Is Charles Drew a good school?

BU Medical Sciences
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Originally posted by mosfet
Infact, I will be calling them today to see what is going on.
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Thanks Mosfet! Please let us know what they say!
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I honestly feel that people have been blowing the problems at Drew out of porportion. All we as students should be worrying about is doing well in our classes and clinical rotations. And try to obtain those elusive letters of distinctions. I just read a news letter and the recieved a 7 million dollar grant to build a life science building another to build a cancer research center. That school is doing big things. The city of Los Angeles is just as much to blame because they too run the King/Drew facility.
 
Originally posted by verbalassasin
The city of Los Angeles is just as much to blame because they too run the King/Drew facility.
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As someone who has followed what has been happening at King Drew for 4 years now, I cannot more strongly disagree with this statement.
 
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Originally posted by Jalby
As someone who has followed what has been happening at King Drew for 4 years now, I cannot more strongly disagree with this statement.
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why is that?
 
Hi everyone! I am new to this forum but I just got an interview invitation for Drew also... It is my 3rd interview invitation... Just getting ready for my east coast interviews but its nice to have the option of staying in Cali...
 
hey mosfet, which newsletter? i also heard about the new life sci building. they got the ~7-8 mill grant from the nih i believe but they have to match it with private funds in order to get the money from the nih. so they are working on getting the private funds. it will really make a big diff. drew does some wonderful things for the neighboring community and the underserved and minority in general. some of their dpeartments, like ophthalmology, ER/truama, and neonatology, are well known and they do very important, cutting-edge research on hiv/aids, diabetes, hypertension, etc. they also have many community programs as you can imagine. plus the students will get a special county experience. and even more plus, it is the ONLY school that requires the students to do research; that is very special!

its too bad they only get the negative publicity. my understanding is they have a leadership and administrative issue, rather than a clinical problem. anyway, drew/ucla is da bomb!

thoughts please, esp from jalby since youve been following what is going on and im sure you know somet things we dont know.

would it be a mistake to chose drew over keck usc?
 
Originally posted by mosfet
why is that?
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Because it is totally Charles Francis and the leaderships fault. The Los Angeles county supervisors didn't know the extent of what was happening until recently, when they sent in their own investigators instead of just relying on what King told them. The leadership at the hospital has been covering up their mistake and errors and the culture around King for years, and only once people started dying were they no longer able to cover. I mena having nurses on heart monitors that have no idea how they work??? Los Angeles didn't know about this until quite recently.
 
Why would the city of Los Angeles not be to blame? it is a county facility meaning the city too runs the facility. If there is malfecents going on, isn't up to the city to make sure that its citizens are taken care of? or is that not common sense. People just want to say its drew its drew's fault but we have city health officials, we have a city supervisor for that area, why haven't they stepped in? Instead the persistently close much needed health facilities in the underserved areas. Leave Drew alone and fire Mayor James Hahn, besides he is no where like his daddy, who really took care of his constituents.
 
Originally posted by verbalassasin
Why would the city of Los Angeles not be to blame? it is a county facility meaning the city too runs the facility. If there is malfecents going on, isn't up to the city to make sure that its citizens are taken care of? or is that not common sense. People just want to say its drew its drew's fault but we have city health officials, we have a city supervisor for that area, why haven't they stepped in? Instead the persistently close much needed health facilities in the underserved areas. Leave Drew alone and fire Mayor James Hahn, besides he is no where like his daddy, who really took care of his constituents.
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Because the simple fact is, the problems were being hid from Los Angeles until the recent investigations uncovered them. The county runs the facility by appointing people to run the facility and having them report to the county. Charles Francis had been running the facility and didn't report truthfully to Los Angeles County. You can blame the county for hiring Charles Francis, or you can blame the county for believing him, but you cannot say that this is their fault.


