Caribbean Schools with Better match lists then DOs?

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And if not MD, then DO.

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Utilize the wonderful functions of this website as so, you will save your self a lot of headache.
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The answer to this debate is: US MD, US MD, US MD.

Anything else is debatable.

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Not that it means anything but my program does not consider Caribbean grads. They will take IMGs, though

Mine is the same way basically. I guess we interviewed a SGU grad but in the end we didn't rank because of the concern about stigma. We have ranked and matched German grads and Irish grads before though!
 
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Seriously residencies have zero problems taking a top foreign born student from a top school. They want to show off they have the best and brightest in the world. Places like MGH has taken such IMGs when they rarely take DOs.
 
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Seriously residencies have zero problems taking a top foreign born student from a top school. They want to show off they have the best and brightest in the world. Places like MGH has taken such IMGs when they rarely take DOs.

That's totally different though, they aren't IMGs in that situation, they are FMGs whose American equivalents are the students at Harvard, Penn, etc. Heck I would take some of them too if I were a PD, some are geniuses
 
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For clarification you're more accurately referring to FMG's. IMGs is more geared for Americans who go overseas (typically the Carib diploma mills) to get their MD degrees.

Seriously residencies have zero problems taking a top foreign born student from a top school. They want to show off they have the best and brightest in the world. Places like MGH has taken such IMGs when they rarely take DOs.
 
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I don't understand why this topic continuously comes up. At this point it should be set in stone; US medical schools (MD/DO)>>>>> carribeans.

If people are looking for affirmation for choices that they've made, they won't be receiving it here. Yes it's great that some people make out in the end, but it's absolutely negligent and borderline absurd for 99% of premeds to consider the carribeans a viable option before exhausting all other options. Even then, if you've done grade replacements, post-bacs, advanced degrees, etc, and still have not gained an acceptance into a US MD/DO school, chances are you would NOT be able to succeed in medical school regardless.
 
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That's totally different though, they aren't IMGs in that situation, they are FMGs whose American equivalents are the students at Harvard, Penn, etc. Heck I would take some of them too if I were a PD, some are geniuses

For clarification you're more accurately referring to FMG's. IMGs is more geared for Americans who go overseas (typically the Carib diploma mills) to get their MD degrees.

The point I was referring to above, but mistakenly conveyed. These are not US born citizens who went abroad, caribbean grads, nor foreign borns that went to unknown schools.
 
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I think you did lol.

P.s. Nah nah Na boo boo!
As my dad used to always say: "Never argue with an idiot, as they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience."

:hello:
 
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I find cured ham superior to all other meats, chicken included. It goes without saying that any other meat is a "lesser meat" and has no chance at making it into my dinner plate.
 
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Because facts and reality matter. 75/25 is different from 50/50.

The only reason I post on these forums is because when I was looking for this information trying to make this decision, SDN wasn't very helpful. When I started looking at the actual numbers, I realized that there was tons of misinformation on this website, and much of it stemmed from the same handful of people posting the same nonsense over and over.

I don't "advise" people to make certain decisions or not. All I do is try to present the actual information grounded in reality so people can make up their own minds. As it turns out, just correcting other people's untruths is a pretty time intensive job on this forum.

And again, I'm not anti-DO or pro-Caribbean. I don't view the world in this IMG vs DO paradigm that is so prevalent on these forums. I'm pro-reality and anti-nonsense.
Argus, this really comes down to a DO vs US-IMG Carib argument, There trying to justify why they went the DO route.....
 
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Argus, this really comes down to a DO vs US-IMG Carib argument, There trying to justify why they went the DO route.....

That's exactly what this thread is about. This isn't supposed to be another MD vs DO thread, but merely another thread explaining why taking the DO route over carribean one is the much wiser decision. I'm not committing any ad-hominem attacks, I want people reading these threads to be able to formulate well rounded and informed conclusions so that when they do commit to a path, be it the carribean or DO route, that there are no surprises once they've embarked on it.
 
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Ok so lets break it down, there are:
1 neurosurgery
2 Ortho
0 Uro
0 Optho
24 categorical Gen surg (pre-lims don't count)
27 gas

That is 54 matches in these specialties. The OP said a "ton." Lets keep breaking it down. According to the SGU website there were ~830 matched in 2016. 54/830= 6.5% of the class went into these specialties that had a "ton" of matches.

