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Goro's Guide for YOUR Interview Questions at a DO School (2018 ed.)
I've posted this over in the pre-Allo forum, but have a few extra thoughts for potential DO students.
Goro's Guide to YOUR Interview Questions (2018 edition)
You'd be surprised at how many interviewees ask about the osteopathic component of our curriculum. To that end, there are some COMs that only give lip service to osteopathy, and others that are quite serious about it. Mine's one of the latter. But ask about things like how many hours in OMM lab? Is OMT part of the Clinical curriculum, or siloed in OMM/OPP/OMT?
The vast majority of COMs do not have teaching hospitals. Inquire about how 3rd and 4th year curricula are set up? Do students wander the state or country like vagabonds? or is clinical training more localized or centralized. How are students assessed? What are the required rotations vs elective? Where are the core rotations given? How many rotations are in sites that have a residency program?
How do students do on USMLE? (BTW, NBOME reports that of DO students taking USMLE, they have 1st time pass rates identical to those of MD schools!)
Do they take USMLE prior to COMLEX?
What % of students take USMLE? (at RVU, they’re required to. But beware of any Faculty that says “Oh, you don’t have to do that”.
How do they do on COMLEX? (this should be available on the school’s website). IF the school’s pass rate in < 90% for any COMLEX, ask why did that happen.
(The info for the following should be available online…you can do a search through the DO Student forums and find these as well):
· What percentage of recent grads go or went into AOA residencies vs ACGME? I know this is going to be moot by the time you graduate, but it's still a rough window into how well trained the students are.
· How many grads went to residencies at University hospitals vs community hospitals? (again a very very rough rule of thumb)
· How many go into Primary Care vs specialties? You can look this up, but the interviewers should know this too, so you'll get an idea if they're being up front, or trying to snow you.
· # students matching into uber-residencies (Derm. Ortho, ENT, Gen Surg and any surgical subspecialties; Opthal, Urology, Interventional Rads. > 1-2 is always a good sign as well. These are usually superstars.
I've posted this over in the pre-Allo forum, but have a few extra thoughts for potential DO students.
Goro's Guide to YOUR Interview Questions (2018 edition)
You'd be surprised at how many interviewees ask about the osteopathic component of our curriculum. To that end, there are some COMs that only give lip service to osteopathy, and others that are quite serious about it. Mine's one of the latter. But ask about things like how many hours in OMM lab? Is OMT part of the Clinical curriculum, or siloed in OMM/OPP/OMT?
The vast majority of COMs do not have teaching hospitals. Inquire about how 3rd and 4th year curricula are set up? Do students wander the state or country like vagabonds? or is clinical training more localized or centralized. How are students assessed? What are the required rotations vs elective? Where are the core rotations given? How many rotations are in sites that have a residency program?
How do students do on USMLE? (BTW, NBOME reports that of DO students taking USMLE, they have 1st time pass rates identical to those of MD schools!)
Do they take USMLE prior to COMLEX?
What % of students take USMLE? (at RVU, they’re required to. But beware of any Faculty that says “Oh, you don’t have to do that”.
How do they do on COMLEX? (this should be available on the school’s website). IF the school’s pass rate in < 90% for any COMLEX, ask why did that happen.
(The info for the following should be available online…you can do a search through the DO Student forums and find these as well):
· What percentage of recent grads go or went into AOA residencies vs ACGME? I know this is going to be moot by the time you graduate, but it's still a rough window into how well trained the students are.
· How many grads went to residencies at University hospitals vs community hospitals? (again a very very rough rule of thumb)
· How many go into Primary Care vs specialties? You can look this up, but the interviewers should know this too, so you'll get an idea if they're being up front, or trying to snow you.
· # students matching into uber-residencies (Derm. Ortho, ENT, Gen Surg and any surgical subspecialties; Opthal, Urology, Interventional Rads. > 1-2 is always a good sign as well. These are usually superstars.
