Nova, Arizona or chicago?What would you chose?

[osteopeddoc]

Hi All,
I have recently been accepted to many schools, and now need to make up my mind. I need some help; The schools I narrowed it down to are: Nova, Arizoa, and Chicago. I also am interested in Maine, and PCOM . Any info about these schools/ your perception about their reputation would be appreciated!

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[San_Juan_Sun]

A friend of mine was in a very similar position to you (even some of the same schools you're considering). He told me that a couple of the schools really impressed him, so much so that he could "see" himself there. At that point he just had to go with what felt like the best fit for him. I won't tell you where he chose, but he said that he wouldn't have wanted it to happen any other way.


Congrats on having such a tough choice to make. Hope it works out for you.

 

[ItNeverEnds]

If location is important, then decide based on that. Otherwise, evaluate the pros and cons, and go to the school that fits you best. If I was in your situation, I would choose CCOM.

 

[Gregory Gulick]

Those are all good schools, so don't sweat about that. I agree with ItNeverEnds, develop your own criteria. Everyone should be looking for something different in their medical school -- I knew what I wanted in a medical school, but what I wanted from my school is probably different from most people. So if you make the decision that is best for you (and your family, if applicable), then you can't go wrong.

One thing I would look at for sure, however, is clinical rotations. Check out how their last two years operate and what type of flexibility you have with clinical rotations. For example: How many months of elective rotations do you get? Are there restrictions on the types of electives that you can do? And so forth. This is especially important if you anticipate doing a specialty like surgery. If you are, then a school whose electives are predominatly limited to primary care specialties may not be your best option. Instead, you would be better off looking for greater flexibility in your elective opportunities.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Dr Alo]

The chicago school is great, has a beautiful campus, the med school is the priority on campus.

Our Osteopathic professor is Dr. Kappler, the team physcian for the Chacago bears during their superbowl run in 85, and is a special friend of Walter Payton. Our OMM lab is full of pictures and letters from Da BEars and Payton.

CCOM is the top-rated OstMed school in the country.

 

[Boomer]

Originally posted by MaloCCOM

Our Osteopathic professor is Dr. Kappler, the team physcian for the Chacago bears during their superbowl run in 85, and is a special friend of Walter Payton. Our OMM lab is full of pictures and letters from Da BEars and Payton.

CCOM is the top-rated OstMed school in the country.

Curious....are they still friends?????




Cause that'd be cool, huh?

 

[Dr Sum Day]

I believe Walter Payton passed away some time ago

 

[osteopeddoc]

Thanks for your input. It IS a tough choice. I have felt that I could be at any of them and haven't had a "gut" feeling, but maybe thats because I am analytical.They are all very good schools, with pros and cons to each...

Thats very cool about Dr. Kapper! Also, the rotations q seems like a good criteria.Thanks

 

[Boomer]

Originally posted by dpw68
I believe Walter Payton passed away some time ago

I know he did....I was being sarcastic (hard to get that across online, though).

 

[bigtony]

Speaking of football and osteopathic medicine.
The Miami Dolphins training camp is located at NSU.
The NSUCOM parking garage is shared with the
trainig camp. In between classes you can watch
the Dolphins players and cheerleaders practice.

By the way, NSU has a Harvey cardiology simulation manequin.

 

[Claymore]

Osteopeddoc-
What a great problem to have. Many people wish they could be so lucky to have such great choices. I think that you will receive an excellent education at either Nova, CCOM, or AZCOM.

For me, one of the most important factors in deciding between these schools would be location. Are you from one of these areas? Or do you want to see a new part of the country? Where you want to live for the next 4 years should play a role in your decision.

Secondly, you may wish to look at the schools' reputations. AZCOM is a new school, but seems to be up-and-coming. CCOM is 100+ years old and very well-established. Nova is in between.

I had a similar decision to make last year, along with a few other schools...I chose CCOM because of the location and quality of residency placement.

 

[osteopeddoc]

Yes very good points. I am from Florida and Nova would be cheaper by @$8,000/yr (?). I am not sure how quickly I can adapt to the weather in Chicago, but I hear it has great hospital affiliations and reputation. I also agree that reputation requires age. Its a tough choice.

 

[doctorsquared]

You should consider location and price in addition to reputation or program. Where will you be happy? Rural? City? Also if you caan save tens of thousands of dollars it will put less pressure on you when you get out.

Sally

 

[Dagny]

Let me know if you have any questions about CCOM. I had also interviewed at NOVA, and compared CCOM to Nova a while back. Congratulations on your acceptances and your choice to become an osteopathic physician!

 

[djpark7]

I would have to comment on NOVA SOUTHEASTERN. I am currently a second year medical student at Nova and am quite dissatisfied. They've undergone lot of changes this year...our class is the first to experience these changes. The common consensus among my class is the administration could care less about you. Even certain professors are getting upset about the way they are being treated. I can honestly say, and many will agree with me, I am learning absolutely NOTHING. It is very poorly organized. Administration seems to focus more an making the school look good on paper than actually caring for the students.

