Pros and Cons of your DO School

[shadowlightfox]

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Warning, RIDICULOUSLY long post, but need to be said.

So what is the general basic outline of Rowan's curriculum?

It's generally systems based, but the way the current curriculum is structured is that we learn all the "fundamentals" first year, like anatomy, physiology, biochem, etc and then all the "abnormal" stuff next year with the pathology, pharmacology, etc. And it's interesting to note that this school is a perfect example how there's a stark contrast between the quality of the education first year versus second year, which is why it warrants my talking about each year individually. Of course, they are going to go into the curriculum renewal in a few years, but even with that renewal, there will still be a lot of problems the school has to deal with. Plus if I give you an insight into the quality of the decisions these administrators make, you can decide for yourself how the curriculum renewal will shape out.

How would you rate the curriculum of the first year?

Overall grade: B

What courses are covered in first year?

Courses: Biochemistry/genetics (this is combined), histology, immunology/microbiology (this is combined), anatomy, physiology, neuroscience, OMM and On Doctoring

So why a B rating?

It's because while there are some noticeable flaws that need to be rectified on, some courses are taught very well and by the boards (THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT), and other courses are taught very poorly, but overall, you feel like you are in medical school, learning what you need to learn.

Oh yeah, the biggest pro of first year is we have perhaps two of the best professors in the entire history of Rowan. We have a really good cardiology professor, and we also have Dr. White, who some of you may know if you use Kaplan, teaching us anatomy and neuroscience.

Courses that are taught very well are: Anatomy, physiology, neuroscience, and immunology/microbiology.

Most poorly run classes: On Doctoring and OMM. I'll go into more detail about this when I talk about second year because a lot of the problems coincide with that anyway.

Courses that are taught very well are done so because they have competent people running the department. These professors actually know what to focus on for our boards for the most part and they are on top of their game.

Biggest flaw of first year: Besides the poorly run On Doctoring and OMM, there are still handful of subjects we haven't had a solid grasp on. For instance, Rowan doesn't teach embryology or dermatology, and while you may get some exposure via some anatomy lectures and neuroscience, along with women's health course in second year, it's not enough to, say, get a good score on a pure embryology section of the boards. Lack of embryo is not a huge deal since it's not the most high yield anyway but a flaw is still a flaw.

Now for the second year...
Curriculum of second year.

Overall grade: D

This year is the year that everything falls apart and makes you not be glad that you are at the school. Basically, take the good stuff of first year, and get rid of that, and take the bad stuff of first year, and magnify that, and add a sprinkle of administrative decisions that make absolutely no sense to anyone along with course coordinators who are still trying to figure out how to run a course properly and you got yourself a second year at Rowan.

The common mantra of 2nd year preclinical at Rowan is you are teaching yourself everything because everything is a disaster. The disaster that's known as second year falls is due to four major categories:

Very weak curriculum (they're either not teaching you well enough, or they're not teaching you at all)
Clinical Medicine (this is perhaps the biggest problem of second year)
Course coordinators lack of experience
Administration's poor decision making skills/out of touch with reality/poor skills at prioritizing resources/etc

I can go into more detail if you like, but one of the biggest problems with the situation is:

The school is investing so much of its second year resource towards this one course Clinical Medicine to the point where we are not learning enough pathology, pharmacology, and other courses. Their reasoning is that they want to put a huge emphasis on clinical education, i.e. Step 2 and Step 3 material, but what they do not tell you is that it's done at the expense of preparing you for Step 1. This is ironic because if you do not have a strong background on pathology or pharmacology, you cannot exactly make sense of the clinical side of things, impeding you from becoming a good clinician. If you are not getting good step 1 scores, you can't exactly get the residence you need to even apply what you're learning from clinical medicine in the first place...

And just to give you an idea of how much they're pumping their efforts into this course, we're not talking about a 50/50 split, where 50% clinical medicine and 50% everything else. We're talking about at least a 75/25 split, where 75% lion share is clinical medicine, and the other 25% is a scrap that is split among pathology, pharm, OMM, etc. In other words, every 40 hours of education you are receiving, 30 hours of it is clinical medicine, and only ten hours for stuff you actually have to know for boards.

And you would think that based on how much they're investing with this course, at least the quality of this one course goes up, right? Nope. The quality of the course gets worse and worse....This course is not taught by professors, but rather physicians who don't know how to teach (some of them even admitted to this). Their lectures do not match the objectives of the slides, and forget about Level 1 or Step 1, they are not even indicative of what you'll be asked on the exams that RowanSOM itself makes. It's a huge mess.

Oh, and the pharmacology curriculum currently is very terrible. In fact, we are known to not prepare students for pharmacology just as much as we are known to overemphasize clinical medicine among pretty much everybody in the school, including faculty members.

So you are in a year where you are stressed out about a licensing examination at the end, said school is not preparing you adequately for said licensing examination at the end, and somehow thinks it's a good idea to prioritize teaching you Step 2 materials over Step 1, and said course that teaches you Step 2 isn't even managed properly..... That is a huge concern. But this summary does not even begin to describe to you other problems that are present in second year, and this is just one of the many faces that bring the quality of the preclinical education down here at Rowan.

This is why Rowan is a perfect example of how first year very poorly reflects how the rest of the medical school will pan out. This also explains why I do not think it's a good idea to ask a first year at a medical school what it's like. If you ask the current first year how the school is, they are not going to tell you it's that bad, because it isn't. First year is not that bad. But once they reach second year, then things will crumble before their very eyes. There is an extreme dichotomy in the quality of education we receive between the two years. The disaster of the second year far outweighs the merits of first year.

I can go into more detail about the 4 problems I listed above if you guys like if it helps you gauge better on how the school fares. I still have yet to bring up other stuff like how do students prepare for the boards or how the COMLEX scores are so high (USMLE...not so much) as well as the curriculum renewal.

It just completely boggles my mind about how people were silent about how this school is run all these years and people were blindsided by its UMDNJ-SOM reputation. The current administrators who are running Rowan are making so many poor choices to not only the curriculum, but how the school is run overall that it's seriously bringing the quality of the medical education drastically down.

Overall school rating as someone who is almost done with 2 years so far:

D

You might be saying what about the B rating from first year. I believe that the value of second year far outweighs the value of first year, and add to the fact that the administration is making so many questionable decisions that are hampering the students' to learn effectively, disorganization in the curriculum itself, combined with the fact that the school is not doing an adequate job preparing you for the licensing examinations, and combine all that with the fact that the people who are running the courses do not know how to do things properly, you are not going to feel like you are getting your tuition's worth in this school.

Btw, if you have any questions about what I mentioned so far, feel free to bring it up so that I can clarify.

 

[Oh_Gee]

Warning, RIDICULOUSLY long post, but need to be said.

So what is the general basic outline of Rowan's curriculum?

