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KCU - Joplin
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I assume you interviewed at KCU-Joplin and were accepted? Were you accepted anywhere else? Is research important to you?
I was just accepted so take this fwiw, but there are few DO schools that are "far superior" to KCU-Joplin. KCU had the highest DO board scores this year (albeit they should due to the vigorous curriculum), and Joplin has the same curriculum as KC campus. KCU-Joplin has great rotations in town at Mercy and Freeman, and I've seen on here (via @AnatomyGrey12 ) that there's an initiative to give all Joplin students the opportunity to stay in Joplin for year 3/4. This is similar to what I was told during my interview this year: "We try to make sure that all students are able to rotate within an hour of Joplin." Perhaps @DrRedstone can offer more information regarding the future of Joplin rotation sites. Students on interview day did say that there have been a few bumps, but faculty is very receptive and things are fixed almost immediately. If you want to be involved in research, this probably isn't the best fit for you as the curriculum (while great at preparing for boards) doesn't cater to a lot of free time for research.
I was just accepted so take this fwiw, but there are few DO schools that are "far superior" to KCU-Joplin. KCU had the highest DO board scores this year (albeit they should due to the vigorous curriculum), and Joplin has the same curriculum as KC campus. KCU-Joplin has great rotations in town at Mercy and Freeman, and I've seen on here (via @AnatomyGrey12 ) that there's an initiative to give all Joplin students the opportunity to stay in Joplin for year 3/4. This is similar to what I was told during my interview this year: "We try to make sure that all students are able to rotate within an hour of Joplin." Perhaps @DrRedstone can offer more information regarding the future of Joplin rotation sites. Students on interview day did say that there have been a few bumps, but faculty is very receptive and things are fixed almost immediately. If you want to be involved in research, this probably isn't the best fit for you as the curriculum (while great at preparing for boards) doesn't cater to a lot of free time for research.
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Note: I am a KC student, not a Joplin student...
THAT BEING SAID:
Addressing the Transition Period: KCU is VERY responsive to student feedback. We have had tests moved before and things of that nature. Our dean has personally come to speak with us multiple times JUST to hear what we think and clarify what the school is going to do in the future to help us. We see things actively put into place as soon as the following unit/block. Sometimes faster.
I obviously haven't gone to medical school anywhere else, but if you are looking for a school that legitimately listens to its students' concerns, KCU is an incredible place to be. The faculty actually give a crap what you think as a student and how you perform (as in, whether or not you are meeting your personal academic goals.)
Joplin Rotation Sites: From what I have heard about the Joplin rotations sites, Joplin students have first dibs, and then us KC students can head down there if there are open spots. In addition to this, KCU is adding over 100 rotation sites through the area in the next year (we found this out at our most recent meet with out dean.)
Research: With respect to availability for research, again I cannot speak specifically to the Joplin experience, but there are ways to acquire research if that is something you are interested in. You can research with faculty, at surrounding institutions, and by other means (through dual degrees, fellowships, taking a year off if you REALLY want to, using some audition rotations during 4rth year, etc.)
In addition, Dr. D'Agostino is working on implementing research into our curriculum in the future. This is another way the administration has been responsive to student feedback.
TL;DR: We are going through a transition period right now, but the school is doing everything in their power to make it a smooth transition. If you are interested in research, there are plenty of ways to get involved, you just have to do some extra leg work.
Also... KCU = KCU. Joplin vs. KC makes no difference. It's the same curriculum and you can expect the same caliber of physician to arise from either campus.
THAT BEING SAID:
Addressing the Transition Period: KCU is VERY responsive to student feedback. We have had tests moved before and things of that nature. Our dean has personally come to speak with us multiple times JUST to hear what we think and clarify what the school is going to do in the future to help us. We see things actively put into place as soon as the following unit/block. Sometimes faster.
