DO school rankings

[jo_da]

I've started working with residents recently, and I honestly feel some of the DO grads are the worst in terms of knowledge, work ethic, and personality.

I do not want to generalize all DO's. I did work with some PCOM students before, and I felt like they were pretty good as med students, but these DO grads I'm talking about come from schools I have never heard of (not that I really know any DO school besides PCOM) are literally **** tier and make my life so much more difficult than it should be.

The TY's from MD schools (who seem to have matched at excellent advanced programs in derm, rads, etc) are clearly the best (and the most humble and personable, too, fwiw), followed by some of the non-Caribbean IMG's. But some of these DO residents need to repeat their intern year, tbh.

I am trying to find out if there is any DO school tier list like there is one for MD schools (no matter how debatable those rankings are), so I can be aware of the bad ones. Can anyone help me out here?

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[jo_da]

DO School Tier List?

Since nobody has really posted a tier list, I thought I'd post one. It's open to changes if many people have a strong opinion. Which schools deserve to have their tier moved up or down? Tier 1 TCOM, CCOM, PCOM, MSU-COM, OSU-COM, OU-HCOM Tier 2 RVU, DMU-COM, ATSU-Kirksville, NSUCOM, RowanSOM...

forums.studentdoctor.net

Found this tier list. Is this still accurate? The residents I'm ****ting on are actually all from Tier 4 schools on this list.

 

[Doctoscope]

DO School Tier List?

Since nobody has really posted a tier list, I thought I'd post one. It's open to changes if many people have a strong opinion. Which schools deserve to have their tier moved up or down? Tier 1 TCOM, CCOM, PCOM, MSU-COM, OSU-COM, OU-HCOM Tier 2 RVU, DMU-COM, ATSU-Kirksville, NSUCOM, RowanSOM...

forums.studentdoctor.net

Found this tier list. Is this still accurate? The residents I'm ****ting on are actually all from Tier 4 schools on this list.

What role are you? Are you an attending?

 

[Ho0v-man]

I assume you’re one of these TY’s?

 

[MDMechEngr]

The bad MD resident will just be looked at as bad resident no matter the school, but the bad DO resident will be looked at more critically. Some of these DO residents lack knowledge due to poor clinical rotations/training. You have COCA to thank for that.

 

[AlteredScale]

The bad MD residence will just be looked at as bad residence no matter the school, but the bad DO residence will be looked at more critically. Some of these DO residence lack knowledge due to poor clinical rotations/training. You have COCA to thank for that.

So incredibly true. There is a huge lack of oversight on the clinical training for DO students. COCA somehow deems it acceptable to allow schools to have students relocate for year 3 and 4 to very small towns where there is exceptionally minimal if any infrastructure for UGME and solely relies on the preceptor method (AKA fill out a form saying you will let a student follow you around in clinic even though you have never taught in the past).

There needs to be an overhaul but no one is willing to do this because it would shudder schools down or force them to decrease their class size and lose money.

 

[DrStephenStrange]

While this is not a generalization that is equally true for all medical schools (MD or DO), you will find great and terrible students from any school throughout the US. I don’t think ranking will save you there. Additionally, the same crazy good non-US IMGs you speak highly of might be part of these people cheating on the USMLE exams. Whether they are good or not, can you really trust their ethics/morals? Really, there are bad gems everywhere (might be more so at some places), the best way to go about it would be to vet everyone thoroughly. I know this may sound impossible, but I think my residency program does it best: we allow 4-5 auditioners from any school per month from August to February (for a total of 3 available spots). We work with them we know them, we match the ones we really want every single year. We never go wrong.

 

[jo_da]

you will find great and terrible students from any school throughout the US.

True. Agreed.

I don’t think ranking will save you there.

Yes, but it's equivalent to avoiding bad neighborhoods when you are buying a house. Are there gems in bad schools? sure, but if I can have a better gauge of DO schools, vetting process will be easier.

Additionally, the same crazy good non-US IMGs you speak highly of might be part of these people cheating on the USMLE exams. Whether they are good or not, can you really trust their ethics/morals?

Never said they're crazy good in the first place, and if they are good they most likely didn't cheat? Sure you have to be wary of the cheating scandal, but by the same logic I want to be wary of bad DO schools.

