DMU vs. CUSOM vs. Touro-NV

[ndcpjf]

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Hello! Right now I've got to make a decision - ideally by tonight about these three schools. They all have equivalent tuition and COL.

Campbell University (CUSOM):
Pros: Great research with proximity and faculty connections to Duke and UNC, high board scores (+one of the only DO schools to list USMLE Step 1 scores), In-House ACGME residencies in Derm, General Surgery, Emergency Medicine + others, and a few fellowship programs as well, great weather and access to recreational activities including my favorite hobby, would be very happy to live in North Carolina for residency and beyond.
Cons: Rural location and mandatory attendance for lectures, I believe 1 less away rotation than the other schools.

Des Moines University (DMU):
Pros: Most established and great reputation + alumni connections, good-sized city with things to do, non-mandatory lecture, great school for pursuing surgical interests (although I'm not sure what I want to do), great board scores.
Cons: I've heard rotations can be average if you don't get a year-long site and rotates every month somewhere new mostly in rural Iowa, weather is so-so (although I've lived in the Midwest before, now currently in California), less access to outdoor recreational activities such as my favorite hobby, would not live in Iowa in the future and prefer only certain areas in the midwest in the future.

Touro-Nevada (TUNCOM):
Pros: Pass/Fail, Non-Mandatory lecture, good residency placements for the western U.S (where I could see myself living), don't need to move anywhere for rotations as they're all within Las Vegas, best access to outdoor recreation activities including my favorite hobby.
Cons: I've heard facilities and rotations are average, weather could be a con since it's hot as hell (currently 111 degrees as of this posting).

Any thoughts to help me make the decision?

 

[DrStephenStrange]

DMU >>> CUSOM > TUNCOM

 

[ndcpjf]

DMU >>> CUSOM > TUNCOM

Do you have any specific reasons? Is it just name recognition alone?

 

[DrStephenStrange]

Do you have any specific reasons? Is it just name recognition alone?

DMU is an OG and well known around the country with killer residency matches every year. CUSOM seems to be doing a great job in NC opening their own residency programs around the state, and their students seem to match well every year despite being a relatively new school. Touro Nevada is not a bad school, but nothing special that I currently know about.

 

[Osminog]

If you want to return to the West Coast for residency in your desired specialty, go to Touro-NV. If you care at all about where you spend 3+ years of your life after med school graduation, your DO school’s geographic region trumps every other factor. This isn’t said often enough on SDN. Regional bias plays a big role in the audition rotation and match process, especially for DO students.

 

[MissRibeye]

Hello! Right now I've got to make a decision - ideally by tonight about these three schools. They all have equivalent tuition and COL.

Campbell University (CUSOM):
Pros: Great research with proximity and faculty connections to Duke and UNC, high board scores (+one of the only DO schools to list USMLE Step 1 scores), In-House ACGME residencies in Derm, General Surgery, Emergency Medicine + others, and a few fellowship programs as well, great weather and access to recreational activities including my favorite hobby, would be very happy to live in North Carolina for residency and beyond.
Cons: Rural location and mandatory attendance for lectures, I believe 1 less away rotation than the other schools.

Des Moines University (DMU):
Pros: Most established and great reputation + alumni connections, good-sized city with things to do, non-mandatory lecture, great school for pursuing surgical interests (although I'm not sure what I want to do), great board scores.
Cons: I've heard rotations can be average if you don't get a year-long site and rotates every month somewhere new mostly in rural Iowa, weather is so-so (although I've lived in the Midwest before, now currently in California), less access to outdoor recreational activities such as my favorite hobby, would not live in Iowa in the future and prefer only certain areas in the midwest in the future.

Touro-Nevada (TUNCOM):
Pros: Pass/Fail, Non-Mandatory lecture, good residency placements for the western U.S (where I could see myself living), don't need to move anywhere for rotations as they're all within Las Vegas, best access to outdoor recreation activities including my favorite hobby.
Cons: I've heard facilities and rotations are average, weather could be a con since it's hot as hell (currently 111 degrees as of this posting).

