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I don't post often and this one is long. Back out now if you don't want this giant amount of text to suck away 10 minutes of your life 😀
I'm up here in snowy, beautiful Maine and have been for more than 1.5 years attending UNECOM. I'm in the middle of the systems-based second year and we're into renal diseases right now. I know many are looking for as much information as possible since this is what we do when we're making big life decisions. Here's a few of my thoughts - please don't give them more value or attention than you would any other internet stranger - lots of people in my class have different opinions. Also, I haven't ever attended another med school so it's honestly hard to compare UNECOM with other schools.
DO or MD? What's the "osteopathic approach"
This is asked/discussed so much that I thought I'd give my perspective after being in a DO school for a while. My view is controversial, so please don't respond as if what I'm saying is "true" or "a good idea". It's just how I feel right now and may change later. I personally think that osteopathy should be taught in certain primary care residencies and not in med school. I think it's something that is beneficial to patients and should be a tool in the toolbox of any doctor who sees patients in a setting where it can be applied. I think the ideas that Dr. Still (aka Jesus, nah I'm just playing. But seriously, the numerous giant photos and statues of this man are kinda weird) presented to the medical community in the late 1800s and then 1900s are great, but I also think that the idea that MDs do not incorporate these ideas is wrong. I feel that being at a DO school I have been taught to be a good listener, take a good history while considering who my patient is instead of what the disease is, and to be aware of the bodies innate healing mechanisms. But I also feel that this is being taught at every decent MD school, too, and I'm not comfortable patting myself on the back and thinking that my osteopathic approach is better than the MD approach in some way. I know there are MDs who are not good with patients, don't care about people, give lots of drugs and send patients out the door as fast as possible - but this is the doctor, not a DO vs. MD issue. Any decent primary care MD will incorporate all the good qualities of bedside manner, seeing the patient as a whole, and letting the body work to heal itself that an osteopath would - the big difference I see is OMM. MDs (for the most part) do not have training in manipulation. I feel OMM has healing value - I've seen it on preceptorships and shadowing. I just think that OMM should and could easily be taught in residency. It's hard and frustrating to learn OMM for 2 years without seeing a patient with pathology you can put you hands on. It's frustrating to spend hours in lab each week learning about a somatic dysfunction and then being asked to diagnose and treat it on your classmate who is super healthy and runs marathons. I'm kinda wishing that DOs and MDs would just merge (i.e. DO degree disappear - omg blasphemy, burn her she's a witch) and osteopathy become a resident level option for people who want to learn and incorporate manipulation into their future practice. I think this additional training would be ideal for family meds, IM, peds, OB, PMNR, and others. I would love to learn OMM in a residency setting, but I'm not a big fan now at the pre-clinical level. This opinion of osteopathy could change later, I'm still very young in this journey. In summary, if you're not interested in being a doctor who uses OMM often on patients in your practice, then when you go to a DO school try to limit the amount you complain about the OMM classes 🙂
Specifically at our school, we have about 3 hours of osteopathy per week (1h lecture, 2 hour lab). During 2nd year, we also may have more lectures on the applications of osteopathy within that system (e.g. musculo-skeletal e.g.) It's a not a large amount of our overall medical education - at least I don't see it that way. Many students in my class have expressed that they don't see themselves ever using OMM, and many are really interested in OMM and I'm sure will become great healers using OMM.
Enough about osteopathy.
Strengths of UNECOM:
I like my classmates (for the most part 🙂). I am sure that other schools have more class problems. People are generally nice in Maine and somehow this gets into the classroom and students. When you spend years with 120+ people in a stressful environment (med school), it's naive to think you will not begin to hate going to class some days or dislike certain people. But all in all, I imagine it's worse in other places.
Cost of living is moderately low if you're from a city in the northeast. Biddeford/Saco is cheap. Portland cost is not bad and you get a cool city. Many ppl commute - it's not a big deal and you can listen to goljan lectures in your car on the way through pretty maine.
We have some damn good faculty. We also have some not so good. Some are really, really, ridiculously...ummm, not good 😛. But many are really good and focus on what we need for boards. I learn a lot on my own now in the later half of year 2, but in the beginning with anatomy and physiology (the foundation) when I attended every lecture I was very often impressed with my profs. Year 2, as others have stated, is hit and miss with the unfortunate approach to having 8+ different lecturers per system - usually with only 1 or 2 having even looked a board review book recently to see what they should focus on. But on the bright side, you are not required to attend many lectures and the noteservice allows off-campus review of lectures to supplement your board studying if you miss a class. I must also mention that some systems are really outstanding with almost every lecture focusing on boards-relevant material - I just wish more were like this.