Let's now look at the most recent match list of LMU-DCOM (usually talked about here as one of the "worst" DO schools)

http://www.lmunet.edu/uploads/_dcom/pdfs/2016-residency-placement-by-location.pdf.pdf

They had 21 matches into these specialties in a class of ~225. 21/225= 9.3% so even one of the "worst" DO schools has a higher percentage of their graduates going into these specialties. If we throw in the one ENT match then the percentage goes up to 9.7% The Carib offers no advantage as compared to going to a DO school, the data just isn't there. Throw in the 40% that fail out of the Carib and you have much lower chances of matching one of these specialties than at basically any DO program.

Why does everyone say LMU "one of the worst low tier DO schools", when they are in all actually a pretty average/good school? The worst I can find on them is that they do preceptor based rotations, but for year 4 you can basically arrange rotations anywhere in the country that will let you. The students all seem very happy, and they have good COMLEX pass rates. Hell, they even have plenty of options for research and community outreach. Is the fact they are in a small rural town such a detractor that this pretty decent DO school is snubbed by basically all SDN's pre-osteopathy page?

(Next part isn't really related, just something that drives me insane about the pre-osteopathy forum)

I get why people **** on LUCOM, but I absolutely cannot understand how people can rank LECOM and Touro-NY over LMU.

LECOM is the "Budget-friendly" school that cuts the educational budget and "passes the savings on to you".

And Touro-NY is literally in the attic of a gas station.




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As my dad used to always say: "Never argue with an idiot, as they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience."

:hello:

That's actually Mark Twain lol


You must be really old if he is your dad, taking a post-bac I guess?


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LMU-DCOM

Length at core site (OB, gen surg, peds, psych, IM 1&2) - 6 months. Lottery system to determine site location and if you do core 1st or 2nd semester of 3rd yr. FM + 3 selectives (pre-approved by DCOM) + 2 electives of ur choosing are done in the other semester.
Clinical sites are spread across the Southeast area and there is no preference given if u have ties to a certain location. U get what you get unless another classmate will switch.
Yes, students set up their own rotations (except core at ur assigned site). If you are pleased with the training u get at ur core site, u can usually pick up electives there too. However many sites are rural and don't offer much variety.
We often don't find out if our rotation is confirmed until a couple of days before you're supposed to start, so u always hafta have a backup plan.
There are no academic hospitals or residencies affiliated with us. If you're not in a small community hospital with an attending, ur in a clinic. You may get lucky and get to learn from a random resident here & there if u get a core site that's within an hour of a residency program.

I knew when I chose DCOM that there wasn't a home hospital and I'd hafta move to get my 3rd & 4th yr training. But I did not know the training would be so insufficient and I'm very worried about how I'm gonna stack up during auditions with other students, even DO students who had academic hospitals to train in.
There does seem to be a small portion of my class who are being educated, challenged, and getting their money's worth at their core site, but way too many of us are not.
I'm hoping the electives that I'm able to choose for myself will bridge some of the giant gap that my core rotations should've provided.

I went to LMU-DCOM and it is sad to hear that things haven't changed. There is a serious problem with clinical rotations at that place. It is borderline criminal how much money you pay for years 3-4 and how little they provide in regards to adequate clinical education. Tiny hospitals in the middle of nowhere, no oversight, no pathology, almost zero expectations, etc... The bad part is that while you are there, you don't realize how tragic it is because you have nothing to compare it to. But once you go on electives at academic instututions (and especially get into residency), you are exposed to how medical education is supposed to be and know you were 100% ripped off by your medical school. It's embarrassing.

The first two years I thought were adequate for training at DCOM. But all that knowledge is pretty much useless if you don't know how to apply it, and that is what you are supposed to learn in your clinical years.

I guess it depends on the elective.


This is 1000% true. I have some friends who've actually tried to transfer to another DO school during 3rd year due to these issues, but they'd hafta repeat 3rd year at the new school. Most of us at LMU-DCOM are getting robbed!

what are the good sites you've heard about
Also, are the admins at school receptive or care about this issue at all

They're really good with smoke & mirrors, no follow thru




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Why does everyone say LMU "one of the worst low tier DO schools", when they are in all actually a pretty average/good school? The worst I can find on them is that they do preceptor based rotations, but for year 4 you can basically arrange rotations anywhere in the country that will let you. The students all seem very happy, and they have good COMLEX pass rates. Hell, they even have plenty of options for research and community outreach. Is the fact they are in a small rural town such a detractor that this pretty decent DO school is snubbed by basically all SDN's pre-osteopathy page?

