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I'm a fourth year and I have a month off right now, so I've got some time. There were a couple of things I will add to Dr. Bubbles assessment of OHSU with regard to questions from another.
It's a good school for the most part, but like all other med schools it definately has its issues which is fine, but you should be aware of them. All things equal, I'm very glad to be a student at OHSU, I think it's prepared myself and my classmates VERY well for residency and beyond.
Enjoy it now because this is not true during your third year clerkships when grades account for 2/3 of the value of your dean's letter. I still didn't feel an aura of competitiveness though during my third year clerkships. Everybody was pretty chill in my "track" which was very nice. Of course, this is just the luck of the draw though.
Also, grades come very late from clinical clerkships which has been a constant source of angst for students.
There are opportunities to do research, but in reality when looking around it was actually a little more difficult to find someone that was actually really willing to mentor a medical student in a way that was worthwhile.
As for summer research, there was only one to two I could find willing to have me help and get paid at the same time. Most wanted me to find my own funding in order to work in their lab.
That being said I found an incredible mentor during the end of my second year. You can go abroad during the summer of the first year or during fourth year, but I'd imagine it's just as easy at any other med school and not specific to OHSU.
Maybe....H&P's are very different with regard to what service your on, what your resident and attendings want etc. I don't think that as a result of spending two years learning to do an H&P you'll spend more time learning OB and Surgery. H&P's mean very different things with regard to different services. At OHSU, there really is no such thing as a medstudent H&P in OB. There is a gigantic white board stuffed into a little room where you and about fifteen other docs and students get updated on the patients on the floor during shift change. You round on the post-partum folks and write a very brief note some ridiculous hour in the morning when your on your week of clinic rotation or something like that. Even when I did a week on GynOnc I didn't write one H&P. Surgical H&P's are a little bit different than what PCM will teach you (remember that PCM is taught by Department of Family Medicine). You do five weeks of surgery at OHSU and rotate on one of a few different services.
There is emergency general surgery, surgical oncology, foregut and minimally invasive, and colorectal/bariatric teams and then students who do their rotations at community hospitals so the experiences are quite varied.
You'll find that progress notes are much more important to learn and that when you are at morning report you will get about 30 seconds on OB to update the team, same with surgery.
On FM in the clinic again progress notes are more important than full H&P's unless doing physicals but hopefully your attending will allow you more time to work up the same day/urgent care type of appointments.
I found learning the H&P over two years to be a waste of time at OHSU. IM is where H&P's become important as a grading tool/learning tool and you'll find yourself writing these up at 11PM and finishing early the next morning in time to turn them in which gets a little bit redundant after your 17th write-up. Fortunately, I had some cool attendings that were more interested in teaching on the wards than reading my write-ups because at some point write-ups become sort of an exercise in futility. Your so tired that it's really more about getting them done then actually learning about your assessment.
If memory serves I believe there are ten required per five week clerkship. The H&P part is again less important than the assessment and the plan. You will be provided ample opportunities to learn the H&P on the wards. Once you've done one it will stick and when your attending changes they will likely have you do it differently than the previous attending. Get used to adjusting for these differences.
There is a learning curve at all medical schools with regard to transitioning to the wards and I don't think OHSU is much different. If your spending two clerkships learning the H&P you should really be in a different field.
There is no such think as a certain ward etiquette.
Here's what you need to know......If your a dick nobody is going to want to help you out, teach you things, or be around you. If your helpful to your residents (ie: I can go write that order in the patient's chart and bring it back for you to sign since I'm doing nothing and you have five discharge summaries to do; some call it scut I call it helping out a fellow human being whose position your going to be in two short years later), sincere with your team, on time, nice to your patients even if they suck, and really want to learn how to be a doctor you'll do just fine and will probably achieve your grading goals as well.
We only read x-rays (radiographs) during this class essentially, it may have changed in the last couple years. It would have been great to have been tested and exposed more to CT's and MRI's but this wasn't the case when I was a first year. The allied health students in the same class were tested on MRI imaging, but the med students weren't.
During our second year we learn a little bit about MRI's such as T1 versus T2 and how to tell the difference etc. etc. in the neuroanatomy course. We also have CXR reading built into a second year course.
The principles of clinical medicine course is the second course that we all take during our first two years of school at OHSU and it is essentially one afternoon a week where we get the "other side of medicine" and physical exam stuff. There is usually a one hour lecture on business, ethics, emotional side of medicine followed by a one hour free for all, my opinion is better than your discussion with a group of your classmates and a physician who is your lucky isn't a retired 77 year old family doc and actually will be a practicing physician. This was a serious problem with my PCM experience. I had a whole bunch of very retired docs who had very old world values.
