...Healthy competition is always a great thing, but it seems as though sometimes people get a little too overzealous with their school pride and start putting down other schools to make their school (and themselves, by proxy) seem better. Bad mouthing other schools to inflate your own ego only hurts the profession because you're implying to the peeps reading these forums that 1/4th, or 1/2, or 7/8ths, or whatever of the people that are coming out of any graduating class across the country are charlatans or quacks who went to bad schools when that's really not the case. What's the benefit of portraying yourself as a winner among losers? I've definitely heard from some pods that there are some schools that make success in the field a little easier to achieve, but I've never heard anyone say that any of the schools are as bad as they're portrayed here.
There is always going to be room for improvement at all of the schools, and there are better ways to achieve these improvements than trying to rub the names of other schools in the dirt because everyone loses in the end.
ding ding ding^^
diidy, bdaddy, phpod, and masterh's posts above have hit the nail on the head in my opinion. That is fairly impressive to me considering that they haven't even begun as pod students yet.
I've heard Temple referred to as the "mecca of podiatry" by well respected students and DPMs who are alumni of other schools. Temple does certainly have some well distinguished graduates and great faculty, but so does each pod school...
-DMU might be the hardest pod school to get into at present and has had good board pass rates
-Scholl is another school rich in tradition, and they seem to spend the most on marketing and therefore attract many pretty good students
-OCPM has some very strong professors and alumni also
-Cali school was one of the pioneer programs for biomechanics and gait research, but they have suffered many administration and name changes recently
-NYCPM was the trailblazer as the first pod school over a century ago
-AZPod hasn't even put out graduating class yet, but early board pass rate was perfect (but how much attrition did they need to get it there?)
The only school I can really comment on is Barry since that's where I go. The school is newer (1985), so none of their graduates are even 20yrs past graduation yet. The hardest workers who did lengthy residencies and maybe a fellowship are still very new into their actual practice careers. Barry still has some highly notable alumni already in that short timespan, and I think the program, clinics, and campus are a fine place to get a good podiatric education if one applies themself. Many students from Barry take externships/residencies/jobs in the southeast US because they enjoy the climate. The problem there may be that there aren't really any other pod schools nearby where those students go, and that may be part of the equation: other schools fear what they don't really know?
In the end, though, I agree it's frivilous for pod schools to bash one another when the profession is so small already. It doesn't get us anywhere at all and can only hurt the public opinion of DPMs. I don't like it when a few of my professors occasionally joke on OCPM as having little clinical skill or kid around about NYCPM taking the people who flunk out here. Having pride in your current pod school or being a proud alumni is one thing, but there's no need to bash other schools to do that...
I'd go so far as to say that if you took the top 10 or so graduates from each school, you will probably find very few differences... all passed their boards first try, all care about learning and study hard, and all get one of their top choice PMS-36 residencies. The students graduating near the bottom of the class at each school might start to show a gap from school to school, but that's not who I aspire to be, so I'm not really all too concerned with that. I hope all pod programs will continue to get better and better applicants as has been the recent trend lately. I am a republican, but I have to thank Bill Clinton for paving the way in post-secondary educational funding so that basically any US kid can now go to college if they want to... pre-meds are getting to be a dime a dozen which floods medical graduate programs with more and better appliations
🙂
How would a pod school would keep its accreditation and place its graduates into residencies if they couldn't teach you what you need to know? Is it some big AACPM conspiracy lol? If there were 3 pod schools in each state (or even region), then rankings would be more nescessary, but pre-pod students have very limited choices and may choose simply based on location of family/climate/etc. I think they'll do great at any school if they want to learn, will work hard, and are truly interested in the profession.