As for leaving Drew alone, that's rediculous. Right now they are training incompetant doctors. The residents don't get enough experience in surgery or with parents, they are not passing their boards, and generally training bad doctors. These doctors end up going to underserve areas and these areas are recieving dangerous medical care. If Los Angeles really cared about their people they would shut down Charles Drew and start over, which they somewhat are doing. The supervisors are stepping in and cleaning house. The only issue is how much house they will be cleaning.
 
Has anyone tried contacting the Drew/UCLA admissions office today????? What is the best way of getting hold of somebody there. I am really interested in when they are going to send their first batch of decisions. Good luck to everyone. Cross your fingers.
 
Where are you getting your information from? They are losing their surgical residency program for accepting 1 additional person. That is a clerical mistake. They have one of the best surgical residency programs in the west. People like to magnify the bad and tend to ignore the good that occurs at the school. Had it been a consistent trend as you say of doctors failing boards, and providing horrible health care to the community, UCLA would have cut all ties to the institution. Students at UCLA do have an option to rotate through Drew, and A number of them do so.
 
33% of the peds residents at Drew pass the first time. They have the lowest ranking of residency programs of any program in the nation. They are one of a very few programs who have recieved an overall unfavorable rating from the residency board (not peds, their entire program).


Their surgery program is being stripped not only because they let in 2 people this year, but also because they have done it the last 3 years and have been warned every year to stop doing it (not a "clerical error") They are also being stripped because they have recieved multiple unfavorable ratings.

Not only is their Surg program being stripped, but so is there radiology (already gone) and neonatology (gone in a couple of months)

I have many different sources of infomation, and it seems like mine is more accurate than yours, 2 of them which I won't reveal. My other main source is the LAtimes.
 
I would like to know your sources, My cousin attends that school, My mentor is a faculty member at Drew, so that is my source. I would also like to see your source about 33% of peds passing their boards. An article in the AMSA new physician, the drew website, and archives on the KTLA website will show you why Drew is loosing their surgical residency program. Are there incompetent people at Drew yeah but they are the minority of the staff which consists of very skilled individuals. And I will be bold and predict by this time next year all the problems at Drew will have been cleaned up. If you have not been to Drew before you should not be commenting on Drew, Speculation is just a fancy word for rumors.
 
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Originally posted by verbalassasin
If you have not been to Drew before you should not be commenting on Drew, Speculation is just a fancy word for rumors.
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I volunteered in the ER at Drew for a year. And not a single thing I have said is speculation, but actual facts.

As for my sources, I'm not going to reveal any of them because some of them are high up in the County system. I also have a source in a student at Drew and I've read (and posted on here) every article from the LA Times.

If you think that it is a minority of people who are causing the problems at Drew, you should really open your eyes. People are dying because of gross negligence. Nurses are forging records. The residency program is getting the worst marks in the country. David Satcher, the most prominant black physician in the world, said that the culture at King is the worst that he has seen and that the entire leadership needs to be removed. This is the same David Satcher who was the Dean of the school in the 70's and who created the Drew/UCLA program you are applying to.

Read the articles from the LAtimes posted in this thread and tell me if you still don't think it is the leadership at King/Drew that is to blame for the problems they are having

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91404
 
Originally posted by Jalby
33% of the peds residents at Drew pass the first time. They have the lowest ranking of residency programs of any program in the nation. They are one of a very few programs who have recieved an overall unfavorable rating from the residency board (not peds, their entire program).


Their surgery program is being stripped not only because they let in 2 people this year, but also because they have done it the last 3 years and have been warned every year to stop doing it (not a "clerical error") They are also being stripped because they have recieved multiple unfavorable ratings.

Not only is their Surg program being stripped, but so is there radiology (already gone) and neonatology (gone in a couple of months)

I have many different sources of infomation, and it seems like mine is more accurate than yours, 2 of them which I won't reveal. My other main source is the LAtimes.
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I've been doing research at the School of Medicine at Drew for around 2 years now, and I do have to AGREE with much of what Jalby is saying. It's true also according to my sources which include faculty members and directors of the programs within the school of medicine.

