2020-2021 Oakland (Beaumont)

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Can anyone touch on makes OUWB special compared to other programs?
 
Med_For_Life said:
Can anyone touch on makes OUWB special compared to other programs?
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From my perspective as a fourth year student, OUWB is different from other programs in that it fosters a great sense of community amongst its students and faculty. When I was interviewing, I did not find this to be the case at other schools. I find faculty and administration to be incredibly open to student feedback and concerns. The culture is not a "stuffy" one where you feel you can't be human and have open dialogue with faculty, etc.

In addition, I think its attendance policy also makes it special (good or bad) from other programs. Typically, although I am not sure how it works out now in the COVID age, you have to attend 70% of classes in order to be eligible for honors. The attendance policy is largely in place to foster the sense of community I mentioned above, as it requires students to be present and engaged with one another. Although I didn't mind it my first two years, I know many other students hate this about OUWB. I would think long and hard about whether the attendance policy is something that works for you. With that in mind, I know plenty of people who hate the attendance policy and still love OUWB.

In addition, I think a great advantage of OUWB is its hospital system (specifically if you are comparing it to other Michigan schools). Beaumont is 2nd and 3rd best hospitals in Michigan so being able to train at Beaumont is an awesome experience and it's nice to have all your rotations localized to one hospital system (you may spend time at different Beaumont locations though).
 
CaptainJackSparrow14 said:
From my perspective as a fourth year student, OUWB is different from other programs in that it fosters a great sense of community amongst its students and faculty. When I was interviewing, I did not find this to be the case at other schools. I find faculty and administration to be incredibly open to student feedback and concerns. The culture is not a "stuffy" one where you feel you can't be human and have open dialogue with faculty, etc.

In addition, I think its attendance policy also makes it special (good or bad) from other programs. Typically, although I am not sure how it works out now in the COVID age, you have to attend 70% of classes in order to be eligible for honors. The attendance policy is largely in place to foster the sense of community I mentioned above, as it requires students to be present and engaged with one another. Although I didn't mind it my first two years, I know many other students hate this about OUWB. I would think long and hard about whether the attendance policy is something that works for you. With that in mind, I know plenty of people who hate the attendance policy and still love OUWB.

In addition, I think a great advantage of OUWB is its hospital system (specifically if you are comparing it to other Michigan schools). Beaumont is 2nd and 3rd best hospitals in Michigan so being able to train at Beaumont is an awesome experience and it's nice to have all your rotations localized to one hospital system (you may spend time at different Beaumont locations though).
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You are amazing, thank you!!!! Looking forward to my interview 🙂
 
Do they run out of funds for merit-based scholarships for people accepted later?
 
Thoughts on keeping facial hair for interview (but trimmed and looking good)?
 
Hello everyone, I interviewed November 20th. Does anyone have an idea of when I should hear back based on previous experience? Thanks in advance!! 🙂🙂
 
psirc53 said:
Hello everyone, I interviewed November 20th. Does anyone have an idea of when I should hear back based on previous experience? Thanks in advance!! 🙂🙂
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Hello 😊, I interviewed 11/13 and was waitlisted 12/09 😩
 
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Please help me decide between OUWB and UMASS Worcester. Interested in surgical residencies. Both have good surgical residency matches. Can anyone shed some light on :
1. Ease/difficulty level of courses (to score at top 25% quartile to be considered for AOA)
2. student support and guidance through 4 years (important for someone with no medical connections through mom/dad/uncle as physicians lol!)
3. chances of getting placed in surgical specialities (Does OUWB focus on competitive specialities ? Does UMASS focus on primary care?)

Thanks
 
Does OUWB consider for need based scholarships based on your amcas or fafsa? I guess my question is, has anyone been offered a need based scholarship before fafsa was submitted?
 
sunny0909 said:
Please help me decide between OUWB and UMASS Worcester. Interested in surgical residencies. Both have good surgical residency matches. Can anyone shed some light on :
1. Ease/difficulty level of courses (to score at top 25% quartile to be considered for AOA)
2. student support and guidance through 4 years (important for someone with no medical connections through mom/dad/uncle as physicians lol!)
3. chances of getting placed in surgical specialities (Does OUWB focus on competitive specialities ? Does UMASS focus on primary care?)

Thanks
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Current fourth year here. I will try to shed some light.

1. I think that depends on everyone individually. While some classes more students in the class are able to achieve honors, I think it comes down to individual study habits, priorities, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Keep in mind at OUWB (for my class not sure what has changed with COVID), you have to attend 70% of lectures in order to be eligible for honors. I don't also *personally* feel AOA is the end all be all. Being top % of the class also doesn't guarantee you AOA. You have to apply then be selected. Not all who apply are accepted.

