Western Univ Clinical Rotation Affiliates

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freakedout06

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Anybody have the list of rotation affiliates for Western? I've been on their webiste, but can't seem to find anything on it. They just have a brief paragraph about clinical rotation phase of the curriculum.
 
I contacted the Dean of clinical rotations regarding this because I couldn't find the info. And when I finally spoke to him, it sounded as if he was in disbelief that they didn't go over this at the interview. I'm 99% sure they didn't even though this seems to be important.

He didn't give me a list as I had hoped, but he named a few:

(sorry I can't remember the exact names, more just location)
-Downey, Long Beach Memorial, Riverside and Lake Arrowhead are the main areas he said they were affiliated with.

Might not be too helpful, but just confirming that yes, this info is hard to get.
 
st.exupery said:
I contacted the Dean of clinical rotations regarding this because I couldn't find the info. And when I finally spoke to him, it sounded as if he was in disbelief that they didn't go over this at the interview. I'm 99% sure they didn't even though this seems to be important.

He didn't give me a list as I had hoped, but he named a few:

(sorry I can't remember the exact names, more just location)
-Downey, Long Beach Memorial, Riverside and Lake Arrowhead are the main areas he said they were affiliated with.

Might not be too helpful, but just confirming that yes, this info is hard to get.
Click to expand...

In your interview packet, hospitals are listed in the NWT list as the CORE rotations and under OPTI-West. They listed all the ones you mentioned along with:

1) Colorado Springs Osteopathic Foundation
2) Doctor's Hospital Medical Center of Montclair
3) San Diego Sports Medicine and Family Health Center
4) Western University of Health Sciences/COMP Dermatology Residency Programs

They may not have listed them during the orientation, but it was in your Interview Day Orientation Booklet for you to read. It's also listed on the website. Hope this helps.
 
st.exupery said:
I contacted the Dean of clinical rotations regarding this because I couldn't find the info. And when I finally spoke to him, it sounded as if he was in disbelief that they didn't go over this at the interview. I'm 99% sure they didn't even though this seems to be important.

He didn't give me a list as I had hoped, but he named a few:

(sorry I can't remember the exact names, more just location)
-Downey, Long Beach Memorial, Riverside and Lake Arrowhead are the main areas he said they were affiliated with.

Might not be too helpful, but just confirming that yes, this info is hard to get.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. It's hard to believe you can't easily find this on their site. I probably give them a call.
 
These are the locations in which we do our core rotations:

Alhambra Hospital and Medical Center
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center
City of Hope
Coast Plaza
Corona Regional Medical Center
Citrus Valley Psychiatry
Chino Valley Medical Center
Citrus Valley Health Partners
Doctors Hospital Medical Center of Montclair
Downey Regional Medical Center
North Orange County Pediatrics
Prairie Medical Group
Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Patton State Hospital
Riverside County Regional Medical Center
Rancho Los Amigos
San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health
Western University Medical Center
Western University of Health Sciences Campus

hope this helps
 
premyo2002 said:
These are the locations in which we do our core rotations:

Alhambra Hospital and Medical Center
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center
City of Hope
Coast Plaza
Corona Regional Medical Center
Citrus Valley Psychiatry
Chino Valley Medical Center
Citrus Valley Health Partners
Doctors Hospital Medical Center of Montclair
Downey Regional Medical Center
North Orange County Pediatrics
Prairie Medical Group
Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Patton State Hospital
Riverside County Regional Medical Center
Rancho Los Amigos
San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health
Western University Medical Center
Western University of Health Sciences Campus

hope this helps
Click to expand...


is this a sample list or are there more than this?
 
It also doesn't include a list of NorthWest Track hospitals.
 
premyo2002 said:
These are the locations in which we do our core rotations:

Alhambra Hospital and Medical Center
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center
City of Hope
Coast Plaza
Corona Regional Medical Center
Citrus Valley Psychiatry
Chino Valley Medical Center
Citrus Valley Health Partners
Doctors Hospital Medical Center of Montclair
Downey Regional Medical Center
North Orange County Pediatrics
Prairie Medical Group
Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Patton State Hospital
Riverside County Regional Medical Center
Rancho Los Amigos
San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health
Western University Medical Center
Western University of Health Sciences Campus

hope this helps
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot premyo
 
Have anyone heard from Western about the summer anatomy fast paced program that's suppose to start in June? After completion you're supposed to be a TA for the class. I'm wondering if anyone for the class of 2011 received anything from them? Did they even start sending it out? Please let me know if you got it with your acceptance letter because I have heard no information on that since the interview date.
 
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premyo2002 said:
These are the locations in which we do our core rotations:

Alhambra Hospital and Medical Center
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center
City of Hope
Coast Plaza
Corona Regional Medical Center
Citrus Valley Psychiatry
Chino Valley Medical Center
Citrus Valley Health Partners
Doctors Hospital Medical Center of Montclair
Downey Regional Medical Center
North Orange County Pediatrics
Prairie Medical Group
Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Patton State Hospital
Riverside County Regional Medical Center
Rancho Los Amigos
San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health
Western University Medical Center
Western University of Health Sciences Campus

hope this helps
Click to expand...

