how best to study for boards (100 questions a day, 50, focus on systems? This flip-flopped all year). You end up figuring it out on your own anyhow.
Specialty: No idea yet.

So here are my grades:

Curriculum: C-
Location: C+
Cost: D
Financial Aid: ??
Faculty: B-
Reputation: ??
Technology: C-
Study Space/Library: D-
Library technology/Resources: C
Rotations: D-
Social: B-
Hospitals: Completely variable so ill say a D given my situation.
Post Grad: ??

Overall Grade: D, would only really recommend if you have to stay in the pacific northwest for family and do not get into UW or this is the only school you get into.
 
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sylvanthus said:
Overall Grade: D, would only really recommend if you have to stay in the pacific northwest for family and do not get into UW or this is the only school you get into.
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Wow :eek:. I almost went here. I really hope this school continues to improve as the years go by. The northwest states (excluding Oregon) really need quality medical education outside the UW empire.
 
sylvanthus said:
The truly disappointing thing, though, is that faculty does not seem receptive to feedback. Being a new school there needs to be the potential for growth and improvement. But, if student feedback is essentially ignored this limits the potential of the school. For example, our student government met with faculty regarding legitimate concerns during 2nd year. Our SGA wasn’t allowed to get a word in and was essentially lectured during this meeting and nothing was accomplished. We had continually asked to receive reading assignments on time so we knew what to study and this was a problem all year. This is basic and still we had a problem with it.
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Interesting. During my interview they were really pushing how the school and faculty are all about the students and how they do any and everything for students. The person doing the tour spent like 5 minutes telling us about the student garden out back and citing that as one way that the school shows it cares. I'm actually glad I picked a different school now. Thank you for your review.
 
ShyRem said:
Posted at the request of an anonymous user regarding TCOM:

Curriculum: In first year it was okay - some busywork, optional lectures and "MLM's" which were case-presentation sessions used only for learning (you also did not absolutely have to attend these). However, the second year curriculum so far has been maddening. There are no lectures or clear objectives, so you have to just "read robbins" or "read harrison's" before class. The MLM's which were once learning sessions are now daily, required testing sessions via iclicker; each MLM is worth 1 point of your grade in the systems course, and if you make less than 60% on that MLM you miss the point for the day (which you would think is fine until you realize how much material there is, how little teaching there is and how innacurate the iclicker can be). Though class is only 2-4 hours per day in second year, self studiers beware. The MLM sessions tend to be almost all questions, with as many as 40 questions per hour. Recently they have "allowed" for us to miss 4-5 MLM's per systems course, which helps somewhat. However, for those who do not learn well through the MLM's, it is still frustrating to be stuck in class basically every day.

The second year director states that if you are not studying 10 hours per day, you are not working hard enough. We are allotted 75 seconds per question on exams and have several 160+ question exams - if you fail one of these monster exams, you fail the entire course. This is not for all courses, but it is done in a few.

Some of these policies may change, but if I had known what I know now about TCOM's second year curriculum I would not have come here. I have felt like it is extremely anti-student.

Location: Fort Worth is not a bad place - a big city without feeling crowded like Dallas. It's fine.

Cost: Very affordable at 13k/year in-state

Faculty: Like most schools, the quality of the faculty varies. We have some wonderful teachers and some teachers that I wish did not work here. It balances out I suppose.

OMM: Disjointed and in transition. Many students nearly failed OMM last semester, and they have changed the course this semester. There are now 2 mini quizzes every week and a large quiz every so often. The director is not very well liked though that may change as she is new. I attended a lecture by an OMM professor at Touro-CA last year and wished that we had that kind of class at TCOM.

Reputation: As far as I know, TCOM has a good reputation. This was a big draw for me when I applied.

Clinical Rotations: I hear good things about clinical rotations from third years, although some people have poor experiences depending on their attending (this seems to be the norm for most schools, though). There are multiple sites around Texas in which to do rotations, so after 2nd year you are not limited to staying in FW if you would like to go elsewhere.

Housing: There are many housing options in Fort Worth, nice one-bedrooms 10-15 mins from campus run around 6-700. Living close to campus is pricey, but there are sometimes houses to rent in the neighborhood if you catch them at the right time. Many students have roomates to cut costs.

Study areas: Work is being done to expand study areas, which are currently inadequate. I hope that the new construction will go a long way to improve study space availability.

Social Scene: Each class is very different. With the advent of the "college" system (breaking the classes up into smaller groups), it seems like it has improved. This is new and was not implemented for my class. I feel that the social scene is pretty average.

Board Prep: We score slightly below average compared to MD schools on the USMLE, do well on the COMLEX and have 95%+ pass rates on both.

Additional: I feel like I was lied to in the admissions process. They are trying new things I suppose, but they do not seem to be listening to the students very much. They like to experiment. While I was interviewing I believe they said only a couple students fail every year, but I know at least 15 failed my year and 18 failed the year before that. They have altered the repeat policy to try and get more people to graduate with their class, so hopefully that helps (this is one of few positive policies implemented this year).

