Apprehensive about going to LECOM. Can any current DSP or PBL students help?

[LuluLovesMe]

My main concern with DSP is that I'll just be given a huge amount of information to remember with not much support at all and be overwhelmed.

My main concern with PBL is that the case studies are a waste of time since most learning comes from reading hundreds of pages of textbooks and not the case studies themselves.

My main concern with LECOM is that the student body doesn't seem as diverse as other schools I've visited and I won't be able to find people that share the same interests as me.

Is there any validity to these concerns?

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[Rekt]

My main concern with DSP is that I'll just be given a huge amount of information to remember with not much support at all and be overwhelmed.

My main concern with PBL is that the case studies are a waste of time since most learning comes from reading hundreds of pages of textbooks and not the case studies themselves.

My main concern with LECOM is that the student body doesn't seem as diverse as other schools I've visited and I won't be able to find people that share the same interests as me.

Is there any validity to these concerns?

First and foremost, do you have any other acceptances? If not, then you have no choice. Be glad you have one, a lot of students would take that position.
Second, PBL IS reading 100s of pages for case study, so is DSP. So you have to be comfortable with that learning structure. You pretty much self-study the first two years regardless of what curriculum you do.
Third, diversity is a term used by SJWs and in administrative meetings where they talk about synergy and paradigms. It matters 0% because you'll be studying 90% of your waking life.

 

[ortnakas]

If you have specific questions about PBL, feel free to message me.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

First and foremost, do you have any other acceptances? If not, then you have no choice. Be glad you have one, a lot of students would take that position.
Second, PBL IS reading 100s of pages for case study, so is DSP. So you have to be comfortable with that learning structure. You pretty much self-study the first two years regardless of what curriculum you do.
Third, diversity is a term used by SJWs and in administrative meetings where they talk about synergy and paradigms. It matters 0% because you'll be studying 90% of your waking life.

I disagree, it can be extremely isolating to be the only member or be part of a small number of a certain group in an environment. For example, someone values their faith very highly, but are the only one who practices it, will feel isolated, have no one to celebrate holidays with, and or potentially share and discuss views within the context of their faith or etc. To say that diversity does not matter to many people is simply foolish.

And honestly, this whole, 90% studying thing is kinda absurdly false. People do plenty of stuff outside of class and being an environment that complements their interests. I mean medical school is miserable a lot of the time and not being able to have a positive experience or chime with your class would take you even more towards the burn out.

That being said I sincerely doubt LECOM is not diverse. Erie is probably not diverse much though.

 

[deleted564680]

I think LECOM is as diverse as any other DO school...maybe slightly more males than females if you care about that. Depends on what you think is "diverse." Are you wanting a reflection of the population makeup of the US? Are you wanting more of your own racial background? It kind of annoys me when people say they want "diverse" when they usually really mean they want an unbalanced amount of whatever race/gender/etc. they are...but whatever.

Anyway...think long and hard about going there, especially if you're thinking about the PBL in Erie or Bradenton. PBL is not for everyone, especially the way that it is implemented at LECOM. This is before even discussing the myriad other reasons why people don't like LECOM but there's 2304802384923 threads about that so you can use the search.

http://www.ydae.purdue.edu/lct/hbcu...covery_pbl__experiential_inquiry_learning.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.2003.494031040247/full

 

[MusicDOc124]

From my interview, campus visits, friends I have who already attend, and from the look of the Facebook group for my class at the particular campus, my class seems to be quite diverse with a few who have done quite exceptional things. I guess that somewhat depends on your personal definition of diverse and/or your background I suppose.

