LMU-DCOM heightened monitoring

[Black Coffee 24/7]

A bunch (6-7) of alum posted on the schools Facebook announcement stating it was selfish of the school to open another campus so close. Apparently the school is known for its inability (or just not wanting to) start GME programs. To date LMU-DCOM has not started a GME program that we are aware of. I think they have something to do with one rural Im fm program somewhere in Virginia but they didn’t start it. All this is fine and well BUT the part that salted a bunch of current students is that the school literally HAD ALL OF THE COMMENTS DELETED from the post. The comments were true so it makes one wonder how they got FB to delete them. As far as I know FB is pretty legit when it comes to reviews but maybe DCOM paid some $$$$ to them?

As I said before the school may not have godawful instruction but it will go into the debts of unethical ness to make a buck and protect its reputation.

A couple other alum also stated the school really needs to funnel money to GME and they said it in a professional way that FB should not be deleting stuff for.

It might sound nit picky but it’s sorta a big deal when a school hushes alumni. I’m not one to throw punches but censorship is a big no no

I personally will delete my fb book after match day. I barely use that trash anymore.

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[ThrowawayDO2288]

The truth probably lies somewhere in between mehd school and the throwaway bros.

Honestly the quality of instruction is impossible to predict focally for the CO 2023 and beyond but one can make an educated guess based off of the following criteria.
1. we have lost a lot of instructors since I have been here (third year) and many more prior to this.
2. DCOM does not care to retain talented teaching. The most common scenario is a good instructor gets a nice offer somewhere else and DCOM fails to match this, leaving us with lower quality instruction (you know since the not so greats do not have as many options)
3. Overall, the basic sciences where pretty decent. I enjoyed anatomy, biochem, histo, micro, physio (mostly), pharm, neuroanatomy.

Immunology sucked (but they have a new teacher who seems also MEH).
We lost our histo teacher I have no idea of the current ones quality somebody else needs to chime in
Physio has several new instructors, but overall it was not too terrible. But most are NEW so you honestly can't tell until you sit thru the lectures.
Micro was good, he's still there, biochem was strong, it has changed up a little... anatomy was good, a few have changed out but for some reason anatomy is DCOMs strong point (I guess bc they have a PHD in anatomy and masters in anatomy...)
OMM= new instructor for the main one... no idea now.
Pharm= good, same people

The clinical sciences is where the curriculum falls apart. Most of the clinical instructors are just not good. Their info is outdated, does not align with the pathologists/pharmacologists. Most of the clinical lectures (with some exceptions) were terrible and left holes in what we need to know for third year (but you have plenty of time to fill those gaps). Our patient care/physical exam class is awful and set up TERRIBLY, same person running it sadly. It is literally the mightiest of time sucks with little ROI.

whoever makes the schedule at DCOM is not good, our spring schedule (prior to boards) was full of time wasting stuff that barely let us get thru what we needed for boards since we had to be on campus all the time for junk. We had a full 3 weeks of dedicated. I did not even have UWORLD done by comlex lol (I feel i am a slow reader) Luckily I took usmle 4 weeks after comlex which allowed me to get some more love time with uworld and it paid off. (270+)

.

I'll comment on this as i can give a updated commentary:

Immunology- taught buy a phd fresh out of grad school never having taught at the med school level before. long story short the only immunology i know, i have learned it tangentally from pathology and other organ systems. The professor is nice/friendly though and seems to be open to change and suggestions from her students. C but i think she will grow into an incredibly good professor (Then get snatched by another DO school)

Histo- it is taught by a variety of professors who do a fairly good job introducing you to how to read the slides and get a general understanding of what you're looking at. my only complaint is that it is given too much time in the curriculum for the current first years with multiple lectures, TBLs, and 2 labs per week. B+

Physio- God awful. the professors who taught us literally phoned it in the entire semester. A good portion of the class (including myself) went into the final needing to pass the exam to pass the class. They intentionally made their powerpoints bare bones, so your only option to study and pass their exams was to memorize their 150+ pages of pdfs and sift through literally pages of low yeild info for every 2 week block exam. If that doesnt work for you, prepare to struggle. the 2 new guys who taught GI phys and repro phys were okay. One of the older phys professors had a major health issue and is no longer on the schedule for physio after this semester. D-

Micro- amazing, keeps your attention and only tests/lectures on board relevant material. you could study exclusively with sketchy micro and make A's on his tests. A+

