Pros and Cons of your DO School

[Rekt]

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dang that was one of the classes i was most looking forward to. they've been around for what, 6 years? you'd think they could get it right in that amount of time, especially if you hire people who've taught it well before. 🙁
i'm deciding between this school and ACOM. my friend at ACOM told me there clinical skills class is pretty good but i think i'd prefer the environment of LMU

Honestly, the clinical skills class at any school will be mostly useless and waste your time while you're dying to study for your major classes. Anything that's relevant will be taught in systems/pathophysiology and when you do rotations.

 

[hexane19]

Can any current LUCOM students offer or PM me actual OBJECTIVE insight into LUCOM's curriculum?
I'm debating if I should go to that interview.

 

[Rekt]

Can any current LUCOM students offer or PM me actual OBJECTIVE insight into LUCOM's curriculum?
I'm debating if I should go to that interview.

Pretty simple, if you don't have an acceptance, you go to every interview.

 

[hexane19]

@Rekt do you go to LUCOM?

 

[Shinobiz11]

It's incredibly unorganized and run by two unorganized professors. They throw a bunch of stuff at you last minute and have unrealistic expectations. I could go on and on about that class. It may be better this year, and I expect it is.

do you think it'll get better next year?

Current first year in this class. It's still very unorganized. Everyone complains about one of the professors because he wants you to learn everything his way, not necessarily the way that fits you. It's a bit annoying at times, but not difficult. Sometimes they give us a YouTube video and say have at it! You can always practice with others but it helps to have the teacher actually show you what to do. I just go to another clinical faculty during office hours and ask them for help. It's gotten better through the semester, I honestly don't think it's as bad as everyone claims.

 

[NekoBeats]

Current M3 at NSU-COM writing a more up-to-date review. I agree with most of what mspeedwagon mentioned in his/her post. Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I used the original formatting to keep things organized and tried to stay objective. I hope it helps.

Curriculum: M1 year- multiple classes every semester and there are exams pretty much every week. Once in a while there will be a week without exams and it's the best thing ever. I won't lie- the exam schedule is hell, and I'm sure M1s can attest to that. The combination of the crazy exam schedule plus the sheer amount of material you're exposed to is enough to stress a lot of people out. Over the course of the year though, you'll learn to adapt and figure out how you study best. That's pretty much the point of M1 year anyway- figuring out how you study. Something kind of unusual that happened this year for the M1s was that their anatomy course got moved to spring semester. This was because NSU is re-vamping the anatomy lab after being sited by OSHA (https://www.osha.gov/newsrelease/reg4-20150316.html). The lab couldn't be updated on time for Fall, so the gross anatomy course got moved back. I assume that this won’t be an issue for future entering M1s and that after this year, anatomy will resume being offered in Fall semester.

Before the M1 summer session started, my class got an email saying that attendance for all classes is going to be mandatory. Until that point we probably only had 2 classes that we absolutely had to go to. With the new change in attendance policy, we would now have to swipe our ID cards within the first 10 minutes of every lecture hour for every class. If you missed a certain number of lectures by forgetting to swipe, or by arriving over 10 minutes late, you failed the class. We were pretty upset about it considering it was such short notice and our entire class clamored together to fight it. Administration eventually changed their minds apparently after realizing that our current auditoriums don’t even have enough outlets for students to charge their computers. After a lot of back and forth between administration and us, a compromise was eventually reached where only our OMM and Principles of Clinical Medicine lectures would become mandatory with a minimum of 70% attendance. The OMM and PCM lectures combined only took up 2-3 hours a week, so we were okay with that. They were also on the same day as mandatory labs, so we had to be on campus anyway. Lecture attendance for all the systems courses remained ‘highly encouraged’, but not mandatory.

M2 year is composed of 4 system blocks, each block consisting of 3-4 organ systems. The good thing with M2 year is that you go weeks without an exam. The trade-off is that the exams are high stakes: there's only one midterm and one final per system. Also, when it’s exam week, it’s crazy. All the system exams are lined up with midterms and finals for the other non-system classes so you get hit hard with tests. Over the course of days you could have 3-4 system finals + finals for non-system classes. Personally I thought M2 was worse than M1 year, at least in the beginning just because of the exams.

Something different from M1 year is the M2 Principles of Clinical Medicine 'lab'. You get broken up into small groups, each one lead by an attending. There are SPs that come in and one of the students is supposed to do the interview. Then you all discuss the case together and come up with 3 differentials and a plan for each one. It's kind of like PBL. At the end, everyone writes a SOAP note timed in under 10 minutes and turns it in for grading/critique. I liked PCM but when I compare it to how rotations actually are I think they could do a lot to improve the course. I guess for an M2 though, it's okay.

Class schedules for both M1 and M2 year are basically lecture from 8-3 or 5 on days with no lab. On days with labs, lectures are from 8-12 with labs from 1-5. Attendance is not mandatory for most courses and the ones where attendance is mandatory usually require a minimum 70% attendance rate, meaning you can still miss some lectures. Labs are mandatory with the exception of histo and neuroanatomy. Take all the attendance stuff with a grain of salt since a lot has changed over the past several years.

Location: The main campus is located in Davie. The nice thing is that there are a bunch of shops, grocery stores, banks, etc around the school. There are also some decent places to eat if you explore the surrounding areas. IMO, a car is pretty essential. If you ever need to 'escape' from school, studying, or classmates, the beach and downtown Las Olas are about 15-20 minutes away. And of course if you're willing to drive a little bit more and/or deal with traffic, Miami is about 35-40 minutes away.

Cost: Expensive. I don't have an exact figure on me but NSU is notoriously pricey. There's a survey somewhere out there by US News ranking the top medical schools where graduating students have the most debt. If I remember correctly NSU was in the top 5.

Faculty: M1- faculty is good, most are decent lecturers. The professors for some subjects, like biochem, teach under the College of Medical Sciences instead of the College of Osteopathic Medicine. This makes it hard for the COM to implement changes w/ regards to the course since they can't really do anything about it, at least that’s what we were told my M1 year. It’s not that big of a deal. Only a handful of the professors aren’t good at teaching, but they’re still brilliant. NSU has an open door policy where if you don’t understand a concept, you can always swing by the professor’s office to ask questions and get some clarification. All the professors are also pretty quick with email. I’ve never had a problem getting in touch with a professor or reaching out to them for help. Lots of the faculty members also do research. Most of the people I know that got involved in research projects actually met their PI through one of our M1 classes.

M2- Most, if not all of the professors are physicians so they drop lots of great clinical pearls while lecturing which makes the subject material more interesting and engaging. I believe a lot of them also have privileges at the major hospitals that NSU students rotate at. As such, teaching is a passion of theirs and you can tell when they lecture. A lot of them also emphasize topics on boards and they’ll make it a point to talk about it more in depth. After taking the COMLEX I can tell you that there were a bunch of things that I remembered partially because those professors emphasized it so much during class and on their exams. I thought the professors we had as M2s were all fantastic.

Reputation: NSU is pretty well known with a good reputation. I get good feedback from my patients, residents, and attendings when I tell them I go to NSU. Even lay people know about NSU-COM. Large network of alumni and the program itself has been around for decades.

Clinical Rotations: In my opinion, probably the biggest pro about Nova. We have 14 in-state core sites and many of them are statutory teaching hospitals with a multitude of affiliated residency and fellowship programs. Tons of patient exposure and tons of pathology. If you want the big hospital feel and work alongside residents and attendings on a team, then you will definitely get that here. However, if you’re looking for one-on-one with an attending with no residents or other students, you’ll also get that here if you end up at one of the community hospitals for your core site.

