LECOM-B vs DMU

[deleted1141407]

So I have interviewed with both LECOM Bradenton and DMU and am wondering which school will provide me with the best opportunities to match the specialties I am interested in.

I have read several posts on here that the school which you go to doesn't matter, and that matching is completely on the student. However this seems to be inconsistent with what I've heard elsewhere so I am not sure. It seems that those who attend more prestigious medical schools are getting in with lower board scores, and anecdotally with lower extra curriculars. Furthermore, I understand that residencies tend to have a regional bias.

My top two specialties I am considering are dermatology and plastic surgery. This is not because they are competitive and make a lot of money, but rather because I have extensive experiences with both and am interested in helping people become confident with themselves. This ties into my whole personal statement, as I am originally a musician and enjoy helping to create art and beauty. Furthermore, both of these specialties seem to have some of the best work life balance once finishing residency.

I realize that the plastic surgery match rate for D.O is basically 0%, but looking at dermatology it seems the most AOA residencies for derm are in Florida. Given this, would the exact same application have a better chance at matching derm is the student is applying from a Florida school, i.e LECOM Bradenton, or from DMU because its more established? Or would both have statistically the exact same chances. What about PCOM-Philly? I have not heard from them yet, but I've read they have some of the best rotations and have their own residencies. Would attending this school provide any meaningful "boost" to my application?

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[EArlyBirdGetsTheWorm]

From my research, DMU is far and above better than LECOM. You should pick the more established school. Matching into those residency would be hard as an MD. It will be up to you to set yourself up to get into those fields.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

If you want derm, plastics, ent, ortho, optho, neurosurgery, ct go MD even if it means taking a year or two off

 

[deleted1141407]

If you want derm, plastics, ent, ortho, optho, neurosurgery, ct go MD even if it means taking a year or two off

I was wondering if maybe it would be better / the same to go D.O and they just take an extra year after med school to do research and strengthen my app? Or would it still be better to go M.D even then?

 

[Sidus1011]

Everything you've listed is the exact antithesis of DO friendly. If you have zero interest in primary care or the current batch of DO friendly specialties, seriously reconsider what you're getting into. You need to seriously destroy medical school to even get the opportunity to enter the ring of matching into an uber specialty as a DO. While you can sit there and say, yeah that'll be me, I think you're underrating just how smart everyone is in these schools.

Please do not start thinking about which school is best before even being accepted and please reconsider DO if you're not at least semi-accepting of going into a DO friendly specialty.

TLDR: Take the gap year

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

I was wondering if maybe it would be better / the same to go D.O and they just take an extra year after med school to do research and strengthen my app? Or would it still be better to go M.D even then?

I don’t think it’s a great idea tbh. For instance, my school is a low tier MD, and we have had pretty qualified people not match into ortho, ent etc (which are usually a bit less competitive than plastics and derm) after a research year. Everything seems to be getting more and more competitive. School name definitely matters imo

 

[AvsPearTree]

I was wondering if maybe it would be better / the same to go D.O and they just take an extra year after med school to do research and strengthen my app? Or would it still be better to go M.D even then?

research years for competitive specialties are becoming a norm for competitive specialties even for MDs

 

[deleted1141407]

Everything you've listed is the exact antithesis of DO friendly. If you have zero interest in primary care or the current batch of DO friendly specialties, seriously reconsider what you're getting into. You need to seriously destroy medical school to even get the opportunity to enter the ring of matching into an uber specialty as a DO. While you can sit there and say, yeah that'll be me, I think you're underrating just how smart everyone is in these schools.

Please do not start thinking about which school is best before even being accepted and please reconsider DO if you're not at least semi-accepting of going into a DO friendly specialty.

TLDR: Take the gap year

At the end of the day I would rather be a doctor than not become one, but I would like to try my best to pursue the specialties I’m most passionate about. Is it really that much harder to do these specialties compared to MD? I know for plastics it’s a basically 0% chance vs 54% or so (don’t remember the exact number) but I felt the others were maybe 10% lower match rate for MD vs DO. Maybe it’s because I’m very naive about the residency application process, but 54% seems really good compared to the 30% chances or whatever it is of even getting into med school.

Im also afraid I’m I withdraw my application and do a gap year I’ll basically have ruined my chances of going DO right? I don’t want to screw myself out of a career in medicine in general, but i wouldn’t mind taking an extra year or two to know I’ve given a solid shot at achieving these dreams

 

[Sidus1011]

I don't know if people just don't understand what niche DO schools fill or if they are just blinding themselves to their abilities. While there are still a good number of DOs who match into these former AOA programs, going unmatched is not something you want to toy with. The difference between the 30% chance for medical school is that you're no longer competing with people with middling undergrad performances. Any US medical school consists of the top 10% of students in the country and it is exponentially harder to do amazing in medical school versus undergrad.

