Many problems at Western University of Health Sciences Osteopathic COMP Pomona

[JLWesternU2016]

I am a female DO student at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, CA class 2016. I would like perspective students to be aware of numerous problems that the school won't be upfront about. You need to be aware of these before you make a decision to attend.

About the classes:
· We are largely on our own for learning here (lack of access to teachers, limited tutors, disorganized labs, confusing lectures, and overall disordered resources). They tell us to find a study group with other students (which doesn't help all that much because they are trying to learn the material as well).
· We hardly have access to the professors. We are told to ask questions online but quite a few don't get answered. Most teachers do not have office hours but some are willing to meet if they are around their office or maybe with an appointment.
· Some of our classes are televised from our satellite campus in Lebanon, Oregon (presumably to cut the school's costs). One teacher we had was bad. They sent us study guides that had incorrect information and misspellings (such as mixing up sympathetic and parasympathetic- kind of a BIG difference!). Many students downloaded other teacher's lectures about the same topics because it was so bad. It was frustrating to figure out what we needed to know about this topic.
· Many students spend more time trying to figure out what we need to know and deciding the most efficient way to learn it than actually learning the material itself. The disorganized material is time consuming to sort through.
· Much of what we learn in anatomy lab is from first year students that took an intensive summer anatomy course where they had to get 80% or higher in the course to instruct us. By the time they are our instructors, much of this info has been forgotten or not concrete.
· For anatomy lab, the instructors assign complicated directions such as assigning certain pages out of a book and giving us a supplemental handout with what we should do instead and what they don't want us to do. Many students watch videos form other medical schools to try to figure out what is going on. There have been students that have asked about recording our own instructors demonstrating what they want us to do for lab and what structures they want us to know but the administration is NOT willing to do this. Extremely frustrating and a waste of time for many.
· We DO NOT have enough teacher assistants or tutors. Many students who are failing anatomy asked for a tutor right away and still have not been given one or assigned to a group even after 5 weeks of the 10 week anatomy course. Even students with a documented disabilities have not had access to tutors they were told they could have before school started. A lack of tutors and instructors has been a known problem in the past with this school and we can only hope this changes. In the meantime, we make friends with smart friends or pay for tutors (like 50K a year isn't enough!).
· The school didn't want to assign tutors until after the first anatomy exam (after 2 weeks of the 10 week block). This put those who knew they needed help at a huge disadvantage. This brings up the whole ethical question of allowing access to important information only if you do poorly enough on an exam.
· Many students took anatomy courses in undergrad or other graduate school and are at a huge advantage in this course. In the end, anatomy gets curved at ~66% is passing in order to only make 8 or so students fail anatomy out of a class of 220 (they have to retake it the next summer).
· There are many students that pay other students for anatomy tutoring because of the lack of resources the school provides.
· The school enjoys letting you sort through all their information to find the useful things (instead of providing direction). For example, an instructor in Oregon uploaded videos of dissections that would have helped us in Pomona but the did not inform us of this information until half way through anatomy (they sent out an email after 4 weeks but they screwed up sending it to the class in Pomona of 2016).
· Some teachers don't bother uploading their powerpoint presentation until AFTER they are done lecturing which makes taking notes on them much more difficult.
· Some classes are a waste of time. We have been told to watch prerecorded lectures then in class they go over almost all of that information anyways in the next class. Unfortunately in this class, we are not able to have electronics out where we could study for other classes.
· The exams we take have been very poorly written thus far. We have numerous grammar problems and confusing questions. How about you have someone proof read your poorly written exam???
· Some teachers are really bad about answering emails (even really important ones).
· The DO classes communicate on our facebook page where we can try to figure out what we are suppose to do for classes and better resources to learn from.
· There are many students that realize that much of what we go over in classes is not that important to doing well on the boards (board exam scores are MUCH IMPORTANT THAN GRADES in classes). Therefore, just pass all of your classes and spend the rest of your time studying for the board exams!!! No joke!
· There is not much research that is performed on campus. They do not get much (if any) government grants to fund research.
· We still do not have a locker room to change clothes for cadaver lab or a shower on campus to use after.
· We do not have a workout facility on campus, they supplement our cost to be a member at a local gym.

About the institution:
· Crime on and near campus is big problem. Pomona has a 13.2% unemployment rate and a high crime rate.
· Being a female on this campus can especially be scary at times. We find locals passing through campus picking through our garbage for recyclables. Who knows what happens at night! Not all that many people stay around after dark.
· Honestly, we had two bullets that big windows in the HEC on 9/23 around 10 pm at night. We are in arguments with the administration because they are not doing enough to protect their students.
· The buildings do not have swipe passes on them (so anyone can walk into our buildings and steal stuff).
· We do not have an emergency text message system set up in case the school is in a lock down (we get sent a email if they bother sending it out (we didn't get an email from the school about the windows being shot until ~10 hours later).
· A few weeks ago, one student's father got held up at gun point in a parking lot next to campus (again no immediate email from the school because it was "just off campus." It was sent the next day).
· Parking on campus is $480 a year because the school leases the lots from the city. Cars in these lots are broken into on a regular basis.
· Tuition is $47,555 a year with an annual indebtedness of $203,430. This is the 5th highest graduation debt of ALL MEDICAL SCHOOLS

I am not writing this to scare anyone away from Western U but I believe that everyone should be aware of these problems in order to help you make an educated decision if WesternU is the right school for you.

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[moneytree]

Thanks for the informative post. Honestly, I'm pretty surprised and not exactly sure what to think because Western COMP is generally considered to be a top osteopathic school.

 

[coolingglasses]

Some teachers don’t bother uploading their powerpoint presentation until AFTER they are done lecturing which makes taking notes on them much more difficult.

I dunno, I have a lot of undergrad professors that did this. It sucks, but I survived. A few don't do it at all.

Some classes are a waste of time. We have been told to watch prerecorded lectures then in class they go over almost all of that information anyways in the next class. Unfortunately in this class, we are not able to have electronics out where we could study for other classes.

That is a bit ridiculous. I survived Med Micro here because I took notes on my netbook instead of trying to scramble with a pencil.

Parking on campus is $480 a year because the school leases the lots from the city. Cars in these lots are broken into on a regular basis.

Sounds like a bargain to me. Undergrads here pay way more than that and their lot assignment is essentially a lottery... could get an on-campus garage, could end up way the hell over by the Vet Hospital.

Still, that sounds pretty bad and unless someone refutes it, this might make my Western campus preference a little easier.

 

[kdavidlee25]

Interesting.

 

[SLC]

I'm a 2nd year at another school, I hate to say it but the vast majority of your complaints are not unique to Western, they are almost universal in Medical School (MD or DO).

Nobody wants you to fail, but nobody is going to hold your hand in class. Fail a few courses and you'll see them get very involved in your study methods etc. (I do not speak from experience there though)

You're in professional school now, you shouldn't need to be coddled the same way you were in undergrad. The point is that all this stuff is for real now, if you don't understand it and learn it yourself then you could end up harming or killing someone down the road.

I'm sorry about the tutoring, but perhaps you can organize a volunteer tutoring system on campus? That could be awesome and would really be nice on your CV if it worked out.

Don't worry, your concerns are not unique to Western. You're just struggling to get adjusted to a whole new educational realm. Your complaints are common among 1st year students, in a few months when you get settled in, you'll likely look back at this and realize how much of a non-issue it has become.

 

[docmayer]

^^I'm sure there are shootings at every school. This is enough to make me not want to go here. If I get accepted this week at LMU I won't even bother attending my interview at this school. Thank you for your input! It made my decision to not attend the interview much easier.