Where you end up for rotations is based on a random lottery system and a rank list that you fill out. A majority of people get one of their top 3 choices. The school also assigns your schedule for you so you don't have to go about setting up third year by yourself.

With all that being said, you actually don’t spend all of M3 year at wherever your core is. You’ll most likely do your main rotations there, like IM or surgery. But other things like peds and EM will be done elsewhere. It’s completely random which rotations are done at your hospital and which aren’t so that part of it is unpredictable. The good thing is that if there’s a rotation you really wanted and one of your classmates has it, the school will let you switch.

Core rotations are as follows: Peds (2 months), FM (2 months), IM (3 months), Ob/Gyn (1 month), Surgery (2 months), Geriatrics (1 month), EM (1 month), Psych (1 month).

The month of July between M3 and M4 year is considered either an independent study month for Level 2/Step 2, or it can also be used as an audition rotation. There are 3 mandatory rural rotations you have to do as part of your M4 year. Two of these months are done at a community health center. Some people get assigned a site in Orlando, some people get a random place in Miami, and others get a place in between. It's really random. If you have to go far away for rurals the school will provide you with housing and a stipend. There's also a chance you'll get assigned your 2 months of community center rural rotations during the so-called "golden months" of M4 year in which case I don't think there's anything you can do except deal with it and try to work around it. One of the three rural rotations is considered a rural selective and can be done somewhere in the US. Some students use it as a type of audition rotation month. Another option is to use the rural selective as an opportunity to go abroad.

Housing: There’s an on-campus dorm called Rolling Hills about 3 blocks or so from the school. It’s only open to professional and graduate students. The units all come furnished and there’s a shuttle that comes by and takes people to and from various locations on both the HPD campus and the undergrad NSU campus.

There are also a bunch of apartments and condos around the school itself. Some students also live by the beach. Rent isn’t super expensive, but it’s not super cheap either. Living with classmates definitely cuts down the costs. My personal advice with apartments down here is to live on any floor except the 1st. Lots of strange bugs and creatures make their way into your place if you live on the ground floor.

Study areas: Most people study at the Health Professions Division Library. We share it with all the other HPD programs though, so it gets crowded during finals when it seems like every single program has an exam that week. I personally have never had a problem finding a cubicle there, even when it was packed. There’s also an adjacent building with 24/7 study rooms and two other large libraries on campus where students go to study. The Alvin Sherman Library is massive. I know some classmates that also choose to study at the University Center, probably because there’s a Starbucks there. If you know where to look, there are a lot of places to study.

Social Scene: I don’t really think I need to say much here. You have the beach and downtown Ft. Lauderdale less than 30 minutes away and Miami to the south. Other than going to bars and clubs, there are a bunch of art events and music festivals/concerts year round as well as some decent food and drink events. My class would usually go to Las Olas after a major exam and go down to Miami for special occasions. It’s a lot of fun, but I think it can be a negative in that some people get distracted and do poorly in classes. If you come to NSU, you need to be able to focus.

Local Hospitals: Big ones in Dade and Broward County are Palmetto General, Mt. Sinai, Broward Health, and Memorial. They’re 4 of 14 in-state rotation sites for students. There's some overlap with the University of Miami and FIU medical students but no issues have come up.

Board Prep: In M1 year, there’s a mandatory 2 hour class every Friday that’s supposed to help students think like a clinician. A professor usually presents a case for the first hour and we participate by asking appropriate questions with regards to the H&P, PMHx, FHx, SHx, etc. At the end of the first hour, they reveal what the diagnosis is. The second hour is then spent going into depth about the pathophys about whatever the patient was diagnosed with. Some people really like the class and other people don’t. I don’t think it’s a horrible thing but we get really antsy and impatient when there’s an exam on the immediate horizon.

M2 year you still have the mandatory 2 hour class on Fridays except now you have an additional 2 hours of board review immediately afterwards. It’s basically 2 hours of one of the professors going through a ton of board questions. I want to point out that most of the questions aren’t really board-quality. They're pretty short and are only really good for drilling some facts and those knee-jerk diagnoses when given a certain set of symptoms. Again, some people really like it, and others don’t.

At the end of 1st semester, the school distributes First Aid for the USMLE books to the M2s M1s. Everyone also gets access to the Doctors in Training (DIT) USMLE videos and their massive workbook. It’s a relatively new (and expensive) prep program. Most of my class liked it a lot so we were happy with it. We also get DIT for Level 2/Step 2.

The OMM department at NSU starts prepping you for the OMM portion of boards starting Day 1. As an M2, you’ll still be tested on M1 OMM material. It helps to keep everything fresh.

Specialty: We usually do pretty good with the match list. Below are the # of matches for some random specialties I picked for the class of 2015. More info on http://osteopathic.nova.edu/do/residency-board-scores.html.

Anesthesiology- 3
EM- 18
Rads- 8
Surgery and surgical subspecialties (general, neuro, ortho, ophtho, ENT & plastics) - 18

Grades: Grades are percentage for M1/M2 years and your numerical class rank is emailed out at the beginning of M2 year. Some classes are pass/fail. Grades for M3/M4 years are Fail/Pass/Honors.


Curriculum: B-. Needs some tweaking. Exams could be better written and be more board-like/actual board questions. Lecture content could be more streamlined especially during M1 year.
Location: A
Cost: C-
Faculty: A
Reputation: A+
Technology: B, only because sometimes there are recording issues. Something to mention is that how quickly the recordings are uploaded or fixed has to do with how good the AV captains for the class are. The ones for my class were awesome so even when something didn’t work, they were able to find the recording and have it online by the end of the day.
Study Space/Library: B+. Gets kind of crowded. Study rooms can only be checked out for 3 hours at a time. If someone is waiting you have to give up your room at the end of the 3 hours.
Library technology/Resources: B+. Sometimes the printers are down. Not a super huge deal though since there are a ton of printers on campus. We got about $60 worth of printer money for the year during M1 and slightly more for M2 year. Lots of people ran out of printer money and had to use their own funds. We get access to a lot of major medical journals and online medical resources through the library, so that's nice.
Rotations: A+
Social: A+
Hospitals: A+
Post Grad: A+

Overall Grade: A-

I’m happy with my education so far. I’ve met a lot of Nova grads on rotations and they know their stuff. I'm glad I decided to go here. I'm learning a lot and I've met a lot of cool people along the way. PM me with questions.

 

[Mehd School]

Current first year in this class. It's still very unorganized. Everyone complains about one of the professors because he wants you to learn everything his way, not necessarily the way that fits you. It's a bit annoying at times, but not difficult. Sometimes they give us a YouTube video and say have at it! You can always practice with others but it helps to have the teacher actually show you what to do. I just go to another clinical faculty during office hours and ask them for help. It's gotten better through the semester, I honestly don't think it's as bad as everyone claims.

It sounds like it has gotten better then, from your post, as last year everyone was ready to burn the building down. Realistically first year clinical skills course is about as important as OPP is in real life ... not important at all. Second year clinical skills is much improved, but way more hands off than I expected.