Here is an updated list of Western's Core Affiliated Hospitals. I have highlighted the new additions. I am currently a third year there. If you have any questions about our program, let me know.

Western University of Health Sciences/COMP
CORE Rotation Facilities

Alhambra Hospital
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center
Children’s Hospital/Orange County
City of Hope
Coast Plaza Doctors Hospital
Corona Regional Medical Center
Citrus Valley Medical Center
Chino Valley Medical Center
Doctors Hospital Montclair
Downey Regional Medical Center
Fountain Valley Hospital
North Orange County Pediatrics
Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Prairie Medical Group
Patton State Hospital
Pomona Valley Hospital
Riverside County Regional Medical Center
Rancho Los Amigos
San Antonio Hospital
San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health
Western University Medical Center
St. John Detroit Riverview Hospital
 
Just wanted to update the core list for 2008:

Alhambra Hospital and Medical Center
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center
Children's Hospital Orange County
Chino Valley Medical Center
Citrus Valley Health Partners
Citrus Valley Psychiatry
City of Hope
Corona Regional Medical Center
Doctors Hospital Medical Center of Montclair
Downey Regional Medical Center
Garfield Medical Center
Marian Medical Center
North Orange County Pediatrics
Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Prairie Medical Group
Patton State Hospital
Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center
Riverside County Regional Medical Center
Rancho Los Amigos
San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health
Saint John Macomb Hospital (Michigan)
Western University of Health Sciences Campus
Western University Medical Center
 
Anyone know the list of affiliated hospitals for the NWT? Specifically Washington State? And if accepted, do you HAVE to go back to the NW?
 
HouseIsMyHero said:
Anyone know the list of affiliated hospitals for the NWT? Specifically Washington State? And if accepted, do you HAVE to go back to the NW?
Click to expand...

The NWT rotations tracks aren't out yet for 2008, when they are I will update. I'd post last year's but it wouldn't mean much since I believe many of them fell through at the last minute, and new ones have been added, etc...

As to your other question: If you are accepted to the NWT, you DO NOT have to go; you can default back to the southern california rotations up to a certain date (I think its sometime in the middle of second year). After that date, you DO have to go. There are a number of people on the NWT waiting list each year, so they would get your spot if you default to so cal tracks.
 
cyclohexanol said:
As to your other question: If you are accepted to the NWT, you DO NOT have to go; you can default back to the southern california rotations up to a certain date (I think its sometime in the middle of second year). After that date, you DO have to go. There are a number of people on the NWT waiting list each year, so they would get your spot if you default to so cal tracks.
Click to expand...

Several of my classmates I know tried to switch out from NW in the middle of 2nd year and were DENIED because they "signed the contract". I wouldn't count on being switched out.
 
OnMyWayThere said:
Several of my classmates I know tried to switch out from NW in the middle of 2nd year and were DENIED because they "signed the contract". I wouldn't count on being switched out.
Click to expand...

FRO RLY? Hmm, that sucks man. I don't know anyone from your class that was in NWT, so all my info is like 3rd-hand at best. Thanks for the info, glad I'm not NWT.
 
OnMyWayThere said:
Several of my classmates I know tried to switch out from NW in the middle of 2nd year and were DENIED because they "signed the contract". I wouldn't count on being switched out.
Click to expand...

Do you know why they wanted to switch out of the NW Track?
 
I am totally hoping for the NWT as I am from Portland..... crossing my fingers for an interview soon. Just finished KCOM and DMU interviews and would love to have an interview in Pomona.
 
Archer said:
I am totally hoping for the NWT as I am from Portland..... crossing my fingers for an interview soon. Just finished KCOM and DMU interviews and would love to have an interview in Pomona.
Click to expand...

Hmm, my understanding is the the NWT covers about a third of the US, including Alaska. If you interview you'll want to confirm that you'd have an opportunity to go back to Portland. Definitely don't assume it.

I'm betting that most of the NWT spots are in AK, MT, WY and eastern WA and eastern OR. Hope I'm wrong.
 
So when do you start your rotations fourth year? What month? I am trying to figure out how many months of audition rotations you can have. I ask this b/c it seems to vary at some schools (ex: DMU is starting a month earlier for this reason alone, so people can do more rotations during the audition months).

Thanks!
 
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ViolinCello said:
So when do you start your rotations fourth year? What month? I am trying to figure out how many months of audition rotations you can have. I ask this b/c it seems to vary at some schools (ex: DMU is starting a month earlier for this reason alone, so people can do more rotations during the audition months).

Thanks!
Click to expand...