(Next part isn't really related, just something that drives me insane about the pre-osteopathy forum)

I get why people **** on LUCOM, but I absolutely cannot understand how people can rank LECOM and Touro-NY over LMU.

LECOM is the "Budget-friendly" school that cuts the educational budget and "passes the savings on to you".

And Touro-NY is literally in the attic of a gas station.




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I'm a first year at DCOM, so I can comment on the clinical medicine course. It's a cluster****.

It's truly my only gripe about the school. It's as if we're guinea pigs and they're constantly changing crap around whenever they feel like it. First semester we had "disease cards" that had information ranging from signs and symptoms to pathophysiology that was largely equal depth to robbins. We were tested on this pathophysiology, and considering we didn't have any instruction on pathology or physiology yet, that was nuts. The instructors, while very nice and caring, are incredibly unorganized. There were a handful of times we'd have a lab meeting in the afternoon and they'd post reading material THAT MORNING on blackboard. Recently we had a large block exam on a Monday morning followed by an EPC lab monday afternoon. Sunday night the posted like a 35+ page journal reading for us to complete and we were quizzed on it. I didn't read a damn page.

With that said, I feel my physical exam skills are where they need to be and instruction in that regard has been decent. Talking to friend at other schools, my complaints aren't unique to DCOM. But it's a giant pain in the ass at times. All other classes are great, tests are fair, and professors are generally very good - with the exception of a few. I swear to god one of our physiology professors is so good that he could teach cardiovascular physiology to a house cat. Another one struggled to teach respiratory physiology to a group of smart medical students.

As far as clinical research goes, I know of a fellow who is doing some at UT in knoxville. He's not taking the normal class load, as he's between year 2 and 3. I haven't heard much in the way about clinical research, but do have a few friends working on projects with the clinical professors. We're all to busy for it right now, so I'm sure it will come up more this summer. I definitely would be hesitant to choose DCOM if you want your future to be research focused. We have are more clinical medicine focused than we are with academic medicine.

I also know a few people that have done a research rotation as well during 3rd/4th year but I'm not really sure what the logistics are of setting something like that up. They probably met someone willing to do research with them while on a previous rotation, I doubt DCOM would be able to help you much with it.

Anyway, here's some gripes I found about that school in ~ 5 minutes of searching. I'm fine with a rural school. I'll be attending one myself. But there's some shadiness going on there. LECOM stomps that school.


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Why does everyone say LMU "one of the worst low tier DO schools", when they are in all actually a pretty average/good school? The worst I can find on them is that they do preceptor based rotations, but for year 4 you can basically arrange rotations anywhere in the country that will let you. The students all seem very happy, and they have good COMLEX pass rates. Hell, they even have plenty of options for research and community outreach. Is the fact they are in a small rural town such a detractor that this pretty decent DO school is snubbed by basically all SDN's pre-osteopathy page?

(Next part isn't really related, just something that drives me insane about the pre-osteopathy forum)

I get why people **** on LUCOM, but I absolutely cannot understand how people can rank LECOM and Touro-NY over LMU.

LECOM is the "Budget-friendly" school that cuts the educational budget and "passes the savings on to you".

And Touro-NY is literally in the attic of a gas station.




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Because LMU has absolutely garbage rotations. The school and location are totally fine but instead of fixing their rotation issues they decided to expand their class. LECOM blows them out of the water, I actually don't get the hate that LECOM gets on here because everyone I've ever met that goes there likes it. Yeah they have issues like any other medical school and sure aren't perfect but they are pretty proven, not to mention the cost thing. Notice how everyone who bags on LECOM here is not a LECOM student. I've never met anyone from Touro NY so I can't comment on them.

Don't feel like you need to defend the school if you got an interview to LMU. If it was my only acceptance I would gladly go because any DO school can take you where you want to go and we should be grateful for any acceptance. But don't just brush the rotation issues under the rug either.
 
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just to clear up some of the factual innaccuracies in this thread...