Biochem- solid, they teach what you need to know for boards and any extra info is FYI. It is more or less in line with 99% of board review material. the only complaint i heard from my class was that the tests were hard, but that was our first exposure to real medical school science so its probably a little biased. B+

Anatomy- amazing. the professors teach strictly board relevant anatomy and often correlate it to clinical scenarios. The professors are compassionate and want to see their students succeed. I can name two off the top of my head who would meet with borderline and students after hours and skip lunch to go over the high yield points and ensure they have it down. Also never did i feel that the lab exam tags were unfair or unclear. A

OMM- it was okay first year, now its borderline. we lost our best professor to ARCOM, the man was amazing and could make even the most backwards OMM concepts make sense.The replacement is lackluster, but new (like ~10 years out of med school new) so i wont be too harsh. The best part of this class is the building rivalry between the two older professors who constantly argue and bicker with each other in class on technique and treatment. C-

Pharm- Pharm is solid. My only complaint is that the two main professors make it too clear what is high yield for their exams and as a result many students triage pharm as you only need to memorize a few bullet points to get all the pharm questions right when they teach. I know there are obvious deficits in my pharm knowledge of certain topics because of this and many others feel this way as well. The other two professors are less popular but they do satisfactorily cover all of the material. my classmates would lynch me for this but i prefer them. B-

clinical courses- its changing, and continues to do so as they fine tune the curriculum. Personally i feel like the lecture portion is completely unnecessary. at best it should be a lab only course where they teach you how to do physical exams and make a history. In its current state along with OMM it is a huge time sink for second years. The lecture stuff for the clinical course is basically brute memorize the symptoms and exam findings of 20-40 non-board relevant diseases then purge it onto the test for a passing grade, rinse and repeat 3x per semester. We have an lecture exam in this course and OMM monday, and another exam on cardio, respiratory, and renal the following monday. as a result many of us have spent the past week studying for 5 courses and its been really unproductive in my opinion. B

schedule- it is by far the worst part about this school. Most of it is nonsensical and even the professors when asked cannot explain why it is made this way since they frequently have to move lectures in advance because it conflicts with their own clinical or personal schedules. The theory held by many of us is that they make the schedule intentionally sub optimal and inconvenient for students to create a time crunch every block exam and artificially increase the difficulty of the material so you are always triaging lectures. Example of a typical friday before a test: 8-10 am TBL, 10-11 empty, 11-12 lecture, 1-5 mandatory lab or another TBL. This happens exclusively before big tests too. F--

 

[ThrowawayDO2288]

LMU is a very profitty non profit.

yes. From my knowledge its an unspoken fact that our school is literally funding LMU's many professional programs including the undergraduate program. It is to my understanding that part of the reason why faculty quality, education quality, and even facilities have began to suffer at DCOM is because our tuition is being funded into remodeling the LMU main campus, opening up PA, DVM, NP, OT, and Dentistry schools as well as building multiple new buildings.

Well the OT and Dentistry schools are in the works but you get the idea. I hope this changes now that students are starting to get fed up with it. I believe our school could do much better if some more resources were poured back into DCOM instead of being funneled into the PA program or remodeling the main campus for all 6 undergraduate students that go to LMU.

 

[ThrowawayDO2288]

I'm a current fourth year in the midst of applications. I'd love to clear some things up. I've been lucky enough to receive a significant amount of interview invites in my respective field and feel that the DCOM name hasn't hurt me (BUT being a DO 100% hurts you regardless of your crap school). Overall, I didn't think DCOM was a bad place. People seriously overblow the "first two years being awful". Some lecturers are worse than others, but I felt that the minutiae was really at a minimum. If you think you're having a lot of minutiae right now, wait until to take Step 1 to shed your tears when you get to all the information not covered in FA. When I got to our "dedicated" time, there was not much that I was encountering in FA and UWorld that I had not seen before by using standard resources of lectures and FA, Pathoma, Sketchy, etc. Almost everything felt like review to me. Since it's not a research powerhouse, there's was almost no issues with PhD inserting useless facts into their PowerPoints.

The reality is that DCOM takes too many students. It's an undesirable place to live, so they get lower tier applicants (among very high tier applicants that just want to stay in the area). Subsequently, people do very poorly. This is partially only the fault of DCOM, but realistically, there's A LOT of lazy students here. People that barely study and wonder why they fail exams or boards. People constantly taking vacations, etc. They expect to be spoon fed everything and to minimally study. But that's not how it works anywhere.