I'm a currently MS4 at Western. 4th year started in June for us and I think it should start about the same time every year.

As 3rd years, you also get 1 elective and 1 selective that you can do anywhere you want. I found out that's unique in our curriculum and many other DO/MD schools don't give MS3s electives to go anywhere they want. They were quite suprised and jealous to see me as a MS3 in their institutions doing electives. So if you want, you can put your MS3 elective at the very end of your 3rd year, and start doing an audition technically as a 3rd year, but it will be the very last rotation in your 3rd year when you've already completed all of your core rotations. I know many classmates that do this to get a head start.

As a 4th year, there are only 3 required rotations, 1) surgical selective, 2) internal med selective, which can be done anywhere you want, and 3)Emergency Medicine to be done only at core sites. Everything else is elective.

However there is a limit of 3 of a particular rotation that you can do as electives. Let's say you want to go into Gen. Surgery, and you did 1 general surgery as a MS3 for core, and you did 1 as a MS4 for your surgical selective, you can still do 3 more as electives. Whatever the school requires of you(core or selectives) doesn't count towards the 3 maximum for electives.
You probably don't want to do more than 3 or 4 of the same rotation in the field that you want to go into anyways because residency programs don't like it if you're not learning anything else and getting a well-rounded education as a MS4 like you're supposed to. So don't over do it.

For those of you that are deciding between schools, I believe I've said this in my other posts, but please let the 3rd/4th year rotations of a school be one of the main reasons if not the most important reason for you to choose a school over the other. It's not the campus, not the gym, not even the comlex pass rate(given if you study hard enough, you will pass). Do you really want to be in a class full of like-minded classmates who chose the school for the campus? It says a lot more about a school if people chose it despite the campus.

Now that i'm a 4th year and have done electives at other MD/DO sites, I can say that Western really gives an excellent education during the clinically years. I'm not going to name places, but some of the "cores sites" for other DO schools that I've been at are in reality very weak when comparing to almost all of the Western sites. Yet the DO students there don't know much better and they have nothing much to compare it with. It's my personal opinion, so don't get all emotional and attack me for thinking Western has a better clinical education, but I hear the same sentiments from students from other DO schools doing electives that I run into at Western sites. Of course, the clinical education at Western is not perfect and we hear about some classmates not liking their experiences at a few particular sites, but those are definitely in the minority and overall the clinical years are very solid and you get to do a lot(and worked a lot) and learn a lot at southern Cal which gaurantees a certain level of volume and pathology that you can't find in other parts of the country. At other big name MD medical centers that I've been at, they really do treat their big name students like what they are, big name students. But at Western sites, the MS3s got used like residents and worked like residents and learned like residents, scrubbed in on every surgery, delivered babies, wrote orders/prescriptions, did procedures, put in lines, over some pretty cool cases/pathology that are abundant in Southern California.

If you got more questions feel free to PM me.
 
It was very interesting to read about rotations at COMP. They do sound really good. Can you or anyone else describe the 3rd and 4th year rotations in COMP's northwest track?
 
cyclohexanol said:
Just wanted to update the core list for 2008:

Alhambra Hospital and Medical Center
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center
Children's Hospital Orange County
Chino Valley Medical Center
Citrus Valley Health Partners
Citrus Valley Psychiatry
City of Hope
Corona Regional Medical Center
Doctors Hospital Medical Center of Montclair
Downey Regional Medical Center
Garfield Medical Center
Marian Medical Center
North Orange County Pediatrics
Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Prairie Medical Group
Patton State Hospital
Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center
Riverside County Regional Medical Center
Rancho Los Amigos
San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health
Saint John Macomb Hospital (Michigan)
Western University of Health Sciences Campus
Western University Medical Center
Click to expand...

I know when I was an applicant, I had no idea which hospital is which, so even with a list of names that schools would give me, I still had no idea what I might get myself into. So I thought I'd take a few minutes to breifly describe some of these sites at Western.

The ones that I talk about below are some of the most major sites that >80% if not close to 90% of all rotations are done at. The ones that I don't mention probably get a couple of students per month from Western, all good nontheless.
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center & Riverside County Regional Medical Center.
Both large county facilities. Arrowhead basically is THE country hospital of San Bernadino County, which is the county immediately east of LA county, one of the fastest growing areas in population in the USA. Arrowhead has new, state of the art facility and is one of the nicest county-type hospitals there is. At both places you get high volume and good pathology and you will work hard and learn a lot.

Downey Regional Medical Center & Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center
These are 2 community hospitals that are larger in scale than many community hospitals. Downey is centrally located in Los Angeles by the 605 and 105 and it's also an osteopathic hospital and one of the larger ones in the country, so there's hospital-based OMT incorproated into their care. Pomona Valley is right next to Western's campus, nice facility, and has more private patients. Both places have good teaching, and lots of work, and my feeling is that Downey is a tougher site with more county like patients and longer hours and work the students hard like residents.