It's generally systems based, but the way the current curriculum is structured is that we learn all the "fundamentals" first year, like anatomy, physiology, biochem, etc and then all the "abnormal" stuff next year with the pathology, pharmacology, etc. And it's interesting to note that this school is a perfect example how there's a stark contrast between the quality of the education first year versus second year, which is why it warrants my talking about each year individually. Of course, they are going to go into the curriculum renewal in a few years, but even with that renewal, there will still be a lot of problems the school has to deal with. Plus if I give you an insight into the quality of the decisions these administrators make, you can decide for yourself how the curriculum renewal will shape out.

How would you rate the curriculum of the first year?

Overall grade: B

What courses are covered in first year?

Courses: Biochemistry/genetics (this is combined), histology, immunology/microbiology (this is combined), anatomy, physiology, neuroscience, OMM and On Doctoring

So why a B rating?

It's because while there are some noticeable flaws that need to be rectified on, some courses are taught very well and by the boards (THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT), and other courses are taught very poorly, but overall, you feel like you are in medical school, learning what you need to learn.

Oh yeah, the biggest pro of first year is we have perhaps two of the best professors in the entire history of Rowan. We have a really good cardiology professor, and we also have Dr. White, who some of you may know if you use Kaplan, teaching us anatomy and neuroscience.

Courses that are taught very well are: Anatomy, physiology, neuroscience, and immunology/microbiology.

Most poorly run classes: On Doctoring and OMM. I'll go into more detail about this when I talk about second year because a lot of the problems coincide with that anyway.

Courses that are taught very well are done so because they have competent people running the department. These professors actually know what to focus on for our boards for the most part and they are on top of their game.

Biggest flaw of first year: Besides the poorly run On Doctoring and OMM, there are still handful of subjects we haven't had a solid grasp on. For instance, Rowan doesn't teach embryology or dermatology, and while you may get some exposure via some anatomy lectures and neuroscience, along with women's health course in second year, it's not enough to, say, get a good score on a pure embryology section of the boards. Lack of embryo is not a huge deal since it's not the most high yield anyway but a flaw is still a flaw.

Now for the second year...
Curriculum of second year.

Overall grade: D

This year is the year that everything falls apart and makes you not be glad that you are at the school. Basically, take the good stuff of first year, and get rid of that, and take the bad stuff of first year, and magnify that, and add a sprinkle of administrative decisions that make absolutely no sense to anyone along with course coordinators who are still trying to figure out how to run a course properly and you got yourself a second year at Rowan.

The common mantra of 2nd year preclinical at Rowan is you are teaching yourself everything because everything is a disaster. The disaster that's known as second year falls is due to four major categories:

1 Very weak curriculum (either because not enough good professors teaching, or not learning enough for the boards)
2 Clinical Medicine (this one is the biggest flaw of second year)
3 Course coordinators lack of experience
4 Administration's poor decision making skills/out of touch with reality/poor skills at prioritizing resources/etc

I can go into more detail if you like, but one of the biggest problems with the situation is:

The school is investing so much of its second year resource towards this one course Clinical Medicine to the point where we are not learning enough pathology, pharmacology, and other courses. Their reasoning is that they want to put a huge emphasis on clinical education, i.e. Step 2 and Step 3 material, but what they do not tell you is that it's done at the expense of preparing you for Step 1. This is ironic because if you do not have a strong background on pathology or pharmacology, you cannot exactly make sense of the clinical side of things, impeding you from becoming a good clinician. If you are not getting good step 1 scores, you can't exactly get the residence you need to even apply what you're learning from clinical medicine in the first place...

And you would think that based on how much they're investing with this course, at least the quality of this one course goes up, right? Nope. The quality of the course gets worse and worse....

So you have a very poor Step 2 and Step 3 course, and very subpar remaining courses that teach you for Step 1. That is a huge concern. But this summary does not even begin to describe to you other problems that are present in second year, and this is just one of the many faces that bring the quality of the preclinical education down here at Rowan.

This is why Rowan is a perfect example of how first year very poorly reflects how the rest of the medical school will pan out. This also explains why I do not think it's a good idea to ask a first year at a medical school what it's like. There is an extreme dichotomy in the quality of education we receive between the two years. The disaster of the second year far outweighs the merits of first year.

I can go into more detail about the 4 problems I listed above if you guys like if it helps you gauge better on how the school fares. I still have yet to bring up other stuff like how do students prepare for the boards or how the COMLEX scores are so high (USMLE...not so much) as well as the curriculum renewal.

It just completely boggles my mind about how people were silent about how this school is run all these years and people were blindsided by its UMDNJ-SOM reputation.

Btw, if you have any questions about what I mentioned so far, feel free to bring it up so that I can clarify.

what are the school's average for COMLEX 1?

 

[shadowlightfox]

what are the school's average for COMLEX 1?

The average was roughly 540.

USMLE....the average was actually very low, which is not good especially considering the merger and how it warrants USMLE that much more.

However, board scores do not necessarily reflect how well the curriculum works. The high average isn't because the school adequately prepares us for COMLEX.

If you were to interview the upperclassmen who crushed both Step 1 and COMLEX, the common denominator among them in our school is to do as well as you can in the fall semester, then ignore the school in spring semester and focus on your boards. The school ill prepares you for both COMLEX and USMLE.

But when I asked them if Rowan helped them prepare for boards in any way, unfortunately, they all gave the same response: None of them attributed their high scores to the school's curriculum. Surprisingly, they all recommend AGAINST studying the class materials and all attributed it to studying on their own using outside resources. They said that the curriculum as it's currently implemented is designed to lower your board scores, not raise them, and every student who did well knew this and warned their lowerclassmen this issue. However, the two sections they said Rowan prepared their students adequately for were OMM and Women's health.

The bottom line is: Rowan still has students scoring well on the boards because they're lucky enough to admit who are smart, not because they have a good curriculum. The school itself still fails to prepare their students for boards, and the administrators have yet to admit to that reality.

And this sucks because when the school administrators see high scores, they're gonna think the curriculum works perfectly fine, when it's far from that...

They don't realize that we are all frustrated at them for all the shortcomings we're going through.

 

[sab3156]

I don't know the average COMLEX of the entire class, but the average pass rate was 93% nationally, we were 95%. Don't quote me on this yet, but when I saw the distribution of scores for COMLEX, there were a lot more scores in the 550-600 range than 500-550 range. So the average has to be somewhere around at least around 560, and even then, this is just a conservative estimate. I apologize that I couldn't be more specific.

USMLE....the average was actually very low, which is not good especially considering the merger and how it warrants USMLE that much more.

However. Don't be misled. Board scores does not necessarily reflect how well the curriculum works. The high average isn't because the school adequately prepares us for COMLEX.

I asked the upperclassmen who crushed both USMLE and COMLEX how they prepared for it. They told me what I'm telling you guys: Do as well as you can first half of fall semester so that you can leave some buffer room to fail during the spring semester, and then spring semester, ignore the school and start studying for boards, and do your best to make sure you don't at least fail the one-exam courses towards the end of second year.

