Can any current students provide their thoughts on TouroNY-Harlem?
Thoughts on TouroNY-Harlem?
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Why does it matter what other OMS students think of a school? In general, most residencies don't care where you went to DO school unless it is a school's home program. Go where you feel the most comfortable, where you don't mind living for 2-4 years, etc.
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It's a pretty meh school. Great staff, okay rotations. Most of anatomy is done with prosections, which I wasn't big on. It was my fourth choice overall. If you really like NYC, who cares what other DO students think though? They seem to have a decent match list and reputation in the NYC area.
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I respectfully disagree with MadJack. First, I am not sure where he got this prosection thing from. My experience: Anatomy lab is classical anatomy, you dissect a cadaver using the Grant's dissector manual. The anatomy faculty does a nice job providing high quality prosections when us students didn't do a great job. Especially things the students really need to have a good view of. But those prosections are things you have at least attempted to dissect on you cadaver during the lab sessions. As for the quality of instruction I would rate it as very good if not excellent. I think "meh" is not an appropriate descriptor of the school's curriculum or instruction. Immunology for example, I don't think there's a better taught course ANYWHERE. I mean, you will know that **** COLD, all of it. Anatomy, a solid course. Pharmacology and Biochemistry, outstanding,. OMM.....where do I start. OMM will give you a right rogering at TOUROCOM-Harlem. You will know OMM inside and out by the time they're done with you. You will curse it for being so damn intense but you will laugh at OMM questions on the COMLEX in comparison to what you went through. What needs improvement? Well, the neighborhood is kinda tough, no open spaces on the campus grounds to speak of, so you're not going to be playing Frisbee in the quad or anything like that. But who gives a ****, play Frisbee on your own time. You will be educated by some very smart people. You will be challenged and you will cry uncle before the end of your second semester exam schedule. And you will be given everything you need to do well on the boards. The instruction is very focused to what the boards are testing and this is not coincidental. These people are not wasting your time with a bunch of esoteric crap that is non-testable (except for OMM, you will learn way above and beyond anything you need to know, but it does includes all the core stuff you need). They are also very concerned with metrics. You are constantly having exams and looking at feedback concerning your deficiencies and strengths. Again, these people WILL prepare you for boards, they want you to do well. What else can I say. Its an academically rigorous program, you will sweat and bleed, but you will get a solid education. Its a very good school, you would be very fortunate if you were offered a spot here. I hope this is what you are looking for. And before you get confused (if you look at any of my old posts), yes I went to their PA program 12 years ago and now am in their DO program. I am talking about their DO program specifically here. MadJack were you at Harlem or Middletown? I'm curious as to why you feel the school is just "meh" (I'm not looking for a fight, I'm just genuinely curious why you feel this way).
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That's an in depth summary of Touro Harlem. Would this also be true for Touro Middletown with respect to the curriculum? Is the 2nd year also focused on board prep rather than pre-clinical medicine?
Hi Dean! With all due respect, your shilling of the school is a fail.
-Anatomy and Neuroanatomy is literally one third of first year and 99% unnecessary. Every school covers anatomy in good enough depth to answer the one/two netter's blue box questions that'll show up on the boards.
- OMM is a crazy waste of time AND this years class got their ass kicked on the shelf because the OMM faculty went off the rails in terms of what they covered versus what they're supposed to cover.
-CS AND primary care systems?? That's one full day of time waste. Literally zero learning done, but congrats on wasting one full day of the students' week, every week.
-90% of the class shows up to browse facebook/reddit because of the dumb attendance policy
-Teaching out of first aid IS NOT a good policy. The teachers just deliver and emphasize factoids. Did you know an embarrassingly high proportion of students still dont know very very simple basics like alkalosis and acidosis? Do you know why this happens? Because everyone is busy having their days wasted in school and nights wasted memorizing factoids rather than learning the big picture.
Lastly, nice job on having a ****tier match list despite having a student body that:
a) has the highest entry stats among DO schools
b) disproportionately high rate of students that have an smp (basically 3 years to do the 2 preclinical years)
c) students that have the most research opportunities with all the hospitals in our neighborhood
If anything there is a bigger discrepancy between DO schools than MD schools. With no standardized clinical curriculum like MD schools have, the DO school you go to and their rotation set-up means everything. This type of thinking that lead to strip mall DO schools continuing to exist.
