Do not go to FSU for medical school

[nogoodfsu]

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I am from the first class that graduated FSU and I have friends in the class that is currently in 4th year. I will tell you that the students there ( 99%) of them hate the school and the administration. The teachers are fairly good but they have a few psychiatrist and useless faculty in high positions that are ruining the school. NO one from my class will support the school in the future. MY class had onlly 30 students and they required 2 of them to redue their 3rd year over for no real reason but to be a pain in the butt. They are making many of the 4th year student redue rotations which takes away time from studying for step 2 and from doing away rotations, all in hopes of forcing the students into family medicine rotations because they will obviously score bad and have no way to get letter of recommendation as a result of having no elective rotations. the 2nd year classmate told me that 2 weeks before step 1 the school scheduled basic life support class for 2 days. The class president organized part of his class and took the class early(paid for by his own money) in Georgia and that the faculty biotched hime out. They have forced him to step down as class president even though he was elected for 3rd and 4th year. Another way to push your into primary care. Primary is cool, but not if your forced. The school is founded on good principle and has many good faculty but the faculty are all trying to get into powerful postions and as a result are trying to make their mark by "helping" students or finding trouble students. Their attendance policy has gotten out of hand. If you need to go to the doctor in 3rd year you have all these forms and then you pretty much are made a fool of by the dean for missing a day as he will call your preceptor to tell them your a slacker and also degrades you behind your back. This is not Dean Harris but campus deans. If you can go anywhere else, do. If not, go FSU cuz that is all you got left. My classmates were nice but now i hear that students are cutthroat competative...probably a typical med school thing but not sure. If you interview there the medical

 

[medhacker]

Copy and paste?


or maybe the enemy arrived and you had to leave. Nonetheless, do come back and finish it, pretty interesting...

 

[1SwtWrld]

Yes...please do finish. I just interviewed thier.

 

[novawildcat]

My friend from college who went there just left as well after only being there about 1 month. He said he hated that place.

 

[MD Rapper]

x

 

[nogoodfsu]

Damn you guys should do post fast. this thread is already almost on page 2. Anyways, when I say I graduated in their first years class that means I went through all 4 years already(it has been around for 5 years now and accredited for 2 or 3). Sorry for the confusion. I am now doing a residency and usually never proof read for sake of time. I had to run to conference so did not finish my thoughts. The program initally was founded on this " warm", student friendly, small, close knit group. I remember the asst dean crying one day in front of class because our class did something unprofessional or did not show for some party of something. It had lots of heart. Then the school start filling up with psychiatrist and ethic-touchy feel good people. A student in our class was told he needed to see a psychiatrist out of the blue and same for the current 3rd year class( he was told in his 2nd week of med school). It is like they are looking for you to F-up. the students are usually pretty cool, but i guess they have become more selective since getting accreditation and now the students are "smarter" and grades are getting in the way- but everyone seems to get along well since everyone seems to hate it. Initally you get some really nice naive students who dont see that the school is all that bad- they like the doctoring course(which is a waste of time-but is required...takes away from essential learning). eventually the student finds out in 3rd year or at end of 2nd that they have been duped and that the school does not care. About 90% of the class makes straight B's during 3rd year as they have this crazy evaluation form that makes it impossible to do well. I am not lying to you guys. I jsut had to graduate before I let you guys have the truth. Most of my classmates wished they had waited out their waitlistings in hopes of goiing elsewhere. I was in your shoes not long ago and know you'll go anywhere...i know. Who cares- it ony 4 years- if you have to go there then watch you back. I was on the interview committee several times and gave tours for students. Students have lots of feedback so be on best behavior...we usually liked all the students-so dont fret that. But I had to stand up in front of the administration during the interview process and lie to the interviewes(spelling?)and tell them all the great things about the school. The town sucks...AJ's and a couple of clubs...that is it. New school looks nice. Path teacher is awesome teacher and his webpath is great. Oh yeah- they have this new psychosocial class which takes your time up too. They also have this Health medicine course taught by Dr. Brooks- sucks. Useless...luckily only counts for 1 credit but it runs for an entire year. Lectures on lead based paint, politics...you'll hate it to.
Good luck- this is not my normal login name but still saving face. I see the miami thread is up like usual. Sorry for the length and run on sentences but lots of built up anger here.

 

[Kiroro]

Thanks for letting us know some valuable information about FSU...

Your post surely game me some bad images of the school. On top of that, I was even more convinced to not go there because they actually accepted a student like you who don't even know how to write in paragraphs... and miss use of "you are" and "your"...
You are actually pretty lucky that FSU even accepted you.

