LECOM-Erie vs. TOURO(new york)

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H0pefulPreMEd

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Admitted at both schools (LDP at Erie), and having a tough time.😕

So I have thought about the pluses and minuses for each, but I was hoping for current students' insight on one big issue: rotations

Erie being a small town, the rotations are all in surrounding cities, whereas TOURO has them all in NYC and the hospitals are all urban and should show great case diversity but being such a young school, they said they are still working to expand them/make them better.

How important of a factor is this and is it hard to move around to different rotations if you're in Erie?

I was also wondering how important rotation quality/quantity is for both schools in terms of getting you to the specialty you want.

A BIG thanks in advance to any willing to share their views.
 
Well TouroCOM-NY definitely has some advantages if you want to see some more exotic diseases and have some easier shoe ins to rotate in various places electively. So let me try to point it out honestly ('selling' seems disingenuous, you need honest assessments).

Our 3rd year is a 10 month rotation with 2 open months (more on this later) to do early electives if you're so inclined. Its IMx2, Surgeryx2, Outpatient Family Medx2, Pediatrics, OBGYN, Psych, and Emergency Med. LECOM may do EM, but most schools don't, so its a potential advantage since EM is one of the field with a lot of DO presence in the ACGME world.

Our school send 35-40% of their students to Queens (St. John's Episcopal) and Staten Island (SI Univ Hospital). St. John's is a mid-size hospital and one of those places DOs love to rotate at (AOA residencies in FM, IM, Derm, Surgery and Ophthalmology and some ACGME residencies). Staten Island is a level I trauma center, so it sees every crazy disease out there because of it. It also has fellowships in oncology and cardiology. In both of these hospitals you spend 9 of your 10 months at the hospital (so youre mostly in the same place all year, which is nice).

About 50% of our students rotate at any number of our 6 hospitals in North Jersey. The Jersey track, right now, is pretty much a traveling rotation among a bunch of hospitals over there taking advantage of the strengths of each hospital. For note the hospitals are Holy Name, Palisades, Englewood, Christ Hospital in Jersey City, Trinitas, and Summit Medical Center. Palisades and Summit don't have residency, the rest all do (with the new batch of ones at Holy Name and Englewood being our schools first campus-specific OPTI, so some of our adjunct faculty staff the residency). Most people at these rotations end up with 2 or 3 hospitals. I've seen people have 4, and I've seen all at the same one hospital... but most people want to go here because, except for summit, they're all right on the hudson river and the students like the idea of hitting 2 or 3 different hospitals without having to move for any of them.

We also have 5-10% that go to Rockland County for Nyack Hospital or go WAY upstate to Binghamton or Utica. It should be noted that Nyack is part of our "core" spots (and is 30 minutes outside of the city, so its not a big deal), but IDK where they're going to put its spots next year... it's mixed in with Jersey this year. The Utica and Binghamton spots are *extras*. I just want to make that clear. 5 people went up there last year, 4 are going up there this year. But zero could go up and there would be no problem. People elect to go there, as they're all extra spots (they are notorious for handing out residencies to their rotating students, and that safety appeals to people).

Now onto what I think is the big intangible. We have students rotating in NYU and Columbia and Einstein (and NYCOM, mwuahaha) hospitals in their 3rd year. Obviously even more so in the 4th year when you're supposed to be doing all these electives; but thats where our 3rd year months off are in our favor: the local NYC schools (as far as I've heard) dont have 3rd year open months for electives, but their hospitals allow them to visiting students, which has worked out well for us. We have a surprisingly good relation with all of the NYC hospitals (dont know anything about Sinai and us though) and we've been able to rotate at their hospitals without too much trouble from the moment we're done with our cores. So a lot of people really love that 1) these NYC hospitals are letting us rotate in our months off decently reliably and 2) we can rotate at these hospitals locally, so doing a month at Bellevue probably wont require moving for a month since your cores are all in 30 minutes driving distance of it anyway
 
Thanks SO much for the detailed info! That is all I wanted to know and then some. It will help me make the right decision for sure.
 
Well TouroCOM-NY definitely has some advantages if you want to see some more exotic diseases and have some easier shoe ins to rotate in various places electively. So let me try to point it out honestly ('selling' seems disingenuous, you need honest assessments).

Our 3rd year is a 10 month rotation with 2 open months (more on this later) to do early electives if you're so inclined. Its IMx2, Surgeryx2, Outpatient Family Medx2, Pediatrics, OBGYN, Psych, and Emergency Med. LECOM may do EM, but most schools don't, so its a potential advantage since EM is one of the field with a lot of DO presence in the ACGME world.

