2011-2012 Texas Tech (El Paso) Application Thread

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going to el paso on the 25th for mine. good luck y'all who already have interviews
 
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2012Aggie said:
Leaving in an hour for my interview. I can't wait to see the school and the city. I have never been to El Paso.
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It's an amazing city man. My opinion is probably biased because I grew up there, but the community is awesome, the weather is ideal, and the scenery is beautiful. I love and miss the mountains. The rest of Texas is really flat. Also, you're not far from Ruidoso, New Mexico (about an hour). I used to go there to ski and snowboard (Ski Apache) every year. I used to also go boating at Elephant butte lake often. It's just a nice change of environment compared to College Station (I'm at A&M too). I miss living there, and I hope I get an interview so I can at least visit it. Plus the school is brand spanking new! Good luck with your interview! 😀
 
Just to give you guys another opinion of this school:

1) Had a lecture today. Find me another medical school in the country where a professor gives you his cell phone, home phone, and office numbers and tells you that you can call him multiple times.....even at 2:00am if you need any help. He stressed today that if you fail, he fails, and that his sole purpose is to be a team with the students to ace the exams/boards.

2) What other medical school in the country lets you see standardized patients your first week of class and REAL patients at the local clinics within the first month?

3) BRAND NEW FACILITIES

4) Professors are always in their offices (not doing research on the other side of campus...) and have an open-door policy or will just answer emails most of the time within 30 minutes.

5) Weekly "formative" quizzes (NOT GRADED) that give you a heads up on how you are doing so far and are written in USMLE format and timed exactly like the board tests.

6) Curriculum, hands down makes a ton more sense to integrate everything so heavily. No, this way is not easier.....probably is harder....but go ask the doctors around here that have had MSIII's from a standard way of teaching and the integrated, they will all say the the curriculum here has prepared them to do better in their clinical years aka becoming a real doctor.
 
Checcles said:
Just to give you guys another opinion of this school:

1) Had a lecture today. Find me another medical school in the country where a professor gives you his cell phone, home phone, and office numbers and tells you that you can call him multiple times.....even at 2:00am if you need any help. He stressed today that if you fail, he fails, and that his sole purpose is to be a team with the students to ace the exams/boards.

2) What other medical school in the country lets you see standardized patients your first week of class and REAL patients at the local clinics within the first month?

3) BRAND NEW FACILITIES

4) Professors are always in their offices (not doing research on the other side of campus...) and have an open-door policy or will just answer emails most of the time within 30 minutes.

5) Weekly "formative" quizzes (NOT GRADED) that give you a heads up on how you are doing so far and are written in USMLE format and timed exactly like the board tests.

6) Curriculum, hands down makes a ton more sense to integrate everything so heavily. No, this way is not easier.....probably is harder....but go ask the doctors around here that have had MSIII's from a standard way of teaching and the integrated, they will all say the the curriculum here has prepared them to do better in their clinical years aka becoming a real doctor.
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Thanks for the insight. I know I would love to go to this school. The location itself provides many unique opportunities. I've got my fingers crossed for an acceptance this winter!
 
sector9 said:
Hmm I emailed today about student hosting and I was told that there's nothing in place, even though my interview is in September... Dang I was hoping something was set up now
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Yeah, I think people haven't been that motivated to set anything up since we have our formative exams on Thursday, so we're usually buckled down studying the night before when you guys would have been staying with us.

In general, we like having our formatives on Thursday vs. Monday (like the previous year), so that our weekends are free to start the material for the next week instead of studying stuff from the previous week, but unfortunately, that isn't the best scenario for you guys. Sorry!

It sounds like even last year, though, that the student housing program was fairly small, only hosting about 4-6 students each week.
 
Beets said:
Yeah, I think people haven't been that motivated to set anything up since we have our formative exams on Thursday, so we're usually buckled down studying the night before when you guys would have been staying with us.

In general, we like having our formatives on Thursday vs. Monday (like the previous year), so that our weekends are free to start the material for the next week instead of studying stuff from the previous week, but unfortunately, that isn't the best scenario for you guys. Sorry!

It sounds like even last year, though, that the student housing program was fairly small, only hosting about 4-6 students each week.
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Ah dang! Thanks for the detailed response
 
Flying to El Paso in a few hours. Hope I'm not forgetting anything.
 
just got back from el paso.

The school itself was really great and I especially enjoyed the interview day.
This is a list of pros/cons

1. Everything is new and nice and shiny, and they showed us the sim center and ran the dummies. They even let the interviewees use the dummies

the con PFL is a new med school, so they dont even have a match list out yet.