You are not likely to find many sources stating explicitly that only 33% of their peds residents passed the first time, but that's because this info brings a bad rep to the school and its' program so they'd rather keep it on the D.L. Even when you go to their med school interview, they'll really downplay the problems there because they want you to attend their school.

And it is true that Drew's making progress by re-organizing their leadership and undoing the damage that has been done throughout all these years but if you worked at Drew you would KNOW that it will DEFINITELY take more than one year to recover and get the program efficiently running again. They're just slow like that, not just at the hospital & med programs but also IRBs, HR, CBOs, its' all like that partially do the lack of funding and lack of sufficient staff.

Don't get me wrong, the medical school will be fine and the med students there will be taken care of by UCLA if the worst occurs. I love Drew's mission and would be honored to join into that medical program this year. BUT I would not recommend their residency programs right now...maybe in 4 years but not now.
 
Thank you Lewi. My drawers were getting into a bunch.
 
Look Jalby, I respect this spirited debate we are having. But the bottom line is this. A problem has been identified and they are dealing with the problem. The problems associated with the King/Drew is not the sole responsibility of Charles Drew school of medicine and science. Dr. France does not run the hospital he heads the university and its programs. Gross neglegence by a few nurses, and it is a very small number of them, just as the very small number of incompetent physicians, which are found at every medical facility nation wide. The accusations at drew are like the ones thrusted upon the catholic church, where you had a small number of priest exhibiting immoral behavior, turned trampled the prestine reputation of a great institution. All I know is when I get in to Drew I will not be worried of anything. I am confident in the staff, in the experience i will obatin and my future career plans. It is not fair to blame Drew for what should be the cities responsibilities.
 
As for how this will affect the students applying to Drew right now, I don't think it will at all. Most students accepted to Drew are deciding between an out of state private school and Drew, and I don't think all of the issues happening at Drew would change that decision. I'd still go to Drew over a crieghton, SLU and places like that nowadays, because you would be almost gaurunteeing a residency in Southern Cali. But it's quite possible you will be a ward of the UC system for your third year and not have a home institution when applying to residency. (most of the best matches in the program last year were at King/Drew)
 
It's not a small number in either case. 1200 priests over the last 60 years have been accused of 4000+ of children. Most nurses having never recieved the necessary training. Most residency programs recieving a bad rating.

If you want to believe it's a small number, I'm not sure anything I will say will convince you otherwise.
 
I am Catholic and I don't quiet remeber ever hearing it was 1200, but if it was there are over 100,000 catholic priests. That is 1% of the total amount of priest.
 
dont you think that by the time we want to apply for residency, ~3 years from now, the problems will be fixed and we will be fine? and i dont agree with jalby that we will not have a home institution...drew students are part of a big family.

drew is a wonderful and amazing place. you have to be there to understand. it pisses me off that people who have never even been there or know anything about it talk smack about it. they say oh its dangerous, stay away, etc. it looks like most of us have some sort of experience there. i can admit that they need better organization and renovation/clean up. they are understaffed and have few resources. its just not fair though that people ignore all the good stuff...they do so much for the community (~1.2 million people), have some really wonderful, cutting edge research, great faculty, some of which are well known, the med edu program is very special, some nationally recognized depts, etc. but people never say that stuff; they just stick with the negative. i agree with verb; i am confident that things will be fixed.

btw, my understanding is that neonatology is closing soon because the drew board of directors is trying to downsize so that they can allocate more money and resources to clean up some of the other depts.

i think to an extent the bad nurses and drs are at fault for their own mistakes. if they are not passing their boards, dont you think its partially their fault; its like blaming your undergrad for doing bad on the mcat. and the nurses that behave like that...isnt their own fault to an extent; maybe they need better leadership watching over these people.

there are some problems and they are trying to be fixed. we can only hope for the best. there are also some great things there. again, drew is a great place; there is no where else so special and different.
 
it looks like in the 4th year we are only required to be at king/drew for about 10 weeks. thats sweet to be able to get some experience at other hospitals as well. does anyone know if that sounds right?
 