This is a gross misinterpretation and misrepresentation of what the data in the NRMP reports actually represents. US-IMGs are not broken down into seniors vs grads. The big Caribbean schools have first time placement rates of new grads, what most people call "match rate," of 80-90% (granted this doesn't include those lost to attrition prior to graduation). If you look at the ECFMG Charting Outcomes document using 2013 data, you can clearly see that the average time since graduation for unmatched US-IMGs is ~6 years. The majority of these unmatched people aren't fresh grads, they are repeat applicants. This is because there is a subset (5-10%) of caribbean grads that manage to graduate but are poor applicants (step failures, semester failures, etc) and can't match, and end up applying year after year. These people build up over time and skew the percentages in the NRMP reports. If you want to include these people when discussing "chances in the match" then you also have to include all the people from the previous 6 years that did match, otherwise you are way oversampling the yearly unmatched cohort.

Again, lots of this is just horribly untrue. Looking at the SOAP data from 2016,

USMD seniors: 2199 eligible, 635 positions accepted = 29% success rate
USMD previous grads
: 995 eligible, 51 positions accepted = 5% success rate
DOs
: 817 eligible, 132 positions accepted = 16% success rate
US-IMGs
: 4020 eligible, 92 positions accepted = 2% success rate
foreign-IMGs
: 5871 eligible, 78 positions accepted = 1% success rate

So firstly, the overwhelming majority of folks in the SOAP are not from offshore schools, 29% are. 29% are AMGs (USMD + DO) and 42% are foreign-IMGs. Secondly, no one does that well in the SOAP. There are more than a "few" AMGs in the SOAP, and the vast majority of them don't get positions. Yes, the success rates are better than for IMGs, but they still aren't very good.
You completely misread the data you posted. 29% is the success rate for SOAPers, 2199 USMD seniors were in SOAP and 29% of them got a position, that's in contrast to the 4020 US-IMGs who entered SOAP, 2% of whom got a position. Add in the foreign IMGs and you've got almost 10k people vs. the 2200 US seniors. Even if we include the previous grads for US, it's still 10k IMGs vs. 3k AMGs. I'll even include DO in the US allopathic numbers, now it's close to 10k vs. 4k. So indeed the overwhelming majority of folks in the SOAP are from offshore schools. The offshore people are then the underwhelming minority when it comes to actually getting a position via SOAP.
 
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You completely misread the data you posted. 29% is the success rate for SOAPers, 2199 USMD seniors were in SOAP and 29% of them got a position, that's in contrast to the 4020 US-IMGs who entered SOAP, 2% of whom got a position. Add in the foreign IMGs and you've got almost 10k people vs. the 2200 US seniors. Even if we include the previous grads for US, it's still 10k IMGs vs. 3k AMGs. I'll even include DO in the US allopathic numbers, now it's close to 10k vs. 4k. So indeed the overwhelming majority of folks in the SOAP are from offshore schools. The offshore people are then the underwhelming minority when it comes to actually getting a position via SOAP.
Not sure why you revived a year-old thread to make two points, one of which was already made on page 1. Since you quoted me for the 2nd point, I guess I'll respond.
You completely misread the data you posted.
No.
29% is the success rate for SOAPers, 2199 USMD seniors were in SOAP and 29% of them got a position, that's in contrast to the 4020 US-IMGs who entered SOAP, 2% of whom got a position. Add in the foreign IMGs and you've got almost 10k people vs. the 2200 US seniors. Even if we include the previous grads for US, it's still 10k IMGs vs. 3k AMGs. I'll even include DO in the US allopathic numbers, now it's close to 10k vs. 4k. So indeed the overwhelming majority of folks in the SOAP are from offshore schools. The offshore people are then the underwhelming minority when it comes to actually getting a position via SOAP.
When people say "offshore" schools they are referring to Caribbean schools only, not all schools outside of the US. Just like when people use the term "offshore drilling" they are not referring to oil wells in Saudi Arabia, they are referring to wells in the ocean/gulf that are off the shores of the US.

29% of people in the SOAP are from "offshore" (i.e. Caribbean) schools. 4020 US-IMGs out of 13,902 total. 4020/13902 = 29%. Yes, the majority of people in the SOAP are IMGs (US + foreign), I'm just not sure how that's relevant to anything.

And the specific post I was referring to made the comment,

"The few DO's and USMD's who are in there are generally picked up in the first round. By the second and third rounds it's a depressing blend of Carribean grads and FMG's."

I was just showing that that comment is horrifically untrue, and that no group has particularly good outcomes in the SOAP.

Thanks for your contributions!
 
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