3 things that you would change about your school

[Rn2MD93]

Hey fellow SDNers, so I am curious about gaining some more information about the challenges and issues that students in the D.O world face and compare them to the ones the MD students report. Prepping to apply next year I skimmed a lot of the specific school threads on both DO/MD and surprisingly I found that DO students seemed to complain much more often. So if you could change 3 things about your school what would those changes be? And if these changes were made would you feel satisfied with your educational experience? *if you can please indicate the name of the school, so premeds can evaluate their options accordingly. Thanks!

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[shadowlightfox]

I feel like your request is a lot more ridiculously roundabout alternative to just simply looking up the posts on the Pros and Cons thread...

 

[BorntobeDO?]

Hey fellow SDNers, so I am curious about gaining some more information about the challenges and issues that students in the D.O world face and compare them to the ones the MD students report. Prepping to apply next year I skimmed a lot of the specific school threads on both DO/MD and surprisingly I found that DO students seemed to complain much more often. So if you could change 3 things about your school what would those changes be? And if these changes were made would you feel satisfied with your educational experience? *if you can please indicate the name of the school, so premeds can evaluate their options accordingly. Thanks!

Theres a huge pros and cons thread for all this. DO school = Medicine plus lots of BS from professors trying to convince you they are the man despite the plethora of evidence suggesting otherwise (i.e. no research, OMM specialty, had to scramble into FM and is somehow a head of department now...).

Not gonna spend too much time on this, but the caliber of the average DO student has greatly improved over the last 15 years, and the amount of nonsense pushed on us has increased as well. We see our leadership is self-serving and clueless at the same time, and because 'A.T. Stills said so' isn't good enough anymore. Add in the demeaning way many deans and admins address the students (who are much higher achievers by and large than those said admin) and you get the complaints we have. Just goto DO school, you'll see.

 

[popopopop]

Honestly, I don't have many complaints about TCOM and I feel I would just be boastful if I post in those pros/cons threads.

 

[shadowlightfox]

Honestly, I don't have much complaint about TCOM and I feel I would just be boastful if I post in those pros/cons threads.

I heard you guys have exams on Mondays rather than Fridays! Is that true?

 

[popopopop]

I heard you guys have exams on Mondays rather than Fridays! Is that true?

8 a.m. Monday exams for most of 1st year. 2nd year has been all 1pm Friday exams.

 

[shadowlightfox]

I absolutely hate Friday exams. Good God what a horrible experience those were.

Whoa really? I beg to differ. If you have exams on Monday, there goes your weekend! At least with Fridays, you can enjoy your weekend free of any worries!

 

[libertyyne]

Whoa really? I beg to differ. If you have exams on Monday, there goes your weekend! At least with Fridays, you can enjoy your weekend free of any worries!

If i wanted to enjoy my weekends I wouldnt have gone into medicine.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

I liked Monday exams as well. There are pros and cons to both though Monday/Friday exams though.

 

[alprazoslam]

Theres a huge pros and cons thread for all this. DO school = Medicine plus lots of BS from professors trying to convince you they are the man despite the plethora of evidence suggesting otherwise (i.e. no research, OMM specialty, had to scramble into FM and is somehow a head of department now...).

Not gonna spend too much time on this, but the caliber of the average DO student has greatly improved over the last 15 years, and the amount of nonsense pushed on us has increased as well. We see our leadership is self-serving and clueless at the same time, and because 'A.T. Stills said so' isn't good enough anymore. Add in the demeaning way many deans and admins address the students (who are much higher achievers by and large than those said admin) and you get the complaints we have. Just goto DO school, you'll see.

Ah yes our department head having to scramble fm. Finally understand why our doctor class was such s cluster fk and so will our third year required clinical skills weekend lmao

 

[alprazoslam]

1. Stop hiring clinical faculty that are so inept they do not even understand what they teach. Nobody wants to hear you brag on how awesome you think you are when you prob failed boards twice
2. More board prep time
3. No omm

 

[Dr.Bruh]

First year was super lit and we were partying almost every weekend because we had almost exclusively Friday exams. Now I’m second years it’s mostly Monday exams and we are all miserable.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I like our Monday exams.... all weekend to hammer through two more passes of the material.

 

[DO2015CA]

On our Friday exams, we got new material through Thursday afternoon. I would’ve killed for Monday exams

 

[alprazoslam]

I like our Monday exams.... all weekend to hammer through two more passes of the material.

Same here I think people fail to realize yeh we can pass the exam on Friday but getting thru it again on the weekend helps us retain it long term. (I wouldn’t remember anything looking at it once the day before the test). How do I know? Lol experience from omm exams

 

[shadowlightfox]

Ya that’s true but our school would load up the material up till Thursday late afternoon. Literally no time to understand or even cram that material

Oh in that case that changes things. At my school at least we usually have Thursdays off the day before the exam.

