COMP and its policies

[anonymous student]

Ahhhhh the lights are starting to go on for melancholy but we need to turn the dimmer switch up a bit and clear up a few things. Kudos to Teloola for a good explanation of what significance the standard deviation is.

Now to clear up a few points, the standard dev was clearly written on kiick's modest statistical work up and it was in fact 10.1 on an average pre curved score of 70.8%. I am sure that he did it on a computer spreadsheet such as MS excel. As teloola so clearly pointed out with with a NORMAL distribution 2 std devs would encompass most people in the class, but again we are not dealing with normal grade analysis.

Second, kiick's grading system may very well be somewhat standard for undergrad grading but it has some serious flaws not to mention we are no longer in an undergrad program. First of all it assumes a bell shaped curve or some other acceptable distribution, when instead the final curve in this system can be seriously skewed by just such an individual as taloola referenced. Once again the very large std dev is very problematic and no there is nothing that can be done about a particular std dev but what can be done is to take a good look at the exam or the instruction given for the exam. After which a fair grading scale can be arived at and I do stress fair. That was not done in this case. The taking the highest grade in the class and making that 99.5 and basing the curve around that is in fact still ARBITRARY. And while talking about this let me ask why kiick didn't post a histogram of this exam as he did for the last exam? Could it be he didn't want his collegues to develop and even dimmer view of him or could it be that he simply didn't want us to know the full extent of the academic homicide he committed?

Another point for melancholy and others to ponder about our dear friend kiick is that in comparison to other professors he may post his meager stat workup but he DOES NOT post his exam. Why is that, when every other professor except the anatomy dept (another aberrant department) posts exams? Curious isn't it. Another comparison point is that he is the only professor that I know of to urge students to withdraw or when a student arrives at that decision on their to encourage them in that decision. No dissuasion here. This brings me to my next point or new bit of info "if you will".

The culling of the class has begun anew. I was told by one of the class that approximately 10 more people have decided or been persuaded to persue other opportunities for the time being somewhere other than COMP. This brings the total up to about 20 - 30 who have, as I said above decided that perhaps being at COMP is not the best thing for them. Now of this latest harvest some where offered a leave of abscence before the biochem grade apparently has been posted but others where urged to withdraw. Now this is a different stance than before Christmas, could it be that even the ham handed dean, craig lenz, has realized that perhaps there is a problem? Once again the word arbitrary comes to mind, some are offered leave of abscence and some are urged to withdraw when they have the same grades. I am anticipating that after head/neck and then again after neuro there will be more bloodletting.

One last thing to clear up, and that is the mirage in the desert disgused anatomy remdiation in the nebraska. It's hillarious the way this is whispered as a means to encouragement to those who have failed anatomy. Last year I think one person remediated there and that I can't confirm right now. Make no mistake about it, the probability of remediation in nebraska is not high.

The last thing I want to leave with you is that we can debate and talk about fair grading til the proverbial sun comes up but we are talking about real people and their futures, I do know someone who failed by 1/10 of one percent. That is completely unacceptable. This person could have passed if they had made one guess on one exam correctly. No where does kiick demonstrate the humility that perhaps there were bad questions he did not recognize. So, it will be interesting to see just how many people leave this class in one way or another.

Oh, and melancholy, what makes you think I have left?

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[anonymous student]

I wanted to add something, today I heard that the number actually might be 12 and the students in question were given an ultimatum, withdraw or be dismissed and yesterday was the deadline. So much for humanism at COMP.

Make no mistake about it, this came from lenz, brezniak and kiick. kiick is the chair of academic committee and he is making a play for chair of curiculum. Imagine dennis kiick in charge of the curiculum and the academic committee. That is a scary thought.

 

[theghostdo200x]

Given the recent events at COMP and the obvious disregard for students and their futures, I can see why so much discussion is occurring in regards to biochemistry. "Anonymous" has some very strong...and highly accurate points concerning the recent departures of our colleagues. It is truly a shame. And remember, COMP is not, and has never been, a top-tier medical program. Why are students treated like it is? Interesting...So lets keep the dialouge going and keep it "friendly" for those of you still COMP supporters...

 

[melancholy]

Do you believe in your heart that every student that is dropping out is due to all these statements regarding biochemistry, Kiick, and the administration and disregard the fact that these people have lives outside of school which could have some factor into their decisions? Leo mentioned something more like 4 or 5 I believe when we spoke to him today.

As a side note, I believe Leo said the way he would probably handle neuro system would be to curve it up to an 80% in the class. Unfortunately, he doesn't have as much say in regards to anatomy grades as he does for neuro.. even though he did not know how our class was doing, he got a feeling our averages for anatomy were slightly better than last year. There could be a small curve.. we'll see.