But when I asked them if Rowan helped them prepare for boards in any way, since the average COMLEX was high, after all, and logic says that the school should be doing something right because of that. Unfortunately, they all gave the same response: None of them attributed their high scores to the school's curriculum. Surprisingly, they all recommend AGAINST studying the class materials and all attributed it to studying on their own using outside resources and advised against relying on the curriculum. They said that the curriculum as it's currently implemented is designed to lower your board scores, not raise them, and every student who did well knew this and warned their lowerclassmen this issue. However, the two sections they said Rowan prepared their students adequately for were OMM and Women's health, but that's it.

The bottom line is: Rowan still has students scoring well on the boards because they're lucky enough to admit students into their school who are smart enough to realize that there are better resources outside of class instead of students who naively rely on classes to prepare them for boards.

And this sucks because when the school administrators see high scores, they're gonna think the curriculum works perfectly fine, when it's far from that...

They don't realize that we are all frustrated at them for all the shortcomings we're going through.

Terrible faculty seems to be a trademark of DO schools. I mean, DO schools aren't exactly able to attract Nobel prize laureates. Most of these faculty members would be at better schools if they had the credentials to get there, but they don't. Our renal physiology course director is convinced that the macula densa produces ADH. Our dean actively tells people it isn't necessary to take the USMLE for any specialty. We have undergraduate professors hired to teach at a medical school with zero prior experience, writing horrible questions for our exams. It's not just Rowan that sucks, unfortunately.

 

[shadowlightfox]

Terrible faculty is the standard at DO schools. I mean, DO schools aren't exactly able to attract Nobel prize laureates.

Yeah but when the only reviews about said school likened it to being one of the top DO schools in the nation, and better than a handful of MD schools around, and when you come to the school, and you notice that the flaws doesn't exactly make the school stand out, and you're friends from other med schools are already learning way more than you are, while your school is literally spending more time teaching you the types of wheelchairs and canes over anti-microbials and anti-epileptics, you have to wonder if you were lied to.

And regarding your post about the faculty members. That's the thing. Rowan doesn't seem to have enough of them. Most of the teachers second years aren't teachers, but physicians who don't know how to teach at all. We don't even have teachers for most of our lectures in second year. It's a cesspool of a mess. One of the physicians literally told our class "I don't know why they're having me teach you guys this. You need an actual teacher for this kind of thing." And he warned us beforehand that it's gonna be a bad lecture.

I find it absolutely strange that no one else brought up anything about this school from all these years. Cooper Medical School opened up only recently next door, and while there may be a fair share of problems there, their administration is already making way better decisions and having a better curriculum than a school that has been around for over 40 years.

And here is the thing. How to make a decent curriculum is already laid out for you. Someone already did all the work for us. It's called First Aid and UWorld. UWorld is preparing me for COMLEX way more than any lecture at Rowan ever could, despite them trying so hard to convince us saying that the school helps us for our boards. No one in our class believes anything the administration tells us, or even believes in them to do anything right. Even the current residents who graduated from the school said they wished they went to other medical schools instead.

Again, I need to remind you that everything I'm telling you right now is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the problems of second year. I haven't even told you 10% of everything that's wrong with it.

You don't exactly have to be a Nobel Prize laureate to figure out that it makes absolutely no sense to teach clinical/residency level material before Step 1. It's worse than putting the cart before the horse. It's putting the wheel before the cart that's before the horse.

It's like the highschool skipped teaching you algebra, geometry and precalculus and went straight to teaching you calculus, but the SAT you're taking at the end of the year has algebra 2 and trigonometry. And it's not like you have a qualified teacher teaching you calculus either. You have a PhD mathemetician who's specialty is astrophysical theoretical math who doesn't even know that he's talking to high school students teaching you calculus, so you're not even learning that course well enough. You're not learning anything well enough. It makes no sense.

 

[sab3156]

You don't exactly have to be a Nobel Prize laureate to figure out that it makes absolutely no sense to teach clinical/residency level material before Step 1. It's worse than putting the cart before the horse. It's putting the wheel before the cart that's before the horse.

It's like the highschool skipped teaching you algebra, geometry and precalculus and went straight to teaching you calculus, but the SAT you're taking at the end of the year has algebra 2 and trigonometry. And it's not like you have a qualified teacher teaching you calculus either. You have a PhD mathemetician who's specialty is astrophysical theoretical math who doesn't even know that he's talking to high school students teaching you calculus, so you're not even learning that course well enough. You're not learning anything well enough. It makes no sense.

Man, it sounds like you are talking about my classes... makes me sad. I remember when we learned about renal tubular pathology (like renal tubular acidosis) in a clinical lecture from a physician, BEFORE the physiology lectures taught us about tubular transport mechanisms. Yep. I'm not lying. How can anyone learn from professors who are so oblivious to this kind of stuff? I mean, I feel robbed every time I pay tuition. What am I paying for?

 

[shadowlightfox]

Man, it sounds like you are talking about my classes... makes me sad. I remember when we learned about renal tubular pathology (like renal tubular acidosis) in a clinical lecture from a physician, BEFORE the physiology lectures taught us about tubular transport mechanisms. Yep. I'm not lying. How can anyone learn from professors who are so oblivious to this kind of stuff? I mean, I feel robbed every time I pay tuition. What am I paying for?

I'll tell you what you're paying for. You're paying for the opportunity to pay for outside resource.

Or more aptly put, you're only paying for the degree. You're not paying for the education.

Should've gone PBL, man. At least there, you're learning on your own for the right reasons rather than the wrong, not to mention you get an extra month of board studying....

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

The school is investing so much of its second year resource towards this one course Clinical Medicine to the point where we are not learning enough pathology, pharmacology, and other courses. Their reasoning is that they want to put a huge emphasis on clinical education, i.e. Step 2 and Step 3 material, but what they do not tell you is that it's done at the expense of preparing you for Step 1. This is ironic because if you do not have a strong background on pathology or pharmacology, you cannot exactly make sense of the clinical side of things, impeding you from becoming a good clinician. If you are not getting good step 1 scores, you can't exactly get the residence you need to even apply what you're learning from clinical medicine in the first place...

My school does the exact same thing... it’s infuriating. I feel that anyone who says the words, “this is important it will be on your Step 3 boards” in an MS1 class needs to be removed from the premises immediately.

 

[shadowlightfox]

My school does the exact same thing... it’s infuriating. I feel that anyone who says the words, “this is important it will be on your Step 3 boards” in an MS1 class needs to be removed from the premises immediately.

Oh, you know what's worse than that? When you are told that this helps you for Step 1 instead of step 2. They don't even give us enough dignity to tell us the truth. We're not stupid about the matter. We know what is tested on the boards, and we know what you are teaching us. Just stop lying and at least save face by being honest that you are not preparing us for boards.

It's one thing when you do something ridiculous, but at least be honest about it.