City of Hope
Nationally famous cancer center(look it up) where students do their general surgery rotations, oncology electives and the likes of it. Some say the pathology is not as varied because it's mostly cancer, but as a MS3, the opportunity here is awesome and cancer is more interesting and complexed to do than appendicitis. Either way there's lots to be learned.

Rancho Los Amigos
Nationally famous rehab center(look it up), an USC/LA county site, where the iron lung/early ventilators were invented and played an important role in the modern history of medicine. Its current status, like many LA county facilities, pales in comparison of what it used to be, but nontheless the faculty, teaching, structure, pathology are strong. Even though it's a rehab center, obviously that's not the only service they provide, and it's where some students do core internal med and subspecialty rotations(endocrine, ID, ICU..etc), PM&R rotations, some ortho/urology/surgical..etc, with weekly grand rounds at USC.

Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Osteopathic community hospital in Long Beach close to the ocean. Many students do rotations here but it's a smaller hospital compared to other Western sites. However it has diverse patient population(downtown Long Beach urban, surburbia Long Beach, retired senior citizens, latino immigrants, ..etc) with good pathology, good teaching, and again like other Western sites, they give you lots of autonomy and MS3 get worked like residents.

Patton State Hospital Large state prison where they house the criminally insane. The psych rotation here is amazing and an unmatched opportunity in which a medical student gets see such interesting and rare pathology in abundance. Med director is a Western grad and lectures on campus.

Children's Hospital Orange County & North Orange County Pediatrics Famous peds hospital. I think for peds most students rotate at Arrowhead/Riverside, then these are good but further sites in addition.

Alhambra Hospital & Garfield Medical Center Both community hospitals with good facilities but not too many rotations are done here, i think its mostly family med and internal med for a couple of students per month, but I thought i'd mention it because these 2 are unique in that the patient population is mostly Asian and I hear mostly Chinese speaking. So the students that pick those sites are interested in such patient population and it's good for diversity if you want it.
 
This is a phenomenal post, Jinyaoysiu. I have been looking for something like this for quite some time. You've now made Western one of my top choices, and you got me even more excited about the school!

Good luck with 4th year and residency apps. Which specialty(ies) are you considering?
 
Jinyaoysiu said:
I know when I was an applicant, I had no idea which hospital is which, so even with a list of names that schools would give me, I still had no idea what I might get myself into. So I thought I'd take a few minutes to breifly describe some of these sites at Western.
Click to expand...
Jinyaoysiu said:
The ones that I talk about below are some of the most major sites that >80% if not close to 90% of all rotations are done at. The ones that I don't mention probably get a couple of students per month from Western, all good nontheless.
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center & Riverside County Regional Medical Center.
Both large county facilities. Arrowhead basically is THE country hospital of San Bernadino County, which is the county immediately east of LA county, one of the fastest growing areas in population in the USA. Arrowhead has new, state of the art facility and is one of the nicest county-type hospitals there is. At both places you get high volume and good pathology and you will work hard and learn a lot.

Downey Regional Medical Center & Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center
These are 2 community hospitals that are larger in scale than many community hospitals. Downey is centrally located in Los Angeles by the 605 and 105 and it's also an osteopathic hospital and one of the larger ones in the country, so there's hospital-based OMT incorproated into their care. Pomona Valley is right next to Western's campus, nice facility, and has more private patients. Both places have good teaching, and lots of work, and my feeling is that Downey is a tougher site with more county like patients and longer hours and work the students hard like residents.

City of Hope
Nationally famous cancer center(look it up) where students do their general surgery rotations, oncology electives and the likes of it. Some say the pathology is not as varied because it's mostly cancer, but as a MS3, the opportunity here is awesome and cancer is more interesting and complexed to do than appendicitis. Either way there's lots to be learned.

Rancho Los Amigos
Nationally famous rehab center(look it up), an USC/LA county site, where the iron lung/early ventilators were invented and played an important role in the modern history of medicine. Its current status, like many LA county facilities, pales in comparison of what it used to be, but nontheless the faculty, teaching, structure, pathology are strong. Even though it's a rehab center, obviously that's not the only service they provide, and it's where some students do core internal med and subspecialty rotations(endocrine, ID, ICU..etc), PM&R rotations, some ortho/urology/surgical..etc, with weekly grand rounds at USC.

Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Osteopathic community hospital in Long Beach close to the ocean. Many students do rotations here but it's a smaller hospital compared to other Western sites. However it has diverse patient population(downtown Long Beach urban, surburbia Long Beach, retired senior citizens, latino immigrants, ..etc) with good pathology, good teaching, and again like other Western sites, they give you lots of autonomy and MS3 get worked like residents.

Patton State Hospital Large state prison where they house the criminally insane. The psych rotation here is amazing and an unmatched opportunity in which a medical student gets see such interesting and rare pathology in abundance. Med director is a Western grad and lectures on campus.

