Difficulty of OMM at your school?

[Konigstiger]

I'm kind of curious how people view their OMM courses. I know most people here have a strong dislike of OMM, but leaving that aside, do you think that the material on its own is difficult?

I'm asking because I just finished my first year and my OMM course was definitely the hardest course of the year and was the only course I legitimately thought I had a chance of failing. Both the practicals and the written exams were brutal for me, much harder than any of the other material. I think a part of this was because all the other courses had external resources you could use to study for them (Boards and Beyond, Pathoma, Anki premade decks, etc.), but OMM was basically my school's (terrible) lectures and that's it. Even COMLEX board prep OMM questions were much simpler than the questions I got asked by my school's OMM faculty on written exams.

Of course, I knew before enrolling at a DO school that I'd be forced to learn OMM. But I've always heard that OMM is simple and won't be that much of a hassle, and that could not have been further from the truth for me... Anyone else had a similar experience? Or was OMM easy for you?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[deleted1079620]

I'm kind of curious how people view their OMM courses. I know most people here have a strong dislike of OMM, but leaving that aside, do you think that the material on its own is difficult?

I'm asking because I just finished my first year and my OMM course was definitely the hardest course of the year and was the only course I legitimately thought I had a chance of failing. Both the practicals and the written exams were brutal for me, much harder than any of the other material. I think a part of this was because all the other courses had external resources you could use to study for them (Boards and Beyond, Pathoma, Anki premade decks, etc.), but OMM was basically my school's (terrible) lectures and that's it. Even COMLEX board prep OMM questions were much simpler than the questions I got asked by my school's OMM faculty on written exams.

Of course, I knew before enrolling at a DO school that I'd be forced to learn OMM. But I've always heard that OMM is simple and won't be that much of a hassle, and that could not have been further from the truth for me... Anyone else had a similar experience? Or was OMM easy for you?

Did your course use a textbook?
Did you use the YouTube videos available for visceromatics & Chapman’s points?
Does your school have graduate fellows to help your class with narrowing down what will be on exams and practicals?
How much time did you spend studying for your OMM course and how did you go about it?
How much time does your school devote to OMM per week? (Ex: 1 hour of lecture & 2 hours of lab)

Our OMM course ranged in difficulty for different students. Some people just got the concepts intuitively and spent an hour a week reviewing and made solid As/Bs, while others spent numerous hours each week to barely pass.

 

[deleted966837]

I had the same experience. Practicals weren't too bad, but the written omm tests were extremely difficult. I failed one with ~50%. In the other classes, I made As and Bs. Before each written omm test, I would go through Kaplan / Combank to study the relevant questions. They simply did not seem to compare in difficulty to the questions on the test.

 

[Konigstiger]

Did your course use a textbook?

Only for techniques, not really for any of the written exams.

Did you use the YouTube videos available for visceromatics & Chapman’s points?

I don't really use YouTube videos for anything since the quality varies so wildly and as far as I know my classmates didn't really have any good recommendations. But those two things in particular actually weren't that bad for me.

Does your school have graduate fellows to help your class with narrowing down what will be on exams and practicals?

For practicals yes (though they don't always do a good job), for exams, no.

How much time did you spend studying for your OMM course and how did you go about it?

You'd probably laugh at me if I told you the meager amount of time I spent, but it was similar to the time I spent on the other courses and I did just fine on them. As for how I went about it, I basically just read through the lectures, made Anki cards, and studied them throughout the year. Before exams I would also do some COMLEX practice questions for OMM specifically.

How much time does your school devote to OMM per week? (Ex: 1 hour of lecture & 2 hours of lab)

Usually two hours lecture and two hours lab per week.

 

[djiboutiman]

My experience with OMM at my school was that written tests were relatively straightforward and didn’t require much studying. However, practicals required a ton of studying. At least at my school, practicals were cumulative from the whole year. In my final practical of the year, I actually got tested on a technique only taught once during our first lab session ever. The practical graders were lenient though and only take off a point if you get a diagnosis wrong, but were using the correct methods. Overall I thought OMM would be treated like an elective, but realized it’s treated as important as all the other classes.

 

[DrZoidbergDO]

Man I felt opp at my school was really easy if you just spent a couple hours studying the day before the practical. For written tests is just read an outline a few minutes before the test

 

[deleted1079620]

Only for techniques, not really for any of the written exams.

