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Absolutely nobody reading this thread believes you. You're either a premed/med student going to LUCOM who wants to be validated or you work in their admissions dept. Either way, stahp.
Is SDN's opinion on LUCOM representative of the majority?
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Absolutely nobody reading this thread believes you. You're either a premed/med student going to LUCOM who wants to be validated or you work in their admissions dept. Either way, stahp.
Okay lmao. Well, I'd like to point out i started out pretty objective I'd say...until it turned into an absolute free for all fest against LUCOM.
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Match lists are not an indicator of success at all really. For you to think so is very pre-med-ish.
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So essentially you're saying that high board scores at RVU are mainly going to community hospitals because they want that? ok.
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I know your being sarcastic, but this is too good to pass up...
If my undergrad nursing university, run by Florida Hospital, started a DO school it would be one of the best in the nation automatically. Huge tertiary hospital of almost 2k beds attached to the University Campus. 6 branch hospitals with an additional 1.5kish beds. Orlando, Fl location. Many residencies already housed in the hospital system. Nova has been using Florida Hospital East for rotations for years, UCF currently rotating thru some.
That wouldn't lower the bar, it would raise it.
So yeah, go ahead and approve that Nursing Center College in Florida, I wish I could go there...
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A match list is characteristic of a singular class' identity. Nothing more. Nothing less.
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FL really REALLY doesn't need another medical school. We're already having issues with the limited number of residency spots compared to medical school grads.
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That's true, but when that match list's identity continues for several classes it becomes something more. I do agree with most of what you've said though. RVU's list isn't anything special, but I would not be concerned if I had ended up there. I would imagine that in a few years when they put more solid residents out their match list will also improve.
People seem to be missing the obvious difference between RVU's first few classes and LUCOM's. RVU's first class had a 25ish MCAT average when the average for all DO schools was around a 26. There were at least 4 or 5 schools that had a lower MCAT average than them. They also had one of the best curriculums in the country which is evidenced by their strong board scores straight out of the gate. LUCOM's average is a 24, the second lowest in the country and farther below the overall average today than RVU was when they opened. I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that they will not have the same kind of resources, faculty, or curriculum that RVU did when it opened. I very much doubt that LUCOM will be able to achieve what RVU did in such a short period of time, if ever.
I don't want to screw any current students either, but imo there is more than one finger that I wouldn't mind seeing get cut off for the betterment of the DO path and medicine in general...
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Which schools would that be?
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I'm with you in regards to the opening of more and more residencies every year. But I don't think that LUCOM should be singled out for that.
I think that you are giving SDN way too much credit. The truth is that SDN consists of a small population of medical professions and premeds. To think that SDN is the reason for LUCOM's low admissions stats is absurd.
The reason why LUCOM has low stats is because it is a new school and many applicants...especially those in the 26+ MCAT territory would rather not bother. That is why all new schools have lower admission stats. Not to mention that new schools get targeted by applicants with lower stats. There is no question in my mind that LUCOM received a ton of applications consisting of applicants on the fringe of DO school acceptance. Hell...I know I was one of those people a very long time ago. I got a 24 on my MCAT...I didn't study for it. I figured...what the heck, let me throw a few applications out to my in-state schools (LECOM-B and Nova) while I actually study for the MCAT. I got an acceptance to LECOM-B and loved it during my interview. I cancelled my Nova interview. I retook my MCAT after studying immediately before my LECOM-B acceptance and did much better. But the truth remains that I was in LECOM-B's will house. I was an applicant with a mediocre MCAT and LECOM-B was the newest DO school in the country.
The fate of LUCOM will be determined by the outcome of its students. If they land great residencies...people will quickly forgive their affiliation. You may not...and there will be others who will not...but there isn't a shortage of DO applicants out there. I think that only a handful of residency directors will care...most won't even know what Liberty or LUCOM is...especially the MD programs.
tl; dr most of the thread, but to answer the OP:
i live in the same state, but hadn't heard of the school until they opened a med school/ SDN. when i was looking at it i asked my parents about it (who are conservative catholics and in the medical profession) and they said they wouldn't recommend being associated with it.
