Wow thanks for the in depth answers digitlnoize. I am seriously considering deferring for a year because I feel a little burnt out right now and my undergrad school does not get out until mid June. That gives me a little over a month to prepare for essentially a marathon. Why would it hurt your residency app, it seems volunteer could never hurt, but maybe I am mistaken.
The two reserves I have with LECOM (and DO schools in general) is that I really really do not want to end up in family practice. I say this based on my shadowing experiences. I realize that many end up in things other than family practice, but I wonder how many wanted another fields but could only place in family practice. My other reserve is my parents, becuase everytime they look at the LECOM website they see a minimum of a 2.7 and then assume this is the average (go figure). Therefore, everytime I tell I am seriously considering it they get mad....this would not matter but they are paying for a good portion of my college and med school.
Sorry, I thought you meant deferring a year after you'd already started, like between 1st and 2nd year.
I wouldn't worry too much about ending up in FP. LECOM-B's match list is pretty slanted towards other specialties. EM, IM, and Anesthesia were our biggest matches, and most of the IM's will go on to subspecialize (something like only 10-15% of IM's stay in general IM). We had matches in Radiology, Ophtho, Ortho Surg, Gen Surg, and a bunch of other things. You won't see any Derm matches because they're all done PGY-2, a year after graduation.
The GPA listed on the website is WAY out of date, I'm sure. They haven't changed that thing in years. Also, keep in mind that DO school GPA's are occasionally misleading because of the higher number of non-trads.
I, for example, had a 3.8 science GPA. But, I had a 3.3 overall GPA because I had a year or so of non-science grades from 10 years ago that were bad because I stopped going to classes and didn't drop them. I sucked. Obviously I pulled my GPA up, alot, but it still sucked. Many other people are in similar boats. It does pull it down a bit.
I mean, I know you have to take your parents into account somewhat, but honestly, you should go to the school that is a) the CHEAPEST (this is probably the most important factor, really), b) will make you the best doctor, and c) is in a good location.
Grades, MCATs, Board Scores...these things do not make a person a good doctor, and shouldn't be much of a factor in your decision making.
Is LECOM-B cheaper than your other options?
Are you self-motivated, can you push yourself to read another 2 or 3 chapters even though you don't "have" to?
Do you want to live in Florida?
Do you want to learn OMM? This isn't a huge deal honestly, since most DO's don't bother with it, but it's still worth considering. I was pretty ambivalent about it coming in, but now I'm glad I've learned what I've learned, and I think it's certainly helped in certain ways. I treat my wife (and other family) occasionally, and I can see how it can make a difference, if you're doing that kind of work. Won't matter if you want to do Rads or Path.
What specialties ARE you considering? Keep in mind, though, that what's competitive today, may not be competitive tomorrow. That being said, currently, there aren't really any DO path residencies, and there aren't a ton of DO's in Path. You'd be a minority. Same for Plastic Surg, Derm, Rads (although this is changing quickly), Anesthesia, etc. Are you ok with being a minority?
Why NOT Family Practice? Money? Again, this might change drastically.
Do you want to do research? We have some, but not much.
Are you ok with doing community rotations? The upside is that it's just you and the attending. You get to do a LOT more, and I think you learn a lot more about real world medicine as well. You won't have to compete with the "academia" hierarchy (attending>chief>resident>intern>4th years>3rd years).
The downside is that you're in smaller hospitals so you won't see as many "Zebras" as you would in a University Center. You'll see tons of heart, kidney, liver, etc, but less of the rare diseases. Is that the kind of medicine you want to do? Or do you want to do the rare, crazy, "one-in-a-million" stuff.
A lot of this also has to do with where you do your residency, so the school you pick isn't the end of the road...but it's a start. I'm also not saying that you can't see this stuff at LECOM-B, we DO have rotations at some big hospitals, but most of them are back up north in the Penn. area.
Do you want to be near family? Is LECOM-B far away from them? Does that matter?
Just some questions you should think about. You don't have to answer me, per se, I'm just sayin'.
. They tried to take us to a room to eat lunch and ask them questions, only to find it locked, so we had to sit out in the hallway on the floor and eat our crappy pizza. Lame. My other MD interview had students walking around in Pajamas. Also, the buildings tend to be older (MUCH older, but not always) and thus are less nice.
