Des Moines University (DMU-COM) Discussion 2015 - 2016

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Just curious, what should we bring to the interview? Should we bring some pens and notebooks in a backpack(or a suitcase to look more professional)?
 
ERWINSHRODINGER said:
Just curious, what should we bring to the interview? Should we bring some pens and notebooks in a backpack(or a suitcase to look more professional)?
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You don't need anything. They'll provide you with a pen and a folder full of stuff. If you want a notebook i would just bring a spiral bound one that would slip easily into the folder.
 
Gandy741 said:
Your A Game.
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To be honest, a lot of people said that the interview is pretty chill. I absolutely got pimped by one of my interviewers, but I think he just did it intentionally to see my calm and composure.

Overall, it was very conversational. One thing that I can tell for sure is that the people here ranging from the staff, students, and dean want you to succeed. You can feel the caring atmosphere. Finally, the new Dean used to be the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services at DC. In the past two years, he has made several changes to the curriculum to better prepare students for their residency and boards. The Complex average for this school is bet 550-580, which makes the average applicant from dmu competitive for a lot of specialties.

You guys will know what I'm talking about when you do your dmu interview.
 
I have done many student interviews and there is one or two that seems to grill the patients to see how they handle it, but every time i have interviewed with him, if the student handles it, he advocates for them quite a bit.
 
ERWINSHRODINGER said:
Just curious, what should we bring to the interview? Should we bring some pens and notebooks in a backpack(or a suitcase to look more professional)?
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So when you get there, they give you a folder with a notebook, schedule, and the names of your interviewers. This is nice in case you want to google them. You also get a meal voucher for lunch, so I don't think there is much you need to bring. Just wear nice close and come on time. I had a bag and regretted it, annoying to carry around all day.

I thought this interview was really chill. They asked about research experience, typical why medicine/DO/DMU questions, and a couple ethical dilemmas. I was super impressed by the school and the attitudes of the students. I left the day in love with the school. I can't wait to hear back... it's killing me! It has only been 8 days, but every new email I get- my heart jumps. 😵
 
had my interview on friday. 2nd one this cycle. this school radiated happiness for some reason, it was different. there were even students not designated to guiding us that were extremely cordial who dropped by and talked with the interview groups during lunch and tour (even while we were waiting to get called to interview).
 
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I agree with everything said here. The school was terrific and the facilities were clean and new (really nice basketball court and weight room!). The students were caring and genuine. To my surprise, DMU has a good amount of diversity which is always great. The dean, Dr. Polk, has to be one of the most inspiring and interesting people out there. He really cares about his students and their success and happiness. Interviews were really laid back and conversational. I was not even asked any ethical questions. I was asked why DMU/DO/medicine and a lot of questions regarding my activities. The people in the city, itself, are pretty nice. You will enjoy your interview here, no need to be nervous!
 
Bkbplayer93 said:
I already interviewed with Des Moines, but I'm wondering what does the turnover from secondary to interview mean? Generally the quicker the better....? My secondary was complete 8/3 and I received the interview 8/4. Is that normal?
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how was the interview? would you mind sharing your experience?
 
How long did DMU say they will take to let you know if your accepted or not?
 
tomorrow marks the 2 weeks since my interview date... feeling a little anxious, hoping for the best!
 
Same here. Hang in there, I am sure other acceptances will come your way! Just keeping plugging along with the interviews!

I am not overly bummed my mine due to already receiving another acceptance to a very nice school. So I just have to wait for now.
 
Monster_Cat said:
Put on pre-interview hold at this school with above average stats, good ECs and strong fit, does anyone know if this school has a strong preference for instate or Midwest applicants?
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The vibe that I'm getting is that they're looking for compassionate physicians who will be leaders. They obviously want physicians that will treat underserved communities though. However they're not pushing or looking for students to stay in Iowa as evident by their year long rotation sites being in a variety of places.

I'm really hoping to get an acceptance to this school despite the terrible winter weather. I think I can def be the best physician that I can be for my future patients if I am fortunate to be educated at dmu.
 
68PGunner said:
The vibe that I'm getting is that they're looking for compassionate physicians who will be leaders. They obviously want physicians that will treat underserved communities though. However they're not pushing or looking for students to stay in Iowa as evident by their year long rotation sites being in a variety of places.

I'm really hoping to get an acceptance to this school despite the terrible winter weather. I think I can def be the best physician that I can be for my future patients if I am fortunate to be educated at dmu.
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that is what nearly all schools want in their students. wrt to the weather, it's not going to matter much because med students and residents barely have time to go outside.
 
