PCOM-GA or PA

[Tallulah]

yes another thread about which school should i go to...
so...which one?
Here is my situation: I live in DUluth, GA, 10 minutes from the GA PCOM campus...so going to GA PCOM means my husband and I can go ahead and by a nice house here and my husband doesn't have to look for a new job.
But....I would like to live in the north for a while and try out a big city like philadelphia...and PCOM PA is super established with great rotation sites, and i know i would get a good residency there and I would be able to specialize. The GA campus has no gaurentees about the quality of the rotations and the quality of residencies/specialties we can get there.
But PA has a greater cost of living and we would have to rent, whereas in GA we can by a huge house for 250000.

So people who go to PCOM GA and PA, what do you think? I know you guys at the GA campus were really enthusiastic about it, but how do u feel about your chances for specialties and good residencies?
What about you guys at hte PA campus...have u heard anything about the quality at the GA Campus or have any ideas about how it would work for us to get residencies ? What about your (PA) residencies? I haave a copy of your match list, and it seemed like most people had AOA residencies? Is that true, or did I read the list wrong?
Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[OSUdoc08]

yes another thread about which school should i go to...
so...which one?
Here is my situation: I live in DUluth, GA, 10 minutes from the GA PCOM campus...so going to GA PCOM means my husband and I can go ahead and by a nice house here and my husband doesn't have to look for a new job.
But....I would like to live in the north for a while and try out a big city like philadelphia...and PCOM PA is super established with great rotation sites, and i know i would get a good residency there and I would be able to specialize. The GA campus has no gaurentees about the quality of the rotations and the quality of residencies/specialties we can get there.
But PA has a greater cost of living and we would have to rent, whereas in GA we can by a huge house for 250000.

So people who go to PCOM GA and PA, what do you think? I know you guys at the GA campus were really enthusiastic about it, but how do u feel about your chances for specialties and good residencies?
What about you guys at hte PA campus...have u heard anything about the quality at the GA Campus or have any ideas about how it would work for us to get residencies ? What about your (PA) residencies? I haave a copy of your match list, and it seemed like most people had AOA residencies? Is that true, or did I read the list wrong?
Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

PCOM in PA is the better school because it is well established and has a large number of affiliated residencies.

 

[Tallulah]

GA-PCOMers, any rebuttals?? How confident do you guys feel about getting competitive residencies? about how your board scores will be? Anyone have any other opinions on this?
Please, any input from people in either school would be really really helpful!

 

[BMW19]

If you ask most residents and physicians they will tell you that it is your board scores and your rotation performance that indicate how competitive a residency you will get. Last time I checked, both of these factors are directly in the control of the student. If you bust your butt studying for the boards, your outcome should reflect your efforts. Again, if you do well on your rotations and mesh well with the residents, staff and attendings you should get good recs on your rotations. Now I am only a first year, but I have 2 brothers that are physicians (one was a chief resident).

This is not to say that your rotations may not be a bit more established at Philly and this may give you an edge if you want to do a residency in Philly. Obviously if you go to GA-PCOM you should be somewhat interested in staying South of the Mason-Dixon. That being said you should go where you feel most comfortable not where you think will get an "edge" on getting a residency.

Just my thoughts,

BMW-

GA-PCOMers, any rebuttals?? How confident do you guys feel about getting competitive residencies? about how your board scores will be? Anyone have any other opinions on this?
Please, any input from people in either school would be really really helpful!

 

[samdwi]

yes another thread about which school should i go to...
so...which one?
Here is my situation: I live in DUluth, GA, 10 minutes from the GA PCOM campus...so going to GA PCOM means my husband and I can go ahead and by a nice house here and my husband doesn't have to look for a new job.
But....I would like to live in the north for a while and try out a big city like philadelphia...and PCOM PA is super established with great rotation sites, and i know i would get a good residency there and I would be able to specialize. The GA campus has no gaurentees about the quality of the rotations and the quality of residencies/specialties we can get there.
But PA has a greater cost of living and we would have to rent, whereas in GA we can by a huge house for 250000.

