2018-2019 Texas Tech University - El Paso

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thegrind33 said:
Why would they want to get rid of standardized patient interactions??
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Because everyone wanna be a doctor but nobody really wanna go to medical school.
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jarednogeek said:
You can wear pajamas to a lecture and still become a professional and competent doctor in my opinion.
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Yes you could walk around the hospital nude and be an awesome doctor but as I mentioned in previous posts, people make snap judgements about the way you choose to present yourself. If you doubt this you can make some snap judgements of your own using this little quiz Prof or Hobo? - Quiz

Some people really care about how you dress. Some people don't. I just play it safe.

jarednogeek said:
Conduct citations for joking?
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You could get one for making a really ****ty joke to the wrong audience. Don't be socially inept and you will avoid this problem entirely.
jarednogeek said:
Required political rally attendance?
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No. Go study.

jarednogeek said:
Jeans are required at El Paso?
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Abso****inglutely. If you don't come in with your standard issue medical boots, cowboy hat, and bolo tie your evaluations will suffer.
 
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Meda15 said:
What dates were you given to choose from?
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Just to add to what was posted, when I initially checked my portal, August 23rd was also an available date. However, in the time it took for me to look through things, it filled and became unavailable.
 
Lomology said:
Just to add to what was posted, when I initially checked my portal, August 23rd was also an available date. However, in the time it took for me to look through things, it filled and became unavailable.
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Excuse me young sir or madam, but when did you have your secondary turned in by if you don’t mind me asking?
 
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RedWolverine said:
Excuse me young sir or madam, but when did you have your secondary turned in by if you don’t mind me asking?
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I submitted my secondary July 7th, but I didn't have my LORs until August 9th.
 
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For those that have already interviewed, and will interview today, how was you experience? Anything you would suggest to prepare for those of us yet to interview?
 
cm58 said:
For those that have already interviewed, and will interview today, how was you experience? Anything you would suggest to prepare for those of us yet to interview?
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Both my interviews were very relaxed and friendly. No high pressure/ high-stress questions. The only thing I would say to prepare is to know your application, know a bit about why you would want to come to El Paso and PLFSOM. Know the basics that you should already be familiar with (like what the ACA is, what you think are some current health care issues and how you might strive to address them).

The school itself impressed me quite a bit. They have a really nicely structured curriculum that makes good sense and looks like it would actually be fun to learn. True P/F grading and lots of self-directed time for study. Lots of other highlights that previous people have touched on as well and I didn't really see anything negative about the school other than that the traffic can be a little bad, depending on where you live.
 
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esob said:
Both my interviews were very relaxed and friendly. No high pressure/ high-stress questions. The only thing I would say to prepare is to know your application, know a bit about why you would want to come to El Paso and PLFSOM. Know the basics that you should already be familiar with (like what the ACA is, what you think are some current health care issues and how you might strive to address them).

The school itself impressed me quite a bit. They have a really nicely structured curriculum that makes good sense and looks like it would actually be fun to learn. True P/F grading and lots of self-directed time for study. Lots of other highlights that previous people have touched on as well and I didn't really see anything negative about the school other than that the traffic can be a little bad, depending on where you live.
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The curriculum mainly prepares you well for in-house exams which are composed of faculty written questions. They have internal quality controls for questions using a series of statistical methods to determine if a question was fair or not as well.

My main issue with the MS1/2 curriculum was that our exam questions were quite easy compared to what Step 1 questions (and related Qbanks) were asking. I suppose this is a common issue with medical schools based on my conversations with colleagues at higher tier schools. However, because our curriculum starts quite early compared to several other schools you have a bit more time to study for Step 1. We officially end our final block of MS2 curriculum around February and then we have a month ~10-20 hour a week "intersession" curriculum which is sprinkled with random activities meant to prepare us for M3 year (how beneficial these activities were are up for debate). After this we pretty much have all of March and April to study for Step 1.

Bottom line: For Step 1 studying our school provided approximately 1 month of pseudo-dedicated and 2 months of dedicated study time. You can use this however you want. It helped a bunch of us cover any holes our curriculum didn't cover.

