Thanks for letting me know about this. OCPM seems like a strong school but I am a bit apprehensive about the clinical program.
Do you guys have a gen surgery, internal med, etc rotation like most other podiatric medical schools? How is the patient pathology (diverse cases, limb salvage, ankle stuff, etc)? How about participating in surgical cases with attendings??
I have heard some negative things about the rotations. Examples include slow clinics and weak H & P rotation - PA's in charge and they will not let you do much.
Any truth to this???
About externships, are there 6 available plus 1 month for private practice??? Thanks for your help!
There is a 2 month block of senior medicine during your fourth year which gives you options between internal medicine, orthopedics (not sure if it will be still available), vascular surgery, infectious disease, and a few more. I am currently in my internal medicine block and its great. I participate in patient evaluation, teaching rounds, and resident conferences. I am by no means absolved from getting asked questions or thinking on my feet with respect to medical cases (no pun intended).
As far as the H&P rotation goes, it is run by a DO actually (head of emergency medicine) and they supervise the P.A.'s, who ultimately supervise you. This is a great rotation as long as you make the most out of it. In other words, if you are showing interest and actively asking questions/participating then they'll let you do alot of things.
Now you also asked a question about the pathology at the school clinics, to be perfectly honest you will not see calcaneal fractures, osteochondral lesions of talar domes, or post-traumatic arthritic ankles. You will see alot of primary foot care cases - i.e. diabetic patients with onychomycosis (fungal nails), Peripheral vascular disease patients, lower extremity edema, biomechanical problems that need orthotic management, tapings, or even injection (i.e. for heel pain), in-grown nails, and the occasional ulcers (neuropathic and venous stasis). In other words, you're seeing typical podiatry office cases. You will learn alot out of those as long as you are receptive and actively seeking to learn. The school has a few recent grads as attendings and they have been increasing their volume for good surgical cases to scrub. From my experience, most of what I learned was from externships/clerkships. The school rotations provided a foundation or a basis for me to build-on further knowledge (i.e. learning how to read journals, scrub, present to attendings, etc.)
In regards to the externships, the total is 6 months - out of which you must have a private month so that leaves you with 5 months of externships and 1 month of private practice. Out of those 5 months, you can choose to take a month off for vacation. Alot of people do that because that's really the only time you get for time off, and others do it if they get stuck with an externship month after interviews i.e. in February. I also know of others who take that month off to visit programs (which isn't a bad idea at all).
I will admit that the school has put togethre alot of effort to revamp our program - which is good for our profession as a whole. To my understanding, the average matriculating GPAs has increased and the quality of the students has improved. I still think the school has issues but I will commend them for taking steps in a positive direction.
Hope that helps.