 

[Ioannes Paulus]

I interviews and was accepted to Erie as a DSP student. DSP and PBL are TOTALLY different.
In DSP, firstly, you actually have a full dissection course (using prosected cadevars) for anatomy. You receive note packets without the notes. It's a list of objectives with relevant page numbers. You go to the books, find the information, fill in the packet, then study the packet by the deadline. It requires the least amount of in-class time. There are, often times, "check-in" sessions where you attend a meeting and they discuss the important info for the exam. It depends on what block you are in.
In PBL, you get cases and go through cases. PBL has been discussed EXTENSIVELY on SDN so it is pretty easy to pull up the details.
In my opinion, if you are going to do LECOM, do DSP. The LDP pathway has an intense time commitment. If you perform poorly in DSP or PBL, they will pull you down to the LDP group. During my interview day, the DSP folks seemed the most sane and chill and the curriculum seemed like a good balance between structure and independence.
I can't comment on diversity.
Good luck on your decision

 

[deleted564680]

I interviews and was accepted to Erie as a DSP student. DSP and PBL are TOTALLY different.
In DSP, firstly, you actually have a full dissection course (using prosected cadevars) for anatomy. You receive note packets without the notes. It's a list of objectives with relevant page numbers. You go to the books, find the information, fill in the packet, then study the packet by the deadline. It requires the least amount of in-class time. There are, often times, "check-in" sessions where you attend a meeting and they discuss the important info for the exam. It depends on what block you are in.
In PBL, you get cases and go through cases. PBL has been discussed EXTENSIVELY on SDN so it is pretty easy to pull up the details.
In my opinion, if you are going to do LECOM, do DSP. The LDP pathway has an intense time commitment. If you perform poorly in DSP or PBL, they will pull you down to the LDP group. During my interview day, the DSP folks seemed the most sane and chill and the curriculum seemed like a good balance between structure and independence.
I can't comment on diversity.
Good luck on your decision

I like how a "full dissection course" is using pro-sected bodies...

As far as the DSP group, I don't disagree with anything you say, except for that I just don't stand for it in principle. DSP might as well be the school saying "how can we get more tuition money without doing anything." It reeks of Caribbean awfulness and is a bad precedent in my opinion (you are all free to disagree). If a school was going to have DSP then they need to be charging WAY less for tuition.

I mean you wouldn't want those silly clinicians and professors giving you all those lectures and stuff to clutter your medical school education I guess. What a time commitment!

 

[UnoMas]

I like how a "full dissection course" is using pro-sected bodies...

I would take prosection lab over full dissection lab any day of the week. Someone already cleaned off all the fat and fascia for me; I come in, dissect out the important structures and be done for the day. I don't see the appeal in having to dig through fat and fascia 4 hours a day 3 days a week. If you want that experience, there is a program during the summer before 1st year that let you come in and do full dissection. I understand how premeds would think getting to dissect a full body is some sort of rite of passage of being a medical student; let me tell you, it's overrated and you will value the extra free time you have to study for things that are important. LECOM at ERIE has a very strong Anatomy department, we take the NBME Anatomy shelf as part of our Gross Anatomy final and our average is consistently higher than the national average (this year, it was almost 1 standard deviation over)

As far as the DSP group, I don't disagree with anything you say, except for that I just don't stand for it in principle. DSP might as well be the school saying "how can we get more tuition money without doing anything." It reeks of Caribbean awfulness and is a bad precedent in my opinion (you are all free to disagree). If a school was going to have DSP then they need to be charging WAY less for tuition.

I mean you wouldn't want those silly clinicians and professors giving you all those lectures and stuff to clutter your medical school education I guess. What a time commitment!

DSP has scheduled meetings with teaching faculty and clinicians to go over the important stuff for every single core and system course. For MSK, we have an orthopedic surgeon come in, neurologist for neurology, cardiologist for cardio etc. There isn't a whole lot of hand holding but the pathway is perfect for those who want to have control over their time and do their own thing as long as it works for them. There are quizzes almost every week to make sure you stay on track. Sketchy micro/pharm + Pathoma/Goljan for Path + Dr. Najeeb lectures + picmonics if you want some sort of structure/extra help. I don't see how it's any different from the vast majority of medical students at other schools, who stay at home and study on their own. Should their schools lower the tuition for them? As long as it works and students pass their boards, I don't see any problems with its principles.