We have good rotation sites/options and a decent lottery system allowing most (not all) people to get their first choice on where to spend 3rd year. Our students have a good rep with the hospitals and we are told that were are generally quite well prepared to begin 3rd year.
Weaknesses of UNECOM:
Cool, now I can vent! Just kidding.
I think there are a few weaknesses that should be mentioned and I encourage you braver pre-meds to find diplomatic ways of bringing these issues up at interviews and on tours. The more UNECOM hears about them, the faster they will be addressed.
First, I think the past several years of upper level administration changes have resulted in a detachment between the students and the university president and deans. We just recently obtained a new COM dean and a new COM dean of academic affairs. These people obviously play an important role in the stability, growth, and quality of UNECOM and I think it's safe to say that all the changes have had some negative effects. Specifically, there has been a lot of poor communication between the students and administration (as can be read about by others posting here) and I think the effect on us as students of this separation is a feeling of neglect. Our new administration has put a very big emphasis on things that are going to change and ideas they will implement over the next few years which will have profound effect on quality of education and education experience of UNECOM. Immediate changes are often rushed (meaning only takes a few months, which is "rushed" for academia) and result in lots of little problems and issues. In the meantime, we're all kinda thinking, great, so we're not really going to see any of the big changes and that printer we asked for last year is still "on the waiting list" so to speak. Med schools are large institutions and changes take time and lots of patience. This can be frustrating for us as med students.
Another weakness is the tuition. It's my opinion that it's too high and I'll tell you why. When you pay 46k per year for school, you want a decent education and a good shot at residency. I feel like I'm getting that. But since you're paying 46k and you know this is a lot, you also want a few perks. You might like some free anatomy lab supplies (scalpel, gloves). You might feel good when the school says they will provide your COMLEX fee since tuition is so high. You might appreciate a quiet study space/room. You might feel good when you see free coffee provided on days with morning lectures. You might like an assigned parking space so you don't have to compete with undergraduates and classmates at 7:55am. I could list a lot of other things that UNECOM doesn't provide and none of these are considered by me to be real "weaknesses" of the school. These are all minor things and I'm not complaining - I'm just saying that I feel that if the school treated us more like sophisticated, adult customers of a very valuable product by giving us perks and sense that they care a lot, we would be happier with our choice in school and giving them so much money. We can be sure that the tuition will never lower (it is raised 6% per year), so beginning to look at other ways to offset this 46k/year would go a long way in my opinion. Tuition is a factor in many complaints I hear from my classmates.
A final weakness in my opinion is the lack of cohesion amongst the 2rd year systems courses. Every 2-4 weeks we start a different system with several clinicians teaching. The quality and value of the lecture in our preparation for board exams is all over the place. Sometimes excellent, often OK, and too often just not as efficient as an hour of study time with a good COMLEX review book. There's a lot of overlap in material between the 8 clinicians and I wonder sometimes if I would be better off attending fewer lectures and doing more self studying. I think for each system there should be a director who keeps up with what is being emphasized on boards so the course content matches. Then, the lecturer topics should be determined and assigned to 4 or fewer lecturers who communicate so that they don't overlap. Finally, common and tricky board-style vignette questions should be presented with each lecture with brief explanation of right and wrong choices. Anyway, I'm going off into med school utopia here...
Final thoughts
I'm glad I'm here in school getting this done. I'm feeling now that being a doctor is not about med school - rather, we're just here to learn thousands of vocabulary words and some basic professionalism so we can begin residency, learn to be doctors, and not look like complete clowns. I'm confident that I will be able to repay my debt someday (300k-ish expected) and be a good provider for my family while enjoying a nice career. I'm confident I will get a residency position that will train me to be a good doctor even if it's not my first choice or I'm limited to the non-ultra-competitive specialties. When you look at it that way, UNECOM is fine 🙂
Most important thing I've learned is to relax and focus on the patient.
Thanks to ShyRem who spends time writing posts about UNECOM that helped me when I was pre-med.