I don't know about 10 weeks but I do know that you can participate in the lotterry that occurs at UCLA for other facility rotations.
 
Originally posted by trojan2004

btw, my understanding is that neonatology is closing soon because the drew board of directors is trying to downsize so that they can allocate more money and resources to clean up some of the other depts.
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The neonatology is beign closed because legislation was passed so that all pregnant mothers would put on medi-cal. This enabled them to go to any hospital in cali without to much of a problem (I know I'm missing one step in there) But basically, nobody went to county institutions anymore because they can go anywhere. This cut down on the number of babies being born at county hospitals and also the number of premies. Because of this, Drew doesn't have the patients to sustain the program and the residents arn't getting the exposure that they should be getting in a training facility. I want to say Drew is only getting 100 premies a year (I'm not 100% sure of this number. my 95% confidence range is 50-150) and this is not enough to train on. The residents are having a problem passing this board because they don't have the expirience.
 
good luck verb! rock the interview!

...maybe we will be classmates next year.:thumbup:
 
More evidnce that this is just a few isolated doctors/nurses.

February 26, 2004 E-mail story Print


For Days, Potent Drug Given to Wrong King/Drew Patient
In the latest blunder at the troubled hospital, nurses give anti-cancer medication to a man with meningitis. Error renews calls for accountability.

William Watson doesn't have cancer. But for at least four days last week, nurses at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center gave the 46-year-old man a potent anti-cancer drug before they realized the medication was intended for another patient.

When the error was discovered, Watson said, a nursing supervisor told him: "I want you to sign this paper saying that this had happened, but it had no effect on you." He said he signed the paper, even though he wasn't sure it was true, "because I didn't know what I was doing."


They told me, 'We can just forget about it, and just squash it like it never happened,' " Watson said during a telephone interview from his hospital room. Watson, who is uninsured and lives on disability payments, has been at King/Drew since Jan. 31, suffering from meningitis.

The error comes even as officials at the hospital and the Los Angeles County health department, which owns the facility, have been assuring regulators that they have fixed problems there.

The hospital is under close scrutiny by state and federal inspectors because of a pattern of lapses in care, including the deaths of five patients last year after a host of errors by nurses and other employees.

County and hospital officials have stressed that paid consultants and a team of top health department managers are on-site at King/Drew, which is in Willowbrook, just south of Watts, to ensure nothing further goes wrong.

After learning of the latest patient-care blunder, county Supervisor Gloria Molina said employees needed to be held accountable.

"It's caught up to them now," she said. "They're just not prepared to meet the mission out there, and they're going to have to move out of the way."

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said that he was running out of ways to express his outrage and frustration that patients continued to be harmed at King/Drew.

"You can't argue that this is an anomaly," he said. "It appears to be more normal than an anomaly."

Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whose district includes the hospital, expressed anger. But she said she believed that "considerable work" had been done to correct problems at King/Drew.

"I don't know that you can correct all of the problems from 25 years in three months," she said. "It's going to take awhile because there's still a lot of people there that have to be removed and there has to be a whole discipline approach ? so that when people do something, it has to be in their records so you can hold them accountable. And that has not been done there."

Physicians who study how and why medical mistakes occur said the current situation at King/Drew makes it ripe for errors. A hospital in turmoil faces more problems preventing errors because it is making so many changes that require learning new systems and procedures, said Dr. Robert M. Wachter, chief of the medical service at UC San Francisco Medical Center and author of a new book on medical mistakes.

"If this particular patient is lucky enough not to be durably harmed by the Gleevec, that's just dumb luck," Wachter said, referring to the drug that Watson received.

Gleevec is one in a new generation of cancer drugs that target specific molecules. The drugs are designed to kill cancer cells while avoiding serious damage to normal cells, according to the National Cancer Institute. Gleevec was approved in 2001 for use in patients with a form of leukemia.

County health officials said they were investigating the incident and would decide later this week whether to discipline employees.