i also talked to one of my friends who is a professor at a virginia school, and i just mentioned they had a school, not that i was applying or going or anything about it, and he had a very strong opinion against the school that had nothing to do with their religious or political beliefs. He thought that them calling what they do an education was insulting to the rest of colleges/ universities. he was only speaking about the ugrad though
$.02
i live in the same state, but hadn't heard of the school until they opened a med school/ SDN. when i was looking at it i asked my parents about it (who are conservative catholics and in the medical profession) and they said they wouldn't recommend being associated with it.
i also talked to one of my friends who is a professor at a virginia school, and i just mentioned they had a school, not that i was applying or going or anything about it, and he had a very strong opinion against the school that had nothing to do with their religious or political beliefs. He thought that them calling what they do an education was insulting to the rest of colleges/ universities. he was only speaking about the ugrad though
$.02
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Idk how you live in Va without knowing about Liberty tbh. Most people seem to know and think lowly of them at least in nova.
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MUCOM had a 3.6/27 when it opened. Same with CUSOM.
You have to have a specific issue to push applicants away like LUCOM can.
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I'm not saying that LUCOM doesn't have other issues. I think that we have previously touched on that ad nauseam. But we aren't making sense of basic mathematics here.
LUCOM is the newest DO program. If there was a different new DO program by a different name...would it be more competitive? Where do you think that all of the LUCOM students would go if it was to be dispatched? The answer is that they would likely go to the other new DO program. It's not like there are competitive students at home with a bunch of uncompetitive students at LUCOM. Maybe we have just hit our cap of competitive applicants to enter DO medical schools.
I have been saying this since the beginning of time...Ty Cobb is the greatest baseball player of all-time. Sure...he didn't have the workout regimen of many of todays athletes...but considering the art of baseball...none have been better. My evidence is that Ty Cobb was superbly elite in an era unsaturated with mediocrity. Only the best of the best (white players, lol) played the game baseball in Ty Cobbs era. Only the most competitive players got their chance. Today...there are 32 major league teams...infinite amount of prospects. The pool of players is greater...but there is no question that batters are now facing more mediocre pitching than before with the huge roster sizes and expanding to a 5-man rotation.
The same can be said about our profession. Fifty years ago...I wouldn't have been a physician. I'll own it. That's reality. And I am willing to bet that fifty years from now many of the applicants to DO programs wouldn't have been accepted when were are accepted.
Eventually we are going to run out of competitive applicants to fill DO programs. That is simple math.
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I think the attitudes here will change once LUCOM graduates' board score averages, matches and personal stories about the education hit this forum in a few years. Until then I will not make a judgement.
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Idk. Maybe I evidently know different people. LU is a huge joke around here.
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Sheesh, maybe you should get out more and stop associating with such negative people then. By the way you hunt down LUCOM threads, bash the school, disrespect your fellow peers, and show disregard for the beliefs of others, I question your ability to become an osteopath.
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Just remember that one day you may work with someone that has graduated from LUCOM.
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If you believe that intolerance includes disrespecting the moral fiber of a man who calls me a hell bound ****** who deserves aids because of that's the justice of god then yes, I'm intolerant.
I'm proud to be intolerant of hate and ignorance. And I am unwilling to respect it because it endangers people. And I'm more than willing to let a few people's feelings be hurt if it means saving other people's lives.
But enough of my Sunday brunch....
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Well I'm aiming to be a psychiatrist. So I expect so... Lolol
Ok the audience can groan now.
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This is interesting to me. Doctors I talk to always talk about how things are getting MORE competitive. Adcom members tell me how they never would have gotten into medical school if they applied today. This is generally true in all areas of life (except perhaps law school!). None of these have been DOs though; they've all been MDs.
I completely defer to your experience as a DO so am not doubting your statement. But it's quite concerning to me. If MD schools are becoming more competitive and DO schools are becoming less competitive at the very time when we're pushing for DOs and MDs to be recognized as equals...that's a problem.
i have heard the same thing as you, although also all from MDs. From what i have heard you never would have needed ECs in the past, and basically all you needed were grades/ mcat scores. the idea of writing multiple drafts of a PS seems foreign to some older docs.
i doubt DO schools are getting less competitive significantly. as is said they can fill the class with'4.0 automatons'. (i don't believe that is true actually, looking at the % that are admitted with 4.0/good mcat scores)
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Plenty of people that go to med school in Florida can do their residency out of state. Medical school seats are not a local issue, they are a national one.