I hope the time you spent reading this was in some way helpful and good luck to pre-meds in your search for where you belong.
I'm up here in snowy, beautiful Maine and have been for more than 1.5 years attending UNECOM. I'm in the middle of the systems-based second year and we're into renal diseases right now. I know many are looking for as much information as possible since this is what we do when we're making big life decisions. Here's a few of my thoughts - please don't give them more value or attention than you would any other internet stranger - lots of people in my class have different opinions. Also, I haven't ever attended another med school so it's honestly hard to compare UNECOM with other schools.
DO or MD? What's the "osteopathic approach"
This is asked/discussed so much that I thought I'd give my perspective after being in a DO school for a while. My view is controversial, so please don't respond as if what I'm saying is "true" or "a good idea". It's just how I feel right now and may change later. I personally think that osteopathy should be taught in certain primary care residencies and not in med school. I think it's something that is beneficial to patients and should be a tool in the toolbox of any doctor who sees patients in a setting where it can be applied. I think the ideas that Dr. Still (aka Jesus, nah I'm just playing. But seriously, the numerous giant photos and statues of this man are kinda weird) presented to the medical community in the late 1800s and then 1900s are great, but I also think that the idea that MDs do not incorporate these ideas is wrong. I feel that being at a DO school I have been taught to be a good listener, take a good history while considering who my patient is instead of what the disease is, and to be aware of the bodies innate healing mechanisms. But I also feel that this is being taught at every decent MD school, too, and I'm not comfortable patting myself on the back and thinking that my osteopathic approach is better than the MD approach in some way. I know there are MDs who are not good with patients, don't care about people, give lots of drugs and send patients out the door as fast as possible - but this is the doctor, not a DO vs. MD issue. Any decent primary care MD will incorporate all the good qualities of bedside manner, seeing the patient as a whole, and letting the body work to heal itself that an osteopath would - the big difference I see is OMM. MDs (for the most part) do not have training in manipulation. I feel OMM has healing value - I've seen it on preceptorships and shadowing. I just think that OMM should and could easily be taught in residency. It's hard and frustrating to learn OMM for 2 years without seeing a patient with pathology you can put you hands on. It's frustrating to spend hours in lab each week learning about a somatic dysfunction and then being asked to diagnose and treat it on your classmate who is super healthy and runs marathons. I'm kinda wishing that DOs and MDs would just merge (i.e. DO degree disappear - omg blasphemy, burn her she's a witch) and osteopathy become a resident level option for people who want to learn and incorporate manipulation into their future practice. I think this additional training would be ideal for family meds, IM, peds, OB, PMNR, and others. I would love to learn OMM in a residency setting, but I'm not a big fan now at the pre-clinical level. This opinion of osteopathy could change later, I'm still very young in this journey. In summary, if you're not interested in being a doctor who uses OMM often on patients in your practice, then when you go to a DO school try to limit the amount you complain about the OMM classes 🙂
Specifically at our school, we have about 3 hours of osteopathy per week (1h lecture, 2 hour lab). During 2nd year, we also may have more lectures on the applications of osteopathy within that system (e.g. musculo-skeletal e.g.) It's a not a large amount of our overall medical education - at least I don't see it that way. Many students in my class have expressed that they don't see themselves ever using OMM, and many are really interested in OMM and I'm sure will become great healers using OMM.
Enough about osteopathy.
Strengths of UNECOM:
I like my classmates (for the most part 🙂). I am sure that other schools have more class problems. People are generally nice in Maine and somehow this gets into the classroom and students. When you spend years with 120+ people in a stressful environment (med school), it's naive to think you will not begin to hate going to class some days or dislike certain people. But all in all, I imagine it's worse in other places.
Cost of living is moderately low if you're from a city in the northeast. Biddeford/Saco is cheap. Portland cost is not bad and you get a cool city. Many ppl commute - it's not a big deal and you can listen to goljan lectures in your car on the way through pretty maine.
We have some damn good faculty. We also have some not so good. Some are really, really, ridiculously...ummm, not good 😛. But many are really good and focus on what we need for boards. I learn a lot on my own now in the later half of year 2, but in the beginning with anatomy and physiology (the foundation) when I attended every lecture I was very often impressed with my profs. Year 2, as others have stated, is hit and miss with the unfortunate approach to having 8+ different lecturers per system - usually with only 1 or 2 having even looked a board review book recently to see what they should focus on. But on the bright side, you are not required to attend many lectures and the noteservice allows off-campus review of lectures to supplement your board studying if you miss a class. I must also mention that some systems are really outstanding with almost every lecture focusing on boards-relevant material - I just wish more were like this.