"Obviously something like this is terrible," said Fred Leaf, chief operating officer of the county Department of Health Services. "But you can believe, you can bet, that every time something occurs, the safety process doubles?. I think we're doing everything we can to assure there's a safe environment."

A health department spokesman, John Wallace, confirmed Wednesday that the incident had happened but would not confirm Watson's identity, citing privacy rules. He said officials did not yet know if the patient had suffered any harm from taking the medication.

Watson said, however, that his eyes were swollen to the size of "golf balls" and that he was unable to see out of one of them.

Product information for Gleevec notes that one of the side effects is "swelling around the eyes."

Geoff Cook, a spokesman for Novartis Oncology, the manufacturer of Gleevec, said that if someone without cancer took the drug for four days, "he or she would be unlikely to have any significant long-lasting effects." Cook said he did not think swelling would occur after just four days of treatment.

Dr. Fred Millard, an oncologist at the Rebecca and John Moores UC San Diego Cancer Center, said, "Obviously we hate to give people the wrong medicine, but probably it's not really likely to hurt them."

But, he added, "You always wonder a little bit, 10 to 20 years from now, is this going to result in something you didn't expect? If you are otherwise dying from leukemia, that's a risk you're willing to take. What would happen to a normal person, I don't know."

On Wednesday, county health officials said an early review of Watson's case showed the systems designed to protect patients had broken down and individual employees had not performed their duties properly.

Doctors did not order the drug. They did not realize Watson had been given it. Nurses administered the drug for at least four days without checking for a doctor's order. And pharmacists filled the order incorrectly and didn't realize their mistake.

County officials, who did not identify Watson by name, provided this account of what happened: Watson apparently had been given a drug ordered for another patient. When Gleevec did not appear on the other patient's medication record, a nurse alerted the pharmacy, which created a second order for the drug.

No one checked to see who was getting the first order, and Watson continued to receive Gleevec, along with medicine for his meningitis. Wallace said the two patients' names are not similar, so that would not account for the error.

Gleevec first appeared on Watson's medication record on Feb. 12, but a nurse crossed it out, noting that it had not been ordered for him. A second nurse took the same action a day later.

Between Feb. 14 and 17, different nurses gave the man Gleevec, even though there was no doctor's order. On Feb. 18, a nurse again noticed the problem and alerted the pharmacy, which began to investigate.

"It's not explainable right now," Wallace said.

The California Department of Health Services was notified Wednesday of the incident, a manager said, but was waiting for additional information before deciding how to proceed.

The county health department said it had made immediate changes to prevent the mistake from reoccurring. The pharmacy, for instance, is now required to check each patient's medication record each day for potential mistakes and to ensure that drugs have been administered. And physicians are instructed to review patients' medications daily.

Supervisor Molina said she didn't know how much more leeway federal and state regulators would give King/Drew.

"If doctors, nurses and administrators keep failing us, this hospital is going to sink," Molina said. "That's my fear."
 
that's sad. they need to be more organized and communicate with eachother. i think thats the biggest problem there; i see it when im there. they need to also be a little cleaner.

i hope these problems are fixed soon. it seems like there is a big personnel problem, esp the nurses and administration. so sad.
 
Sadly what can you say to this article...

All that comes to mind is:
understaffed + overworked+ high-risk patient population = a formula for failure

Something needs to be done, King needs more money, more staff and more resources than they're getting right now and I hope they learn this quick before another patient needs to die from medical malpractice.
 
Hey guys, good news. I got a big packet from drew/UCLA today! I didn't think I'd hear from them for a long ass time. CHECK YOUR MAILBOXES!! WOOO HOOO! I CAN STAY IN CALIFORNIA!!!!
 