Man, you sure got some beef with LECOM. It's blind hate. I see you **** on LECOM every chance you got. Are you a LECOM grad? I don't see how else you are so knowledgeable about everything that's going on with LECOM

 

[deleted564680]

I would take prosection lab over full dissection lab any day of the week. Someone already cleaned off all the fat and fascia for me; I come in, dissect out the important structures and be done for the day. I don't see the appeal in having to dig through fat and fascia 4 hours a day 3 days a week. If you want that experience, there is a program during the summer before 1st year that lets you come in and do full dissection. I understand how premeds would think getting to dissect a full body is some sort of rite of passage of being a medical student; let me tell you, it's overrated and you will value the extra free time you have to study for things that are important. LECOM at ERIE has a very strong Anatomy department, we take the NBME Anatomy shelf as part of our Gross Anatomy final and our average is consistently higher than the national average (this year, it was almost 1 standard deviation over)



DSP has scheduled meetings with teaching faculty and clinicians to go over the important stuff for every single core and system course. For MSK, we have an orthopedic surgeon come in, neurologist for neurology, cardiologist for cardio etc. There isn't a whole lot of hand holding but the pathway is perfect for those who want to have control over their time and do their own thing as long as it works for them. There are quizzes almost every week to make sure you stay on track. Sketchy micro/pharm + Pathoma/Goljan for Path + Dr. Najeeb lectures + picmonics if you want some sort of structure/extra help. I don't see how it's any different from the vast majority of medical students at other schools, who stay at home and study on their own. Should their schools lower the tuition for them? As long as it works and students pass their boards, I don't see any problems with its principles.

Man, you sure got some beef with LECOM. It's blind hate. I see you **** on LECOM every chance you got. Are you a LECOM grad? I don't see how else you are so knowledgeable about everything that's going on with LECOM

Had a long one written out...nevermind. Not worth it.

 

[Ioannes Paulus]

I like how a "full dissection course" is using pro-sected bodies...

As far as the DSP group, I don't disagree with anything you say, except for that I just don't stand for it in principle. DSP might as well be the school saying "how can we get more tuition money without doing anything." It reeks of Caribbean awfulness and is a bad precedent in my opinion (you are all free to disagree). If a school was going to have DSP then they need to be charging WAY less for tuition.

I mean you wouldn't want those silly clinicians and professors giving you all those lectures and stuff to clutter your medical school education I guess. What a time commitment!

Fully agree. But at both the MD and DO schools I interviewed at, it seemed like prosected cadevars were becoming the new standard.
I interviewed at Erie and all they talked about was how the curriculum is entirely board focused. It's pretty much a 2 year USMLE prep course. PBL students don't even have full anatomy, they get computer software. The school's justification was that boards are not too anatomy heavy.
The students match at amazing places because of their crazy high board scores.

 

[deleted564680]

Yeah its a flaw in the system. Board scores need to be de-emphasized so we can get back to training doctors instead of professional board takers.

I say make the board exams pass/fail and judge students on the rest of their merits.

 

[TheBDP]

Yeah its a flaw in the system. Board scores need to be de-emphasized so we can get back to training doctors instead of professional board takers.

I say make the board exams pass/fail and judge students on the rest of their merits.

Unfortunately the STEP/COMLEX are the only really standardized measures of comparing people across schools.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Yeah its a flaw in the system. Board scores need to be de-emphasized so we can get back to training doctors instead of professional board takers.

I say make the board exams pass/fail and judge students on the rest of their merits.

Realistically this should be the reality. Boards are archaic and they frankly have made modifying and changing the curriculum to actually train practical doctors difficult.

Unfortunately the STEP/COMLEX are the only really standardized measures of comparing people across schools.