And I haven't even begun to discuss to you guys other problems we're experiencing as second year students at this school anyway. This is really only one of the myriad of problems second year brings.

No wonder the handful of people who are graduating in a few months said they are not going to miss this place at all when they leave...

 

[IslandStyle808]

My school does the exact same thing... it’s infuriating. I feel that anyone who says the words, “this is important it will be on your Step 3 boards” in an MS1 class needs to be removed from the premises immediately.

Oh, you know what's worse than that? When you are told that this helps you for Step 1 instead of step 2. They don't even give us enough dignity to tell us the truth. We're not stupid about the matter. We know what is tested on the boards, and we know what you are teaching us. Just stop lying and at least save face by being honest that you are not preparing us for boards.

It's one thing when you do something ridiculous, but at least be honest about it.

And I haven't even begun to discuss to you guys other problems we're experiencing as second year students at this school anyway. This is really only one of the myriad of problems second year brings.

No wonder the handful of people who are graduating in a few months said they are not going to miss this place at all when they leave...

Same deal at my school. Also lied about how are hours are going to decrease also, after being subjected to a upper 20 hours a week, 1st year.

The way my professors put it is "this will be on your boards." I'm thinking "what boards are you talking about step I, step II, step III, or internal medicine!!" I love how vague they are and they have zero clue what boards they are teach to. You will find this especially true for those who have primarily taught 3rd year or residents.

Its a sad thing when I get step 2 questions more correct than step 1 questions.

 

[68PGunner]

The only thing that I look towards to during 3rd year is standardized shelf exams. I’m going to unleash my rage that’s been accumulated through two years of PhD bs on those exams and wreck them w hundo.

It’s a clown show when I’m getting 90%+ on Uworld and Kaplan Physiology and Pathophysiology quests and then getting the gentlemen average of 85-87% bc my PhD either can’t write a test question with proper English grammar or test me on obscure facts bc I dgaf about his lectures.

 

[BorntobeDO?]

Sometimes I think I have it worse than anyone, then SDN comes out and reminds me of all the variety of downfalls elsewhere. I mean my school pulls alot of this stuff too, but I don't think its as bad as above. I actually have a decent amount of professors that I think are doing a decent job covering board material. Maybe I didn't screw up picking my DO school after all. Or maybe I am so far behind I can't tell the difference. Thanks for the perspective.

 

[sab3156]

Let's be real, though - DO schools will always be pretty terrible for education, because COCA and AOA are the organizations that control them. These are organizations with an embarrassing track record and they have zero respect in the medical world, and they have zero standards for quality of medical education. We should hope that LCME/ACGME together pulls the same power play on COCA that the ACGME did on AOA. I am just waiting for them to say to COCA: "Hand over your schools to us or by year 20xx, or your graduates will only be eligible for FM residencies. Oh, and we are also shutting a bunch of them down due to them being absolute trash."

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

We should hope that LCME pulls the same power play on COCA that the ACGME did on AOA. I am just waiting for them to say to COCA: "Hand over your schools to us or by year 20xx, or your graduates will only be eligible for FM residencies. Oh, and we are also shutting a bunch of them down due to them being absolute trash."

Unfortunately there is literally no incentive for LCME to even care. They gain nothing by doing this, and they don’t even have the power to do what you’re suggesting.

It will be a non-medical legislator who is going to finally realize there is no need to have two accrediting bodies doing the same thing before anything actually happens. Ultimately I do think it will happen but it won’t be a “power play” because LCME has none of that power.

 

[getfat]

It will be a non-medical legislator who is going to finally realize there is no need to have two accrediting bodies doing the same thing before anything actually happens. Ultimately I do think it will happen but it won’t be a “power play” because LCME has none of that power.

I wish but a lot of legislators think were are nothing like MD students. Several senators/reps were under the impression I was something like podiatrists (specialized medicine) or chiropractors. DO day on the hill reminded me how for osteopathic medicine still has to go in the eyes of the general public.

 

[echo87]

RE: @shadowlightfox

I would say my classmate suffers from a profound lack of perspective. I agree with most, if not all, of his grievances about the second year curriculum, I bitch about it ALL THE TIME. But I would not conclude such sentiments with "don't come to Rowan". It has a very good reputation and is well respected in the philly/south jersey area (though one could argue this is what is leading it to rest on its laurels), and the curriculum will be changed in the next year or two. Is there the possibility of the changes going awry? Sure, but if you're complaining about the curriculum now and then complaining about the fact they're implementing changes then you cannot be helped.

We have produced an innumerable amount of competent, respected, highly achieving physicians. The administration and its associated staff are competent, hardworking, and will always follow through on their job for the betterment of the students, from registrar to financial aid to the various department secretaries. And the administration is ALWAYS receptive and eager to alleviate student grievances. This reason alone is how I know that we have a very good thing here. I have been to and heard about too many schools where this is in stark contrast. What we have is not the norm, at medical schools and in the outside world. We are one of the few exceptions.

We rotate at hospital systems that we share decades of history with and new ones are being added all the time and have numerous SCHOOL residencies.

Does second year suck? Yes. Is the school being impractical or perhaps ignorant about the importance of boards in today's day and age? Sure looks like it. But pre-clinical changes are being made.

I'm not saying put Rowan on the top of your list, or even any place in particular, this is something you should decide for yourself. I am simply here to tell you that the advice that you 'should not come to Rowan' derived from emotions less than 3 months from boards is not one based on rationality.

 

[shadowlightfox]

RE: @echo87

Well, I did say feel free to disagree with my opinions, so I can't chastise you for criticizing some of my points.

But I have to clarify on some points, because it seems that you might misunderstand some of the points I brought up:

Reputation means very little when it's based on what the school used to do, rather than what it currently does, and I brought this up before. If the way the school is being run now with its current set of decisions were the same quality of decisions that was made in the past, no way would they be having such a good standing, and by extension you wouldn't be talking about how they have such a good reputation.

I never said that the curriculum change is bad per se. In fact, with the way the school is handling it, there definitely needs to be change alright. What I said was the current administration doesn't seem to have the best track record when it comes to making good decisions. They misread the situation, implement the wrong decision, and fail to see the ramifications of it until it's too late, all at the expense of students. By constantly making questionable decisions time and time again, and having yet to see a sound judgement being made by them, is it really surprising that a good number of us are cautious and pessimistic about the next decision they make, especially one as big as the curriculum renewal?

I also want to point out that there's a difference between changing the curriculum for the sake of changing it, and changing it in order to address the underlying problems of the current curriculum, and only time will tell whether it's the former or the latter Rowan is doing this for, and I'm praying it's for the latter for the sake of future students. But don't hold your breath. The administration has made it painfully clear that they have no intention of preparing students for the USMLE any time soon.

You say we produced high number of competent physicians, but that doesn't automatically mean the school gets the credit. Every med school one way or another produces competent physicians, even from schools that have it worse than we do. Whether you put these people in the best medical school or worst, these people went to places because of their own drive. We're talking about the quality of the school itself and what you are getting out of your tuition.