 

[Nymphicus]

Thanks for the informative post. Honestly, I'm pretty surprised and not exactly sure what to think because Western COMP is generally considered to be a top osteopathic school.

I think that has more to do with the location than the school itself.

 

[SpecterGT260]

I guess this is technically relevant to both osteo and pre-osteo..... but come on now

 

[drshark]

Hate to say it but as much as I want to go to this school based off location and other circumstances, what friends have told me are not positive whatsoever about the school and the program. School from 8am-5pm is just insane, and a lot of people are struggling with anatomy because of lack of time to study and resources. Hope the problems get taken care of by the school.

 

[oms2]

i don't know much about western, but i'm going to make some generic comments about med school
the op's complaint is not uncommon because 1st year is a shock for most people. the volume of information they throw at you is truly large and endless.
much of anatomy is sheer memorization. the big ideas you really need, they're useful in the long term like boards. unfortunately you also need the mindless minutiae to satisfy your anatomy professor.
everybody forgets the minutiae in a month unless you have a true photographic memory.
a more important problem is how to study. med schools will not tell you how to study, what to memorize, and what not to memorize. you're on your own.
it's common for lecturers to speed talk/mumble/tell stories/speak incomprehensibly, and then give you hundreds of slides, assign hundreds of pages in the book, and then use the most obscure/easily overlooked minutiae for exams.
oftentimes the difference between a high score and a passing score is due as much to dumb luck as brilliant deduction.
that's how life is in med school. ask any med student.
so you have to figure out your own study method. everyone does it differently, and you have to do it soon.
good luck!

 

[thecgrblue]

Said it on your double post and I'll say it here.

Spend less time complaining and more studying...then watch most of your would-be complaints disappear.

 

[ModernAlchemist]

^^I'm sure there are shootings at every school. This is enough to make me not want to go here. If I get accepted this week at LMU I won't even bother attending my interview at this school. Thank you for your input! It made my decision to not attend the interview much easier.

USC medical school's surrounding area makes Pomona's look like Pleasentville...

 

[costales]

 

[MRSAful Fate]

To echo what others have said - welcome to medical school, get used to it. Your venting of these numerous winey complaints is frankly immature in this venue. I hope this behavior of backbiting when you don't get what you want ends now because it's going to get you on someone's s**t list in a hurry. I'm not going to defend WesternU on all these counts and honestly I've been known to b**ch about them too, but your complaints range from histrionic to misrepresentations to untruths and that's not cool. Grow up and talk to the school if you have a problem with how they're doing things.

 

[TheOncoDOc]

I'm a first year at WesternU/COMP and while I have my qualms with this institution and some of the classes that we are currently taking, I really feel that it's NOT as bad as you have described. Once I get through today, I'll take apart some of the stuff you've described and provide my own input...

 

[ModernAlchemist]

Well, Touro just became my number 1 choice all of a sudden if I reapply.

Ya.... I'd say that would probably be an overreaction to what was posted above. Those things are all pretty typical of medical school, MD and DO. Touro's problems are, from what I've heard, much deeper.

 

[411309]

med school is hard? well wtf you guys told me way too late..

 

[SLC]

^^I'm sure there are shootings at every school. This is enough to make me not want to go here. If I get accepted this week at LMU I won't even bother attending my interview at this school. Thank you for your input! It made my decision to not attend the interview much easier.

May be there are shootings maybe there aren't. The point is every community has its pluses and minuses. Hell, there was a straight up murder about a block from my community campus the other mornig. Doesn't mean my school is bad. If you don't deal drugs, or flaunt your valuables you're generally safe just about anywhere in the daytime. Females have it a little different because of the risk of sexual assault, but that's universal everywhere. Just use your common sense.

To each his/her own I suppose, but a word of caution from a (slightly) more experienced medical student is in order I think:

Like I said in my previous post, and others with some experience under their belts have echoed, this is nothing more than a scared and frustrated OMS1 speaking. The first few weeks/months are such a huge shock to the system that these types of comments are pretty typical. We had students straight up quit because of things like this, those of us who stuck it out are cruising along pretty well now.

Trust me, a med-school newbie is the last person to take curriculum/school criticism from.

 

[felix2929]

Trust me, a med-school newbie is the last person to take curriculum/school criticism from.[/QUOTE]

totally irrelevant to this thread but i agree with you, and that is one thing that is a little frustrating about early interviews led by OMS1s

 

[SLC]

Trust me, a med-school newbie is the last person to take curriculum/school criticism from.

totally irrelevant to this thread but i agree with you, and that is one thing that is a little frustrating about early interviews led by OMS1s[/QUOTE]

I agree. At my school the 1st years answer questions and take interviewees on tours. It can be good to hear what they like and even what they don't like. But in my opinion, anyone hearing that needs to take it in context. Especially when it's this type of criticism which is more venting of frustration than anything else.

 

[angldrps]

Anytime someone with just 2 posts writes something like this ,my SDN troll-posts senses start tingling.

 

[moneytree]

Anytime someone with just 2 posts writes something like this ,my SDN troll-posts senses start tingling.

In OP's defense, it would be pretty dumb to post negative comments about the school you're attending using an established, identifiable user name. For many obvious reasons...

 

[angldrps]

In OP's defense, it would be pretty dumb to post negative comments about the school you're attending using an established, identifiable user name. For many obvious reasons...

there are some pretty clever trolls out there who would make such usernames just to to throw you off. I am not saying OP is necessarily a troll, but was just making an observation.

 

[docnotsopc]

Said it on your double post and I'll say it here.

Spend less time complaining and more studying...then watch most of your would-be complaints disappear.

As one med student to another (im assuming you are a med student), you are a *****

Let me explain something to you pre-meds that this person clearly doesn't understand.

The worse your schools teaching, the MORE time you have to put into learning basic concepts through external resources. This is a no brainer. If you attend a medical school that does not provide a good learning environment (professors, resources), you have to put in much more work to get up to par with someone who attended a school with good instructors. A good instructor is someone who can teach you a complicated topic without you having to reference and learn off external materials.


OP: Im a second year at Western. I share a lot of your frustrations and quite frankly you have only been exposed to anatomy with a limited exposure to professors. As the year goes on, you will have much worse professors (although some better). You and me both chose to attend Western. No one stuck a gun to our heads. Unfortunately, people dont always make the best decisions but it was the best decision at the time with the limited (and biased) information I had at the time.

-Would I attend Western again? No.
-Will Western limit what kind of doctor I can be? No
-Would the process of achieving a higher board score/ better general understanding of medicine be easier attending a school with better instructors? Absolutely

 

[moneytree]

-Would I attend Western again? No.
-Will Western limit what kind of doctor I can be? No
-Would the process of achieving a higher board score/ better general understanding of medicine be easier attending a school with better instructors? Absolutely

If you could start over, which osteopathic school would you attend?

 

[Mehd School]

USC medical school's surrounding area makes Pomona's look like Pleasentville...

+1.

If that were the case, Hopkins would be a garbage school.

 

[TriagePreMed]

Ya.... I'd say that would probably be an overreaction to what was posted above. Those things are all pretty typical of medical school, MD and DO. Touro's problems are, from what I've heard, much deeper.

Strange. While glowing reviews don't seem to come out of the basic sciences, I haven't heard anything that could be thought of as being really bad. Would you mind to share your experience?

 

[JaBoomDay]

USC medical school's surrounding area makes Pomona's look like Pleasentville...