The next section is a one hour lecture, usually on a physical exam topic, and again is the CV exam, the pulmonary exam, etc. It is highly variable as to the value of these teaching sessions depending on who your small group leader is. I had a urologist teaching me a fundoscopic exam......waste of time for both him and I.
This class is called Principles of Clinical Medicine and a very small minority of students in my class year enjoyed this course. We all found it very frustrating with grades essentially given based on non-objective criteria such as how much the small group leader thought you agreed with their opinions.
The Department of Family Medicine runs this course and I think it would be a very difficult course to run being that it is "all inclusive", so they deserve credit for sure. It's just a really big job they've carved out for themselves. They rely on volunteer faculty to help teach, ie nobody is paid to come over and teach us this stuff.
They are about 10 or so years into running this course, but I think the consensus is they still have a ways to go.
That being said, the physical exam is really something you'll pick up on the wards in no time aside from the musculoskeletal exam but maybe even that. During your third year medicine rotation you have rounds with the chief of medicine at OHSU and it is physical diagnosis rounds and this teaches a lot, the guy is amazing.
I think this is a harsh statement, Debbie and Carolyn I think do the best they can. There are two or three people for approximately 5000 applicants. The director of admissions is the director of the Oregon Rural Practice and Research Network and is a full time Epidemiology and biostatistics prof. who reads these applications etc. at night when she get home from a full day of work. She's a really nice lady, just with a gigantic job description and no funding to match.
Of course, as premeds we often don't see things from the other side. OHSU obviously needs more staff for their admissions, but I wouldn't call those who probably bust their hump day in and day out inconsiderate, I'd probably say their just doing their job with a lack of adequate resources like most people and leave it at that.
OHSU is a good school to attend. The 8-12 curriculum with two afternoons for PCM and preceptorship the first two years makes it a very nice. I found the knowledge I gained those first two years were a very adequate prep for step 1 and the wards both. The ability to have rotations at OHSU, the VA, and also the community hospitals makes your experiences diverse and if you want to stay in the city for internal medicine you can really be having a "try out" as early as your third year which is really nice. I've really enjoyed my time here, and again you won't go wrong with our school. Tuition would be a little worrisome to me at this school though, it is going up considerably next year.
It's a good school for the most part, but like all other med schools it definately has its issues which is fine, but you should be aware of them. All things equal, I'm very glad to be a student at OHSU, I think it's prepared myself and my classmates VERY well for residency and beyond.
Enjoy it now because this is not true during your third year clerkships when grades account for 2/3 of the value of your dean's letter. I still didn't feel an aura of competitiveness though during my third year clerkships. Everybody was pretty chill in my "track" which was very nice. Of course, this is just the luck of the draw though.
Also, grades come very late from clinical clerkships which has been a constant source of angst for students.
There are opportunities to do research, but in reality when looking around it was actually a little more difficult to find someone that was actually really willing to mentor a medical student in a way that was worthwhile.
As for summer research, there was only one to two I could find willing to have me help and get paid at the same time. Most wanted me to find my own funding in order to work in their lab.
That being said I found an incredible mentor during the end of my second year. You can go abroad during the summer of the first year or during fourth year, but I'd imagine it's just as easy at any other med school and not specific to OHSU.
Maybe....H&P's are very different with regard to what service your on, what your resident and attendings want etc. I don't think that as a result of spending two years learning to do an H&P you'll spend more time learning OB and Surgery. H&P's mean very different things with regard to different services. At OHSU, there really is no such thing as a medstudent H&P in OB. There is a gigantic white board stuffed into a little room where you and about fifteen other docs and students get updated on the patients on the floor during shift change. You round on the post-partum folks and write a very brief note some ridiculous hour in the morning when your on your week of clinic rotation or something like that. Even when I did a week on GynOnc I didn't write one H&P. Surgical H&P's are a little bit different than what PCM will teach you (remember that PCM is taught by Department of Family Medicine). You do five weeks of surgery at OHSU and rotate on one of a few different services.
There is emergency general surgery, surgical oncology, foregut and minimally invasive, and colorectal/bariatric teams and then students who do their rotations at community hospitals so the experiences are quite varied.
You'll find that progress notes are much more important to learn and that when you are at morning report you will get about 30 seconds on OB to update the team, same with surgery.
On FM in the clinic again progress notes are more important than full H&P's unless doing physicals but hopefully your attending will allow you more time to work up the same day/urgent care type of appointments.
