Life at NYCOM

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Hello everyone,

I was recently accepted to NYCOM and wanted to get a sense of what life is like there. What is a typical day like? How are the professors? Is the workload reasonable? Do students have a social life?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

PH

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I go to nycom, here's my take:

What is a typical day like

1st year- lots of lectures and labs; class from on average 9am-3pm, some days earlier and some later; You'll quickly find which classes you have to go to and which you can skip; Exams are about every 5 weeks, which makes your stress level and social life cyclical; Professors vary, some hold the audience well, others are dry, kinda like any school.

2nd year- less labs, more lectures, more clinically-relevant material; Exams have similar format; You get about 4-6 weeks off to study for the boards in late spring, which is great; Professors are mostly D.O.s and MDs who are in practice, most are decent.

3rd year- 6 rotations (6 weeks of peds, FP, OB/Gyn and Psych and 12 of Surgery and Medicine); Exams for each rotation given every 3 months; Schedule and hence social life is dependent on how intense your rotation is. You have to stay in the nycom system for all 3rd year rotations; There's some very good hospitals you can rotate through.

4th year- 10 rotations (one 6-week and nine 4-week)- Schedule again depends on rotation, stress involves Step II of the boards and aligning yourself for residency. You're done in late april, graduate in mid may, and start residency/internship on July 1st usually. You can go outside the nycom system for all but 1 rotation in fourth year, hence you can go anywhere in the country, or abroad.

Workload throughout is dependent on what class you're in or rotation you're on. At times you'll wonder why you did this and other times you'll have a decent amount of free time. Most people have healthy lives outside school. You'll form some of the best friends of your life in med school guaranteed. NYC is a half hour away for 1st/2nd year and many students live somewhere in the 5 boros for 3rd and 4th year.

hope this helps..
 
I go to nycom now...

I go labs mondays for OMM and wednesday for anatomy. Labs are important to go to. Lectures... you might go to all of them in the first block, but you will quickly learn that they arent all essential to your understanding and studying of medicine. I read the lecture handouts on my own in the libr. I study till 7-8pm then I drive home. Once i get home I eat dinner and go to sleep. ON fridays.... sometimes i study a little bit, but other times I just go hang out with friends after class. On saturday and sundays, I normally study for a good 5-6hrs and then I go out and play. Thats my schedule, but other people may vary.

It also depends on where you're coming from. I live in Brooklyn NY so I have a lot of friends from NYC, so theres always something for me to do. Other people from other places might find it different, but you should defnitely meet more people, especially peepz from the city. =)

NYC is fabulous...!!!!
 
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I recently been accepted to both NYCOM and UHS-COM. My interview at UHS-COM was great and the students and faculty were very courteous. Unfortunately, the interview at NYCOM was the opposite. I have a couple of days to decide on which school I will attend. Can anyone give me any reasons why I should choose NYCOM over UHS-COM.
Thanks,
Johnny
 
One important fact to consider is that, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe UHS sends their students all over the country for third and fourth year rotations, as clinical sites are somewhat limited in the midwest. This is one reason I didnt even apply to the schools out there, as I'm not thrilled with the idea of living out of a suitcase in a rundown hospital dorm for the greater part of 2 years. About 80% of NYCOM's rotations are in the metro NY area. I dont know anyone that had to move, unless they wanted to.

Sorry your nycom interview wasnt very courteous. People here are mostly pretty nice from my experience. PM me if you have specific questions or concerns...
 
I keep reading about how NYCOM does a good job at changing the program based on feedback from the students/instructors. I've also read that the class schedule is longer at NYCOM than most schools. Has the schedule changed for first year students? Thanks!

oceandocDO said:
I go to nycom, here's my take:
1st year- lots of lectures and labs; class from on average 9am-3pm, some days earlier and some later; You'll quickly find which classes you have to go to and which you can skip; Exams are about every 5 weeks, which makes your stress level and social life cyclical; Professors vary, some hold the audience well, others are dry, kinda like any school.

2nd year- less labs, more lectures, more clinically-relevant material; Exams have similar format; You get about 4-6 weeks off to study for the boards in late spring, which is great; Professors are mostly D.O.s and MDs who are in practice, most are decent.