I always laugh when people complain about the area being bad around a medical school because Johns Hopkins is in probably the most scariest hood I have ever seen and I grew up 15 minutes from Pomona!! And Johns Hopkins is one of those top tier schools that many people would love to go to.

However, I appreciate the feedback. It's something to think about I guess.

 

[ModernAlchemist]

Strange. While glowing reviews don't seem to come out of the basic sciences, I haven't heard anything that could be thought of as being really bad. Would you mind to share your experience?

I don't have personal experience yet, but I just hear horrible things about their rotation options being unstable and getting dropped last minute. Even with this, the positives of Western that I've read have been exponentially greater than the positives of Touro CA.

I always laugh when people complain about the area being bad around a medical school because Johns Hopkins is in probably the most scariest hood I have ever seen and I grew up 15 minutes from Pomona!! And Johns Hopkins is one of those top tier schools that many people would love to go to.

However, I appreciate the feedback. It's something to think about I guess.

+1

 

[kdavidlee25]

As one med student to another (im assuming you are a med student), you are a *****

Let me explain something to you pre-meds that this person clearly doesn't understand.

The worse your schools teaching, the MORE time you have to put into learning basic concepts through external resources. This is a no brainer. If you attend a medical school that does not provide a good learning environment (professors, resources), you have to put in much more work to get up to par with someone who attended a school with good instructors. A good instructor is someone who can teach you a complicated topic without you having to reference and learn off external materials.


OP: Im a second year at Western. I share a lot of your frustrations and quite frankly you have only been exposed to anatomy with a limited exposure to professors. As the year goes on, you will have much worse professors (although some better). You and me both chose to attend Western. No one stuck a gun to our heads. Unfortunately, people dont always make the best decisions but it was the best decision at the time with the limited (and biased) information I had at the time.

-Would I attend Western again? No.
-Will Western limit what kind of doctor I can be? No
-Would the process of achieving a higher board score/ better general understanding of medicine be easier attending a school with better instructors? Absolutely

Is this a thing now on SDN? Calling others "*****s?" A lil juvenile considering that you yourself admit that you would not attend Western given a second chance. Your reply seems to tell other pre-meds the same thing as the OP; don't attend Western.

People should be able to express their opinions without being called names. I have no problems with criticizing and making fun; but name-calling is a bit juvenile.

 

[ModernAlchemist]

I've heard of problems in clinical education lately. I thought you meant on basic sciences.

No... I don't really care as much about this part as I do about the clinicals

 

[abolt18]

Is this a thing now on SDN? Calling others "*****s?" A lil juvenile considering that you yourself admit that you would not attend Western given a second chance. Your reply seems to tell other pre-meds the same thing as the OP; don't attend Western.

People should be able to express their opinions without being called names. I have no problems with criticizing and making fun; but name-calling is a bit juvenile.

I was thinking the same thing, then I saw your post... Well said.

 

[Ibn Rushd]

Only skimmed the original post, but here's two cents from another student at WesternU (c/o 2015):

I've noticed that our students whine. A lot. There's this prevailing sense of entitlement, of getting everything catered exactly to one's needs. There's little sense of adapting to the realities of the situation. This is the real world now. Things won't be easy. You will be met with obstacles, but how you deal with them is ultimately what matters. Airing out "dirty laundry" that's common to most schools whilst simultaneously exposing one's ignorance about being a grown up isn't the way to deal with things.

I've also noticed that many students forget how grateful they ought to be of their situation. You're in medical school in Southern California. Do you have any idea how many people would love to be in your shoes, and how many of them wouldn't whine about minor things? You're going to be a freakin' doctor. You get to spend all of your time learning. Learning!! You like to learn, did you forget that? You have a passion for it. That's why you're here. At least in part ... everyone has their motivations, but I'd be hard-pressed to find a medical student that doesn't, in some way or form, have a passion for the science. You're going to be fine. The loans suck, I know, but you won't ever starve to death.

Stop complaining, find adult ways to deal with issues, study hard, move on with your life.

 

[thecgrblue]

Is this a thing now on SDN? Calling others "*****s?" A lil juvenile considering that you yourself admit that you would not attend Western given a second chance. Your reply seems to tell other pre-meds the same thing as the OP; don't attend Western.

People should be able to express their opinions without being called names. I have no problems with criticizing and making fun; but name-calling is a bit juvenile.

Its an internet forum, the worst of people comes out. My days as a football referee have made being called a ***** almost a compliment.

Either way, I'm all about my sphere of influence...which in med school is VERY small. Control what I can control and do my to constantly improve my surroundings.

Some of the OPs concerns. (especially campus security) are valid. You can't change a neighborhood, but you can control the campus and I know plenty of schools and hospitals that have VERY safe campuses in VERY bad neighborhoods.

 

[JamesLMT]

Only skimmed the original post, but here's two cents from another student at WesternU (c/o 2015):

I've noticed that our students whine. A lot. There's this prevailing sense of entitlement, of getting everything catered exactly to one's needs. There's little sense of adapting to the realities of the situation. This is the real world now. Things won't be easy. You will be met with obstacles, but how you deal with them is ultimately what matters. Airing out "dirty laundry" that's common to most schools whilst simultaneously exposing one's ignorance about being a grown up isn't the way to deal with things.

I've also noticed that many students forget how grateful they ought to be of their situation. You're in medical school in Southern California. Do you have any idea how many people would love to be in your shoes, and how many of them wouldn't whine about minor things? You're going to be a freakin' doctor. You get to spend all of your time learning. Learning!! You like to learn, did you forget that? You have a passion for it. That's why you're here. At least in part ... everyone has their motivations, but I'd be hard-pressed to find a medical student that doesn't, in some way or form, have a passion for the science. You're going to be fine. The loans suck, I know, but you won't ever starve to death.

Stop complaining, find adult ways to deal with issues, study hard, move on with your life.

From a Western U-NW student

 

[thecgrblue]

Stop complaining, find adult ways to deal with issues, study hard, move on with your life.

Careful. They started calling me names when I said that.

 

[84kizpce]

.I am a female DO student at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, CA class 2016. I would like perspective students to be aware of numerous problems that the school won't be upfront about. You need to be aware of these before you make a decision to attend. .