Children's Hospital Orange County & North Orange County Pediatrics Famous peds hospital. I think for peds most students rotate at Arrowhead/Riverside, then these are good but further sites in addition.

Alhambra Hospital & Garfield Medical Center Both community hospitals with good facilities but not too many rotations are done here, i think its mostly family med and internal med for a couple of students per month, but I thought i'd mention it because these 2 are unique in that the patient population is mostly Asian and I hear mostly Chinese speaking. So the students that pick those sites are interested in such patient population and it's good for diversity if you want it.
Click to expand...


Thanks for your feedback. I hope you don't mind me sharing some of my first-hand experience here at sites I've rotated at so far...

Rancho Los Amigos: On my rotation there, I saw around 1-2 patients PER DAY. We had a lecture about 3 times a week. That was it. Not the best experience for 3rd year.

Pacific Hospital of Long Beach: Everybody I've spoken to (in 3rd an 4th year that rotated here) agrees that you do not see enough patients in the FP rotation, the OB rotation has close to ZERO gyn and hence does not prepare you well for the shelf exam. I experienced only 1 rotation here and could not agree more.

North Orange County Pediatrics: This is an outpatient clinic which pretty much only sees well baby checks, physical exams before school starts and a few rash or injury typicallly seen in outpatient. On top of that, the student isn't allowed to take history or do a physical. You can only shadow like in undergrad. That, my friend, cannot provide good clinical training or preparation for the shelf exam.

City of Hope: This might be a good sub-specialty for a surgeon going into oncology, but for a general surgery rotation for 3rd years? I don't think so. You're worked all day M-F giving enough time to drive home and sleep. Then you're tested on the shelf exam, known to be one of the hardest, on general surgery.

As you can see, a common theme here is inadequate training and preperation for the shelf exam. If you're interested in any competitive specialty, you better be honoring your 3rd year rotations (one recent study showed significant results that program directors look at these grades as the most important when deciding to invite you for an interview - more important than Step 1). With inadequate prep for the shelf exam, you can forget about your honors evaluations as the school requires you to HONOR the MD shelf exams written by the NBME in order to honor the rotation. Keep in mind - the school started using the above grading with the shelf exam last year so we have not had a class match yet after having to let go of their honors evals. This is not bashing the school, just making sure the pre-DOs take the glorifying posts by above poster with a grain of salt.
 
LoveDO said:
Thanks for your feedback. I hope you don't mind me sharing some of my first-hand experience here at sites I've rotated at so far...

Rancho Los Amigos: On my rotation there, I saw around 1-2 patients PER DAY. We had a lecture about 3 times a week. That was it. Not the best experience for 3rd year.

Pacific Hospital of Long Beach: Everybody I've spoken to (in 3rd an 4th year that rotated here) agrees that you do not see enough patients in the FP rotation, the OB rotation has close to ZERO gyn and hence does not prepare you well for the shelf exam. I experienced only 1 rotation here and could not agree more.

North Orange County Pediatrics: This is an outpatient clinic which pretty much only sees well baby checks, physical exams before school starts and a few rash or injury typicallly seen in outpatient. On top of that, the student isn't allowed to take history or do a physical. You can only shadow like in undergrad. That, my friend, cannot provide good clinical training or preparation for the shelf exam.

City of Hope: This might be a good sub-specialty for a surgeon going into oncology, but for a general surgery rotation for 3rd years? I don't think so. You're worked all day M-F giving enough time to drive home and sleep. Then you're tested on the shelf exam, known to be one of the hardest, on general surgery.

As you can see, a common theme here is inadequate training and preperation for the shelf exam. If you're interested in any competitive specialty, you better be honoring your 3rd year rotations (one recent study showed significant results that program directors look at these grades as the most important when deciding to invite you for an interview - more important than Step 1). With inadequate prep for the shelf exam, you can forget about your honors evaluations as the school requires you to HONOR the MD shelf exams written by the NBME in order to honor the rotation. Keep in mind - the school started using the above grading with the shelf exam last year so we have not had a class match yet after having to let go of their honors evals. This is not bashing the school, just making sure the pre-DOs take the glorifying posts by above poster with a grain of salt.
Click to expand...


Someone asked me to respond to this post and I'd like to do this only once, because I have no way of knowing the details of everyone's experience and feelings if everyone decided to share specific happenings.

