How does your school grade OMM practicals?

[sophiejane]

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After a very frustrating situation today in my first OMM practical, I am wondering what my fellow DO students have experienced at their schools.

First, let me tell you how it was set up:

We were paired up randomly and assigned and evaluator. First student does exam as "doctor" (other is patient) and has evaluator #1. Then students switch and student #2 is "doctor" and there is a new evaluator for student #2.

My evaluator was extremely picky and called me on a number of "technicalities" that were not even on the test, and asked things outside of what we were expected to know. He treated my like I was already a DO and made me feel stupid for not being able to determine the subtleties of postural asymmetry (even when we just learned this 2 days ago). I hit everything we were supposed to know, and threw in a lot of extra details. I was thorough and pretty confident in what I was doing. Okay, fine. He was tough. I am thinking, this is just a tough test and that is how things are done here.

So then we switch--new evaluator. My partner misses one of the landmarks, has to be corrected twice on his soft tissue technique, entirely skips the pre-treatment evaluation and rechecking after treatment (two things that other people got reamed for forgetting) and receives a 98.

Now, I have nothing against my partner getting 98, and I haven't gotten my grade back, but if we are using the scale of evaluator #2, unless I got about 110 out of 100, there is something seriously wrong with the evaluation process and it really is "luck of the draw" whether you do well or not, depending on who is evaluating you.

I am just curious how practicals are evaluated at other schools and if any of you have had similar experiences. If so, how did you deal with it?

Thanks!

 

[Idiopathic]

You do not have your grade yet...be patient. Quite a few of these physican-facilitators have high expectations that do not always translate to grading. Not being able to answer 'pimp' questions does not mean you lose points. If you did everything you were supposed to, you should get a 100%. My school videotapes all practical exmas for exactly this reason.

 

[OMMFellow06]

Unfortunately, it's difficult to take that "luck of the draw" out of practicals no matter how easy you make the grading. Some people will grade easier than others, it's very difficult to get that aspect of grading out of it. Sorry.

 

[hermione]

We have identical problems at LECOM, and it tends to frustrate a lot of people. It made me dread OMM last year, but I decided to look past it and try to learn OMM as best I can so I can treat my patients in the best way possible. The practicals suck and they are unfair and random, but in the long run they are also pretty unimportant. I know that I am learning the skill and art of manipulation, no matter how my practical grades turn out. I sucks, but thats just how practicals go I guess.

 

[Molly Maquire]

Hey,

Welcome to osteopathic medical school ! 🙂

 

[kissacefan1978]

At CCOM, ours is pass/fail. We don't have our practical until Nov.

 

[DOtobe]

sophiejane,
Don't worry about your practical. I thought I did horrible on my first one, and I did fine. Every time I thought I did horrible on some of the other practicals I ended up doing well (there was only one that I got a 70%). You'll be fine. It is really the luck of the draw. Some evaluators are super nice and will give you credit for doing just about anything, and some are just big jerks... Just remember to always recheck! Ten automatic points at LECOM if you recheck 😀

And LECOM ticked me off because for the LDP's our practical grades didn't count toward our final grade (we only had to pass them - the grade didn't matter), and I did well on my practicals .... 😡 So I think every school's OMM practicals suck in one way or another.

 

[Dr_sax]

I haven't been too impressed by LECOM's OMM program thus far. I keep waiting for it to get better, and every week it gets worse. 😀

Dr_sax

 

[hermione]

Dr Sax...
Don't hold your breath! If you believe in the benefits of OMM, seek out others to practice on, and get to know Dr Hampton and Dr Evans. There are some great teachers and some great clinicians...its just the organization and presentation that rots. But its what you make of it...took me a while to figure that out.

How was the MSI exam today? Hope it went well for you!