2. There is a lot of support and guidance. I have absolutely no one in my family in medicine and have done just fine. I barely knew what STEP was before enrolling. For example, for our class PRISM you are broken into groups of 20 students with a physician mentor. That mentor is a great source of career advice. There are also numerous career advisors for various specialties as you get closer to deciding on one specialty - I meet with mine regularly.

3. OUWB has great match results for surgical specialties and primary care alike. I wouldn't say it "focuses" on competitive specialties over primary care or vice versa. It encourages everyone to pursue what meets their own needs/desires and provides plenty of resources, networking opportunities, etc. for whichever you decide on. The benefit of Beaumont is that there are great connections regardless of what specialty you decide. I think people worry with our school being "newer" that it doesn't have the name recognition or reputation as others but I think Beaumont physicians have incredible connections to places and that our students' experiences speak for themselves. Plenty of classmates have been interviewing at "big name" places for competitive specialties. I can't speak for UMASS as I have not attended medical school there.
 
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This might be a dumb question, but is the interview day accessed through the portal? I’ve noticed that I can see my interviewers, but I wasn’t sure if this was just for the actual interviews, or for the entirety of the day’s events. Or is the Zoom link something we would get on the day before in a reminder email? Thank you!
 
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Arthur Morgan said:
This might be a dumb question, but is the interview day accessed through the portal? I’ve noticed that I can see my interviewers, but I wasn’t sure if this was just for the actual interviews, or for the entirety of the day’s events. Or is the Zoom link something we would get on the day before in a reminder email? Thank you!
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You'll use the zoom link in the reminder email for the general interview events (welcome, info sessions, "lunch" with students, etc) and when it's time for your individual interviews you'll leave the main zoom and use the links in the portal to be in a private zoom with each of your interviewers 🙂. They guide you through the process and there will always be someone from OUWB in the main zoom to answer questions/if you run into technical issues!
 
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emttomd123 said:
You'll use the zoom link in the reminder email for the general interview events (welcome, info sessions, "lunch" with students, etc) and when it's time for your individual interviews you'll leave the main zoom and use the links in the portal to be a in a private zoom with each of your interviewers 🙂. They guide you through the process and there will always be someone from OUWB in the main zoom to answer questions/if you run into technical issues!
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Thanks! This helps a lot!
 
Hi everyone! I'm a current M1 and just wanted to share a little bit more because I was in your foot steps not too long ago and it was definitely overwhelming at that time. It has definitely been a tough year for all of us, not just the students, but faculty too. They've had to re format everything to our current learning environment and you can tell they have been working so hard to make sure we get as much of the same experience as years before - of course there will be blips along the road because we're all navigating uncharted waters no mater where you are in the country, so I actually would say they have been doing an incredible job. The faculty are so so supportive, they respond back to emails literally at like 1 or 2 am, you can schedule a one on one with them whenever you want if you need help, and they often reply back to emails so quickly. They want you to learn and make sure you succeed. On the same line when it comes to H/P/F, it's really a personal thing for you to strive for honors. We no longer have the 70% attendance requirement since everything is online, but there are still some mandatories we have to attend virtually of course. Ultimately though it is just a personal goal you will set up for yourself because literally the whole class can honor if they worked for it. And yes, the first year is challenging, but doable. We all walk into med school knowing that it won't be easy, and so I was not expecting a walk in the park and it really hits you hard, but you get into the flow of things at some point and when you start to learn things that are related to medicine and start to make connections it's really exciting. I love how the classes are formatted where they really integrate so many behaviors so you can see the links between the different aspects of medicine. Like when we study anatomy, we don't just do anatomy, but we get some physio in there (it'll definitely be a lot more physio heavy during organ systems), we do radiology with lecturers from the hospital, they make sure to present patient cases during a mandatory where we go through a case and try to find the answer and they add on extra clinical relevance! I remember just 4 months ago I could look at a X-ray and really be like "I just see black, white and gray" but now I can tell where I am, I can have maybe a very minimalistic idea of what may be going wrong and really that's what we're here for and what we want to learn.
Okay I digress, haha but seriously the faculty are super supportive and I think it does get hard on them when students are so harsh and constantly criticizing everything they do without looking at it from their perspective. They can't be perfect, none of us can, but I think it really shows when they take in our feedback and change formats to make sure we get the best learning experience.
The physicians at Beaumont are also AMAZING! I unfortunately have not had the chance to interact with a lot of them yet (mainly just through panels through the different specialty orgs) but seriously I'm so excited to be in the hospital and get to work with them because they are so funny and nice and friendly and are so excited to help teach the next generation of doctors. Also, the students in the years before us are so much fun to interact with (they hold tutoring sessions for us every week and they give us lots of tips!). It's unfortunate with COVID we haven't gotten the chance to meet many of the upper classmen and our classmates too, but hopefully one day we can.
I would just end this by saying that ultimately it is your decision to make. The school won't fail you in making you a great doctor, but it may all come down to whether you are comfortable in being in a collaborative school, are you okay in being in the suburbs for your pre-clincals (seriously though i'm stuck in my apartment all day long studying anyways so I don't really care about what is around me), are you looking for a big name school (which ultimately I don't think makes a difference because no patient is gonna ask you where you went, you're gonna be judged by how you treat them in the end and I'm saying this out of first hand experience because I personally chose OUWB over another big name school), and finally, will you be happy with your decision. Never make a decision that you will regret, and if you say yes to those, OUWB might be a good fit! 🙂 Let me know if you guys have any questions!
Yikes, I also realized that was a really long message! lol
 