One of the big true downsides. The administration is completely inept when it comes to dedicated time. They tell you 5-6 weeks, but really it's about 2-3. They just cut out the three main organ block classes, then you have three weeks of the random low yield filler classes that are extremely poorly taught. They then stop those for 2-3 weeks where you theoretically should have nothing, but they for some unknown reason think it's a great idea to add PALS/ACLS, random OSCEs/clinical skills into your dedicated time. Our class went to war with our clueless admins and we were able to push our boards requirement date back, but they moved it right back for the last class.

From a rotation standpoint, UT wants nothing to do with DCOM students as well.
.

Boards- I cant comment on this because i have yet to begin studying for boards, I plan to start when the fall semester ends as currently we are covering cardio, renal, and respiratory which are pretty vital organ systems to have down. So if i learn them well now, it will be easier in dedicated. I do use the typical FA/sketchy/pathoma/Boards and beyond/USMLE Rx combo for classes and it works well for second year. I am not gunning for any "prestigious" residencies like surgery or anything. Just a decent IM residency where i can have the opportunity to do a fellowship if i decide to do so.

Maybe I wasnt clear, but for the most part there isnt a lot of minutia (at least in second year), but there is a lot of high yield info that gets skipped in favor of other topics. For example, on our final MSK exam this semester we had a 5 hour lecture series on "pain management and opioid abuse" that was full of useless material just so the professor could do an AOA photo op. It was info that was useless to 2nd year medical students and more akin to something you would see at a physicians conference. Like weird factoids on back pain and statistics on Opioid abuse, demographics stuff.

Student amount and quality- This I actually agree with. I had acceptances at multiple other schools and chose to go here because of the proximity to my home town. There are weekends before tests when I will see facebook posts by classmates at the beach or out of the state. I also know multiple students who only study the week before the test and cram vs. studying every day and putting the time in to learn the material. It is also common for the slacker students to just not even watch/attend certain lectures before an exam. They pass, but just from their study habits i know boards will wreck them. It's sad but they know what they are doing. You cant cram for comlex or Step. Also, from speaking to people it seems to be a very common occurrence (at least in my class) to remediate at least one course. I am unsure if this is due to teaching quality or student laziness but i personally know multiple people who have remediated courses.

Scheduling- my biggest gripe since day 1 of first year. Who ever makes our schedule is totally inept and uses zero logic when planning out lecture schedules. Many of us were convinced it's just a computer program but it was confirmed to me by faculty that they actually pay someone to create this mess. As for the dedicated schedule, it seems to have gotten a little better for spring semester. they confirmed that PALS was removed completely and ACLS was moved back to fall semester. The ECR course was also removed and its aspects were incorporated into the second year clinical curriculum. Our true dedicated starts mid april and continues until late July. We still have the "time wasting" events, however it is mostly "one and done" events like Skill labs and OSCEs. I dont know about my classmates but the extra uninterrupted time will certainly help me.currently we are looking at 5 weeks during the semester of "dedicated" then we have until the end of july to take Comlex 1

care to discuss the UT comment as well? like you cant even do a 4th year rotation there? From what i have seen they take DCOM students nearly every year for residencies, has something changed? I'm not interested in knoxville sites but i know people who are and they think their IM electives will be at UT hospitals.

 

[LABrondo]

As for Facebook posts/comments—if you are admin of a page you can delete any and all comments on posts. No extra $$ paid to anyone to delete them. As for not seeing them, Facebook changed its system over a year ago where only a small % of people who like a page/follow a page will even see the notifications for it. They want people running pages to use Facebook advertising to have their posts seen so since lmu didn’t want to do that no one saw the post announcements really. Not in their feed anyway


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[DrWhozits]

Boards- I cant comment on this because i have yet to begin studying for boards, I plan to start when the fall semester ends as currently we are covering cardio, renal, and respiratory which are pretty vital organ systems to have down. So if i learn them well now, it will be easier in dedicated. I do use the typical FA/sketchy/pathoma/Boards and beyond/USMLE Rx combo for classes and it works well for second year. I am not gunning for any "prestigious" residencies like surgery or anything. Just a decent IM residency where i can have the opportunity to do a fellowship if i decide to do so.