Instead, I'd like to do this posting as an advice to the LoveDO and others that are equally confused, and counting on clinical rotations to prepare them to honor on shelf exams. The way to score top percentile on national standardized shelf exams is to find some review books, and spend HOURS and HOURS memorizing and studying. Expecting clinical rotations and further blaming them for personally not acheiving top percentile on shelf exams is as naive as expecting going to microbiology lab and then expecting to score top percentile on the microbiology section on the USMLE, and blaming the labs for not preparing enough. I've noticed this kind of naive thinking more common at Western than with other bigger name MD med students that i've met. Those students perfectly understand what it takes to do well on a standardized exam and aren't counting on their clinical experience to prepare them much(especially when some of them don't get to see/do much.) If they want to out score everyone nationally on a written exam, they study their butts off, reading for hours everyday, on top of the hours they spend clinically. Same thing with residents in residency. If they want to pass subject exams or specialty boards,they study and study on the side, and no one blames the program for their need to study during their own time or doubt the quality of training they're receiving, because that is simply how the game is played. If they want to pass a standardized exam, they just have to study.

I'm not sure if it's our infeority complex as DO students or what, but when something like this happens we first think it's our short-comings instead of realizing that's just how the game is played. When you don't do well on an obgyn shelf, you immediately blame the rotation for not giving you enough Gyn exposure. No rotation ANYWHERE, will give you the perfect exposure of ALL, or even MOST, of the material that those damn shelf exams will cover. Are you studying 3-4 hours everyday after you get home from the hospital? If not, then it's a little unfair for you to think you deserve scoring top percentile when you are compared nationally with people that are studying that much or more. I don't know what service you were on at Rancho Los Amigos, but I know that after King Drew closed that place has gotten really busy and students on Int. Med and Endocrine could easily stay late on a busy day, but if you really were only seeing 2-3 patients at Rancho Los Amigos per day, and had all that free time to study, that would actually be a popular rotation in many schools, and I expect you to score honors on shelfs. My lighter rotations were the ones that I could study more, and actually did better on the shelfs, and that's a common expereince amongst all med students and residents.

If you think a G. Surg rotation that lets you see more appendicitis or cholecystectomy instead of surgery at City of Hope will MAKE THE DIFFERENCE between you scoring honors or not on a shelf exam then you are seriously mistaken. The surgery shelf is almost all about pre and post surgical care of a patient and the fundamental medical/surgical principles behind it than the specific surgeries themselves, that in reality you can do well on the shelf with lots of studying and patient contact(no matter what type) and it really doesn't matter what kind of surgeries you get to scrub in.

As you can see, a common theme here is inadequate training and preperation for the shelf exam.
Click to expand...

You mainly talked about the rotations not preparing for honors on shelf exams, and then no honors meaning less competative for residencies. I know where you're coming from, but other readers might not. To make a long story short, Western Admin recently changed the grading policy starting with my class so that in order to get honors on clinical rotations you need ALL 4 things, 1)certain top percentile on the shelf 2)Attending's personal opinion(this student gets honors/pass/fail) 3)certain top score on clinical exams(seeing fake patients while being scored) 4)attendance of lectures during shelf/clincial exam week. As you can see, that makes getting honors harder, especially when many schools are simply letting an attending decide what grade you get, and Western was like that before the change. As you can imagine, with medical students, what their complaints were with the old system when a single attending had the power to honor/fail you based on who knows what. With student inputs, the school changed it to a system that they believe is fairer, but now you can imagine what the med students complain about with the new grading scheme. I personally think it's a fair grading system, with 4 grading criteria instead of 1, but I also agree that the school has set the standards TOO HIGH. So instead of blaming your lack of honors on the lack of preparation from your rotations, you could either follow the rules and beat the game by studying harder, or ask the rule makers to change the rules. But honestly, for the other readers, don't be too alarmed by this grading scheme, because if your attending decides that you deserve "honors", it WILL say that on your MSPE(dean's letter) and residency directors WILL see that even if you don't get honors for the rotation because of shelf exams or whatever. They might be a bit confused as to why Western wanted to use such a complicated grading scheme, but I think they can still adequetely assess your worthiness, if not more so, when they will see something like this on your MSPE under every rotation:

"Surgical rotation
Shelf: pass
Attending's Eval: Honors
Clinical Exam: Honors
Attendance: Honors
The student gets a pass for the rotation because all 4 criteria are needed for honors at Western University


(and then herewill be a paragraph from your attending's own words about their opinion about you. i.e. one of the best students i've ever had....etc)
"

So if LoveDO thought my post was "gloryfying," then maybe it's because the post was indeed glorfying coming from me who's gone through 3rd year and was able to see the bigger picture and compare and contrast with other places and I've forgotten all of the annoying little details that really bugged me as well. However I hope I at least did some applicants SOME service by giving my account, in a lot more writing than I had expected to do but hopefully that explains a lot for the applicants the complicated life in med school. But if I'm willing to acknowledge my post as being "glorfying," then I hope others are willing to acknowledge the possibility of LoveDO's post as written by someone who's in the thick of it, perhaps stressed, and not knowing for sure how to make sense of all of it, and take that with a grain of salt as well.
 
Thanks for the information, it really helps!! BTW, would you happen to know where I can find a list of Western residency matches for 2006 and 2007? Also, do you know if most CA hospitals accept COMLEX or require USMLEs for non-primary specialties? Thanks so much for any info you can share about this!!
 