Our school send 35-40% of their students to Queens (St. John's Episcopal) and Staten Island (SI Univ Hospital). St. John's is a mid-size hospital and one of those places DOs love to rotate at (AOA residencies in FM, IM, Derm, Surgery and Ophthalmology and some ACGME residencies). Staten Island is a level I trauma center, so it sees every crazy disease out there because of it. It also has fellowships in oncology and cardiology. In both of these hospitals you spend 9 of your 10 months at the hospital (so youre mostly in the same place all year, which is nice).

About 50% of our students rotate at any number of our 6 hospitals in North Jersey. The Jersey track, right now, is pretty much a traveling rotation among a bunch of hospitals over there taking advantage of the strengths of each hospital. For note the hospitals are Holy Name, Palisades, Englewood, Christ Hospital in Jersey City, Trinitas, and Summit Medical Center. Palisades and Summit don't have residency, the rest all do (with the new batch of ones at Holy Name and Englewood being our schools first campus-specific OPTI, so some of our adjunct faculty staff the residency). Most people at these rotations end up with 2 or 3 hospitals. I've seen people have 4, and I've seen all at the same one hospital... but most people want to go here because, except for summit, they're all right on the hudson river and the students like the idea of hitting 2 or 3 different hospitals without having to move for any of them.

We also have 5-10% that go to Rockland County for Nyack Hospital or go WAY upstate to Binghamton or Utica. It should be noted that Nyack is part of our "core" spots (and is 30 minutes outside of the city, so its not a big deal), but IDK where they're going to put its spots next year... it's mixed in with Jersey this year. The Utica and Binghamton spots are *extras*. I just want to make that clear. 5 people went up there last year, 4 are going up there this year. But zero could go up and there would be no problem. People elect to go there, as they're all extra spots (they are notorious for handing out residencies to their rotating students, and that safety appeals to people).

Now onto what I think is the big intangible. We have students rotating in NYU and Columbia and Einstein (and NYCOM, mwuahaha) hospitals in their 3rd year. Obviously even more so in the 4th year when you're supposed to be doing all these electives; but thats where our 3rd year months off are in our favor: the local NYC schools (as far as I've heard) dont have 3rd year open months for electives, but their hospitals allow them to visiting students, which has worked out well for us. We have a surprisingly good relation with all of the NYC hospitals (dont know anything about Sinai and us though) and we've been able to rotate at their hospitals without too much trouble from the moment we're done with our cores. So a lot of people really love that 1) these NYC hospitals are letting us rotate in our months off decently reliably and 2) we can rotate at these hospitals locally, so doing a month at Bellevue probably wont require moving for a month since your cores are all in 30 minutes driving distance of it anyway
Doc that was such a detailed and informative reply, thanks a lot!
 
how much is the tuition and fees up in touro-ny? I keep getting different numbers. Is it 32000 or 40000. I figured I should ask someone who's actually paying versus look at the different sources. Thanks for any reply.
 
DocEspanas post is what we need more of. Great detail and very informative.
 
how much is the tuition and fees up in touro-ny? I keep getting different numbers. Is it 32000 or 40000. I figured I should ask someone who's actually paying versus look at the different sources. Thanks for any reply.

It was $34,500 for 2010-2011
 
I have my boards on May 27th so I can't write a ton right now, but I will after:

I'm MSII at LECOM Erie and I love it
That said I think the program breakdown has a bit to do with my love...
I'm PBL at LECOM and there could really not be a better way to learn medicine (yes I am totally biased and I am convinced that I would have failed out of a lecture based program).

LECOM's main apeals:
(1) numerous learning pathways really catered to your learning style
-Problem based learning (PBL), Lecture (LDP), and Independent study (ISP)
(2) wide rotation net - LECOM lacks a specific affiliated hospital (other than Millcreek Community Hospital which LECOM owns). What does this mean for a prospective student? Our Cores can be all over the country (they must be with LECOM affiliated hospitals, but the list of affiliates is in the hundreds... remember, we have Bradenton and Seton Hill campuses as well)... we do have EM rotations as mandatories as well
(3) our anatomy and micro departments are stellar
(4) if you pay more than 10$ on a fri/sat night here in Erie, you overpaid
(5) while summer is short, it's also pretty sweet. Presque Isle is gorgeous (a bay on Lake Erie) and is a very popular spot for students to relax/study
(6) cheapest tuition (28 or 29k) with a low cost of living
many many more things, but thats a quick short list till I can find time to be more detailed. Not to be too big a cheerleader for my own program, I have heard EXCELLENT things about TouroCOM as well. Either school will be a great choice, so you need to choose where you will succeed.