Maybe I wasnt clear, but for the most part there isnt a lot of minutia (at least in second year), but there is a lot of high yield info that gets skipped in favor of other topics. For example, on our final MSK exam this semester we had a 5 hour lecture series on "pain management and opioid abuse" that was full of useless material just so the professor could do an AOA photo op. It was info that was useless to 2nd year medical students and more akin to something you would see at a physicians conference. Like weird factoids on back pain and statistics on Opioid abuse, demographics stuff.

Student amount and quality- This I actually agree with. I had acceptances at multiple other schools and chose to go here because of the proximity to my home town. There are weekends before tests when I will see facebook posts by classmates at the beach or out of the state. I also know multiple students who only study the week before the test and cram vs. studying every day and putting the time in to learn the material. It is also common for the slacker students to just not even watch/attend certain lectures before an exam. They pass, but just from their study habits i know boards will wreck them. It's sad but they know what they are doing. You cant cram for comlex or Step. Also, from speaking to people it seems to be a very common occurrence (at least in my class) to remediate at least one course. I am unsure if this is due to teaching quality or student laziness but i personally know multiple people who have remediated courses.

Scheduling- my biggest gripe since day 1 of first year. Who ever makes our schedule is totally inept and uses zero logic when planning out lecture schedules. Many of us were convinced it's just a computer program but it was confirmed to me by faculty that they actually pay someone to create this mess. As for the dedicated schedule, it seems to have gotten a little better for spring semester. they confirmed that PALS was removed completely and ACLS was moved back to fall semester. The ECR course was also removed and its aspects were incorporated into the second year clinical curriculum. Our true dedicated starts mid april and continues until late July. We still have the "time wasting" events, however it is mostly "one and done" events like Skill labs and OSCEs. I dont know about my classmates but the extra uninterrupted time will certainly help me.currently we are looking at 5 weeks during the semester of "dedicated" then we have until the end of july to take Comlex 1

care to discuss the UT comment as well? like you cant even do a 4th year rotation there? From what i have seen they take DCOM students nearly every year for residencies, has something changed? I'm not interested in knoxville sites but i know people who are and they think their IM electives will be at UT hospitals.

UT-Knoxville will not take students for 3rd year rotations, which is pretty customary for MD schools. Away rotations like that usually have to happen in 4th year or at least after cores are finished.

UT as a system is really open to LMU grads overall, more specifically UT-Memphis, which is the main medical campus. Doing your core rotations in Memphis makes things incredibly easy if you’d like a spot there for residency.

 

[fiznat]

I'm a graduate from 2015. Interesting to see how some things have changed and other things haven't. I can tell you that even "back then," we all had concerns about the quality of the clinical sites. I thankfully ended up at one of the better places but still my experiences were highly variable. I think the DCOM experience - in particular the clinical experience - left a lot to be desired. I had zero DCOM mentors of any consequence, no training that mimicked the residency environment, and no guidance to achieve my specific goals ("large, recognizable ACGME academic residency program in a coastal city"). Admittedly nobody at DCOM would claim this to be a specialty of theirs, but nonetheless I felt very much like I was striking out on my own.

In the end it turned out to be as everyone says it does. Working hard during the first 2 years got me a decent step 1 score, which ultimately translated into what I think was a pretty good academic ACGME residency position. Once I got to residency I was just another intern/resident, and nobody asked me about DCOM (or being a DO) ever again - nor did it matter. I'm doing a year as chief right now and applying to a competitive field for fellowship, my interviews have been great and I'm really happy about what prospects lay ahead. I say this knowing that I am an outlier, but in the end it's possible to succeed even given all DCOMs weaknesses. They give you the fundamentals you need to move forward, and what you do with those resources - even if they are perhaps more limited than some other schools - is up to you.

 

[throwaway90210]

yes the clinical instructors at DCOM are terrible mostly.


not sure how they graduated they cant even get which drugs to use for a preg w HTN straight.

 

[VeryVesalius]

CORRUPT SCHOOL. DO NOT ATTEND HERE. SEE DOTHROWAWAY2288 COMMENT ABOVE.

 

[Goro]

CORRUPT SCHOOL. DO NOT ATTEND HERE IF POSSIBLE.

Can you clarify? PM me if needed.