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I think that it is probably tough to say. I think that due to the economy...there are more MD/DO applicants, which have increased the competition. I would imagine that back in the glory days...Clinton and early Bush II...when the economy was flourishing, that there were probably fewer applicants. Who would want to work your fingers to the bone as a physician when you can start up your own website and be an overnight millionaire?
I do think that the economy has increased the pool of applicants....so it has gotten more competitive over the past 10 years. But I think that if you compare today's climate to the way that it was a half decade ago in similar economic conditions...see Carter...it is much easier to get into medicine than then. There are tons more schools and seats.
But I do believe that the internet has leveled the playing a bit for non-traditional applicants. Today...there really aren't many excuses for not knowing how to do something. Look it up on google...and you can find out how to do anything. That wasn't true 15-20 years ago...and less people probably attempted to become a physician because they had absolutely no clue how to do so. I would imagine that physicians fifty years ago were essentially the privileged. That is still true to a certain extent, but less than then I'm sure.
Goro may tell you I am completely off base. 🙂
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The thing is that yes, they are opening some new DO schools with low scores; but the top DO schools are becoming more competitive at an even higher rate than many MD schools are. Overall we are seeing an increase in numbers every single year. Both MD and DO are becoming more competitive (as a whole), even with the new schools opening (both MD and DO). In my mind this more or less has to do with the fact that the economy isnt great. Its harder to make a great lifestyle out of just a bio degree nowadays, so people opt to keep going to school, thus we have more applicants to medical school. Thats the way I see it at least.
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I was thinking more of doctors who went through med school in the 80s; at least those are the ones I've spoken with. Things were much looser back then. You definitely didn't need the ECs you need today, and grades and MCAT weren't quite as important. I remember reading a profile a while ago of a doctor who flunked out of college twice and ended up a US MD. That simply doesn't happen these days. I'd be curious to compare admissions percentages between the 1980s and today; I do have a hunch that they'd be higher in the 80s than now.
I'm going more off of people I've spoken with rather than ideas about the economy though; money has had absolutely zero influence on my decision to become a doctor and I forget that it does for some people!
And.....the way that relates back to the thread is that if indeed we are continuously lowering standards of admission, that's concerning.
I'm going more off of people I've spoken with rather than ideas about the economy though; money has had absolutely zero influence on my decision to become a doctor and I forget that it does for some people!
And.....the way that relates back to the thread is that if indeed we are continuously lowering standards of admission, that's concerning.
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I really do think that there is more competition due to the economic climate and internet giving people a guide to success. But I do think that if the economical climate ever stabilizes, that it will become more easy to become a physician. The allure of being a "physician-prestige" is rubbing off. Now it is more of "physician-security".
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Its funny, a lot of the docs that I talked to who graduated in that time said numbers were so unimportant that even board scores had no bearing on residency! You just had to pass. Basically, whatever you wanted to become, you would just become. Obviously if you wanted to go through a cardiothoracic residency specifically at hopkins, you had to have research. But absolutely anyone could become basically any specialty simply by picking it. One may question: well then why arent there loads and loads of specialists running around then? Why would anyone want to become a primary care doc back then? Answer: the money was better than it is now in primary care, there was still some prestige with a primary care specialty in comparison to now, there was less encroachment, the surgical life was even worse than it is now.
I just find it so interesting that back then you could just basically walk out of medical school and so long as you passed everything you essentially had free pick of the specialty that actually interested you.
Wait, just to your last point here... Why is it concerning then? You just went and said that plenty of docs in the 80s had an easier time getting in med school. Are you saying because they had an easier time, they dont make better doctors? As in, simply because people can get into LUCOM because of lower scores (those comparable to the docs in the 80s), they will be worse off? Just playing devil's advocate here.
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Strongly agree... I know it was a major reason why I am going into the field. Its not that I need loads of money, which I know I could make more elsewhere. Its the fact that for all intended purposes, if you graduate medical school, you are dang near guaranteed a job for the foreseeable future. There are plenty of other great reasons that are also involved in this decision, but I know for myself and a few other people who have been out of school and in the working world, this is a trend in our thoughts.