3rd year- 6 rotations (6 weeks of peds, FP, OB/Gyn and Psych and 12 of Surgery and Medicine); Exams for each rotation given every 3 months; Schedule and hence social life is dependent on how intense your rotation is. You have to stay in the nycom system for all 3rd year rotations; There's some very good hospitals you can rotate through.

4th year- 10 rotations (one 6-week and nine 4-week)- Schedule again depends on rotation, stress involves Step II of the boards and aligning yourself for residency. You're done in late april, graduate in mid may, and start residency/internship on July 1st usually. You can go outside the nycom system for all but 1 rotation in fourth year, hence you can go anywhere in the country, or abroad.

Workload throughout is dependent on what class you're in or rotation you're on. At times you'll wonder why you did this and other times you'll have a decent amount of free time. Most people have healthy lives outside school. You'll form some of the best friends of your life in med school guaranteed. NYC is a half hour away for 1st/2nd year and many students live somewhere in the 5 boros for 3rd and 4th year.

hope this helps..
 
Also the NYCOM website states that in 2005 the curriculum will change. Anybody know what is planned?
 
NYCOM has cut down many hours from the previous years, and really most classes are optional... everything is streamed on-line the same day so you won't really need to go in if you don't want to. We also get pretty good notes from each professor so streaming is not all that necessary. As for the curriculum change NYCOM reviews its curriculum every year so it is nothing special that the curriculum is under review. Every year is different, but it seems to get better year after year or at least since 1998 when I first started tracking the changes around NYCOM. Let just say I wanted to go here for awhile before actually getting here.
One thing that you should look into is how anatomy done in UHS, I know some schools are getting rid of cadaver labs or using only prosections and such. It is important how much time and access you have to go to lab... things like OMM and Histology seem to go a lot easier when you know what your cutting into and where everything is, and how they feel. NYCOM I have heard has one of the best anatomy programs since lab is open everyday from 7 am to 2 am and each student has access to everyones bodies to see variations and such... it's probably hard to be a surgeon if you don't know that things come in different size and what "bad" things look like. Anatomy is also done in a clinical perspective here along with MRI, X-rays, CAT scans and such so it is not just dry memorization.
Rotations and Lab should be one of the most important deciding factors.
As for mean people in NYCOM, you'll find them anywhere you go and remember you'll be starting with a new group of people so they may be more cordial then the rest of us. Maybe it's the before and after med school picture :D From the amount of students from NYCOM perusing these boards trying to answer questions, I hope this gives you a better impression of the school.
 
The changes have been announced for the rest of the year, and rather abruptly. Now it will be 9am till 5pm, till 3pm in May. Everybody will have onde free day and half of free day. I am sure they are going continue with experiments. There are also some overlaps of the schedule which we are advised to compensate for by videostreaming or talking to instructors, so we are going selfstudy. Nobody told us before that change is coming, not we were asked about our 2 cents, not that it would matter during decisioon making process, but would have been polite at least. How it will be in the fall of 2005, one can only guess. Can't say why you had bad experience with students during their interview, usually they are OK.
I am not sure how it will help at making decision, but that is how it is today.
 
Dreamer,
Your right it would have been nice to know earlier... but there are two takes to this

1) Man we got Screwed
or...
2) Man these Adminstrators work fast to change the problem... THe second years had a dean hour complaining about how they were overwhelmed with the classes and did not have a much time to study for boards. The administrators really simply took the recommendations of second years so we would not be in that situation next year, I am rather appreciative of this action. I think it was much harder to change all the faculty and schedules around to ensure we had an extra month to study for boards next year than it was for them to say tough luck and keep the schedule. Besides the classes they added were easy classes, complementary med, Bioethics and policy, Biostats. I gotta say either way we would probably be one of the few med schools that go to class 4 days a week... and half a day of independent study either monday or Weds.

Remember the glass can be half full... HEE hEE... good luck with Genetics...
 
NYCOM sucks right now. They are making a lot of changes and the students are suffering. I would suggest not to go to NYCOM right now. If you get in anywhere else, go there. If you really want to go to NYCOM, you should wait a couple of years until it gets better.
 
med26 said:
NYCOM sucks right now. They are making a lot of changes and the students are suffering. I would suggest not to go to NYCOM right now. If you get in anywhere else, go there. If you really want to go to NYCOM, you should wait a couple of years until it gets better.


