I am a bit concerned about what I have heard about NYCOM's 3rd and 4th year rotations.
I am going to take it that what concerns you is that post in the Pros/Cons of your medical school thread a couple days back.
Here's the deal, I only know of ONE DO school (UMDNJ-SOM) that has its OWN teaching hospital (correct me if I'm wrong here). Just about every other DO school, NYCOM included, have to do their 3rd and 4th year rotations at other affiliated hospitals that may or may not be part of the schools GME program. That's the way it is. DO school don't have luxury and convenience of a large university hospital. If you want that, then you are going to have to apply to an MD program. The thing that NYCOM does have, however is strong affiliations with some very big hospitals in the new york area. For example, 3rd years can do internal medicine and surgery rotations at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. A fantastic hospital (check it out yourself). NYCOM also has NUMC (Nassau University Medical Center) which is part of SUNY stony brook's teaching hospitals. NYCOM students can also opt to basically do EVERY rotation they want at one hosptial if they apply to do a regional there. There are various places that offer nycom students to do regional's such as NUMC, Coney Island Hosp, Good Sam hosp, Lutheran Medical center, Maimonides Medical Center (affiliated with SUNY downstate), St. Barnabas Hospital in the bronx. One can opt to do a regional clinical campus in NJ using the St. Barnabas Heath Care System of NJ (A collection of various hospitals in northern NJ including Newark Beth Isreal (affliated with UMDNJ-NJMS), Clara Mass Hospital and St. Barnabas NJ (also affiliated with UMDNJ-NJMS). One can ALSO opt to do a northern NY tract for 3rd year where they do their rotations at various hospitals up there.
The point I am trying to make is that you have many options of what you can do during your 3rd year. You can choose if you want, to do it all at one hospital. You can pick and choose what hospitals you want to do (via the lottery), you can go to NJ, or you can go upstate NY. Some people might be out of touch with the actual school if they are in upstate NY or NJ. Others might have more contact with NYCOM admin if they choose to do their rotations at NYCOMEC hospitals (the ones we have residency spots at, and believe me we have ALOT of residency spots in EVERY specialty including Derm, Ortho, ENT (Facial Plastics), we
even have one of the new DO residencies for neurosurgery at NSUH-LIJ.
Of course we don't have an actual HEAD of Surgery or a Surgery department or a Head of Internal med because WE DON'T HAVE A UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL that is solely nycom's. As I said before, if you want to have a BIG univ hospital, then you are only going to get that from MD schools. If, however, you want to go to a school that lets you do many rotations in many BIG hospitals in the New York area and gives you a shot at doing your residency at some big hospitals in the nyc area, then nycom will suffice.
I hope I answered your question.
EDIT: Also, during 4th year, you only have to do 2 out of the 10 required rotations, electives and SUBI's in the NYCOM system. The rest you can do at any hospital in the US (you can also do one rotation in a foreign country as a 4th year). Just this year, NYCOM now allows students do a 4 week elective in any field at any hospital during your 3rd year.