 

[burritowithgreensauce]

this thread is useless. Almost as useless as the DO degree

x)

research associated clinical rotation sites for where u should actually go. everything else is a bunch of bs and self-promotion of their respective school

 

[deleted407021]

this thread is useless. Almost as useless as the DO degree

x)

research associated clinical rotation sites for where u should actually go. everything else is a bunch of bs and self-promotion of their respective school

Plenty of people have found this thread very helpful, and to discredit the legitimacy of every opinion here is stupid. Yes, research for yourself, but also look for the opinions of others. There's a reason you talk with current students when you go for an interview.
🙄

 

[scoKraz4]

this thread is useless. Almost as useless as the DO degree

x)

research associated clinical rotation sites for where u should actually go. everything else is a bunch of bs and self-promotion of their respective school

Not quite as useless as your opinion though. The environment in which you study is very important. It can drastically affect your knowledge base and thus affect board scores..which are kind of important, no? I say this because every individual is different and can be affected by factors that are different than how they affect you. This is true no matter if you goto an MD or DO school.
Even if you have shotty rotation sites, if you work hard, study, learn to think quick on your feet, and be a team player, you can be successful. Yea it sucks not to be at big university hospital but it doesn't mean you can't learn to be a good doctor.

 

[noleknight16]

ACOM is one of the schools (along with Campbell, VCOM, and others) that mandates class attendance. LMU does not, and I would strongly recommend LMU for that reason.

I would like to point out the attendance policy is 80% of all events. It includes regular lectures, labs, DSAs (done at home), and IS sessions (guided review sessions). So, I would say it's 50-60% of regular lectures. I'd prefer 0%, but it is a fair compromise.

 

[Haxx]

Just to update my post from long ago, according to new policy there are now ZERO required lectures at RVUCOM. Just sayin'

 

[mspeedwagon]

Obviously the review below, coming from an M3, is much better than mine. But, few things.

1) What happened to us with the whole anatomy lab things is very unfortunate. Definitely feels like we are guinea pigs to a schedule that Nova hasn't tried before. The fact that we saw a biochem, immunology and physio exam in the span of wk and with failing or near failing avgs demonstrates this. Trying to learn physio without anatomy hasn't been ideal either. That said, this won't be an issue for any future class hopefully.

2) Histology lab is mandatory for us. I'm assuming neuroanatomy will be too from talking to the prof (same prof teach both classes).

3) My first 3 profs at Nova sucked. I mean they were really bad. I tried to get an appointment with one after failing an exam, but she was unavailable. She blew off most of us in class that tried to meet with her (that said, most profs are more open to meetings). Since then the quality of instruction has vastly improved. I've seen both some of the best and some of the worst teaching of my life here.

4) I came to Davie from a much bigger city and it was a complete shock. I'm OOS. Davie is a real suburb. I'd stayed on South Beach many times and know Miami well so thought Davie would be somewhat similar. Davie is NOT Miami. It's more a town with your basics (Walmart, Whole Foods, Trader Joes and the like). The weather here isn't as great as it's made out to be. It's hot/humid or thunder storming. I was picturing something more along the lines of San Diego before I moved here. If you are from OOS and starting school here, I recommend coming a month in advance to adapt.

5) Finally, wherever you go, I highly recommend living alone your first year. Don't want to deal with roommate issues. Trust me, the roommate is not worth the money saved (speaking from firsthand experience... I'd do anything to live alone now. It's not like undergrad. You are stressed out all the time and you don't need the added stress). And you definitely need a good reliable car if you come here.

I agree with everything else said, though some of the things I have yet to experience. I knew coming in that first semester at Nova was going to be insane, but it has been more material, more tests and more insanity than I was prepared for.

Curriculum: M1 year- multiple classes every semester and there are exams pretty much every week. Once in a while there will be a week without exams and it's the best thing ever. I won't lie- the exam schedule is hell, and I'm sure M1s can attest to that. The combination of the crazy exam schedule plus the sheer amount of material you're exposed to is enough to stress a lot of people out. Over the course of the year though, you'll learn to adapt and figure out how you study best. That's pretty much the point of M1 year anyway- figuring out how you study. Something kind of unusual that happened this year for the M1s was that their anatomy course got moved to spring semester. This was because NSU is re-vamping the anatomy lab after being sited by OSHA (https://www.osha.gov/newsrelease/reg4-20150316.html). The lab couldn't be updated on time for Fall, so the gross anatomy course got moved back. I assume that this won’t be an issue for future entering M1s and that after this year, anatomy will resume being offered in Fall semester.

Class schedules for both M1 and M2 year are basically lecture from 8-3 or 5 on days with no lab. On days with labs, lectures are from 8-12 with labs from 1-5. Attendance is not mandatory for most courses and the ones where attendance is mandatory usually require a minimum 70% attendance rate, meaning you can still miss some lectures. Labs are mandatory with the exception of histo and neuroanatomy. Take all the attendance stuff with a grain of salt since a lot has changed over the past several years.

Location: The main campus is located in Davie. The nice thing is that there are a bunch of shops, grocery stores, banks, etc around the school. There are also some decent places to eat if you explore the surrounding areas. IMO, a car is pretty essential. If you ever need to 'escape' from school, studying, or classmates, the beach and downtown Las Olas are about 15-20 minutes away. And of course if you're willing to drive a little bit more and/or deal with traffic, Miami is about 35-40 minutes away.

Cost: Expensive. I don't have an exact figure on me but NSU is notoriously pricey. There's a survey somewhere out there by US News ranking the top medical schools where graduating students have the most debt. If I remember correctly NSU was in the top 5.

Faculty: M1- faculty is good, most are decent lecturers. The professors for some subjects, like biochem, teach under the College of Medical Sciences instead of the College of Osteopathic Medicine. This makes it hard for the COM to implement changes w/ regards to the course since they can't really do anything about it, at least that’s what we were told my M1 year. It’s not that big of a deal. Only a handful of the professors aren’t good at teaching, but they’re still brilliant. NSU has an open door policy where if you don’t understand a concept, you can always swing by the professor’s office to ask questions and get some clarification. All the professors are also pretty quick with email. I’ve never had a problem getting in touch with a professor or reaching out to them for help. Lots of the faculty members also do research. Most of the people I know that got involved in research projects actually met their PI through one of our M1 classes.

Reputation: NSU is pretty well known with a good reputation. I get good feedback from my patients, residents, and attendings when I tell them I go to NSU. Even lay people know about NSU-COM. Large network of alumni and the program itself has been around for decades.

Clinical Rotations: In my opinion, probably the biggest pro about Nova. We have 14 in-state core sites and many of them are statutory teaching hospitals with a multitude of affiliated residency and fellowship programs. Tons of patient exposure and tons of pathology. If you want the big hospital feel and work alongside residents and attendings on a team, then you will definitely get that here. However, if you’re looking for one-on-one with an attending with no residents or other students, you’ll also get that here if you end up at one of the community hospitals for your core site.

Where you end up for rotations is based on a random lottery system and a rank list that you fill out. A majority of people get one of their top 3 choices. The school also assigns your schedule for you so you don't have to go about setting up third year by yourself.

With all that being said, you actually don’t spend all of M3 year at wherever your core is. You’ll most likely do your main rotations there, like IM or surgery. But other things like peds and EM will be done elsewhere. It’s completely random which rotations are done at your hospital and which aren’t so that part of it is unpredictable. The good thing is that if there’s a rotation you really wanted and one of your classmates has it, the school will let you switch.

Core rotations are as follows: Peds (2 months), FM (2 months), IM (3 months), Ob/Gyn (1 month), Surgery (2 months), Geriatrics (1 month), EM (1 month), Psych (1 month).

The month of July between M3 and M4 year is considered either an independent study month for Level 2/Step 2, or it can also be used as an audition rotation. There are 3 mandatory rural rotations you have to do as part of your M4 year. Two of these months are done at a community health center. Some people get assigned a site in Orlando, some people get a random place in Miami, and others get a place in between. It's really random. If you have to go far away for rurals the school will provide you with housing and a stipend. There's also a chance you'll get assigned your 2 months of community center rural rotations during the so-called "golden months" of M4 year in which case I don't think there's anything you can do except deal with it and try to work around it. One of the three rural rotations is considered a rural selective and can be done somewhere in the US. Some students use it as a type of audition rotation month. Another option is to use the rural selective as an opportunity to go abroad.