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Doczebra are you a classmate of mine? If so. please PM me. Also please lay of the name calling, I did nothing to deserve that aside from giving my opinion of the school.
PS: I don't shill for anyone, never have never will.
To everyone besides Doczebra: Its a solid school, you'll get out what you put in.
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I don't see any "name calling"....nor do I see any refutations to said statements. If you expect to have your opinions respected, you'll have to offer the same. And consider providing a constructive response instead of just deflecting it.
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Wow, I'm a little taken back here. OK then. How about: "Hi Dean and My Shilling is a fail?" First off, my name's not Dean nor am I "the Dean", hence: namecalling. Secondly, My post is a fail? That's not very nice. I took a bit of time to write it. I really hoped my effort might be of some use to others.
And I do respect the opinions of others. You'll see that's why I use softening phrases like "I respectfully disagree", also please notice that I didn't go toe to toe on Doczebra's post. Again, it goes back to respecting the opinion of others (this was not deflection). Her post appears to be quite passionate and detailed in and of itself. I don't think her effort was a "fail" just because I disagree with the sentiments in it. Also, I do try to provide very detailed and constructive responses. Please take a moment and have a look. You might disagree, and that's OK with me. I have no expectation that my opinion be respected. I'm no one of any importance or consequence.
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Fair enough. I guess what I meant to say was that if your initial post was meant to be informative or helpful to prospectives (you can't deny that you sound pretty heavily one-sided - you even refute your own (only) suggestion for improvement), it would benefit them to hear what you have to say in regards to doczebra's comments. I suppose it was the "please PM me" that I felt would be unfair to those who stumble upon this. But I'm also no one of significant and you don't owe anyone anything.
It's not an opinion. Care to explain why our board performance is abysmal? Ignoring comlex which every student with a pulse can score 600+, it's embarrassing that we barely have any students break 230 and that 20% of our students fail step 2.
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Curriculum aside, I didn't pick this school mainly because I didn't want to pay stupid high rent prices for a tiny ****ty apartment, and I have been told that many students spend almost 1.5-2 hours a DAY just commuting to and from the school. That's a lot of time I don't have to waste as a medical student. Yeah sure, I can study while on the subway, but I still have to wake up like 2 hours earlier every day and get home later every day.
That is if you live on the other side of manhattan. If you live down the street like a majority of the class then it is 20min maximum
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Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I was busy studying for the boards. Thanks for the motivation by the way, it went well. Anyway, I looked and looked, but I haven't been able to find the USMLE data you indicated. I'm not calling you a liar or anything, I just couldn't find USMLE data, that's all. So please, don't have a meltdown. Anyway, if you might indulge my not ignoring the COMLEX for a moment (because as you know, a 600+ is an 84th percentile score, so I am not so sure that having a pulse is the only pre-requisite to achieving such a number), I was able to dig up this from my email in late July 2016:
"The Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine COMLEX-USA Level 1 board scores were released for 202 of the 270 candidates of the Harlem and Middletown campuses.
We are proud to report that our combined student body performed above the national average of 95.28%!! " (I didn't punctuate, bold or underline that, the Dean did.)
Is shabby?
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It's pretty concerning they held back 62 students from taking the exam.
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I hadn't heard that, do you know (not guess, know) if it was it at the beginning, mid-point or at the end of semester 4? As you know, they do a few sittings of the COMSAE exam in the last pre-clinical semester (early, mid and end). OB-GYN is your last module (and a significant source of points on COMSAE) so you get a nice bump right at the end. They test you early (March) to reality check you early. You have to make an acceptable performance on COMSAE (475) before they'll let you take COMLEX. They don't mess around with that requirement. If you don't make the benchmark, you are going to be doing extra study until you do. Again, they want you to get you through the boards and if 95% of eventual takers score above the national average, I'd say that's a successful strategy. Anyway, I'll see if I can find out what the final numbers were for first time and overall pass rate at some point. I'm curious to see what the final numbers are now that the dust has settled.
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I can't speak the the class that most recently took Step 1, but I doubt the entire 62 students were "held back." While second year classroom instruction didn't end as early for us as it did for the current third years, a number of my classmates deferred and deferred and deferred into clinicals. I know of at least one person who took it as late as December. We are also required to score at least a 475 on COMSAE before we would be released to register for the actual exam, although I don't know of anyone who didn't hit that target before third year started.
Whatever the reasons, the first-time pass rate was well above the national average, and we were told that our average USMLE score was the highest of any class to date.
