MSUCOM vs. Any other in-state MD (not UM)

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LOL at @OrdinaryDO who a year ago at this time was trashing his school because he didn't get an interview and "it only accepts minorities and low stat applicants" and now tries to act like it isn't going to limit him or every student compared to MD students. If the first years knew who he was he would probably be shunned for what he said last year and now he acts like he is going to kill everything in medical school if he gets through the masters program. Don't listen to this guy.

OP go MD unless you hate the MD schools you get into and like MSU that much more. I love my DO school, but I recognize that it limits my potential. Throw yourself a bone and don't do that to yourself if you have the choice. For example, I have found in medical school that I REALLY love teaching others. So academic medicine grows more and more of interest every day. However, there aren't as many opportunities for DO's to practice academic medicine. I would have never imagined I would be interested in academics, this is an example of why going MD is better even though you are "sure" you wanna do OB. However, I don't doubt you could achieve your goals from MSU, you just might have to work a little harder.
 
LOL at @OrdinaryDO who a year ago at this time was trashing his school because he didn't get an interview and "it only accepts minorities and low stat applicants" and now tries to act like it isn't going to limit him or every student compared to MD students. If the first years knew who he was he would probably be shunned for what he said last year and now he acts like he is going to kill everything in medical school if he gets through the masters program. Don't listen to this guy.

OP go MD unless you hate the MD schools you get into and like MSU that much more. I love my DO school, but I recognize that it limits my potential. Throw yourself a bone and don't do that to yourself if you have the choice. For example, I have found in medical school that I REALLY love teaching others. So academic medicine grows more and more of interest every day. However, there aren't as many opportunities for DO's to practice academic medicine. I would have never imagined I would be interested in academics, this is an example of why going MD is better even though you are "sure" you wanna do OB. However, I don't doubt you could achieve your goals from MSU, you just might have to work a little harder.

Gotta love those who think they know it all and can't recognize honest advice when they see it. If anyone should be ashamed of themselves it is you. Go look back at that thread and you will notice that I didn't blame anything on the recruitment of minorities, hell you should know of all people that OSU-CHS published and article for public awareness of their aggressive recruitment towards minorities. You were the one being hostile on that forum, just as you are now. If they knew who you were I doubt they would be your friend. There is no "IF" I get through the masters program, it's "when." I don't question my ability one bit. I have several friends that go to my state school, some of them are probably mutual, but you would never know it because you judge people by the tone you apply to posts on SDN. You have a sore sense of well-being. You have earned a spot on the ignore list.


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All I'm going to say is that in this thread there are two sides, the opinions of pre-meds and the opinions of current students and residents. I am going to side with the latter. I guess my fellow pre-meds will just have to learn the hard way. The numbers do not lie.
 
Okay @femmegoblue here is the bottom line, because I'm tired of seeing @AnatomyGrey12 and @MADD!!! bicker like children over whether or not DOs go to good residencies or not. they can and do, you just have to work hard (which you should be doing anyways).

Bottom line:

1) you got to MSU. You get to be a doctor. A DO, but a fully licensed physician. If you work hard and do well on boards, then you will be able to match at a decent OB/GYN program. Will you get to do your residency at Harvard Med? No, but 95% of MDs don't get into residencies that good. Will you get forcibly pushed into doing a FM residency at a strip mall in rural Idaho? No, not as long as you work hard and do well. This is a safe and perfectly viable option for your goals. I would tell you otherwise if you wanted to do Neurosurgery or Ortho.

2) you decline admission to MSU and attend the masters/SMP. You MUST do well here. If your performance slips, then you will end up with a poor SMP GPA and not able to get into an MD school at all, and will have subsequently burned the bridges to any DO program by declining admission to attend an MD affiliated program. At this point you options are another profession or the Caribbean.

You are literally debating between a more or less guaranteed shot to be an OB/GYN doc or a gamble at maybe getting into an MD school.

Why is this even a debate?


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MSU is an incredible school. Michigan is a very DO-friendly state. Do you see yourself staying in Michigan? If so, go to MSU. Do you think you'll end up outside of Michigan? Go MD.