 

[Cheeni17]

Please elaborate. I remmeber I went here for interview like five or so years ago and turned it down bc the students said it was a joke and the professors sucked. At least the tuition isn’t uhm midwestern level. Please do tell us though I keep a mental file of why most DO schools are lead by *****s

 

[Wjldenver]

As an FYI, LMU refused to provide board score performance data to US News for their latest Med School Rankings Guide. So much for transparency.

 

[Cryc_to_the_point]

Since we're pouring it on, below a certain COMSAE score, they required a month long Kaplan course be attended before taking another COMSAE and being cleared for COMLEX. Several faculty were against this, but upper management pushed this through instead. Almost all of us would rather being using UFAP resources to test and improve ourselves, instead we were stuck in 8hrs a day of unproven and overly slow "review."

I think the faculty and our Dean(s) mean well, I really do, but sometimes it becomes rather apparent that they don't really have the right educational priorities for us to do well on boards here.

 

[DrWhozits]

I’m not saying that DCOM is fantastic, nor that everything is run competently.

However, I would like to point out that the majority of the complaints listed here are things I’ve heard about nearly every DO school. I would also be wary of out of nowhere posts from throwaway counts during the wait list time of year.

DCOM isn’t the best school you could go to. But if you are accepted there and you work hard, you will be absolutely fine. It, like most places, is what you make of it.

Harrogate sucks though.

 

[TrashCanMan]

I’m not saying that DCOM is fantastic, nor that everything is run competently.

However, I would like to point out that the majority of the complaints listed here are things I’ve heard about nearly every DO school. I would also be wary of out of nowhere posts from throwaway counts during the wait list time of year.

DCOM isn’t the best school you could go to. But if you are accepted there and you work hard, you will be absolutely fine. It, like most places, is what you make of it.

Harrogate sucks though.

Yeah it's not that bad to be honest. Probably just had our best match list we've had as well. Pre clinicals essentially followed first aid. When I did step one nothing was new to me in uworld for the most part. Like half and half on good vs poor quality clerkship sites. I can't speak to the Kaplan thing. We didn't have that. I do agree they don't have a clue when it comes to dedicated and scheduling although it sounds like 2nd years right now get more time than they have ever given for dedicated. Used to be 3 weeks, now it's like 8-10 at least. Problem is the location is very undesirable so a ton of weak and lazy students fall into a spot and fail / do poorly and need a vector for their blame.

 

[futurebostondoc227]

Is the match list up anywhere?

 

[DrWhozits]

Is the match list up anywhere?

Someone posted a picture of it in the Match List thread in one of the last few pages.

 

[throwaway90210]

they are giving us a lot more time this season for boards compared to last class but our rotation site keep getting worse. we lost several coveted spots and picked up some crap spots in BFE at tiny hospitals. the school also CANNOT get enough faculty to teach at the knox campus and literally they are just streaming lectures from Hgate to knox. so essentially same amount of faculty for 400 students almost. Talk about a money making machine with no respect for students. Admin here doesn't give a f about you and as long as you know that and are OK with sucky rotations then DCOM isn't that terrible curriculum wise, besides our clinical faculty who but a few are probably a few brain cells short of a snail. Plus one of the clinical faculty are getting sued for malpractice by one of the students lmao. cannot go into details as per TOS. our student doctoring class sucks so bad the class ahead of me currently has an 80% PE pass rate. THREE times the national fail rate is hard to pin on students when our admission stats aren't that much below average.

 

[throwaway90210]

Yeah it's not that bad to be honest. Probably just had our best match list we've had as well. Pre clinicals essentially followed first aid. When I did step one nothing was new to me in uworld for the most part. Like half and half on good vs poor quality clerkship sites. I can't speak to the Kaplan thing. We didn't have that. I do agree they don't have a clue when it comes to dedicated and scheduling although it sounds like 2nd years right now get more time than they have ever given for dedicated. Used to be 3 weeks, now it's like 8-10 at least. Problem is the location is very undesirable so a ton of weak and lazy students fall into a spot and fail / do poorly and need a vector for their blame.

I agree they covered most everything and not much in uworld is new but dang our EPC class is a joke and so time consuming suck

 

[Goro]

we lost several coveted spots and picked up some crap spots in BFE at tiny hospitals. the school also CANNOT get enough faculty to teach at the knox campus and literally they are just streaming lectures from Hgate to knox. so essentially same amount of faculty for 400 students almost.

this sure smells of an accreditation violation. Complain to COCA.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Since we're pouring it on, below a certain COMSAE score, they required a month long Kaplan course be attended before taking another COMSAE and being cleared for COMLEX. Several faculty were against this, but upper management pushed this through instead. Almost all of us would rather being using UFAP resources to test and improve ourselves, instead we were stuck in 8hrs a day of unproven and overly slow "review."