Matasanos said:
Thanks for the information, it really helps!! BTW, would you happen to know where I can find a list of Western residency matches for 2006 and 2007? Also, do you know if most CA hospitals accept COMLEX or require USMLEs for non-primary specialties? Thanks so much for any info you can share about this!!
Click to expand...

Check the WesternU Info thread for the 2007 match list, I posted it there not too long ago.

Most CA hospitals will want to see USMLE.
 
Now that I am past my interview and accepted I feel a lot of relief. There are 3rd and 4th year rotation CORE sites in Portland and there is a match-type lottery as to where you end up. I spoke with them in detail about how many spots there are currently, what are the chances of ending up in Portland etc. and it's a bit of a chance (but not too much for me) that I would end up somewhere outside of PDX. As it stands right now (I remember that I have a couple of years to watch things change before my very eyes) I could probably land in Portland. The other spots in NWT aren't bad either if you like the Northwest.

I am also hoping to do the anatomy class this summer.
 
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Anybody hear any new info about the new residency programs that they are starting up, affiliated with 2 hospitals in the area? Is this still happening?
 
According to Dean Adams; they are still on track to open up about 65 positions at Alhambra Hospital & Garfield Medical Center. Supposedly the programs are supposed to start taking their first classes in 2009 - though i'm not 100% positive on that date.
 
Thanks SoCalTriton. Are you a current student at Western? Do you know what types of residency programs they will be opening, and are they all AOA, or some ACGME?

Would Western students be able to get ward-based rotations at these sites 2 or 3 years from now?
 
With the way long beach pacific hospital is going to buy out king-drew med center, Western might be getting a brand new huge site to send its students to.
 
Yeah I'm currently a first year at Western. From what I remember there were 11 different specialties/fellowships. I don't remember all of them but they included orthopedics, 3 IM fellowships including interventional cardiology, anesthesia, and I don't remember the rest. They would be all be AOA accredited programs.

I don't know much about rotations. I defer to an upperclassman to answer that question.
 
Jinyaoysiu said:
Someone asked me to respond to this post and I'd like to do this only once, because I have no way of knowing the details of everyone's experience and feelings if everyone decided to share specific happenings.

Instead, I'd like to do this posting as an advice to the LoveDO and others that are equally confused, and counting on clinical rotations to prepare them to honor on shelf exams. The way to score top percentile on national standardized shelf exams is to find some review books, and spend HOURS and HOURS memorizing and studying. Expecting clinical rotations and further blaming them for personally not acheiving top percentile on shelf exams is as naive as expecting going to microbiology lab and then expecting to score top percentile on the microbiology section on the USMLE, and blaming the labs for not preparing enough. I've noticed this kind of naive thinking more common at Western than with other bigger name MD med students that i've met. Those students perfectly understand what it takes to do well on a standardized exam and aren't counting on their clinical experience to prepare them much(especially when some of them don't get to see/do much.) If they want to out score everyone nationally on a written exam, they study their butts off, reading for hours everyday, on top of the hours they spend clinically. Same thing with residents in residency. If they want to pass subject exams or specialty boards,they study and study on the side, and no one blames the program for their need to study during their own time or doubt the quality of training they're receiving, because that is simply how the game is played. If they want to pass a standardized exam, they just have to study.

I'm not sure if it's our infeority complex as DO students or what, but when something like this happens we first think it's our short-comings instead of realizing that's just how the game is played. When you don't do well on an obgyn shelf, you immediately blame the rotation for not giving you enough Gyn exposure. No rotation ANYWHERE, will give you the perfect exposure of ALL, or even MOST, of the material that those damn shelf exams will cover. Are you studying 3-4 hours everyday after you get home from the hospital? If not, then it's a little unfair for you to think you deserve scoring top percentile when you are compared nationally with people that are studying that much or more. I don't know what service you were on at Rancho Los Amigos, but I know that after King Drew closed that place has gotten really busy and students on Int. Med and Endocrine could easily stay late on a busy day, but if you really were only seeing 2-3 patients at Rancho Los Amigos per day, and had all that free time to study, that would actually be a popular rotation in many schools, and I expect you to score honors on shelfs. My lighter rotations were the ones that I could study more, and actually did better on the shelfs, and that's a common expereince amongst all med students and residents.

If you think a G. Surg rotation that lets you see more appendicitis or cholecystectomy instead of surgery at City of Hope will MAKE THE DIFFERENCE between you scoring honors or not on a shelf exam then you are seriously mistaken. The surgery shelf is almost all about pre and post surgical care of a patient and the fundamental medical/surgical principles behind it than the specific surgeries themselves, that in reality you can do well on the shelf with lots of studying and patient contact(no matter what type) and it really doesn't matter what kind of surgeries you get to scrub in.