Housing: There’s an on-campus dorm called Rolling Hills about 3 blocks or so from the school. It’s only open to professional and graduate students. The units all come furnished and there’s a shuttle that comes by and takes people to and from various locations on both the HPD campus and the undergrad NSU campus.

There are also a bunch of apartments and condos around the school itself. Some students also live by the beach. Rent isn’t super expensive, but it’s not super cheap either. Living with classmates definitely cuts down the costs. My personal advice with apartments down here is to live on any floor except the 1st. Lots of strange bugs and creatures make their way into your place if you live on the ground floor.

Study areas: Most people study at the Health Professions Division Library. We share it with all the other HPD programs though, so it gets crowded during finals when it seems like every single program has an exam that week. I personally have never had a problem finding a cubicle there, even when it was packed. There’s also an adjacent building with 24/7 study rooms and two other large libraries on campus where students go to study. The Alvin Sherman Library is massive. I know some classmates that also choose to study at the University Center, probably because there’s a Starbucks there. If you know where to look, there are a lot of places to study.

Social Scene: I don’t really think I need to say much here. You have the beach and downtown Ft. Lauderdale less than 30 minutes away and Miami to the south. Other than going to bars and clubs, there are a bunch of art events and music festivals/concerts year round as well as some decent food and drink events. My class would usually go to Las Olas after a major exam and go down to Miami for special occasions. It’s a lot of fun, but I think it can be a negative in that some people get distracted and do poorly in classes. If you come to NSU, you need to be able to focus.

Local Hospitals: Big ones in Dade and Broward County are Palmetto General, Mt. Sinai, Broward Health, and Memorial. They’re 4 of 14 in-state rotation sites for students. There's some overlap with the University of Miami and FIU medical students but no issues have come up.

Board Prep: In M1 year, there’s a mandatory 2 hour class every Friday that’s supposed to help students think like a clinician. A professor usually presents a case for the first hour and we participate by asking appropriate questions with regards to the H&P, PMHx, FHx, SHx, etc. At the end of the first hour, they reveal what the diagnosis is. The second hour is then spent going into depth about the pathophys about whatever the patient was diagnosed with. Some people really like the class and other people don’t. I don’t think it’s a horrible thing but we get really antsy and impatient when there’s an exam on the immediate horizon.

M2 year you still have the mandatory 2 hour class on Fridays except now you have an additional 2 hours of board review immediately afterwards. It’s basically 2 hours of one of the professors going through a ton of board questions. I want to point out that most of the questions aren’t really board-quality. They're pretty short and are only really good for drilling some facts and those knee-jerk diagnoses when given a certain set of symptoms. Again, some people really like it, and others don’t.

At the end of 1st semester, the school distributes First Aid for the USMLE books to the M2s. Everyone also gets access to the Doctors in Training (DIT) USMLE videos and their massive workbook. It’s a relatively new (and expensive) prep program. Most of my class liked it a lot so we were happy with it. We also get DIT for Level 2/Step 2.

The OMM department at NSU starts prepping you for the OMM portion of boards starting Day 1. As an M2, you’ll still be tested on M1 OMM material. It helps to keep everything fresh.

Specialty: We usually do pretty good with the match list. Below are the # of matches for some random specialties I picked for the class of 2015. More info on http://osteopathic.nova.edu/do/residency-board-scores.html.

Anesthesiology- 3
EM- 18
Rads- 8
Surgery and surgical subspecialties (general, neuro, ortho, ophtho, ENT & plastics) - 18

Grades: Grades are percentage for M1/M2 years and your numerical class rank is emailed out at the beginning of M2 year. Some classes are pass/fail. Grades for M3/M4 years are Fail/Pass/Honors.


Curriculum: B-. Needs some tweaking. Exams could be better written and be more board-like/actual board questions. Lecture content could be more streamlined especially during M1 year.
Location: A
Cost: C-
Faculty: A
Reputation: A+
Technology: B, only because sometimes there are recording issues. Something to mention is that how quickly the recordings are uploaded or fixed has to do with how good the AV captains for the class are. The ones for my class were awesome so even when something didn’t work, they were able to find the recording and have it online by the end of the day.
Study Space/Library: B+. Gets kind of crowded. Study rooms can only be checked out for 3 hours at a time. If someone is waiting you have to give up your room at the end of the 3 hours.
Library technology/Resources: B+. Sometimes the printers are down. Not a super huge deal though since there are a ton of printers on campus. We got about $60 worth of printer money for the year during M1 and slightly more for M2 year. Lots of people ran out of printer money and had to use their own funds. We get access to a lot of major medical journals and online medical resources through the library, so that's nice.
Rotations: A+
Social: A+
Hospitals: A+
Post Grad: A+

Overall Grade: A-

I’m happy with my education so far. I’ve met a lot of Nova grads on rotations and they know their stuff. I'm glad I decided to go here. I'm learning a lot and I've met a lot of cool people along the way. PM me with questions.

 

[NekoBeats]

1) What happened to us with the whole anatomy lab things is very unfortunate. Definitely feels like we are guinea pigs to a schedule that Nova hasn't tried before. The fact that we saw a biochem, immunology and physio exam in the span of wk and with failing or near failing avgs demonstrates this. Trying to learn physio without anatomy hasn't been ideal either. That said, this won't be an issue for any future class hopefully.

You guys are guinea pigs, but it wasn't intentional. I'm sure they wanted to finish the lab by Fall semester and then things got behind schedule. That being said, the fact that you guys now have to do micro I/II in the same semester as physio is pretty brutal and I definitely feel your pain and suffering w/ that.

2) Histology lab is mandatory for us. I'm assuming neuroanatomy will be too from talking to the prof (same prof teach both classes).

That really sucks, it's been non-mandatory for so long that I'm sure the professor just got sick of no one going to lab and then having all these students complain about how they're not doing well in class.

3) My first 3 profs at Nova sucked. I mean they were really bad. I tried to get an appointment with one after failing an exam, but she was unavailable. She blew off most of us in class that tried to meet with her (that said, most profs are more open to meetings). Since then the quality of instruction has vastly improved. I've seen both some of the best and some of the worst teaching of my life here.

I think I know who you're talking about here, but honestly, overall, the M2 professors are better and those classes matter more.

4) I came to Davie from a much bigger city and it was a complete shock. I'm OOS. Davie is a real suburb. I'd stayed on South Beach many times and know Miami well so thought Davie would be somewhat similar. Davie is NOT Miami. It's more a town with your basics (Walmart, Whole Foods, Trader Joes and the like). The weather here isn't as great as it's made out to be. It's hot/humid or thunder storming. I was picturing something more along the lines of San Diego before I moved here. If you are from OOS and starting school here, I recommend coming a month in advance to adapt.

Did you think it was like SD after interviewing here? Because it should be pretty obvious from the interview day that Davie is nothing like that. I think knowing that Miami is close by gives people the false impression that the school is in a very urban environment but tbh going to medical school in a suburban area isn't that bad. There are enough stores nearby so that you can get your necessities, but at the same time the fun things are far away enough so that you don't get too distracted. The nice thing is that they're at least there. I'm OOS from a metropolitan city and the change did at first feel drastic. But I spent so much of my first two years indoors studying anyway that it really didn't matter that much. Same thing with the weather. Yeah the humidity sucks if I'm outside running but if I'm studying in an AC blasted library I don't care. I honestly don't think it thunderstorms here all the time, it's just the season now. Oh yeah and with rotations for M3/M4, people use that as a time to relocate. There are lots of rotation sites in Dade County so a good amount of those students move to the Miami area. There are definitely worse places to go to medical school at 🙄.