 

[NewAgeDO]

TO Anonymous and Ghost,
I do agree with you that COMP does have issues. It has finally hit me that a number of my colleagues that I consider not just a colleagues, but also friends, have been asked to leave the program. This semester I have decided to run for Curriculum Representative of our class to find out more about the issues and to see if things can be done to change this. So on that note, I'd like to request for a little help. I've been trying to find statistics on the national medical school attrition rate and the individual attrition rate for all the schools, and compare them to the school's curriculum. In my opinion, I do not believe one bit that these students that have been dismissed for academic reasons have failed because they have not been doing the work or the time to study for class. The curriculum at COMP right now seems to be the most difficult I have ever heard of to date. That's not to say other schools are harder or easier. Maybe COMP just needs to really modify the curriculum to be more efficient? Or maybe this problem can be taken care of in other ways...i.e. at the admissions level(if ADCOMS believe the applicant can't hack it, or might have a really difficult time passing, then why let them in in the first place)? Maybe the school needs to re-evaluate their admissions criteria? Yes, I do understand that the few that have been asked to withdraw did have above average GPAs and MCATs, but for those that were really borderline, do you think they should really be given a chance? If that's the case, then I believe COMP should not just let them sink or swim. Either don't accept the marginal stats in the first place, or help/guide them during the difficult times. It's been very emotional for some of us in the class that do care about our colleagues/friends to see them leave the program...this week especially. So, if there's anything I/we(student government) can do to prevent this kind of mass attrition in the future, we will fight hard to do it. It's just a matter of time. And yes, if you're talking about school pride, I've still got it...I just think many changes need to be made. More from me later...
-RobbC

 

[Yosh]

Is it hard to transefer to UHS?

That's all for you RobbC! You KNOW what I am talking about....

Its called the...Get me the hell out of here COW

 

[JS-UNMC]

I can only speak for DMU... Our class (DO '04) started off with 213 students and are now down to 190 (192 maybe). Thats about a 10% attrition rate. I'm not sure how that compares to other schools though. I do know that some failed out and others decided that medicine just wasn't for them. 10% seems pretty high to me though and almost all of them left after or during the first year. I am unaware of any students that have dropped out during the second year.

 

[melancholy]

Anon - Actually, if you want to take a look at the board upstairs, the only place the SD of 10.1 shows up is on a post-it note labelled "Exam III" next to the ~70% average for that specific exam. You were previously referring to the SD for the final grade, weren't you? Just wanted to clarify..

Robb - The feel I had gotten from talking to my friends at other med schools it that the schools do tend to try and retain the students if they are having some academic difficulties, but there are a few dropouts here and there.. some academic and some due to outside reasons as well. An interesting point that someone brought up was the fact that some DO schools should raise their standards for admissions. I think the basis for this goes back to the desire to retain students by other schools. These other schools have that confidence in their admissions committees to pick students they feel should be able to handle the coursework, so when a student is having problems, they still believe that the student can make it through with some assistance. Maybe that is part of the problem with Western... not having enough confidence in ALL of its students. Who approaches these students and "asks" them to leave anyway? (Is there a difference between asking a student to leave and advising that one of their options could be to leave or take a leave of absence?) I recall Dean Lenz (in the beginning of the year) saying that no "action" would be taken towards a student until the end of the year. Perhaps it is a matter of semantics here. I don't like it, but I am curious to get to the bottom of it. I'd like to think that there is some logic behind all of this.

 

[teloola]

I was really to sad to hear about our colleagues asked or told to depart. Melancholy and Robb make good points. I know one of the students asked to leave was working much harder than I did. I know that there is a high stake in being a doctor, but administration or admissions should take responsibility for students that are accepted, who are working as hard as they can, and who are still slightly below the magic numbers. We were told on the first day that we were selected because they felt that we could be successful in medical school. What does that say to someone who has done everything possible to succeed and still fails?
I know that my grades are not that great, but I am worried that if something happens and I need help that I could be told the same things as our departed colleagues. I am beginning to realize that COMP is not the place that it used to be when I did research here.
I believe that COMP can be the place that I remember and that all of us hope that it can be. I know that the new officers can help bring the class back together and bring the positive spirit back.

 

[melancholy]

After talking to some more people regarding those who I thought were asked to leave, one view of the situation I received (and I don't know if it was just speculation or not) was that the people were called in to have their options presented to them due to their academic status and to discuss their options for the future.