S

 

[muonwhiz]

The setup at AZCOM is pretty much as you describe with partners and all. Most of the time there are 3 stations that you have to go to. You know beforehand what techniques you are supposed to be able to do and at the stations you just randomly draw from a pile as to which one you will have to do (your partner does the same). You are graded by a doc (usually) but sometimes by a fellow (I have nothing against fellows but don't agree with the idea of a med student grading another med student). You don't know how you did until at least several days later and you get a feed back sheet in your mail box. This usually has very sketchy details, if you can read them at all, and isn't very helpful in giving you anything constructive. You get a grade for the practical, so it is pretty much a subjective thing. If there are any guidelines for grading other than pure subjectivity, I don't know about them. At the end of the second year the last practical is a 20 minute find it and fix it where you have to find as much as possible (the doc checks each of your DX) and then you treat (and the doc checks to see if you made your partner "better"). You also take a written exam and that has a certain percentage and is combined with the practical grade to come up with the final grade for that quarter.

 

[Ronnie James DO]

As crummy and random as OMM practicals always seem to be, LECOM's setup HAS (in my opinion) gotten much better since we've been allowed to choose our own partners. (for those who are curious, we all receive numbers upon completion of our written exams, and then we are called in for the practical in large herds: #'s 1-16, 2-32, etc... There are two of every number, but you aren't required to match up with the other one like yours, and you can basically pair up with anyone in your relative group) This works well as you can choose people better suited to your own preference of body type, and rarely can you get stuck trying to manipulate someone who is too big or small for you to treat properly under the scrutiny of some snooty evaluator.

Our OMM practicals are also pass/fail

 

[Dr_sax]

That's not how our first one went down, but maybe we'll adopt it after a while. We were given purely straight numbers just like a Gross practical.

Dr_Sax

 

[bustbones26]

Okay okay, OMM at LECOM. Now, I am going to say a few things that I have heard. Now keep in mind I said things I have heard, which means that everything I say could jmust be a rumor.

1) I had heard that the class of 2004 was pretty un-impressed with how OMM was operated at LECOM. They actually got a committee together and presented their concerns to Dr. Hampton. I was told this only made it worse.

2) Every notice how many MCH physicians show up, keep walking in and out of the OMM lab? I was told most FP docs are there to get ConEd credits and MCH helps pay these physcians' malpractice if they show up at LECOM to teach OMM. Unfortunately, if any of this is true. Most are unconcerned and really don't care. Most don't even lecture. This is unfortunate.

Now, my opinion. And my opinion of course is not something everybody has to agree with, so if I say things that anger you, don't take it personally.

LECOM needs more full time OMM faculty. Having a bunch of FP's walk around the lab everyweek who could give two s$%ts less about what you learn isn't going to work. With the inconsistent faculty, when it comes to practicals, most are unaware of what you have been taught or the manner of which you have been taught to approach a problem in your OMM lectures. Problem is, OMM is an art, and every doc has a different way of delivering a technique. Your practical evaluator may not agree with the manner of which you approach a problem even though you delivered the answer the exact way you were taught in class. Because these evaluators are unaware of how you were taught the problem, they just assume you have no clue and score you as such sometimes. Other times, they don't care and just give you a passing grade anyways.

If LECOM had more full time faculty, they could develope a curriculum where all faculty agrees on how to teach a problem and what is acceptible on a practical.

Lastly, LECOM need to focus on the basics of OMM. In your first two years of medical school you need to learn what is necessary to pass the boards. IF you want to learn more, go to AAO conventions, go to OMM lectures when you are a resident and an attending, etc. Having a guy come in and teach us all about accupuncture and herbs is not going to help anybody on the boards.

Yes there are many great advanced techniques in OMM out there. but focus on getting the students to master teh basics to pass the boards first!! Keep in mind, to pass step 3, you need to pass an OMM practical that will not require you to know that Feverfew alleviates headaches and that counterstain poinots almost overlap with accupuncture points.

Stick to the basics.

 

[sophiejane]

Sounds like there are problems with OMM departments at other schools that are even more far-reaching than my comparitively small complaints about grading inequities.

While there are some that may disagree, I can say that so far at TCOM, there has been a real effort to stress the basics and to teach us the OMM in practical and written forms that we will need to know to do well on the boards. We have at least one faculty physician in every room during class, and plenty of TAs and pre-doctoral fellows to answer questions. Now, you may get two pretty different answers from two different people...but that is a whole different issue...

I try to keep telling myself that what matters is how good a physician I can become, and how well I can learn what I need to learn in order to do that. Getting an unfair grade on a practical exam has no bearing on what I actually know and can do for my patients.