5) Finally, wherever you go, I highly recommend living alone your first year. Don't want to deal with roommate issues. Trust me, the roommate is not worth the money saved (speaking from firsthand experience... I'd do anything to live alone now. It's not like undergrad. You are stressed out all the time and you don't need the added stress). And you definitely need a good reliable car if you come here.

Personally I don't live with roommates but other than cutting down costs, having a roommate can help with moral support, especially during M1 year and for OOS people.

I agree with everything else said, though some of the things I have yet to experience. I knew coming in that first semester at Nova was going to be insane, but it has been more material, more tests and more insanity than I was prepared for.

Lol, welcome to medical school. You really can't prepare for it and you won't know how bad it can get until you're living in it. Honestly, as long as you don't freak out or give up you'll be fine and so will most of your class. Yeah it sucks for your classmates that failed exams but despite what they think it's really not the end of their career/world/life. Good luck with the rest of the semester, and lmk if you have questions.

 

[Ioannes Paulus]

ahhh, I don't want to bump this ancient thread but, considering that people still refer to this and update it, I was wondering if someone can give an updates review of Rowan? There hasn't been a single review since the merger with Rowan University and it would be awesome if an upperclassmen would give their take on the school and the opportunities available. All I've heard is that students do a lot of family medicine 4th year and the school is expanding the class size.

 

[Halcyon45]

Can someone link me the most recent KCUMB review? Thank you!

edit; found one in 2013, http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/pros-and-cons-of-your-do-school.407104/page-23

is this the most recent? Thank you!

 

[The_Sunny_Doc]

Just to update my post from long ago, according to new policy there are now ZERO required lectures at RVUCOM. Just sayin'

Are you serious? I'm jelly.

The mandatory attendance policy is the only major drawback of my school. At least we can miss a handful of lectures ("allowed absences") when we need a break.

 

[Henry101]

ahhh, I don't want to bump this ancient thread but, considering that people still refer to this and update it, I was wondering if someone can give an updates review of Rowan? There hasn't been a single review since the merger with Rowan University and it would be awesome if an upperclassmen would give their take on the school and the opportunities available. All I've heard is that students do a lot of family medicine 4th year and the school is expanding the class size.

I'm going to bump this because I'm very interested in Rowan

 

[hexane19]

I feel like we need a bump for all the schools lol

 

[mspeedwagon]

I missed this earlier. I only meant the weather would be more like San Diego (it happened to be on my interview day). But, I do agree, Davie is nothing like San Diego in terms of location and that was indeed clear on interview day. Though, I didn't grasp how suburban it was until I moved to Davie.

Did you think it was like SD after interviewing here? Because it should be pretty obvious from the interview day that Davie is nothing like that.

 

[hexane19]

Can someone post an updated review for TouroCOM-Harlem?

 

[DOctorAwesome2015]

Anyone out there... have a more recent pro/cons for PNWU (only post was from 2011)

THANK YOU

 

[QualityProcess]

great write up Neko. still struggling to figure out who you are though

 

[NekoBeats]

great write up Neko. still struggling to figure out who you are though

Haha I take that as a good thing. A year or so ago, one of our classmates drunkenly told me he knows who I am on SDN. I was both shocked and impressed that he figured me out. Ever since then I really go out of my way to stay as anonymous as possible 😀

 

[C3H6O3]

Bump for MUCOM review

 

[AlteredScale]

I'll make one for kcu sooon!

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

I'll make one for kcu sooon!

Hijacking my furry colleague's post. I'll add my sentiments.

KCU is a great school and I never regret attending it because so much of it I love. There are a handful of negatives which I will address, but they're outweighed by the positives.

I think personally the thing I love about our school the most is that I generally find our class to be very amicable. I find that our class is very helpful and spends a good amount of time assisting each other and there is a generally non-existent gunner atmosphere. I think we are prepped hard for our boards and classes and that we have many instructors that are very effective and teach what we need to know and how we need to know it. Likewise I find that the environment around the school is very conducive to people in our class. KC has tons of clubs, tons of places to each, a very good farmers market, a good selection of places to live in while being within 10 minutes of the school ( Which is about 5ish minutes from downtown), while also being generally inexpensive ( rent is low, groceries generally can be afforded cheaply ( I think veggies and starches like potatoes are very cheap here).

Class wise I find our schedule challenging and at times even with a solid mindset difficult to manage in an effective manner. I feel like our biggest issue is that we don't really get time to decompress, you'll have a test on monday and then your next class will begin on tuesday. For me this progressively has gotten to the point that I'm almost a zombie for the first week of a class and as such have to balance dealing with next week's material, required labs, and also catching up.

Professors: We have some good professors, but we also have our share of bad ones.

Price: I think we're probably under the national for most DO schools.

Overall I think the school is a solid A-. The only real issue is that we need some R&R. I'd be willing to have saturday classes over going to class on a tuesday after a final.

 

[beestrng]

Any new perspectives for msucom? Last ones are from 2008/11 as far as I can tell.

 

[AlteredScale]

Curriculum: Systems based applications-focused curriculum. See the systems twice. First year embryology, biochem, anatomy, and normal physio is of focus. Second year is of pathology, pharm, clinical management focused. Longitudinal courses include Bioinformatics, Bioethics, Principles of Clinical Medicine (doctoring course), and osteopathic schools. These four other classes will be what make your week either smooth sailing or absolute hell. You can have grand rounds, PCM competency (think of these as oral boards), OS competency, and a midterm for your main block in a single week. Other weeks you'll have nothing. The good side to them is that they are integrated pretty well through the blocks. So when you are on MSK looking at limb anatomy you'll be learning how to perform tests of the knee, arm, hip, foot. In your cardiopulmonary section you'll learn how to perform a basic heart and lung exam and what to look for (murmurs, rales, ronchi, wheezing, etc).

The curriculum is hard but DOABLE. Everyone has survived. 50 ppl have not dropped out because of how rigorous it is.

Probably the biggest negative here is that you are only given a month off for summer. Most formal research fellowships for medical students call for at minimum a 2 month commitment. So that's essentially out.

Location: The campus is located on the northeast side of KC which has unfortunately been riddled with crime and poverty so you won't be spending time outside the campus. The positive here is that Score 1 allows us to serve this inner city population through school screenings and is honestly great because 1) you are reminded of why you are doing all this studying in the first placed and 2) community service hours. The other plus is that you are 5 minutes away from downtown and less than 10-15 minutes away from some good eats (that span far beyond BBQ, KC has some awesome places for Thai, Ramen, Sushi, Curry, Greek, Middle Eastern...the only thing is that no burger joint here comes close to In-n-Out Burger 😉 )

Living is decent here. I have seen it range from 600-1200 a month for housing which coming from CA, is very cheap. There are places to live that are 5 min away from school if you don't want to live in Century Towers.

Cost: 43K a year. Very hefty price but you do get what you "paid" far which at this point for anyone matriculating next year will include an absolutely stunning administration building that goes far beyond administration (team based learning classrooms with some great tech, conference rooms, study rooms, coffee shops, etc etc). You'll probably see the start of building a huge med/surg simulation center as well as a new building for a gym, cafeteria, etc etc. Expensive but I think you are getting a solid payback for the investment.