I do not mean to sound like I'm just ragging on my school. TCOM produces good doctors that go into good specialties, and we have historically done well on the boards. However, in the admissions process I was told there was room for self-studiers, which has turned out to be completely untrue. Quizzes and tests come at you often and it feels like we are just paying people to constantly test us. I think that knowing what I know now, I would have looked more closely at the day-to-day lives of students in schools I was considering. I would not have chosen a school with this kind of adversarial administrative culture, but I also do not believe that my career will suffer significantly as a result. It's all about "fit" and TCOM should be more honest about what kinds of students would fit in there. I found out that I should have looked closer at schools with a more flexible curriculum, more reasonable testing schedule and clear objectives/syllabi.

Curriculum: D
Location: B+
Cost: A
Financial Aid: A
Faculty: C+
Reputation: A
Technology: B+
Study Space/Library: C
Library technology/Resources: C
Rotations: ?
Social: C


Overall Grade: C-
Click to expand...

Any recent reviews for TCOM? This is pretty much opposite of what I have been hearing about TCOM and I find it interesting that they wanted to remain anonymous.
 
TexasDocGibby said:
Any recent reviews for TCOM? This is pretty much opposite of what I have been hearing about TCOM and I find it interesting that they wanted to remain anonymous.
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These ratings should be taken with a heavy dose of salt. From personal experience, the TCOM administration and faculty are quite attentive to students. It's a point of pride and tradition for them. On the other hand, med school is hard and you gotta do what you gotta do, so they expect students to work hard. Very hard. As I commented upthread, TCOM's long record of success speaks for itself. The program is rigorous and enjoys a solid reputation in Texas (e.g. TCOM alumni teaching at UT Southwestern: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=857093)
 
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I am a first year at TCOM and the opinion of the anonymous poster differs greatly from mine. Since it sounds like they are a MS2, they obviously have experienced more than I have, but so far my experiences have been different. To me, the faculty has been unbelievably responsive. For example, one day after our OMM lecture some concerns were raised about how assignments were being communicated with us and so the course director came back to our lecture hall after we were done with other classes and completely opened up a discussion with us on how they can improve things. The changes were made basically the same day. Mind you, this was not a scheduled meeting or anything. The professor came back on his own time to meet with the entire class. And from the time the anonymous poster has been a MS1, the OMM curriculum and leadership changed, so, from what I've heard, it has greatly been improved for us new MS1s, so I can understand their displeasure with that since it may have been much worse for them.

They also are very active in implementing any changes we suggest in the curriculum. We raised concerns with how the clinical medicine course was organized, and changes have already been planned for the following year. Post-exam reviews were not allowed through most of this semester, but after many meetings and discussions with student representatives, they were brought back from here on out.

And since that post was made, an entire floor of the library has been remodeled and opened back up. It is much easier to find places to study now.

And yes, TCOM has a VERY rigorous schedule. You will be in lecture practically all day, every day and there are exams almost every single week with quizzes in between. You will rarely get any downtime. I think we had one "free" weekend the entire semester since it just so happened that that system ended on a Friday, giving us no new material for the weekend. And testing almost every week is very exhausting, but that's just the nature of the beast. And it's true that TCOM is very open to experimenting with the curriculum. Some may be annoyed by this as things can easily change from year to year so there isn't consistency, but I believe that any good school can't improve without taking risks along with way. You can't know what works if you don't see what doesn't.

Overall, I have very few complaints about TCOM. As a school, it has actually exceeded my expectations in basically every aspect. I was actually very surprised and impressed at how open to suggestions the faculty was from the get-go. My only actual complaint is the rough schedule, but I don't really know how that can be remedied. There really is a reason TCOM enjoys such a good reputation.
 
Would anyone care to do a more up to date talk on OUCOM, with some focus on the CORE rotation sites, specifically Doctors and Grandview (if possible).
 
somekindof said:
I am a first year at TCOM and the opinion of the anonymous poster differs greatly from mine. Since it sounds like they are a MS2, they obviously have experienced more than I have, but so far my experiences have been different. To me, the faculty has been unbelievably responsive. For example, one day after our OMM lecture some concerns were raised about how assignments were being communicated with us and so the course director came back to our lecture hall after we were done with other classes and completely opened up a discussion with us on how they can improve things. The changes were made basically the same day. Mind you, this was not a scheduled meeting or anything. The professor came back on his own time to meet with the entire class. And from the time the anonymous poster has been a MS1, the OMM curriculum and leadership changed, so, from what I've heard, it has greatly been improved for us new MS1s, so I can understand their displeasure with that since it may have been much worse for them.

They also are very active in implementing any changes we suggest in the curriculum. We raised concerns with how the clinical medicine course was organized, and changes have already been planned for the following year. Post-exam reviews were not allowed through most of this semester, but after many meetings and discussions with student representatives, they were brought back from here on out.

And since that post was made, an entire floor of the library has been remodeled and opened back up. It is much easier to find places to study now.