Rotating at hospitals we share decades of experience with, while it's a plus, is far from a unique aspect, as I'm sure many other medical schools have that attribute. It's a plus for Rowan, but not one that's unique to Rowan. And it's not about the length of partnership that matters, but the quality of the hospital themselves that matter.

I do agree on you that the financial aid, various department secretaries, etc, they are hardworking and will go out of their way to help out students, and yes, this is definitely a rare trait when you see how other medical schools handle it. Even the administration who makes the curriculum decisions themselves are willing to help the student out if you reach out to them. And while all of this is nice, if we were to objectify the actual decisions they are making, and how they are impacting the tuition we are paying for the sake of getting an education, you have to bring into it all the cons that come with their choices as well, including whether or not you are receiving a proper education. And sadly, most of the people who are nice and willing to go out of their way to help students are not the same groups of people who are in power making all the important decision, and I already made this point in my previous post.

In fact, you're bringing up other medical schools, to which I say just because things can be worse, doesn't mean they should be bad.

I also agree with you in that my post might have had some emotional elements injected into it stemming from the fact that I am taking the most important exam in perhaps my entire life. But that doesn't exactly negate any point I've brought up until now. Can you blame me for the view I have? You are paying your money to receive an education. Forget about boards atm, instead of the school giving you the proper foundation you need to be a good physician and hire competent teachers to teach, they are not hiring teachers to teach, make you learn all the momentarily irrelevant things, and they are forcing you to teach everything yourself because they cannot seem to prioritize how to make use of the tuition the students paid for. The fact that you might be in a position where you are not being given the right opportunity to work hard is a legitimate problem, and potentially a serious one at that, yet you are suggesting that this is worth putting under the rug because of the good things you have accentuated about the school?

For what it's worth, you're talking as if I only listed the cons. I did list the pros. Not as extensive as the cons, I admit, but I did say good things about the school, too, you know, and I might have more things to add if you give me two more years.

Maybe I am indeed misconstrued and I don't see it yet, or maybe I am right on the money and I don't have to change my view at all. However, you can count on me when I say I will definitely update my review of the school once I graduate hopefully, and if my view of the school massively changes, I will easily admit at how wrong I was and be ready to eat my word. I'll even try to convince others to come here. However, right now, I don't feel that way and I'm sticking to what I said.

Perhaps I was aggressive when I said "Don't come to Rowan," but everything else I said still warrants closer look. I just don't think the school is as good as it's made out to be. Touting the school as better than a handful of MD schools and preparing your extremely well for both USMLE and COMLEX are both pretty big and inaccurate claims. One of the reasons why I chose this school over others. But instead, I feel like I was lied to. But anyway, I gave my opinion on the matter, just like how you gave yours.

 

[MrTaco92]

But I don't think any DO grad (or even MD grad) scoring 240+ could safely say that their curriculum alone has prepared them adequately to get a score like that regardless of how good his/her school's curriculum was. And regardless of how progressive anyone's curriculum is, virtually zero second year med students will go the entire year without using any combination of FA/pathoma/sketchy/uworld/b&b/zanki. Top schools are always changing their curricula also, and just because the top schools begin following some new hot trend that someone implemented because they wanted a promotion at work doesn't mean it's the best thing to be doing (ie: UVM and their 100% TBL/flipped classroom curriculum or whatever). You could change up any school's curriculum all you'd like, but at the end of the day it's really the individual student's motivation that will be the major game changing factor once step 1 prep comes along. It kinda seems like you're scaring people away from rowan for reasons that maybe aren't so important.

 

[JamesPotterMS-3]

But I don't think any DO grad (or even MD grad) scoring 240+ could safely say that their curriculum alone has prepared them adequately to get a score like that regardless of how good his/her school's curriculum was.

I agree BUT, from personal experience, I think the difference between a 240 and a 245+ is precisely being able to recall important, yet seemingly "low yield" info from solid pre-clinical lectures. There were a ton of bugs on my COMLEX Level 1 form that were not in Sketchy/FA but were in my micro course. My COM follows the big Robbins religiously during OMS-II for lectures and there were questions I got right on Step 1 because I remembered them from lecture (like random cancer signaling molecules or therapeutic drug targets). Students that don't have path lectures based off of Robbins are at a disadvantage for Step 1, IMO. Just my 2 cents/opinion.

 

[shadowlightfox]

But I don't think any DO grad (or even MD grad) scoring 240+ could safely say that their curriculum alone has prepared them adequately to get a score like that regardless of how good his/her school's curriculum was. And regardless of how progressive anyone's curriculum is, virtually zero second year med students will go the entire year without using any combination of FA/pathoma/sketchy/uworld/b&b/zanki. Top schools are always changing their curricula also, and just because the top schools begin following some new hot trend that someone implemented because they wanted a promotion at work doesn't mean it's the best thing to be doing (ie: UVM and their 100% TBL/flipped classroom curriculum or whatever). You could change up any school's curriculum all you'd like, but at the end of the day it's really the individual student's motivation that will be the major game changing factor once step 1 prep comes along. It kinda seems like you're scaring people away from rowan for reasons that maybe aren't so important.

Of course no curriculum from any school is enough to get you an amazing score. However, there is a difference between the curriculum at least trying to help you for the boards and a curriculum that's going out of their way to not teach you by the boards.

In our school, forget about teaching you enough to get a 240+. They're not even teaching you enough to get a 210+, or even a 550 on COMLEX. You literally have to buy outside resource not for the sake of supplementing, but for actually familiarizing yourself and learning for the very first time what you need to know for the boards. I already told you. The only thing Rowan prepares you on for COMLEX is OMM and Women's health (this is variable), and even these courses have a lot of flaws in them at this school.

Using outside resource is a must because if you rely on Rowan's curriculum, you're not going to pass the boards at all. This is a common knowledge among everyone who attends this school. Forget about the current third years and fourth years. I've spoken to current residents who affirmed that the curriculum at Rowan is designed to lower your USMLE/COMLEX scores, not raise them.

It's not just about the fact that they're not adequately preparing you for it. Even if you didn't care about the boards, with poor administrative decision making, course coordinators lack of experience, lack of competent teachers for literally more than half of the preclinical curriculum and instead choosing doctors who don't know how to teach go to students and give a piss poor lecture, lack of direction, lack of communication, accountability, or even the rhyme or reason to anything that's going on here, the overall management and quality are so poor here, it's almost like the school wants me to tell people to not come here.

Indeed motivation is a key factor for anyone crushing these exams, but that doesn't excuse the school for not doing their fair share to help the students out. At the end of the day, medical school is one giant training program, and what good is a training program if it's not helping you for a licensing examination at the end....or even do what you're trained to do?