That being said, I don't think a DO degree from MSU will limit your application to OBGYN anywhere really.
 
@femmegoblue , I think you are wasting your time looking for answers here (on this thread especially). The Pre-DO forum rests on ancient pillars made of threads just like this. I find that I usually ask questions like this when I already know the answer, and just want confirmation. I think you know the answer, so go with it. If you don't yet know, you still have time. More will be revealed. Good luck!
 
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Okay @femmegoblue here is the bottom line, because I'm tired of seeing @AnatomyGrey12 and @MADD!!! bicker like children over whether or not DOs go to good residencies or not. they can and do, you just have to work hard (which you should be doing anyways).

Bottom line:

1) you got to MSU. You get to be a doctor. A DO, but a fully licensed physician. If you work hard and do well on boards, then you will be able to match at a decent OB/GYN program. Will you get to do your residency at Harvard Med? No, but 95% of MDs don't get into residencies that good. Will you get forcibly pushed into doing a FM residency at a strip mall in rural Idaho? No, not as long as you work hard and do well. This is a safe and perfectly viable option for your goals. I would tell you otherwise if you wanted to do Neurosurgery or Ortho.

2) you decline admission to MSU and attend the masters/SMP. You MUST do well here. If your performance slips, then you will end up with a poor SMP GPA and not able to get into an MD school at all, and will have subsequently burned the bridges to any DO program by declining admission to attend an MD affiliated program. At this point you options are another profession or the Caribbean.

You are literally debating between a more or less guaranteed shot to be an OB/GYN doc or a gamble at maybe getting into an MD school.

Why is this even a debate?


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OP has 3.9 in WSU SMP rn


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Then why attend another masters program? Go DO. If a 3.9 SMP can't get you an MD, then nothing will.

This is still a pointless debate. MSU is the perfect option for her goals


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Shes not debating waiting, she applied MD this year too and is saying hypothetically. However i do agree, i believe the argument for MD is if her goals change. Which is a valid argument IMO. But this has been beaten to death lol this thread needs to die


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I was deciding whether or not to apply this cycle or to build my app one more cycle (or maybe do an SMP) to apply to MD schools. My good friend, who is super against DO schools (he has a couple family MDs that instilled this in him) had always said never to apply to DO schools because you won't find ever job. My friend made me feel so dumb about thinking it would be cool to be a DO that he almost convinced me to apply to the caribbean with him.

In the end, I decided to apply to DO schools this cycle and I'm so happy I did, because it is what I originally wanted to do, and what I am excited about. I almost let someone influence me to do otherwise because of the predisposition they had, and were trying to impress upon me. I decided going MD was a bad idea for me, but not because it's a bad route to take (obviously), but because the only reason I felt the need to take it was because others were saying I should.

All I'm saying is.. If you were originally excited about becoming an Ob/Gyn DO, then do it. Don't let people tell you you won't be successful if you want to be a DO. You have the opportunity to attend one of the best DO schools in the country.

If you originally wanted to be an Ob/Gyn MD, then do it. Don't let the temptation of being able to get into medical school one year earlier stop you from becoming an MD (if you don't get into an MD school this cycle.)

If you don't care, and just want to be an Ob/Gyn, go to MSUCOM. If you get accepted down the line to an MD school, then pay the extra money to reserve a second seat at that MD school. Because in the end, that extra grand you front now (or however much it will be) won't matter.

Just my two cents on the situation. I have no idea what the "better" option is, I just think you should pursue what your original goal was before reading too much into all of this stuff.
 
Okay @femmegoblue here is the bottom line, because I'm tired of seeing @AnatomyGrey12 and @MADD!!! bicker like children over whether or not DOs go to good residencies or not. they can and do, you just have to work hard (which you should be doing anyways).

Bottom line:

1) you got to MSU. You get to be a doctor. A DO, but a fully licensed physician. If you work hard and do well on boards, then you will be able to match at a decent OB/GYN program. Will you get to do your residency at Harvard Med? No, but 95% of MDs don't get into residencies that good. Will you get forcibly pushed into doing a FM residency at a strip mall in rural Idaho? No, not as long as you work hard and do well. This is a safe and perfectly viable option for your goals. I would tell you otherwise if you wanted to do Neurosurgery or Ortho.

