Sorry if this has been answered before, I just don't see a concrete answer. What is the main difference between a low-tier MD vs a DO program? I know there are many differences such as OMM and complex boards, but I am asking specifically for residency/matching purposes. Now that there is an MD-DO merger, what is the main difference between such?
Low tier MD (PHSU) vs Established DO program
- Thread starter anon0114
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2016
- Messages
- 551
- Reaction score
- 794
Yeah, Ponce will give you more opportunities since it is a US-MD than any DO school. As long as you are fluent in Spanish Ponce will help you match what you ever you want.
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2016
- Messages
- 551
- Reaction score
- 794
Yes most programs prefer US-MD over DO still
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2020
- Messages
- 233
- Reaction score
- 258
Ponce or DO?
accteped to a DO program that I love, want to do EM, just got II to Ponce, but tight on cash... would an LCME MD from Ponce be a leg up professionally? Any thoughts welcome! Trying to figure out if I should go. Not committed to either MD or DO, just want to be a doc and have a strong post-grad...
forums.studentdoctor.net
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2019
- Messages
- 12
- Reaction score
- 23
I would go to the DO school. Ponce has a masters program which literally covers the first year of medical school and the students that enter to MS1 directly from that program are favored by the administration in many ways. This puts MS1 students that enter directly at a disadvantage since they purposefully want their masters students to succeed to keep selling the master‘s program. They even go as far as to seek out paid research/internship opportunities to those students and don’t help out the rest. You could argue that they paid for that privilege, but they make it to easy for them; they even use the same questions from the previous year so that they can do well. If you aren’t from the master’s program, you’ll never get your hands on those questions. And if you want tutoring, you have to be failing the class, but if you are currently doing the master’s then you can go whenever you want. Also, Ponce isn’t a place you would want to be in if you are not fluent in Spanish; many OOS students have a really hard time understanding the prerecorded lectures since they are made by professors who have a horrible accent and articulation when they speak in English. The grading system is Pass/Fail/Honors and classes rely mostly on test for grading. The tests have many mistakes because they barely know any English and if people don’t do well on the tests, they won’t eliminate the questions everyone got wrong. This has been my experience with Ponce and if i could do it all over again, I would‘ve gone to a DO School, specially now that step 1 is P/F and step 2 CS was eliminated. Also, I would argue that most programs have gradually stopped caring about DO vs. MD; higher percentage of DO students get into residency that ponce MD students do… actually, DOs do better than Puerto Rican MD students.