It was a stretch (I felt kind of bad about going off on a tangent to the thread so wanted to relate it somehow!), but I just meant that it will be bad if taken to the extreme. There will always be excellent doctors, but if we allow more and more people in who are unprepared, we'll end up in a situation similar to teachers. There are some excellent, excellent teachers out there. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of teachers who were middle or bottom of the pack at college so became teachers for the job security and vacations. You send your kid to school, and you really don't know what kind of teacher your kid is getting. Could be brilliant, could be rubbish. With doctors, the variability is smaller. The difference between a rubbish doctor and a brilliant doctor is much, much smaller than the difference between a rubbish teacher and a brilliant teacher.
I'm not saying doctors trained in the 80s are worse doctors. In the climate of the time, their admissions process was likely appropriate. But in today's climate, when standards for EVERYTHING are rising, and EVERYTHING is becoming more competitive, I think it would be a grave mistake for med school admissions to buck the trend and become less competitive. That will lead you to the teacher scenario, which I think is not desirable.
DO schools allow grade replacement; there is no reason for DO GPA averages to drop.
I'm a non-trad too, who has been in the working world for a while, and I'm not really worried about job security for myself. I just meant to say that I really couldn't care less whether I am paid the salary of a teacher (or worse, research assistant!) or one of a neurosurgeon. My motivations for entering medicine are entirely unrelated to economics and finances, which is why I wasn't initially considering the waves of the economy in considering med school competitiveness.
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Fair enough, thats a good enough argument for me, heh.
And to contradict myself, while "standards" for everything are rising, quality might not be. My parents have been professors for 30+ years and they say that they are seeing a very clear decline in the quality of students coming out of high school. At the same time, there's more pressure than ever before to give good grades to mediocre students and pass students who should fail. Giving somebody a particular grade or giving somebody a diploma doesn't necessarily mean they've earned it anymore. College is the new high school. So while everything is becoming more competitive and I maintain that it would be wrong of medicine to buck the trend, I also think we need to seriously reassess what these qualifications actually mean.
So, it's very complicated, and everything I wrote was just my initial musings on the topic, all of which I recognize have valid rebuttals 🙂
Now back to regular programming...
Edit for an egregious grammar mistake in a post about declining educational standards...hah!
So, it's very complicated, and everything I wrote was just my initial musings on the topic, all of which I recognize have valid rebuttals 🙂
Now back to regular programming...
Edit for an egregious grammar mistake in a post about declining educational standards...hah!
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I'm not going to name specific schools, but I would highly question any school that doesn't have at least 90% board pass rates. I would also avoid any school who has pass rates below 85% or has match rates below 90% altogether. To me, schools that consistently have stats like that show that they either accept poor applicants, they do an inadequate job of preparing their students, or both.
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This sums up the trends and problems with our current educational system in one sentence rather nicely.
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The answer to this may very well depend upon demographics. Firstly, if LUCOM didn't exist, then I suspect that it's current crop of OMSIs would more likely not be in medical school.
VA might be a harder state to recruit medical students to, if you're looking at it from the prism of a LUCOM administrator. There are already three MD schools, and one DO school. How big is the pool of applicants left after those four take their cut? My gut tells me not much. The state of IN, has a different story. Having chatted with the people who started MUCOM, the quality pool for MUCOM to snap up is large enough even after IU (the largest MD school in the US, I believe) and the neighboring states take their cut of MD and DO applicants. That's my take on the inaugural classes of MU- vs LUCOM.
LUCOM is the newest DO program. If there was a different new DO program by a different name...would it be more competitive? Where do you think that all of the LUCOM students would go if it was to be dispatched? The answer is that they would likely go to the other new DO program. It's not like there are competitive students at home with a bunch of uncompetitive students at LUCOM. Maybe we have just hit our cap of competitive applicants to enter DO medical schools.
This assumes a declining US population. But what we're seeing is both MD and DO becoming more competitive, despite an improving economy!
Eventually we are going to run out of competitive applicants to fill DO programs. That is simple math.