A few things I loved about DMU from my interview are
A. the facilities are nice, new and state of the art.
B. It is in a nice suburban area so I can live nearby.
C. All the students were super nice and it seemed like everyone knew everyone. Everybody has a study buddy and is working together
D. The admissions staff and interviewers were very nice, easy to talk to just cool people in general.
E. Plenty of research opportunities
F Lots of patient experience early on in the curriculum
G. Surgical skills lab
H. Extremely high board pass rates
I. Extremely high match rates (higher than Carver, NE and a few other MD schools in the area)
J. The dean is the $h!t. Nuff said.
K. Iowa is so green and nice. Especially coming from the brown, dead state I currently live in (Utah)
L. Des Moines is a nice sized city. Not too huge like chicago, philly, LA, San Fran
M. Apparently there are amish people. And where there are amish people there are amish farmers markets
N. Freakin delicious food in the cafeteria
O. Zombie Burger
P. I came up with all these things just from 7 hours at the school, I'm sure there are a million more


Cons: No pro sports teams, class size is pretty large (220ish), anatomy lab is poorly ventilated
 
Dr. Death said:
A few things I loved about DMU from my interview are
A. the facilities are nice, new and state of the art.
B. It is in a nice suburban area so I can live nearby.
C. All the students were super nice and it seemed like everyone knew everyone. Everybody has a study buddy and is working together
D. The admissions staff and interviewers were very nice, easy to talk to just cool people in general.
E. Plenty of research opportunities
F Lots of patient experience early on in the curriculum
G. Surgical skills lab
H. Extremely high board pass rates
I. Extremely high match rates (higher than Carver, NE and a few other MD schools in the area)
J. The dean is the $h!t. Nuff said.
K. Iowa is so green and nice. Especially coming from the brown, dead state I currently live in (Utah)
L. Des Moines is a nice sized city. Not too huge like chicago, philly, LA, San Fran
M. Apparently there are amish people. And where there are amish people there are amish farmers markets
N. Freakin delicious food in the cafeteria
O. Zombie Burger
P. I came up with all these things just from 7 hours at the school, I'm sure there are a million more


Cons: No pro sports teams, class size is pretty large (220ish), anatomy lab is poorly ventilated
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There are a lot of minor league teams with affordable tickets. If you have kids, it'll be a wonderful experience for them regardless. Anyway, I hope that I get an acceptance to this school next week. I'm just not confident in my chances considering that it was my first interview with minimal preparation.
 
68PGunner said:
There are a lot of minor league teams with affordable tickets. If you have kids, it'll be a wonderful experience for them regardless. Anyway, I hope that I get an acceptance to this school next week. I'm just not confident in my chances considering that it was my first interview with minimal preparation.
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Don't stress I'm sure you did fine. I made a couple mistakes during my interview and they looked past them. One question I broke Goro's number one rule "Thou shalt not be a babbling idiot"
 
Dr. Death said:
A few things I loved about DMU from my interview are
A. the facilities are nice, new and state of the art.
B. It is in a nice suburban area so I can live nearby.
C. All the students were super nice and it seemed like everyone knew everyone. Everybody has a study buddy and is working together
D. The admissions staff and interviewers were very nice, easy to talk to just cool people in general.
E. Plenty of research opportunities
F Lots of patient experience early on in the curriculum
G. Surgical skills lab
H. Extremely high board pass rates
I. Extremely high match rates (higher than Carver, NE and a few other MD schools in the area)
J. The dean is the $h!t. Nuff said.
K. Iowa is so green and nice. Especially coming from the brown, dead state I currently live in (Utah)
L. Des Moines is a nice sized city. Not too huge like chicago, philly, LA, San Fran
M. Apparently there are amish people. And where there are amish people there are amish farmers markets
N. Freakin delicious food in the cafeteria
O. Zombie Burger
P. I came up with all these things just from 7 hours at the school, I'm sure there are a million more


Cons: No pro sports teams, class size is pretty large (220ish), anatomy lab is poorly ventilated
Click to expand...

while it is true this school has a high match rate, you also have to consider what it is out of wrt the number of students that matriculated for that class. you can claim 100% match rate but still fail out half the poor students before they can try to match. also, consider what specialties they match in. if everyone was competent and did family med, then of course everyone is going to match in. DMU is what i consider a top DO school, but to compare it to the midwest MDs that aren't crap MDs will be difficult.
 