I obviously haven't gone to medical school anywhere else, but if you are looking for a school that legitimately listens to its students' concerns, KCU is an incredible place to be. The faculty actually give a crap what you think as a student and how you perform (as in, whether or not you are meeting your personal academic goals.)
Joplin Rotation Sites: From what I have heard about the Joplin rotations sites, Joplin students have first dibs, and then us KC students can head down there if there are open spots. In addition to this, KCU is adding over 100 rotation sites through the area in the next year (we found this out at our most recent meet with out dean.)
Research: With respect to availability for research, again I cannot speak specifically to the Joplin experience, but there are ways to acquire research if that is something you are interested in. You can research with faculty, at surrounding institutions, and by other means (through dual degrees, fellowships, taking a year off if you REALLY want to, using some audition rotations during 4rth year, etc.)
In addition, Dr. D'Agostino is working on implementing research into our curriculum in the future. This is another way the administration has been responsive to student feedback.
TL;DR: We are going through a transition period right now, but the school is doing everything in their power to make it a smooth transition. If you are interested in research, there are plenty of ways to get involved, you just have to do some extra leg work.
Also... KCU = KCU. Joplin vs. KC makes no difference. It's the same curriculum and you can expect the same caliber of physician to arise from either campus.
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I know @Goro does not speak highly of Touro NY
Touro NY had a pretty shady cycle a few years ago, but I've actually heard that they've had excellent residency placement since then. AZCOM and KCU will probably take you where you want to be. Where are you hoping to do residency? There is some regional bias with residency programs.
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AnatomyGrey12
Focus on not getting railroaded by Anatomy first before you start thinking about the most competitive fields in medicine.
There is no such thing as a "good DO school". That's the first thing you need to understand. All DO schools are seen as subpar and extremely low tier by ACGME PDs, especially in ENT and other competitive specialties.
There is only one way into fields like ENT for DOs - and that's through strong affiliation and connections with influential people who will open doors for you. Otherwise, you really cannot aim high. A good performance on step 1 and strong research is the baseline, and then you need the phone calls and letters to get you into the interviews. Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. Pick the school that you feel you will fit in best with and the school that focuses least on the pseudoscience of OMM.
After that, it's going to be who you know that gets you to where you want to go.
Yes. Honestly surgery is doable as a DO it’s a matter of doing well on boards. But echoing @AnatomyGrey12 wait for the first semester to be over with. Actually I’ve seen people who started out wanting to be surgeons and barely passing our Anatomy course. I think either AZCOM or KCUMB (both campuses) will give you a fair shot.
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AnatomyGrey12
Yes it is much more in the realm of doable compared to ENT. You will still need to take care of business first though so worry about that.
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KCU actual has good with with PDs here in the Midwest. Especially in regards to our clinical skills that allow us to be decently useful during rotations while we court or desired programs.
Who you know is important for everyone no matter the school. Fun fact, Dr. MacIntire, one of the names in our campus in Joplin, is an ENT and runs an ENT residency through Freeman. He is really active around campus so be sure to say hi.
Sorry I missed this thread before, SDN has been weird with notifications 😛.
Joplin rotation sites are going to be available at Mercy, Freeman, Cox (Springfield, Mo), and Via Christi (Pittsburg, Ks). We will likely have options at other locations, but most students will be able to stay in the area.
Is this a serious post? I explicitly said ACGME otolaryngology, and you are talking about AOA.
And no, MDs don't need to network except in situations where their scores and research aren't as competitive, or if they are dead set on a specific program. DOs with a 270 and good research will still need to heavily network to match anywhere in otolaryngology and other similar fields. The fact of the matter remains that no DO school is going to give you any boost at all when it comes to the ACGME match, and this isn't SDN information, this is straight from ACGME PDs.