2. the curriculum sounds awesome. Everything is highly integrated with the clinical setting and apparently AAMC has specifically referred to it as the "curriculum of the new millennium". Also a lot of chances to learn Spanish. They tell you a lot more about it in the interview day. There is a lot of support for students, especially for the STEP 1.

There is really no flip side to this. For me, this is hands down the best thing about the school.

3. The school and el paso itself are both really beautiful. El paso is a big city and the PLF building itself is really nice and has a beautiful statue garden.

There aren't that many hospitals for 3rd and 4th yr rotations. I might be spoiled going to school in the med center, but for PLF there is a new children's hospital, a small psychiatric hospital, and a 300 bed county hospital, and thats it. I don't know if this limits education, but it certainly feels like a lot fewer options than the multiple areas TTUHSC lubbock and A&M lets you choose from.

4. The interview day was the best run by far out of the 4 (UTMB, TTUHSC Lubbock, UT Houston, PLF) I have been to. Everything was extremely well organized and followed a timeline almost to the minute. Instead of just going to your interviewer's offices, they designated an entire floor specifically for interview rooms where you and your interviewer meet. Im pretty sure they even had synchronized door opening by members of the admissions staff when you were touring.

The flip side is that this could just mean they have a really well run admissions office and nothing more...

5. Great focus on med student education. In fact they have an entire department of med student education instead of pulling research scientists or clinicians to also teach some class. They said that teachers must spend 80% of their time teaching.

The flip side is that, although there are a lot of research opportunities according to the med students, there probably still aren't as many as in SW or in the med center.

The interviews were...

well, my two interviewers were really nice, but there was one interviewer who apparently interrogates you on facts in history (Who was the second president of Texas, when was the battle of San Jacinto). My first interviewer was nice and did not use the PLF list of questions, so it was a great interview. He did mention some current world events though, so it wouldn't hurt to browse time magazine or something beforehand. Other than that pretty standard questions.

My second interviewer was even nicer than the first, but she used the PLF list of interview questions, and there were some tough questions. "What would you improve if you had time", "What is a quality you have that you feel did not come through in this interview", "if there is a patient who is terminal with no chance to live, what else can you do for him/her" (palliative care question), "If a person messes up their own liver from alcoholism or a diabetic stops taking their medication and they need a transplant, do they deserve one less than someone else who did not do these things", "do you have good judgement and what is good judgement".

The people seem to genuinely care about student welfare, this was the first interview where the associate dean explained the mechanics of the next few steps forward in a medical career.

The tour of the SIM center given by Dr. Ho was really entertaining because Dr. Ho is hilarious. The answer to his automatic admission question, "how many Americans die each year due to preventable medical mistakes", is "100,000" btw.

msg me if anyone has any specific questions
 
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I had one of the bad interviewers. He grilled me for 45 minutes over a topic that I was clueless about.

Other than that, I liked El Paso. Exceeded expectations.
 
I agree with everything Laxian said. Had such a great day! Ran smoothly, very organized and learnt soo much about the curriculum and how students get to prepare for the step1. Overall I was on a high when I left. 😀
 
therunner12 said:
I had one of the bad interviewers. He grilled me for 45 minutes over a topic that I was clueless about.

Other than that, I liked El Paso. Exceeded expectations.
Click to expand...

Care to share the general gist of the topic? I mean, was it at least healthcare-related?

That Texas-history griller story scares me, if true. I lived up north for 21 years; I haven't the foggiest who the presidents of Texas were or when certain battles were...
 
The initial question was something long the lines of "what do you do if a person comes into your care and they has a disease that is completely unknown to everyone? A completely new disease."

Apparently the answer was you get with the PhD's in the basic sciences and create a new drug to cure the disease.

I got strung along for 40 minutes aimlessly talking about honesty with the patient, getting help from anyone I could, trying to treat the symptoms but also trying to find the root of the cause, etc.

Awful awful.

Also, the Texas History interviewer wasn't really just history. He just asked about random stuff. At least that's what I heard.

I'd like to add that the group of people I interviewed with was great. I had a great time talking to everyone and hope everyone the best of luck.
 
Jumping in here really quick to say that one of my classmates here tells a similar Texas History grilling story about an interviewer they had at UTH. 😛 He also was grilled about Indian history as well... Haha. I didn't know we had a history oriented faculty member here.

Oh, and about the hypothetical questions that some of you think you flubbed on, I wouldn't worry about it too much. They know you don't know all of the answers. The important thing is to work through your answer in a logical manner and admit when you don't know something.
 
