I was accepted to AZCOM and turned it down. The campus was nice and Phoenix looks beautiful but in the end those sketchy clinicals turned me away. I don't know if I want to specialize or not but I want to keep my options open. The 12 weeks of family practice in third year is a bit excessive in my opinion and the preceptor concept seemed like a last minute substitute for real rotations. I think those factors would be a detriment should if I chose to specialize in the future. I know that even AZCOM has students that specialize but you can pretty much go to any school and specialize if you have great board scores. The thing that worried me is what if you don't have great board scores? We all like to think optimistically but you have to be prepared for the worst. Everyone in medical school is smart. This isn't like undergrad where you assume you will be in the top 20%. Just what if I finish in the middle of the class and my boards aren't in the 90th percentile? Then I think the little things like the clinical setup and local area hospital affiliations would be more important. Those are things AZCOM seemed to lack. Don't want to start a flame but you asked why some of us chose not to attend.