 

[shadowlightfox]

First year was super lit and we were partying almost every weekend because we had almost exclusively Friday exams. Now I’m second years it’s mostly Monday exams and we are all miserable.

That's where you're wrong. You'll be most miserable not because of the Monday exams, but because you'll have boards to worry about. By then, you wont' give a hoot whether your exam is on a Monday or Friday or Sunday for all you care.

 

[Chibucks15]

That's where you're wrong. You'll be most miserable not because of the Monday exams, but because you'll have boards to worry about. By then, you wont' give a hoot whether your exam is on a Monday or Friday or Sunday for all you care.

This. Weekends end up being a tuesday-wednesday and the week rolls by the same. If I didn't have my phone to tell me what day it is I would have zero clue most of the time

 

[Hippocrates II]

I'll bite.

1) Faculty held to the same "professionalism" standard as students. Pretty sure if I put out the same material with absolutely zero proofreading that our faculty does (how many times can they repeat questions, misspell words, etc. on a single test?) or failed to respond to emails as often as faculty do, I would be labeled an unprofessional student. We literally have one class where the syllabus states you can be docked professionalism for not replying to emails in a timely manner. Said professor has ignored both emails I sent to him. The irony...

2) Friday tests. I can see this is pretty split on here, but I despise Monday tests. Just kills your weekend, and that's the only time I really ever find I have to totally relax and decompress otherwise.

3) No more shared tests between campuses taught by different professors. The amount of times I have missed multiple test questions because our professor glossed over something the other campus professor spent time on is inexcusable IMO. How on Earth our school ever thought that two different professors teaching from two different powerpoints should share a test between them is beyond me.

Despite all of that, I actually like my school overall and think we're being taught well. I do dislike OMM lab but accept that they need to teach us enough to pass the boards. The split campus/shared tests is ridiculous, though, as is how unprofessional I actually find some of the faculty to be. We just had a test today where there were multiple test question repeats, sentences missing entire words, repeated answer choices, etc. Can they not spend literally 5 minutes to flip through a test prior to administering it? All of this talk of professionalism, but you would be fired in many careers for this repeated carelessness.

 

[getfat]

Can they not spend literally 5 minutes to flip through a test prior to administering it?

I feel like this is a universal medical school experience. I wish i had a penny for the amount of times i've heard "Oh thats an error, I'll fix that for next year's class". Powerpoint has gone unchanged for years. . Then you'll have the same exact professors harp about class attendance.

 

[getfat]

I guess i'll add to the conversation as well.

1. Test exams should mirror board prep better. There have been numerous times where I feel like i have to tailor weekends to studying for tests. Some things I'll find relevent to what I've been studying and others will not make any sense.
Theres too many first order questions that simply test how well I can memorize a bullet point. Last block we covered liver physiology and one of the test questions was about oatmeal. You only got that question right if you attended class or knew somebody that heard the professor mention it. This professor is actually the best at my school but no one is perfect. This is something I feel like a lot of schools deal with. Professors have no idea what is on the boards so they just cater to their research or whatever perked their interest in the specific lecture topic.

2. Better Clarity. I wish we had better communication with upper classmen and recent alumni. When you have multiple sources give different pieces of advice. It could be confusing for others. Sometimes even the professors and docs aren't on the same page on certain things (USMLE for example). I wish faculty would just have a retreat where they talked about what 1st - 4th year should look like and get everyone on the same page. Too many times I will hear "Dr. X is going to teach you this later" but Dr. X just assumed Dr. Y taught it previously. Or the sequence of lectures will be out of place. We would learn the pathophysiology of something before learning the pathology or physiology. But sadly I feel like it would never happen because somebody's feelings would get hurt.

3. Better Consistency. This entails multiple levels and I don't have the time to go into total detail. There have been too many times where expectations are hard to gage. It can depend on the professor, the time of year, etc, etc. I've noticed that I'm starting to tailor my personality and even my outfit to specific scenarios. This shouldn't be the case. I should've have to be cocky one day and humble the next so I don't offend whoever is above me whether its a professor, doctor, standardized patient or staff member. But alas thats part of the "med school game".

 

[Dr.Bruh]

That's where you're wrong. You'll be most miserable not because of the Monday exams, but because you'll have boards to worry about. By then, you wont' give a hoot whether your exam is on a Monday or Friday or Sunday for all you care.

I am a second year. We’ve only had two Friday exams this years and they’ve been the only good weekends all year. Monday exams feel nice bc you have more time to study but you don’t “need” it bc the curve will pick you up bc everyone will do worse. Worth it bc everyone will likely be happier with a weekend off or if you want study for boards over the weekend.

 

[alprazoslam]

I feel like this is a universal medical school experience. I wish i had a penny for the amount of times i've heard "Oh thats an error, I'll fix that for next year's class". Powerpoint has gone unchanged for years. . Then you'll have the same exact professors harp about class attendance.

It was always the worst lecturers that would try for mandantory attendance at my school.