I transmitted on July 21,got confirmation a week later and still haven't heard anything from el paso. Should I be worried?
 
alienwares said:
Care to share the general gist of the topic? I mean, was it at least healthcare-related?

That Texas-history griller story scares me, if true. I lived up north for 21 years; I haven't the foggiest who the presidents of Texas were or when certain battles were...
Click to expand...

well for what its worth I have lived in Tx for 12 years and am a History major, and I also do not know the answers to these questions.

I can't imagine he actually expects you to know them, I'm sure its just to gauge composure or something
 
Oh my goodness, I am never driving to El Paso alone again. It is so very far away from everywhere else in Texas.
 
So it looks like Best Western Airport is only 45$ if I book now online.

A few of you who already interviewed mentioned it. I'm guessing it worked out fine for you guys? I can stand a crappy room for a night, I'm mainly interested in the transportation/shuttle that they offer. I won't be in a bad situation if I rely on it?
 
sector9 said:
So it looks like Best Western Airport is only 45$ if I book now online.

A few of you who already interviewed mentioned it. I'm guessing it worked out fine for you guys? I can stand a crappy room for a night, I'm mainly interested in the transportation/shuttle that they offer. I won't be in a bad situation if I rely on it?
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yea i stayed there. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the room itself, and i think interviewees get a subsidized rate.

They pick you up from the airport and take you to the med school. I got my airport ride within 10 minutes of getting to the designated area, the med school shuttle (its just a van) leaves at 7:30 from the inn, and the med school is only a few miles away. Overall no complaints.
 
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Interview day was today!

Overall, the whole day ran very smoothly. The day began with an introduction by the admissions members, and this was immediately followed by a tour of the medical education building. The facilities themselves are gorgeous, and the SIM lab looks like it is A) a lot of fun and B) very useful. The university was very proud of its 97% Step One pass rate, and the MS-2s' mean was in the mid 220s.

The interviews were more laid-back than I was expecting. I think nerves might have done me in on my first interview (it happens), which was very much along the lines of "Why do you want to be a doctor?" and "What are good qualities for a clinician... and explain how/if you possess them." I had prepared answers for these questions ready, but I rambled on too much. So... do more practice interviews with a friend if you think you might need to! It may save your life. The second interview was very much "Tell me about yourself" and went from there. it was a relief from the first interview and we hit it off well, I think.

Some of the other applicants who had had other interview days already stated that TTU-El Paso's were among the most laid-back. The MS-1s and -2s I asked all seemed happy with their choice of school; the small class sizes and P/F-only grading seemed to be popular.
 
laxian said:
There aren't that many hospitals for 3rd and 4th yr rotations. I might be spoiled going to school in the med center, but for PLF there is a new children's hospital, a small psychiatric hospital, and a 300 bed county hospital, and thats it. I don't know if this limits education, but it certainly feels like a lot fewer options than the multiple areas TTUHSC lubbock and A&M lets you choose from.
Click to expand...

While the hospital right next to the school might be somewhat small, the third and fourth year students also make rotations out to Fort Bliss and many other places in the community from my understanding. I am from Lubbock and they used to send the largest section of their split class (40%) to El Paso before El Paso became a 4 year med school 3 years ago. There are opportunities here to see more and a wider variety of patients especially since its on the border. In terms of sheer population, El paso is much larger than Lubbock (almost 3 times the size with just the US population and many people come from Mx for US treatment and Juarez is huge >1 mil) and Bryan/College Station so there will be more patients. I have also heard that you will see many advanced forms of diseases/cancers that you will have a hard time seeing elsewhere due to the decreased knowledge of public health and different belief systems of the area.

Just to clarify, I am not putting down Tech at lubbock but when you have the same number of patients and your almost doubling the number of students split between mostly lubbock and amarillo you probably wont have the same experience as you used to get (3rd and 4th year).

My experience here has been very positive. By having a slightly smaller class size you really get a chance to know everyone very well. That includes trying to get ahold of people to form small study groups to getting an impromptu soccer game together to football games on friday after class. The spanish class is a plus for me because coming here I knew almost zero spanish. You will get out of it what you put into it but I feel its good to learn spanish if you are going to want to practice in Tx/Az/Nm/Ca. And the faculty is always there to help. Overall I am very happy I go here.
 
thanks for the clarification! they didn't mention the community hospitals at the interview, thats why i was wondering.
 
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laxian said:
just got back from el paso.

The school itself was really great and I especially enjoyed the interview day.
This is a list of pros/cons

1. Everything is new and nice and shiny, and they showed us the sim center and ran the dummies. They even let the interviewees use the dummies

the con PFL is a new med school, so they dont even have a match list out yet.