So people who go to PCOM GA and PA, what do you think? I know you guys at the GA campus were really enthusiastic about it, but how do u feel about your chances for specialties and good residencies?
What about you guys at hte PA campus...have u heard anything about the quality at the GA Campus or have any ideas about how it would work for us to get residencies ? What about your (PA) residencies? I haave a copy of your match list, and it seemed like most people had AOA residencies? Is that true, or did I read the list wrong?
Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

You can't go wrong in choosing PA. However, the GA campus is considered an extension of PCOM, and our grades, transcripts and even financial aid go through PA.
Our rotations are being developed, with several sites finalized and several in the works (including Gwinnet Medical). I'm also pretty sure we have access to PA rotations as well if we want to head north.
As for board scores, the first two classes will determine how GA-PCOM performs. Boards, however, depend a lot on the effort we put in on our own (as BMW19 mentioned). The faculty here at GA are trying to prepare us for it through various means - computer based testing, clinical correlations etc, but the final outcome depends more on how I and the rest of the class "bust our butts". As the GA campus is designed to increase the number of DOs in the south, PCOM would probably want us to do our residencies around here and stick around the South to practice. Ya hear? Y'all.

 

[Tallulah]

Thanks for the info! however, I talked to someone at the Osteopathic institute of the south who has been working on the rotations for GA-PCOM, and she told me that Gwinnett Medical is definitely NOT going to be on the rotation and she was shocked when I told her that at the interview, we were told that Grady and Gwinnett are in the works. I wonder if she doesn't have her information straight or if someone at the school is misinformed. Regardless, the rotation sites that she said that they do have sounded really good, and she did say that in some of the smaller towns, the students on rotation get a way more hands on experience than they would in the bigger hospitals in Philly, since in those hospitals you have to be behind those in residencies. Anyway, it sounds as if the faculty at the GA school is going to work their butts off to make sure you guys and the next class do AMAZING on their boards, and since I want to practice in GA, I might just stay here for school.
Two more questions about the GA campus: how many of you are takign the USMLE (i'm not sure if you would know this yet). If I want a residency in Atlanta, I would have to go ACGME and take the USMLE, and I was wondering if the school is helpful towards doing really well on those boards at all?
Also, what about specialties? about 50% of PA specializes in something other than family medicine and many go to do surgery. Are most of the people in the GA school leaning towards family or other specialities right now? I know it is too early to know for sure since y'all haven't had your rotations yet, but I'm just trying to get a feel.

Well, it sounds like I would get an excellent education at either school and that I would be happy and successful either way, which makes this decision even harder because I have no idea what to do now.

 

[samdwi]

Thanks for the info! however, I talked to someone at the Osteopathic institute of the south who has been working on the rotations for GA-PCOM, and she told me that Gwinnett Medical is definitely NOT going to be on the rotation and she was shocked when I told her that at the interview, we were told that Grady and Gwinnett are in the works. I wonder if she doesn't have her information straight or if someone at the school is misinformed. Regardless, the rotation sites that she said that they do have sounded really good, and she did say that in some of the smaller towns, the students on rotation get a way more hands on experience than they would in the bigger hospitals in Philly, since in those hospitals you have to be behind those in residencies. Anyway, it sounds as if the faculty at the GA school is going to work their butts off to make sure you guys and the next class do AMAZING on their boards, and since I want to practice in GA, I might just stay here for school.
Two more questions about the GA campus: how many of you are takign the USMLE (i'm not sure if you would know this yet). If I want a residency in Atlanta, I would have to go ACGME and take the USMLE, and I was wondering if the school is helpful towards doing really well on those boards at all?
Also, what about specialties? about 50% of PA specializes in something other than family medicine and many go to do surgery. Are most of the people in the GA school leaning towards family or other specialities right now? I know it is too early to know for sure since y'all haven't had your rotations yet, but I'm just trying to get a feel.