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@sab3156 For the record, there will be no AOA residencies by the time the OP makes it to the match. Everything will be ACGME for the class of 2020 and beyond. MDs absolutely need to network for competitive specialties. If you have top scores it certainly helps, but you have to get to a place where the residents and PDs know you. As one resident I talked to put it, we will see other residents more than we see our spouses, so personality makes a huge difference. Networking as a way of just getting in the door? Maybe not so much for most MDs. But I and other DO students take offense when you say that all of our schools are sub-par and extremely low tier. We are not. Are we Ivy League level? Certainly not. However, we still stand on top of most IMGs and all Carribean schools. Schools like KCU even stand above lower tier MD schools. Times are changing. Slowly, but changing none the less.
SDN never ceases to amaze.
Not according to the PDs, residents, and fellows I have spoken to in two of the top hospitals in the country, and not according to a lot of MDs who matched without ever rotating and getting to know the residents and PDs. You are making things up off the top of your head, and the scariest thing is that you don't even know how ridiculous your claims are. The majority of MDs in several specialties (that I know of) do not do much rotating, unless they are trying to get into a select program and build connections in that particular program that is otherwise out of reach due to stats or otherwise. So what are you talking about? I have spoken to several residents in ophthalmology and ENT and none of them will agree with what you're saying right now. You literally have no data or anything to prove anything you're saying.
ACGME PDs in most programs in most specialties will not even look at the application of a DO (you seem like the kind of guy who will jump up and try to refute this, just go look at PD surveys from prior years). Yes, ACGME PDs generally think DO schools are sub-par, sketchy at best, and the lowest of the low, and most of them will not even interview a DO.
Pure, unadulterated delusion. There is no MD school in the nation that has a match list as bad as the ones from any DO school. It's a fact.
If you are going to enter the match with that kind of blissful ignorance, I feel truly sorry for you.
Not according to the PDs, residents, and fellows I have spoken to in two of the top hospitals in the country, and not according to a lot of MDs who matched without ever rotating and getting to know the residents and PDs. You are making things up off the top of your head, and the scariest thing is that you don't even know how ridiculous your claims are. The majority of MDs in several specialties (that I know of) do not do much rotating, unless they are trying to get into a select program and build connections in that particular program that is otherwise out of reach due to stats or otherwise. So what are you talking about? I have spoken to several residents in ophthalmology and ENT and none of them will agree with what you're saying right now. You literally have no data or anything to prove anything you're saying.
ACGME PDs in most programs in most specialties will not even look at the application of a DO (you seem like the kind of guy who will jump up and try to refute this, just go look at PD surveys from prior years). Yes, ACGME PDs generally think DO schools are sub-par, sketchy at best, and the lowest of the low, and most of them will not even interview a DO.
Pure, unadulterated delusion. There is no MD school in the nation that has a match list as bad as the ones from any DO school. It's a fact.
If you are going to enter the match with that kind of blissful ignorance, I feel truly sorry for you.
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AnatomyGrey12
Unequivocally untrue
You’ve talked to two places, and you are largely conflating the idea of connections with auditions and aways. Just because MDs don’t do auditions (side note, in the competitive specialties they absolutely do aways. Go peruse the sub specialty forums and you will see that advice given to EVERY person who asks what their chances are) doesn’t mean they don’t make connections.
You don’t have any data either. I’ll combat your anecdotes with more anecdotes. I personally am friends with 2 people with over 260s who are applying to ENT from MD schools and they absolutely have to build connections. It’s a requirement in these specialties where everyone knows everyone.
And yeah I’m going to jump up and refute this because you and I both know it’s complete horse crap. “Most programs in most specialties” yeah sure bro, sure. More like “some programs in most fields and most programs in some fields.”
This is going to become a cesspool of random people who have never spoken to an ACGME PD in their entire life.