.About the classes: .
· .We are largely on our own for learning here (lack of access to teachers, limited tutors, disorganized labs, confusing lectures, and overall disordered resources). They tell us to find a study group with other students (which doesn’t help all that much because they are trying to learn the material as well). .
· .We hardly have access to the professors. We are told to ask questions online but quite a few don’t get answered. Most teachers do not have office hours but some are willing to meet if they are around their office or maybe with an appointment. .
· .Some of our classes are televised from our satellite campus in Lebanon, Oregon (presumably to cut the school’s costs). One teacher we had was bad. They sent us study guides that had incorrect information and misspellings (such as mixing up sympathetic and parasympathetic- kind of a BIG difference!). Many students downloaded other teacher’s lectures about the same topics because it was so bad. It was frustrating to figure out what we needed to know about this topic. .
· .Many students spend more time trying to figure out what we need to know and deciding the most efficient way to learn it than actually learning the material itself. The disorganized material is time consuming to sort through. .
· .Much of what we learn in anatomy lab is from first year students that took an intensive summer anatomy course where they had to get 80% or higher in the course to instruct us. By the time they are our instructors, much of this info has been forgotten or not concrete. .
· .For anatomy lab, the instructors assign complicated directions such as assigning certain pages out of a book and giving us a supplemental handout with what we should do instead and what they don’t want us to do. Many students watch videos form other medical schools to try to figure out what is going on. There have been students that have asked about recording our own instructors demonstrating what they want us to do for lab and what structures they want us to know but the administration is NOT willing to do this. Extremely frustrating and a waste of time for many. .
· .We DO NOT have enough teacher assistants or tutors. Many students who are failing anatomy asked for a tutor right away and still have not been given one or assigned to a group even after 5 weeks of the 10 week anatomy course. Even students with a documented disabilities have not had access to tutors they were told they could have before school started. A lack of tutors and instructors has been a known problem in the past with this school and we can only hope this changes. In the meantime, we make friends with smart friends or pay for tutors (like 50K a year isn’t enough!). .
· .The school didn’t want to assign tutors until after the first anatomy exam (after 2 weeks of the 10 week block). This put those who knew they needed help at a huge disadvantage. This brings up the whole ethical question of allowing access to important information only if you do poorly enough on an exam. .
· .Many students took anatomy courses in undergrad or other graduate school and are at a huge advantage in this course. In the end, anatomy gets curved at ~66% is passing in order to only make 8 or so students fail anatomy out of a class of 220 (they have to retake it the next summer). .
· .There are many students that pay other students for anatomy tutoring because of the lack of resources the school provides. .
· .The school enjoys letting you sort through all their information to find the useful things (instead of providing direction). For example, an instructor in Oregon uploaded videos of dissections that would have helped us in Pomona but the did not inform us of this information until half way through anatomy (they sent out an email after 4 weeks but they screwed up sending it to the class in Pomona of 2016)..
· .Some teachers don’t bother uploading their powerpoint presentation until AFTER they are done lecturing which makes taking notes on them much more difficult. .
· .Some classes are a waste of time. We have been told to watch prerecorded lectures then in class they go over almost all of that information anyways in the next class. Unfortunately in this class, we are not able to have electronics out where we could study for other classes. .
· .The exams we take have been very poorly written thus far. We have numerous grammar problems and confusing questions. How about you have someone proof read your poorly written exam??? .
· .Some teachers are really bad about answering emails (even really important ones). .
· .The DO classes communicate on our facebook page where we can try to figure out what we are suppose to do for classes and better resources to learn from. .
· .There are many students that realize that much of what we go over in classes is not that important to doing well on the boards (board exam scores are MUCH IMPORTANT THAN GRADES in classes). Therefore, just pass all of your classes and spend the rest of your time studying for the board exams!!! No joke! .
· .There is not much research that is performed on campus. They do not get much (if any) government grants to fund research. .
· .We still do not have a locker room to change clothes for cadaver lab or a shower on campus to use after. .
· .We do not have a workout facility on campus, they supplement our cost to be a member at a local gym. .

.About the institution:.
· .Crime on and near campus is big problem. Pomona has a 13.2% unemployment rate and a high crime rate. .
· .Being a female on this campus can especially be scary at times. We find locals passing through campus picking through our garbage for recyclables. Who knows what happens at night! Not all that many people stay around after dark. .
· .Honestly, we had two bullets that big windows in the HEC on 9/23 around 10 pm at night. We are in arguments with the administration because they are not doing enough to protect their students. .
· .The buildings do not have swipe passes on them (so anyone can walk into our buildings and steal stuff). .
· .We do not have an emergency text message system set up in case the school is in a lock down (we get sent a email if they bother sending it out (we didn’t get an email from the school about the windows being shot until ~10 hours later). .
· .A few weeks ago, one student’s father got held up at gun point in a parking lot next to campus (again no immediate email from the school because it was “just off campus.” It was sent the next day). .
· .Parking on campus is $480 a year because the school leases the lots from the city. Cars in these lots are broken into on a regular basis. .
· .Tuition is $47,555 a year with an annual indebtedness of $203,430. This is the 5th highest graduation debt of ALL MEDICAL SCHOOLS .

.I am not writing this to scare anyone away from Western U but I believe that everyone should be aware of these problems in order to help you make an educated decision if WesternU is the right school for you. .

.Please feel free to clarify these topics during your interviews on campus or directly email the administration on the Pomona Campus .

From a second year's point of view..

OP, before you throw your frustration out and blame everything on the school and the curriculum, I'd wait a few more weeks/months before aiming it at WesternU.

Anatomy is rough, we all went through it, but it'll get better. You're in medical school now, much of your learning will be independent. Later in your second year, you're going to have to learn on your own a lot of times when you're in small group. How do you expect to survive without someone holding your hand every step of the way? There are a lot of online resources to use (which I'm sure students at all medical schools don't SOLELY rely on the material presented by their faculty). Use the good resources you find online and supplement that with your curriculum.

If you can honestly say that you study every day, all day without taking a break and you are still failing then by all means you have the right to be angry because then it's not taught well enough. But I'm sure a lot of your classmates are still doing well (despite the horrendous curriculum that you're portraying), so maybe you have some adjusting to do in terms of how you study? First year is about learning how to absorb massive amounts of information in time for examinations and considering you're not even through you're first class, I'd say you just haven't gotten the most efficient method for you yet.

Also, the reason why approximately half of our lectures come from the satellite campus in Lebanon, Oregon is because they are currently undergoing accreditation and in order to do that, the Lebanon campus needs to have the EXACT SAME curriculum as us, until they are accredited. Once that happens, they have their own faculty to teach them from Oregon and we'll have ours down here in Pomona.

In addition to your other remarks, yes there are not enough teacher assistants or tutors for everyone. It would be ridiculous for the school to have private tutors in "medical school" to everyone that needs it, so the ability for the school to get tutors is based on students that have time to volunteer. 3rd and 4th years are on rotations. 2nd years are busy studying and prepping for boards. So the only students available are the ISAC students (students that took anatomy in the summer)? It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. If you really need help, I'm sure you could contact someone who is tutoring for anatomy and ask if you can join their group.

Also, there are going to be people that have advantages in every class/system you take from now on. You need to get used to that. This is at every medical school by the way. You're going to have people in your class that are PhD's, PA's, PT's, etc etc. Who cares.. just try your hardest. What about the people that don't have as good of a science background as you, students who don't have english as their first language, students that have a lot of personal issues going on during school that will affect their grades. Everyone has their advantages and disadvantages, focus on yourself and WHY you're in medical school. It's not to beat out the competition, it's for you to learn how to become a competent physician.

Addressing another point, teachers will have miscommunication, (ie. the instructor in Oregon that uploaded videos of dissections that would have helped you guys). That's not the school's fault and honestly you can find dissection videos online. Each of your problems seem to be stemming from your frustration from anatomy, but don't take it out on the school. It's a stressful time. I understand, I went through it too . There's light at the end of the tunnel, and at the end of the day, it's about you and your patient.

Yes you're going to learn more in school than what's on boards, because that's how it's supposed to be. Why go to college, if you only use 10% of what you learn at your job.

There isn't a lot of research because you're at an osteopathic school --> primary care focused. If you care about research, there are still tons of research opportunities available (lots of classmates did research over the summer).

We don't have a gym on campus, but you get a 1 year pass to LA fitness at a severely reduced cost. This allows flexibility and probably a better gym experience than if WesternU was to build one themselves.

If classes are a waste of time, then don't watch the prerecorded lectures. They are posted because for those students that want to get ahead, they have the option to. If you don't have time, wait until the next day and hear it in class.

Do you really need to shower on campus after anatomy lab? You guys have anatomy lab in the afternoon now (we had it in the morning), which means you're free to go home after.