We kept getting beaten over the head about Level 2, although some of that seemed to take the form of shilling for Conrad Fischer's review class, which bugged me. We haven't gotten any numbers yet, but hell, I passed and improved a little over Level 1.
And I don't know that the most recent class' match list was bull****. They had a neurosurgery and multiple orthos.
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What I've heard from current 4th years is that there is essentially no 3rd year curriculum, and many core rotations are jokes in and of themselves (i.e. people don't care of you show up or not, you have very little involvement in anything, and a lot of it is just shadowing). They just recently made the shelfs a requirement, yet they don't factor into your 3rd year scores and the cutoffs for passing is in the 40s range for most shelfs when the national averages for shelfs in general is in the low to mid 70s. Apparently, also the only penalty for failing was having to retake it. Basically a lot of people don't study in all of 3rd year, and there's no reason to in terms of school requirements, so a bunch of the non-motivated people fail or score really low.
Now this is only what I've heard from multiple current 4th years. I have no idea if the curriculum has changed at all to address this. I personally was shocked by it though.
You can't even register for it before the school's OK based on a COMSAE? That's kind of messed up. My school has a cutoff too, but its more like pressure to delay (an already scheduled COMLEX), not a hard requirement where they don't let you register until later.
My guess is that the reason 68 people hadn't taken it by then is more than just people "deferring". If it's that strict of a policy, I'm sure there were some people that straight up weren't allowed to take it yet. You just might not know them personally in a class of 270. And it's not like they'd advertise it.
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They had a few decent specialty matches.
That could explain a bit of why step 2 is so bad, but what about step 3?
Also, Touro rotates at some hospitals which have pretty decent reputations. Staten Island is supposed to be pretty good place. Also, aren't kingsbrook and the bergen county hospitals fairly good?
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Bad habits die hard? I don't know. Maybe a lot of people want to stay in NYC, and most of the residencies there are kind of known for working you to death and some make you do ridiculous scut like drawing and running your own labs. Maybe there's no time to study for a lot of people. That's just a guess though, I really have no idea.
The cutoff for passing a shelf (unless that's changed this year) is to be within two SDs of the national average, and I don't think there was a single one where the cutoff was as low as the 40s. The 50s yes. The consequence isn't a retake as far as I know, it's that your preceptor grade is lowered. I can't speak to many of the core rotations, but for the ones I did (at SIUH) the only ones that were 100% shadowing were the OP portions of Peds and OB/GYN, but that's done elsewhere because the SIUH OB program is openly hostile to DOs. I can't speak to most of the other programs, but my closest friend was at ORMC, and he seemed to have a great deal to do.
It's definitely true that there's no real 3rd year curriculum aside from monthly OMM lectures at the sites that may or may not actually happen (it's done on the Middletown campus for the students at ORMC, but otherwise in hospital lecture halls or conference rooms), and they're sparsely attended at best. But that just means you need to be self-motivating. The lack of any formal review (that doesn't require the school subsidizing Fischer more than they already do) is a failing and the lack of any dedicated study time for Level 2 is an even bigger one, IMO. But if you're not enough of a self-starter to keep your nose in the books and on Q banks without someone over your shoulder, that's on you.
Even worse, if you scored below 450 on Level 1, you have to do the same for Level 2.
I can't speak to the experiences of the 2018 class. I know very few of them that are from Harlem and I know a single person at Middletown. But for all of the late takers in my class, only two that I know of were due to the COMSAE requirement.
Ah, yes, the famous SDN "If it doesn't appeal to me personally, it's bad" maxim.
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You know what? Forget it, I don't want to argue about matches. I don't really care. You might be right and for all I know the upperclassmen I've been talking to are idiots.
What I would like to ask you is about what you said about Staten Island University Hospital. What do you mean by "there are departments openly hostile to DOs?" Why on earth would Touro rotate at hospitals where they hate us? That sounds incredibly toxic. I was looking forward to rotating at staten island, too...
I can't speculate on the IM and FM matches. I don't know a whole lot about the 2016 demographics, but if it's similar to my class, there are a lot of married students with children, and in those cases, it might be that they wanted to stay around the city (which is pretty common with Touro) and were willing to accept "lesser" programs in order to do that. A lot of them don't appeal to me personally, but I can't say that it's impossible for them to appeal to someone. Also, I don't know if their less-than-stellar COMLEX 2 rates contributed.