Why do I need to peruse the subspecialty forum when I have first hand information from actual ACGME PDs and residents/fellows involved in resident selection in a very competitive specialty? In that specialty, a lot of MDs don't do many away rotations at all. That's a fact. MDs do not need to do an audition rotation in competitive specialties to get interviews and match somewhere on their rank list if their application is good. DOs on the other hand not only need to do those rotations, they need to heavily network their way in. That's a fact, my friend. If you really don't think so, I urge you to get involved with a PD in some capacity, ideally research, so you can sit down with them and have a real discussion about it.
Why do I need to peruse the subspecialty forum when I have first hand information from actual ACGME PDs and residents/fellows involved in resident selection in a very competitive specialty? In that specialty, a lot of MDs don't do many away rotations at all. That's a fact. MDs do not need to do an audition rotation in competitive specialties to get interviews and match somewhere on their rank list if their application is good. DOs on the other hand not only need to do those rotations, they need to heavily network their way in. That's a fact, my friend. If you really don't think so, I urge you to get involved with a PD in some capacity, ideally research, so you can sit down with them and have a real discussion about it.
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AnatomyGrey12
Well you won’t say what specialty but if it’s one of the super competitive ones then you are most likely wrong. The only exception to this is people at top schools, and that’s because their school is their networking.
Depends on the field, again in the super competitive specialties yes it is common and yes it is usually a boon to their app. Also again, if they aren’t applying from a top school then yeah they most likely do aways. Fields like ENT, Ortho, and Optho absolutely have MDs doing aways. No they aren’t the same level of importance as auditions are to DOs but they absolutely happen, and they are recommended to most applicants.
I don’t know where you ever got the idea that I disagree with this because I don’t. Never have. However, this has nothing to do with what happens on the MD side.
3 steps ahead of you
Because from the sounds of it it’s one or two top programs in one of these fields. Top programs tend to take people from top schools so it’s likely they don’t care for aways because they assume they are getting the best medical students in the country from the best schools. That doesn’t mean the majority of MD students don’t do something. Looking at the forums let’s you see some residents and attendings give general advice to the people applying to these fields as a whole, not just one program. Aways are the standard advice given to people applying to ENT, Ortho, etc.
I am actually talking about ENT and ophtho, and the consensus was that generally the away rotations were for getting letter or for impressing a particular program, and not for matching in general, and that it was probably not a good idea in general unless you are really a great person to be around and confident in your clinical abilities. If you are going to try and counter this by quoting SDN, I can't help you understand this in any more depth. Of course, away rotation "happen", but they aren't for the reason that you and the other dude are trying to argue. They are mainly for matching at a particular place or for getting letters from someone special that would want you to rotate first.
My first link that I clicked on while googling brought up this thread, regarding ENT away rotations, from (what it looks like) a verified ENT MD/PhD faculty member:
This is actually almost verbatim what was stated in person to me by a few people in the field. So I'm a bit surprised you speak with such authority on this matter and completely contradict well known faculty I spoke to from top tier programs (and people from mid tier programs) about this issue.
It's several, and not just top. I gave the example of two top programs, but I know people who were part of the resident selection team at mid tier programs in this specialty as well who were now doing fellowship at the top programs who dittoed what was iterated by the others.
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AnatomyGrey12
Dude you kill me, you love to simply cherry pick out certain comments and completely neglect the overall point of what I said. I never said that MD aways were equivalent to DO auditions, they aren’t. I actually explicitly said otherwise. Aways are common because of the all important networking that you love to go on about, because it actually is important. My two friends were told to their faces by their home program PDs that they needed to network. These are two students with research, 260+ steps, and are very personable.
The whole point of what I was saying was in response to what you said about networking and how MDs don’t need to do it. They absolutely do. Don’t pretend that networking is simply something DOs have to do. That’s my point.
Just let the people reading this decide for themselves what was cherry picked and what wasn't. You made explicit statements that were clearly based on the ACGME match in a different universe. First we were talking about away rotations, and now you're talking about networking. You are very good at avoiding a direct discussion, but that's the internet, I guess. Good evening, sir. As always, it was a pleasure.