 

[getfat]

It was always the worst lecturers that would try for mandantory attendance at my school.

Yeah thats a universal experience. The funny part is when I hear people tell me I should talk to them or try to change their mind. I'm sure it's near impossible to change those kind of people's thought process.

I'm occupied with becoming the best doc I can be. I'll let these people just assume they played a big role in doing that.

 

[Scrubs101]

1. Weekly/Biweekly exams

2. Too many mandatory classes/events

3. Putting our "hardest-for-absolutely-no-reason-fail-20%-of-the-class-for-fun" class right before boards (its to the point that every upper classman ive talked to said not to study at all for boards during this class which is the last 3months of 2nd year prior to dedicated)

Honorable mentions include lottery system for base hospital and "This will be on your boards", means it was on their specialty boards for their sub-specialty. If you're lucky it means its step 2/3 relevant. (To be fair there are some professors that are straight money and reading their lecture feels like reading pathoma). With the exception of like one complaint i think these complaints are pretty common to most school, also I'm currently in the salty second phase of school or as I like to call them "The terrible M2s"

 

[Ho0v-man]

1) For gods sake, chill out omm. Spend so much dang time on omm techniques at the expense of real msk assessment.

2) Biochem. I literally feel like every other department assumes we’ve been taught important biochemical pathways and assumes we’re ready to apply it. Biochem is like “maybe they would like to know this stuff pertaining to my reasearch. I’m sure somebody will cover the stuff in first aid.”

3)Consult clinical faculty about how to build our understanding. It sucks trying to synthesize clinical info, only to be taught the basic science behind it the next semester. I think it’s just too much rearranging of the curriculum. The same lectures in a different order might make sense, but they have to rearrange something so they can pretend they’re addressing student complaints for COCA. Alternatively, just follow first aid. There’s a blueprint of the bare minimum that should be covered in every block in the backpack of almost every student. Yes, absolutely add on bc it is the bare bones. But there is absolutely no excuse for not covering this material. This bit is not unique to DO schools.

 

[QueenJames]

1) The students.

2) The faculty/admin.

3) The curriculum.

Pretty much everything.

 

[alprazoslam]

Yeah thats a universal experience. The funny part is when I hear people tell me I should talk to them or try to change their mind. I'm sure it's near impossible to change those kind of people's thought process.

I'm occupied with becoming the best doc I can be. I'll let these people just assume they played a big role in doing that.

Yep giant waste of time to convince them otherwise. Better to warn those incoming to ignore their rhetoric and fake it

 

[azygos the grey]

1. Stop hiring clinical faculty that are so inept they do not even understand what they teach. Nobody wants to hear you brag on how awesome you think you are when you prob failed boards twice
2. More board prep time
3. No omm

i love when you post stuff and i know exactly who you are talking about.

 

[Prehealth1011]

1) For gods sake, chill out omm. Spend so much dang time on omm techniques at the expense of real msk assessment.

2) Biochem. I literally feel like every other department assumes we’ve been taught important biochemical pathways and assumes we’re ready to apply it. Biochem is like “maybe they would like to know this stuff pertaining to my reasearch. I’m sure somebody will cover the stuff in first aid.”

3)Consult clinical faculty about how to build our understanding. It sucks trying to synthesize clinical info, only to be taught the basic science behind it the next semester. I think it’s just too much rearranging of the curriculum. The same lectures in a different order might make sense, but they have to rearrange something so they can pretend they’re addressing student complaints for COCA. Alternatively, just follow first aid. There’s a blueprint of the bare minimum that should be covered in every block in the backpack of almost every student. Yes, absolutely add on bc it is the bare bones. But there is absolutely no excuse for not covering this material. This bit is not unique to DO schools.

This is basically my school except not so much Biochem. Most of our time is spent on a course that's teaching step 2 material and since it has the highest # of credits, everyone is gunning to do well in it.

 

[Ho0v-man]

This is basically my school except not so much Biochem. Most of our time is spent on a course that's teaching step 2 material and since it has the highest # of credits, everyone is gunning to do well in it.

My gripe isn’t so much with that. But more so with teaching me how to manage DKA or thyroid storm and then next semester teaching endocrine biochem and path. It’s clearly more logical to do it the other way around. I can’t really blame the clinical faculty bc they just show up and teach not realizing we have no foundation. It’s administration just not having a clue.

 

[alprazoslam]

i love when you post stuff and i know exactly who you are talking about.

They are a legend lol

 

[fldoctorgirl]

I am a second year. We’ve only had two Friday exams this years and they’ve been the only good weekends all year. Monday exams feel nice bc you have more time to study but you don’t “need” it bc the curve will pick you up bc everyone will do worse. Worth it bc everyone will likely be happier with a weekend off or if you want study for boards over the weekend.

Thinking about having all of our exams on Monday next year makes me depressed. Honestly, I'd rather have my weekend than a couple of extra points on an exam.