I need to get back to studying now, but please please stick it out a few more months before misleading premeds. You just started and still have a lot of rocky patches to get through so don't let the small things get to you and keep your head up.

Feel free to msg me if you really need some advice. You should have a COMPanion and faculty advisor to talk to in terms of guidance. We're all in the same boat now. Let me know if I can be of any help.

 

[koan]

Unfortunately, people dont always make the best decisions but it was the best decision at the time with the limited (and biased) information I had at the time.

This is what happens to most people. At the end of the day, you are lucky to be choosing between 2 schools let alone more than that. Everyone will find things to complain about in their program, and things they love... but the long angry rants always get more attention on SDN.

To the OP I have to agree with the suggestion to go to your SGA about some of those issues, maybe talk with your advisor, and try to find constructive solutions. It's a BIG red flag to med school admin when a student has a problem with everything, and blames the school unfairly. Don't be that person, it could end up as a bad MSPE that sinks your residency app. You know hundreds of other people have made it through WUHS-COMP to go on to successful careers as physicians -- somehow -- it should be your goal to find out and emulate them.

I don't have personal experience yet, but I just hear horrible things about their rotation options being unstable and getting dropped last minute. Even with this, the positives of Western that I've read have been exponentially greater than the positives of Touro CA.

Exponentially greater? Do tell, I want to know what all I'm missing out on. It's probably annoying to some people that every Western thread ends up running off on a tangent about Touro, but since there are only 2 DO schools in CA I guess it's unavoidable.

Personally, I have probably the opposite attitude to the OP whereas I tend to overlook the faults about my school, give the admin / faculty the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge their fallibility as humans and genuine desire to improve the school, and also spend a s**t ton of time on my own attempting to digest the gargantuan hoard of information EVERY medical student needs to assimilate during years 1 and 2. Yes, I wonder sometimes what the kids over at UCSF are doing, whether their powerpoints are glossier, their printers less prone to jamming, their cadavers less smelly. In the end I am so happy to have this opportunity, and so willing to bust my ***** to prove myself, that I don't have time to dwell on what I see as probably universal negatives.

For the record, Touro CA has a longstanding reputation problem on SDN due to another student who I think had a similar outlook to the OP. Many of the past rotation issues have been resolved by developing more sites in CA, and by strengthening a few key relationships. The recent "drop" of a rotation site was because a Carrib school came in and "bought" out a hospital in SoCal. This is an alarming trend for DO schools everywhere, as they are more vulnerable to hospital poaching given that they tend to lack teaching hospitals. I digress. The positives of Touro, generally speaking, abound: great location, great weather, proximity to many powerhouse research institutions, a flock of wild turkeys on campus, a kosher cafeteria, super-strong anatomy faculty with the nicest cadaver lab I've seen, super strong OMM reputation, and the highest mean MCAT among DO programs. Oh, snap! Just have to stick up for my school when the stickin' up is due.

 

[kdavidlee25]

St. George just made that big 10 year contract with New York state; don't know the specifics but its something like St. George will give scholarships to NY residents [plus other monies] in return for rotation spots for St. George Students in NY hospitals. AUC is doing the same thing too, paying hospitals millions in return for rotation spots.

Pretty soon, SDNers will be posting US MD > Caribb MD > US DO.

 

[ModernAlchemist]

St. George just made that big 10 year contract with New York state; don't know the specifics but its something like St. George will give scholarships to NY residents [plus other monies] in return for rotation spots for St. George Students in NY hospitals. AUC is doing the same thing too, paying hospitals millions in return for rotation spots.

Pretty soon, SDNers will be posting US MD > Caribb MD > US DO.

False. Just because 2 schools are poaching in some parts of the country doesn't mean that Carribean schools will surpass AACOM. That's a ridiculous overestimation.

 

[azcunu]

I am also a first year female student at WesternU.


· .We are largely on our own for learning here (lack of access to teachers, limited tutors, disorganized labs, confusing lectures, and overall disordered resources). They tell us to find a study group with other students (which doesn’t help all that much because they are trying to learn the material as well). .

There are definitely better teachers than others, but that I think is bound to happen wherever you go. There is a slight disorganized feeling in lab sometimes, but that was more in the beginning than now. We have one lecturer, in my opinion, so far that has confusing lecturers and he, again in my opinion, is getting better. I can't speak to the limited access to teachers, however, the school is very open to listening to our concerns and if this was brought up to the instructor, the course director, or the admin this probably would be addressed in the manner you would hope. I haven't heard many people complaining about this, so I'm not sure what to say. As for limited tutors, I was able to get a tutor for OMM pretty easily. I didn't look into getting one for anatomy. I do work in a group and I find it EXTREMELY helpful, but that is just me.

· .Some of our classes are televised from our satellite campus in Lebanon, Oregon (presumably to cut the school’s costs). One teacher we had was bad. They sent us study guides that had incorrect information and misspellings (such as mixing up sympathetic and parasympathetic- kind of a BIG difference!). Many students downloaded other teacher’s lectures about the same topics because it was so bad. It was frustrating to figure out what we needed to know about this topic. .

In her defense, this was her first time lecturing. I think you need to cut her some slack. She did correct her mistakes and make them known to us. In my study group, we were able to compare her slides to her notes and realized the mistake. But really, I think you need to give her a little slack. Her other lectures and notes were better.

· .Many students spend more time trying to figure out what we need to know and deciding the most efficient way to learn it than actually learning the material itself. The disorganized material is time consuming to sort through. .

Again, I think this is pertaining more to one lecturer, not everyone. I think this is again an issue that if brought up with the course director and/or the instructor himself would be addressed. I don't know if this has been accomplished, but if not, I would. I'm a proponent for talking to the people directly when you have an issue.

· .Much of what we learn in anatomy lab is from first year students that took an intensive summer anatomy course where they had to get 80% or higher in the course to instruct us. By the time they are our instructors, much of this info has been forgotten or not concrete. .

I disagree completely. My facilitators have been amazing! Most of the ones that have come by my table have been extremely helpful and super knowledgeable. I'm sorry that you have had duds, but I do not agree with you at all. They have been SUPER HELPFUL!!! They put on mock practicals for us which are super helpful.

· .For anatomy lab, the instructors assign complicated directions such as assigning certain pages out of a book and giving us a supplemental handout with what we should do instead and what they don’t want us to do. Many students watch videos form other medical schools to try to figure out what is going on. There have been students that have asked about recording our own instructors demonstrating what they want us to do for lab and what structures they want us to know but the administration is NOT willing to do this. Extremely frustrating and a waste of time for many. .

Benninger does have videos on Sharepoint. If you haven't seen them, I'd look into them. The structures we do need to know are outlined in the handouts and they're in bold in the book they ask us to use. So, I'm not totally sure what your confusion is on that. I think also using lecture as a guide to what you should know also isn't a bad idea. But again, I would disagree with you. I think there is a little bit of disorganization with lab materials and some miscommunication in what is available, but I think that has to do with the new nature of working between 2 campuses. Again, I think making your concerns known in a constructive and productive manner to the course director might help them shape their resources in the way we want. To me, admin and instructors are very open to suggestions. You just need to voice them first.

· .We DO NOT have enough teacher assistants or tutors. Many students who are failing anatomy asked for a tutor right away and still have not been given one or assigned to a group even after 5 weeks of the 10 week anatomy course. Even students with a documented disabilities have not had access to tutors they were told they could have before school started. A lack of tutors and instructors has been a known problem in the past with this school and we can only hope this changes. In the meantime, we make friends with smart friends or pay for tutors (like 50K a year isn’t enough!). .

