VCOM-CC vs. University of New England

[BiochemGrad14]

If anyone could comment on major pros and cons of either school I would greatly appreciate it.

Some factors about UNE:
-The grading system seems better at UNE (honors, pass, fail)
-UNE is only 1 hour from my current home and family
-I know students have to set up all their own rotations at UNE, which I imagine is a hassle

Some factors about VCOM-CC:
-The weather seems better in South Carolina
-VCOM is 13K cheaper a year and cost living is significantly less
-I don't love the idea of a dress code, required attendance, or ABCDF grading
-I know VCOM-CC is pretty new as well and not as well established as UNE

I would particularly like some insight into the clinical years

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[Mad Jack]

You don't set up your third year rotations at UNE, I have no idea where you got that idea. You are assigned a clinical campus and do them all at that one site. In fourth year, you set up your rotations like you do at every other medical school in the country. It's done through a centralized system that all medical students in the country use and is fairly user friendly and easy to navigate.

https://www.aamc.org/students/medstudents/vsas/

The weather at UNE can be brutal, but you're from the area, so you're used to it. We do have mandatory preceptor dress on Fridays for our professional conferences. As to the grading at UNE, it's a mostly pass-fail system, in which your Dean's letter is based mostly on your ECs. We've got a decent OPTI, but certainly not the best. Our reputation is excellent throughout New England though, so if you're looking to do residency in NE, I'd go with UNECOM over VCOM-CC.

 

[BiochemGrad14]

You don't set up your third year rotations at UNE, I have no idea where you got that idea. You are assigned a clinical campus and do them all at that one site. In fourth year, you set up your rotations like you do at every other medical school in the country. It's done through a centralized system that all medical students in the country use and is fairly user friendly and easy to navigate.

https://www.aamc.org/students/medstudents/vsas/

The weather at UNE can be brutal, but you're from the area, so you're used to it. We do have mandatory preceptor dress on Fridays for our professional conferences. As to the grading at UNE, it's a mostly pass-fail system, in which your Dean's letter is based mostly on your ECs. We've got a decent OPTI, but certainly not the best. Our reputation is excellent throughout New England though, so if you're looking to do residency in NE, I'd go with UNECOM over VCOM-CC.

Thank you for your input. A Tufts-Maine Track student bad mouthing UNE told me about the rotation thing, but I'm glad to know its not a big hassle.

 

[Mad Jack]

Thank you for your input. A Tufts-Maine Track student bad mouthing UNE told me about the rotation thing, but I'm glad to know its not a big hassle.

Here's the list of clinical campuses and their associated hospitals for third year at UNE: http://www.une.edu/com/predoc/clerkships/clinical-campuses

 

[hallowmann]

The big decision you need to make is about cost. Can you stomach the extra $15k/yr ($60k total, probably something like ~$120k-$180k total throughout the life of the loan - essentially the value of 1 year as a primary care attending)? This is an entirely personal question. You're going to be taking out plenty of loans either way.

Eliminating cost, I'd choose UNECOM. It's more established, they seem to do fine in boards and the match, and judging from your list, it seems like it has more overall pros for you. Weather is really not that important. I'd almost argue that being able to set up all of 4th year yourself is a pro, not a con. That's basically the year you want to be free to set up any way you want (for auditions, subI's, etc.). As long as you don't have to set up your 3rd year cores, I think it's a pro.

The VCOM cons also don't really seem like a big deal to me, but maybe they are to you and it'll make a difference when you're going through it. My recommendation is to talk to as many students from each school as you can (2nd yrs and upperclassmen) and find out what they love and hate about the schools and whether any of those are a big deal to you.

Honestly, even with the cost, I feel inclined to pick UNECOM. If you feel you will be more successful there based on the curriculum, atmosphere, etc. that honestly might be worth 1 yr of attending salary. It's really a decision only you can make though.

No matter what, in the end, you'll be attending a solid school, so don't stress too much about making the "wrong" choice.

 

[s5260205]

Here's the list of clinical campuses and their associated hospitals for third year at UNE: http://www.une.edu/com/predoc/clerkships/clinical-campuses

If there is one clinical campus you really want to go, how likely would you be able to get the campus? Maine Medical Center seems to be the largest teaching hospital on the list, but I would imagine it's also very competitive.

 

[referee3]

UNECOM. All the way

 

[Mad Jack]

If there is one clinical campus you really want to go, how likely would you be able to get the campus? Maine Medical Center seems to be the largest teaching hospital on the list, but I would imagine it's also very competitive.

MMC is the one you're by far the least likely to get. We only have 8 positions there, unfortunately, as we were sort of pushed out of MMC by the Tufts students. The class decides how we will match sites, and we haven't yet decided on the system, but if it's anything like last year, it will be one-way Match-style system in which you rank all of the sites, and, in the case of ties, everyone gets together in a room and discusses why each person should get a given site (generally people that have houses, family, etc in a given city are more likely to have people agree that they deserve the spot, for instance). If there's no clear-cut decision then, things move to a lottery. But each class can come up with whatever system they want, so long as its fair. Depending on how the system works, you might be more or less likely to get MMC by ranking it (say, for instance, a lot of people play it safe and pick a place other than MMC as their number one, since they'd most likely just be burning their top spot if they picked MMC) due to the way the system can affect the number of people applying.

 

[arewethereyet...]

I'm in my second year at UNECOM, I know nothing about VCOM, but one thing I would say about UNECOM is that you are very much on your own for the boards. They train us exceptionally well for third year, we are known throughout New England for being better than kids from Tufts, Dartmouth, etc. which is awesome because it's way harder to train yourself in clinical skills than it is to study for the boards. And as a result we ROCK step 2.

I love that our lectures are recorded so I can do my studying at home at my pace (usually 2x). Not a whole lot is mandatory in second year which I love. Only you know how you will fare with mandatory class. At this point only a small fraction (<1/3) of our class attends lecture while the rest of us are studying for the boards which sounds entirely different from VCOM so definitely something you should think about. Another thing is that the class size recently increased but the amount of study space basically stayed the same. I have more or less given up on studying at school because it would take me too long to find a quiet spot. I personally think the team based learning is a load of bull s*** but I don't think that's specific to UNECOM. If you're interested in Geriatrics or Neurology UNECOM is a great place to come, Dr. G is doing "cutting edge" stuff for geriatrics, there are many unique opportunities and Dr. Willard's neuroanatomy block in second year is AMAZING.

As for clinical years as you've seen we get sent all over the place and from everything I've heard Portland is the weakest place because we "are not wanted" there. Also I'd say Bangor is probably the best place to go 3rd year if you can handle being that far away (though apparently they are getting a Chipotle lol). It's a huge hospital that services a huge chunk of Maine- tons of great opportunities. The past two years sites have been decided by ranking- we had to rank 6 sites and I believe >70% got their first choice and all but 5 people got one of their top 3 choices. Our choices were made anonymous and then the people (classmates) in charge sorted them by hand. I'm not sure what Mad Jack was talking about- there was no lottery, there were no discussions. The lottery is what happens if the class can't agree to do it the way it's been done for the past 2 years. Like other schools we have 6 weeks of ob/gyn, surgery, family med, peds, psych, and 12 weeks of internal meds. On top of that we have 4 weeks of community med and 2 weeks of electives. We start first week of August and go until mid July. It seems like other schools end earlier than that which gives them more time to take step 2 and do their showcase electives.


TL;DR UNECOM is awesome, if I could go back in time I would definitely pick it again.