I understand death is a horrible thing but it is being highly publicized because it is a minority institution. "Those minorities don't know what they are doing", "Close their institution down"....I say damn all that. What about the Suny hospital and UMDNJ which had the angel of death grace their halls, Damn that what about the many institutions in the country that are in a much worse bind. Damn that why is that the board passages of Drew, Meharry, Morehouse, and Howard are readily available but you never hear the failures of UCLA, USC, Harvard and so on. I say Damn that. If you still want to go to drew then know that you have to be committed to making changes. Articles like that only motivate me and piss me off at the city even more. Damn that.....Bring it on, I'm ready to change the world.
 
:clap: :clap: A big congrats to the resident psychic of sdn!
 
Originally posted by exmike
Hey guys, good news. I got a big packet from drew/UCLA today! I didn't think I'd hear from them for a long ass time. CHECK YOUR MAILBOXES!! WOOO HOOO! I CAN STAY IN CALIFORNIA!!!!
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Oh yeah, the letter is dated Feb 23rd. time to call my parents.
 
Originally posted by exmike
Hey guys, good news. I got a big packet from drew/UCLA today! I didn't think I'd hear from them for a long ass time. CHECK YOUR MAILBOXES!! WOOO HOOO! I CAN STAY IN CALIFORNIA!!!!
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CONGRATS MIKEEE!!!!!!! :clap: :clap:

I am SO SO SO happy for you! This is an awesome day and I'm glad that after all of your hard work with you fifty million masters degrees, you'll get to finish off that MD at UCLA/Drew.

I pray that I have the honor of being your classmate next year...I'm still waiting to hear so please pray for me.

Have a wonderful celebration today..you've earned it!! :hardy:
 
Big MIke, Congrats I would never doubt that you where going to get in because I just saw your profile, Nice!!!! Congrats though.
 
congrats mike!!!! you have an incredible history...lots of hard work. you deserved it.

luwi, im praying for you. you deserve it also. let us know!

im waiting too. hope we can all be classmates. it will be awesome.

verb, show them this sat!

r u all set on drew?
 
Originally posted by trojan2004
congrats mike!!!! you have an incredible history...lots of hard work. you deserved it.

luwi, im praying for you. you deserve it also. let us know!

im waiting too. hope we can all be classmates. it will be awesome.

verb, show them this sat!

r u all set on drew?
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Thanks Trojan! I know that Bruins and Trojans can do great things together! :D I too have you in my prayers and hopefully we all can be classmates! Drew's program is just one in its own, a truly unique experience and so I think it deserves a great set of unique medical students like us!

Keep us updated y'all!
 
February 25, 2004
This article appears in the February issue of Journal Of The National Medical Association.



The Phoenix Has Risen But Has Failed To Thrive: Hope On The Horizon For King-Drew Medical Center

Jos? L. Calder?n, MD and Robert Beltr?n, MBA, MD
Los Angeles and Santa Ana, California



..............Metaphorically, KDMC's failure to thrive is not unlike one of the most important unresolved public health problems faced by the community it serves- that of a young, undereducated, pregnant teenager living in poverty. The "infant" that KDMC carried was the mission to train a new breed of physician who would serve the underserved to improve the health status of its community. However, just as is the case with many pregnant youth and their unborn children in south Los Angles, KDMC faced serious barriers to realizing good outcomes for itself and its mission. It was expected to thrive while in poverty with a neglectful parent-the L.A. County Department of Health Services (LACDHS)-and poor oversight from the responsible agency-the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, a common denominator for poor health outcomes globally.

KDMC's limited funding as a public safety net hospital and its limited access to extramural funding and research infrastructure (not being a four-year medical school) have played a large role in the deficiencies that have culminated in struggling residency training programs. This is reminiscent of limited access to medical services, inadequate utilization of prenatal care, and limited educational attainment for many impoverished pregnant teenagers in south Los Angeles. Moreover, the university and the Department of Health Services' historical dependence on bailout solutions to remedy their financial problems compound the problems, which may be traced to ineffective strategic planning and a reluctance to embrace healthcare in the 21st century, as exemplified by L.A. County's reluctance to address civil service system restraints on healthcare delivery and the lack of university initiatives to diversify income streams. Like the poor pregnant teenager who is unemployed, lives on welfare, and engages in substance abuse to forget her problems, KDMC has used quick fixes. Consequently, her problems are never adequately addressed. The result has been a lack of success of the ultimate mission noted, in part, by its service community continuing to have the highest mortality from chronic diseases in L.A. County. KDMC was an unprepared youth in poverty without assurance for good health outcomes for herself and her prematurely born child-both were at risk for premature death from the beginning.