GL with your decision!
 
(4) if you pay more than 10$ on a fri/sat night here in Erie, you overpaid

youwin_this_round.jpg


Don't actually mean to call you an ass, but that image was too funny to not use it. Definitely lost solely for the cost of a night out alone. No way to party cheap in NYC.
 
how much is the tuition and fees up in touro-ny? I keep getting different numbers. Is it 32000 or 40000. I figured I should ask someone who's actually paying versus look at the different sources. Thanks for any reply.

Class of 2015: tuition includes all fees = $39,000
 
HAHA no man, I cracked up!
I have a bunch of friends down in NYC and went to visit a few years back in December... Now I don't know if this is a regular thing, but they knew of places with dollar (or 2) drinks! Thirsty Turtle was one of em haha. Ill never forget it. Good times (I like to reminisce during board study. hahaha)
 
HAHA no man, I cracked up!
I have a bunch of friends down in NYC and went to visit a few years back in December... Now I don't know if this is a regular thing, but they knew of places with dollar (or 2) drinks! Thirsty Turtle was one of em haha. Ill never forget it. Good times (I like to reminisce during board study. hahaha)

hope one of them was rudy's. Place by me. $2 beers and free hot dogs.
 
I have my boards on May 27th so I can't write a ton right now, but I will after:

I'm MSII at LECOM Erie and I love it
That said I think the program breakdown has a bit to do with my love...
I'm PBL at LECOM and there could really not be a better way to learn medicine (yes I am totally biased and I am convinced that I would have failed out of a lecture based program).

LECOM's main apeals:
(1) numerous learning pathways really catered to your learning style
-Problem based learning (PBL), Lecture (LDP), and Independent study (ISP)
(2) wide rotation net - LECOM lacks a specific affiliated hospital (other than Millcreek Community Hospital which LECOM owns). What does this mean for a prospective student? Our Cores can be all over the country (they must be with LECOM affiliated hospitals, but the list of affiliates is in the hundreds... remember, we have Bradenton and Seton Hill campuses as well)... we do have EM rotations as mandatories as well
(3) our anatomy and micro departments are stellar
(4) if you pay more than 10$ on a fri/sat night here in Erie, you overpaid
(5) while summer is short, it's also pretty sweet. Presque Isle is gorgeous (a bay on Lake Erie) and is a very popular spot for students to relax/study
(6) cheapest tuition (28 or 29k) with a low cost of living
many many more things, but thats a quick short list till I can find time to be more detailed. Not to be too big a cheerleader for my own program, I have heard EXCELLENT things about TouroCOM as well. Either school will be a great choice, so you need to choose where you will succeed.

GL with your decision!

👍

These are many of the reasons I chose LECOM without reservation. The flexibility of ISP/LDP/PBL along with the opportunity to choose rotations from a wide variety helped me solidify my decision.

However, this seems to be a sticking point for some people. I prefer to handle the choices of pace and eventually rotations on my own; some people prefer to have them chosen for them. I feel there will be more stress in setting these things up on my own, but that I will have the opportunity to choose my own fate rather than have it handed to me. It's a decision that varies based on your personality.

Also, I've lived the last few years outside of DC and I'm ready for a smaller town now. Living in NYC would give me such anxiety! Ask me again in four years. I'll probably be on the other side of the fence, though!
 
Well TouroCOM-NY definitely has some advantages if you want to see some more exotic diseases and have some easier shoe ins to rotate in various places electively. So let me try to point it out honestly ('selling' seems disingenuous, you need honest assessments).

Our 3rd year is a 10 month rotation with 2 open months (more on this later) to do early electives if you're so inclined. Its IMx2, Surgeryx2, Outpatient Family Medx2, Pediatrics, OBGYN, Psych, and Emergency Med. LECOM may do EM, but most schools don't, so its a potential advantage since EM is one of the field with a lot of DO presence in the ACGME world.

Our school send 35-40% of their students to Queens (St. John's Episcopal) and Staten Island (SI Univ Hospital). St. John's is a mid-size hospital and one of those places DOs love to rotate at (AOA residencies in FM, IM, Derm, Surgery and Ophthalmology and some ACGME residencies). Staten Island is a level I trauma center, so it sees every crazy disease out there because of it. It also has fellowships in oncology and cardiology. In both of these hospitals you spend 9 of your 10 months at the hospital (so youre mostly in the same place all year, which is nice).