This is more than just a disgruntled grip session. Please take this with as an open mind as possible. There are quite a few faculty here that are really good. First year classes were very well. I find the ugly side of the school comes out druing your second year here. My advise would be to seriously look further into this school before you decide to come here.

 

[Careofme]

djpark,

Thanks for your post. I am currently a first year and think that although the schedule is crazy at times (what medical school schedules aren't) I honestly don't have that many gripes about the classes per se.

Unfortuntely, I don't have time to get into things very deeply (have to go study biochemistry) but I just wanted to quickly reply. Change is necessary for progress and NOVA is making changes for the better - this is good, right? Would I rather go to a school that is too lost in their tradition and methodology to realize that changes might be for the better? I think not.

I'll continue this later.

If anyone has any questions about NOVA feel free to EMAIL me.

Peace,

care

 

[trostnick]

I am also a second year student at NOVA and would like to make a comment about the previous post by djpark7. I totally disagree with him/her. It is true that there were some changes made this year and while djpark7 deems that they were unnecessary and bad decisions of the administration (which I don't think they were) he also does not give any credit to some very important changes that were made as well. Since djpark7 simply stated that the school basically sucks without giving any explicit detail I will try to provide an idea of some of the changes. First, I will address the changes that students love to complain about. Attendance and dress code. Before you even get accepted to NOVA you receive a clear explanation of the attendance and dress policy in their secondary application. Students then get to school and are shocked and offended at the administration that they would enforce their policy. All I can say that if you can read then you know their policy...end of discussion. If you don't like it they give you ample warning so you can look elsewhere. This year, our class is the first to be enrolled in a new course called clinical medicine. It is a combination of small group problem based learning, computerized simulated patients, and real human simulated patients. It is coordinated with the current system being studied so all cases pertain that system. First off, I think this course is excellent. I have friends at both DO and MD schools who have flat out told me that they aren't getting an experience remotely close to this at their school. I don't know if it is our class or all medical student classes in the US but ours love to complain. I think many students in our class feel that if we aren't spoon fed like we were last year and the very beginning of this year then it is an outrage. Granted it is a new class and sure with anything new or even old for that matter there are always things that need to be improved. But some students in our class expect that when things get tough, the faculty should come forward and grab our hand and tell us everything is going to be ok. The minute that they give in we will too. If they came out tomorrow and said that everyone will get A's, how many people do you think will put any effort into learning. Sometimes I think we forget what we are here for. The professors of that class have to hold their ground in order for us to keep putting in the time to learn. This class allows us to solve problems and make decisions that will be required of us in the future. People are so caught up in grades and their personal time that they seem to miss the whole point of the class. In the end, they probably will grab our hand. This is just my opinion. Some of the positives: They have made major cuts to the amount of time we spend in the classroom. I think this school is excellent. To say that they are not teaching us anything is grossly misdirected. To spend hours upon hours studying and not learning anything doesn't seem to be the schools problem. Unless the content in Robbins Pathology is pointless information then I think we are learning something because our systems courses follow that book to the page. If you don't know that book you are not passing systems. I am tired and this is too long. All in all NOVA will prepare you very well. They are starting to make us take some responsibility for our education and spoon feeding us less this year. We need this b/c God knows that during 3rd and 4th year there will be no hand holding. Just my opinion.

 

[osteopeddoc]

Wow, the negative comment about nova is concerning. Although I dont expect a medical school to spoon feed, I do want the professors and curriculum to facilitate learning. I believe rotations will be a different type of learning, but before I get there, I want to have the basics down.

Are the problems arising from the switch to systems based teaching? Are do they relate to classes allowing for more personal studying?

Another q. DO you feel the professors outline and give notes on what you need to know or are you left to "read the whole book"?

Thanks for any and all replies to my q's about nova. If any other students have similar gripes about nova, please tell me what was different between first and second year. Thanks.

 

[DrQuinn]

Osteopeddoc...

Here's some advice.

This is coming from a 4th year NSUCOMer...

I am actually in the midst of an ER shift but it is amazingly slow (I am the good luck cloud), so I do have the time to write.

DJPARK is obviously an extremist. Do not for one second think that any medical school professor isn't teaching or doesn't care. Do not think that if you go to NSUCOM you won't be taught anything... I am proof of that. I went to NSU, did my rotations up in Tampa, and now am applying for residency (in EM nonetheless, a very competitive field) and let me tell you what... I've been getting interviews at very good residencies (Univ of FL, Univ of MD, Cleveland Clinic, Penn State, etc).

