I received admission into nycpm and kent state but can't decide where to go. I gave in my deposit for kent state so I knew I had a seat three weeks ago. But I am also from the tri state area and ideally would want to practice here. Would kent state be able to help me land a residency back here? Also, the one and pretty much only reason why I loved nycpm was because of their clinical experience. I do not know too much of kent states clinical experience. Can someone elaborate and help me make a decision?
Here is a summary of KSU-CPM's clinical experience. Your 1st year you go to clinic one day the whole year and its just to remind you the reason your at podiatry school. At this point in school you haven't had lower anatomy or any of the pod med skills courses so clinic isn't really that helpful. Your 2nd year you go to clinic 3-5 times a semester. At this time, depending on how comfortable you are and how comfortable your 3rd or 4th year student at clinic is, they may let you do the physical exam and treatment. I usually let the 2nd years examine and treat the patient while teaching them what I am looking for and how to appropriately treat the patient. I also show them how to chart and how to use the computer system. But keep in mind that every 2nd year student's experience is different just based on who you are paired with. Your 3rd year, you are in clinic 3 days a week and you have a different rotation each month. 3rd year rotations include: Midtown clinic (the school's main clinic), Emergency Medicine, Cleveland Veterans hospital, Independence clinic (the schools other clinic), Surgery, Surgical skills, Simulated patients, and Radiology. The first 4 rotations listed take place in a clinical setting. For the surgery rotation you will go to the OR plus you also have clinic time to see post-op and pre-op patients. The last 3 rotations take place in the school. As the name suggests, in surgical skills you learn techniques you will need for surgery such scrubbing-in, gowning and gloving, pre-op prep of foot, suturing, post-op dressings, casting, and bone saw workshop etc. Simulated patient rotation tests our ability to do the physical exam for the upper extremity. Radiology rotation is where we learn to take xrays and process them as well as interpret them. Both of our school clinics have x-rays machines and students are responsible for taking radiographs for any patient that comes to these clinics. Our 4th year we have 6 months for externship. We start externships in March of our 3rd year and our last possible externship month is February of your 4th year. This means that you may only have one externship after interviews for residency. The reason I mention this is that some perspective students find that to be an important point (you can look at other SDN posts regarding that topic). Besides the 6 externships, our other rotations include: Midtown clinic, Independence clinic, 2 months for Senior Medicine (which you can choose to do at Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Veterans Hospital, University Hospital, Salem Veterans Hospital in Virginia, Metro Hospital, and Millcreek Hospital in Erie, PA), and Cleveland Veterans Hospital. In terms of requirements for externships, 1 of your externship months must be at a private practice. Any program that has at least 50% clinic can be considered a private practice (i.e. Albert Einstein Medical Center in Pa, or most Veterans hospitals). If you have any more questions about KSU-CPM, you can message me. I hope this helps you with your decision. Goodluck!
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P.S.- The AAWP organization organizes a free clinic every month where you can go help out and work in the clinic even as a 1st year (but most likely with some supervision your first time there). Also some of the professors at school have a private practice and they let students come and work with them. I have at least 5-6 people in my class who did this.