I don't believe the reasons I brought up are trivial. I see certain flaws, and I believe those specific flaws are significant enough for people to factor it into their choice of coming here. If you don't see these flaws as important factors when choosing the school, and if you think the good things about the school outweighs what I think are the bad, then fine, you're welcome to have that thought, too. But for the love of all that is holy, please don't paint this school to be something it's not (anymore).

 

[sally23]

Of course no curriculum from any school is enough to get you an amazing score. However, there is a difference between the curriculum at least trying to help you for the boards and a curriculum that's going out of their way to not teach you by the boards.

In our school, forget about teaching you enough to get a 240+. They're not even teaching you enough to get a 210+, or even a 550 on COMLEX. You literally have to buy outside resource not for the sake of supplementing, but for actually familiarizing yourself and learning for the very first time what you need to know for the boards.

In fact, in our school, using outside resource is a must because if you rely on the curriculum, you're not going to pass the boards at all. It's not just about the fact that you're not preparing for the boards. Even if you didn't care about the boards, the overall management and quality of education is so poor here, that you question the point of paying tuition.

While motivation is a key factor for anyone crushing the boards, that doesn't excuse the school for not doing their fair share to help the students out. At the end of the day, medical school is one giant training program, and what good is a training program if it's not helping you for a licensing examination at the end?

My intention is not to scare people away from Rowan for the fun of it. I see certain flaws, and I believe those specific flaws are significant enough for people to factor it into their choice of coming here. If you don't see these flaws as important factors when choosing the school, and if you think the good things about the school outweighs what I think are the bad, then fine, you're welcome to have that thought, too.

I think I’ve been a member of SDN for 5-6 years and have never posted but feel compelled to this time. As a fellow Rowan student about to graduate, I have to say this post nails it on the head... and is too nice even.

During second year we had TWO-THREE hours of pathology a week. Our professor was understandably frustrated about the constant time cuts they made for his class time (he had a maximum 20-25... per “block” exam).
So you can imagine our frustration when our OBGYN exams have 10% of the questions alloted to board relevant material and the majority being clinical questions involving details about fetal heart monitoring.... (I, for one, had 0 fetal heart monitoring questions on my USMLE step 1... because that’s asisine)

As for our most recent comlex 2 scores:

National average comlex 2 2016/2017: 544

Rowan average: 530

Maybe I’m just jaded and/or a bitch but a school that has one of the higher acceptance stats (compared to DO schools) to then have lower than national average in terms of board scores .... says something.

I could write about this place forever. If any current/future students want more detailed advice, feel free to PM me. I honestly love helping you guys out and making sure you all do the best you can do, in spite of this place.

Hopefully I’ll delete this drunken post tomorrow, but if not, 😉

(Sry, I’ve always wanted to use these emojis)

 

[shadowlightfox]

3 hours of path... Just to put that into perspective:

For the entire women's module, which was 3 weeks long: We had only 5 hours of pathology, 4 hours of pharmacology, and a whopping 36 hours of clinical medicine...

Lol you wanna know something funny? The fetal heart lecture isn't even the worst example you can give. We're currently in the middle of geri module, and we sat through 3 hours of lecture on wheelchairs and canes....3 hours...wheelchairs....canes....I wish I was joking, or even exaggerating. The lecture took up the entire time slot, and even went overtime....

If I don't encounter what cane I'm supposed to give to an elderly on my boards after all that, I will be very upset! At least I'll be able to say, "Hey John Doe, I don't know how to manage your cancer, but I know what cane to give you!"

Ironic how the school overemphasizes step 2 materials over step 1 and the average still turns out to be low for step 2...

 

[Meekor]

Lol you wanna know something interesting? The fetal heart lecture isn't even the worst example you can give. That's one of the more "important" lectures we had. We're currently in the middle of geri module, and we sat through 3 hours of lecture on wheelchairs and canes....3 hours...wheelchairs....canes....I wish I was joking. The lecture took up the entire time slot, and even went overtime....

If I don't encounter what cane I'm supposed to give to an elderly on my boards after all that, I will be very upset! At least I'll be able to say, "Hey John Doe, I don't know how to manage your cancer, but I know what cane to give you!"

Ironic how the school overemphasizes step 2 materials over step 1 and the average still turns out to be low for step 2...

Remember it has to be two inches from the wrist or whatever and at a 20degree angle. Also four paint canes are the most stable, and heel lifts for back pain.

 

[Deecee2DO]

Hello everyone,
I will be first year medical student at RowanSOM coming up this year and after reading these posts kind of concerned about the curriculum after reading and hearing so many great things about the school. One of the things that attracted me to the school is the friendly and collaborative community they seem to have (peers that strive to help each other out instead of being so competitive with each other). I was also impressed by the faculty's willingness to help the students, whether this is true or not. Their match lists in the past seemed to be very strong and the fact that the school is well-established as a DO program as opposed to other newer DO programs was a plus. I am an NJ resident as well so this is another aspect that was important to me when choosing a medical school. But, what I am MOST concerned about now is the school not adequately preparing me for board exams, which I could arguably say is probably one of if not THE most important part of medical school, as it weighs heavily in your fate in the matching process. Originally, I wanted to go the PBL route and then decided that I needed a little more structure in my studying so I have decided to switch to traditional, but NOW am considering PBL again because it seems like it might give me more time to study for boards and allow me to concentrate on what is important for boards rather than study for the class exam material that may not be relevant for boards. Anyone agree I should go PBL route? I originally was drawn to it since I am a DC (chiro) and am accustomed to clinical reasoning and case studies as well as have a strong foundation in some of the basic sciences, but most importantly I feel like PBL may better prep me for boards. If anyone here could give me some guidance I would be eternally grateful lol

 

[shadowlightfox]

I PM'd you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. If you're worried about whether or not the school is precluding you from becoming a doctor, despite the flaws and gifts the school has, at the end of the day, we still produced competent physicians, like echo87 said. It still mainly depends on your own drive like Taco said. The reality is that you're going to work a lot harder than students from other medical schools to make up for the shortcomings of this school, even if you don't have lofty goals, but you will still see yourself becoming a doctor at the end of that road.

For what it's worth, the people here from students to faculty members are still very friendly and are willing to help you out no matter what. In fact. it's probably because we know how poorly run things are here that it allowed us to be sympathetic towards one another and help each other to handle all the BS that's going on.

The school has a lot of polishings that need to be made (and boy did I go into details for that), but that doesn't strip away the opportunity for you to be a good doctor if you chose this school.

 

[pseud0]

well one of my OMM professors just seriously recommended homeopathy and other quackery as an adjunctive treatment in a lecture he gave. I'd consider that a big con.......

 

[BlueFeesh]

I wish but a lot of legislators think were are nothing like MD students. Several senators/reps were under the impression I was something like podiatrists (specialized medicine) or chiropractors. DO day on the hill reminded me how for osteopathic medicine still has to go in the eyes of the general public.