As someone mentioned above, you definitely need to proof read what you wrote.

 

[nogoodfsu]

Thanks for letting us know some valuable information about FSU...

Your post surely game me some bad images of the school. On top of that, I was even more convinced to not go there because they actually accepted a student like you who don't even know how to write in paragraphs... and miss use of "you are" and "your"...
You are actually pretty lucky that FSU even accepted you.

As someone mentioned above, you definitely need to proof read what you wrote.

Just trying to help...you should edit your paragraph too . "actually accepted a student like you who don't even know". who doesn't even know...would be more correct. funny post though

 

[CCEMTP2DOC]

Just trying to help...you should edit your paragraph too . "actually accepted a student like you who don't even know". who doesn't even know...would be more correct. funny post though

Some people have way to much time. Good luck in your residency.

 

[it.]

I am from the first class that graduated FSU and I have friends in the class that is currently in 4th year. I will tell you that the students there ( 99%) of them hate the school and the administration. The teachers are fairly good but they have a few psychiatrist and useless faculty in high positions that are ruining the school. NO one from my class will support the school in the future. MY class had onlly 30 students and they required 2 of them to redue their 3rd year over for no real reason but to be a pain in the butt. They are making many of the 4th year student redue rotations which takes away time from studying for step 2 and from doing away rotations, all in hopes of forcing the students into family medicine rotations because they will obviously score bad and have no way to get letter of recommendation as a result of having no elective rotations. the 2nd year classmate told me that 2 weeks before step 1 the school scheduled basic life support class for 2 days. The class president organized part of his class and took the class early(paid for by his own money) in Georgia and that the faculty biotched hime out. They have forced him to step down as class president even though he was elected for 3rd and 4th year. Another way to push your into primary care. Primary is cool, but not if your forced. The school is founded on good principle and has many good faculty but the faculty are all trying to get into powerful postions and as a result are trying to make their mark by "helping" students or finding trouble students. Their attendance policy has gotten out of hand. If you need to go to the doctor in 3rd year you have all these forms and then you pretty much are made a fool of by the dean for missing a day as he will call your preceptor to tell them your a slacker and also degrades you behind your back. This is not Dean Harris but campus deans. If you can go anywhere else, do. If not, go FSU cuz that is all you got left. My classmates were nice but now i hear that students are cutthroat competative...probably a typical med school thing but not sure. If you interview there the medical

ok

 

[Flopotomist]

ok

ditto

 

[jj08]

It's funny...people post wanting to find all sorts of information about a particular school and then when a post comes along that informs us of the negative aspects every SDNer suddenly turns into a spelling nazi 🙄 . I, for one, appreciate the input. It's not too far off from some of the stuff that I have heard from FSU med students.

 

[C.P. Jones]

wow, some of you are jerks, let this person say what they want...and who cares if it's edited LOOK HOW LONG IT IS. i wouldn't have edited it. and i won't edit what i just wrote.

thanks for the info, i'm not applying to that school, but i'm sure someone will find that helpful

*and i don't care if this is a "troll" or not, if someone applied to the school and takes this to heart, then they can go talk to students at the school

 

[C.P. Jones]

It's funny...people post wanting to find all sorts of information about a particular school and then when a post comes along that informs us of the negative aspects every SDNer suddenly turns into a spelling nazi 🙄 . I, for one, appreciate the input. It's not too far off from some of the stuff that I have heard from FSU med students.

i wish this forum had recs like yahoo forums....i rec this post

 

[bwells46]

The guy is a doctor. I'm sure he has better things to do than check spelling and grammar in a SDN post.

 

[nogoodfsu]

Thanks to those who understand...I truly loved SDN 😍 when i was a pre-med and still think it is a great resource. it was nice posting again. i am not up on the lingo, but i think a "troll" is a phony poster...but sadly i am not. Like he said, just ask the 2nd years during interviews (do it discretely so that you dont get in trouble- just say you heard some crazy sht about... and blow it off like you dont believe it. Just ask them about the doctor course adn that you had friends in the prior class that dislike it somewhat...how'd you like it? The other option is to just email the 4th year students. look on webpage- [email protected] and do it from your "Phony" email account.
You can make it through the program and match at awesome residency programs still, but you might be better off elsewhere. It is not hell or close to it, but LOTS of problems.
Again, good luck- to ALL that posted on this thread
I have to take a look in the lounge to see if there that crazy pre-med sexual hints going on that was there a few yrs ago

 

