Curriculum: Systems based applications-focused curriculum. See the systems twice. First year embryology, biochem, anatomy, and normal physio is of focus. Second year is of pathology, pharm, clinical management focused. Longitudinal courses include Bioinformatics, Bioethics, Principles of Clinical Medicine (doctoring course), and osteopathic schools. These four other classes will be what make your week either smooth sailing or absolute hell. You can have grand rounds, PCM competency (think of these as oral boards), OS competency, and a midterm for your main block in a single week. Other weeks you'll have nothing. The good side to them is that they are integrated pretty well through the blocks. So when you are on MSK looking at limb anatomy you'll be learning how to perform tests of the knee, arm, hip, foot. In your cardiopulmonary section you'll learn how to perform a basic heart and lung exam and what to look for (murmurs, rales, ronchi, wheezing, etc).
The curriculum is hard but DOABLE. Everyone has survived. 50 ppl have not dropped out because of how rigorous it is.
Probably the biggest negative here is that you are only given a month off for summer. Most formal research fellowships for medical students call for at minimum a 2 month commitment. So that's essentially out.
Location: The campus is located on the northeast side of KC which has unfortunately been riddled with crime and poverty so you won't be spending time outside the campus. The positive here is that Score 1 allows us to serve this inner city population through school screenings and is honestly great because 1) you are reminded of why you are doing all this studying in the first placed and 2) community service hours. The other plus is that you are 5 minutes away from downtown and less than 10-15 minutes away from some good eats (that span far beyond BBQ, KC has some awesome places for Thai, Ramen, Sushi, Curry, Greek, Middle Eastern...the only thing is that no burger joint here comes close to In-n-Out Burger
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Living is decent here. I have seen it range from 600-1200 a month for housing which coming from CA, is very cheap. There are places to live that are 5 min away from school if you don't want to live in Century Towers.
Cost: 43K a year. Very hefty price but you do get what you "paid" far which at this point for anyone matriculating next year will include an absolutely stunning administration building that goes far beyond administration (team based learning classrooms with some great tech, conference rooms, study rooms, coffee shops, etc etc). You'll probably see the start of building a huge med/surg simulation center as well as a new building for a gym, cafeteria, etc etc. Expensive but I think you are getting a solid payback for the investment.
Faculty: Range from amazing to OK. Some professors come from a very basic science background and teach as such (minute details all day). Others teach in a very clinical manner and will teach as such as well. Dr. Dubin brought over some incredible faculty to teach but at the same time (prob due to conflicts) much of the older faculty have left for other schools. You can sometimes feel this tension between the old dog and new dog and IMO it is detrimental to the students. The school have been hiring some amazing faculty so far with a focus on hiring clinical faculty (a DO hospitalist, an MD pathologist) who help us integrate basic science knowledge into a working form. We get an advisor the beginning of the year so we are able to speak with them as well. The open door policy is there for all faculty which is really nice but for the most part, we try to stay off their tracks if we can.
Reputation: KCU has a strong reputation in KC. The two neighboring med schools UMKC and KU med have done their best to work with us in order to build KC into a top performing biomedical research area as well as a stronghold for clinical medicine. I think this tri-institutional force have formed this pact because they acknowledge their specific missions (UMKC with their accelerated BS/MD program, KU Med with their academic research, KCU with their huge impact through community service and PC med) but know they have to work together to accomplish such a task.
Clinical rotations: OK imo. Only about half of the 270 can stay in KC. The others go to places like Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, etc etc etc and TBD (new sites in Las Vegas). This is the one thing that is a downfall here. The idea of having to up and move after 2 years away from your home inst is daunting and I feel it will be beneficial of the school to cut down on the preceptor based/outpatient focused rotation sites and to increase sites with resident teams and require students to attend didactics, night float, etc etc.
Housing: Much housing. Such cheap.
Study areas: The academic center, student activites center, smith hall, library all have study areas. Some go back to Century Towers to study, others go to the lil coffee shops that make KC the new hipster haven it has become.
Social scene: Art is a big thing here. There's a jazz district. We have a stunning performing arts studio, ballet center, theater. By far one of the best and most jaw dropping art museums I've ever seen (reserve 3-4 hours to completely round through this gargantuan place, it's FREE). Power and Light District as well as Westport are the places to go if you wanna pretend like you're in college and high school again (get absolutely smashed). If you're more of the fancy pants there's places like White Oak Plaza Shopping Center, Zona Rosa, The Plaza, and Briarcliff Center that have some very high end place to shop (though I doubt most of you will be doing much of that on the med school budget!).
Local hospitals: If you stay in KC for third year you get to rotate at KU Med, St. Lukes, Shawnee Mission, North Kansas City Hospital, etc etc. There's a ton of places here to rotate at.
Preparation for boards: Your first two years will center on board prep. From block one you will be asked board style questions and be timed at boards-level (it will bump down to 75 seconds per questions). For standardized patient interviews you will be expected to perform at board level (14 minutes for the interview, 9 minutes to write the SOAP note). At the end of first year and throughout second year you won't be using First Aid as your source to pass tests, you will be the kid walking around with Big Robbins trying to memorize as much as possible since you will be tested on minute details (think literally a sentence found in the genetic dispositions portion of a disease) regarding specific diseases as well as the big concepts. Sounds daunting and I'm sure people complain about it left and right but hell, it's worked to boost up board scores every time.
Chances of specializing: Around 50% of classes do in fact specialize. Obviously we have to make a point here that if you are gunning cardiothoracic, neurosurgery, ENT, plastics, derm, you'll be shooting for an AOA-focused ACGME program and not ACGME university program for these. However we have had students match plastics, neurosurgery and other specialities at UMKC and KU Med (ACGME university programs).
Dress Code, Policies, Administration: Casual dress for class. Scrubs or other loose fitting clothes for PCM and OS labs. Formal Attire for standardized patient interviews. There's a strict policy on absences to labs and all absence requests must be made through the assistant dean of curricular affairs. Other than that it's very laid back here.
Report Card
Curriculum: A
Location: B
Cost: B
Financial Aid: A
Faculty: B+
Reputation:A
Technology: A
Study Space/Library: A
Library technology/Resources: A
Rotations: C+/B-
Social: A
Hospitals: N/A
Post Grad: A
Cafeteria Food: A
Cafeteria Prices: A-
Overall Grade: A-/A
Final Comments: Very impressed with the school so far. Have not had anything thrown at me that makes me regret coming here at all. Obviously there's some areas of improvement but that's with any school.