No joke man. I told an older gentleman I was volunteering with that I was going to attend PCOM-GA and he was like:

"Oh Osteopathic medicine? Aren't they like chiropractors that can prescribe medicine or something?"

 

[Deecee2DO]

No joke man. I told an older gentleman I was volunteering with that I was going to attend PCOM-GA and he was like:

"Oh Osteopathic medicine? Aren't they like chiropractors that can prescribe medicine or something?"

haha they won't even know or care when YOU are their physician one day diagnosing and monitoring their illness (severe or mild) or if you decide to go into surgery performing their invasive procedures. They won't care or ask if you are a DO or MD because at the end of the day after residency and the match MD and DO won't make that much of a difference. They will see you as their physician. It may be frustrating now but later on it I don't think it will really matter once you are practicing. But then again what do I know? I am only an accepted medical student I start this fall lol

 

[Luftwaffle]

Hi friends, I hope this isn't a necro but I was wondering if there are any current students at UIW (Univ of Incarnate Word) who would want to give feedback on their school?

 

[StudentDr100]

well one of my OMM professors just seriously recommended homeopathy and other quackery as an adjunctive treatment in a lecture he gave. I'd consider that a big con.......

I've also heard OMM professors against vaccination, feeling cranial waves, convincing students they have MSK problems in some far removed system. The sooner osteopathic medicine is removed from everything else DOs do the better.

 

[Dr. Death]

How about one for Oklahoma State University.

Anything recent for Oklahoma State?

Bored to tears on my OMM rotation so I thought I'd update this thread, which is one of the best threads on the DO forum.

Curriculum: M1 - Basic science courses were an absolute waste of time, but usually pretty easy. Anatomy was a bear, but that is probably par for the course at most schools. The M1 curriculum has been overhauled so I can't speak to how it is now or how it will be in the near future because more changes are continually being made. Starting January of m1, you get into systems based curriculum. This is much more board relevant, though they do waste an extraordinary amount of time teaching you things that you'll never need to know for boards (like ventilator settings or the workup of a cystocele) or telling anecdotes that you couldn't care less about.

OMM is probably better here than at most other schools. We have 50 minutes of lecture per week and 2 hours of lab per week. However, the lectures rarely went more than 40 minutes and the labs rarely went over 90.

Overall, the curriculum is fine. The teachers are a mixed bag, as with most schools, but you can build a solid foundation here to get you past boards which is the real goal of the first two years of med school. In fact, I'm talking myself into it being decent because most of our classes were so easy that you had ample time for activities outside of school. I didn't study on weekends at all during football season, I know @DNC127 went to every home OSU football game.

Unlike some DO schools we also get a really solid summer break after M1. I think we were out by 5/11 and didn't have to be back until 8/1 or so. Plenty of time to relax, do research, internships, etc.

Speculation alert - while there is no formal dress code or mandatory attendance at this time, it is almost certainly coming down the pike. There are many faculty members vain enough to believe that students need to be staring at their face to learn the material, and eventually those faculty members will win the battle for mandatory attendance.

Location: Tulsa is a solid city. It has a great downtown area with lots of cool places. The school is on the west side of the river, just south of downtown. The area around the school is sketchy AF but the campus is great, they are currently putting in a park with a pond behind the school which should be nice. There is a parking garage and a ton of useless security guards wandering around the school at all hours of the day and night, so it isn't like you should be worried about the sketchy area.

Cost: Cheap if you are in-state (around 25 a year). About double that if you are out of state, which is still reasonable considering tuition at some of the other schools.

Faculty: Basic science professors - below average. They haven't seen a board question or changed their slides in decades. OMM faculty - actually excellent, they are super nice and willing to work with you. Systems pharmacology - mediocre. Systems pathology - exceptional, though a little buzzword heavy. Systems physiology - excellent in my opinion.

During systems we have these lectures called CBLs (case-based learning) where clinicians come in and present cases and teach you obscure details that may show up on your level 3 specialty boards. These are an absolute waste of time, and as such nobody showed up for years. They are starting to make them mandatory.

Reputation: OSU is well-known regionally, but given that almost all of our grads are from OK, we don't have any presence nationally.

Clinical Rotations: In my opinion, probably the biggest pro about OSU. 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 choices. The school also assigns your schedule for you so you don't have to go about setting up third year by yourself. If you want to spend all of third year in Tulsa, you can. If you want to spend most of your time in the rural town you were born in, you can. If you want to do most of your rotations in Oklahoma City, you can.

Core rotations are as follows: Peds (1 month), FM (1 month), IM (2 months, one on subspecialty), Ob/Gyn (1 month), Surgery (1 month), OMM (1 month), EM (1 month), Psych (1 month), 1 month rural family med, 2 months of rural community hospital (I'd guess this is like rural IM) during fourth year. You have 3-4 months of electives third year and 7-8 months of electives fourth year, depending on when you have EM scheduled. Two of your rotations can be used as vacations. You also have the option to use an elective to study for Step/Level 2.

Housing: Some people live in some apartments next to the school, but they aren't terribly nice. There are a lot of great places within 15-20 minutes of the school though and the school is across the river from the hospital so staying in one house/apartment for 3 or even 4 years is very possible.

Study areas: There are study carrels (like cubicles) for basically every student. You can leave your stuff in them, they have a locking cabinet. There are some in the library where it is always very quiet. Other ones are in small rooms with like 8-10 people. These are there to facilitate group study or something like that, but not much actual studying goes on in those rooms so most people prefer the library. There are also like 15 or so breakout rooms spread throughout campus that you can post up in for the day if you want more space. You can usually find and empty one unless you show up late on the weekend before a test.

Social Scene: Don't know, don't care. Seems like there are a lot of bars and stuff downtown, lots of events at the BOK center. We have some intramural sports if you are into that too.

Local Hospitals: OSU hospital is the largest osteopathic teaching hospital in the nation, or something like that. OSU hospital has a handful of residency programs (Ortho, GS, IM, FM, Gas, Rads, Peds, OB/Gyn, ENT, I might be missing one or two). Most of those residencies favor OSU grads, all of them will have osteopathic distinction come the merger. The hospital itself is old, but it's close and convenient and has a lot of spots for rotating students so you aren't getting shipped out all over the nation for third and fourth year.

Board Prep: Meh. The school bought us Kaplan and Truelearn (Combank), I didn't use either. The most helpful things they did for us are A. giving us 8 weeks of dedicated study and B. buying two COMSAEs for us. You have to score above a 450 to take COMLEX. Despite the school not having a great or rigorous curriculum or providing great board prep resources, plenty of people in my class did well on boards. I personally know of five USMLE scores over 250 and 6-8 more above 240 (class size 115). Board success has precious little to do with the school and a ton to do with the individual.

Specialty: Our match lists are fine. 85% of our class is from Oklahoma, and most all of them want to stay in Oklahoma. A lot of people want to do primary care coming into our school. That said, in the last couple years we've had students match ACGME IR (Utah) and Derm (EVMS). The class of 2019 has modest ambitions, but the class of 2020 has several people gunning Derm, Ortho, ENT, IR and high-level IM.


