Boomer,
Gotta say, this whole "First years don't know what they're talking about" tack got old awhile ago. Obviously it has some limited merit, but it's overstayed its welcome. I and those others who have defended the program have taken great pains not to defend it on the actual experience, which I've obviously not had, but on the merits of the setup itself.
A few examples: You complain about the travel required for rotations. I see this, for reasons that have been detailed to exhaustion in other threads, as a good thing. Our disagreement on this point will exist irrespective of actual experiences as it's not some sort of matter of personal subjective preference.
You and others have complained about the large number of primary care rotations required, with complaints that this gets in the way of applying to competitive specialties. We've compared some numbers in other threads, and this line of attack seems to be pretty sketchy in reality.
I'm a little surprised by the "you're only a first year" line of reasoning from the various MS-2's that are complaining. Now, I'm only a first year, but I could have sworn that rotations didn't start until third year. Since many of these second years apparently didn't even know about AZCOM's setup until recently, much to their very vocal shock and dismay, I'll submit that perhaps those first years who took the time who figured out what they were getting into might have a take maybe even nearly as good as theirs.
This is obviously an issue on which reasonable people can disagree, and a good thing too--there are plenty of other schools that don't have the setup, and the only people who had no choice in going here were likely the ones who were constrained by geography or academics.
I'll point out that many of us who did choose the school over others didn't just rely on the canned sales pitch, as you seem to suggest. We did our research, scanned the boards, got opinions from upperclassmen just as is going on now. So while you're certainly entitled to your opinion, and it's perhaps even reasonable given whatever criteria you're using, it's hardly some inevitable fact that we naive first years will run headlong into sooner or later. My opinon is just that, but it's an amalgam not only of common sense, but the opinions of those who have gone before and the statistics, which don't lie. I'm sure we all know who's a first year and a fourth year; hopefully the "AZCOM 2007" will sort that out for those who are still unclear.