My name is Izzy Pines and if this is really and issue and you and your friends are failing and not getting a tutor, please let me know. I can help you find people in our class, in the interim, that can help you until they assign you a tutor. This is unfortunate. I am on SGA and I will make sure to bring this up at our next meeting which is next week. We are in this together and I want to help you and those who are struggling succeed. So again, if this is not being shoved in the face of admin now or the LEAD office it needs to be ASAP. I would be more than happy to help this happen if you want.

· .The school didn’t want to assign tutors until after the first anatomy exam (after 2 weeks of the 10 week block). This put those who knew they needed help at a huge disadvantage. This brings up the whole ethical question of allowing access to important information only if you do poorly enough on an exam. .

I thought I was one of those people who needed a tutor ASAP. I ended up surviving, but I do understand the concern. I would be curious to bring this up with the LEAD office and see what their reasoning for this is. I'm not sure I understand the rationale. For some it might be useful. For others, like me, maybe it just gives you a chance to gain some self confidence and explore study habits that work for you.

· .Many students took anatomy courses in undergrad or other graduate school and are at a huge advantage in this course. In the end, anatomy gets curved at ~66% is passing in order to only make 8 or so students fail anatomy out of a class of 220 (they have to retake it the next summer). .

Sure, taking anatomy is a bonus, but again you're going to get that anywhere you go for med school. I'm not sure what your complaint is here. I think a lot of people came in, myself included, never took anatomy. So, I'm not sure what to say to this.

· .There are many students that pay other students for anatomy tutoring because of the lack of resources the school provides. .

I doubt there are many of those. I feel like we have a very close class and if you were struggling and asked someone for help, they wouldn't expect you to pay them. This comment really surprised me and doesn't seem to fit the character of our class. In my opinion, we have a very 'we are in this together' attitude.

· .The school enjoys letting you sort through all their information to find the useful things (instead of providing direction). For example, an instructor in Oregon uploaded videos of dissections that would have helped us in Pomona but the did not inform us of this information until half way through anatomy (they sent out an email after 4 weeks but they screwed up sending it to the class in Pomona of 2016)..

Again, cut them some slack. Maybe I'm used to being the guinea pig, but when things go wrong in a new system, you need to point them out, tell them how you feel about it, and give them constructive feedback to improve the system.

· .Some teachers don’t bother uploading their powerpoint presentation until AFTER they are done lecturing which makes taking notes on them much more difficult. .

This can be frustrating, but you do have access to the ISAC stuff and honestly it is exactly the same. I would advise you to use all of your resources in this case.

· .Some classes are a waste of time. We have been told to watch prerecorded lectures then in class they go over almost all of that information anyways in the next class. Unfortunately in this class, we are not able to have electronics out where we could study for other classes. .

Haha this was 1 incident and yes it was a waste of time. We do have prerecorded lectures in the future and I'm not sure how I feel about that, but the 2nd years have said it actually is kind of nice. So, jury is still out, but you are really only talking about 1 class and I think it is unfair to generalize.

· .The exams we take have been very poorly written thus far. We have numerous grammar problems and confusing questions. How about you have someone proof read your poorly written exam??? .

haha yeah the first anatomy exam was humorous. I would again bring this up with the course director and the exam person (that well dressed, tall brunette, can't remember her name) and ask them to maybe spend a little more time on editing. They did do better on the 2nd exam, in my opinion, which I believe shows they heard us the first time and adjusted accordingly.

· .Some teachers are really bad about answering emails (even really important ones). .

I haven't emailed professors so I can't really speak to this.

· .The DO classes communicate on our facebook page where we can try to figure out what we are suppose to do for classes and better resources to learn from. .

It is a great resource and speaks to the comradery that we have fostered in our class. I really appreciate it and think it has been super helpful, but I see it as a supplement to all the other resources I also look to.

· .There are many students that realize that much of what we go over in classes is not that important to doing well on the boards (board exam scores are MUCH IMPORTANT THAN GRADES in classes). Therefore, just pass all of your classes and spend the rest of your time studying for the board exams!!! No joke! .

And again, I think this is true wherever you go.

· .There is not much research that is performed on campus. They do not get much (if any) government grants to fund research. .

I'm not sure if many DO schools do. There are a good number of research projects going on, but they're mainly OMM related. It doesn't seem like we have any basic science research, but there are plenty of big institutions that do that very well. We need to bring something to research that is unique in what we do, which I think is being accomplished. As a premed, if you're very interested in other types of research, then WesternU might not be the place for you.

· .We still do not have a locker room to change clothes for cadaver lab or a shower on campus to use after. .

This is true and it does sound like the Dean has been trying to address this problem. I believe it is still an agenda item. Retrofitting a locker room is not a quick or easy task. As long as we keep bringing it up, I think it will happen.

· .We do not have a workout facility on campus, they supplement our cost to be a member at a local gym. .

Yeah it's unfortunate, but there are facilities nearby. And who has time to work out anyway haha

.About the institution:.
· .Crime on and near campus is big problem. Pomona has a 13.2% unemployment rate and a high crime rate. .

Yes, but many urban med schools have the same issue. I was on the Northwestern med school last year and we had crime there as well. I feel like it is a part of being in an urban setting.

· .Being a female on this campus can especially be scary at times. We find locals passing through campus picking through our garbage for recyclables. Who knows what happens at night! Not all that many people stay around after dark. .

We have voiced our concerns and they do have people to escort you to your car. Me and a 2nd year are putting together self-defense classes specifically for women. We are trying to see if men are allowed to attend as it is pertinent information for all. I'm really sorry you feel this way, but again it is the nature of the beast being in an area that is underserved. We don't have the budget it sounds like to have campus police, but that is something that I am going to press at our SGA meetings. I am also going to push for having a resource officer on campus from the Pomona police department in order to bridge the gap between our campus security and them.

· .Honestly, we had two bullets that big windows in the HEC on 9/23 around 10 pm at night. We are in arguments with the administration because they are not doing enough to protect their students. .

In all fairness, not the administration, it is one person, the head of security, who the administration is also not happy with. They are making changes as we speak to the protocols and procedures. I do foresee changes in this regard. There was nothing that would have prevented those bullets from hitting our school, but we can all agree that the way the situation was handled afterward was not correct and the administration IS on our side with this.

· .The buildings do not have swipe passes on them (so anyone can walk into our buildings and steal stuff). .

Another thing that is being addressed. Administration is looking into this and so is SGA and a couple other clubs on campus. This is not a dormant issue like many of the ones that you are bringing up. We haven't had this happen this year yet. Let's cross our fingers, but again you should be smart about this. We had it at all 3 institutions that I went to. Often times it's student on student crime. You don't know.

· .We do not have an emergency text message system set up in case the school is in a lock down (we get sent a email if they bother sending it out (we didn’t get an email from the school about the windows being shot until ~10 hours later). .

We do have one, they just didn't deploy it with the bullets that hit the school. They said that was a judgment call and also agreed after the fact that that was the wrong judgment call. The system was tested today, so hopefully you got your email, phone call, and text message.

· .A few weeks ago, one student’s father got held up at gun point in a parking lot next to campus (again no immediate email from the school because it was “just off campus.” It was sent the next day). .

This was an extremely unfortunate event and we brought it to the attention of the people who needed to hear it and in combination with the event this week, we have made an impact on the workings of the system, in my opinion. It was actually sent 3 days later and the head of security has decided to reevaluate what he is sending alerts about. Many of us plan to check up on him concerning this issue as well as many of the administrators.

