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- Apr 29, 2003
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This email was sent to the distribution list of a major national pre-med organization's chapter at a major state university. It seems inappropriate, and is extremely scathing. There are some grammar mistakes, so that says something about the caliber of the writer, but for a faculty member to pass this along to a nationally organized group, I would hope something would substantiate the claims made.
Anyone at USF or who knows people at USF have any comments on this letter's accuracy? I'm not a med student or even a premed anymore, and I didn't personally receive the email, but it was passed on from a trusted source. I hate to see people make decisions based on bogus information.
Anyone at USF or who knows people at USF have any comments on this letter's accuracy? I'm not a med student or even a premed anymore, and I didn't personally receive the email, but it was passed on from a trusted source. I hate to see people make decisions based on bogus information.
Dear advisors,
Please pass this emaiul on to your advisees, who are apply to medicals schools. We are a group of students at USF and wanted to pass on an honest critique to aid students in their selection of schools to apply to.
Congratulations on your decision to apply to medical school! This is such an amazing and rewarding field. The power to heal with your own hands is truely awesome. I am emailing you on behalf of a group of students at University of South Florida's College of Medicine. We are a collection of students from different undergraduate schools and are composed of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years and are trying to give you a little more insight into USF's College of Medicine, so that you can make an informed decision as to where to apply and ultimately where to accept to. The school you choose will impact your career, in terms of the quality of education you receive and the ability you will have to get residencies as well as the group of students and the facilities you will literally be spend your lives at for the next four years.
This is a candid, honest evaluation of USF, the few students who you meet with in admissions are not an honest portrait of the student body. This email was viewed by and contributed to by approximately 50 students and will not try to portray USF as something it is not.
At USF the focus is making sure that everyone passes, you are spoon fed information. It is pretty easy, our tests and practicals are easier than any other school in the state. We all have friends at other schools and compare. For example at UF they put a sheet of the body and you have to identify the muscle/process/nerve/vein through a hole in the sheet. By the end of your education you know the bones well enough that just by looking at the structure you are able to identify what it is. USF you have the whole body to give you clues, so if you see it is on an arm, you know that it is something in the arm, at UF you don't know where or on what the structure is. This is part of the reason why USF scores lowest of all the medical schools in Florida on the shelf and boards. You can still do well but you have to study really hard to do well to make up for the basic education they give you here. Actually they have changed the curriculum for 3rd and 4th years because they were scoring so
poorly on their shelf exams. The new curriculum structure switches everything around so we can not take the shelf exams as we did. In the end we will have no idea how poorly we are fairing against other schools with the new changes.
The amount of time you have to study is dependant upon the number of hours you sit in class. When you are not in class, you are studying, as medical students you get used to the fact that studying is your life. At most universities you sit in class for 4 hours, 5 days a week and then you study the rest of the time. At USF you are 8am-5pm five days a week. USF is big on wasting your time. You have colloquium on Thursday which consists of sitting in a giant auditorium listening to some guy talk about credit scores or the fine arts and medicine. To our knowledge over 3 years there have been 2 colloquiums that have actually had something to do with medicine. Most students IM each other or work on papers or play computer games. They also have LCE large and small group, where we basically sit around and chat, mostly complaining about USF. Also they like to make you write opinion papers. Like the 2nd years had to write four 2-page, single spaced papers on something that interests us
relating to a presentation. Did anyone actually learn anything? Not really, actually because we were so busy writing papers for a block, no one studied for the exam and we all failed.
At USF another buzz word is diversity, but not even diversity. They believe in diversity based on color alone. If you decided not to attend USF or after you graduate, ask Dr. Williams, the associate dean of diversity, why he ONLY gives third interviews on interview days and his card to African-americans. There are African-americans in our group and no one knows why everyone else gets two interviews, but all African-americans get three and his business card and a promise to do whatever he can to help them. Now Native-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and other underepresented minorities do not get special treatment despite being less represented. Certain groups such as Asian-American and Caucasian males are actually segregated against. They will take less qualified minorities over much higher qualified Asian-Americans. There are practically no Asian-American male students at USF just for that reason. USF does not care about cultural, geographical, socioeconomic
diversity, just that based on skin color.
By now I am sure you are saying, well why don't you quit or transfer. Most of us have tried, but USF has a reputation for weak academics, so it is nearly impossible to transfer between 2nd and 3rd years, when you can usually transfer. Some people actually hate it so much they quit. Many of us have thought about quiting because we know from graduates that they felt they were unprepared more so than graduates from other schools. One lucky woman this year, who was not part of our group, was able to transfer because she her fiancé was going to school in Michigan. Another woman hated USF so much that she quit after learning that no one would let her transfer because they felt she would be unprepared after spending two years at USF.
It is not just the students leaving, the professors are leaving too. USF pays their professor's the lowest salary of any in the state. Every year we lose 4-5 professors to other school and return to private practice. The Department of Anesthesiology is on the brink of loosing their accreditation and rumors abound that the College of Medicine will be put on probation soon if they do not improve their standards.
Bottom line, if you like spending all day in class, with a lot of busy work, a school with a poor reputation, and poor academic come to USF, but if you don't then don't make the same mistake we made, go to UF the best medical school in the state, Miami is a very close second, FSU has a brand new state of the art facility and have taken a lot of our best faculty. Even the DO school are better or if you can wait for the new medical school at FIU or UCF. It is your decision and a big one, but make sure you honestly weigh this information before submitting your final decision. If you have any questions, please feel free to reply to this email. All 50 of us have access to this account and would be happy to talk to you about USF and the other schools that we have friends in.
Good luck!!
-USF Medical Students
