hi guys
I was called for an interview with Touro
But I was reading about the school, and people were saying how it is not well prepared, not enough facilities, and that students DO NOT get any sort of clinical exposure until thier 3rd and 4th yr which puts them behind of all other students
any thoughts/
thanks
The posts you probably read were from our first couple days when there were a couple things that weren't quite ready (mostly the air conditioning), but the school is very well prepared. There were some minor glitches -unforeseen structural problems - but since those initial two weeks we've been cruising right along. Also, none of these things interfered with the academic program or class schedule, or have interfered since then.
The facilities are excellent. Everything in our building is completely brand new, from the chairs to the computers to the paint on the walls. We have a large library with a separate, adjacent computer room, and tons of individual "break out" rooms for small group study. There are also two student lounges with refrigerators, microwaves, and vending machines (and by next year there will be a functional cafeteria). The school is open until midnight every day so you can access all the resources, and our anatomy lab is staffed every single day for like 12 hours so you can work on your dissections and study gross anatomy at your convenience, with the guidance of one of our anatomy professors.
As far as clinical exposure, no, we don't interact with live patients during our first two years as far as I'm aware. I'm also unaware of too many schools that have very much clinical exposure during the first two years (but feel free to correct me, unlike the real Stephen Colbert I may occasionally make a mistake). In general, the first two years of medical school are based around the sciences and learning some aspects of clinical medicine, and the second two are really when you learn through clinical exposure. We do have a course not offered by most other schools that introduces us to the clinical aspects of medicine (insurance, social issues, current changes in medicine, etc) as well as a variety of other courses that teach us HOW to interact with the patient before we go in there poking and prodding them. You'll realize your first day that even talking to a patient and taking a history is much more difficult that you'd imagine and unless you know what you're doing there's really no point in live patient interactions (as opposed to instructors, who can guide and correct you). I also don't believe that this would put us at a disadvantage to other students (I'm not really sure what you meant by "behind" them).
Feel free to ask about anything or if you want me to elaborate further. Many of these questions could probably be better answered by the admissions office, so don't hesitate to call them either.
I see that interviews are starting up soon, so good luck to everyone that's coming!