[jj08]

i wish this forum had recs like yahoo forums....i rec this post

😕 rec? I'll just plead ignorance and take it as a compliment. 🙂

Thanks to those who understand...I truly loved SDN 😍 when i was a pre-med and still think it is a great resource. it was nice posting again. i am not up on the lingo, but i think a "troll" is a phony poster...but sadly i am not. Like he said, just ask the 2nd years during interviews (do it discretely so that you dont get in trouble- just say you heard some crazy sht about... and blow it off like you dont believe it. Just ask them about the doctor course adn that you had friends in the prior class that dislike it somewhat...how'd you like it? The other option is to just email the 4th year students. look on webpage- [email protected] and do it from your "Phony" email account.
You can make it through the program and match at awesome residency programs still, but you might be better off elsewhere. It is not hell or close to it, but LOTS of problems.
Again, good luck- to ALL that posted on this thread

Thanks for your input 🙂 . I figured you weren't a troll judging from the length of your posts. You probably don't have much time on your hands so I appreciate you taking the time to post about your experiences. I'm glad that students are able to tell the truth instead of just spout out the positive things that the school wants to endorse. Thanks for the idea about emailing ths students!

 

[1SwtWrld]

Thanks for the input....I think that this information is invaluable although it should be taken only as an opinnion. Many of the people who do not appreciate this thread obviously are not from Florida and do not understand the situation that FSU is in. They are a brand new school; so information is hard to come by. On top of that it is very difficult to talk to 3rd and 4th year students since after the second year they are shipped all accross the state. I interviewed at FSU last week and was wondering why they did not bring any 3rd or 4th years for us to talk to. It is also difficult to form an oppinon on the school because they do not have a teaching hospital and the closest clinical teaching location is at least 2 hrs from the main campus. I am uneasy about attending a school that does not even address (other than saying after 2nd year your class will be broken up and spread out accross the state) their clinical teaching sites at the interview. Of course the new building was amazing and the faculty seemed nice but there is much more to a medical school. I was also told personally by an attending physician in my community to use FSU as a "Back Up", did not say why except for its new....but that is what I hear from everyone.

Thanks for all of the info......and if you have any more info specifically on the 3rd and 4th years feel free to share with the rest of us. I know many people at the interview were unsure about the whole situation in the latter two years.

Also if anyone has any positive experiences with FSU please share them as well.

 

[bwells46]

Thanks for the input....I think that this information is invaluable although it should be taken only as an opinnion. Many of the people who do not appreciate this thread obviously are not from Florida and do not understand the situation that FSU is in. They are a brand new school; so information is hard to come by. On top of that it is very difficult to talk to 3rd and 4th year students since after the second year they are shipped all accross the state. I interviewed at FSU last week and was wondering why they did not bring any 3rd or 4th years for us to talk to. It is also difficult to form an oppinon on the school because they do not have a teaching hospital and the closest clinical teaching location is at least 2 hrs from the main campus. I am uneasy about attending a school that does not even address (other than saying after 2nd year your class will be broken up and spread out accross the state) their clinical teaching sites at the interview. Of course the new building was amazing and the faculty seemed nice but there is much more to a medical school. I was also told personally by an attending physician in my community to use FSU as a "Back Up", did not say why except for its new....but that is what I hear from everyone.

Thanks for all of the info......and if you have any more info specifically on the 3rd and 4th years feel free to share with the rest of us. I know many people at the interview were unsure about the whole situation in the latter two years.

Also if anyone has any positive experiences with FSU please share them as well.

Were you there on 9/16? If so, I was there with you. They called me on 9/14 to offer the interview. Talk about short notice! 🙂

FSU has been my only interview so far so I can't be too choosey 🙂

 

[nogoodfsu]

Following the comments...
3rd and 4th yr depends on where they "ship" you off to. They dont have much of a choice since tallahassee hosp is smallish. Orlando is where most students have wanted to go and most get it based on where family is from,etc. Pensacola is usually the 2nd best option. Tallahassee usually reserved for those with families in the area and for those interested in famiy medicine(sort of). New campus open in Sarasota...should be nice( near the water)- though not many available slots there. most student do get to decide which campus they want but there was some that did not and were pissed but what can you do( nothing against fsu there). 3rdyear is like any other school- except they sure do watch you like hawks and seem to be out to get you instead of for you. Lots of bad experiences here and with others. 4th year they do take up alot of your elective time with extra family medicine and internal medicine rotations, not to mention the required geriatric course( i think the only school in US to require it. Not really any bad stuff specifically but you have to pretend alot to be "safe" at the school. Not like it is a really bad thing- but attendance to 1st and 2nd yr is now required- i heard this sucks but no experience there.
I do have good stuff to say- Free food during 3rd and 4th year at the hospitals...food is not bad and safes some $$.
Lots of nice teaching faculty. Administration is another thing. Good overall education- you can leave the place knowing just as much as other med schools, but you also have to learn alot of useless stuff- but no biggie

 

[bwells46]

If you don't mind, why did you choose FSU over another medical school when you were applying?

