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hi all i PMed a current student, niveknat, at CCLCM...i asked the following:
Hi, I was recently accepted at CCLCM and am really excited about the opportunity. I noticed on SDN that you had been accepted and matriculated there. Before I sign my life away, I just wanted to know the real scoop.
I was able to speak to some students at the interview day but when I interviewed you all had only 1 month of real school under your belt.
Now that its been about two months since then I just wanted to know what your real thoughts on it were.
I heard that there were some kinks during the summer course (a course needed to be extended). Any further problems with the coursework? Any difficulties in learning things bc it is PBL? Are you getting the info that you expected (more so than in regular lectures?)? How are the students there? Thanks in advance.
To which he responded:
Hey,
No problem to answer your questions. I should post something like this for all you guys interviewing/considering the school so you have a better idea about CCLCM.
I am having the time of my life here at the Cleveland Clinic. I totally understand and relate to your excitement in the program. If I had to do it all over again, I would pick this place without a doubt. Of course, at the same time, this program is not for everyone. I think personally that it is geared best for the independently minded and self-motivated student who knows how to manage studying with classwork, clinicals, and a personal/social life. The first few weeks were definitely a time when a lot of us had to adjust to a new philosophy and to med school in general.
Our first block was the Cardiopulmonary-Heme I which was 9 weeks and was fantastic. I think I learned not only the material very well, but I saw directly the clinical implications and correlations to what I was learning in PBL, seminars, or labs. So in terms of coursework, as I just mentioned, we have PBL 3x a week with seminars and labs interspersed throughout to solidify major concepts that we need to take home by the end of the week. PBL is great: we get to integrate basic medical science to a real clinical case.. which I think will help me in the future to remember the applications but also remind me how things fit together in the "big picture". We are currently finishing up our 3 week Renal block which has been amazing throughout as well; the faculty are incredible and have so much energy and commitment to our learning.
For assessment (we don't have formal tests or grades), we do SA's (self assessments) each week which are multiple choice quizzes that test us on the week's material. We also do concept appraisals (CAPPs) which are essay-based questions which focus on integrating the material from the entire week into solving a new application problem or case, or to merely recapitulate the main points of the week. Both facilitate our learning well, in my opinion. No stress due to exams and learning is really really cooperative. It's fantastic.
The summer had some small issues that will probably be worked out next year in terms of making the basic science curriculum better; however, I feel that it was still a good research experience and I did learn some interesting diseases.
In terms of student life, we are a pretty tight group, which is expected since there are only 32 of us. We tend to study in groups or even individually but are pretty close to each other. All of us are very driven people and I think that is what the program seeks -- to train us to become successful physician-investigators. Sorry if that sounded sappy, but I really believe it.
Hope this helps. Feel free to ask more questions if you have them.
***********
Thanks again kevin.
Hi, I was recently accepted at CCLCM and am really excited about the opportunity. I noticed on SDN that you had been accepted and matriculated there. Before I sign my life away, I just wanted to know the real scoop.
I was able to speak to some students at the interview day but when I interviewed you all had only 1 month of real school under your belt.
Now that its been about two months since then I just wanted to know what your real thoughts on it were.
I heard that there were some kinks during the summer course (a course needed to be extended). Any further problems with the coursework? Any difficulties in learning things bc it is PBL? Are you getting the info that you expected (more so than in regular lectures?)? How are the students there? Thanks in advance.
To which he responded:
Hey,
No problem to answer your questions. I should post something like this for all you guys interviewing/considering the school so you have a better idea about CCLCM.
I am having the time of my life here at the Cleveland Clinic. I totally understand and relate to your excitement in the program. If I had to do it all over again, I would pick this place without a doubt. Of course, at the same time, this program is not for everyone. I think personally that it is geared best for the independently minded and self-motivated student who knows how to manage studying with classwork, clinicals, and a personal/social life. The first few weeks were definitely a time when a lot of us had to adjust to a new philosophy and to med school in general.
Our first block was the Cardiopulmonary-Heme I which was 9 weeks and was fantastic. I think I learned not only the material very well, but I saw directly the clinical implications and correlations to what I was learning in PBL, seminars, or labs. So in terms of coursework, as I just mentioned, we have PBL 3x a week with seminars and labs interspersed throughout to solidify major concepts that we need to take home by the end of the week. PBL is great: we get to integrate basic medical science to a real clinical case.. which I think will help me in the future to remember the applications but also remind me how things fit together in the "big picture". We are currently finishing up our 3 week Renal block which has been amazing throughout as well; the faculty are incredible and have so much energy and commitment to our learning.
For assessment (we don't have formal tests or grades), we do SA's (self assessments) each week which are multiple choice quizzes that test us on the week's material. We also do concept appraisals (CAPPs) which are essay-based questions which focus on integrating the material from the entire week into solving a new application problem or case, or to merely recapitulate the main points of the week. Both facilitate our learning well, in my opinion. No stress due to exams and learning is really really cooperative. It's fantastic.
The summer had some small issues that will probably be worked out next year in terms of making the basic science curriculum better; however, I feel that it was still a good research experience and I did learn some interesting diseases.
In terms of student life, we are a pretty tight group, which is expected since there are only 32 of us. We tend to study in groups or even individually but are pretty close to each other. All of us are very driven people and I think that is what the program seeks -- to train us to become successful physician-investigators. Sorry if that sounded sappy, but I really believe it.
Hope this helps. Feel free to ask more questions if you have them.
***********
Thanks again kevin.