And yes, TCOM has a VERY rigorous schedule. You will be in lecture practically all day, every day and there are exams almost every single week with quizzes in between. You will rarely get any downtime. I think we had one "free" weekend the entire semester since it just so happened that that system ended on a Friday, giving us no new material for the weekend. And testing almost every week is very exhausting, but that's just the nature of the beast. And it's true that TCOM is very open to experimenting with the curriculum. Some may be annoyed by this as things can easily change from year to year so there isn't consistency, but I believe that any good school can't improve without taking risks along with way. You can't know what works if you don't see what doesn't.

Overall, I have very few complaints about TCOM. As a school, it has actually exceeded my expectations in basically every aspect. I was actually very surprised and impressed at how open to suggestions the faculty was from the get-go. My only actual complaint is the rough schedule, but I don't really know how that can be remedied. There really is a reason TCOM enjoys such a good reputation.
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The 8-to-5 routine for 1st years is a well known feature of TCOM. It has been there for decades. However, the lectures are taped and you can selectively skip classes. I am always a bit baffled by complaints that TCOM is a hard school. It is a hard school, but the vast majority of students graduate on time.

For an old state school with tenured faculty, I was actually surprised to see how responsive they were in my first two years. Great point about the student representatives - TCOM has a good student government and the administration treats them with much respect. (TCOM students have always been active in school governance. We currently have a TCOM student on the University of North Texas System Board of Regents, and another TCOM student on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board which oversees all Texas higher education institutions).
 
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ChemMed said:
Let me give you my thoughts on Western University COMP NorthWest (Oregon site):

Curriculum: Mirrors the Pamona campus, in fact most of the classes are streamed to you from there. Periodically the lecturers will come up and talk in person. Its fully accredited as of a month ago and you do have faculty up here. They are working on making it so that 50% of the lectures are live in Oregon and the other 50% are from Pamona.

The anatomy lab is on steroids. We have Dr. Benninger who we "stole" from OHSU. The guy writes and edits Netters. You WILL know you anatomy at the end of that class, of course it is cadaver dissection.

Over all the faculty really, really want you to succeed and they will bend over backward to make sure that you have what you need to do so. Its a smaller campus and you will NOT get "lost between the cracks" if you have a problem.

Location: Lebanon, OR. You are in a small town of about 15,000 people. Plenty of time to study without distractions and a great family location if you are married with kids (1/3) of my class is. There is NOT a lot of crime here, but property crime does exist sort of. If you need a bit of the college life still then Corvallis is 20 minutes away and many of the younger students choose to live there. They have a little of everything that you need in Corvallis (dinning, music, arts, hospitals, etc.)

The campus is A building currently, good for those who are directionally challenges, you wont get lost here. There are several plans to build up the field across the road. I think they are planning a pharmacy school, a VA hospital (construction starts in a year for that one) and several other buildings. Construction is always going on and this campus will be awesome in a few years.

Do I like it here? Yes, but I'm a classic non-trad and so are many of my class mates (average age for my class is 28).

Cost: Expensive, around $46,000 a year. No different from the Pamona campus.

WesternU is one of the more expensive DO schools. Loans are NOT a problem but try to take out as little as you can. Lebanon is cheaper living so it makes it easier to NOT max out what your allowed to take out.

Faculty: Outstanding. Our clinical professors are the cream of the crop. They go out of their way to help you if you need it. Our Dean keeps her office open and is very approachable. Our science faculty is lacking at this campus. Their working on it, but if your interested in research you may want to go down to California for the summer. The exception would be the anatomy research. Dr. Benninger has that up and running and is already recruiting students. Otherwise, the Pamona campus is much better suited for this.

Reputation: Solid for Western University in general. The curriculum is the same and the rotations sites were set up before they even opened the doors in Oregon. The Lebanon campus is new so they are still building up their reputation and developing more sites.

Clinical Rotations: I'm a first year so I don't know much about this one currently. From the 3rd and 4th years who started the NW track and did their first two years in Pamona and are now doing rotations in OR, they like it. Rotations sites are all over the north west including; Eugene, Bend, Seattle, Portland, Medford, Corvallis, etc. A lot of them have enjoyed a mixture of city based rotations as well as rural rotations. They're still expanding our sites as well.

Housing: Cheaper than a big city but your still on the west coast. Average 1 bedroom that is a nice apartment is about $500-$700 a month depending on what facility your in. I'm in a 3 bedroom for $900 a month and I have one room mate. I was paying triple this when I lived in a large city.

Study areas: Not so great. Too many students for too few desks. You can go study at OSU though. That has been really nice.

Social Scene: Post exam parties are at the local Irish pub and personal parties. Everyone is pretty social here since its a small scene. My class mates are mature individuals who take care of each other when we need to. Corvallis offers a better night scene if that's what you need. We sort of have a dress code but not really, just don't were clothes that are offensive or have holes in them.

Local Hospitals: We have one in Lebanon (small community hospital). The VA is planned for across the street and building is in the works so there will be more. Rotations are all over the place so if you want to go to Portland or Seattle you can.