2. the curriculum sounds awesome. Everything is highly integrated with the clinical setting and apparently AAMC has specifically referred to it as the "curriculum of the new millennium". Also a lot of chances to learn Spanish. They tell you a lot more about it in the interview day. There is a lot of support for students, especially for the STEP 1.

There is really no flip side to this. For me, this is hands down the best thing about the school.

3. The school and el paso itself are both really beautiful. El paso is a big city and the PLF building itself is really nice and has a beautiful statue garden.

There aren't that many hospitals for 3rd and 4th yr rotations. I might be spoiled going to school in the med center, but for PLF there is a new children's hospital, a small psychiatric hospital, and a 300 bed county hospital, and thats it. I don't know if this limits education, but it certainly feels like a lot fewer options than the multiple areas TTUHSC lubbock and A&M lets you choose from.

4. The interview day was the best run by far out of the 4 (UTMB, TTUHSC Lubbock, UT Houston, PLF) I have been to. Everything was extremely well organized and followed a timeline almost to the minute. Instead of just going to your interviewer's offices, they designated an entire floor specifically for interview rooms where you and your interviewer meet. Im pretty sure they even had synchronized door opening by members of the admissions staff when you were touring.

The flip side is that this could just mean they have a really well run admissions office and nothing more...

5. Great focus on med student education. In fact they have an entire department of med student education instead of pulling research scientists or clinicians to also teach some class. They said that teachers must spend 80% of their time teaching.

The flip side is that, although there are a lot of research opportunities according to the med students, there probably still aren't as many as in SW or in the med center.

The interviews were...

well, my two interviewers were really nice, but there was one interviewer who apparently interrogates you on facts in history (Who was the second president of Texas, when was the battle of San Jacinto). My first interviewer was nice and did not use the PLF list of questions, so it was a great interview. He did mention some current world events though, so it wouldn't hurt to browse time magazine or something beforehand. Other than that pretty standard questions.

My second interviewer was even nicer than the first, but she used the PLF list of interview questions, and there were some tough questions. "What would you improve if you had time", "What is a quality you have that you feel did not come through in this interview", "if there is a patient who is terminal with no chance to live, what else can you do for him/her" (palliative care question), "If a person messes up their own liver from alcoholism or a diabetic stops taking their medication and they need a transplant, do they deserve one less than someone else who did not do these things", "do you have good judgement and what is good judgement".

The people seem to genuinely care about student welfare, this was the first interview where the associate dean explained the mechanics of the next few steps forward in a medical career.

The tour of the SIM center given by Dr. Ho was really entertaining because Dr. Ho is hilarious. The answer to his automatic admission question, "how many Americans die each year due to preventable medical mistakes", is "100,000" btw.

msg me if anyone has any specific questions
Click to expand...

Glad you had a nice trip. And in reference to the bottom of your post... If Dr. Ho asks when a patient is most likely to decide to sue a doctor for malpractice, the answer is when the patient first meets the doctor. Basically saying, a good first impression is crucial.
 
Interviewing here tomorrow. Have they stopped sending interviews or something? I was the last person to get one on this thread like a month ago. Seems like all the schools have slowed down a bit recently. Or everyone on SDN has received an interview 😛
 
PianoMajor said:
Interviewing here tomorrow. Have they stopped sending interviews or something? I was the last person to get one on this thread like a month ago. Seems like all the schools have slowed down a bit recently. Or everyone on SDN has received an interview 😛
Click to expand...

I have the same feeling!! It's like the schools are taking it a little easier after the initial flood- I'm sure it's not really that way... SDN is just a sample after all but man I would love to hear more!!😀
 
PianoMajor said:
Interviewing here tomorrow. Have they stopped sending interviews or something? I was the last person to get one on this thread like a month ago. Seems like all the schools have slowed down a bit recently. Or everyone on SDN has received an interview 😛
Click to expand...
Well, let's hope the next wave of invites comes soon. I was there last year, near the end of October. Was interviewed by a psychiatrist (first interview ever), and a radiologist. Went Ok, but evidently not good enough. Hoping to get a second shot here sometime before January. Been working on my Spanglish.:xf::xf:
 
PianoMajor said:
Interviewing here tomorrow. Have they stopped sending interviews or something? I was the last person to get one on this thread like a month ago. Seems like all the schools have slowed down a bit recently. Or everyone on SDN has received an interview 😛
Click to expand...

I feel like the schools have slowed down. SW sent me an invite for 10/29, so I'm assuming they filled all the spots till then. Most schools won't notify you 2 months in advance.
 