Anyways, it seems like the tier list posted years ago still holds true in my experience, since the DO grads/students I had good experience with are from Tier 1 schools and the bad ones are from Tier 4 schools. I hate to say this but the bias is learned.

 

[DrStephenStrange]

True. Agreed.

Yes, but it's equivalent to avoiding bad neighborhoods when you are buying a house. Are there gems in bad schools? sure, but if I can have a better gauge of DO schools, vetting process will be easier.

Never said they're crazy good in the first place, and if they are good they most likely didn't cheat? Sure you have to be wary of the cheating scandal, but by the same logic I want to be wary of bad DO schools.

Anyways, it seems like the tier list posted years ago still holds true in my experience, since the DO grads/students I had good experience with are from Tier 1 schools and the bad ones are from Tier 4 schools. I hate to say this but the bias is learned.

With your way of thinking, some people will never get a chance to distinguish themselves from the pack. I’m from one of these so called tier 4 DO schools you’re talking about, I would have been routed to rural FM if no one decided to take a chance on me. Now, I’m well on my way to a great academic fellowship and possibly stay academic afterwards. I just feel like some people would be fighting a losing battle despite their efforts, and that’s unfortunate. Yes, thanks NBOME/COCA, but we also got to do better. Don’t just underestimate and discount students just because of where they went to school!

 

[Cath Up]

There is likely a slightly lower floor for student quality at DO schools, but I would argue the vast majority of MD and DO students overlap in most metrics currently. COCA's lack of regulation is contributing to the lower floor and it is a travesty. Painting with broad strokes about the quality of students at DO schools is potentially discounting some brilliant future physicians. I have a lot of classmates I would happily want to treat my family members.

 

[acapnial]

I've started working with residents recently, and I honestly feel some of the DO grads are the worst in terms of knowledge, work ethic, and personality.

I do not want to generalize all DO's. I did work with some PCOM students before, and I felt like they were pretty good as med students, but these DO grads I'm talking about come from schools I have never heard of (not that I really know any DO school besides PCOM) are literally **** tier and make my life so much more difficult than it should be.

The TY's from MD schools (who seem to have matched at excellent advanced programs in derm, rads, etc) are clearly the best (and the most humble and personable, too, fwiw), followed by some of the non-Caribbean IMG's. But some of these DO residents need to repeat their intern year, tbh.

I am trying to find out if there is any DO school tier list like there is one for MD schools (no matter how debatable those rankings are), so I can be aware of the bad ones. Can anyone help me out here?

Man. Clearly some residents working underneath you really did something you didn't like. Are you able to give any examples? Or would they be too easily identifiable?

 

[Hollow Knight]

I don't have a dog in this fight as an MD student. Saw the headline and LOLd. Sorry if this is an innappropriate comment.

However- I think what you're noticing is the students from some of these bottom of the barrel brand new DO schools. There's a DO school near me (don't want to dox myself) where the students don't see or present patients on internal medicine..... they just shadow. It's embarrassing. I think @Goro has a list of these schools? There aren't too many of them.

Other than that, the idea of a tier list seems silly to me. I have lots of DO faculty (including in the subspecialties, not just primary care) and I can't tell a difference between them and the MDs. Same for residents that teach me. Granted, my opinion as an M3 probably isn't worth much. In fact, I have a better experience with residents who are DOs or IMGs usually for whatever reason............ I could speculate as to why but I won't.

 

[Hollow Knight]

With your way of thinking, some people will never get a chance to distinguish themselves from the pack. I’m from one of these so called tier 4 DO schools you’re talking about, I would have been routed to rural FM if no one decided to take a chance on me. Now, I’m well on my way to a great academic fellowship and possibly stay academic afterwards. I just feel like some people would be fighting a losing battle despite their efforts, and that’s unfortunate. Yes, thanks NBOME/COCA, but we also got to do better. Don’t just underestimate and discount students just because of where they went to school!

Some of the most inspiring physicians I've ever worked with were from "trash tier" schools, The caribbean, etc. I actually did a double take when I saw one guy's Caribbean med school when I was looking him up online to ask for an eval. Super smart dude, excellent clinically, PD loved him.

My theory is that the more competitive MD schools select for people who are super neurotic. And that's why some brilliant people wind up at these "uncompetitive" institutions. They just didn't play the game. But they're wonderful humans