Board Prep: Not sure.

Specialty: WesternU in general sends its students into all specialties but there is a focus on rural primary care here in the north west.

So here are my grades:

Curriculum: B+
Location: B
Cost: C-
Financial Aid: B
Faculty: A
Reputation: B (still being built up)
Technology: A+
Study Space/Library: C
Library technology/Resources: B+
Rotations: (not sure yet, I'm a first year)
Social: B
Hospitals: B-
Post Grad: (not sure yet)

Overall Grade: B
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It kind of baffles me that you attend Western U and you continually misspell POMONA.

*shakes head* Oregon students......:laugh:

Im going to add to this persons review, as some of it seems to be a little inflated. Not that Western isnt a good school....its just this person seemed to skip some important things

Faculty:
The review on Benninger is correct. Amazing professor, I really wish our Pomona campus had him. However, we also share the majority of faculty (through streaming lectures) so I have had almost all of the same faculty. Our faculty so far (after one semester) is average at best. No where near "A" quality. I really have to question peoples previous education and faculty if they think Westerns faculty is "A" worthy. I went to a pretty good undergraduate school so maybe I just have high expectations when it comes to teaching, but after one semester the majority of faculty either cant teach properly (they are all over the place, nothing is organized) or they have chips on their shoulders and seem to care less how students do (hint* think of our gross anatomy department, minus Kuehn). With that being said, there is a few professors who are amazing and when they are good, they are really good. We had quite a few guest lectures from UCLA, Loma Linda etc and they are experts in their field (ie we had a UCLA med professor who is at the top of the medical genetics field)

Faculty = B-

Technology:
You gave technology an A+ AND you are at the Lebanon campus. It would be one thing for a student at the Pomona campus to give Westerns Technology a good grade, but whenever we stream lectures to Lebanon.......there is usually technical difficulties that hold back lecture. For example an hour lecture becomes 40 minutes simply because the first 20 minutes is spent trying to get the lecture to stream to lebanon properly. This was a HUGE problem back at the beginning of the year (heck one class we only had 25 minutes of lecture in anatomy because the rest of the time was spent fixing the streaming). They have sort of fixed the problems, but once a while there is still a problem with streaming the lecture. Also sometimes the lecture doesnt record, so we cant watch it later online.

Technology (this year) --> C
Technology (next year) --> At least a B, since this is the first year we have streamed to Lebanon and the problems SHOULD be fixed by next year

Specialty:
In the last two years we had a Gen Surg match at UCSF (ACGME obviously), which is quite impressive and several others match at Cleveland and Mayo Clinics. Also matched at quite a few UCLA hospitals. Our match list is pretty strong

I would give specialty an A-, i mean its pretty dam good for a DO school

Curriculum:
Starting the 2nd week of school, we start our patient interactions where we learn how to take a full history and physical on standardized patients (actors). Its pretty fun as we get to wear our white coats, and use all our equipment on a person. This is something quite unique to Western as I know many MD schools and many other DO schools dont do this until 2nd or 3rd year (according to various residents I have met from other schools)

This early patient experience plus our new systems curriculum would lead me to give Western an A-. I would give it an A but we have to take a lot of ridiculous filler courses which are useless and a waste of time

So my rating of Western with what I talked about:

Curriculum: A-
Faculty: B-
Reputation: B+
Technology: C
Social: C (maybe im just not used to hanging around type A students? I stayed away from pre-meds in UGrad. But most people in my class either whine all the time (our class is known among the older classes as the whining class) or they are gunners (at least 70% of my class)). As a result, people either dont go out because they are always studying or their idea of "fun" is something a group of kids at a Christian Summer Camp would find fun.

Overall Grade: B
 
drctother: You're in Pomona, correct? Why did you leave out the "nanny state" comments you've made in the past?
 
ManBroDude said:
drctother: You're in Pomona, correct? Why did you leave out the "nanny state" comments you've made in the past?
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Yes I am. Thats a good point, just something that didnt come to my mind and didnt seem to fit into the categories I "graded". Also, are you sure I said nanny state? I thought someone else made that comment and I just agreed.

But yes, Western U basically has zero trust in its students. They are always paranoid everyone is going to cheat, even though in the entire semester there was only 1 person who cheated (at least known to the class) out of 220 or so students. The nanny state stuff was very annoying but most people just ignore it now and laugh at how pathetic the schools policies are........
 
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drctother said:
Curriculum:
Starting the 2nd week of school, we start our patient interactions where we learn how to take a full history and physical on standardized patients (actors). Its pretty fun as we get to wear our white coats, and use all our equipment on a person. This is something quite unique to Western as I know many MD schools and many other DO schools dont do this until 2nd or 3rd year (according to various residents I have met from other schools)
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They do this at many DO schools, and many MD schools have started to do this. Not unique to Western buddy :p
 
desijigga said:
They do this at many DO schools, and many MD schools have started to do this. Not unique to Western buddy :p
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haha oh ok. Just what I heard from a resident who went to KCUMB? (I think? anyway some DO school out east) She said her school did none of this until she started rotations and that not many schools did the early patient encounter from first year...
 
medcandidate said:
any recent reviews on MSUCOM???
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Curriculum: For the classes of 2014 & 2015, first year is basic sciences and 2nd year is systems courses. Since you are requesting a current review, I can't really offer one for the curriculum that the incoming classes will see. MSUCOM is completely switching up their curriculum, and the class of 2016 will be the test group.