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onthewaytoMD said:
Hi everyone! I'm a current M1 and just wanted to share a little bit more because I was in your foot steps not too long ago and it was definitely overwhelming at that time. It has definitely been a tough year for all of us, not just the students, but faculty too. They've had to re format everything to our current learning environment and you can tell they have been working so hard to make sure we get as much of the same experience as years before - of course there will be blips along the road because we're all navigating uncharted waters no mater where you are in the country, so I actually would say they have been doing an incredible job. The faculty are so so supportive, they respond back to emails literally at like 1 or 2 am, you can schedule a one on one with them whenever you want if you need help, and they often reply back to emails so quickly. They want you to learn and make sure you succeed. On the same line when it comes to H/P/F, it's really a personal thing for you to strive for honors. We no longer have the 70% attendance requirement since everything is online, but there are still some mandatories we have to attend virtually of course. Ultimately though it is just a personal goal you will set up for yourself because literally the whole class can honor if they worked for it. And yes, the first year is challenging, but doable. We all walk into med school knowing that it won't be easy, and so I was not expecting a walk in the park and it really hits you hard, but you get into the flow of things at some point and when you start to learn things that are related to medicine and start to make connections it's really exciting. I love how the classes are formatted where they really integrate so many behaviors so you can see the links between the different aspects of medicine. Like when we study anatomy, we don't just do anatomy, but we get some physio in there (it'll definitely be a lot more physio heavy during organ systems), we do radiology with lecturers from the hospital (who are amazing btw!), they make sure to present patient cases during a mandatory where we go through a case and try to find the answer and they add on extra clinical relevance! I remember just 4 months ago I could look at a X-ray and really be like "I just see black, white and gray" but now I can tell where I am, I can have maybe a very minimalistic idea of what may be going wrong and really that's what we're here for and what we want to learn.
Okay I digress, haha but seriously the faculty are super supportive and I think it does get hard on them when students are so harsh and constantly criticizing everything they do without looking at it from their perspective. They can't be perfect, none of us can, but I think it really shows when they take in our feedback and change formats to make sure we get the best learning experience.
The physicians at Beaumont are also AMAZING! I unfortunately have not had the chance to interact with a lot of them yet (mainly just through panels through the different specialty orgs) but seriously I'm so excited to be in the hospital and get to work with them because they are so funny and nice and friendly and are so excited to help teach the next generation of doctors. Also, the students in the years before us are so much fun to interact with (they hold tutoring sessions for us every week and they give us lots of tips!). It's unfortunate with COVID we haven't gotten the chance to meet many of the upper classmen and our classmates too, but hopefully one day we can.
I would just end this by saying that ultimately it is your decision to make. The school won't fail you in making you a great doctor, but it may all come down to whether you are comfortable in being in a collaborative school, are you okay in being in the suburbs for your pre-clincals (seriously though i'm stuck in my apartment all day long studying anyways so I don't really care about what is around me), are you looking for a big name school (which ultimately I don't think makes a difference because no patient is gonna ask you where you went, you're gonna be judged by how you treat them in the end and I'm saying this out of first hand experience because I personally chose OUWB over another big name school), and finally, will you be happy with your decision. Never make a decision that you will regret, and if you say yes to those, OUWB might be a good fit! 🙂 Let me know if you guys have any questions!
Yikes, I also realized that was a really long message! lol
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Thank you for sharing your lovely experience! I would love to attend OUWB, can you just let admissions know this so they can slip me that II soon 😉
 
Arthur Morgan said:
This might be a dumb question, but is the interview day accessed through the portal? I’ve noticed that I can see my interviewers, but I wasn’t sure if this was just for the actual interviews, or for the entirety of the day’s events. Or is the Zoom link something we would get on the day before in a reminder email? Thank you!
Click to expand...
Where can you see your interviewers? I am interviewing on 1/7 but still don’t see any names or anything under the interview tab
 
Hello everyone! M1 here! Just wanted to say a few things about the school and provide some perspective. I'll try to be as honest and provide both pros and cons.

