LECOM callout on Reddit

[Lucca]

thought y'all might be interested in this

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[madiso30]

I read this earlier. Pretty horrible environment for medical education. I'm really happy I didnt go to my interview there.

 

[nooneyouknow]

Did anyone screenshot? It was deleted

 

[D.O.YourBest!]

Was this post in reference to a particular campus? Or was it speaking about LECOM collectively (Erie, Seton Hill, and Bradenton)?

 

[Isoval]

Any have the summary of what it said before it was deleted?

 

[allantois]

Still better than some of those overpriced schools in my book

 

[de Ribas]

"There's a school that needs no introduction. Far too often we hear complaints on forums about the uniform. The "atmosphere". The rules about food etc... When a first year reads these things he thinks to himself, that doesnt sound TOO bad. I think people should know what they are getting themselves into:

• Psych professor who plagiarizes exam questions from board materials and is retained by faculty
• A class of 200 1st years, 160+ got an F on a clinical exam written because the professor being asked to write questions isn't the same one that gave the lecture.
• Lack of transparency with exams. You can never view your exam afterwords. Your class curve is arbitrarily decided. Last semester the school decided to abruptly reduce the curve to drop average scores. They did so to manipulate the class average and force students into a position where they couldn't take boards without being forced into a "study program".
• The dean has called several students "idiots" for calling him out on his lies regarding our rotations
• There is no transparency when it comes to rotations. The school refuses to pay for rotation spots and this leads to an ever decreasing pool of spots available.
• Students were lied to about how to vote for spots and it led to many students being forced to leave the state for rotations unnecessarily.
• It is now March of 2nd year, and the 2nd year students have STILL not had information regarding rotations despite having to be forced into 3 mandatory lectures on residency in 3 years...
• Not only does the school not really offer financial aid, but they constantly ask students to participate in "raffles" or "competitions" which slush student loan money to the "winner" and they then call this "financial aid"
• Sadly, a loved professor takes his own life and LECOM higher ups threaten faculty to not speak about it to students, causing one of or admins to address it pre exam with the intro "I'll probably get fired for this but you deserve to know"..
• Exams are covered in typos, poorly worded questions and irrelevant material. Since we can't look back at the tests there is little we can do. Faculty instead asks us to leave comments in a comment box on our exams DURING a timed exam so that they can then look over the exam during summer and make some changes. They claim they have been doing this since the beginning and it used to be a lot worse. I don't see how that can be possible. -This school can afford to build another million dollar campus, place their name on a stadium, football jersey, commercials on airliners, yet they can't afford rotations. They can't afford parking, forcing schedules to constantly change in an attempt to fit medical/pharmacy/faculty/interviewees all into one building to save costs -That brings me to the scheduling issues. This school will change schedules w/o notifying students. They argue that they changed a calendar pdf on the portal and that we should be redownloading the calendar daily. -This occured last year and the school forced students to sit through a lecture on "professionalism" and how we need to start behaving like professionals -The school forces you to sit through multiple mandatory meetings that serve no value and usually are scheduled pre exams to reduce study time. They often make students close their laptops to make sure we aren't productive.
• The school takes random attendance during these mandatory meetings
• The school has programmed dates whereby they send an email telling you that the class is slacking, underperforming etc. as a way to psychologically manipulate students to overwork themselves. How do I know this? There are students who have repeated and have copies of these emails all with the same content and dates one year apart.
• We are given busy work constantly to waste our time. For example we have 3 fill in the blank exams a month before board exams on 2k+ concepts that we have to memorize and many of them are entirely irrelevant to boards. -Many of us, due to the scheduling, only have a day or two betweeen boards and beginning of rotations. Meaning we have 1-2 days to take boards, move out of state, and start rotations. This is insane.

I can go on indefinitely. But I think people should know what we are dealing with here."

Is this Carribean school?

 

[de Ribas]

No it's a DO school

I get it. It was more of a sarcastic question.

 

[DO2015CA]

The post also sounds like a 2nd year student during spring semester. I would take it with a grain of salt.

 

[MusicDOc124]

The post also sounds like a 2nd year student during spring semester. I would take it with a grain of salt.

I wouldn't take it with a grain of salt with regards to this school.

 

[Lucca]

Anyone know why it was deleted? I imagine school threatened the student

 

[MusicDOc124]

Anyone know why it was deleted? I imagine school threatened the student

I could see that being the reason, or the student being afraid of possible repercussions as the school does make threats and tolls through fb, reddit, etc.

 

[Isoval]

I could see that being the reason, or the student being afraid of possible repercussions as the school does make threats and tolls through fb, reddit, etc.

This is admittedly horrifying.

 

[WoundupKnight]

Here's the original thread: Removeddit

 

[D.O.YourBest!]

Was this post in reference to a particular campus? Or was it speaking about LECOM collectively (Erie, Seton Hill, and Bradenton)?