· .Parking on campus is $480 a year because the school leases the lots from the city. Cars in these lots are broken into on a regular basis. .

My undergrad parking was $600 a semester haha. $480 for the year doesn't seem too bad to me. However the breakin thing is an issue. Again, I think we need to be more diligent about how we leave our cars. Don't part on the street that goes over Towne. Try to park in the parking structure. A lot of what we need to learn as a student body is to how to minimize our chances of becoming a victim. Even if we had more patrols by the Pomona PD, I don't know if that would solve this problem.

· .Tuition is $47,555 a year with an annual indebtedness of $203,430. This is the 5th highest graduation debt of ALL MEDICAL SCHOOLS .

Yeah it's a lot

.I am not writing this to scare anyone away from Western U but I believe that everyone should be aware of these problems in order to help you make an educated decision if WesternU is the right school for you. .

I agree, but I also think that you have taken a lot of these problems out of context or have generalized a little more than is necessary. I understand everyone is very frustrated right now, especially with the bullets in HEC and you probably just couldn't take it anymore, but I don't think we are being left out to dry. I think that the administration and faculty are very receptive to what we have to say and what our concerns are as well as if we have any suggestions. I think that is something that is very admirable in a medical school.

.Please feel free to clarify these topics during your interviews on campus or directly email the administration on the Pomona Campus .[/QUOTE]

Feel free to contact me too if you have questions, comments, or concerns. [email protected]. And whoever wrote this post, I do not mean to offend you in any way. Please feel free to contact me as well and I can make sure that you are being heard and your needs are being met. You do deserve that.

 

[kdavidlee25]

whoa. defensive. You go to a DO school, don't you? Just trying to be satirical here.

 

[ModernAlchemist]

whoa. defensive. You go to a DO school, don't you? Just trying to be satirical here.

No, I don't actually. I just had my own opinion, regardless of bias. So, I responded.

 

[pattr]

To the OP I have to agree with the suggestion to go to your SGA about some of those issues, maybe talk with your advisor, and try to find constructive solutions. It's a BIG red flag to med school admin when a student has a problem with everything, and blames the school unfairly. Don't be that person, it could end up as a bad MSPE that sinks your residency app.

I agree. This is not the place to be venting your frustrations, though I recognize that your intentions were good. I know it's hard when you're stressed and studying all the time, but you should try to actively be the one to suggest changes to your student body, faculty, and administration at Western. Ultimately, you are the one paying for your education so you deserve to have a say in its quality.

For the record, Touro CA has a longstanding reputation problem on SDN due to another student who I think had a similar outlook to the OP. Many of the past rotation issues have been resolved by developing more sites in CA, and by strengthening a few key relationships. The recent "drop" of a rotation site was because a Carrib school came in and "bought" out a hospital in SoCal. This is an alarming trend for DO schools everywhere, as they are more vulnerable to hospital poaching given that they tend to lack teaching hospitals. I digress. The positives of Touro, generally speaking, abound: great location, great weather, proximity to many powerhouse research institutions, a flock of wild turkeys on campus, a kosher cafeteria, super-strong anatomy faculty with the nicest cadaver lab I've seen, super strong OMM reputation, and the highest mean MCAT among DO programs. Oh, snap! Just have to stick up for my school when the stickin' up is due.

Every school has its strengths and weaknesses. Thanks for properly repping Touro-CA !!

 

[n3xa]

Much of what we learn in anatomy lab is from first year students that took an intensive summer anatomy course where they had to get 80% or higher in the course to instruct us. By the time they are our instructors, much of this info has been forgotten or not concrete.

As someone who took the ISAC course this summer and is re-taking it in the fall, I want to commend the majority of the TAs that I've seen in action. They've been incredibly helpful and if they didn't know something, they would look it up. I'm sorry your experience has been quite the opposite.

Also wanted to defend the professor who actually took the time to correct her note packets after students inquired about it. I also find it to the case that those who are so critical when it comes to nitpicky details like that have generally never stood in front of an entire class before + a video camera and taught a lecture before.

 

[Oo Cipher oO]

OMS I at WesternU here. I was going to write a big huge response to every piece of what you wrote but honestly who has the time for that. The only part I really can't stop myself for commenting is the insinuation that our anatomy facilitators are not helpful or knowledgable. I think the ISAC students have done a fantastic job helping us. They have spent lots of time tutoring, organizing mock practicals, and answering every other student's questions. They deserve major props.

As for everything else this is just an example of a stressed out med student venting in an inappropriate and unprofessional manner. They are tons of people student can turn to support such as your faculty advisor, your OMS II COMPanion, the LEAD office, Student government, and your fellow classmates. Making a thread on a public website to air your grievances gets nothing done except make our school look bad and therefore cheapens the degree you and I will someday receive when the pains of anatomy are far behind us. Sure there are problems but honestly what did you hope to accomplish by having this discussion here, OP?

 

[n3xa]

Also, OP: re-posting your vent on multiple subforms is a no-no.

 

[docnotsopc]

Careful. They started calling me names when I said that.

"*****" was a bit harsh/unnecessary. What I was trying to get at is that I dont think the theory "complain less, study more" is true. You can do both...... I am in the top quartile of my class and bitch all the time

However, its completely different to continually fall below class averages and blame that on the school. In that case, yes that person needs to complain less and study more. Everyone is in the same boat at that school though

 

[OliverNCo]

.I am a female DO student at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, CA class 2016. I would like perspective students to be aware of numerous problems that the school won't be upfront about. You need to be aware of these before you make a decision to attend. .

First off, also a female first year DO student, class of 2016, and I have had a drastically different experience than yours.

.About the classes: .
· .We are largely on our own for learning here (lack of access to teachers, limited tutors, disorganized labs, confusing lectures, and overall disordered resources). They tell us to find a study group with other students (which doesn't help all that much because they are trying to learn the material as well). .

I definitely don't feel on my own with learning. A lot of the teachers know me by name already since I ask them a lot of questions. You just need to be proactive with the teachers and TA's and they will help you. I don't find the labs or lectures confusing or disorganized at all. Usually if you read before lecture and lab, it mostly makes sense. There's one lecturer here that is confusing, but he has gotten much better even over the course of the semester.

· .We hardly have access to the professors. We are told to ask questions online but quite a few don't get answered. Most teachers do not have office hours but some are willing to meet if they are around their office or maybe with an appointment. .

Again, being proactive is important here. The professors are available immediately after lecture if you have a question or want to talk in person. You can also talk to them in person to set up office hours and appointment. They are approachable and extremely helpful. Again, I ask a lot of questions and make myself known, so a lot of professors know me by name. Try being a little more proactive.

· .Some of our classes are televised from our satellite campus in Lebanon, Oregon (presumably to cut the school's costs). One teacher we had was bad. They sent us study guides that had incorrect information and misspellings (such as mixing up sympathetic and parasympathetic- kind of a BIG difference!). Many students downloaded other teacher's lectures about the same topics because it was so bad. It was frustrating to figure out what we needed to know about this topic. .

I know which professor you are talking about. She is brand new to WesternU, so I can imagine she hasn't found every single little mistake on her notes as again, she is brand new. I find her to be very straightforward, and if you know everything in her notes, you can easily get all of her questions right. She is fantastic in my opinion... clear, concise, and doesn't try to trick you up.

· .Many students spend more time trying to figure out what we need to know and deciding the most efficient way to learn it than actually learning the material itself. The disorganized material is time consuming to sort through. .