VA might be a harder state to recruit medical students to, if you're looking at it from the prism of a LUCOM administrator. There are already three MD schools, and one DO school. How big is the pool of applicants left after those four take their cut? My gut tells me not much. The state of IN, has a different story. Having chatted with the people who started MUCOM, the quality pool for MUCOM to snap up is large enough even after IU (the largest MD school in the US, I believe) and the neighboring states take their cut of MD and DO applicants. That's my take on the inaugural classes of MU- vs LUCOM.
LUCOM is the newest DO program. If there was a different new DO program by a different name...would it be more competitive? Where do you think that all of the LUCOM students would go if it was to be dispatched? The answer is that they would likely go to the other new DO program. It's not like there are competitive students at home with a bunch of uncompetitive students at LUCOM. Maybe we have just hit our cap of competitive applicants to enter DO medical schools.
This assumes a declining US population. But what we're seeing is both MD and DO becoming more competitive, despite an improving economy!
Eventually we are going to run out of competitive applicants to fill DO programs. That is simple math.
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Honestly the whole educational system is in a state of systemic collapse due to changes in technology and possibilities and at the same time pretends they're not there. College these days does little better with some exceptions.
But anyways.... We either need to accept that standards have expanded, and that a new approach is needed or we continue a contrived attempt to humor traditional education.
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I think that there will probably be a lag on the effect that the economy plays on the number of applicants. You can tell Americans that the economy is improving but there is still TONS of skepticism. It is going to take years of prosperity before forget about the crash in the 2000s. That is when people will seek other forms of employment, especially considering the mess that we will all go through over the next decade in regards to healthcare reform and slashed reimbursements. Not to mention that the residency growth is putrid and that will eventually scare off applicants out of concern that maybe medicine isn't a sure thing after all.
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Honestly, VA isn't a hard state to recruit to because it's next to DC. DC and the surrounding area borderline diarrheas premeds. Any new school could easily be filled by the applicants of two of the totems.
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You're right. I was just going off a few local articles about how we don't have enough spots and how most residents stay where they train.
I'm sure you agree that FL still has more than enough medical schools and there are other states that could really use one if more needs to be opened.
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Heh, send one over to California, I hear the pre-meds there have a pretty rough go at it.
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Well y'all pretty much know what I think by now but whatever here we go
- I have a problem with Falwell. A big problem with that racist, homophobic dingus and I consider that a stench on the whole institution. And yes I know the founder of my school and yes I think founders are important.
- I have a problem with young earth creationism and I think that having a creationist museum on a medical school campus is a joke
- I have a problem with the anti gay things I've heard coming from professors and students and feel concerned about their ability to produce providers who will treat gay patients with respect and pay attention to their unique needs
- the stats are terrible, and I think that's a bad sign.
- the fact that their code of conduct seems to be kept under lock and key is despicable. I can have no problem finding the code of conduct for any other school but for this they are hiding it. I don't think it's write to not fully inform people what they are getting into and the rules I have been able to get a hold of are very strict. I don't have a problem with a private institution having strict rules, I have a problem with them not informing potential students up front
- I have no problem with other religious institutions and I think it would be wonderful if BYU opened a medical school and kind of surprised that they haven't by this point
- I have a problem with Falwell. A big problem with that racist, homophobic dingus and I consider that a stench on the whole institution. And yes I know the founder of my school and yes I think founders are important.
- I have a problem with young earth creationism and I think that having a creationist museum on a medical school campus is a joke
- I have a problem with the anti gay things I've heard coming from professors and students and feel concerned about their ability to produce providers who will treat gay patients with respect and pay attention to their unique needs
- the stats are terrible, and I think that's a bad sign.
- the fact that their code of conduct seems to be kept under lock and key is despicable. I can have no problem finding the code of conduct for any other school but for this they are hiding it. I don't think it's write to not fully inform people what they are getting into and the rules I have been able to get a hold of are very strict. I don't have a problem with a private institution having strict rules, I have a problem with them not informing potential students up front
- I have no problem with other religious institutions and I think it would be wonderful if BYU opened a medical school and kind of surprised that they haven't by this point
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I am too, on this one. My Mormon students tend to be among our best, BTW.
I think it would be wonderful if BYU opened a medical school and kind of surprised that they haven't by this point
I think it would be wonderful if BYU opened a medical school and kind of surprised that they haven't by this point
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Don't bet on it.
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