Well, let's consider the source of those 161 profs...if there are anywhere near that, I sure haven't seen 'em. We do have excellent faculty, better than most. However, many of our anatomy profs come from backgrounds not at all related to medicine, which was a not insignificant hurdle when trying to learn. Clincials are good but generally require a great deal of traveling and self-organization. There are any number of factors that someone could use to argue that the school shouldn't have been founded (including the persistent rumor that the point of AZCOM was to buoy CCOM's financials).
And yet it still manages to be an exceptional school, and the first choice of many who could have gone to schools with better prestige and name recognition, because it does certain critical things exceptionally well. There's not enough experimentation in medical education, and I'm happy to see some finally starting, even if it does come at the short-term expense of the DO brand. If the AOA were committed to making sure these schools succeeded, it would merge the residency programs, work aggressively for more clinical education opportunities, and stop wasting time on glossy-ad marketing. That, though, is another battle.