 

[nogoodfsu]

If you don't mind, why did you choose FSU over another medical school when you were applying?

Like many FSU students, I was waitlisted at 2 other places and afraid i would not get in so went with the obvious acceptance. I would advise others to do the same, unless they get some key info from the dean or something of the sort---I realize it is hard to get into med school---so take what you can. Like I said, it is weak in some areas, and I mentioned alot of things, but it is not all bad. Like someone said, it is an opinion that I was compelled to share.
In addition- I bought into the small close knit classes,etc which was true for my class.
I also bought into the idea that students are the primary focus and that students had lots of say in what goes on. That did exist for about 6-8 months but changed quickly. It was lots of little things, usually not a bunch of big things. There has been alot of drama there. One faculty member was fired right in front of class because the past dean did not fire him when the provost told him to. The dean was then forced to resign( his name was pronounce sugar and i think spelled shugar? Now the current dean is quiet older guy from UF(harris). Really nice guy, invites you to his house for dinner one time while your there. Unfortunately does not step up and go to bat for the students and lets other faculty "push them around". I always wished he or Dr Klatt would have stepped up and canned a few staff.
The students did complain so much about the faculty that they brought in an outside source to question the students...pretty cool and they did get 2 faculty demoted to lesser positions and that is when they got a faculty from UF to run the doctoring program. This was the class behind mine though.
So there are nice parts, but just take it for thought and becareful if you go there, especially if your outspoken.
Over and out

 

[Biscuit799]

bump

 

[MedStudentWanna]

MY class had onlly 30 students and they required 2 of them to redue their 3rd year over for no real reason but to be a pain in the butt. They are making many of the 4th year student redue rotations

Maybe the rule is that you have to "redue" rotations until you can properly spell the word "redo."

 

[MedStudentWanna]

Thanks for letting us know some valuable information about FSU...

Your post surely game me some bad images of the school. On top of that, I was even more convinced to not go there because they actually accepted a student like you who don't even know how to write in paragraphs... and miss use of "you are" and "your"...
You are actually pretty lucky that FSU even accepted you.

As someone mentioned above, you definitely need to proof read what you wrote.

The only thing better than someone who can't write very well is someone else equally clueless who tries to correct him. LOL

 

[MedStudentWanna]

They are making many of the 4th year student redue rotations which takes away time from studying for step 2 and from doing away rotations,all in hopes of forcing the students into family medicine rotations because they will obviously score bad and have no way to get letter of recommendation as a result of having no elective rotations.

About 90% of the class makes straight B's during 3rd year as they have this crazy evaluation form that makes it impossible to do well.

Okay, now for my real post.

I just took a look at the FSU match list for this year and I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe your allegations. Out of a class of 49, three matched into orthopedic surgery, two matched into anesthesiology, one matched into opthalmology, and one in radiology, not to mention four matched into general surgery (which is easier to get than the other ones, but still not a cakewalk). Those 11 people didn't get those specialties by getting straight B's and that's nearly 25% of the class.

Also, you have to look at five who got OB/GYN, which someone with straight B's, bad board scores, and no letters of recommendation (as you claim), could have gotten.

Only 9 people ended up in Family Medicine, even though you claim the school tries to screw people over just to get everyone into FM. Obviously, the other 40 people didn't get "screwed" (27 people if you count the 13 who matched IM).

I don't know. I'm glad you posted to give people something to think about if FSU is one of their picks, but at the same time, I think this is a big exaggeration and one of the main reasons is how many times you mentioned the "touchy feely" stuff and the doctoring course. It makes me think that's your primary beef when it really shouldn't be as these courses are taught at the MAJORITY of the med schools across the country. Just check the allo board and you'll see everyone bitching about these courses.

That, coupled with the fact that your "90% get straight B's" claim is a gross exaggeration, makes me doubt the validity of your other points as well.

 

[IceMan0824]

Okay, now for my real post.

I just took a look at the FSU match list for this year and I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe your allegations. Out of a class of 49, three matched into orthopedic surgery, two matched into anesthesiology, one matched into opthalmology, and one in radiology, not to mention four matched into general surgery (which is easier to get than the other ones, but still not a cakewalk). Those 11 people didn't get those specialties by getting straight B's and that's nearly 25% of the class.