I think this is just part of med school no matter where you go. You have to figure out how to learn, and not every lecturer is going to be perfectly clear. Sometimes you will have to look at other sources. Don't expect it to be handed to you.

· .Much of what we learn in anatomy lab is from first year students that took an intensive summer anatomy course where they had to get 80% or higher in the course to instruct us. By the time they are our instructors, much of this info has been forgotten or not concrete. .

Maybe we just have different TA's... mine have been excellent. They study before lab and some even attend lecture to refresh their memories. If they don't know something, they bring a professor to the table to explain it to us.

· .For anatomy lab, the instructors assign complicated directions such as assigning certain pages out of a book and giving us a supplemental handout with what we should do instead and what they don't want us to do. Many students watch videos form other medical schools to try to figure out what is going on. There have been students that have asked about recording our own instructors demonstrating what they want us to do for lab and what structures they want us to know but the administration is NOT willing to do this. Extremely frustrating and a waste of time for many. .

Again, navigating between Grant's dissector and the professor's instructions is not that difficult if you just read through them briefly beforehand. You can also ask a professor... they are readily available. We have 6+ professors in lab every day who walk around specifically to help you if you can't figure things out on your own.

· .We DO NOT have enough teacher assistants or tutors. Many students who are failing anatomy asked for a tutor right away and still have not been given one or assigned to a group even after 5 weeks of the 10 week anatomy course. Even students with a documented disabilities have not had access to tutors they were told they could have before school started. A lack of tutors and instructors has been a known problem in the past with this school and we can only hope this changes. In the meantime, we make friends with smart friends or pay for tutors (like 50K a year isn't enough!). .

We have enough TA's... one for every two dissecting tables. They even give review sessions and meet with students ON THEIR OWN TIME FOR FREE to help us all out. I suggest you take advantage of these things... they're usually posted on the facebook group.

· .The school didn't want to assign tutors until after the first anatomy exam (after 2 weeks of the 10 week block). This put those who knew they needed help at a huge disadvantage. This brings up the whole ethical question of allowing access to important information only if you do poorly enough on an exam. .
· .Many students took anatomy courses in undergrad or other graduate school and are at a huge advantage in this course. In the end, anatomy gets curved at ~66% is passing in order to only make 8 or so students fail anatomy out of a class of 220 (they have to retake it the next summer). .
· .There are many students that pay other students for anatomy tutoring because of the lack of resources the school provides. .

Don't really know much about this... I didn't ask for a tutor. There are breakout sessions during anatomy lab where they have TA's explain concepts that students often have difficulty with. From what I understand making it so most students pass and the rest remediate over summer is pretty common among medical schools in general.

· .The school enjoys letting you sort through all their information to find the useful things (instead of providing direction). For example, an instructor in Oregon uploaded videos of dissections that would have helped us in Pomona but the did not inform us of this information until half way through anatomy (they sent out an email after 4 weeks but they screwed up sending it to the class in Pomona of 2016)..
· .Some teachers don't bother uploading their powerpoint presentation until AFTER they are done lecturing which makes taking notes on them much more difficult. .

It is frustrating that some of the instructors do not upload their powerpoints until after lecture, but after they upload them it is possible to review them. The administration has said they are working on this issue.

· .Some classes are a waste of time. We have been told to watch prerecorded lectures then in class they go over almost all of that information anyways in the next class. Unfortunately in this class, we are not able to have electronics out where we could study for other classes. .

I disagree with you that ECM is a waste of time. It is incredibly helpful in learning how to take a history, provide documentation, and deal with difficult patients. We aren't allowed to have laptops because the professor considers it rude.

· .The exams we take have been very poorly written thus far. We have numerous grammar problems and confusing questions. How about you have someone proof read your poorly written exam??? .

I thought we took the same exams, but your experience is much different than mine. I always find a couple of questions confusing, but for the most part, they are pretty straightforward. Even with grammar errors the questions are pretty clear.

· .Some teachers are really bad about answering emails (even really important ones). .

Try asking them after class.

· .The DO classes communicate on our facebook page where we can try to figure out what we are suppose to do for classes and better resources to learn from. .

Yep, the facebook group is pretty awesome.

· .There are many students that realize that much of what we go over in classes is not that important to doing well on the boards (board exam scores are MUCH IMPORTANT THAN GRADES in classes). Therefore, just pass all of your classes and spend the rest of your time studying for the board exams!!! No joke! .

Welcome to med school?

· .There is not much research that is performed on campus. They do not get much (if any) government grants to fund research. .

Umm they're not a research-centered institution... but they do have research. There are a few articles on some cool research they did with zebrafish and alzheimers.

· .We still do not have a locker room to change clothes for cadaver lab or a shower on campus to use after. .

I can't respond to this and be polite, sorry.

· .We do not have a workout facility on campus, they supplement our cost to be a member at a local gym. .

Which is about $5 a month, pretty good in my opinion. Also the Pomona YMCA is free to all students.

.About the institution:.
· .Crime on and near campus is big problem. Pomona has a 13.2% unemployment rate and a high crime rate. .
· .Being a female on this campus can especially be scary at times. We find locals passing through campus picking through our garbage for recyclables. Who knows what happens at night! Not all that many people stay around after dark. .
· .Honestly, we had two bullets that big windows in the HEC on 9/23 around 10 pm at night. We are in arguments with the administration because they are not doing enough to protect their students. .
· .The buildings do not have swipe passes on them (so anyone can walk into our buildings and steal stuff). .
· .We do not have an emergency text message system set up in case the school is in a lock down (we get sent a email if they bother sending it out (we didn't get an email from the school about the windows being shot until ~10 hours later). .
· .A few weeks ago, one student's father got held up at gun point in a parking lot next to campus (again no immediate email from the school because it was "just off campus." It was sent the next day). .
· .Parking on campus is $480 a year because the school leases the lots from the city. Cars in these lots are broken into on a regular basis. .

Yeah, it's not in the best area. However, I study at campus late at night, and there is always a security guard who insists on walking me home. Utilizing the security escorts and some basic common sense should keep you safe. We are working to mobilize as a student body to reform the emergency response system, and it's working. I received an emergency call on my cell phone and an emergency email this morning when they were testing the system. We could definitely improve on security, and that is something we are actively trying to work on.

· .Tuition is $47,555 a year with an annual indebtedness of $203,430. This is the 5th highest graduation debt of ALL MEDICAL SCHOOLS .

Tuition is $49,510 a year, and that's pretty standard for a private medical school.

.I am not writing this to scare anyone away from Western U but I believe that everyone should be aware of these problems in order to help you make an educated decision if WesternU is the right school for you. .

.Please feel free to clarify these topics during your interviews on campus or directly email the administration on the Pomona Campus .

[/QUOTE]
As another member of your class, I completely disagree with most of the things you are saying. I think the resources are there, you are just not asking for them. There are many, many resources available to help you. The professors are kind and approachable, even if they do seem tough at times. One of our professors even edited the Netter atlas... in other words he EDITED the book we use for anatomy. We have excellent, available, approachable professors. I have been impressed by the quality of education offered at this institution. I was absolutely blown away by how accomplished and professional the faculty are. I am sorry you are having such a terrible experience, but for everyone else reading this... please know this is not how most of us feel.

 

[Ost3oclast]

Threads like this are helpful to see insights of current students but man.....everyone seems to be hating on their schools. Last week it was azcom (the same week i interviewed there) and now its western (where i interview next week). Its bumming me out. I used to be pumped for these interviews but these posts leave me jaded....