For those interested, I figured out the answer to my question. Apparently, the original post was written by a LECOM Bradenton student. The hyperlink posted above by @WoundupKnight also includes comments from other students, one in particular points out responses from a LECOM Erie student which are much less derogatory.

 

[sealullaby]

I was talking to a friend who goes there and was told that only like 20 people in their entire 160 something class passed one of their tests (I think it was the practical portion of their OMM lab) and when they complained, the school basically told them that they should have studied harder and it’s basically their fault.

 

[CJhooper123]

Not surprised by the LECOM-B post.

I got pretty bad vibes during my interview day. The closing presentation actually convinced me to withdraw my application.

Kind of funny - During my visit, I asked 3 different students how the rotation sites were set up. I got 3 different answers. It just seemed like no one really knew what was going on. Also, one of the presenters tried telling us that LECOM-B had the highest COMLEX-1 scores in the country over the past decade. I think they perform above average, but certainly not #1 every year.

 

[cw2013]

I mean if my only acceptance is SH you just gotta play the cards you're dealt sometimes.

 

[j4pac]

I went to LECOM-B many moons ago. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I'd say that I received a good education. It's biggest negative at the time was loose affiliations with clinical rotation sites. Some were definitely better than others...so I wouldn't say that the rotations were consistently great learning environments. But I was fortunate to get good clinical rotations. I had tons of friends at USF down the road, and I think we probably had a strong first two years, but a weaker second two years. Med students at USF complained about their programs, just like people complained at LECOM B.

We didn't have any major issues with faculty while I was around. Not everyone is coddling...which may actually be a good thing. Not sure if things have changed. There are expectations for you following the rules...and they are the price of admission. Very few will complain because they knew what they were buying...but some still will.

I really loved PBL, and honestly, I would have hated lecture based curriculum. Absolutely not for everyone though. While I was there, LECOM B was consistently ranked as one of the top DO programs in regards to COMLEX scores. I think that PBL does a good job of preparing for boards...so it wouldn't be surprising if they are still among the higher COMLEX scoring schools.

 

[CJhooper123]

Ehh based on what I recall from the ppt presentation they scored #1 like twice, but constantly scored in the top 3 the past 6 or so years for comlex. This is only for lecom-b tho.

I agree that LECOM-B performs well on COMLEX-1. They are consistently above average. It's just tough to put a number on where they rank - not all school's COMLEX data is readily accessible. We briefly discussed COMLEX-1 scores in the thread I posted below. I think TCOM had the highest scores in the country last year (which was not consistent with what the LECOM-B staff told us). I think CCOM was also up there, but can't confirm.
Top 5 DO schools

In general, I think LECOM (especially LECOM-B) gets a bad rep on SDN. Sure their rotation sites and administration probably suck, but they still perform well on COMLEX-1 at a relatively low tuition.

 

[UnoMas]

Not to defend the school and there are many aspects about this school that I hate, I could care less where you go to school to get your degree

These complaints are from a 2nd year during the weeks leading up to board, the premeds have no context to these complaints and I would take these with plenty of NaCl

• The dean has called several students "idiots" for calling him out on his lies regarding our rotations

Well, I give you this.

• There is no transparency when it comes to rotations. The school refuses to pay for rotation spots and this leads to an ever decreasing pool of spots available

The current 2nd and 3rd years have wayy more spots (with the addition of many good sites- UPMC East, UMPC Hamot etc.) than I had when I was in their shoes. This is pretty unfounded.

• Students were lied to about how to vote for spots and it led to many students being forced to leave the state for rotations unnecessarily.

This process is a **** show and I warn incoming students every year, it is 90% student-run tho, so you have yourself to blame.

• It is now March of 2nd year, and the 2nd year students have STILL not had information regarding rotations despite having to be forced into 3 mandatory lectures on residency in 3 years...

• Not only does the school not really offer financial aid, but they constantly ask students to participate in "raffles" or "competitions" which slush student loan money to the "winner" and they then call this "financial aid"

They have 500 students and it's one of the cheapest private school in the nation, I am not aware of any of these competitions. They only have 1 end-of-the-year auction where money raised will be used for student scholarships. This is exaggerated and untrue

• Sadly, a loved professor takes his own life and LECOM higher ups threaten faculty to not speak about it to students, causing one of or admins to address it pre exam with the intro "I'll probably get fired for this but you deserve to know"..