Well, it sounds like I would get an excellent education at either school and that I would be happy and successful either way, which makes this decision even harder because I have no idea what to do now.

AS for Gwinnet Medical (GM), their administration was here recently to see the school and talk to our administration. As GM has never had any sort of educational program, it may take a couple years before we rotate there. I don't think its completely out of the picture as the OIS lady told you, but there may have been developments I don't know about. As for Grady, I don't know, that's Emory territiory so...
The school is helping us for COMLEX for sure, I don't know if that carries over for USMLE, although clinical stuff is important for both - and we focus on that. Since we haven't reached subjects such as pathology - which are big on boards, I can't say for sure if the faculty will gear us towards just COMLEX or both COMLEX and USMLE.
I know that most of the people I spend time with are planning on taking both boards - and I think its safe to say a majority of the class wants to, atleast that's what they say now - it may change next year as the boards loom over the horizon.

As of now, we have a Peds Interest group, an EM club, surgery club and osteopathic club called UAAO (can't form too many clubs with only 84 students - not practical). I would say that a large chunk of our class would like to be non-family practice types, however other primary care fields are popular such as peds, ob/gyn etc.

Any GA-PCOMers wanna chime in on this? BMW? Nicola?

 

[Tallulah]

AS for Gwinnet Medical (GM), their administration was here recently to see the school and talk to our administration. As GM has never had any sort of educational program, it may take a couple years before we rotate there. I don't think its completely out of the picture as the OIS lady told you, but there may have been developments I don't know about. As for Grady, I don't know, that's Emory territiory so...
The school is helping us for COMLEX for sure, I don't know if that carries over for USMLE, although clinical stuff is important for both - and we focus on that. Since we haven't reached subjects such as pathology - which are big on boards, I can't say for sure if the faculty will gear us towards just COMLEX or both COMLEX and USMLE.
I know that most of the people I spend time with are planning on taking both boards - and I think its safe to say a majority of the class wants to, atleast that's what they say now - it may change next year as the boards loom over the horizon.

As of now, we have a Peds Interest group, an EM club, surgery club and osteopathic club called UAAO (can't form too many clubs with only 84 students - not practical). I would say that a large chunk of our class would like to be non-family practice types, however other primary care fields are popular such as peds, ob/gyn etc.

Any GA-PCOMers wanna chime in on this? BMW? Nicola?

Did any of u guys choose GA over another school? if u did, what made u choose this school?

 

[Tallulah]

Thanks for all the help and info guys!
My husband and I have come to a final decision and I'll be attending GA-PCOM next year

 

[bjsunny]

Congrats! I attend the GA campus as well, but I rarely post here and just happened to come across this thread. I am planning on taking both the COMLEX and the USMLE, and right now my interests are geared towards (in order of what specialty I want most) oncology, neurology, and emergency med. Thus, we are not all aiming for family/general practice; nevertheless, we'll definitely have a well-rounded graduating class because interests are varied. We have an excellent OMM professor too, so if you want to really concentrate on that after school, this is the place to be (and he came from Philly).

 

[pathdawg]

If I want a residency in Atlanta, I would have to go ACGME and take the USMLE, and I was wondering if the school is helpful towards doing really well on those boards at all?

You do not necessarily have to take the USMLE in order to do an ACGME residency. I realize that many feel that it is a requirement, but it is not. I did both an AGCME residency and fellowship (at large university hospitals), and I never took the USMLE. In fact, it never even came up in interviews.

Regardless, I don't think that where one attends school has any real influence on board performance. It is individual-based. If you put in the time to do well, you will. Your scores will not somehow miraculously improve simply by going to PCOM in Philly or to Harvard in Boston.

I went to PCOM. Some people in my class crushed the boards. Others struggled. The same applies at every school. It comes down to a choice of how much you want to put into it.

 

[ttpatel]

Did you get accepted to both the philly and georgia campus? I know last year they didnt really do that. Just wondering