My school did this as well. I think schools do this because they really only care about pass rates. They don't care if you meet your potential and get a 680, they only care that you broke that 400 passing threshold.

 

[throwaway90210]

this sure smells of an accreditation violation. Complain to COCA.

we should even the oms 1 schedule on site shows they are streamed with barely any new faculty except for labs.

 

[Cryc_to_the_point]

My school did this as well. I think schools do this because they really only care about pass rates. They don't care if you meet your potential and get a 680, they only care that you broke that 400 passing threshold.

The second I have my diploma in hand I will be laying heat on them via any platform available.

 

[Neopolymath]

My school did this as well. I think schools do this because they really only care about pass rates. They don't care if you meet your potential and get a 680, they only care that you broke that 400 passing threshold.

This is my biggest beef: enacting policies to the detriment of the better students to help the worst students. They do not have to do this. There are ways to help those who need it without screwing with everyone else doing okay. It's insane. I know the school and the average student do not share goals, but at this point, it's absurd.

 

[Cryc_to_the_point]

I'd argue this doesn't help the worst students either.

 

[throwaway90210]

I think the school put that requirement in because people always underestimate how lazy some of our classmates are. Glad I dodged that bullet though. Every year there are *****s who choose to go on vacation before boards or do whatever and end up failing because of that. DCOM blows but it doesn't blow as hard as the laziest people in the class.

 

[Neopolymath]

I think the school put that requirement in because people always underestimate how lazy some of our classmates are. Glad I dodged that bullet though. Every year there are *****s who choose to go on vacation before boards or do whatever and end up failing because of that. DCOM blows but it doesn't blow as hard as the laziest people in the class.

I found this true as well.

 

[Cryc_to_the_point]

I understand the intent but I don't think that's a coherent argument for robbing us of a month's study time. Anyone too lazy to put the work in wasnt saved by that waste of time.

 

[throwaway90210]

I understand the intent but I don't think that's a coherent argument for robbing us of a month's study time. Anyone too lazy to put the work in wasnt saved by that waste of time.

i take it that it was of EPC quality?

 

[Cryc_to_the_point]

Mixed. Immuno and micro were good. The rest, including neuro, was a waste of time.

 

[ThrowawayDO2288]

As an FYI, LMU refused to provide board score performance data to US News for their latest Med School Rankings Guide. So much for transparency.

The also openly lied to my class (now 3rd years) about our board averages and how it was "nothing to worry about" during the first dean's hour of last semester of second year. Basically they got asked multiple times what our board score average was and they repeatedly skirted the question. Then around the 5th disgruntled questioning of what our averages are, they said " Fine, its 500, which is 20 points below the national average". Which was correct, however they neglected to mention that in the previous year's match for DO students, the average comlex 1 score that matched was 540. you do the math.

Yeah it's not that bad to be honest. Probably just had our best match list we've had as well. Pre clinicals essentially followed first aid. When I did step one nothing was new to me in uworld for the most part. Like half and half on good vs poor quality clerkship sites. I can't speak to the Kaplan thing. We didn't have that. I do agree they don't have a clue when it comes to dedicated and scheduling although it sounds like 2nd years right now get more time than they have ever given for dedicated. Used to be 3 weeks, now it's like 8-10 at least. Problem is the location is very undesirable so a ton of weak and lazy students fall into a spot and fail / do poorly and need a vector for their blame.

In all honesty, the statement that they follow First Aid closely is false. Currently 2 weeks out from Step 1/Comlex 1 and there has been a lot i have had to relearn and/or review because they were taught poorly or just completely neglected during classes in favor of lower yield concepts. and yes we get more study time than ever before but from what i understand, over half our class scored <400 on Comsae 103 and had to lose a month of dedicated to the Kaplan Review class which was apparently really bad and disorganized.

they are giving us a lot more time this season for boards compared to last class but our rotation site keep getting worse. we lost several coveted spots and picked up some crap spots in BFE at tiny hospitals. the school also CANNOT get enough faculty to teach at the knox campus and literally they are just streaming lectures from Hgate to knox. so essentially same amount of faculty for 400 students almost. Talk about a money making machine with no respect for students. Admin here doesn't give a f about you and as long as you know that and are OK with sucky rotations then DCOM isn't that terrible curriculum wise, besides our clinical faculty who but a few are probably a few brain cells short of a snail. Plus one of the clinical faculty are getting sued for malpractice by one of the students lmao. cannot go into details as per TOS. our student doctoring class sucks so bad the class ahead of me currently has an 80% PE pass rate. THREE times the national fail rate is hard to pin on students when our admission stats aren't that much below average.