About 50% of our students rotate at any number of our 6 hospitals in North Jersey. The Jersey track, right now, is pretty much a traveling rotation among a bunch of hospitals over there taking advantage of the strengths of each hospital. For note the hospitals are Holy Name, Palisades, Englewood, Christ Hospital in Jersey City, Trinitas, and Summit Medical Center. Palisades and Summit don't have residency, the rest all do (with the new batch of ones at Holy Name and Englewood being our schools first campus-specific OPTI, so some of our adjunct faculty staff the residency). Most people at these rotations end up with 2 or 3 hospitals. I've seen people have 4, and I've seen all at the same one hospital... but most people want to go here because, except for summit, they're all right on the hudson river and the students like the idea of hitting 2 or 3 different hospitals without having to move for any of them.

We also have 5-10% that go to Rockland County for Nyack Hospital or go WAY upstate to Binghamton or Utica. It should be noted that Nyack is part of our "core" spots (and is 30 minutes outside of the city, so its not a big deal), but IDK where they're going to put its spots next year... it's mixed in with Jersey this year. The Utica and Binghamton spots are *extras*. I just want to make that clear. 5 people went up there last year, 4 are going up there this year. But zero could go up and there would be no problem. People elect to go there, as they're all extra spots (they are notorious for handing out residencies to their rotating students, and that safety appeals to people).

Now onto what I think is the big intangible. We have students rotating in NYU and Columbia and Einstein (and NYCOM, mwuahaha) hospitals in their 3rd year. Obviously even more so in the 4th year when you're supposed to be doing all these electives; but thats where our 3rd year months off are in our favor: the local NYC schools (as far as I've heard) dont have 3rd year open months for electives, but their hospitals allow them to visiting students, which has worked out well for us. We have a surprisingly good relation with all of the NYC hospitals (dont know anything about Sinai and us though) and we've been able to rotate at their hospitals without too much trouble from the moment we're done with our cores. So a lot of people really love that 1) these NYC hospitals are letting us rotate in our months off decently reliably and 2) we can rotate at these hospitals locally, so doing a month at Bellevue probably wont require moving for a month since your cores are all in 30 minutes driving distance of it anyway

This is EXACTLY the kind of stuff that they did not tell me during my interview and could not answer. Thus I chose a Western acceptance over a Touro-NY one. Had I known this kind of stuff, I might have chosen differently
 
This is EXACTLY the kind of stuff that they did not tell me during my interview and could not answer. Thus I chose a Western acceptance over a Touro-NY one. Had I known this kind of stuff, I might have chosen differently

The school is very afraid to say things it cant back 100% I'm not afraid to say things I can back 95-99%. They are very very afraid of litigation if they say something and it doesn't pan out after they dodged a bunch of frivilous lawsuit threats when they said they had Harlem Hospital (which they did) and then the offshore schools bough the hospitals out in 2008. Some students got pissed and since then the school is hesitant to say anything concrete about rotations lest someone else get pissed.

This is why well informed students are useful.

P.S. western is a great school. You will be totally fine.
 
The school is very afraid to say things it cant back 100% I'm not afraid to say things I can back 95-99%. They are very very afraid of litigation if they say something and it doesn't pan out after they dodged a bunch of frivilous lawsuit threats when they said they had Harlem Hospital (which they did) and then the offshore schools bough the hospitals out in 2008. Some students got pissed and since then the school is hesitant to say anything concrete about rotations lest someone else get pissed.

This is why well informed students are useful.

P.S. western is a great school. You will be totally fine.

Whoa lawsuits? Never mind, that makes sense now why they couldnt say anything was set in stone

Man those Caribbean schools really ****ed up NY and its med schools (not to open a can on this one)
 
Whoa lawsuits? Never mind, that makes sense now why they couldnt say anything was set in stone

Man those Caribbean schools really ****ed up NY and its med schools (not to open a can on this one)

nothing real came from them. But lots of pissed off (current) 4th and 3rd years. the 2nd and 1st years have no issues. Too many people feel entitled to things, my personal opinion on it. And because they felt entitled they felt that the school failed them by not being able to keep harlem hospital blah blah blah. They couldnt get past their own entitlement to realize this was an issue messing with all the med schools in NYC, not just us.

But as i said before, its all okay now. But a few people did get the school to be very careful about what they say. Its lame. But I'm here to lay stuff out (and be sarcastic. I'm good at that)
 
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