I'm incredibly thankful for the opportunity to become a physician and will be proud to put DO after my name, but it's important to recognize what the goal of these schools are. They will not provide you the opportunity to match into these specialties you are looking for.

If you want to be a physician, take the DO acceptance and run, but recognize that there will always be the possibility that you end up going into primary care or a DO friendly specialty. If you can't be happy doing that, do not go to a DO school.

Edit: Realize that residency also has a lot more self-selecting compared to medical school applications as well, the application is formulated specifically for the one maybe two specialties you are trying to match. Thus that 48% unmatched consists of majority of people having steps above 260 and tons of research/connections.

At the end of the day I would rather be a doctor than not become one, but I would like to try my best to pursue the specialties I’m most passionate about. Is it really that much harder to do these specialties compared to MD? I know for plastics it’s a basically 0% chance vs 54% or so (don’t remember the exact number) but I felt the others were maybe 10% lower match rate for MD vs DO. Maybe it’s because I’m very naive about the residency application process, but 54% seems really good compared to the 30% chances or whatever it is of even getting into med school.

Im also afraid I’m I withdraw my application and do a gap year I’ll basically have ruined my chances of going DO right? I don’t want to screw myself out of a career in medicine in general, but i wouldn’t mind taking an extra year or two to know I’ve given a solid shot at achieving these dreams

 

[deleted1141407]

I don't know if people just don't understand what niche DO schools fill or if they are just blinding themselves to their abilities. While there are still a good number of DOs who match into these former AOA programs, going unmatched is not something you want to toy with. The difference between the 30% chance for medical school is that you're no longer competing with people with middling undergrad performances. Any US medical school consists of the top 10% of students in the country and it is exponentially harder to do amazing in medical school versus undergrad.

I'm incredibly thankful for the opportunity to become a physician and will be proud to put DO after my name, but it's important to recognize what the goal of these schools are. They will not provide you the opportunity to match into these specialties you are looking for.

If you want to be a physician, take the DO acceptance and run, but recognize that there will always be the possibility that you end up going into primary care or a DO friendly specialty. If you can't be happy doing that, do not go to a DO school.

Edit: Realize that residency also has a lot more self-selecting compared to medical school applications as well, the application is formulated specifically for the one maybe two specialties you are trying to match. Thus that 54% match consists of majority of people having steps above 260 and tons of research/connections.

I do understand that DO schools are really focused on creating more primary care physicians that will work in rural areas, but I also saw that some DO schools will tend to boast that a significant number of their undergraduates DONT do primary care, and of course the AOA having these types of residencies. Thus i saw it as osteopathic medicine still being receptive to any speciality I may find interesting, just with a more comprehensive perspective employed.

Thank you for the information regarding med school admissions versus residency match. I sort of viewed it as my chances being 50/50 of matching, which didn’t seem so bad compared to everything else.

I have shadowed some primary care doctors and I liked it, just not as much as derm or plastics. I could see myself working as a PCP for the rest of my life, but I believe I’ll also be wondering what could have been.

 

[Sidus1011]

I do understand that DO schools are really focused on creating more primary care physicians that will work in rural areas, but I also saw that some DO schools will tend to boast that a significant number of their undergraduates DONT do primary care, and of course the AOA having these types of residencies. Thus i saw it as osteopathic medicine still being receptive to any speciality I may find interesting, just with a more comprehensive perspective employed.

Thank you for the information regarding med school admissions versus residency match. I sort of viewed it as my chances being 50/50 of matching, which didn’t seem so bad compared to everything else.

I have shadowed some primary care doctors and I liked it, just not as much as derm or plastics. I could see myself working as a PCP for the rest of my life, but I believe I’ll also be wondering what could have been.

My school has a home Ortho program that a consistently pulls 3-4 from the class and there are a good number that go into gen surg and the like. You can go into a non-primary care specialty as a DO, my current interest lie in some. Plenty do and will continue to do so, especially at the more established schools.

I'm not here to convince you that you shouldn't go DO. I'm trying to redirect you to rethink why you want to be a physician, if it's to enter these uber specialties, I don't see how you'd be happy as a DO, knowing that the uphill battle will be exponentially harder. Take the time to think about this, really.

 

[deleted1141407]

My school has a home Ortho program that a consistently pulls 3-4 from the class and there are a good number that go into gen surg and the like. You can go into a non-primary care specialty as a DO, my current interest lie in some. Plenty do and will continue to do so, especially at the more established schools.

I'm not here to convince you that you shouldn't go DO. I'm trying to redirect you to rethink why you want to be a physician, if it's to enter these uber specialties, I don't see how you'd be happy as a DO, knowing that the uphill battle will be exponentially harder. Take the time to think about this, really.

Thank you for your advice. I would say the only type of surgery I’d be interested in is plastics, and I’m saying this after having shadowed several different surgical specialties. Not only because I like the procedures the best but they also seem to be the only ones that get to go home at 5pm. I know I can do general surgery and then fellow into plastics, but this will, of course, take more time and be more stressful.