Faculty: Range from amazing to OK. Some professors come from a very basic science background and teach as such (minute details all day). Others teach in a very clinical manner and will teach as such as well. Dr. Dubin brought over some incredible faculty to teach but at the same time (prob due to conflicts) much of the older faculty have left for other schools. You can sometimes feel this tension between the old dog and new dog and IMO it is detrimental to the students. The school have been hiring some amazing faculty so far with a focus on hiring clinical faculty (a DO hospitalist, an MD pathologist) who help us integrate basic science knowledge into a working form. We get an advisor the beginning of the year so we are able to speak with them as well. The open door policy is there for all faculty which is really nice but for the most part, we try to stay off their tracks if we can.

Reputation: KCU has a strong reputation in KC. The two neighboring med schools UMKC and KU med have done their best to work with us in order to build KC into a top performing biomedical research area as well as a stronghold for clinical medicine. I think this tri-institutional force have formed this pact because they acknowledge their specific missions (UMKC with their accelerated BS/MD program, KU Med with their academic research, KCU with their huge impact through community service and PC med) but know they have to work together to accomplish such a task.

Clinical rotations: OK imo. Only about half of the 270 can stay in KC. The others go to places like Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, etc etc etc and TBD (new sites in Las Vegas). This is the one thing that is a downfall here. The idea of having to up and move after 2 years away from your home inst is daunting and I feel it will be beneficial of the school to cut down on the preceptor based/outpatient focused rotation sites and to increase sites with resident teams and require students to attend didactics, night float, etc etc.

Housing: Much housing. Such cheap.

Study areas: The academic center, student activites center, smith hall, library all have study areas. Some go back to Century Towers to study, others go to the lil coffee shops that make KC the new hipster haven it has become.

Social scene: Art is a big thing here. There's a jazz district. We have a stunning performing arts studio, ballet center, theater. By far one of the best and most jaw dropping art museums I've ever seen (reserve 3-4 hours to completely round through this gargantuan place, it's FREE). Power and Light District as well as Westport are the places to go if you wanna pretend like you're in college and high school again (get absolutely smashed). If you're more of the fancy pants there's places like White Oak Plaza Shopping Center, Zona Rosa, The Plaza, and Briarcliff Center that have some very high end place to shop (though I doubt most of you will be doing much of that on the med school budget!).

Local hospitals: If you stay in KC for third year you get to rotate at KU Med, St. Lukes, Shawnee Mission, North Kansas City Hospital, etc etc. There's a ton of places here to rotate at.

Preparation for boards: Your first two years will center on board prep. From block one you will be asked board style questions and be timed at boards-level (it will bump down to 75 seconds per questions). For standardized patient interviews you will be expected to perform at board level (14 minutes for the interview, 9 minutes to write the SOAP note). At the end of first year and throughout second year you won't be using First Aid as your source to pass tests, you will be the kid walking around with Big Robbins trying to memorize as much as possible since you will be tested on minute details (think literally a sentence found in the genetic dispositions portion of a disease) regarding specific diseases as well as the big concepts. Sounds daunting and I'm sure people complain about it left and right but hell, it's worked to boost up board scores every time.

Chances of specializing: Around 50% of classes do in fact specialize. Obviously we have to make a point here that if you are gunning cardiothoracic, neurosurgery, ENT, plastics, derm, you'll be shooting for an AOA-focused ACGME program and not ACGME university program for these. However we have had students match plastics, neurosurgery and other specialities at UMKC and KU Med (ACGME university programs).

Dress Code, Policies, Administration: Casual dress for class. Scrubs or other loose fitting clothes for PCM and OS labs. Formal Attire for standardized patient interviews. There's a strict policy on absences to labs and all absence requests must be made through the assistant dean of curricular affairs. Other than that it's very laid back here.

Report Card

Curriculum: A
Location: B
Cost: B
Financial Aid: A
Faculty: B+
Reputation:A
Technology: A
Study Space/Library: A
Library technology/Resources: A
Rotations: C+/B-
Social: A
Hospitals: N/A
Post Grad: A
Cafeteria Food: A
Cafeteria Prices: A-

Overall Grade: A-/A

Final Comments: Very impressed with the school so far. Have not had anything thrown at me that makes me regret coming here at all. Obviously there's some areas of improvement but that's with any school.

 

[Misch Ievus]

Location: The campus is located on the northeast side of KC which has unfortunately been riddled with crime and poverty so you won't be spending time outside the campus.

How terrible is crime around campus? The statistics are kinda scary.

 

[AlteredScale]

How terrible is crime around campus? The statistics are kinda scary.

Crime itself around the surrounding campus is pretty intense around the place but the school has done an absolutely amazing job to hire a security force (joint force of private security and KCMO Police Department) to have 24/7 security. Honestly if you walk from Century Towers to campus and mind your own business you'll be fine. I have yet to hear of an actual assault to a student or any sort of burglary to a student's car occur and the annual incident report released by security shows that it rarely goes above zero. We also have a very fast RAVE alert system that is connected to our phones as well as lecture halls that allow us to receive any immediate events that security deems necessary to communicate with us. One semester in and nothing crazy has happened at all.

The school has done an awesome job of changing the surrounding area while still being sensitive to the population. They bought and tore down a motel adjacent to the campus that was riddled with petty crimes (drugs and prostitution). Through an agreement with the city, they've converted the area into green space for a few years before they utilize it for expansion. Additionally, they've won a recent HUD grant to improve the entire neighborhood (renovation and what not) in order to assist: http://www.kcumb.edu/about/news-events/news/?id=12884902400

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

@AlteredScale are there places that the students with families live that are safer than the immediate surrounding area? I would hate to have to worry about my wife's safety as I study all day

 

[AlteredScale]

@AlteredScale are there places that the students with families live that are safer than the immediate surrounding area? I would hate to have to worry about my wife's safety as I study all day

CityView, Market Station, Cold Storage Lofts, Briarcliff Apartments are all within less than 5-10 minutes of the school. Most people with families live in those areas. 10-15+ minutes away from the campus and you have a whole variety of places to choose from that are safe and affordable (I sound like a TV ad host).

 

[chizledfrmstone]

@AlteredScale are there places that the students with families live that are safer than the immediate surrounding area? I would hate to have to worry about my wife's safety as I study all day

I live 5 mins off campus (downtown) and it's quite safe. Unfortunately living downtown has it's own problems (ie noise). Recently the rent has started going up so you get bigger families moving into smaller apartments.

Quality Hill and Market Station are about 5 minutes from campus. Briarcliff is more of a luxury apartment setting and it's 15 mins out. I've noticed that non-trad students or married couples tend to live in Overland Park, KS (~20 mins). Honestly as long as you never go down Independence or Troost at night you will be fine.

 

[Catfish-Cupcake]

Anyone out there... have a more recent pro/cons for PNWU (only post was from 2011)

THANK YOU

I second this

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Overland Park is ~20 minutes away and is very safe.

 

[21341234]

Has anyone reviewed Touro NY - Middletown ?

 

[AspiringOrtho09]

Has anyone made a recent review for Oklahoma State? If not I would loooove it if someone could provide one!

 

[SCooFS]

DMU?

 

[Queen_B]

.

 

[Mehd School]

Hijacking my furry colleague's post. I'll add my sentiments.

KCU is a great school and I never regret attending it because so much of it I love. There are a handful of negatives which I will address, but they're outweighed by the positives.