And frankly, the EM and Psych matches are mostly great. The Path match at Drexel was that person's top choice. I just think we get too hung up on who has the best, most prestigious residency, and lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day, we're still doing the job we want to be doing.
They don't hate us. There are a number of Touro alumni who are residents in several programs (IM, EM, Surgery, and Psych), and at least two (Peds and IM) attendings. And more broadly, there are DOs residents/fellows in most of the specialities. I've never actually counted, but Psych is probably 50/50, if not majority DO at this point.
But for whatever reason, the OB/GYN PD refuses to look at DOs. They don't let us rotate there, and they don't take them for residency as far as I am aware. It's one department in an otherwise terrific hospital. Don't let one jerk ruin what's otherwise a great experience.
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Does anyone have any experience rotating at any of the other hospitals besides the NJ Consortium and SIUH? Like Kingsbrook, Trinitas, etc.
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One more question: What's the deal with Hackensack UMC? It seems like some years Touro rotates there and it some years it doesn't? Everyone tells me that when/if Hackensack is available for rotations, it's by far the best rotation site. I know it's one of Rutger' sites but I thought Touro rotates there to sometimes?
I can't tell you anything about them. As far as I know, it wasn't offered for my class and I don't think it's offered for the current 3rd years either. I didn't even know it was a site.
We have lost spots at some places, like Trinitas, because the Caribbean schools throw a bunch of money at the hospitals. That's how we ended up with Kingsbrook.
We have lost spots at some places, like Trinitas, because the Caribbean schools throw a bunch of money at the hospitals. That's how we ended up with Kingsbrook.
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Hackensack will be the main teaching hospital for the Seton Hall, a new MD school in New Jersey. Touro kids have just a few more years before they are kicked out of there too.
What bugs me the most about Touro is not the match list or the shady admission standards but the fact that the school has a mission to serve the underprivileged communities of Harlem but have no clinical affiliates in the entire state of New York besides Staten Island Hospital (which isn't even near Harlem). 3/4ths+ of the students rotate at posh private community hospitals in New Jersey (none of which are trauma centers so you probably won't see much anyway). Open up a free clinic down the road, have your pharmacy students give out free flu vaccines, send your students to the community elementary/middle schools for health education, community diabetes education programs, send students to Harlem Hospital for rotations (YES, it will cost $$$ but shouldn't that be the point of tuition?).... Don't do a blood pressure/ blood glucose screening once every few months and claim you are serving the people of Harlem.
Most students live in UpperWestSide for 2 years and go to Touro, go to New Jersey for rotations, then go to wherever their residency is and forget all about Harlem. STOP using Harlem as your little play toy and waive it in applicants' faces that you're located in a disadvantaged community only to do the bare minimum to keep that mission valid. People have been abusing Harlem for personal gain for a century and its sad that Touro is just another chapter in that book.
What bugs me the most about Touro is not the match list or the shady admission standards but the fact that the school has a mission to serve the underprivileged communities of Harlem but have no clinical affiliates in the entire state of New York besides Staten Island Hospital (which isn't even near Harlem). 3/4ths+ of the students rotate at posh private community hospitals in New Jersey (none of which are trauma centers so you probably won't see much anyway). Open up a free clinic down the road, have your pharmacy students give out free flu vaccines, send your students to the community elementary/middle schools for health education, community diabetes education programs, send students to Harlem Hospital for rotations (YES, it will cost $$$ but shouldn't that be the point of tuition?).... Don't do a blood pressure/ blood glucose screening once every few months and claim you are serving the people of Harlem.
Most students live in UpperWestSide for 2 years and go to Touro, go to New Jersey for rotations, then go to wherever their residency is and forget all about Harlem. STOP using Harlem as your little play toy and waive it in applicants' faces that you're located in a disadvantaged community only to do the bare minimum to keep that mission valid. People have been abusing Harlem for personal gain for a century and its sad that Touro is just another chapter in that book.
Huh? Trinitas and NJRMEC are in Jersey, but everything else is in New York except Aria, which is only a fourth-year site. SIUH isn't even the only one in the city. And between the two, it's maybe a third of the students, nowhere near 3/4ths.
There are so many, many things to criticize the school for, but criticize the schools actual numerous failings, not hyperbole.
Harlem Hospital Center was a carrot that was dangled in front of us for years, even though the administration knew full well it was never going to happen.