Technology: WiFi is available all through out the school and in the classrooms. All lectures are recorded, and some are even pre-recorded. They are posted on Angel, which is MSU's version of Blackboard. Also, live lectures are broadcasted the all three sites. The lecturers rotate between the three campuses, and there are always faculty present at all three campuses. You can ask questions even if the lecturer is not at your site. Student organizations use skype and the same broadcasting technology that they use for the lectures. Finally, the school provides electronic course packs and hard copies of the course pack. It is in pdf for, so you can use your tablets and ipads to take notes. This is relatively new at MSUCOM. They also use a wide variety of online didactics and online assignments (i.e. histology and pathology). The histology and pathology labs are done on the computer, and you can access the lab slides at home too.

Testing: Multiple-choice. Some of the pathophysiology questions are similar to board style questions. Some of the exam questions can be kind of trivial, and are not reflective of board style questions at all. It is hit or miss depending on the professor that wrote the question. If you are looking for board style questions, I would definitely use a q-bank. For the most part, the questions are fair, but like every school, some of the questions can be kind of random trivia. There are practicals for Neuromusculoskeletal systems, Neuroanatomy and Anatomy. The bodies are pro-sected. Having done a year long cadaver disection course in undergrad, I can say that I thought the pro-sected bodies made the identification of some of the tags really difficult. The will body program is great, but some of the cadavers are really old. You have the opportunity to pro-sect later on, and can gain that experience if you choose.

Location: There are three campuses. The main campus is in East Lansing. Detroit Medical Center and Macomb are the other two campuses. The Macomb (MUC) campus is in clinton township, MI. It is right by the clinton township Henry Ford Medical Center campus. Also, Mount Clemens Regional Medical Center is really close to the MUC campus.

Cost: IS Tuition is cheap, but OOS Tuition is really steep. I believe we still have the highest OOS Tuition out of all the DO schools. For the list of the financial info, http://www.finaid.msu.edu/read/budcom.pdf

Faculty: The OMM Faculty are all really good. A lot of the OMM Faculty work with the MSU athletes. It is a D.O. friendly state, so you get good exposure to OMM in clinical practice. The physiology faculty were by far the best at the medical school. That was one of the best run courses the medical school provided us. The faculty are extremely helpful, and very approachable. Since the school is switching up the curriculum, it is hard to comment how things will run for the class of 2016.

Study areas: At East Lansing, the KRC is the major study area. There are a bunch of smaller study rooms. The KRC can get noisy at times, which can be distracting. It is a big 10 campus, there are plenty of other buildings to study at (i.e. Law Library). MUC and DMC are newer campuses, and have really nice study lounges. Their student size is smaller, so I would imagine that it maybe a little more quiet and less cramp at their campuses. I'm based in EL, so I can really comment all that much on the other two sites.

Clinical rotations: You have a base hospital. MSU's base hospital system is extensive. You pick your hospital at the beginning of your fall semester. There are a certain number of spots per hospital. So high demand hospitals go to lottery, which means you run the risk of not getting your chosen hospital. Then you have to pick from the left over spots at the other hospitals. Forth year is when you have all your elective rotations, and can go wherever for those.

Housing: I lived in Chicago, and think the housing is really cheap. You can find decent price apartments near Fee Hall in East Lansing. Okemos is right next to East Lansing, and has some nicer apartments that are reasonably priced. I just started looking at apartments by MUC and DMC, as I will be doing my clerkship out that way. The popular area seems to be Royal Oak. It is a suburb of Detroit, and is a little more pricer then some areas. However, there are is a lot to do if you are younger or single. It is still reasonably priced by comparison to apartments in New York, Chicago and California. A huge portion of the class is from Michigan, and they are usually pretty reliable for good places to live.

Social scene: MSU is a Big Ten campus. So if you are in East Lansing, you have college football, basketball and hockey. There are college bars in Downtown East Lansing. Also, there are a bunch of bars in Downtown Lansing. If you are older, some of the bars in Lansing have an older crowd. The SE campuses, you have the pro sports (Redwings and Lions). There are some really nice areas, such as Royal Oak, that have a decent night life for younger people. There are plenty of intramural sports that you can join at MSU as well.

Reputation: MSU is well established, and has awesome connections to a lot of hospitals in Michigan. It has excellent alumni, which can be an excellent resource to MSUCOM students. We are ranked in the top 10% for Primary Care, if you are into the whole ranking thing. The school is affiliated with a ton of hospitals.