I can confirm most of this, i honestly felt like i got a lot out of our Essentials of Patient Care course but to each their own. They are unable/unwilling to hire faculty to staff both campuses so EPC and OPP professors are being forced to commute 2x per week for labs and most lectures will be streamed to the knox campus. My class was actually used as a guinea pig to test the streaming as a good portion of last semester's systems were streamed by "guest lecturers" off campus. Also the comment on tiny rural BFE hospitals is correct. my class lost maybe 2-3 mid sized community hospitals and replaced them with tiny community hospitals in rural kentucky, some where we share sites with Caribbean students (admin tried to paint this as a plus lmao).

This is my biggest beef: enacting policies to the detriment of the better students to help the worst students. They do not have to do this. There are ways to help those who need it without screwing with everyone else doing okay. It's insane. I know the school and the average student do not share goals, but at this point, it's absurd.

yes it is, and i know for a fact that some of the students who scored in the low 300s on the comsae literally dont plan on delaying boards until november and taking the summer off.

Mixed. Immuno and micro were good. The rest, including neuro, was a waste of time.

I didnt attend the course, but it would have been better if they actually taught us immuno the first time around instead of cramming the entire course into 2.5 weeks taught by a freshly minted PhD with no prior experience teaching at the medical level.

 

[MoLarryKerlyBLine]

The also openly lied to my class (now 3rd years) about our board averages and how it was "nothing to worry about" during the first dean's hour of last semester of second year. Basically they got asked multiple times what our board score average was and they repeatedly skirted the question. Then around the 5th disgruntled questioning of what our averages are, they said " Fine, its 500, which is 20 points below the national average". Which was correct, however they neglected to mention that in the previous year's match for DO students, the average comlex 1 score that matched was 540. you do the math.

I despise the school and the way they operate, but it's important to understand the charting outcomes data. If the average COMLEX for matched applicants is a 540, and the DCOM average is 500, that is NOT saying that the students will not match. If the MEDIAN score for matched applicants was a 540, then you'd be correct in assuming that half of the applicants from DCOM would likely not match. The fact that the average unmatched COMLEX is 509 is a little more concerning; that is cutting it close. That data also is compiled across multiple specialties. Peds/FM do not have those averages and that is where the majority of low-performing students end up.

 

[Goro]

I despise the school and the way they operate, but it's important to understand the charting outcomes data. If the average COMLEX for matched applicants is a 540, and the DCOM average is 500, that is NOT saying that the students will not match. If the MEDIAN score for matched applicants was a 540, then you'd be correct in assuming that half of the applicants from DCOM would likely not match. The fact that the average unmatched COMLEX is 509 is a little more concerning; that is cutting it close. That data also is compiled across multiple specialties. Peds/FM do not have those averages and that is where the majority of low-performing students end up.

A median 20 points< the national avg is not great, but it's more important to know the first time pass rate, and the attrition rate for OMSI and II.

Forcing the clinical faculty to teach at both campuses sounds like a faculty adequacy model that is in violation of COCA accreditation standards.

I'm going to be blunt, if you LMU students don't start complaining directly to COCA, you will get what you deserve.

 

[MoLarryKerlyBLine]

A median 20 points< the national avg is not great, but it's more important to know the first time pass rate, and the attrition rate for OMSI and II.

Forcing the clinical faculty to teach at both campuses sounds like a faculty adequacy model that is in violation of COCA accreditation standards.

I'm going to be blunt, if you LMU students don't start complaining directly to COCA, you will get what you deserve.

The scores were averages, not median scores. Either way, I think the school is Caribbean-esque.

 

[Cryc_to_the_point]

Didn't we lose like 17 people in our OMS-2 year?

 

[DO2015CA]

Didn't we lose like 17 people in our OMS-2 year?

Wait, how does that happen? I know first semester is a huge attrition point but 2nd year?