I think there's a diminishing return when you try to subdivide ppl at this level. I don't think there's going to be much practical difference between a physician in the bottom, middle, and top tiers of their class.

Fully agree. But at both the MD and DO schools I interviewed at, it seemed like prosected cadevars were becoming the new standard.
I interviewed at Erie and all they talked about was how the curriculum is entirely board focused. It's pretty much a 2 year USMLE prep course. PBL students don't even have full anatomy, they get computer software. The school's justification was that boards are not too anatomy heavy.
The students match at amazing places because of their crazy high board scores.

Maybe the people interested in surgery felt differently, but I largely felt like anatomy lab was a major time sink. I found personally most of the time likewise that after students had taken their time 'dissecting' you ended up with torn up tissue as tags instead of discrete anatomical structure.
I appreciate that I had the experience, but I don't think it will help me much in life, or maybe I'm wrong.

 

[deleted564680]

Realistically this should be the reality. Boards are archaic and they frankly have made modifying and changing the curriculum to actually train practical doctors difficult.



I think there's a diminishing return when you try to subdivide ppl at this level. I don't think there's going to be much practical difference between a physician in the bottom, middle, and top tiers of their class.



Maybe the people interested in surgery felt differently, but I largely felt like anatomy lab was a major time sink. I found personally most of the time likewise that after students had taken their time 'dissecting' you ended up with torn up tissue as tags instead of discrete anatomical structure.
I appreciate that I had the experience, but I don't think it will help me much in life, or maybe I'm wrong.

You will be pleasantly surprised how much anatomy you remember from dissection as compared to students who didn't have it. It's almost universal but to be fair I do have mostly experience with anatomy related fields and those students/residents.


Also, there are many other ways to judge a candidate besides the board scores. They are really mostly used for screening anyway. Everyone in medical school is likely in thr top 10% of intelligence. I agree that it seems weird to tier them out, especially now when it's all about which school gives the most free time to study and emphasizes boards more than about how much medical knowledge you have. The "curriculum" at some schools now is just terrible....they really should just call years 1 and 2 "usmle prep"

 

[MLT2MT2DO]

You will be pleasantly surprised how much anatomy you remember from dissection as compared to students who didn't have it. It's almost universal but to be fair I do have mostly experience with anatomy related fields and those students/residents.


Also, there are many other ways to judge a candidate besides the board scores. They are really mostly used for screening anyway. Everyone in medical school is likely in thr top 10% of intelligence. I agree that it seems weird to tier them out, especially now when it's all about which school gives the most free time to study and emphasizes boards more than about how much medical knowledge you have. The "curriculum" at some schools now is just terrible....they really should just call years 1 and 2 "usmle prep"

I would say the majority of DO/MD school curriculum in the first 2 years of school is aimed at board prep. Whether you read the material yourself or you're forced to listen to some 80 year old doc read word for word off a PowerPoint that is still dated 2004, 8 hours a day.

I'm not even going to touch on the laugh factory of how prosecting your own cadavar= a good clinician.

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[hallowmann]

...LECOM at ERIE has a very strong Anatomy department, we take the NBME Anatomy shelf as part of our Gross Anatomy final and our average is consistently higher than the national average (this year, it was almost 1 standard deviation over)...

Anatomy at Erie is very strong (you can thank Kulesza for that), but just to clarify, on average all LECOM campuses had above national average performances on the NBME and all of us took it as part of our Anatomy final. Unless things have changed in the last few years, I believe this is still the case.

 

[Mad Jack]

I like how a "full dissection course" is using pro-sected bodies...

As far as the DSP group, I don't disagree with anything you say, except for that I just don't stand for it in principle. DSP might as well be the school saying "how can we get more tuition money without doing anything." It reeks of Caribbean awfulness and is a bad precedent in my opinion (you are all free to disagree). If a school was going to have DSP then they need to be charging WAY less for tuition.