KDMC's circumstance as an institution teaching medical students and training young physicians is unlike that of other medical schools in California. Over time the other two local medical schools-USC and UCLA-in Los Angeles County have developed the ability to generate income from private medical practice activities, private hospital affiliations, private practice faculty plans, large endowments, and separate private medical and hospital facilities. On the other hand, the only historically black- and now-Hispanic serving medical school west of the Mississippi River has an organizational structure that inherently weakens it.

In organizational terms, the university has never developed the capacity to generate private (commercial) sources of revenue that would guarantee its sustainability apart from some limited pharmaceutical sponsorship of its clinical trials unit. Its large dependence on the L.A. County Department of Health Services (LACDHS), which is charged by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors (LACBOS) to allocate public funds for safety-net health services, is an anomaly in the structure of healthcare and healthcare delivery systems. Ultimately, this puts the fate of the Martin Luther King, Jr. General Hospital and the future of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science predominantly in the hands of one system that itself is facing tremendous budget deficits and political pressures.



for the entire article please see
http://www.cdrewu.edu/site/calendar/drew_hope.htm
 
Originally posted by exmike
Hey guys, good news. I got a big packet from drew/UCLA today! I didn't think I'd hear from them for a long ass time. CHECK YOUR MAILBOXES!! WOOO HOOO! I CAN STAY IN CALIFORNIA!!!!
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haha SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!

now if i can just get that ucla to take me off the waitlist then we can be classmates for at least the first 2 years!

congrats man!


welcome to the best side...the west side...:cool:
 
how do you apply to drew? is drew a different med school than UCLA? and is drew easier to get in 2?
 
Congratulations Mike. You definately deserve it.
 
Originally posted by bubbajones
how do you apply to drew? is drew a different med school than UCLA? and is drew easier to get in 2?
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it is a separate med school that has its own application.

and no it is not easier to get into. you are only trying to get 24 spots. that is their class. 24 people. so that makes it very tough to get in. but if you are passionate about their mission then you should apply.
 
Originally posted by verbalassasin
I understand death is a horrible thing but it is being highly publicized because it is a minority institution. "Those minorities don't know what they are doing", "Close their institution down"....I say damn all that. What about the Suny hospital and UMDNJ which had the angel of death grace their halls, Damn that what about the many institutions in the country that are in a much worse bind. Damn that why is that the board passages of Drew, Meharry, Morehouse, and Howard are readily available but you never hear the failures of UCLA, USC, Harvard and so on. I say Damn that. If you still want to go to drew then know that you have to be committed to making changes. Articles like that only motivate me and piss me off at the city even more. Damn that.....Bring it on, I'm ready to change the world.
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That's the problem with King/Drew right there. To many people play the race card and inhibit real transformation, and I think that is sad. This is not a race things, as you just stated it to be. This is an incopetance thing that is killing multiple patients and needs to be dealt with by firing the people in charge, if not holding them criminally liable.

As for the article you cited, it is written by the chair of Ophtho at Drew. Think there might be some biases. He also cites USC and UCLA and how they bring in private funding. What he conveniently leaves out is that the funding for those hospitals is not for the county hospitals but the private ones like University and Childrens. The County hospitals in Los Angeles, Olive View, Harbor, County, and Drew all recieve the same amount of funding per person and you know something, Drew is the only one in which patients are regularly dying because of gross incompetance. This is not a race thing, this is not a funding thing, this is a leadership problem, and the people in charge of King Drew, who have been there for 20+ years, need to be fired. 3 other county hospitals are able to be run fine (in relative terms for a county hospital), but not Drew.
 