To sum up:

Curriculum: TBD (New Curriculum for incoming medical class)
Location: B+
Cost: A (IS) B-/C+ (OOS)
Faculty: A-
Housing: A
Study space: A
Social scene: A
Reputation: A+
Overall: A
 
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drctother said:
haha oh ok. Just what I heard from a resident who went to KCUMB? (I think? anyway some DO school out east) She said her school did none of this until she started rotations and that not many schools did the early patient encounter from first year...
Click to expand...

First of all KCUMB is not "out east", unless your considering out east as east of CA. Second, KCUMB does patient contact essentially from day one. So must not have been KCUMB.
 
drctother said:
Im going to add to this persons review, as some of it seems to be a little inflated. Not that Western isnt a good school....its just this person seemed to skip some important things

Faculty:
The review on Benninger is correct. Amazing professor, I really wish our Pomona campus had him. However, we also share the majority of faculty (through streaming lectures) so I have had almost all of the same faculty. Our faculty so far (after one semester) is average at best. No where near "A" quality. I really have to question peoples previous education and faculty if they think Westerns faculty is "A" worthy. I went to a pretty good undergraduate school so maybe I just have high expectations when it comes to teaching, but after one semester the majority of faculty either cant teach properly (they are all over the place, nothing is organized) or they have chips on their shoulders and seem to care less how students do (hint* think of our gross anatomy department, minus Kuehn). With that being said, there is a few professors who are amazing and when they are good, they are really good. We had quite a few guest lectures from UCLA, Loma Linda etc and they are experts in their field (ie we had a UCLA med professor who is at the top of the medical genetics field)

Faculty = B-

Technology:
You gave technology an A+ AND you are at the Lebanon campus. It would be one thing for a student at the Pomona campus to give Westerns Technology a good grade, but whenever we stream lectures to Lebanon.......there is usually technical difficulties that hold back lecture. For example an hour lecture becomes 40 minutes simply because the first 20 minutes is spent trying to get the lecture to stream to lebanon properly. This was a HUGE problem back at the beginning of the year (heck one class we only had 25 minutes of lecture in anatomy because the rest of the time was spent fixing the streaming). They have sort of fixed the problems, but once a while there is still a problem with streaming the lecture. Also sometimes the lecture doesnt record, so we cant watch it later online.

Technology (this year) --> C
Technology (next year) --> At least a B, since this is the first year we have streamed to Lebanon and the problems SHOULD be fixed by next year


Overall Grade: B
Click to expand...

Nice additions

The technology is good at the school, but people don't really know how to use it. This seems to be the biggest issue, not the technology itself. So I still give it the grade from before. However, there are problems with its use on both ends. Lebanon is still in its beginner stages and this does bring problems that unfortunately everyone is feeling.

I do enjoy the faculty. Often when I have questions the faculty are very friendly and generally have tried to clear up any confusion. I have been apart of good curriculums as well as bad to malignant ones. Anytime I don't have to hunt down a professor to answer a basic question I'm pretty happy, especially if they actually talk about the problem with you. However, you are right in that this doesn't mean they know how to teach. In that regard (teaching) I'd say your grade is spot on.
 
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twocentnews said:
Any new reviews on NYCOM? It seems most of what has been posted has reflected negatively upon the school and the only real positive reviews dealt with DPC track. Any fresher reviews available?
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I am a NYCOM student and I don't see where the reputation comes from but I think its the fact that we have a lot of residency affiliations and things of that nature. So basically, I guess you have to get through the first two years and hopefully that gets you something in the end because historically, there is a pretty good match every year (maybe due to large volume of students or maybe because of rep). Again, I have not set foot in rotations yet (that starts in August) but thats what I hear around here.

Any specific questions, you can PM me.
 
I posted in this thread a while back (I think I was a first year). Now that I've finished 3rd year rotations, I wanted to pop back in with some additional information.
__________

Curriculum: First and second year curriculum is constantly being altered/improved by the administration. I highly doubt that the curriculum I experienced is the same as what the current 1st years experience, just as mine was different from my classmates who are interns now. Overall, there are some truly excellent, easy-going professors with great open-door policies. Biochem comes to mind. Pathology is taught almost exclusively through online cases in a sort of independent study fashion; it is the only course like this. I personally love that model, because the vast volume of Path material would have taken hours and hours in lecture; it should be noted that I am not a big lecture fan in general (I was a back-of-the-classroom sitter, usually working on a totally different topic). Attendance at lectures is "required" but never strictly enforced. Post-exam days, especially near the end of 2nd year when boards were looming, may have had 30-40% attendance. Overall, we all attended classes in high percentages because we are adults, and it is just polite.

The curriculum is systems-based and divided into 8 blocks over your 1st and 2nd year. I love the systems model; it makes sense to me and was one of the reasons I picked VCOM. For example, Block 4 might be Cardiology. You will cover all Path, Phys, Pharm, Anatomy, etc for the Cardiovascular system. You can make connections and associations in this system that help you retain information. Many schools now use a systems-based approach, and I think it is a big strength.

