Which POD school programs are where MD/DO/Nursing/PA and DPM students are integrated in classes together?

[blueangel12]

I know that Barry DPM students are separate and do not take classes with any of the other health profession programs (MD, DO, Nursing, PA, etc.) after interviewing with them a few weeks ago. I applied quite late (submitted AACPMAS the week before the deadline) and knew for sure I was a highly unlikely candidate.

I wanted to know about the other 8 POD schools, if they do the same as Barry and are independent and which ones that do class integration with other health profession programs?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Weirdy]

Before we answer,

Why are you specifically looking for programs with integration?
What do you think you will get out of a program that shares a class with other professions?

 

[FuturePodPhysician]

I don’t know of a program that integrates all of those but Midwestern is integrated with DOs (for most classes) and PAs (for one class)

 

[DannyPhantom113]

DMU and Midwestern mix with DO

Scholl mixes with MD, PA, PT, and Nursing.

I think western mixes as well but don't remember

 

[blueangel12]

I gotcha. That is what I was looking for. I was curious to ask, does the integration make the experience much different versus the schools that do not do integration? Does degree of difficulty and the way the curriculum taught drastically different?

DMU and Midwestern mix with DO

Scholl mixes with MD, PA, PT, and Nursing.

I think western mixes as well but don't remember

 

[DoctorBMD]

I gotcha. That is what I was looking for. I was curious to ask, does the integration make the experience much different versus the schools that do not do integration? Does degree of difficulty and the way the curriculum taught drastically different?

I think it is hard for us to compare because not many people get the opportunity to take classes at more than one school.

I am currently at Midwestern, where all of our general science courses are taken with DOs, and we take one class with PAs. We also have opportunities to TA for the dental, optometry, and MA programs. I find that being integrated really helps us learn more about the medical field as a whole (not to mention we have an interprofessional health course).

But if you don’t care about all of that, when I went to study for boards, I was shocked to find how much I didn’t need to study because we had covered it so well in class. (Disclaimer: obviously I still studied for boards, but we usually have only 0-1 of ~30 people fail boards every year, so we are very well prepared).

Although it is kind of annoying to learn so much about things we will never treat outside of residency, it is important to understand how pathology in one part of the body will affect the foot. Our school is probably significantly harder than at least a few of the other schools, simply because the course-load is so strenuous and our general science tests are mainly second- and third-order. With that being said, residency programs understand this and having a slightly lower GPA here will not hurt you. *I am not trying to bash other schools, obviously great podiatrists have come from every school.*

I will say that by the end of general sciences, we all felt like we knew nothing about actual podiatry, but we start clerkships in a couple months, and I feel that we will be more than prepared by that time. (The last 5 months of classes are strictly podiatry-related except for one, which is basically review of systems on steroids).

Additionally, if we are striving for parity, why shouldn’t we learn as much as possible about the body? I think most programs will begin moving in this direction in the future if they haven’t already.

 

[DexterMorganSK]

I gotcha. That is what I was looking for. I was curious to ask, does the integration make the experience much different versus the schools that do not do integration? Does degree of difficulty and the way the curriculum taught drastically different?

No

 

[OblivionDPM]

The only real thing one needs to focus on is based on whether or not you get to learn about stuff that you will be using for the rest of your life. How you decide to utilize the knowledge is on you. Some say that is good to know, some say not so much. It's on you to decide it but the take away is that regardless - all 9 schools prepare you adequately. This is why residency programs tend to not to care where you went to school (unless they are affiliated with a school then of course they are more likely to accept their local students over others).

 

[Packers4lifeDPM]

Apply, go to the interviews, ask questions you have about the programs while there, and find out which one seems to be the best fit for you. If you want to be integrated with DO students and get that type of education because that is something important to you, then choose one of the schools that have that. If you really could care less, then choose a different school. At the end of the day it is on you whether you succeed or not. No one school is perfect at everything. Figure out what you are exactly looking for in a program and then figure out which one seems the best for you. And also look at the area in which the school is located. You have to be able to live there for 3 years.

 

[FootRad5]

Here at Western University of Health Sciences CPM we are fully integrated with the DO class, the only time we split up is for our podiatry specific course and their OMM course. We take all of the same exams in anatomy, clinical skills, and our foundations of medicine classes except their exams will have a few extra questions covering OMM and our exams a few extra questions covering podiatric principles. We are also taking the CBSE (Comprehensive Basic Science Exam) to move towards further parity with DOs/MDs.

 

[DPMStudent159]

At Scholl, the only classes in first year we take with the MD students is Clinical Anatomy and Essentials of Clinical Reasoning. The other classes are pod specific. We do also take Structure and Function (basically a physiology class with histology integrated into it) with the Pathology Assistant students as well. There is also this one class that is basically about Interprofessionalism, that we take with basically ALL professions at Scholl, but this is a Pass/Fail class, no grades even for Pods. 2nd year pod students take pharmacology with 1st year MD students as well. The only benefit of all this is interprofessionalism (which RFUMS takes very seriously and is a major selling point for them for all their programs here).