Had two great interviews here earlier today. Couldn't have gone any better. I liked the school, felt it would be a good fit for me.

It would be nice to get some exposure to other schools at some point though. We'll see...
 
I got an email for an interview invite this am!!!! Scheduled for October 13th. I can't wait!! So excited!!!
 
therunner12 said:
I had one of the bad interviewers. He grilled me for 45 minutes over a topic that I was clueless about.

Other than that, I liked El Paso. Exceeded expectations.
Click to expand...
I liked El Paso too. What topic did he grill you about for 45 minutes?
 
therunner12 said:
I was grilled on what you do if a patient presents a completely new and unique disease.
Click to expand...
That's an interesting question. I agree a bit tough though. Maybe this was one of those composure type questions. I wonder why it was so important to spend all that time on it. Maybe the guy is a pathologist or something.
My guess would be you collect as much information as possible (pics, family history, genetic tests,etc), consult with colleagues, spend countless hours trying to find a cure. Then you decide what to call the new disease, and publish your findings.
 
SanAntonian said:
That's an interesting question. I agree a bit tough though. Maybe this was one of those composure type questions. I wonder why it was so important to spend all that time on it. Maybe the guy is a pathologist or something.
My guess would be you collect as much information as possible (pics, family history, genetic tests,etc), consult with colleagues, spend countless hours trying to find a cure. Then you decide what to call the new disease, and publish your findings.
Click to expand...
therunner12 already explained the whole situation earlier in this thread, as well as the answer that the interviewer was looking for
 
Checcles said:
Just to give you guys another opinion of this school:

1) Had a lecture today. Find me another medical school in the country where a professor gives you his cell phone, home phone, and office numbers and tells you that you can call him multiple times.....even at 2:00am if you need any help. He stressed today that if you fail, he fails, and that his sole purpose is to be a team with the students to ace the exams/boards.

2) What other medical school in the country lets you see standardized patients your first week of class and REAL patients at the local clinics within the first month?

3) BRAND NEW FACILITIES

4) Professors are always in their offices (not doing research on the other side of campus...) and have an open-door policy or will just answer emails most of the time within 30 minutes.

5) Weekly "formative" quizzes (NOT GRADED) that give you a heads up on how you are doing so far and are written in USMLE format and timed exactly like the board tests.

6) Curriculum, hands down makes a ton more sense to integrate everything so heavily. No, this way is not easier.....probably is harder....but go ask the doctors around here that have had MSIII's from a standard way of teaching and the integrated, they will all say the the curriculum here has prepared them to do better in their clinical years aka becoming a real doctor.
Click to expand...

I agree! Plus, you get to get into the community ("devils" triangle!")
 
I just checked the TMDSAS rank list page for the first time today. Currently El Paso is number 1 on my list!!! ....out of 2 lol.
 
My application to el paso was transmitted 7/22/11, but I still have a "wrench" symbol next to my application, and I don't see an option to send submit my application, like I did for the lubbock app. Could there be a delay since I recently released my MCAT score (9/20/11)?
20u9ybk.jpg
 
Sonyfan08 said:
My application to el paso was transmitted 7/22/11, but I still have a "wrench" symbol next to my application, and I don't see an option to send submit my application, like I did for the lubbock app. Could there be a delay since I recently released my MCAT score (9/20/11)?
Click to expand...
There is nothing to submit for El Paso hence no option to submit. They'll get your MCAT scores once you release them through THx to TMDSAS. There will probably be a delay.

You should log on to TMDSAS and make sure they have your MCAT score. After that, there's nothing you can do to make El Paso look at your app any faster
 
sector9 said:
There is nothing to submit for El Paso hence no option to submit. They'll get your MCAT scores once you release them through THx to TMDSAS. There will probably be a delay.

You should log on to TMDSAS and make sure they have your MCAT score. After that, there's nothing you can do to make El Paso look at your app any faster
Click to expand...

Is a wrench there not normal? Mine has been like that the whole time, and I submitted 6/30.
 
Thanks! It looks like TMDSAS has received my MCAT scores.

It said "wrenches indicate that the part has been started but is not yet complete," so I was worried I may have forgotten something.. but it's a bit reassuring to know that someone else has the wrench too. :laugh:
 
Sonyfan08 said:
Thanks! It looks like TMDSAS has received my MCAT scores.

It said "wrenches indicate that the part has been started but is not yet complete," so I was worried I may have forgotten something.. but it's a bit reassuring to know that someone else has the wrench too. :laugh:
Click to expand...
I've interviewed there already and I still have the wrench. It's completely normal since there's nothing to submit

Good luck
 
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