I DID learn things at NSUCOM. The above poster is correct. Some students want it to be spoonfed. Some students WANT to have Robbins Pathology assigned for reading, bceause they think that's how you learn. Well, unfortuantely for them (and fortunately for most of us), a lot of medical schools are trying out "problem based learning." It was an experiment when I was a 2nd year at NSUCOM... and I think its a great tool. I know for a FACT that Ohio State University, a very good institution, uses problem based learning (PBL). In fact, they have two groups of medical students. One group learns the classic way, lectures, waht not. The other group learns PBL the ENTIRE TIME. You know waht? I think the PBL group is better clinically... their board scores may not be quite as high but who gives a flying f#$#.

Everyone will have a gripe about their medical school. No institution is perfect, no administration is perfect.

However, you will get out of your education what you put into it. I went into first year with a very gung ho attitude. Shoot, when we were all premeds, how many of us said "I will study 10 hours a day straight if they will just accept me to medical school, I just want to be a doctor!" I bet many of us would raise our rhetorical hand. Now that most students get accepted, they do not watn to put that hard work in. Its unfortunate, but a reality.

When students like DJpark post, take it with a grain of salt.

Especially on this webiste, check how many posts they have accredited to their account. If its not that many, you have to wonder if its just someone craeting a fake account or a secondary accuotn and just using it to slander or to incite an online riot.

 

[trostnick]

I totally agree with QuinnNSU. In every class, no matter what school you go to, there will always be students who are unhappy. Let me clarify something about the problem based learning class at Nova. It is only a two-credit class. Systems credit for the semester adds up to about 20 credits. So you can see that it is a small fraction of our studies that have upset some people. Systems classes during second year are your major focus. These classes are taught in the classical setting via lectures from pathologists, the pharmacology department, and clinicians in that specialty. We are tested over about 20-30 hours of lecture per exam with a small amount of outside reading. Exam questions come from the lectures and 4-5 questions (out of 100) from the reading. We are given a copy of the notes from the pharm and pathology dept. and we have a note service that takes notes during clinician lectures and then distributes to the class. The problem based learning class is an additional class that is set up to allow us to take what we are learning in systems and apply it to clinical cases. We only meet for two hours each week.
Concerning spoon-feeding, I may have made it sound like that is the case at our school. I think first year Nova does a great job of making sure that you are adjusting to the rigors of medical school without sacrificing learning. What I mean by this is they give you all the notes you need, and if you know these you will do great. When you get to second year the volume of info increases and it would be impossible to provide lectures on every minute detail. We would be in class 9 hrs/day which no one wanted so they cut hours back (people want to have their cake and eat it too). So now with each syllabus they give us clear objectives of some things that that they don't have the time to cover in class that we are responsible to look up. This is where they get the 4-5 reading assignment questions. This upsets some people and they have complained about it. In my opinion these people want spoon-fed.
The changes that Nova is making by adding a 2 credit class that allows up to start thinking like a doctor is a change in the right direction. Among my friends at school including myself, we are pleased with the addition and feel it will prepare us to start thinking like a physician for 3rd and 4th year.

 

[osteopeddoc]

Thanks for all of your honest and very informative replies. Trostnick, I really appreciate the explanation of your classes , test exams, etc. Thanks. The new classes at Nova seem to be in the right direction since you can't just know facts, but need to apply it to situations as a doctor. It's great to hear that 4th years are getting interviews at residency programs of their choice.

Are there alot of DO residency programs in FL, or is it very competitive? I am interested in peds or family. Is it true that you need to do a rotation in a residency program to be accepted?

Thanks so much for the info, esp since you are soo busy in med school/rotations. Nova sounds like a great school and I am pretty convinced that I will be there next year.

 

[DrQuinn]

There are plenty of residencies anywhere.

Especially for peds or FP. They are soooooo noncompetitive that you could go practically anywhere you wanted. Obviously if you wanted to go to a super-prestigious residency, you would have to work a little harder... just like anyone else. But sinec you are still in the process of APPLYING to medical school, you don't need to bother yourself with it.

You just need to focus on where you want to spend the first two years of medical school at... Chicago? AZ? FL?

I went to medical school in FL. I am originally from the DC area. I must admit, it is cool to say to everyone "yeah, I went to FL for medical school... I kick ass." That's how little of a difference there is between medical schools. You will be able to get whatever residency you are able to get. What school you go to has little effect on that...

 

[jd star]

As far as some Nova stats go....

Do you know their COMLEX pass rate? Or the retention rate (like how many students stay in the program all 4 years)? Also, how many students get into one of their top 3 residency choices?

I am most likely going to Nova next year but I'm trying to do a little bit more research before I definitely decide. I really want to go into pediatrics or a peds specialty, and I think Fort Lauderdale/Miami will be a great place to be for peds.

My other concern is that I am from the Philly area and nobody here has ever heard of Nova. Is it going to hurt me if I go to Nova, and possibly decide to move back up to PA to do a residency?

Anyway, if you know those stats, it would be great.... if not, that's cool too. I guess I could always call the school if I really wanted to know.

Thanks!