Some of my classmates went really hard during that first month and were able to travel abroad for several weeks before starting M3 year. I felt quite burnt out after our last block (also dealt with flares of autoimmune disease) so I just chilled for about a month before starting an actual dedicated study period and ended up taking the the Friday before M3 started. This is honestly the biggest luxury I can say our school provided compared to other schools. I was really happy with my final score so this flexible period was pretty valuable to me.

A word of caution - I do not know if faculty are planning on messing with the academic calendar between our final block of MS2 and the beginning of MS3 so I would probably ask any current MS1/MS2 if they have heard anything during the student panel.
 
Sterling Archer said:
The curriculum mainly prepares you well for in-house exams which are composed of faculty written questions. They have internal quality controls for questions using a series of statistical methods to determine if a question was fair or not as well.

My main issue with the MS1/2 curriculum was that our exam questions were quite easy compared to what Step 1 questions (and related Qbanks) were asking. I suppose this is a common issue with medical schools based on my conversations with colleagues at higher tier schools. However, because our curriculum starts quite early compared to several other schools you have a bit more time to study for Step 1. We officially end our final block of MS2 curriculum around February and then we have a month ~10-20 hour a week "intersession" curriculum which is sprinkled with random activities meant to prepare us for M3 year (how beneficial these activities were are up for debate). After this we pretty much have all of March and April to study for Step 1.

Bottom line: For Step 1 studying our school provided approximately 1 month of pseudo-dedicated and 2 months of dedicated study time. You can use this however you want. It helped a bunch of us cover any holes our curriculum didn't cover.

Some of my classmates went really hard during that first month and were able to travel abroad for several weeks before starting M3 year. I felt quite burnt out after our last block (also dealt with flares of autoimmune disease) so I just chilled for about a month before starting an actual dedicated study period and ended up taking the the Friday before M3 started. This is honestly the biggest luxury I can say our school provided compared to other schools. I was really happy with my final score so this flexible period was pretty valuable to me.

A word of caution - I do not know if faculty are planning on messing with the academic calendar between our final block of MS2 and the beginning of MS3 so I would probably ask any current MS1/MS2 if they have heard anything during the student panel.
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Can you comment on MS3 rotations with blocks that alternate between two specialties and sitting for multiple shelf exams during the same week at the end of the block?
 
Sterling Archer said:
The curriculum mainly prepares you well for in-house exams which are composed of faculty written questions. They have internal quality controls for questions using a series of statistical methods to determine if a question was fair or not as well.

My main issue with the MS1/2 curriculum was that our exam questions were quite easy compared to what Step 1 questions (and related Qbanks) were asking..... .
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I was under the impression from the presentation that exam questions were essentially pulled from NBME questions that were "off rotation," rather than something the faculty was devising. I recall being told that the faculty have access to these questions and pull them for exams. Thus, basically, all of your exams were sort of like mini chunks of the step exam for that related content. Is that not the case or is this something new they are doing?
 
esob said:
I was under the impression from the presentation that exam questions were essentially pulled from NBME questions that were "off rotation," rather than something the faculty was devising. I recall being told that the faculty have access to these questions and pull them for exams. Thus, basically, all of your exams were sort of like mini chunks of the step exam for that related content. Is that not the case or is this something new they are doing?
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The exam at the end of each unit are created by professors. The cumulative exam at the end of MS1 is through NBME and are retired questions "hand selected" by our professors. You must pass each within two attempts to pass the year.
 
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LibBum said:
Can you comment on MS3 rotations with blocks that alternate between two specialties and sitting for multiple shelf exams during the same week at the end of the block?
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At first I thought it was a ridiculous idea, but as M3 went on I noticed a many questions on shelf exams end up encroaching onto other exam topic territory. For example we have Ob/Peds mashed up as one rotation and the shelf exams did have a reasonable degree of overlap especially as it's very easy to convert an Ob question into a peds question i.e. a question about a 16 year old girl who is pregnant would be considered a peds question due to the age group but really it's more of an Ob question.

