Bunch of us are on here. What up?
I read this comment regarding PCOM's pros and cons from 2014, and was wondering if you guys can comment as to how true this sounds, have there been any changes made, and your personal impressions of the pro's and con's of PCOM.
Needless to say, the school has changed a lot. It made me sad reading his review. I left some of his things in that didn't change (italicized).
Curriculum: I can only speak for my year, but they completely butchered our schedule. Our first true break wasn’t until March. Not a single weekend off without something (including coursework) looming over our heads. For example, they gave us all of biochemistry in 7 days before Christmas break; we had a test a few days after New Years. Later that term,they ran out of time due to their ineptitude at proper scheduling, and crammed 40 hours of Heme/Onc in 1 week, and gave us the weekend to learn all of it including 30 hours of immunology from the weeks prior. As a result, almost no-one in my class knows anything about leukemias/lymphomas. 2nd year has been worse. They outright refuse to tell us what our 3rd term looks like leading up to boards. The past few years, we’ve gotten no dedicated study time. They just put easy P/F courses during 3rd term that people don’t really have to study for. This year, they moved one of those easy courses to the Fall to lighten up the workload. They didn’t plan properly, and so now Neuroanatomy is pushed into 3rd term. They also added a few new “Pain in the ass courses”.
Location: Philadelphia... pretty much a haven for medical education. This is one of the main redeeming factors about the school.
Cost: Around $45,000, which is pretty high considering there aren’t enough seats in our lecture halls for students. It’s about 70 students too short. They have 2 overflow rooms which live-stream the lectures, but then berate all of the students in those rooms during the lectures; not saying information into the mics then suggesting “they should have been here”. The financial aid department holds on to your money for the maximum time (2 weeks). This past term they received our money on November 17, and held it past Dec 4th; people couldn’t pay their CCs, rent, insurance, etc for December without advances or pay-day loans.
Faculty: HORRENDOUS. They do not teach us physiology almost at all. You’re going to need to use Dr. Najeeb or FA or SOMETHING for physiology, because you won’t learn how the human body works at PCOM. Many of our renown clinicians no longer teach, as the school tries to cut resources. Research funding has run dry on a national level. Our best professors are guest lecturers from our neighboring MD counterparts. Other than our immunology and surgery professors, the rest are lacking. The “best pathology professor” spoke in the earlier review left. We are now left with powerpoints filled with buzz words and Pathoma.
Reputation:
Rock solid. Arguably the best DO school in the country and holds its own against the 4 MD schools here in Philly. We rotate with them and get nothing but high marks. Our students and residents rotate with some of the best MD students on the east coast and not only do we match up, sometimes we outshine. No worry that someone wont know PCOM, at least not from Maine to Florida to Chicago. Also, one stat shows that nearly 25% of all current physicians have done some or all of their medical training in Philadelphia. We are known ubiquitously. None of this changed, but this is only because PCOM can select from the best DO students.
Clinical Rotations:This is changing so ½ of people are going to spend time in one hospital. They manually select people that they know and put them in those sites; do a Biomed degree or student council, otherwise you’re screwed. The sites are Danville, Scranton, Reading, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. Unfortunately, the other ½ cannot do rotations at those sites (Geisinger, Lankenau) because of the permenant students. The remaining students are randomly put into groups (there is a match algorithm they use, but it’s still a lottery-based system) – these groups determine how many electives you get before match; the most is 6-7, the fewest is 2-3. After they put us into groups, the students then fight amongst themselves to determine who gets to go where. They tell us this is good because it improves “interpersonal communication skills”. They actually said that to us. They got rid of the 3rd term elective.
Study areas:
Not so great. Too many students for too few desks. PCOM has a collaborative agreement with dozens of colleges in the area to use their libraries so this helps immensely. But if you are the type who likes to study on campus, stake your claim early. Although I always studied at home, many people study in the cafeteria or local coffee shops (plenty of those).
Social Scene: 70% of the students are really awesome. Probably the best thing the school has going for it. Just a great group of people. The biomed grads are kind of cliquey. A few of them got professionalism violations for sharing old exams among themselves. I'm pretty sure this is how they are at any school with a biomed program (inferiority complex?). The faculty knows all of them and gives them inside information about how to get a rotation they want, etc.
Board Prep: A basic scientist is in charge of our boards, and she compares it to her PhD candidacy exam. Needless to say, they have unrealistic views of boards. They give us Combank and force us to do question sets to identify our weakness. Combank is one of the worst question banks. They won’t tell us what our 3rd term looks like despite it changing drastically from the year prior. As a result, we have no idea how to plan to study. Our exams are extraordinarily easy and very one dimensional. They usually give us the questions before the exam, so you have no way to judge.
Clinical Prep: They make us do a lot of pain in the ass things, interviewing comatose patients or patients refusing to talk, etc. Realistically, it will let us hit the ground running.
Specialty: PCOM sends more people into specialty fields than most other DO schools, but they're trying to increase their presence in primary care, so if you're definitely interested in something other than Primary Care, it may be a bit of an uphill battle by the time you get here.
So here are my grades:
Curriculum: F
Location: A+
Cost: C+
Financial Aid: B-
Faculty: C
Reputation: A+
Technology: B+
Study Space/Library: C-
Library technology/Resources: B-
Rotations: B+
Social: A
Hospitals: B+
Post Grad: A+
Cafeteria Food: A-
Cafeteria Prices: B+
Overall Grade: B-
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