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AnatomyGrey12
Your original comment that sparked my response as it seems you have amnesia. I dare say you’re the one who likes to change the mark and avoid direct discussion. Cheers
But... that part is also true... nothing I said was incorrect, and was information not only from PDs, but from residents and fellows involved in resident selection, and you can go ask on the ENT and ophtho forums about "networking" and "away rotations" for MDs.
I really think you love reading your own posts, no matter how delusional they are. I'm done here. AnatomyGrey12 wins against ACGME PDs and residents/fellows involved in residency selection at several top tier and mid tier programs in ENT and ophtho.
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I know a couple DO's who are ENTs, so not really sure why everyone on here is ragging on DOs specializing. Is it hard as hell? Um.. Yea! It's hard for MD and DO schools! Those are competitive specialties. It's all a matter of busting a nut and getting where you want. You can do it either way.
Never thought I'd hear this from Jesus Christ.
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Don't equate MD applicants with DO applicants when it comes to ENT and Ophtho and other similar specialties... ACGME in these fields is actually basically impossible for DOs without great research and good connections, even with outstanding stats, whereas MDs will usually get interviews in most programs as long as they have competitive stats, even without any ties to any program and never having rotated there. Go look at the NRMP/SF match data to see how many DOs match into fields like ENT and Ophtho. 28 DOs applied ACGME ophtho this year, with only 10 matching. The ones who do match into ophtho usually have outstanding letters, research, and people opening the doors for them, and the ones who didn't probably also had good letters but just couldn't convince the programs to take them over MD applicants for whatever reason.
There is in fact a massive difference between the feasibility of applying to these specialties between DO and MD, whether you want to believe it or not. Better to find out now and know what you need to do, rather than 4th year when you hear absolute silence from ACGME programs while all your MD colleagues with lower stats and less research are getting lots of interviews.
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Do you honestly have nothing better to do with your life than to get on the pre-med DO forums and bash DOs? Jesus Christ man move on with your life.
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None of what you are saying is even going to even be relevant in 2 years..
No one is bashing DOs - it's just that the things you are saying are flat out incorrect statements. Stop making things up.
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It isn't that difficult to google NRMP PD surveys and NRMP match data, or is it? Part of the issue here is that people are gullible enough to believe people on SDN rather than speak to PDs and actual residents/fellows. This type of "DOs can match anywhere they want with a good application" mentality is displayed only on SDN, specifically DO pre-med forum or DO students forum. Doesn't work that way in reality. And don't confuse this with "DO bashing" - it is simply reality. I am a DO student who worked hard to build up connections prior to medical school in a super competitive field that DOs do very poorly in during the match, because I was working in the field and knew exactly what I was up against and what I had to do (I didn't simply "hear from someone who heard from someone" - I was/am working with PDs/faculty/residents/fellows in a research capacity and got information straight from them, and a lot of these people are at the top of their field and intimately know how this game works, because they deal with it year after year). If I had believed the propaganda coming from AOA and my school and SDN, I would flat out be in a lot of trouble right now. I don't want to be like some of my classmates talking about how they are applying, for example, ACGME ortho because they think "only step 1 matters" and the "merger has eliminated all bias".
Man, I am really missing @MeatTornado...
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AnatomyGrey12
Will you stop taking at face value data and surveys that have serious flaws in them? Obviously they have merit but you are always so quick to cite them (usually wrongly) and fail to even look at the fact that they are impacted by a whole list of confounding variables.
You are not the only one who has talked to PDs, residents, and students applying in the competitive fields. Your anecdotes carry no more weight than anyone else’s.
Literally I’ve never seen this said. Ever. Stop fabricating an argument that doesn’t exist.
No argument here, the AOA is a joke.
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Gonna put @AnatomyGrey12 on ignore. Really grateful for this feature.
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AnatomyGrey12
That’s cool, I get it. We can’t have me poking holes in your narrative now can we
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at least your taxes are free.
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