Also, you have to look at five who got OB/GYN, which someone with straight B's, bad board scores, and no letters of recommendation (as you claim), could have gotten.

Only 9 people ended up in Family Medicine, even though you claim the school tries to screw people over just to get everyone into FM. Obviously, the other 40 people didn't get "screwed" (27 people if you count the 13 who matched IM).

I don't know. I'm glad you posted to give people something to think about if FSU is one of their picks, but at the same time, I think this is a big exaggeration and one of the main reasons is how many times you mentioned the "touchy feely" stuff and the doctoring course. It makes me think that's your primary beef when it really shouldn't be as these courses are taught at the MAJORITY of the med schools across the country. Just check the allo board and you'll see everyone bitching about these courses.

That, coupled with the fact that your "90% get straight B's" claim is a gross exaggeration, makes me doubt the validity of your other points as well.

Who are you replying to? Short of the bump, your post, and this subsequent one from me, all the other posts are from 2005. The OP is probably awake somewhere cursing his residency. Why is there a need to respond?

 

[Boris Badenov]

I just took a look at the FSU match list for this year and I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe your allegations. Out of a class of 49, three matched into orthopedic surgery, two matched into anesthesiology, one matched into opthalmology, and one in radiology, not to mention four matched into general surgery (which is easier to get than the other ones, but still not a cakewalk). Those 11 people didn't get those specialties by getting straight B's and that's nearly 25% of the class.

You're not interpreting that match list properly.

1. Anesthesia is not competitive.

2. Out of the competitive specialties (derm, plastics, radonc, ophtho, ENT, ortho, urology, rads, edit: and neurosurg) ortho is easily the least academic (and rads isn't far behind). That means that you don't need research to get in--all you need is to have good grades compared to your peers and good board scores. What you'll find is that at less academic med schools, a large proportion of the top students will go into the nonacademic competitive fields (like ortho). In contrast, at the more academic schools, which have greater research opportunities and more specialty presence, more of the competitive students get into the academic competitive specialties. That's why interpreting a match list by looking at the number of orthos is dangerous.

3. While I don't typically give much weight to how many students match into competitive fields when examining a match list since I believe strongly that it's more an indicator of student preference, I will say that 5 matches into competitive fields out of 49 students is very, very low. I'm not qualified to speculate on what caused that; there might just be very little interest in competitive specialties.

 

[QuakerPreMed]

2. Out of the competitive specialties (derm, plastics, radonc, ophtho, ENT, ortho, urology, rads) ortho is easily the least academic (and rads isn't far behind).

Neurosurgery is no longer competitive? 🙁

 

[MedStudentWanna]

Who are you replying to? Short of the bump, your post, and this subsequent one from me, all the other posts are from 2005. The OP is probably awake somewhere cursing his residency. Why is there a need to respond?

Oops, I guess I should have looked at the date.

 

[Boris Badenov]

Neurosurgery is no longer competitive? 🙁

ha, forgot about that one.

sorry.

 

[Green Pirate]

Neurosurgery is no longer competitive? 🙁

I wonder why he forgot to mention it, too. nsg is definitely competitive.

and wow I totally wasn't paying attention to when this was posted. I think it's interesting that SDN doesn't purge old topics, but they should just archive them instead of letting them clog up these boards. I'm not a tech expert, but there's always major slow downs on these forums, and I'm sure it has something to do with the build up of prehistoric posts.

 

[QuakerPreMed]

ha, forgot about that one.

sorry.

😀
I must speculate that one of the reasons FSU grads aren't matching into lots of super competitive specialities is that they're a new school. Brand name recognition counts for something (how much depends on who you talk to of course) and doctors outside of Florida may very well go "they have a medical school? oh..."

 

[Biscuit799]

Just to clarify some things about this post:

This was from 2005. Some things have changed, and others have remained the same. For example, you no longer get regional campus preference based on where you're from, or if you own property. Also, there are campuses in Daytona Beach, Ft. Pierce, Sarasota, and Thomasville, GA. It's based on a lottery unless you can give a significant reason for placement in one campus.
What's stayed the same, you ask? The administration still pushed FP VERY HARD. We do have ACLS, although now it's 2 months before step 1. Sucks. Hard core. I'm going to bomb this test because of it. Also, there's NO research exposure, unless you pursue it yourself. And good luck doing that. I had one classmate that was doing it during the fall semester, and he had to stop bc of schoolwork.
That's basically the jist, but for further info on how it compares now, check out my post on http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=331723