I didn't want to make an account but I'll post my two cents here. Is literally everything about the school awful? No, but the bad far outweighs the good and more importantly the directions its heading appears to be for the worse, not better.
The good: We have a few outstanding faculty members. One of our OCS directors is a renowned anatomist (neuro in particular, but he knows his stuff all around), and the faculty is really knowledgable in the anatomy lab in general. Among others is a former cardiothoracic surgeon, so obviously anything involving that area he knows backwards and forwards. He's a sweet oldder gentleman, kinda everyone's grandpa here. Sadly he's really getting up there in age and will likely be leaving the school soon, so bear that in mind. We also have a brilliant cardiologist on staff, so he's good to have around when it comes to that area (they're all generally knowledgeable too, but each has their area of expertise). Anatomy program is nice and long, you'll probably be better prepared in that area than most other schools, but even that needs some dramatic reworking (see below). They also give you lots of opportunities to review things on the OCS side so you can practice/refresh your memory before exams. They do this with OMK too but to a lesser degree. Some schools just say "ok take the test now!" but throwing that in is much appreciated.
The following is mixed, could be good/bad depending on how you see it. We spend a LOT of time on clinical skills/OMM, higher than most other DO schools. If primary care and/or OMM is your jam, you'll dig it. The overwhelming majority of our medical faculty on the OCS side come from primary care and OMM so there's that too. Unfortunately if you don't plan on using OMM (and let's be honest, most of us won't) it's reeeeeal time sink when you could be studying for other stuff. Make no mistake, your Step 1/COMLEX 1 is what you're working toward your first 2 years (the Dean even said so herself), so anything that takes away your time to study for that can really hinder you.
Onto the bad.
A lot of this falls into the category "we're not being well-prepared for boards." Yeah, the school loves to tout their stats, but keep in mind what Mark Twain (supposedly) said about statistics. Students generally do well on the boards (I stress GENERALLY) in spite of the school and not because of it. How do I mean?
A lot of our professors are baaaaaaaaad. I don't just mean not great, I mean "how on earth do you still have a job?" bad. Even a cursory glance at boards resources show we're being stressed details that are fairly into the weeds and inconsequential and leaving out parts that we definitely need to know but weren't taught. Internal politics plays a big role in a lot of things- one of our worst profs is tenured and no one can really do anything about it. Administration generally takes a hands-off approach and leaves things in the hands of the course directors who come and go, and things from past course directors stick even when they're terrible ideas.
Case in point: concept mapping. They introduced this newfangled highfalutin' software program where you're given a list of terms with a scenario and have to map them all out with how they fit together several years ago.
<insert Donald Trump "sounds good, doesn't work" gif>
We do this 2 hours every week (sometimes the day before a big test) and it's a giant waste of your limited time on this earth. It doesn't help me learn at all and I haven't met anyone who says it does. We'd be better off having that time free, but the higher-ups seem to think giving us something to do is better than just (god forbid) letting us study on our own.
Keeping with the theme, we often have something called a CPC 1-3 times a month that aims to foster "professional development" or something like that. Once again sounds good, doesn't work.
These are some of the dumbest things I've ever seen in my life. "People age as they get older, write a paper on where you think you will be in ten years." Again, 2 hours I'll never get back. There's only been one or two of them that have actually been worth my time, on the whole the entire thing just eats at your study time (or time to do whatever else). So why do we still do it? It's spear-headed by a big-name geriatrician who holds a lot of clout at UNE and no one dares mess with her baby, even when it does far more harm than the good it aims to on paper (noticing a theme here?)
Another time-waster: team case challenges, somewhat similar to the cmapping. 2 hours a week you sit with your CBL group in our lecture hall and go over various cases with the goal of integrating concepts you've learned. This seems to be the least hated out of what I've just described, but I've met plenty of people other than myself who would still be better off without it. At the very least this should be optional.
So far we're at up to 6 hours a week of pointless time-wasting activities. Without them I'd have better grades, better able to prepare for boards, and overall happier and healthier. Think the school cares? Nah, they love advertising "we have programs XYZ, look at how innovative we are!" with no regard for how it actually impacts students.
They CLAIM to listen to students feedback- and to give credit, occasionally they actually take action- but largely there is a LOT of passing the buck.
They also seem to want us to be masters of literally everything and that basically involves forcing us delve deeply into really low yield topics. 2 hours a week (though thankfully attendance for this is optional, unlike everything above) we have "integrative sessions" which so far have mostly just been histology with some radiology thrown in. These topics are reeeeeeeally low-yield, but this year just for us (because we're so darn special) they introduced a new special test for us to test histology, radiology, some embryology (HERPES exam for short), and a few other miscellaneous things. The embryology you can study straight off of first aid for what you need to know for your boards tbh (It's pretty simple and isn't very involved), and the other things won't pay off nearly as much to all you time you'd have to put in to study for them. Outside of lectures they give a crap-ton of modules (pre-recorded lectures) and notes to study on top of everything else. If we already attended everything and did this stuff on top of everything else we'd basically be studying straight from when we get up to 8-9 o'clock with no breaks. That isn't healthy, realistic, productive, or sustainable.
And starting next semester, because this administration seems to think more tests is the answer to everything, we're getting tested on reading EKG's. Now, I'm actually willing to cut them *a bit* of slack on this one, since knowing them is important and we'll definitely need to be good at them on rotations. However, this is WAY too soon to be doing stuff like this and we're already being pushed to the limit in terms of how many tests these people are willing to give. Let's go through the end of pre-block week and block week.
Thursday: progress test covering last 3-4 weeks material. Friday: HERPES. Monday: donor lab practical. Tues-thurs (varies) live anatomy (have to physically point to anatomy on another student, takes ten minutes and should be scrapped), CSA (physical exam/OMM), and somewhere in here will be an EKG reading too. Friday: 2 hours OMK exam covering 7-10 weeks of material, 2 hour OCS exam covering the same amount of clinical material.
If that sounds like a lot, trust me it is, but the administration is chomping at the bit to add even more.
For 60k a year with a COA at 90k, I expect much better. I think everyone brushing these things under the rug needs to take a long hard look at how much cash they're forking over before they start making excuses (you're looking at nearly 400 grand if take interest into account. Still willing to tolerate it?)
Not mention the faculty members making accounts here that are so obviously fake it's pathetic. Shady af. Additionally, telling students not to post ther greivances here strikes me as abhorrently unethical- god forbid they actually face consequences for their actions (and sadly, I really do think this is the only way to motivate them to change).
I'll update if I thank of something else.
- cheers