Could you be a little more specific besides "NYCOM sucks"? I will be there in the fall and I would appreciate if you could address specific issues. Is it really so bad so you recommend not attending, or are you just personally frustrated?
 
If you've already made up your mind and you're going to NYCOM, you don't need to think about it. You'll experience it when you get there. But there are many people that are frustrated with NYCOM. If you can teach yourself everything you need to know, then you won't have much of a problem. If you're expecting them to give you a good education, then you will be disappointed. NYCOM is like the Clippers in the NBA. They are there only to make money. They are changing the curriculum and the current students are getting screwed for it. It will get better in the coming classes, but the way they're running the school, it will take a few years to get better. They are very unorganized and inefficient. They take more students than they can handle. Some of the things they do is really funny actually. Don't expect much when you get there. If you have any specific questions, I will be happy to try to answer them.
 
med26 nailed it. Some additions though, do not expect that there are enough seats in library and study room, we are like 50% short, plus we are short of classroms so, if you are in a study room but they need it for the class everyone is kicked out of the study room (happened to my class during tests). If you can ignore that and administration's arrogancy you will be OK, if you cannot brace yourself and still come for med26 and I could be wrong or they get organized sooner rather than later
 
I, myself, get frustrated at times, because I feel that decisions are being made by the school and I'm not made aware of it... then I come and talk to Linda (our Student Affairs director) and she fills me in on what's going on and why things are being done differently, etc. and I feel a lot better.

Believe it or not, the school is not out to get us. I mean, they don't want you to fail - it doesn't make business sense! Based on the whole "they want your money" logic, wouldn't it only make sense that they make you stay for all 4 years? They want you to succeed, because they, too, can reap from the benefits later on, whether it is your monetary contributions as an alumni, your services as a mentor for their soon-to-be-mandated mentorship program, etc. Your future success in your field will be a reflection of the school, which then will help attract more students, more people will be enrolled, they make more money, and so on. They are making all these changes in our curriculum to make our second year a little bit more bearable, based on the meeting that the class of 2007 had with the Dean.

About the change in the curriculum, so what? They moved 4 light-weight classes to our 5th and 6th blocks because the first year is relatively easy compared to the second year. This allows us to have more time to focus on dense classes like Cardiology, etc., and this was in response to the feedback they received from the 2nd years' class meeting not too long ago. Instead of waiting to fix the schedule for the next class, they acted so quickly so WE don't have to suffer through the same situation. We are lucky to have a distinguished, well-respected administrator like Dean Ross-Lee. She knows what she's doing -- she's been doing this for YEARS. She might seem blunt at times, but maybe it is this attitude that gets things done around here so fast. Sometimes we think we know everything about how a school is to be run just because we've been here for one or two years, but in actually we have no idea on what really goes on.

Now, I'm not saying NYCOM is perfect. For example, we still have schedule glitches that are currently being worked on. The important thing is they're doing something about it. If you follow the schedule to the T, who cares if the lectures are behind schedule? You've done your part. Medical school is all about learning to take the initiative, learning on your own. Once you're a resident, do you think your attendings will assign you homework every night? I don't think so. If you want to be spoon-fed, go back to college.

Now, to those who are currently deciding on where to go for school, first off, make sure medicine is what you really want to do. I think all the frustrations boils down to how unhappy you are with your situation. Find out EVERYTHING about it before you go in -- whether it's lecture based or PBL, the clerkships, the location, the climate, the people, EVERYTHING, and whether the whole package will be conducive to your learning. Remember, your medical school experience is what you make of it. If you have any questions specifically about NYCOM, PM me.

Michele
 
I believe I said it at another thread, but will reiterrate it here, everything Michele said is right, but the biggest problem is disconnect between students and administration, which gives students, including myself, impression that the school is after us. As to schedule changes, yes the added classes are easy, probably, but their amount, five, and timing two/thirds in the year, without warning, plus certain schedule overlaps, plus changes in policy regarding exam taking, plus the style of presentation do not do much to diminish this feeling, although, I agree, the administration could have best intentions in mind
 
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