2) you decline admission to MSU and attend the masters/SMP. You MUST do well here. If your performance slips, then you will end up with a poor SMP GPA and not able to get into an MD school at all, and will have subsequently burned the bridges to any DO program by declining admission to attend an MD affiliated program. At this point you options are another profession or the Caribbean.

You are literally debating between a more or less guaranteed shot to be an OB/GYN doc or a gamble at maybe getting into an MD school.

Why is this even a debate?


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First off, Whoosh. Secondly, your understanding of the situation isn't even close. And third, how is a banned member still posting?
 
PEOPLE: You didn't even read my original post! I am not debating a master's. Already did one, 3.9 GPA, get with the program.

Yeah I don't know where that came from. I do hope that I have been helpful in the advice I gave to you specifically. If this situation does come to be I think it is good you are deciding what you would do now, instead of having to decide on the spot.
 
Yeah I don't know where that came from. I do hope that I have been helpful in the advice I gave to you specifically. If this situation does come to be I think it is good you are deciding what you would do now, instead of having to decide on the spot.
Yes I very much appreciate it. Aside from looking at the match lists of individual schools, where can I look to see all that "this many DO's matched this speciality or fellowship" info people were siting?
 
First off, Whoosh. Secondly, your understanding of the situation isn't even close. And third, how is a banned member still posting?

Looks like the guy was just trying to help OP without contributing to the massive flame war you started. Albeit he was misinformed. Guess they ban on this website for doing that or disagreeing with certain people. Not a good impression for a new user.

Anyways, I'm thinking of adding MSU to my list, what do you guys think about it? Is it an overall good school?


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Looks like the guy was just trying to help OP without contributing to the massive flame war you started. Albeit he was misinformed. Guess they ban on this website for doing that or disagreeing with certain people. Not a good impression for a new user.

Anyways, I'm thinking of adding MSU to my list, what do you guys think about it? Is it an overall good school?


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ATP Lives! Now on your third life. SDN is more fun than studying on a Sunday isn't it!
 
Looks like the guy was just trying to help OP without contributing to the massive flame war you started. Albeit he was misinformed. Guess they ban on this website for doing that or disagreeing with certain people. Not a good impression for a new user.

Anyways, I'm thinking of adding MSU to my list, what do you guys think about it? Is it an overall good school?


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Not for 80k a year OOS. If you are in state it's probably the best med school in the nation.
 
Are these stats only for ACGME residencies?

No, I included both acgme and AOA. The natmatch and aacom.org links are the AOA stuff. The last link, ogme 2014, is the closest thing to the Nrmp data.

Another resource for some specialities, like Opthamology and many different fellowships, is the San Francisco match (https://www.sfmatch.org/Specialty.aspx).
 
No, I included both acgme and AOA. The natmatch and aacom.org links are the AOA stuff. The last link, ogme 2014, is the closest thing to the Nrmp data.

Another resource for some specialities, like Opthamology and many different fellowships, is the San Francisco match (https://www.sfmatch.org/Specialty.aspx).
Thank you so so much, I really appreciate it!
 
No this presentation is great! The issue I have is that this assumes that OP ONLY wants to just match any ob/Gyn spot and that she knows 100% that is what she wants. If any of those things changes like maybe she decides she wants a more academic OB residency, or decides that she wants to pursue something else entirely, like something competitive perhaps, or a competitive university program in OB that could lead to a competitive fellowship. In any of those scenarios having the MD from any MD school will give her more bang for her buck than a DO from MSU. This has been my point the whole time.
 
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I'd bet my money the student from Nova has a higher chance of getting Derm than a student from UCLA

A couple things.. This could have been possible before the merger. No longer. I also want to add that many of these programs are affiliated with a DO school and the linkage isn't really on par with the level of connection an MD school has with its home programs. But even then someone from UCLA does not need to be the superstar candidate that the same person would need to be if they wanted derm from a DO school. Sure a student from UCLA had better be an absolute rockstar to match UCLA derm, but to just match any derm spot the UCLA grad will have a huge advantage over someone from NOVA. Your reasoning here is very flawed.