Tests during my pre-clinical years were almost every single week, if not multiple times a week. It seems psycho at first, but you get used to it. It does force you to stay on top of everything, but getting sick for a few days can also be a problem.

OMM is very good. There is one lab a week plus 1-2 lectures a week devoted solely to OMM. OMM lab also includes a lot of sports-med-related testing. Practicals are run of the mill. On rotations, we are usually the most equipped student on site. Topically, the lecturers cover everything you need to know for boards. They do not teach very much cranial, so bear that in mind if you want to pursue that in your career.

Anatomy is a true strength. Our anatomy lab is amazing, huge and super fancy. There are something like 20-30 cadavers per class, which breaks down into 6 students per donor. Lab groups of 6 are split into 2 periods, so you typically share with 2 other students at a time unless there is a huge dissection that requires the whole group. Most anatomy faculty are great. Practicals occur once or twice a block and encompass all anatomy for that system. They are timed and highly structured...and often curved a bit.

Block 8 is a board review block. I will cover that under the Board Review section below.

The curriculum is ok. Often, the material is not board-relevant, which is frustrating as you near the end of 2nd year. There are only 1 or 2 truly impossible lecturers who write completely ridiculous questions. The other several dozen are reasonably or totally fair. Tests are moderately good, with some being difficult and excellent (Peds and Ob were always written very well), and others with multiple typos or missing answers (some of the Clinical Case Correlates come to mind).

Location: Blacksburg, VA for pre-clinicals. All over the place in clincals (see Rotations). Blacksburg is awesome. It is the college town that houses VA Tech, and I loved living there. It is smaller, but not tiny. You are 30 minutes from Roanoke, which has some trendier restaurants and lounges. Charlottesville is about 3 hours away. Asheville, NC is about the same distance. Columbus, OH is 5 hours. There is lots of outdoorsy stuff to do. During pre-clinicals, you can use all of Va Tech's facilities, including the student center which has bowling, pool and such for next to nothing. You also have access to the gyms, and you are allowed to sign up for the various athletic classes like Yoga, Pilates, etc. It is a family friendly town with beautiful seasons and very minimal snow (usually 1-2 bad storms per winter). There are also several fun festivals each year, like Fork and Cork, as well as a Farmer's Market.

Cost: I'm currently avoiding my loan statements. I honestly don't know how much tuition is right now, but it is mid-to-high-30s + cost of living, which is 13-15K. I know that my estimate for total debt when I graduate was something like 225-235K. I had no undergrad debt, so that should about sum it up. It is middle of the road for DO schools and about on par with any other private med school.

Faculty: See above under Curriculum. 80% good. 10% amazing. 10% awful. I think that is pretty standard for any sort of education, be it college or grad school or professional school.

Reputation: I learned more about this once I got out on rotations, but we have a really good reputation, especially on sites where there are students from other schools (including rotating MD students). VCOM tends to have very friendly classes, and this is evidenced by our interactions with residents and attendings. Many of my classmates are often told how "nice and normal" they are, and almost all of us have been complimented on clinical knowledge that exceeds the attending's expectations. Our match lists are always very nice, and we have residents/alums in some truly amazing spots.

Clinical Rotations: I cannot stress this enough - rotations, regardless of school, are going to be what you make of them. In addition, quality is very site-specific. Think about your med school class. You have lots of pretty smart, pretty nice people; you also have that guy who is a total pervert and some people that might actually be psychopaths. Now imagine they are done with residency and are attendings, because that is who you have as attendings on rotations. Just remember that.

VCOM has core sites all over VA, NC and SC. We also have one or two single rotations in TN. You enter a lottery system in the spring of 2nd year for your site assignment. I am at a site where 9 or my 10 rotations are on site. We have 4 or 5 core sites like that. The other core sites have 3 rotations there, 2 somewhere nearby, 1 in another city, etc. Depending on your needs and your family situation, you can rank the sites to try to meet your needs. VCOM allows special consideration forms to be submitted too; considerations are definitely made for children in school, owning a home, a spouse with a local job and family illness.

Rotations here are like rotations anywhere. Some attendings are amazing and love teaching; you will be challenged and learn. Other attendings are sort of "over it" but won't give you any crap, so you just read on your own and don't cause trouble. I have had two awful attendings on my rotations - one that sexually harassed every female students (reported it), one that seemed upset at life and was amazingly hateful (to everyone, not just me). My classmates have usually had 1 crazy/nutty/hateful/perverted attending in their 10 rotations, which takes me back to my earlier comment about 10% of the people in a class being sort of peculiar.

My site specifics are not particularly relevant, because it may be different when ya'll are 3rd years. Needless to say, we have site reps to answer questions, and VCOM provides plenty of info to help you decide on rankings.

Housing: In Blacksburg, it is great. Loads of apartments and houses at every price point. Very easy to rent. On rotations, it is totally site-specific.