I interviewed last week and I was really impressed with the school. The facilities, students, faculty, dean, match rates were great. The only somewhat negative seemed to be the clinical rotations. Des Moines can only accommodate rotations for roughly less than half the class, and more than half have to do it out of state.
 
Flux10567 said:
I interviewed last week and I was really impressed with the school. The facilities, students, faculty, dean, match rates were great. The only somewhat negative seemed to be the clinical rotations. Des Moines can only accommodate rotations for roughly less than half the class, and more than half have to do it out of state.
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People from Iowa make up like 20% of our class. That being said Iowa has 13 year long rotation sites. 2 of which are in Des Moines. The other year long states are Ohio ( 5 sites), Michigan (4 sites), Minnesota (2 sites), Missouri ( 2 sites), Illinois ( 1), and Florida (1)

A pretty large portion of our class is from those regions. Most people want to rotate where they want residency. So, I don't thinks it's a negative. I personally want a Missouri rotation.
 
tennerd said:
while it is true this school has a high match rate, you also have to consider what it is out of wrt the number of students that matriculated for that class. you can claim 100% match rate but still fail out half the poor students before they can try to match. also, consider what specialties they match in. if everyone was competent and did family med, then of course everyone is going to match in. DMU is what i consider a top DO school, but to compare it to the midwest MDs that aren't crap MDs will be difficult.
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Not sure how this is relevant to DMU because I am certain this isn't happening. I was wondering about matching into specialties of choice though. I guess there probably aren't numbers on that.
 
Dr. Death said:
Not sure how this is relevant to DMU because I am certain this isn't happening. I was wondering about matching into specialties of choice though. I guess there probably aren't numbers on that.
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it was just an extreme example. only Caribbeans pull that level of deceit.
 
tennerd said:
while it is true this school has a high match rate, you also have to consider what it is out of wrt the number of students that matriculated for that class. you can claim 100% match rate but still fail out half the poor students before they can try to match. also, consider what specialties they match in. if everyone was competent and did family med, then of course everyone is going to match in. DMU is what i consider a top DO school, but to compare it to the midwest MDs that aren't crap MDs will be difficult.
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Dr. Death said:
Not sure how this is relevant to DMU because I am certain this isn't happening. I was wondering about matching into specialties of choice though. I guess there probably aren't numbers on that.
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It isn't relevant to DMU because it isn't happening. The attrition rate is extremely low because of the 5 year path that DMU has to make sure that people have equal opportunities to succeed at being a physician even when life makes things more complicated outside of school.

You're speaking about Caribbean schools, who matriculate students on a rolling basis and fail out 60% of those students because they provide no support to succeed and then collect the tuition up front to buy rotations and residency spots for the students who do happen to make it to that stage.

Also, if you're going to speculate and make negative comments about a school, I would suggest not doing it the school's own discussion page which is easily monitored by school faculty and current students. Just an FYI.

And on a side note, DMU does compare quite well with mid to low tier MD's, and just because the majority of students choose to be family physicians doesn't mean they aren't talented, intelligent and fully capable of being amazing doctors no matter what field they choose.
 
JPickos9989 said:
It isn't relevant to DMU because it isn't happening. The attrition rate is extremely low because of the 5 year path that DMU has to make sure that people have equal opportunities to succeed at being a physician even when life makes things more complicated outside of school.

You're speaking about Caribbean schools, who matriculate students on a rolling basis and fail out 60% of those students because they provide no support to succeed and then collect the tuition up front to buy rotations and residency spots for the students who do happen to make it to that stage.

Also, if you're going to speculate and make negative comments about a school, I would suggest not doing it the school's own discussion page which is easily monitored by school faculty and current students. Just an FYI.

And on a side note, DMU does compare quite well with mid to low tier MD's, and just because the majority of students choose to be family physicians doesn't mean they aren't talented, intelligent and fully capable of being amazing doctors no matter what field they choose.
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refer to my previous comment.
 
I believe last year 5 students total were dismissed out of DO DPM DPT and PA of all class years. It wasn't because of grades either. It's harder to get out than it is to get in
 
JPickos9989 said:
I saw your previous comment and it doesn't make what you said before that any less negative.
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it does make it less negative.

i clarified that it was an extreme example to show how schools can manipulate board pass rates and match rates and, unfortunately, other readers here believe it applied to DMU - it doesn't; however, don't be naive in believing schools - MD or DO, prestigious or not prestigious - don't implement similar policies in such a way to boost their stats.

i'm not going to write rainbow and sunshine just because some admissions pamphlet/presentation told me how great the school is.
 
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