Not to mention I personally know a DO derm who straight up told me a lot of the DO programs will not survive the merger because the training is suspect.

but I don't think (my opinion, I may be wrong here) that OB fellowships are even competitive

Unfortunately you are wrong. Some are uncompetitive sure but there are a few that are very competitive, namely MFM, Urogyn, and GynOnc. Last year GynOnc was filled with 94% USMDs and not a single DO. Very few DOs get any of these spots and the ones that do usually come from strong academic programs. The kind of programs that you have be a very good candidate to match as a DO.

Edit. Would also like to add that MD schools have their own in house residencies as well, and you can't really compare something like 2-3 home derm spots with 14 home spots at NOVA because of differences in class size. a lot of MD schools have small class sizes. DO school class sizes are huge. So even on a pure numbers basis the "advantage " isn't really as big as you are trying to paint it as.
 
Dude. That's the point of 90% of this website.

The point of advice is to get info from more knowledgeable others. SDN is a poor resource unless you get actual advice from residents/physicians/faculty who have actually witnessed these things. Why would you want advice from people that haven't even started medical school yet or have only "heard it from (insert random DO here)"? They are no more knowledgeable than you (most likely). In fact, since you're in your SMP at Wayne, you're most likely pretty well informed compared to the norm already.

That being said, I'm not sure what you meant by the point of SDN. Hopefully you didn't mean what I just described or literally what you quoted me.

I don't go on SDN taking advice from people who literally have no actual experience with such things. I highly consider the advice of those that are actually much further along than I am (goro, LizzyM, gyngyn, gonnif, psai, etc). Vetting experience on an internet forum is a difficult thing to do anyway.

But that's just me. To each his own. Carry on.
 
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Only on SDN will those with absolutely no experience give advice to those with no experience.
The point of advice is to get info from more knowledgeable others. SDN is a poor resource unless you get actual advice from residents/physicians/faculty who have actually witnessed these things. Why would you want advice from people that haven't even started medical school yet or have only "heard it from (insert random DO here)"? They are no more knowledgeable than you (most likely). In fact, since you're in your SMP at Wayne, you're most likely pretty well informed compared to the norm already.

That being said, I'm not sure what you meant by the point of SDN. Hopefully you didn't mean what I just described or literally what you quoted me.

I don't go on SDN taking advice from people who literally have no actual experience with such things. I highly consider the advice of those that are actually much further along than I am (goro, LizzyM, gyngyn, gonnif, psai, etc). Vetting experience on an internet forum is a difficult thing to do anyway.

But that's just me. To each his own. Carry on.
I do think I am an incredibly well informed person, especially to get where I am. I meant that 90% of the time SDN is a pre-med circle jerk, but there are some people on here that do know their stuff and have helped me tremendously throughout the past three years of getting into medical school. SDN is just one place from which I glean advice, and I take it with a grain of salt. But thanks for looking out, I guess.
 
I do think I am an incredibly well informed person, especially to get where I am. I meant that 90% of the time SDN is a pre-med circle jerk, but there are some people on here that do know their stuff and have helped me tremendously throughout the past three years of getting into medical school. SDN is just one place from which I glean advice, and I take it with a grain of salt. But thanks for looking out, I guess.

I said you were likely more informed than most of us 👍👍👍 we can all get along:highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive::highfive:
 
The point of advice is to get info from more knowledgeable others. SDN is a poor resource unless you get actual advice from residents/physicians/faculty who have actually witnessed these things. Why would you want advice from people that haven't even started medical school yet or have only "heard it from (insert random DO here)"? They are no more knowledgeable than you (most likely). In fact, since you're in your SMP at Wayne, you're most likely pretty well informed compared to the norm already.

That being said, I'm not sure what you meant by the point of SDN. Hopefully you didn't mean what I just described or literally what you quoted me.