In general through, would you say an applicant with the exact same stats has a better chance at a school with a home residency program? I see both LECOM and KCU have derm residencies and they’re all in Florida. So would it stand to reason that i would have a better chance at derm if I went to LECOM vs DMU? Also, I know this was asked before and people said no, but I’m not sure if things have changed in recent times. But if I decide to just do a gap year, will MD schools know about any DO acceptances and thus reject me?

 

[AvsPearTree]

Thank you for your advice. I would say the only type of surgery I’d be interested in is plastics, and I’m saying this after having shadowed several different surgical specialties. Not only because I like the procedures the best but they also seem to be the only ones that get to go home at 5pm. I know I can do general surgery and then fellow into plastics, but this will, of course, take more time and be more stressful.

In general through, would you say an applicant with the exact same stats has a better chance at a school with a home residency program? I see both LECOM and KCU have derm residencies and they’re all in Florida. So would it stand to reason that i would have a better chance at derm if I went to LECOM vs DMU? Also, I know this was asked before and people said no, but I’m not sure if things have changed in recent times. But if I decide to just do a gap year, will MD schools know about any DO acceptances and thus reject me?

Regardless of where you end up going, you need to get out of this mentality that you need to go derm or plastics. You need to go into medical school with as much of an open mind as possible or you're setting yourself up to be miserable while in school and at worst failure. Standing there watching someone do a few procedures is not the same as doing the procedure yourself or actually living the day to day life of a physician. I thought EM was the coolest thing in the world when I was shadowing an EM doc, but my expectations of EM do not match the realities of EM.

 

[deleted1141407]

Regardless of where you end up going, you need to get out of this mentality that you need to go derm or plastics. You need to go into medical school with as much of an open mind as possible or you're setting yourself up to be miserable while in school and at worst failure. Standing there watching someone do a few procedures is not the same as doing the procedure yourself or actually living the day to day life of a physician. I thought EM was the coolest thing in the world when I was shadowing an EM doc, but my expectations of EM do not match the realities of EM.

Thank you for your comments and yes, I definitely agree. I’m just trying to do my future self a favor by setting myself up the best way possible is all. I do not wish to put limits on myself before I have even started.

 

[Sidus1011]

Thank you for your advice. I would say the only type of surgery I’d be interested in is plastics, and I’m saying this after having shadowed several different surgical specialties. Not only because I like the procedures the best but they also seem to be the only ones that get to go home at 5pm. I know I can do general surgery and then fellow into plastics, but this will, of course, take more time and be more stressful.

In general through, would you say an applicant with the exact same stats has a better chance at a school with a home residency program? I see both LECOM and KCU have derm residencies and they’re all in Florida. So would it stand to reason that i would have a better chance at derm if I went to LECOM vs DMU? Also, I know this was asked before and people said no, but I’m not sure if things have changed in recent times. But if I decide to just do a gap year, will MD schools know about any DO acceptances and thus reject me?

Having a home program is helpful, however, you need to keep in mind that they can only pull so many from the class if they do at all. Home programs don't have to pick from the class at all if they don't want to. The main thing is that it gives you the opportunity to rotate there during third year and gives you the ability to have that initial connection easier than an outsider.

With the merger, school expansion, P/F step, and proposed changes in match, so many things are about to change. You are asking questions that I don't think any of us can answer. Especially about how DOs will fair in these competitive residencies in a few years.

MD schools will ask if you've ever been accepted to a medical school in their secondaries, however they have no way of knowing if that's the case since AACOMAS is a different application system. Would I forfeit a medical school seat that readily though? Probably not. But that's because I'd be happy with a number of different specialties, something I don't see in your case.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Your chances form matching competitive specialties is probably the same at either school. Both are established schools, DMU one of the originals, and LECOM has been around for 30 yrs. Both have good match rates. I don't think any DOs matched plastics last year. Check Charting Outcomes 2022.

 

[Doctoscope]

You're not going to match integrated plastics from a DO school. The match rates were literally 0%, and it's the sad reality of things atm. Your best bet for plastics is through gen surg -> fellowship, which is more attainable as a DO.

 

[SooConfused]

Thank you for your comments and yes, I definitely agree. I’m just trying to do my future self a favor by setting myself up the best way possible is all. I do not wish to put limits on myself before I have even started.

If you don't want limits then you don't want DO. Period.

Please take @Sidus1011's advice and seriously think about what you want before putting yourself in the position of maybe turning down a DO acceptance that you don't want. If you take multiple MD shots with no success, you can always apply DO in another cycle. That would also give you the opportunity to recalibrate your expectations, if necessary.

Far better to do that, after taking your MD shot and getting it out of your system if things don't work out, than being a miserable DO constantly asking yourself "What if?". Or, even worse, turning down a DO acceptance and lying about it when asked, and then possibly being blackballed from DO in the future.