From this point of view, I got the feeling that the administration was not required to contact the students regarding their status, but decided to in order to let them know where they stood in terms of being able to return next year and remediate over the summer. Although I can't imagine how much emotional stress they had to go through in this experience, I feel like certain students, knowing that they would probably not be able to remediate over the summer would give them a chance to decide if they wanted to continue taking classes the rest of the year or make decisions about using the rest of the semester for something else.

I do realize that some of our classmates have been stretched to their limits and beyond.. I still think one factor could be a matter of confidence COMP might have in its students... I heard that allopathic schools generally try to bend over backwards to keep students in the school (even under very extreme conditions which may not always be the best for everyone involved)... but that's another discussion. I think for the most part we are all qualified to get through the work, but our curriculum is rough and sometimes other factors make life as a student a lot more time-consuming and difficult.

 

[anonymous student]

MELANCHOLY - I will make this simple, the 10 people, not 4 or 5, but 10 people, who were shall we say, invited to pursue other opportunities, were done so in large part because they failed biochem. And, mr. kiick is the chair of the academic committee and it is well within his power to dismiss or encourage individuals to leave. BTW, the number was confirmed by another member of faculty. So as to one of your prior posts, yes the exodus this week is due in large part to mrs. kiick. One last thing to add about the large number of people leaving the program. There is some degree of concern growing in the university (that term is used oh so loosely) administration. Why you ask, because due to the large number of students leaving, over 20, there is some concern over paying the bills, or preserving the profit margin if you will.
Second point, the 10.1 std dev for the final is precisely what I HAVE been referring to. I don't know what the std dev is for the entire course.
Third point, you make a statement about allopathic schools bending over backwards for their students but that may not be the best thing, what do you mean by that? Are you making some kind of veiled statement that maybe some of our classmates should get bounced outa here? If thats what you think, you need to take a second look at that. The fact of the matter is that most allopathic schools want to retain their students, they beleive that they have earned the right to be there and the school is not going to prove otherwise. If comp doesn't have confidence in its students than they shouldn't admit them to begin with and waste the students time and defraud them of their money. And another point to make is that most allopathic schools understand how to best teach medicine, take Loma Linda for example. They typically have 3 classes at a time. And most allopathic schools teach on order about 150-160 hours of anatomy, not 280. Make no mistake about it, comp is a bottom tier medical school, the cirriculum shows it, the faculty shows it, the board scores show it and the administration shows it. Dean lenz personifies the term ham-handed.

One last thing for now, don't think that I am bitter, I have only myself to blame for coming here. I chose comp when I could have went allopathic but wanted to stay in CA, what a stupid reason. This is a decision I will regret for a very long time.

 

[vintagelp]

Hey Anon,

So I have been checking out your posts and I am a little disturbed. True, no matter where people go, there will always be someone who is upset with policies, professors, etc. So, I find it no big deal you have problems.

The problem I have is the fact that you are sticking around. You seem MISERABLE! What is the point to wallow in self pity? You are an adult, and you are allowed to make a choice. You can easily walk into COMP administration and ask them to pull up a set of withdrawal papers for you.

Yes, I know you are probably thinking you have already thrown 40,000 down the toilet, so you are just going to stick this hell out. But, if you walk out of the doors in three and a half years and despise that you are a graduate of COMP you will always be miserable. If you walk out of the doors of some other MD or DO school that you appreciate more that 40,000 you just threw away, really won't mean that much. Would you rather live in long term misery staying in BEAUTIFUL POMONA and always hating your degree? Or would you rather live in short term misery by packing your bags and starting all over again at a place you would be happier in?

I am sure your negative attitude shines through in class and only increases your misery. People can sense that negativity and will turn away from you and you will only become more miserable. Do you want to perpetuate that cycle? If you do...then I don't feel sorry for you. You are just digging your grave...so lie in it. Or you are one of those people that get more out of life from complaining then making yourself happy.

I go to COMP. I will admit there have been times that I find some things about the school ridiculous. But, I let it all go when I realize I am one day closer to my goal of becoming a doctor. I am one step closer to helping people. I am one step closer to having an opportunity that billions of people in this world will never have! It is so amazing to know that...that that is what keeps me moving and smiling.

This was not the only school that accepted me. I actually choose to be an osteopath and I was accepted straight out of college. I came in knowing about the board scores. That was the con for Pomona, but lets put two and two together buddy

Our average MCAT score is pretty low. We are pretty much in the middle of the road. So don't you think our prior performance on the MCAT is going to reflect probably our board scores. We aren't the most brilliant test takers attending this school. Also, realize they can't possibly spoon feed us with that golden spoon that everyone is always begging for. If they did....do you know how much time we would spend in school? So, if you are really concerned about your board scores....go out, buy the board review books, and start studying. Just study as you go along with neuro and make sure you learn anything in those books that aren't being presented to you in your classes. We are on a two way street here. The school's job is to present you with info and your job is to learn to the best of your ability.