For my thoughts on other mashups we had:
IM/Psych - Having IM mashed up here was pretty useful for the psych shelf. Several questions were touching on concepts of along the lines of "Does this dude actually have psych problems or are his psych symptoms just secondary to a medical issue". Also since IM had the largest number of questions it gave us time to spread them out over a 16 week period so I focused on that and touched up psych briefly (the psych shelf really only needs 2-3 days to study for)
FM/Surg - Surgery seemed to be more of a test of IM with a spin on surgery and not really a surgery test, I suppose having FM helped a bit but FM was more focused on treatments of very common problems and preventative health and not really IM heavy. As far as the topics go I feel that IM being paired with surgery would have been more useful to build your knowledge base for the surgery shelf, but that would have been a terribly painful rotation if it existed.

It is daunting to think about having two shelf exams every 16 weeks rather than a single shelf exam every 6-8 weeks, but I don't really think I would have done any better on shelf exams if our curriculum was set up in a more traditional way. You just learn to work with what you got.
 
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LibBum said:
The exam at the end of each unit are created by professors. The cumulative exam at the end of MS1 is through NBME and are retired questions "hand selected" by our professors. You must pass each within two attempts to pass the year.
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For clarity:
At the end of year one is your CEYE (comprehensive end of year exam) which is a total of 300 questions split into two sessions of 150 questions each. These come from a pool of retired NBME questions which professors pick out based on the units you have covered so far (Intro to med stuff, GI, Musculoskeletal/Skin, Hem/Onc, CVR, Renal, and a splash of ethics and biostats). They limit the selection to items which have a difficulty level of 80% meaning that 80% of persons answered that question correctly when they were actually field tested on historical Step 1 or shelf administrations. Even though these were written by the NBME, they are really easy compared to the actual exam. Even the practice Step 1 exams you take on your own during dedicated are just outdated NBME questions which were not at all like the actual Step exam. This seems to be a universal issue with medical schools and thus, many students use question banks (UWorld, Kaplan, etc) which feature much more difficult/convoluted/no buzzword type questions which feel closer to the real exam in my opinion.

After each unit you get a 150 question test written by faculty members.Their quality controls also try to ensure an item difficulty level of 70-80% otherwise the question is further scrutinized to determine if it was a bad/poorly written question i.e. faculty member accidentally deleted slide from powerpoint which question was based off of thus students answered no better than random guessing. Bad questions are thrown out but they will keep fair, but more difficult questions.
 
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Just joined this thread but I received an interview invite on August 2nd and am having this week! My secondary application was submitted July 17th. Hope this information helps and if anyone from this year or last year remembers stuff from the interview that would be helpful!
 
Hey y'all!

Can't wait to see you all soon at your interviews.

These are a few personal tips I would give to interviewees here. Again, this is what I did, so if it doesn't work for you, please ignore this! If you have anything constructive to add, then please do so!

1) I voice recorded my answers, and listened to them. Unfortunately, phones have limited storage, so I couldn't video record each answer, but I voice recorded my answer to every question. You can find common questions they ask online and use those. After recording my answer (1-2 mins in length), I would see listen to see if there were any hiccups, or pauses. If so, I would re-record. Doing this, I didn't have to have flashcards, could sound not too rehearsed, and I could listen to my voice on the plane/car, etc. This is exactly what the interviewers would in theory hear as well.

2) I read a small book or stories (anything that I could connect to the field of medicine or to anything in general). I read Dr. Paul Kalanithi's book "When Breath Becomes Air" and made lots of connections to it, cancer, and mortality (amazing, heart-wrenching, transcendental book)! Reading something, anything, shows that you are interested in knowledge. I would choose a book that is unique to me and my interests. What topic fascinates me? This helped me tremendously in multiple interviews at quite a few schools.

3) Be yourself! What makes you unique? Do you hike, snowboard, are you a table tennis champion, a radio jockey, did you start your own charity, or are you a mother, a football coach? These are things that will make you stand out. The interviewers here are quite chill, so you telling WHY they should choose you and why you want to go to THIS school is important. PLFSOM is quite unique, so find out why you want to go here, and show off who you are as well.

That's it. Again this is what I did! But don't worry if you are doing something else, this is just my advice! 99 other people got in doing their own thing last year. Also, do try come to the meet and greet this Wednesday, if you are interviewing here this Thurs. It should be muy divertido!
 