Study areas: At VCOM, there is a large quiet room in the library with outlets. I'm not sure how many spots there are, at least 40. There are also break out rooms upstairs that seat about 10 people. Many also study in the classroom. On rotations, it is site specific. Most hospitals have a medical library for students of varying quality - some like closets, some like conference rooms.

Social Scene: In Blacksburg, it is great. Many students would go out together after tests. Lots of little restaurants and coffee places. We did a lot of social studying too. On rotations, again, site specific. If social interaction is a priority, there are core sites for that.

Local Hospitals: Too many to discuss - http://www.vcom.vt.edu/clinical/hospitals.html

Board Prep: As noted above, Block 8 of 2nd year is board prep. My class was the 2nd class that had this (I'm Class of 2013). It is 50% faculty essentially regurgitating their earlier lectures (not very useful). The other 50% is Dr. Rizk presenting his board prep program (very, very, very good). He also offers Step I and Step II review classes at VCOM just after the academic year ends. He is AMAZING. His material is EXTREMELY high yield. He told us things we had never heard before, and then those things were on boards. The addition of this review (by Dr. Rizk) is a very good thing.

Other: There is a super cute little coffee shop on the 2nd floor that serves breakfast and lunch. They have legitimately good food. The admissions/student services staff are amazing and some of my favorite people. They are always welcoming. This includes, but is not limited to: Julie, Matt, Tyler, Bea and Mr. King. The administration actually walks around and talks to students. Student feedback is relevant and listened to, and VCOM started these review groups called QACs to help facilitate that communication (I ran one during 1st and 2nd year). There is also a massive involvement with medical missions, and the website covers that pretty well.

Summary: Yes, I would go here again. I've been occasionally frustrated, but mostly satisfied. There is a lot of support for students. People in the administration and front office truly care about student welfare, and frankly, that is a huge factor in success in medical school. Pick a school where you feel comfortable.

Curriculum: B+
Location: A
Cost: B+
Financial Aid: B+
Faculty: A
Reputation: A+
Technology: A+
Study Space/Library: A
Library technology/Resources: A-
Rotations: B+
Social: A-
Hospitals: varied

Overall Grade: A-
 
Re: VCOM

So so so jealous your school has a board review block! With that being said, how much independent time do you have after this review block before the boards?
 
docnotsopc said:
Re: VCOM

So so so jealous your school has a board review block! With that being said, how much independent time do you have after this review block before the boards?
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Hmmm. Rotations have made my sense of time pretty shifty.

I feel like we finished up Block 8 right at the end of May last year. You could take boards any time between then and some point in August. It was highly dependent on when students want to take them. I took mine in mid-July; most of my classmates were around my date or a few weeks after that.

VCOM did require that we take Step I before starting rotations. There was also a required COMSAE to be taken 10-14 days before your board date. If you failed the COMSAE, then you had to retake or move your test date. Student who had a particularly difficult time with the COMSAE were able to move their boards to a date after the August date.

I don't know stats on passing, but from the class rumor mill I have heard of 2 or 3 failures on Step 1 (out of about 185 students). Those students obviously took another Step 1 later on in the Fall.
 
From another thread started recently. Although it is presented in a different format than most of this thread, I thought it would still be good to have the info in one place for others on the hunt.

First the questions asked:

aspiringdoc09 said:
1) Is there a regional bias at your institution?
2) What is the teaching style for the first 2 years (i.e. PBL, traditional, 50/50, systems-based, blocks, etc)
3) Are research opportunities availabe? What kinds?
4) OOS Tuition and if scholarships are readily available for incoming students (i.e. For instance, I want to apply to MSU-COM, but the OOS price tag is frightening with no scholarship or grant assistance)
5) Attendance and Dress Code Policy?
6) Student services (i.e. Tutoring, video notes, note-taking service, etc.)?
7) Anything else useful that you wish you had known when you applied?
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The answers from a soon to be LECOM grad:

Soccer171983 said:
Lecom-Erie

1) significant portion of most classes are from pa, oh, NY and mich. I can't say that there is a bias, as I know people from schools from ca, tex, etc.
2) the options are lecture discussion, pbl, independent study. A pcsp pathway with an accelerated (3 year) pathway for primary care specialities.
3) very sparse unless you have prior connections.
4) cheapest of all medical schools in the nation! Tuition is around 27k with a very cheap cost of living. (550 a month one br apt).
5) strict dress code and attendance policies. Guys - dress pants, shirt and tie. Ladies- business attire. No drinks or food in the classroom or anywhere else on campus except for the cafeteria. There are multiple people and cameras throughout the campus that monitor the students.
6) there are note taking services for a fee. Quality depends on scribe. I would recommend printing out your power points before hand and taking your own notes. You could also type directly onto notes section of ppt. Some people voice record lectures. Tutoring is offered if needed.
7) winters in Erie are horrendous and you will need a car for transportation that an handle bad weather. Erie is a small town with minimal night life except a few bar regions. Good athletic facility included in tuition. You set up your own 3/4 year rotations which has ups and downs.

Pm if more info needed. Btw I am a 4th year ( for 3 more days :) )
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