This is sad. Probably true

• Exams are covered in typos, poorly worded questions and irrelevant material. Since we can't look back at the tests there is little we can do. Faculty instead asks us to leave comments in a comment box on our exams DURING a timed exam so that they can then look over the exam during summer and make some changes. They claim they have been doing this since the beginning and it used to be a lot worse. I don't see how that can be possible. -This school can afford to build another million dollar campus, place their name on a stadium, football jersey, commercials on airliners, yet they can't afford rotations. They can't afford parking, forcing schedules to constantly change in an attempt to fit medical/pharmacy/faculty/interviewees all into one building to save costs -That brings me to the scheduling issues. This school will change schedules w/o notifying students. They argue that they changed a calendar pdf on the portal and that we should be redownloading the calendar daily. -This occured last year and the school forced students to sit through a lecture on "professionalism" and how we need to start behaving like professionals -The school forces you to sit through multiple mandatory meetings that serve no value and usually are scheduled pre exams to reduce study time. They often make students close their laptops to make sure we aren't productive.

They do take these comments into consideration. Questions were dropped, points added, exam re-scaled during my first 2 years. Re: Typos, poorly worded questions? Welcome to the ****show that is the COMLEX exams, if anything they are preparing you well for them. Re: irrelevant material? This is a widespread problem across all schools MD, DO. In addition, you are a 2nd year what do you know about which material is relevant or irrelevant?

• The school takes random attendance during these mandatory meetings

How else do you enforce mandatory attendance? If this person is a reddit veteran, he/she should know the random time-waste that is professionalism/IPE/wellness lecture is not specific to LECOM. If parking bothers you this much, boys I have bad news for you 3rd-4th years, some major major hospital systems at MD schools have students park their cars miles away and take shuttles in every morning.

• The school has programmed dates whereby they send an email telling you that the class is slacking, underperforming etc. as a way to psychologically manipulate students to overwork themselves. How do I know this? There are students who have repeated and have copies of these emails all with the same content and dates one year apart.

They have 500 students, I am not surprised if they have an email template for poorly performing students. I have never received these emails, neither many of my friends. Don't be a poorly performing student

• We are given busy work constantly to waste our time. For example we have 3 fill in the blank exams a month before board exams on 2k+ concepts that we have to memorize and many of them are entirely irrelevant to boards. -Many of us, due to the scheduling, only have a day or two betweeen boards and beginning of rotations. Meaning we have 1-2 days to take boards, move out of state, and start rotations. This is insane.

When I was a 2nd year, we had 2 fill in the blank exams- I believe one was Micro the other one was Pharm-one-liner. Probably the best thing they do for your board prep, probably as comprehensive or even more so than the stuff they cover in FirstAid. If you passed these 2 exams, you don't need much reviewing for them for the boards. Pharm and Micro were my 2 strongest subjects on both the COMLEX and the USMLE. Some of these random details scored me many brownie points during random pimp sessions during rotations. Again, as a 2nd year how do you which material is is relevant and which isn't? I give you that they could work the schedule out a little better but I think they do a good job nursing 500 students to pass the board exams.
They gave you the schedule way in advanced, you should have foreseen this. If it was such a time crunch, take a study-month or use your vacation.

Go with PBL or DSP if you go to LECOM. LPD is the crappiest pathway. Overall, they provide a good education and students do well on boards, clinical rotations and match into residency well. There are things that I hate about the school, these arent them.

 

[lessupsetSHstudent]

LECOM-B and LECOM-Erie/SH have among the highest 5 or 6 year (can't remember) running averages for COMLEX (I think Bradenton is a bit higher). LECOM is going to require its current first years to take the USMLE step 1 (a generally future-oriented, good thing).

As a student here, I absolutely agree that many of the policies do not serve the best interest of students. BUT the PBL/DSP pathways allow a lot of self-tailoring towards boards studying, and you often save 50-100k+ by attending this school. If you want to rotate at places with residents, you get to.

I tried to carefully weight the amount of bull**** that each program I was accepted to would send my way, and I am still glad I chose this program despite the absolutely preventable issues I deal with everyday.

 

[crazyboi1993]

I actually went to LECOM bradenton class of 2019, and thought it was the best decision for me. PBL just worked for me, I despise lectures. Yeah some things like dress code sucks, but your not on the campus a whole lot, just stay under the radar. I was able to get my first spot for rotations. Did decent on boards, had an excellent social life, and lived in florida. I don't know what else I'd want. I think medical school experience in general is gonna suck where ever you are, it really depends how you deal with it. Some people complain to much and others like me just make the best of it. You can only blame a school for so much. Maybe I got lucky? But I think its overall a good school.

 

[dochances94]

I cannot speak to the program in depth as I did not interview here, but I was a bit turned off by them. First, I was allowed to pick an interview date which ended up being moved like 3 days after I picked it. I understand stuff happens and plenty of schools do this so no biggie. Next, I get an email from then on a Friday like 2 weeks out from interview date asking me to re-confirm, which I've never been asked to do. Now I'm at work and end up viewing this email around 4 pm or so Friday afternoon, so I figure I'll confirm with them Monday morning since the office may be closed. Nope, come Monday first thing I receive a second email revoking my invite. There was no warning of this in the prior email, only that I should re-confirm immediately. I already have acceptances so I wasn't upset but it just came across a little unprofessional imo.