Does it matter which school you attend?

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joshua_msu

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Come residency match time, does it really matter to most residency directors which DO school you go to if you are going into an AOA internship/residency? What about an MD residency? Can you be helped or hurt by which school you graduated from from a residency match standpoint? I know some schools are considered more "prestigious" than others, but does it have a big impact? What about the newer DO schools, those created in the last 10 years: are they looked down upon becuase they havent built a rep yet? Just thought there may be some people in here who have had experince with this.

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Yes it matters! Don't you know that everyone WANTS to attend Harvard, Johns Hopkins and other overrated programs because their family end up having an orgasm in public each time they tell their bridge partners, "Oh, my son? Well, Little Rutherford is going to Haaaaaaaaaaavad."

Aside from that... I can't think of why it matters. Just go to a school where you can be happy. Happy students study harder and do better on rotations. Students that perform better, get better residencies. (Better residencies means that it will take 6 years after residency, instead of 5, for all your residency-obtained knowledge to become obselete).
 
Of course it matters, particularly if you are staying within the osteopathic world.

How many program directors out there came from AZCOM, NSUCOM, or UNECOM?

Now how many came from KCOM, PCOM, and DMUCOM?

How well established a school is certainly holds weight. Other things factor in as well, but the DO community is quite small.
 
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I don't understand... If I went to NSUCOM and performed just as well as one of my friends that went to PCOM, why wouldn't we be just as competitive as each other?

For example.... I go to a tiny school in Philly that no one really knows, and I got accepted to both PCOM and NSUCOM and got offered an interview at CCOM. A friend of mine goes to an undrgrad school that is rated very well and also got into PCOM, UNECOM, and NSUCOM. Our stats are very similar....

So when it comes down to it, I think as long as you do well in medical school, it doesn't matter where you go.

Just my two cents from what I've observed and heard. Maybe I don't truly know what it's like because I'm not in medical school yet, but I'm tired of people saying that I should go to the "more reputable" school rather than where I think I would be happiest.
 
If you are a mediocre applicant with nothing really substantial on your CV with average grades and board scores than going to a well known school will help bolster your application. However, if you are a stellar applicant with a strong CV and outstanding LOCs, grades, and board scores it doesn't matter where you went to school that much...
 
I have to respectfully disagree with JPHazel-

I do not think that what DO program you go to has much relevance to the competitiveness of your application. I think it matters even LESS for DO programs. I'll explain.

1. I go to NSUCOM, I'm a 4th year applying for EM residency, and I am applying to only allopathic residencies. I have been offered many (19 or so) interviews (thankfully). I know a DO student from Touro University (which I think started in 1995) and she has even MORE interviews than I have. Our interviews are at both community and big name University hospitals.

2. I think in the DO residency-world, the DO program you go to would have little sway in your application. Considering that many DO spots go unfilled, most program directors would love anyone who is applying for their program. I think only in the instance where the program director is an alum of your school, that may have a slight impact. But I put that on the same level as "Dude, I was a Sigma Chi in undergrad, you too? Yeah buddy."
 
Since I was bored when I read this, and have been avoiding studying this week, I decided to look at the web page for the Emergency Medicine Resident's Association to see if I could get any facts. I clicked on the link for SAEM residency catalog. Within this link, I looked at all of the programs listed on the same page, and also looked at the osteopathic programs under that link. I understand that this probably isn't a complete list, but I looked over 40 programs, and whenever the department chair, residency director, or assistant/associate residency director was a D.O., I copy pasted their name into the AMA physician finder to find out where they went to school. This is a total of what I found from looking at both DO and MD programs. The distribution of school representation between allopathic and osteopathic programs was similar, so I just lumped the numbers together. Here is what I found:

DMU: 7
KCOM: 6
PCOM: 6
CCOM: 3
MSUCOM: 3
NOVA: 2
UHS: 2
OSUCOM: 2
COMP: 2
OUCOM: 1
WVCOM: 1
NYCOM: 1
UMDNJ: 1
UNECOM: 1

DMU and KCOM were the most spread out, with grads all over the U.S. PCOM's directors were all in PA, except one, and I think he was in NY. OSUCOM's were all in OK. There were alot of D.O.s in charge of programs in Texas, yet none of them were from TUCOM.

ER might not be the best residency to have looked up, but I figured that primary care is in demand, so where you went to school shouldn't matter so much, and I just chose ER as a prototype for researching where D.O. PDs are from. I'm sure there are more programs, but I doubt that sampling them all would change the ratio.

So JP was right about which school have more PDs, but I don't think that having alot of PDs in your own state is anything to dance on the bar about, especially for a school that has been around for over 100 years. Poor PCOM ;) (Sorry, had to take a potshot - no offense intended)

Overall, I have no idea if it matters where you go to school, and dont' really care, because even if it did, can't change it now :)


- Doc Oc
UNECOM Class of 2005
 
Just another thought to add...

I was rejected today for an interview from an MD EM residency... and the program director was a DO! So, that kind of goes to show you... that:

When you are applying to residency, it is YOUR application that makes the difference... grades, board scores, LORs, clinical evals... NOT what school you went to (or what fraternity you were in). Do not expect to think you can get in because the PD went to your med school or undergrad or neighborhood strip club that you go to.

And Doc Oc, you need to just step away from the internet... I think you have way too much time on your hands.:p
 
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