I found learning the H&P over two years to be a waste of time at OHSU. IM is where H&P's become important as a grading tool/learning tool and you'll find yourself writing these up at 11PM and finishing early the next morning in time to turn them in which gets a little bit redundant after your 17th write-up. Fortunately, I had some cool attendings that were more interested in teaching on the wards than reading my write-ups because at some point write-ups become sort of an exercise in futility. Your so tired that it's really more about getting them done then actually learning about your assessment.
If memory serves I believe there are ten required per five week clerkship. The H&P part is again less important than the assessment and the plan. You will be provided ample opportunities to learn the H&P on the wards. Once you've done one it will stick and when your attending changes they will likely have you do it differently than the previous attending. Get used to adjusting for these differences.
There is a learning curve at all medical schools with regard to transitioning to the wards and I don't think OHSU is much different. If your spending two clerkships learning the H&P you should really be in a different field.
There is no such think as a certain ward etiquette.
Here's what you need to know......If your a dick nobody is going to want to help you out, teach you things, or be around you. If your helpful to your residents (ie: I can go write that order in the patient's chart and bring it back for you to sign since I'm doing nothing and you have five discharge summaries to do; some call it scut I call it helping out a fellow human being whose position your going to be in two short years later), sincere with your team, on time, nice to your patients even if they suck, and really want to learn how to be a doctor you'll do just fine and will probably achieve your grading goals as well.
We only read x-rays (radiographs) during this class essentially, it may have changed in the last couple years. It would have been great to have been tested and exposed more to CT's and MRI's but this wasn't the case when I was a first year. The allied health students in the same class were tested on MRI imaging, but the med students weren't.
During our second year we learn a little bit about MRI's such as T1 versus T2 and how to tell the difference etc. etc. in the neuroanatomy course. We also have CXR reading built into a second year course.
The principles of clinical medicine course is the second course that we all take during our first two years of school at OHSU and it is essentially one afternoon a week where we get the "other side of medicine" and physical exam stuff. There is usually a one hour lecture on business, ethics, emotional side of medicine followed by a one hour free for all, my opinion is better than your discussion with a group of your classmates and a physician who is your lucky isn't a retired 77 year old family doc and actually will be a practicing physician. This was a serious problem with my PCM experience. I had a whole bunch of very retired docs who had very old world values.
The next section is a one hour lecture, usually on a physical exam topic, and again is the CV exam, the pulmonary exam, etc. It is highly variable as to the value of these teaching sessions depending on who your small group leader is. I had a urologist teaching me a fundoscopic exam......waste of time for both him and I.
This class is called Principles of Clinical Medicine and a very small minority of students in my class year enjoyed this course. We all found it very frustrating with grades essentially given based on non-objective criteria such as how much the small group leader thought you agreed with their opinions.
The Department of Family Medicine runs this course and I think it would be a very difficult course to run being that it is "all inclusive", so they deserve credit for sure. It's just a really big job they've carved out for themselves. They rely on volunteer faculty to help teach, ie nobody is paid to come over and teach us this stuff.
They are about 10 or so years into running this course, but I think the consensus is they still have a ways to go.
That being said, the physical exam is really something you'll pick up on the wards in no time aside from the musculoskeletal exam but maybe even that. During your third year medicine rotation you have rounds with the chief of medicine at OHSU and it is physical diagnosis rounds and this teaches a lot, the guy is amazing.
I think this is a harsh statement, Debbie and Carolyn I think do the best they can. There are two or three people for approximately 5000 applicants. The director of admissions is the director of the Oregon Rural Practice and Research Network and is a full time Epidemiology and biostatistics prof. who reads these applications etc. at night when she get home from a full day of work. She's a really nice lady, just with a gigantic job description and no funding to match.
Of course, as premeds we often don't see things from the other side. OHSU obviously needs more staff for their admissions, but I wouldn't call those who probably bust their hump day in and day out inconsiderate, I'd probably say their just doing their job with a lack of adequate resources like most people and leave it at that.
OHSU is a good school to attend. The 8-12 curriculum with two afternoons for PCM and preceptorship the first two years makes it a very nice. I found the knowledge I gained those first two years were a very adequate prep for step 1 and the wards both. The ability to have rotations at OHSU, the VA, and also the community hospitals makes your experiences diverse and if you want to stay in the city for internal medicine you can really be having a "try out" as early as your third year which is really nice. I've really enjoyed my time here, and again you won't go wrong with our school. Tuition would be a little worrisome to me at this school though, it is going up considerably next year.