 

[Aslanim]

Wait, how does that happen? I know first semester is a huge attrition point but 2nd year?

Not at LMU, but I assume a weak curriculum --> board failures --> higher attrition

 

[DO2015CA]

Not at LMU, but I assume a weak curriculum --> board failures --> higher attrition

My school had a very weak curriculum (referring to board relevance) and not that many failed. And LMU doesn’t have an attendance policy so the students can actually study for boards more

 

[Aslanim]

My school had a very weak curriculum (referring to board relevance) and not that many failed. And LMU doesn’t have an attendance policy so the students can actually study for boards more

beats me....

 

[DrWhozits]

Wait, how does that happen? I know first semester is a huge attrition point but 2nd year?

When there’s 250 people per class that is ~6%. Assuming the same number for first year and negligible amounts in 3rd and 4th year that’s ~10-15% a year.

 

[DO2015CA]

When there’s 250 people per class that is ~6%. Assuming the same number for first year and negligible amounts in 3rd and 4th year that’s ~10-15% a year.

Ahhh bingo that’s the ticket. When I was applying to them, I think they were a regular size DO class (160-175ish)

 

[Spectreman]

Ahhh bingo that’s the ticket. When I was applying to them, I think they were a regular size DO class (160-175ish)

Th$y’re ju$t trying to fill the phy$ician $hortag$

 

[DO2015CA]

Th$y’re ju$t trying to fill the phy$ician $hortag$

While not opening any residency spots. Don’t worry my school as well. And they just got accepted for 210 seats

 

[Cryc_to_the_point]

And actually bristling against the notion that they should...

 

[ThrowawayDO2288]

Didn't we lose like 17 people in our OMS-2 year?

Yup, more than that. We had people who scored in the top 5% on the Comsae have to repeat the year because our dogsh*t curriculum emphasized mostly step 2/3 material.

When there’s 250 people per class that is ~6%. Assuming the same number for first year and negligible amounts in 3rd and 4th year that’s ~10-15% a year.

Our M1 class is around 240 people, we lose around 15-25 people per year, during the first two years as a conservative estimate. The rumor is that the admin artificially deflates our attrition rate by coercing students who are recommended for dismissal into withdrawing by promising some kind of debt repayment program where they pay off your loans and you pay them back the amount owed without interest.

While not opening any residency spots. Don’t worry my school as well. And they just got accepted for 210 seats

And actually bristling against the notion that they should...

Lol come on guys DCOM is doing it's part they are supposedly opening a FM residency in the middle of Incestville, Kentucky and tell the students they are responsible for opening the Norton, VA family med residency (which i think is BS).

 

[ThrowawayDO2288]

Not at LMU, but I assume a weak curriculum --> board failures --> higher attrition

Bingo. i know multiple students who scored <350 on combank practice exams and < 300 on Comsae 103

Tbh its probably 60% lazy students and 40% the curriculum. like one girl i know is banking on failing the Comsae retest so she can delay rotations and Comlex 1 to take in November so she can "enjoy her summer". However it is also important to note that the 2nd year curriculum is poorly taught and skips major high yield concepts in favor of BS step 2/3 clinical stuff that the professors like. For example, our psych course skipped almost all of child and adolescent psychiatry because there "wasnt enough time".

 

[Cryc_to_the_point]

Curriculum is bizarre. I focused on the curriculum and I was poorly ranked in class. I scored better than our class average on every COMSAE or related exam we took. Go figure.

 

[Goro]

Our M1 class is around 240 people, we lose around 15-25 people per year, during the first two years as a conservative estimate. The rumor is that the admin artificially deflates our attrition rate by coercing students who are recommended for dismissal into withdrawing by promising some kind of debt repayment program where they pay off your loans and you pay them back the amount owed without interest.

One can't finesse attrition. Whether you lose people to dismissal, withdrawal or LOA, it's still attrition. I agree that having people withdraw does look better.

 

[Norwood-Sano]

Got a good vibe from this place on interview day but glad that I decided to attend elsewhere. This all sounds very concerning.

 

[Wjldenver]

This thread has been interesting reading. The administrators at this school simply have no morals. By opening a branch campus in Knoxville, with all of the problems the parent institution has, it is easy to see that this is a pure cash grab. I won't be surprised if LMU becomes the first DO school to offer an on-line DO degree. ...Sometimes when things like this happen, it is hard to believe it is real life.