Heard a few unsettling things about Howard and Lecom, can anyone comment?

[WorriedPreDentStudent]

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Hey guys,

So my school committee asked us to send in a preliminary school list for our applications this summer. I was going through schools and had Howard listed. I'm not an URM, but I know plenty of non-black students there. Lots of asians actually. My stats aren't really the greatest so I was gonna take any shot I could and was going to apply there (plus im local, in the DMV)

However, I've heard quite a few negative things. I met 2 people through mutual friends who are currently attending their right now told me to literally go to any other school I could, even if it was more expensive.

They said that the facilities are awful, and the faculty does not care at all about the students. The administration is also apparently extremely slow at responding to anything.

Also, they said that a majority of people don't graduate in 4 years. He even said most people HOPE to graduate the end of summer of their 4th year, if they're lucky. Apparently this is a result of not enough chairs/lack of facility space and patient flow issues?

I was wondering if its as bad as they're telling me. They're both doing fairly well grade wise, but they said they most likely will not graduate in 4 years either because of the requirements and stuff. 1 dude I met said he actually doesnt understand how they're still even accredited because its that bad.

Has anyone here gone to howard or graduated from there? is it as bad as they say? Will you even be somewhat competent upon graduating?

Really curious about this. I know its a dental school at the end of the day and beggars cant be choosers, but I'd rather not apply there and have to reapply another cycle if its as bad as they say.


As for Lecom, I know someone who goes there right now who says shes doing whatever she can to try and transfer soon. She said from what she's seen, the clinics look dead and it doesn't look like you will even be a competent dentist after 4 years. Also apparently they're really strict and random with their rules?

Thanks so much!

 

[jokersmiles]

Seems like your friends are right about Howard.

 

[CareerNumTwo]

This is all I know about Howard:

 

[CareerNumTwo]

Seems like your friends are right about Howard.

Lol.... great minds think alike. Didn't even see your post.

 

[Advance]

The dentist I shadowed graduated from HUCD he's a great dentist and he loved it. He graduated in 4 years.

I interviewed at HUCD this cycle. I was the only person interviewing that day so I had a pretty personalized interview experience. The staff seem legitimately interested in my goals (OMFS). They took me to meet the clinical coordinator of the OMFS department and got me in contact with recent HUCD alumni that matched to OMFS (no other school did that). On the other hand, my interviewers were very blunt when it came to listing the issues about the school. Lack of staff, equipment, chairs ect. The students that gave me the tour also mentioned the lack of patient flow. Students are required to find almost ALL of their own patients. The student told me that in the real world you will have to go find your own patients so this will make them better equipped to do so ( they're looking at the bright side I guess). My interviewers told me that if you put forth the effort graduating in 4 years is definitely possible.

Concerning the video above: I watched this video before my interview and was pretty horrified. When I took a tour of the school it didn't look nearly as bad as the video made it out to be. I'm not sure if they didn't show me these things or I just missed it, but they gave me a thorough tour of the school and I didn't see anything too alarming. Maybe they fixed them?

Anyway, all schools have their issues but HUCD is very straightforward with their applicants so you will know what to expect when you attend their school.

 

[BeaverLover]

Concerning the video above: I watched this video before my interview and was pretty horrified. When I took a tour of the school it didn't look nearly as bad as the video made it out to be. I'm not sure if they didn't show me these things or I just missed it, but they gave me a thorough tour of the school and I didn't see anything too alarming. Maybe they fixed them?

To even allow the facility to succumb like that is disturbing

 

[ncide]

That's just stone when the camera man is in the lab. Not a big deal...

 

[Locdawgg]

Everything you mentioned in your post i knew about howard already. I had an interview at howard last week and this is my personal opinion based on what i saw and the answers i received.

The facilities were not bad as in that video suggests. In that video i was disgusted also but when i was there it wasn't the case. The lab is what it looks like in that video, messy and old. But its a lab where you work with stone and other material its suppose to look like that. Nova's lab looked like that too and its nova! The sim lab and other clinics were just fine. Howard even has a few other clinics and chairs that are opening up soon.

PATIENTS
To address the problem with not graduating on time because of lack of patients and chairs. We talked about this at the interview and the student doctors made it clear the least of our worries should be patients. There are plenty of patients to go around. The students who complain about not getting enough patients are the same students who don't work hard to obtain them. Howard is a school that teaches you real life problems and how to get around them, when you own your own practice, no ones around to hand you 15 patients a day to your office, you have to go market yourself and earn your patients. You treat your patients with care and earn their satisfaction and they will recommend more patients to you. The same goes for earning patients in dental school. PLUS the med/pharm and other health professional students get free dental work at the school, so you can easily find patients from those schools to fit every requirement as oppose to finding patients outside of the school who has to pay. The hardest part i would say is reaching your requirement for geriatric patients, in such case most of the time upper classmen will hand you down a case because they are graduating soon. So you would want to have good relations and network well with others SUCH AS IN THE REAL WORLD.


CHAIRS
Student doctors have a lottery system in class to see who gets first dibs on chairs for the week. Sometimes there is not enough chairs for a certain procedure for that week, but that doesn't mean you cant get work done. In the real world at your clinic, if you ran out of composite material do you tell yourself since you ran out of supplies you get to go home? No you should either get the material or reschedule the patient and work on other procedures. Just because one day you dont get the endo chair you need, go get another chair in perio or whatever. You dont let one setback actually set you back, you move on and get other work done. Theres always a chair you can get even though it might not be the one you were aiming for that week.

Now the only problem which is entirely true is lack of administration. That is something you just have to deal with at Howard for now. I work independently most of the time so i dont really see this as a problem. I think if you develop a great relationship with the doctors/staff you will be fine.