Any thoughts to help me make the decision?

It is not true pass fail at TUN; they still rank and report GPA so … that’s a lie. With p/f step I think this may actually be a good thing for people who need to set themselves apart. If you want to do surgery, it’s a good school for teaching hella anatomy details; they take anatomy lab very seriously (not great for those of us who don’t care to learn such detail) but don’t provide office hour/lab help outside of scheduled lab or any prosected and tagged examples to help you learn on your own. Finding research or help developing ideas has been very very hard. Weather is a dream. Very few mandatory lectures. Hard to get a tutor unless you fail something. OMM staff is absolutely awesome and very manageable. Some excellent science faculty and some that don’t care about student feedback which I think is true most places. Clinical skills first year needs a leadership overhaul.

 

[ndcpjf]

@Goro do you have any brief thoughts?

 

[Goro]

Pick the one that has the cheapest tuition and is closest to family/support system.

They're all fine schools

 

[ndcpjf]

Pick the one that has the cheapest tuition and is closest to family/support system.

They're all fine schools

To bump this thread for an additional question:

1) Campbell's COMLEX First-time Pass Rate has slowly dropped from 99.35% in 2017-2018 to 93.13% in this last 2021-2022 cycle. Does that concern you?

2) Additionally, I've boiled it down to DMU vs. CUSOM. DMU wins for pre-clinical years (no mandatory attendance or dress code) but CUSOM will have better clinical years (mostly ward-based rotations in hospitals with residents) vs. DMU (lottery system with a large chance of having rotations in small-rural clinics throughout Iowa, probably without any resident interaction as well).

Would you place more importance on the pre-clinical years or the clinical training? I'd be willing to stick out the mandatory attendance with CUSOM if you thought the clinical training made a big difference to residency preparation and success in Sub-I.

Thanks!

 

[Osminog]

To bump this thread for an additional question:

1) Campbell's COMLEX First-time Pass Rate has slowly dropped from 99.35% in 2017-2018 to 93.13% in this last 2021-2022 cycle. Does that concern you?

2) Additionally, I've boiled it down to DMU vs. CUSOM. DMU wins for pre-clinical years (no mandatory attendance or dress code) but CUSOM will have better clinical years (mostly ward-based rotations in hospitals with residents) vs. DMU (lottery system with a large chance of having rotations in small-rural clinics throughout Iowa, probably without any resident interaction as well).

Would you place more importance on the pre-clinical years or the clinical training? I'd be willing to stick out the mandatory attendance with CUSOM if you thought the clinical training made a big difference to residency preparation and success in Sub-I.

Thanks!

DO schools' published COMLEX pass rates are completely meaningless and should carry precisely zero weight for potential matriculants. DO schools use the COMSAE as a screening tool to prevent students from taking the COMLEX when they're not ready, so pass rates are all artificially inflated. The fact that 10 people failed instead of 1 the prior year probably just means that the school was lax with their screening standards that year and let some unprepared students take the COMLEX instead of holding them back a year. It's not a reflection of academic quality.

Inpatient experience during rotations does matter, and it's extremely troubling that half of DMU's students do not get year-long sites or adequate inpatient exposure before their audition rotations in fourth year. With that being said, every year, many DMU grads who didn't get year-long sites during third year end up being very successful in the match. CUSOM sends its students to year-long sites, but the sites are all rural county hospitals; this comes with its own disadvantages.

I will repeat that geography matters the most. ~25% of CUSOM grads complete their residency training in NC. Another 30-40% do residency in nearby states. Are you interested in staying in NC or the Appalachian/Southeast region? Or would you prefer to be in the Midwest, where a very large fraction of DMU grads stay for residency?

 

[MateoGM416]

This isn’t said often enough on SDN. Regional bias plays a big role in the audition rotation and match process, especially for DO students.

Could you elaborate on this? Is one of the biggest criteria PD's look for in applicants are those that are more likely to stay in the areas they practice ie. have more ties to said area?