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Agree. Harlem has very few actual hospitals, and Harlem Hospital is almost completely owned by Columbia, who are not exactly famous for sharing. At least I think that's the issue. I've spoken to a few doctors at Harlem hospital who tell me that columbia is the main barrier to having other schools' students there. Pay for rotations? I think you'd have to outspend columbia, who has an enormous endowment and tuition that makes Touro look like a state school. However, one or two students have told me that Harlem Hospital is amenable to Touro students setting up their own rotations there.
Opening a clinic in harlem would be incredible but I think there are way more barriers to that than money.
And you're forgetting one very important way Touro actually does serve Harlem: by giving Minority students from harlem strong preference in admission.
MD schools dont pay for rotations. Having the school pay hospitals for rotations is a DO and Caribbean thing. Even NYMC which is owned by the Touro system, doesn't pay hospitals for its rotations.
Touro should be more focused on not losing the best sites we previously had like Hackensack University Medical Center and Trinitas.
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Can you say more about that? Do you mean all DO schools need to pay for rotations while MDs get them for free? Is that a rule? Why is that?
Also, if MDs don't pay, why do they say that MD schools "have contracts" with hospitals?
A lot of MD schools run their own programs/GME. SIUH's GME is done through Hofstra, but they used to be part of SUNY Downstate and so there are still a lot of Downstate students there.
It's also more complicated in New York, because there are so damned many medical schools and relatively few hospitals to go around.
It's also more complicated in New York, because there are so damned many medical schools and relatively few hospitals to go around.
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Woot! Woot! LECOM at least owns hospitals now. I'm not going to be surprised if Touro buys ORMC. I mean, my tuition is going somewhere, and it's certainly not to expanded opportunities at Harlem. Or even like building maintenance, at least according to the emails from the interim dean.
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I have some friends who work at two of the Touros. From what they tell me, Touro's MOA is more like LECOM's, which is not one given to buying hospitals, but rather opening more and more professional schools..
I can't recommend Touro-NY given the massive screw up they had this past cycle in overbooking seats, and how they treated thier acceptees.
I can't recommend Touro-NY given the massive screw up they had this past cycle in overbooking seats, and how they treated thier acceptees.
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Ya'll are living in fairy tale land. LECOM has about 2,080 medical students across its 3 medical "campuses" and Millcreek Community Hospital is a tiny community hospital in the Erie suburbs with about 150 beds. Most of the residency programs the hospital ran are now closed or are in the process of merging into other programs (Ortho is closing, ENT closed, gas closed, cardio closed, etc.). It's pretty well known, both on and off SDN, that LECOM only has about 70 slots in Florida but the Bradenton campus has about 200 students per class. They just lost Orlando Regional hospital and Largo and things are going to get worse once Nova's MD campus opens. LECOM students are known to live suitcase to suitcase between rotations unless you are in the upper quartile of your class (students with higher grades are given preferences for rotations). LECOM had a Level-2 first time pass rate of 84% this year, one of the lowest in the country, which reflects just how seriously impaired the clinical education is at LECOM. The national average across all DO schools is 94%, just to give you a standard. That's about 84 students that didn't pass! That's a ridiculous number!
I don't know much about LECOM besides what I've heard about from students that I've rotated with. I think I've met a few from Bradenton, and I think the only person I've ever met from Erie is a resident at SIUH.
I don't know about Middletown, but Harlem is kind of an island unto itself. We don't even interact with the Pharm students, and we share a building with them. I'm honestly not even sure what the relationship is with TUCOM and TUCOM-NV beyond the name.
I don't know about Middletown, but Harlem is kind of an island unto itself. We don't even interact with the Pharm students, and we share a building with them. I'm honestly not even sure what the relationship is with TUCOM and TUCOM-NV beyond the name.
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That's exactly what it is...separate schools with shared names. They're competitors, really. Ditto AZCOM and CCOM, the PCOMs, the Westerns and now NYITCOMs.
The only people who really benefit from all this are the parent schools or bodies.
The only people who really benefit from all this are the parent schools or bodies.
Agreed!
I believe Touro is awesome and definitely not a cash grab. Looks like they made 23 million in profit just from Harlem campus in 2013. (And that's before opening middletown)
With the 10k tuition rise since then, opening of middletown, and higher profit margin in middletown, Touro's probably profiting over 50 million this year.
http://www.aacom.org/docs/default-source/data-and-trends/fy2013-RevandExpbyCOM.pdf?sfvrsn=36