Sidenote:
Howard is in the process of going all digital in terms of X-rays and charts, which is a nice change. They should be fully digital soon. The sim labs now have electric handpieces which work better.

Im not a spokesperson for howard, 2 weeks ago i had the same view on howard as you did, i watched that video 2x already. Last week during my visit and interview at howard, it all changed.

 

[WorriedPreDentStudent]

Damn thanks guys. Anything about lecom?

Anyone know how well howard does train you to be a dentist though, aside from those issues?

 

[fogorvostan]

Damn thanks guys. Anything about lecom?

~74% of students at LECOM failed part 2 of their boards

 

[Soleus715]

~74% of students at LECOM failed part 2 of their boards

😱

 

[stag123]

~74% of students at LECOM failed part 2 of their boards

Yeah I heard that also, I asked a current student on this and they said they changed the curriculum completely and had 100% pass rate for the second time around. So I think for current incoming students shouldn't have a problem. But idk 100% obviously

 

[WorriedPreDentStudent]

~74% of students at LECOM failed part 2 of their boards

WOAH. Guess I'm not gonna apply there.
Aren't they supposed to graduate their first class soon? I wonder how the clinic prep is, or if the graduating class will be competent?

Where'd you get this stat btw?

 

[frozenicecreamDMD]

Yeah I heard that also, I asked a current student on this and they said they changed the curriculum completely and had 100% pass rate for the second time around. So I think for current incoming students shouldn't have a problem. But idk 100% obviously

this is like how I posted somewhere earlier: quote: "lecom's unofficial graduating classes failed typodont (part 2 clinical board) at 3/4 of the classes, however, LECOM will let the classes retake and boast 100% board pass rate"

you can ask any current students there they will tell you honestly, the school's administration? not so much. also, dont trust everything you are fed during presentation because this school boasts clinical time in year 3 + year 4 = clinical time at other schools + 1 GPR year.

this is clearly true if they count the hours spent in clinic, but with patient pool problem, i don't really know how is the experience for the D3 and D4

 

[fogorvostan]

WOAH. Guess I'm not gonna apply there.
Aren't they supposed to graduate their first class soon? I wonder how the clinic prep is, or if the graduating class will be competent?

Where'd you get this stat btw?

Family friends who administer the dental boards for different schools.

And yes, this year.

 

[WorriedPreDentStudent]

Family friends who administer the dental boards for different schools.

And yes, this year.

Dang yeah definitely crossing that off then. Thank you!

Did your fam friends mention anything about Howards pass rates? I know the school is meh facility wis, but if they still provide a decent education I don't wanna cross them off my list just yet

 

[fogorvostan]

Dang yeah definitely crossing that off then. Thank you!

Did your fam friends mention anything about Howards pass rates? I know the school is meh facility wis, but if they still provide a decent education I don't wanna cross them off my list just yet

I don't know anything about Howard as I was not interested in applying there. I would go look on their website to see if they post them.

 

[Carbon1211]

That's just stone when the camera man is in the lab. Not a big deal...

I'm sure at every school the students are responsible for cleaning up the stone mess they make after label work so you can't blame the school for that part at least. Man that video was drawn out. I can NOT believe I watched most of it. Did they really have to dramatically videotape cracked walls for 1 minute and 55 seconds lol. It's funny because I toured LECOM and it was spot free. Not a single piece of stone material anywhere (probably has to do with their stickler rules since it's such a new facility) and I thought.... "hmmm are the students even using the labs?" I have never seen any dental lab anywhere be as clean as LECOM lol

 

[dentjo]

I'm sure at every school the students are responsible for cleaning up the stone mess they make after label work so you can't blame the school for that part at least. Man that video was drawn out. I can NOT believe I watched most of it. Did they really have to dramatically videotape cracked walls for 1 minute and 55 seconds lol. It's funny because I toured LECOM and it was spot free. Not a single piece of stone material anywhere (probably has to do with their stickler rules since it's such a new facility) and I thought.... "hmmm are the students even using the labs?" I have never seen any dental lab anywhere be as clean as LECOM lol

every part of lecom was so clean. Part of the reason why they do not allow food and drinks outside of their cafeteria.

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[fogorvostan]

every part of lecom was so clean. Part of the reason why they do not allow food and drinks outside of their cafeteria.

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I really hated the clown collection though. Like I get it because of the The Ringling Brothers and all but still...

 

[workofshart]

A dentist who works at a hygiene clinic in Sarasota straight up told me not to even apply to lecom even if it was the only school I could get in.. She said she's sent patients with multiple cavities and they will do the bare minimum for their requirements. She says the patients are pissed when they come back to the clinic and theyve only had 1 cavity filled.. There were other things but her main gripe was they didn't seem to care too much about really helping the community or their students

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[MBlue16]

A dentist who works at a hygiene clinic in Sarasota straight up told me not to even apply to lecom even if it was the only school I could get in.. She said she's sent patients with multiple cavities and they will do the bare minimum for their requirements. She says the patients are pissed when they come back to the clinic and theyve only had 1 cavity filled.. There were other things but her main gripe was they didn't seem to care too much about really helping the community or their students

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I just want to comment on the cavity case:
I don't know about LECOM, but here at MWU-IL, we are taught to not just jump to drill, fill, and bill. Instead, we are supposed to treat the patient as a whole (i.e. be more conservative with teeth structure removal; ex: don't drill into ICDAS 1/2, but treat them with fluoride instead). The old dentistry is a lot more surgical than the current one. So, maybe.. just maybe.. there's a discrepancy in what they think the best course of action is. If I were you, I'd look further into it, before saying LECOM is wrong.

 

[SmileItsLife]

Are these issues with Howard and LECOM still prevalent?