You mainly talked about the rotations not preparing for honors on shelf exams, and then no honors meaning less competative for residencies. I know where you're coming from, but other readers might not. To make a long story short, Western Admin recently changed the grading policy starting with my class so that in order to get honors on clinical rotations you need ALL 4 things, 1)certain top percentile on the shelf 2)Attending's personal opinion(this student gets honors/pass/fail) 3)certain top score on clinical exams(seeing fake patients while being scored) 4)attendance of lectures during shelf/clincial exam week. As you can see, that makes getting honors harder, especially when many schools are simply letting an attending decide what grade you get, and Western was like that before the change. As you can imagine, with medical students, what their complaints were with the old system when a single attending had the power to honor/fail you based on who knows what. With student inputs, the school changed it to a system that they believe is fairer, but now you can imagine what the med students complain about with the new grading scheme. I personally think it's a fair grading system, with 4 grading criteria instead of 1, but I also agree that the school has set the standards TOO HIGH. So instead of blaming your lack of honors on the lack of preparation from your rotations, you could either follow the rules and beat the game by studying harder, or ask the rule makers to change the rules. But honestly, for the other readers, don't be too alarmed by this grading scheme, because if your attending decides that you deserve "honors", it WILL say that on your MSPE(dean's letter) and residency directors WILL see that even if you don't get honors for the rotation because of shelf exams or whatever. They might be a bit confused as to why Western wanted to use such a complicated grading scheme, but I think they can still adequetely assess your worthiness, if not more so, when they will see something like this on your MSPE under every rotation:

"Surgical rotation
Shelf: pass
Attending's Eval: Honors
Clinical Exam: Honors
Attendance: Honors
The student gets a pass for the rotation because all 4 criteria are needed for honors at Western University


(and then herewill be a paragraph from your attending's own words about their opinion about you. i.e. one of the best students i've ever had....etc)
"

So if LoveDO thought my post was "gloryfying," then maybe it's because the post was indeed glorfying coming from me who's gone through 3rd year and was able to see the bigger picture and compare and contrast with other places and I've forgotten all of the annoying little details that really bugged me as well. However I hope I at least did some applicants SOME service by giving my account, in a lot more writing than I had expected to do but hopefully that explains a lot for the applicants the complicated life in med school. But if I'm willing to acknowledge my post as being "glorfying," then I hope others are willing to acknowledge the possibility of LoveDO's post as written by someone who's in the thick of it, perhaps stressed, and not knowing for sure how to make sense of all of it, and take that with a grain of salt as well.
Click to expand...

👍 Don't blame the school. The scores are up to individual efforts.
 
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Epic thread bump because I keep searching for more info on WesternU and this darn thread keeps popping up. I like hearing that medical students get worked. Anything new us prospective students need to keep in mind, as nothing is more frustrating than talking about how you like X, Y, and Z, only to realize later on that your reasonings are outdated.

Thanks in advance and if I missed a similar, more recent thread my apologies!

-c
 
n3xa said:
Epic thread bump because I keep searching for more info on WesternU and this darn thread keeps popping up. I like hearing that medical students get worked. Anything new us prospective students need to keep in mind, as nothing is more frustrating than talking about how you like X, Y, and Z, only to realize later on that your reasonings are outdated.

Thanks in advance and if I missed a similar, more recent thread my apologies!

-c
Click to expand...

Me too. Any inputs/updates/reviews on the rotation sites will be very useful.
 
Break us off with some info Western peoples!! thanks!!
 
Third year rotation sites for the class of 2014:

Alhambra Hospital and Medical Center, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Citrus Valley Health Partners, Community Memorial Hospital (Ventura, CA), Corona Regional Medical Center, Chino Valley Medical Center, Doctors Hospital Medical Center of Montclair, Downey Regional Medical Center, Western University Milliken Clinic, Marian Medical Center, North Orange County Pediatrics, Pacific Hospital Long Beach, Patton State Hospital, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, Riverside County Regional Medical Center , Rancho Los Amigos , San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, Inscriptions Children's Clinic, Saint Jude Medical Center, WesternU NMM/OMM Department , Western University Patient Care Center
 
Black Adder said:
Third year rotation sites for the class of 2014:

Alhambra Hospital and Medical Center, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Citrus Valley Health Partners, Community Memorial Hospital (Ventura, CA), Corona Regional Medical Center, Chino Valley Medical Center, Doctors Hospital Medical Center of Montclair, Downey Regional Medical Center, Western University Milliken Clinic, Marian Medical Center, North Orange County Pediatrics, Pacific Hospital Long Beach, Patton State Hospital, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, Riverside County Regional Medical Center , Rancho Los Amigos , San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, Inscriptions Children's Clinic, Saint Jude Medical Center, WesternU NMM/OMM Department , Western University Patient Care Center
Click to expand...

Can you do all the 3rd year rotations at Downey and not at arrowhead nor riverside?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using SDN Mobile
 
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