I mean you wouldn't want those silly clinicians and professors giving you all those lectures and stuff to clutter your medical school education I guess. What a time commitment!

I'd have preferred to not have to do any dissecting myself. Such a waste of time. But I got through it, so there's that.

 

[Dharma]

I like how a "full dissection course" is using pro-sected bodies...

As far as the DSP group, I don't disagree with anything you say, except for that I just don't stand for it in principle. DSP might as well be the school saying "how can we get more tuition money without doing anything." It reeks of Caribbean awfulness and is a bad precedent in my opinion (you are all free to disagree). If a school was going to have DSP then they need to be charging WAY less for tuition.

I mean you wouldn't want those silly clinicians and professors giving you all those lectures and stuff to clutter your medical school education I guess. What a time commitment!

DSP actually includes plenty of quality face time with professors, as needed. In fact, due to the fact that the group is small (<40) access for direct questions and discussion is readily available, as is 1-on-1 time with professors/clinicians. It actually really does bring a small school feel to it. (Don't knock it till you tried it). Meetings often serve as condensed lectures focusing on the needs of the group as opposed to running through everything front to back. All of the resources available to the lecture pathway are also accessible (or shared amongst students). Coupled with the benefit of studying in the manner in which one sees fit and you have a solid pathway. No one is stopping that person from entering the more traditional route, so that is still there if the amount of reading is overwhelming and they wish to go the way of the power-point junkie. It's just another method of education, and it works. No reeking.

As far as dissection goes, "pro-sected" basically means the dirty work was done already so you can get down to business and focus. Most of the subcutaneous fat, skin, etc, gone. But the rest of the game is there and there is PLENTY of dissection left to do. PLENTY. And it's an efficient way of learning anatomy. Not to mention, the anatomy faculty is top notch.

 

[deleted564680]

DSP actually includes plenty of quality face time with professors, as needed. In fact, due to the fact that the group is small (<40) access for direct questions and discussion is readily available, as is 1-on-1 time with professors/clinicians. It actually really does bring a small school feel to it. (Don't knock it till you tried it). Meetings often serve as condensed lectures focusing on the needs of the group as opposed to running through everything front to back. All of the resources available to the lecture pathway are also accessible (or shared amongst students). Coupled with the benefit of studying in the manner in which one sees fit and you have a solid pathway. No one is stopping that person from entering the more traditional route, so that is still there if the amount of reading is overwhelming and they wish to go the way of the power-point junkie. It's just another method of education, and it works. No reeking.

As far as dissection goes, "pro-sected" basically means the dirty work was done already so you can get down to business and focus. Most of the subcutaneous fat, skin, etc, gone. But the rest of the game is there and there is PLENTY of dissection left to do. PLENTY. And it's an efficient way of learning anatomy. Not to mention, the anatomy faculty is top notch.

Did you know that Mythbusters actually proved you can polish a turd. Good episode.

 

[ortnakas]

I feel like I've gotten a good education with PBL, but I understand it's not for everyone.

Edit: punctuation

 

[Dharma]

Did you know that Mythbusters actually proved you can polish a turd. Good episode.

Keep dropping them deuces. What you eat don't make me $#!+

 

[Igor4sugry]

My main concern with DSP is that I'll just be given a huge amount of information to remember with not much support at all and be overwhelmed.

My main concern with PBL is that the case studies are a waste of time since most learning comes from reading hundreds of pages of textbooks and not the case studies themselves.

My main concern with LECOM is that the student body doesn't seem as diverse as other schools I've visited and I won't be able to find people that share the same interests as me.

Is there any validity to these concerns?

If you have such concerns now these pathways likely won't be a good fit. Did you apply to DSP, PBL for some specific reasons? Why don't you ask to be switched to LDP.

 

[AFMD]

For the love, don't do LDP. Lecture has been shown to be a poor way to learn anything. DSP or bust! I would have dropped out if I was in lecture eight hours a day. When do you actually get to learn anything?

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