Yes, I too feel that some of the professors either teach us too much or too little...but remember they are tenured and they aren't going anywhere. Yes, unfortunate for us...but we just have to get around that obstacle. If that means taking it on ourselves...so be it.

So for any of you potential students that are still reading this post. I love COMP. I wouldn't trade it in for anything. There were times I was kicking myself for not going elsewhere but I realize that no matter where I went the course load would sour my mood as I went along. My classmates are laidback and great. Everyone tries to help each other as much as they can. There is a great sense of humor in my class despite the infamous bathroom breaks and public health stories. For example during our respiratory final, some guys in our class wore depends on the outside of their pants to show how stupid the bathroom break/cheating policies at our school is. Moments like these make you wonder how you could be any happier anywhere else? The people have been what made my experience. So if you are trying to find a more kick back atmosphere, this would probably be a good place for you. If you do want the best education possible...maybe go elsewhere. But really, in the long run, I am not so sure about the education thing. I have friends at great schools across the country and they HATE everything about their school. So I advise for you to sit in on classes at your choice schools for a day and make part of your decision based on what you saw.

Finally, why am I anonymous...because you are. Also, I don't really feel like passing you in the hallways and getting your cold stares since I nicely told you to go elsewhere.

 

[melancholy]

Actually, when I referred to allopathic schools that would bend over backwards to retain students, I had in mind a few students admitted who attend a school and for some reason or another, just can't get through through the entire four years. Actually, COMP has been lenient in the past at least in one case I heard from fourth year students where a COMP student on rotations took at least four years to get through her 3rd and 4th years. I have no clue how long she must have spent completing her first two years in the classroom. At any rate, when you compare average scores for MCAT/GPA between allopathic and osteopathic schools, osteopathic schools tend to be slightly lower. I'm sure that DO schools receive more than enough applicants and they could actually raise the standards for admissions if they wanted to. This is not to say that I don't have faith in the admissions committees because they can only perceive so much about applicants.. overall, they do a good job and I see plenty of people in our class that seem on top of things academically and are still willing to take their time to help others and help out our class as well. Even those who have borderline grades, most of those people study their butts off and I know they are hard workers. I wish the world were more fair than that, but unfortunately this is reality and we are all dealing with schools that have imperfections in one way or another. I'm trying bit by bit to get more involved starting with becoming a class officer so at least I can do my part to help improve things along with the rest of my fellow officers and classmates. I prefer to work with negatives instead of becoming obsessed with them.


In regards to your past decision to stay in CA by attending COMP, I don't see how it was necessarily a bad decision unless the reason was that the school was not the right fit for you. I think the majority of our classes are from California and at the end of our four years, there will be plenty of satisfied and competent doctors who were happy with their decision to go to COMP and stay in their home state. I am happy coming to COMP whether or not I decide to stick around Cali after I'm done. As Vintagelp mentioned, I hope you find somewhere else that you'll be happy with or else this will be an neverending cycle that doesn't help anyone at all.

 

[JS-UNMC]

COMP stucents, it could always be worse, you could be in beautiful Des Moines, IA!

 

[melancholy]

haha jsdmu.. nice to see you still have your humor! Are you still staying afloat over there.. academically and mentally? Hope so..

 

[JS-UNMC]

I'm doing fine Melancholy! Enjoy that week long Cranial Osteopathy... ha ha ha! Don't forget your tarot cards to help you with those diagnosis!

 

[melancholy]

jsdmu- haha.. funny you should mention the cranial OMM. I actually went to a short workshop this past semester where the DO had us try to put our hands on someone in various places trying to "feel" certain things that man.. I can't even begin to remember at this point. I do recall placing both hands on a person's head at some point with his hands on top of mine's and he was telling me when I could feel the expansion and decrease in size of the head. I was kind of amazed I could feel anything at all, but I've yet to get into any of the theories behind it all.. seems like it'd be very interesting though. Do you guys have any courses up there for that?

 

[JS-UNMC]

we have 3 hour and a half lectures on it as well as 3 hour and a half labs. Nothing crazy like you guys though!

 

[melancholy]

Actually, I just read some e-mail my school sent out regarding a Cranial course during the summer (in June) held at DMU. I guess it must be a little pricey because there are a few scholarships available to go. Is that summer course popular over there with the students?