We have good rotation sites/options and a decent lottery system allowing most (not all) people to get their first choice on where to spend 3rd year. Our students have a good rep with the hospitals and we are told that were are generally quite well prepared to begin 3rd year.
Weaknesses of UNECOM:
Cool, now I can vent! Just kidding.
I think there are a few weaknesses that should be mentioned and I encourage you braver pre-meds to find diplomatic ways of bringing these issues up at interviews and on tours. The more UNECOM hears about them, the faster they will be addressed.
First, I think the past several years of upper level administration changes have resulted in a detachment between the students and the university president and deans. We just recently obtained a new COM dean and a new COM dean of academic affairs. These people obviously play an important role in the stability, growth, and quality of UNECOM and I think it's safe to say that all the changes have had some negative effects. Specifically, there has been a lot of poor communication between the students and administration (as can be read about by others posting here) and I think the effect on us as students of this separation is a feeling of neglect. Our new administration has put a very big emphasis on things that are going to change and ideas they will implement over the next few years which will have profound effect on quality of education and education experience of UNECOM. Immediate changes are often rushed (meaning only takes a few months, which is "rushed" for academia) and result in lots of little problems and issues. In the meantime, we're all kinda thinking, great, so we're not really going to see any of the big changes and that printer we asked for last year is still "on the waiting list" so to speak. Med schools are large institutions and changes take time and lots of patience. This can be frustrating for us as med students.
Another weakness is the tuition. It's my opinion that it's too high and I'll tell you why. When you pay 46k per year for school, you want a decent education and a good shot at residency. I feel like I'm getting that. But since you're paying 46k and you know this is a lot, you also want a few perks. You might like some free anatomy lab supplies (scalpel, gloves). You might feel good when the school says they will provide your COMLEX fee since tuition is so high. You might appreciate a quiet study space/room. You might feel good when you see free coffee provided on days with morning lectures. You might like an assigned parking space so you don't have to compete with undergraduates and classmates at 7:55am. I could list a lot of other things that UNECOM doesn't provide and none of these are considered by me to be real "weaknesses" of the school. These are all minor things and I'm not complaining - I'm just saying that I feel that if the school treated us more like sophisticated, adult customers of a very valuable product by giving us perks and sense that they care a lot, we would be happier with our choice in school and giving them so much money. We can be sure that the tuition will never lower (it is raised 6% per year), so beginning to look at other ways to offset this 46k/year would go a long way in my opinion. Tuition is a factor in many complaints I hear from my classmates.
A final weakness in my opinion is the lack of cohesion amongst the 2rd year systems courses. Every 2-4 weeks we start a different system with several clinicians teaching. The quality and value of the lecture in our preparation for board exams is all over the place. Sometimes excellent, often OK, and too often just not as efficient as an hour of study time with a good COMLEX review book. There's a lot of overlap in material between the 8 clinicians and I wonder sometimes if I would be better off attending fewer lectures and doing more self studying. I think for each system there should be a director who keeps up with what is being emphasized on boards so the course content matches. Then, the lecturer topics should be determined and assigned to 4 or fewer lecturers who communicate so that they don't overlap. Finally, common and tricky board-style vignette questions should be presented with each lecture with brief explanation of right and wrong choices. Anyway, I'm going off into med school utopia here...
Final thoughts
I'm glad I'm here in school getting this done. I'm feeling now that being a doctor is not about med school - rather, we're just here to learn thousands of vocabulary words and some basic professionalism so we can begin residency, learn to be doctors, and not look like complete clowns. I'm confident that I will be able to repay my debt someday (300k-ish expected) and be a good provider for my family while enjoying a nice career. I'm confident I will get a residency position that will train me to be a good doctor even if it's not my first choice or I'm limited to the non-ultra-competitive specialties. When you look at it that way, UNECOM is fine 🙂
Most important thing I've learned is to relax and focus on the patient.
Thanks to ShyRem who spends time writing posts about UNECOM that helped me when I was pre-med.
I hope the time you spent reading this was in some way helpful and good luck to pre-meds in your search for where you belong.
you're welcome.