I'm not sure how virtual interviews have been, but I do want to let you know that when it was in person last year, you can 100% tell that the faculty, staff, and students were so happy and supportive here. It's true that faculty will respond to your emails and help you in every way that they can. You can always schedule 1-on-1 meetings with them and literally just ask them to explain everything to you because you don't understand what's happening. They are here for you and want to support you! As for the students, we have some M2s who are so helpful with providing us with resources and how to help us transition into different blocks. We have big/little sib here, and I'm sure it's dependent on how well you click with the person you are matched with, but I love mine, and every time I feel like I'm panicking, she immediately calls me and reassures me. I couldn't be happier! With COVID, I know a lot of my classmates have expressed concerns about how we feel like we are missing out and our class doesn't seem as warm and close to each other as the previous classes. I wouldn't blame the school for that because they really did try to host virtual small group meetings for us to meet faculties and other students. Even during winter break, they are hosting virtual get together for paint nights or game nights, and they really make sure you have the support if you are alone during break. In addition to the support, we have free counseling with a social worker, and there's also an academic support team if you ever need. We also have M2's hosting tutoring sessions every week! With that, if you're ever struggling, all you need to do is reach out and ask for help!

That's not to say that Medical school here is all rainbows. Classes are hard and tough, especially so first semester (60 units). They combined both biochem and anatomy, so it's a lot at once. In addition to those, we also have longitudinal classes (PRISM, APM - clinical skills, MHCB - ethics). I can't tell if I appreciate the longitudinal classes right now because it's just a lot, but I know these skills will be useful later on, so I try to keep a positive mindset. And honestly, there's nothing you can really do to change it, so my mindset is just to suck it up and try your best to learn and appreciate everything. For those asking if it's possible to honors, yes it is. It's more work to put in, but if you're going to learning for your patients, you might as well try your best! They do test on minutia, but not all of the questions are like that - for the most part the exams are fair in my opinion. I also don't know if I prefer professor written exams or NBME. I can see how NBME can start to sound redundant after a while and you're just choosing answers based on pattern recognition while for professor exams, you will know exactly what will be tested because it's coming directly from their slides and so you won't be expected to know anything that's not from there. As for PRISM, I'm not sure how it was last year, but I do feel like my PRISM group isn't that close, so it does feel burdensome right now. But it's also just once a month, so I'm not going to complain. As for APM and MHCB, I love these classes. Especially for MHCB, it is mind opening and really allows you to see different perspectives, and a lot of these scenarios, you will probably experience in the future, so it's nice to learn about them now.

In terms of the area, it's okay! For those who love boba, don't worry, there are boba places here. There is Kung Fu Tea about 10 minutes away from campus. There are other ones that are farther. There's also an Hmart and other asian supermarkets if you ever need anything. I still haven't driven in the snow, and I'm kind of scared, but it does make you not want to go out.

I'm not sure what else to say, but choose this school if you want a supportive environment! Every medical school will be hard, but for me, it was important to know that I could get the support that I need at any time. I am also lucky to be friends with people I met on my interview day, so take a look at your other peers as you interview! These are your potential classmates, and they might very well be your friends when you both decide to come here! Also, don't be afraid to reach out and get their phone number if you guys clicked. You can always talk to them again in the future if you're on the edge about choosing between schools, and if you both happen to choose the same school, you will have a friend even before school started!

If anyone else has any questions, feel free to reach out to me! Happy Holidays!
 
question to oos students with cars at ouwb - how did you bring your car? in my case, I live in California so it's like a 36h drive. did you use a car transportation company or just drive the whole distance?
 
kyuwitaco said:
question to oos students with cars at ouwb - how did you bring your car? in my case, I live in California so it's like a 36h drive. did you use a car transportation company or just drive the whole distance?
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I think there are many people from the west coast who either drove their car all the way to MI, did a service transportation, or just bought another car. I think what you have to consider more is the insurance paper work and making sure it matches the car's registration address. This can get a little complicated if you do not own the car personally and you should consider changing the title of the car into your name so that when you get to MI, if anything happens, you can do all the paperwork. I think especially so for car insurance. They will want the car's registration or owner of the car to be living in MI and so there isn't any mismatch. You might want to look into it.
 
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