Any parallels to DO schools

[exPCM]

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Here is an interesting article about Ross University:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/medicine/article1061189.ece
Do you see any parallels with some DO schools?

 

[JaggerPlate]

Here is an interesting article about Ross University:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/medicine/article1061189.ece
Do you see any parallels with some DO schools?

No.

 

[exPCM]

"Michael Rendon, registrar at Ross from 2006 to 2007, said finding suitable clinical training sites was always a challenge.

"Clinicals is the school's Achilles' heel," said Rendon, now registrar at Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi. "There are simply not enough sites, and that problem is not going to go away anytime soon."

......
A crisis arose in February when two New York City hospitals where Ross had paid for 135 training slots suddenly closed, sending students scrambling. Graduates say there are always last-minute scheduling changes that can mean cross-country relocations and sites with widely disparate training opportunities.

Students doing clinicals in the States continue paying tuition to Ross, which at more than $30,000 a year is comparable to that at private U.S. medical schools. Yet Ross students say they have virtually no contact with the school's faculty. That means they're on their own if problems arise.
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Alata, the Detroit-area graduate, said he had a six-week psychiatry rotation supervised by a surgeon. "He gave me an assignment on cardiovascular disorders and told me to come back at the end of the sixth week," Alata said. "I never had the opportunity to interview a psychiatric patient. There was no clinical experience whatsoever."

During training in Miami, Alata, who speaks no Spanish, was unable to communicate with most of the patients.

"Ross is supposed to monitor those sites, but in two years, I never saw anybody come to visit or ask me about them," he said.

Alata said he received "very high evaluations'' from supervisors during his clinical rotations in Miami, New York and Chicago and passed his mandatory USMLE Step 2 exam.

But three weeks into a residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Alata was suspended from all clinical activities because of poor performance. A few months later he voluntarily withdrew.

"Once you start your residency, you find out how little you know," Alata said. "It was a complete shock when I sat down with the dean and she said I should go back to Ross and tell them how inadequate my training was."

My comment: Does anyone think Ross students will ever be allowed to use VSAS?

 

[thepoopologist]

I think the one lesson to learn here is that I will be studying my ass off for the rest of preclinicals, Step I, and third year because my worse nightmare would be washing out of residency with my med school debt. By then I could put up a thousand porno sites and not pay that debt off.



And thank god for DO schools who have their **** together...(MINE). Muah.

 

[JaggerPlate]

and thank god for do schools who have their **** together...(mine). Muah.

+1

 

[LSU Alex]

Here is an interesting article about Ross University:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/medicine/article1061189.ece
Do you see any parallels with some DO schools?

Debt load, being scattered across the country for clinicals, problems w/ consistency in clinical training, and huge class sizes. After reading the article, those are the only parallels I see.

But I hope you aren't implying that US DO schools are anywhere near as messed up as this article portrays ROSS U to be. I don't know what everyone else around the country is learning or how they are learning; so I won't make one of those "my education here at "X" university is just as good as yours at "Y" university" statements. I will, however, say that I've had preceptors and mentors who have commented "You have more knowledge at your point in your medical education than I did in mine at that same point." And I'm not talking about DO preceptors, as I've yet to shadow one of those. [Hell, I've only met one "out in the wild".] So KCUMB must be doing something right. So far out of a class that started with 269 students, we've only lost 5. 2 of those took leave of absences and came back to the class behind me.

exPCM, which school did you go to? Do you feel your school parallels this article? This is an honest question. Like I said before, I don't know the experiences of people at other schools.

 

[exPCM]

I think the one lesson to learn here is that I will be studying my ass off for the rest of preclinicals, Step I, and third year because my worse nightmare would be washing out of residency with my med school debt. By then I could put up a thousand porno sites and not pay that debt off.



And thank god for DO schools who have their **** together...(MINE). Muah.

Excellent post.

Debt load, being scattered across the country for clinicals, problems w/ consistency in clinical training, and huge class sizes. After reading the article, those are the only parallels I see.

But I hope you aren't implying that US DO schools are anywhere near as messed up as this article portrays ROSS U to be. I don't know what everyone else around the country is learning or how they are learning; so I won't make one of those "my education here at "X" university is just as good as yours at "Y" university" statements. I will, however, say that I've had preceptors and mentors who have commented "You have more knowledge at your point in your medical education than I did in mine at that same point." And I'm not talking about DO preceptors, as I've yet to shadow one of those. [Hell, I've only met one "out in the wild".] So KCUMB must be doing something right. So far out of a class that started with 269 students, we've only lost 5. 2 of those took leave of absences and came back to the class behind me.

exPCM, which school did you go to? Do you feel your school parallels this article? This is an honest question. Like I said before, I don't know the experiences of people at other schools.

I agree that there is no DO school nearly as messed up as Ross University at this time. However as Dr. Pletz (ex-KCUMB President who should not have been fired IMO) pointed out in her recent email (quote from email posted on SDN "the current AOA/COCA initiatives to accredit foreign osteopathic medical schools without requiring them to assure available residency slots for the period of seven years") there are those in AOA/COCA who are pushing to allow accreditation of foreign osteopathic schools. That may change the situation IMO. I think osteopathic medicine IMO needs to remain separate and distinct from Carribean mill schools like Ross and AUC and that is why the accreditation of foreign schools is a bad idea except IMO possibly to those in AOA/COCA who may see this as a great way to collect more accreditation fees . That is why IMO the accreditation of RVU as well is a backward step. Do you think the mentality of the people running AUC and St. George, etc. is really that much different than the mentality at Ross? I think US osteopathic medical students have made a lot of progress towards being viewed as equals to US allopathic medical students. Osteopathic accreditation of foreign schools and association with Carribean schools is a threat to that progress IMO. Also unbridled growth of osteopathic schools in the future without proper attention to clinical sites/training could emerge as a future threat. Dr. Pletz' email is an excellent summary of key issues.
Another pertinent point in the article on Ross is this:
Five new U.S. medical schools, including University of Central Florida and Florida International University, have begun enrolling students in the past few years and four more schools are in the permitting process. Those new graduates will make it tougher to get residency slots, which have not increased.
The increase in graduates without increase is residency slots is going to affect not just the Carribean schools. This is an issue that deserves attention as more new schools open (William Carey, PNWU, etc without any commensurate increase in residency slots. Do you want to have students basically forced to go into undesirable residency slots in bad residency programs in the future due to the lack of other openings available?

 

[ShyRem]

While the article in question is interesting, the article has to do with ROSS, and MD school and NOT a DO school. As this thread has no bearing on osteopathic education other than to ask if a tenuous/imagined relationship might exist, this thread has been closed.