I don't go on SDN taking advice from people who literally have no actual experience with such things. I highly consider the advice of those that are actually much further along than I am (goro, LizzyM, gyngyn, gonnif, psai, etc). Vetting experience on an internet forum is a difficult thing to do anyway.

But that's just me. To each his own. Carry on.

There's a difference between opinions and supporting evidence. I may be a pre-med, but the numbers I listed above that were published by NRMP and AOA speak for themselves. Instead of vetting to see who the source is, you should always ask for supporting evidence to see if someone can back up their claims. If it's logical and makes sense, then those are the facts. If it doesn't make sense, call them out on it and say why. Either way, this leads to meaningful discussion and both parties can learn something from each other.
 
There's a difference between opinions and supporting evidence. I may be a pre-med, but the numbers I listed above that were published by NRMP and AOA speak for themselves. Instead of vetting to see who the source is, you should always ask for supporting evidence to see if someone can back up their claims. If it's logical and makes sense, then those are the facts. If it doesn't make sense, call them out on it and say why. Either way, this leads to meaningful discussion and both parties can learn something from each other.

I realize that but when the "supporting evidence" is "I talked to this DO who..." then yeah I don't give a rip lol. We are saying the same thing though so cool mane:bang:
 
There's a difference between opinions and supporting evidence. I may be a pre-med, but the numbers I listed above that were published by NRMP and AOA speak for themselves. Instead of vetting to see who the source is, you should always ask for supporting evidence to see if someone can back up their claims. If it's logical and makes sense, then those are the facts. If it doesn't make sense, call them out on it and say why. Either way, this leads to meaningful discussion and both parties can learn something from each other.
You can post the data, but your conclusions and context hold no weight. Being within the MSUCOM OPTI doesn't mean what you think it does in terms of preferential treatment. Secondly only about half of those had applied for ACGME accreditation. Third they are mostly small community programs that don't give you exposure to all facets of training and may ship you off to bigger centers for exposure where your role is highly variable. Fourth, being Q4 for 4 years would be brutal.

And look at FAUs first or second year graduating class match list compared to MSU: http://med.fau.edu/newsandevents/April FYN Newsletter.pdf
 
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Unless you really want to do OMT, then the answer is always MD, even new MD. New MD schools still have match lists comparable, and honestly usually better on the surgical side, than the best DO schools, even MSUCOM.

Either way though, put down the deposit at MSUCOM, its a good school and they'll prepare you well. $1k is nothing to lose. Just think about the $1200+ and 16+ hrs of your life that you'll save by taking only 1 set of boards.

Also, this is about actual acceptances, not SMPs. I would not choose an SMP over an MSUCOM acceptance.
 
Unless you really want to do OMT, then the answer is always MD, even new MD. New MD schools still have match lists comparable, and honestly usually better on the surgical side, than the best DO schools, even MSUCOM.

Either way though, put down the deposit at MSUCOM, its a good school and they'll prepare you well. $1k is nothing to lose. Just think about the $1200+ and 16+ hrs of your life that you'll save by taking only 1 set of boards.

Also, this is about actual acceptances, not SMPs. I would not choose an SMP over an MSUCOM acceptance.
Thanks, but I am already in/almost done with the SMP. I don't know how it turned into an msucom vs. SMP debate lol.
 
Thanks, but I am already in/almost done with the SMP. I don't know how it turned into an msucom vs. SMP debate lol.

Yeah, I added that on because others mentioned SMP vs. DO. I wanted it to be clear that I was talking about med school acceptances not SMPs.

Seriously though, you have no idea where you'll be or where you'll want to be in 4 yrs and how choosing DO might limit your options.

I actually really like a lot of OMT, and I'm applying for one of the most DO friendly and least competitive specialties, and even I've bumped into programs that are either like "nope we only take MDs" or "if you're applying to our program as a DO, we expect you to take USMLE Step 1, 2 CK, and 2 CS". To put that into perspective, that means paying $3k on exam fees and losing 3 days of your life on top of the $3k and 3 days you already lose with the COMLEX Level 1, 2 CE, and 2 PE.
 
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