good article verb. it makes we want to go there even more. it really is a different place; there is no match.

bubba,
you apply through amcas. choose Charles R Drew University. it is different than regular ucla, but the program is a joint program. drew/ucla is 2 years of basic sci at ucla and second 2 yrs clinical at king/drew (well 3rd yr mostly there and 4th yr lots of opp to go elsewhere, but these things are being worked out now). its specific for those whose mission is also to serve the underserved. the degree is granted by ucla.

its not easier to get into than ucla...its different, you cant really compare them. the drew program is for 24 students with this special mission. about 1500-2000 apply, they screen for secondary, interview something like 250 and they accept about 50 for the 24 spots. its very competitive, ~50/2000=2.0-3% chance of getting in. thats even more than some of the top schools since they dont have that many spots.

numbers are still important. your profile and ec's are very important.

good luck.
 
Congrats mike!!!!! What sort of goodies were in the packet? What coast are you currently on?
 
hehe...well i just IMed you to give you the love mike...but i'll do it again.

conrats!!! :clap: nothing like the cali love.

yeah, we'll see what the future has in store for me. sigh. i guess a guy can always dream...but it would definitely be awesome to be classmates for another few years (i think ;))

good luck to verbalassassin and el_izalco this weekend...and good luck also to luwi, mosfet, trojan, medbound, and anyone else who is waiting to here back (sorry if i missed any names). my prayers are with you all. :D
 
Originally posted by trojan2004

numbers are still important. your profile and ec's are very important.
Click to expand...

From the people I know who were accepted, I wouldn't say numbers are to to important. I would put, in order:

Ability to prove you want to work in underserved area (activities, etc)
Interview
Numbers

With numbers not being to important.
 
Jalby,

Thanks for the clarification.....
 
Originally posted by Jalby
That's the problem with King/Drew right there. To many people play the race card and inhibit real transformation, and I think that is sad. This is not a race things, as you just stated it to be. This is an incopetance thing that is killing multiple patients and needs to be dealt with by firing the people in charge, if not holding them criminally liable.

As for the article you cited, it is written by the chair of Ophtho at Drew. Think there might be some biases. He also cites USC and UCLA and how they bring in private funding. What he conveniently leaves out is that the funding for those hospitals is not for the county hospitals but the private ones like University and Childrens. The County hospitals in Los Angeles, Olive View, Harbor, County, and Drew all recieve the same amount of funding per person and you know something, Drew is the only one in which patients are regularly dying because of gross incompetance. This is not a race thing, this is not a funding thing, this is a leadership problem, and the people in charge of King Drew, who have been there for 20+ years, need to be fired. 3 other county hospitals are able to be run fine (in relative terms for a county hospital), but not Drew.
Click to expand...

Look I can argue till my head turns blue, and thats along time since i'm black, but damn all this blame on Drew. I went to the website of the Surpervisor of the Harbor/UCLA district and it is his staff that makes sure that the hospital is in accordance with health regulations. It is his staff that makes sure that the facility is taken care of. Damn your quote abote race being an excuse, it is a reality. UCLA and USC have access to more funds because they are a 4 year institution, that is why they have greater access to NIH funding that is a fact. Drew being a Two year medical school is handicapped in its funding, not from lack of trying but from beuracracy. I'm tired of everything that goes wrong in a minority neighborhood being blamed on the entire community. if you go to the WNBC.com website and type hospital ratigs you will find that KDHC rates higher in terms of mortality than does LAC/USC. I will make the difference once given the opportunity. I will always defend Drew because they are getting a bad wrap. Bring it on!!!!!!!
 
Thanks everyone for the congrats!! To answer a couple of you, I'm over here on the east coast/DC area. The packet just has the letter and instructions on PRIME and the white coat ceremony, and a size chart. $100 deposit. White coat ceremony is on July 17th.. wow. pretty early huh? anyways, im really excited..!! Good luck to eeryone else!
 
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