I think personally the thing I love about our school the most is that I generally find our class to be very amicable. I find that our class is very helpful and spends a good amount of time assisting each other and there is a generally non-existent gunner atmosphere. I think we are prepped hard for our boards and classes and that we have many instructors that are very effective and teach what we need to know and how we need to know it. Likewise I find that the environment around the school is very conducive to people in our class. KC has tons of clubs, tons of places to each, a very good farmers market, a good selection of places to live in while being within 10 minutes of the school ( Which is about 5ish minutes from downtown), while also being generally inexpensive ( rent is low, groceries generally can be afforded cheaply ( I think veggies and starches like potatoes are very cheap here).

Class wise I find our schedule challenging and at times even with a solid mindset difficult to manage in an effective manner. I feel like our biggest issue is that we don't really get time to decompress, you'll have a test on monday and then your next class will begin on tuesday. For me this progressively has gotten to the point that I'm almost a zombie for the first week of a class and as such have to balance dealing with next week's material, required labs, and also catching up.

Professors: We have some good professors, but we also have our share of bad ones.

Price: I think we're probably under the national for most DO schools.

Overall I think the school is a solid A-. The only real issue is that we need some R&R. I'd be willing to have saturday classes over going to class on a tuesday after a final.

Just for clarification - are you not an OMS-1?


edit: It definitely appears that there are people that have been in school for about 4 months giving detailed reviews of there school such as curriculum and board information (and rotations!!!). Keep in mind who is writing these. I gave some info on my school last year and my thoughts and experiences are always changing as I spend more time here. It's crazy to me that people are rating their curriculum as an "A" when they haven't even experienced 25% of the preclinical curriculum. I guess it doesn't really matter and it's none of my business, just hopefully people will take some of this with a grain of salt. I'm 5 months out from step 1 and I would feel very uncomfortable sharing my review of how my school preps for boards, but some people are doing it 80% through their first semester.

 

[LEGGGO]

Too many young guns posting their review about their schools while still a first or second year. I don't think it's fair to post reviews until your fourth year after you have applied to residency. That way you get the full experience of what the pros and cons really are of the school in helping you attain the one goal you are paying lots of money for: getting a residency of your choice.

CCOM review:

Curriculum: This changed a little bit for the current first and second years, but I had a traditional curriculum. It is more or less the same as what Obamacaresux posted earlier in this thread. First year is biochem, histology, anatomy, physiology, psychiatry, OMM, and a few random healthcare communications classes. Second year is more OMM, pathology, micro, immunology, psychiatry part 2, pharm, and some intro to clinical med course. Overall, this curriculum gets the job done highlighting all the necessary topics that first and second year med students need to cover. Professors are hit or miss. Class is not required, but there is always some bullcrap to do everyday, be it an omm quiz, 50 minute discussion session, omm lab, etc, that you really have to attend class for at least an hour every day. There is also a lot of redundancy in that some courses cover similar topics, but the course directors never communicate. Example is having micro being a covered in the summer and fall of second year, then covering antibiotics in the spring time during pharmacology. Definitely could have some improvement here.

For third year, you get an elective, ob/gyn, peds, psych, IM/IM subspecialty, surgery and family. We had a ridiculously long 3 month family rotation, but I think this changed for the current third years and younger. 4th year only OMM, EM, IM subspecialty x2, and Surgery. 6 Months of electives. However, there is a rule that you cannot do more than 3 months in a select specialty. So if you need to do 4 months of ENT since that is such a competitive specialty and rotations are of utmost importance in the DO world, tough luck. You can do 3 months instead.

Location: Downers Grove is a nice quiet suburb with lots of starbucks and Peet's coffee shops to go study at. Great for families, but not so great for single men/women. 3rd and 4th year people usually head to the city.

Cost: Very poor (which describes the quality of the tuition and also describes my wealth for the next 1o years after residency as I'm doing IM) 64k this year. Increases about 4k/year. First years will probably see their tuition break 70k.

Faculty: More or less supportive. Can't really say anything too bad about them. Some are terrible lecturers while others are great. I feel it's the student's job to study anyway.

Reputation: Popular in the DO world, but don't hold your breath if you think Northwestern ENT is going bend over backwards for you hearing you come from CCOM. In Chicago, for the primary care residencies such IM (not including NW, U of C proper), FM, PMR, you may have some reputation. Others not so much.

Clinical Rotations: Pretty strong for a DO school. We do have rotations in the middle of nowhere, but you can arrange them to be within relatively close proximity to the loop. Hospitals all over. A lot of our surgery, IM/IM subspecialties, are at cook and lutheran. OB/GYN at christ, peds at christ. Of note, when I say OB/Gyn or Peds at christ, I mean that there are probably 4 to 6 of you that will rotate there any given month. That means the other 20 of you will have to go to some small no name facility. This is a major flaw in my opinion. Some people will get great experiences, while others receive less than stellar ones.

Housing: On campus dorms and apartments are limited. They actually tore down one of the old dorms, not sure what they are planning to do with it.

Study areas: Library gets crowded, but it is nice. Decent amount of computer labs. Overall average.

Social Scene: It's chicago, great bar scene and club scene if you want. Downers Grove has a few as well. It's also great that you can pretty much Uber anywhere.

Local Hospitals: Decent for a DO school. Main hospital is St. James 35 miles south of Chicago. Lots of rotations of varying quality there. As mentioned earlier, Christ, Cook, lutheran, resurrection, illinois masonic, and a plethora of other offices/clinics. Each locations has a variety of rotations offered.

Board Prep: Not so good. I think the first and second years get decent time off, but I only got three weeks to take boards. That means two weeks of dedicated prep time and a week to take both Step1/level 1. For Step 2, they will try to run an unorganized but mandatory week of "board review." However good the intentions, this course is poorly done. Overall, I feel our school did do us any favors in board preparation time.

Specialty: Lots of FM/IM. Very few gen surg. A decent amount of surgery subspecialties, EM, and psych.

Grades: Letter grade and ranking is done. Some courses are pass/fail.


Curriculum: C+
Location: B+
Cost: F
Faculty: B-
Reputation: B
Technology: B
Study Space/Library: B
Library technology/Resources: B+
Rotations: C+
Social: A-
Hospitals: B
Post Grad: B

Overall Grade: C+

Overall, CCOM gets the job done. Cost is a huge negative, as is the 3 month limit in one specialty of rotations rule. However, I can't complain too much as I have a decent amount of interviews at pretty decent programs this season. I think someone coming here should not think that they are going to get special treatment from Chicago MD programs because of the CCOM name. I hear it too often from faculty and students alike. CCOM will give you the opportunity to get some pretty good training at quality hospitals in Chicago, but it will not make it easy for you. I know this review overall sounds pretty doom and gloom, but I think it is best to come here expecting the worse, work hard, and excel rather than have false pretense of what to expect. Come here if you are a self motivated learner, would like to experience the third largest city in the US, or want a residency in Chicago. Just be prepared to work for it.

 

[AwayFromReality]

With all that being said, you actually don’t spend all of M3 year at wherever your core is. You’ll most likely do your main rotations there, like IM or surgery. But other things like peds and EM will be done elsewhere. It’s completely random which rotations are done at your hospital and which aren’t so that part of it is unpredictable. The good thing is that if there’s a rotation you really wanted and one of your classmates has it, the school will let you switch.

Thanks for such a detailed NSU review, I have a couple questions that I hope you don't mind answering.
How many rotations are actually done at the Core hospital and how many at other hospitals? Do students have to move all over the state for those other rotations or are they done close to where the core hospital is?
Are there any electives allowed in the third year?
What 4th year rotations are required and how many electives are available that year?
I remember reading somewhere that there is a 1 or 2 month maximum rotation allowed per specialty, is that still the case?

 

[NekoBeats]

Thanks for such a detailed NSU review, I have a couple questions that I hope you don't mind answering.
How many rotations are actually done at the Core hospital and how many at other hospitals?