I don't really use YouTube videos for anything since the quality varies so wildly and as far as I know my classmates didn't really have any good recommendations. But those two things in particular actually weren't that bad for me.

For practicals yes (though they don't always do a good job), for exams, no.

You'd probably laugh at me if I told you the meager amount of time I spent, but it was similar to the time I spent on the other courses and I did just fine on them. As for how I went about it, I basically just read through the lectures, made Anki cards, and studied them throughout the year. Before exams I would also do some COMLEX practice questions for OMM specifically.

Usually two hours lecture and two hours lab per week.

Have you tried using Savarese to get the high yield theory? I know our midterms and practicals test not only theory, but also specific techniques or parts of techniques, like knowing whether you treat a lumbar rotation with the rotated side up or down. I use Savarese to get the big picture concepts, then just go through the lecture/lab ppts & make sure I know not only the setup for the techniques, but also why we position the patients the way we do, because the exam questions are often mental gymnastics to get to what they're actually asking.

 

[Goro]

My experience with OMM at my school was that written tests were relatively straightforward and didn’t require much studying. However, practicals required a ton of studying. At least at my school, practicals were cumulative from the whole year. In my final practical of the year, I actually got tested on a technique only taught once during our first lab session ever. The practical graders were lenient though and only take off a point if you get a diagnosis wrong, but were using the correct methods.

This is pretty much a description of what my students have to go though. I'll also point out that it takes some special talents to fail OMM/OMT here.

 

[danielblank313]

Per my experience, you need about 6 hours of studying OMM over maybe 2 days to get a solid B on the written exams at my shop. Practicals are generally more difficult but it was very attending specific. My attending was incredibly generous with us and I only needed to pay attention during lab days and practice the morning of with my partner to get a solid A.

Some of my other classmates were not as lucky and I really feel for them, some of them study for practicals every day for a week leading up to the practical and barely pass from how harshly they were graded by their attending.

My attending went to an actual residency and learned OMM on the side, and some of the others are die hard OMM and went to that specific OMM "residency". So, that's probably the reason why we have such different experiences.

 

[DameJulie]

At my school, most of the OMM curriculum is fair. Students usually complaint about last-minute changes to exam coverage and how cumulative written exams are.

The practical was ok. We usually walk in not knowing what to expect, but the grading turns out fine.

Written exam was a problem for a handful of students. During OMS-2 they would randomly throw in some cumulative questions (i.e. in a lower extremities block you would see 10-20% questions on cranial strains), and students feel so frustrated afterwards. Faculty explains this as "every system is related" and "the course is cumulative in nature."

Although everything makes much more sense after you take the OPP COMAT - that's how they prepare us for it, seriously. You think you studied everything but there's always something out of the park that would get you.

 

[getfat]

Gotta just learn how to game the system. OMM (classes and practicals) can stink but theres always an easier way to study for it.

For practicals, confidence is helpful but graders usually have 1-2 specific steps they like to focus on.

Written tests can be ridiculous but you aren't trying to ace it anyway. Focus on being efficient with your time to comfortably pass.

Talk to OMM scholars, talk to the kids in SSP. These guys are going to be the people that will have this inside info.

 

[Doc_Ock]

Really you can make any topic difficult depending on how much detail you go into, how thoroughly it's tested, how well/poorly it's tested, how well/poorly it's taught, etc. I'll just say UNE basically worships the ground AT Still walked on (the head of our omm department styles his beard to look like him... *cough* CULT *cough*) and has more omm than any other school. It was such a pain in the ass to go over all that material plus actual medicine.

 

[Osteosaur]

way harder than it needs to be. 90% of the questions are word-salad with triple and quadruple negatives.

faculty during 3rd year really grind you too

the unfortunate thing is that anyone who becomes an OMM professor is a die-hard with a chip on their shoulder

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

Reading these comments, I feel lucky. OMM is the easiest class at my school. Practicals are pass fail and written exam averages are in the 80s. We’re given specific lists of what to study a week or two before the midterm and final exams so I gave up on studying for it through out the semester and saved myself tons of time. I spend 5-10 hours studying for a whole exam and get As and Bs. For regular classes I’m a low C student.