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Narutofreak said:
Just joined this thread but I received an interview invite on August 2nd and am having this week! My secondary application was submitted July 17th. Hope this information helps and if anyone from this year or last year remembers stuff from the interview that would be helpful!
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Narutofreak said:
Just joined this thread but I received an interview invite on August 2nd and am having this week! My secondary application was submitted July 17th. Hope this information helps and if anyone from this year or last year remembers stuff from the interview that would be helpful!
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If you don’t mind me asking, what are your stats MCAT/GPAwise? I got an interview here last year with a not so great MCAT (504), but didn’t get in :(. Turned in my secondary this year a lot earlier (July 11th) and still no interview, I was able to improve my MCAT a measly 2 points, but am discouraged at the lack of interview invite as of rn though to TTU El Paso :(.

Wanted to add in that my GPA is 3.93 and I graduated magna cum laude from a great university as well.
 
RedWolverine said:
If you don’t mind me asking, what are your stats MCAT/GPAwise? I got an interview here last year with a not so great MCAT (504), but didn’t get in :(. Turned in my secondary this year a lot earlier (July 11th) and still no interview, I was able to improve my MCAT a measly 2 points, but am discouraged at the lack of interview invite as of rn though to TTU El Paso :(.

Wanted to add in that my GPA is 3.93 and I graduated magna cum laude from a great university as well.
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Don't fret, as I noted in another thread, there isn't a lot of rhyme or reason to why and when the schools send the II's. I've gotten II's to higher stats schools while lower stats schools have ignored me, but I've gotten some from lower stats schools as well so it's not yield protection. I have a friend who was in the 100% percentile mcat with nearly a 4.0 and top EC's who ended up at a top university and he had the same thing (some early high stats and low stats schools, but also silence til later from other schools). Stats wise, you are fine for TTU EP, so don't get discouraged.
 
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esob said:
Don't fret, as I noted in another thread, there isn't a lot of rhyme or reason to why and when the schools send the II's. I've gotten II's to higher stats schools while lower stats schools have ignored me, but I've gotten some from lower stats schools as well so it's not yield protection. I have a friend who was in the 100% percentile mcat with nearly a 4.0 and top EC's who ended up at a top university and he had the same thing (some early high stats and low stats schools, but also silence til later from other schools). Stats wise, you are fine for TTU EP, so don't get discouraged.
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Thanks for the encouragement, it really means a lot tbh. Just looking for another shot :/. Rewrote my essays, got good feedback on where and how to improve. It’s just personally depressing to go through it all again and feel as if I’m in the same boat (even when I did improve and added quite a few new and unique items to this year’s App, along with turning in my application 2 months earlier than last cycle).
 
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This school is great but there is not HEB in town. I would advise to look for a medical educations institution that has a plethora of HEBs nearby because sustenance is necessary. Albertsons doesn’t cut it.
In all seriousness, as an MS2 I can say this school is amazing and you wouldn’t regret choosing this as your first option.
 
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wragy said:
This school is great but there is not HEB in town. I would advise to look for a medical educations institution that has a plethora of HEBs nearby because sustenance is necessary. Albertsons doesn’t cut it.
In all seriousness, as an MS2 I can say this school is amazing and you wouldn’t regret choosing this as your first option.
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LOL Dallas doesn't have any HEBs either, wonder what the story is with these 2 huge cities?
 
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wragy said:
This school is great but there is not HEB in town. I would advise to look for a medical educations institution that has a plethora of HEBs nearby because sustenance is necessary. Albertsons doesn’t cut it.
In all seriousness, as an MS2 I can say this school is amazing and you wouldn’t regret choosing this as your first option.
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Is there at least a Whataburger, fam?
 
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II! I was complete 6/29. Going September 6th.
 
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II today as well! I am so excited!! Chose August 30th. Complete 7/23.
 
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II. Complete at end of July; IS ORM.
 
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For those interviewing here, This was a very calming enviornment and interview felt more like a conversation and was very laid back. Have fun and try to learn as much as you can. I am very impressed by this medical school and they surpassed my expectations
 
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Got my first interview invite from here today! LizzyM 69 and transmitted late August.
 
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