Most people will do their inpatient IM rotations at their core hospital at the very least. Other people might get inpatient surgery rotations at the hospital too, or inpatient peds, or inpatient psych. Depends on what hospital you go to, and even then you might not get some of the inpatient rotations. I've heard that the Palmetto students do almost everything at PGH whereas the Mt. Sinai people have to drive around a bit more.

Do students have to move all over the state for those other rotations or are they done close to where the core hospital is?

You might need to move for your rural rotations, but in terms of M3 year you don't have to move. I do know some people that got assigned a place 1-2 hrs away for a rotation, but you can always see if someone from another site will be willing to switch locations with you. The caveat is that you both have to be on the same rotation that month (i.e. switch a family med rotation with another family med rotation).

If your rurals are far from campus, the school will provide housing. And all students will receive a stipend during the two months of rurals, irregardless of where they are.

The furthest I've had to drive is 50 minutes for one month. Everything else for my M3 year is at my main hospital (<10 min away) or at nearby clinics/offices/other hospitals (15-30 min away). The rotations I've had to drive more for have been outpatient places that don't start until 9 AM anyway, so to me it's not really a pain. Take all that with a grain of salt though. I'm sure some other students in my class have had worse experiences.

Are there any electives allowed in the third year?

No.

What 4th year rotations are required and how many electives are available that year?

You're required to do an EM rotation, 2 rural rotations which will be assigned to you, and 1 rural selective. You can do up to 5 months of electives, assuming you use July of your M4 year as one of those months. Otherwise you'll do 4 months of electives and have the month of July as board prep for Level 2/Step 2. It's up to you how you want to use the month of July. You can split a maximum of 2 months into 2 week rotations, so if you decided to use July of M4 as an elective you could potentially have a total of 7 electives (three month-long rotations + four 2-week rotations). The rural selective can also kind of be an elective, if you spin it the right way to the school.

I remember reading somewhere that there is a 1 or 2 month maximum rotation allowed per specialty, is that still the case?

Correct. We're not allowed to do more than two months of electives in the same specialty (example: general surgery). However, subspecialties count as different disciplines. So you could do 2 months of GS, 1 month of cardiothoracic surgery, 1 month of pediatric surgery, and 1 month of vascular surgery. If you choose to do a subspecialty discipline as one of your electives, the attending physician supervising you must be board-certified in that field.

Last thing- if you decide to use July of M4 year as an elective rotation month, the rotation can be done in whatever specialty you want, even if you're already planning two of your elective months in the same specialty. Same thing with the rural selective. As long as the 'underserved' mission requirements are met and the school approves your elective rotation site, you can also use that month to rotate in any specialty.

 

[AwayFromReality]

Most people will do their inpatient IM rotations at their core hospital at the very least. Other people might get inpatient surgery rotations at the hospital too, or inpatient peds, or inpatient psych. Depends on what hospital you go to, and even then you might not get some of the inpatient rotations. I've heard that the Palmetto students do almost everything at PGH whereas the Mt. Sinai people have to drive around a bit more.



You might need to move for your rural rotations, but in terms of M3 year you don't have to move. I do know some people that got assigned a place 1-2 hrs away for a rotation, but you can always see if someone from another site will be willing to switch locations with you. The caveat is that you both have to be on the same rotation that month (i.e. switch a family med rotation with another family med rotation).

If your rurals are far from campus, the school will provide housing. And all students will receive a stipend during the two months of rurals, irregardless of where they are.

The furthest I've had to drive is 50 minutes for one month. Everything else for my M3 year is at my main hospital (<10 min away) or at nearby clinics/offices/other hospitals (15-30 min away). The rotations I've had to drive more for have been outpatient places that don't start until 9 AM anyway, so to me it's not really a pain. Take all that with a grain of salt though. I'm sure some other students in my class have had worse experiences.



No.



You're required to do an EM rotation, 2 rural rotations which will be assigned to you, and 1 rural selective. You can do up to 5 months of electives, assuming you use July of your M4 year as one of those months. Otherwise you'll do 4 months of electives and have the month of July as board prep for Level 2/Step 2. It's up to you how you want to use the month of July. You can split a maximum of 2 months into 2 week rotations, so if you decided to use July of M4 as an elective you could potentially have a total of 7 electives (three month-long rotations + four 2-week rotations). The rural selective can also kind of be an elective, if you spin it the right way to the school.



Correct. We're not allowed to do more than two months of electives in the same specialty (example: general surgery). However, subspecialties count as different disciplines. So you could do 2 months of GS, 1 month of cardiothoracic surgery, 1 month of pediatric surgery, and 1 month of vascular surgery. If you choose to do a subspecialty discipline as one of your electives, the attending physician supervising you must be board-certified in that field.

Last thing- if you decide to use July of M4 year as an elective rotation month, the rotation can be done in whatever specialty you want, even if you're already planning two of your elective months in the same specialty. Same thing with the rural selective. As long as the 'underserved' mission requirements are met and the school approves your elective rotation site, you can also use that month to rotate in any specialty.

Thanks again for such a detailed response. I was initially under the impression that all the core rotations are done at the same hospital during third year and looks like that's not the case. Would you say the quality of those outpatient rotations are decent? I'm assuming it is more preceptor based with no interactions with residents on those specific outpatient rotations?

 

[NekoBeats]

Thanks again for such a detailed response. I was initially under the impression that all the core rotations are done at the same hospital during third year and looks like that's not the case. Would you say the quality of those outpatient rotations are decent? I'm assuming it is more preceptor based with no interactions with residents on those specific outpatient rotations?

There's a lot of variability with the outpatient rotations. Some of the preceptors run their own practices while having privileges at NSU affiliated teaching hospitals, so they know how to teach students and do a great job. Others will have you follow them around and only give you the freedom to do your own H&P once in a while. It really depends. If I had to generalize, I would say the quality of outpatient is good. You are correct in that most outpatient rotations will not have residents or fellows. It will be just you and the doctor, which is great when it's an outpatient setting- more patients and attention for yourself.

 

[Userneedmoreinfo]

PCOM Philly?

 

[Late Bloomer]

Come to DCOM 🙂 best school!

Lol

 

[ILikeFood]

The real answer is: NSUCOM is chocolate rivers and gum drop rain forests. No it's not. Cortaditos and coladas run the hospital. Gaudy gold jewelry and egos the size of the hospital run some of the scene down there. There is good and there is bad. Hot blood runs in the people there, defensive medicine more than evidenced based is practiced, knowledgeable to very unknowledgeable residents and attendings occupy the hospital floors. Anger, frustration, excitement, satisfaction, and fatigue will be among your emotions. If you do well, things like Ivy League residencies (not all, some) and Mayo Clinic are possible (and were done in my time and 1-2 years before and after my graduation). If you barely pass and your brain is filled with more factoids from the latest People magazine than anything you've learned in medical school well there are residencies we have for that too, i.e Larkin Community Hospital, filled with the laziest and/or dumbest residents I've ever encountered. If you fail year after year after year, the most I've ever heard is someone who's done preclinical for 4 years before getting kicked out. You can fail several classes, pass the remediations and get through, or repeat the year, or if you show a complete lack of motivation, actually get kicked out. I think among osteopathic schools there's definitely worse. But NSUCOM is not perfect by any means and don't ever attend expecting it will be. The game there is the same game played in every other osteopathic school and knowing the lay of the land and how to get the best circumstances for yourself will be key in becoming the doc you want to be.

 

[hsk013]

@FrkyBgStok , @LUCPM would you guys do one for DMU? Thanks!