Bonus: Excellent research opportunities. I currently have 5 publications, including a couple first author. By the time I graduate I'll probably have 8-10 publications with a bunch of poster presentations as well. The Vassar research team is highly productive and is beginning to be known nationally. This year, students even got paid (40 hours a week) to do research on his team. You'd be hard pressed to find that at any school, DO or MD.

Grades: Grades are ABC M1/M2 years and your numerical class rank is calculated at the end of every semester. Grades for M3/M4 years are Fail/Pass/Honors. Class rank is set after 2nd year and will not change.


Curriculum: B-
Location: B-
Cost: A-
Faculty: C
Reputation: B
Study Space/Library: A
Board Prep: B
Rotations: TBD, still on my first one
Social: ?
Hospitals: A
Post Grad: A

Overall Grade: B+

I'm very glad I ended up at OSU, even as an OOS student. It is very easy to excel here, there are things that aren't great but you'll find that at every school. Our new building is incredible, the campus is continuously improving. Once they finish the pond and park they are going to be building another new building. They are also currently constructing a new student lounge. If you are an OOS student I would strongly suggest applying here if you have an MCAT >501 and GPA >3.6. They like to bring in OOS students with high stats to balance out some of the in-state students with less than stellar stats.

And by the way, the deposit here is only $100. So rather than forking over 1-3 grand at these other DO schools you can save yourself a bunch of cash up front.

 

[shadowlightfox]

Bored to tears on my OMM rotation so I thought I'd update this thread, which is one of the best threads on the DO forum.

Your school has a rotation dedicated for just OMM, too? Huh, well go figure. I thought my school was the only one.

 

[shadowlightfox]

Just one rotation? Psh. You got off easy. We have mandatory omm for the entire year, on every rotation.

Wish this hell was a joke..

That depends. Are you saying you are applying "osteopathic principles" on every rotation? That's not as bad as having a dedicated OMM rotation. It's worse to have a dedicated OMM rotation because that takes up time to rotate in other specialties.

I also want to give you guys an update that wheelchairs and canes did not show up anywhere on my USMLE or COMLEX. I am understandably frustrated!

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Bored to tears on my OMM rotation so I thought I'd update this thread, which is one of the best threads on the DO forum.

Curriculum: M1 - Basic science courses were an absolute waste of time, but usually pretty easy. Anatomy was a bear, but that is probably par for the course at most schools. The M1 curriculum has been overhauled so I can't speak to how it is now or how it will be in the near future because more changes are continually being made. Starting January of m1, you get into systems based curriculum. This is much more board relevant, though they do waste an extraordinary amount of time teaching you things that you'll never need to know for boards (like ventilator settings or the workup of a cystocele) or telling anecdotes that you couldn't care less about.

OMM is probably better here than at most other schools. We have 50 minutes of lecture per week and 2 hours of lab per week. However, the lectures rarely went more than 40 minutes and the labs rarely went over 90.

Overall, the curriculum is fine. The teachers are a mixed bag, as with most schools, but you can build a solid foundation here to get you past boards which is the real goal of the first two years of med school. In fact, I'm talking myself into it being decent because most of our classes were so easy that you had ample time for activities outside of school. I didn't study on weekends at all during football season, I know @DNC127 went to every home OSU football game.

Unlike some DO schools we also get a really solid summer break after M1. I think we were out by 5/11 and didn't have to be back until 8/1 or so. Plenty of time to relax, do research, internships, etc.

Speculation alert - while there is no formal dress code or mandatory attendance at this time, it is almost certainly coming down the pike. There are many faculty members vain enough to believe that students need to be staring at their face to learn the material, and eventually those faculty members will win the battle for mandatory attendance.

Location: Tulsa is a solid city. It has a great downtown area with lots of cool places. The school is on the west side of the river, just south of downtown. The area around the school is sketchy AF but the campus is great, they are currently putting in a park with a pond behind the school which should be nice. There is a parking garage and a ton of useless security guards wandering around the school at all hours of the day and night, so it isn't like you should be worried about the sketchy area.

Cost: Cheap if you are in-state (around 25 a year). About double that if you are out of state, which is still reasonable considering tuition at some of the other schools.

Faculty: Basic science professors - below average. They haven't seen a board question or changed their slides in decades. OMM faculty - actually excellent, they are super nice and willing to work with you. Systems pharmacology - mediocre. Systems pathology - exceptional, though a little buzzword heavy. Systems physiology - excellent in my opinion.

During systems we have these lectures called CBLs (case-based learning) where clinicians come in and present cases and teach you obscure details that may show up on your level 3 specialty boards. These are an absolute waste of time, and as such nobody showed up for years. They are starting to make them mandatory.

Reputation: OSU is well-known regionally, but given that almost all of our grads are from OK, we don't have any presence nationally.

Clinical Rotations: In my opinion, probably the biggest pro about OSU. 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 choices. The school also assigns your schedule for you so you don't have to go about setting up third year by yourself. If you want to spend all of third year in Tulsa, you can. If you want to spend most of your time in the rural town you were born in, you can. If you want to do most of your rotations in Oklahoma City, you can.

Core rotations are as follows: Peds (1 month), FM (1 month), IM (2 months, one on subspecialty), Ob/Gyn (1 month), Surgery (1 month), OMM (1 month), EM (1 month), Psych (1 month), 1 month rural family med, 2 months of rural community hospital (I'd guess this is like rural IM) during fourth year. You have 3-4 months of electives third year and 7-8 months of electives fourth year, depending on when you have EM scheduled. Two of your rotations can be used as vacations. You also have the option to use an elective to study for Step/Level 2.

Housing: Some people live in some apartments next to the school, but they aren't terribly nice. There are a lot of great places within 15-20 minutes of the school though and the school is across the river from the hospital so staying in one house/apartment for 3 or even 4 years is very possible.

Study areas: There are study carrels (like cubicles) for basically every student. You can leave your stuff in them, they have a locking cabinet. There are some in the library where it is always very quiet. Other ones are in small rooms with like 8-10 people. These are there to facilitate group study or something like that, but not much actual studying goes on in those rooms so most people prefer the library. There are also like 15 or so breakout rooms spread throughout campus that you can post up in for the day if you want more space. You can usually find and empty one unless you show up late on the weekend before a test.

Social Scene: Don't know, don't care. Seems like there are a lot of bars and stuff downtown, lots of events at the BOK center. We have some intramural sports if you are into that too.

Local Hospitals: OSU hospital is the largest osteopathic teaching hospital in the nation, or something like that. OSU hospital has a handful of residency programs (Ortho, GS, IM, FM, Gas, Rads, Peds, OB/Gyn, ENT, I might be missing one or two). Most of those residencies favor OSU grads, all of them will have osteopathic distinction come the merger. The hospital itself is old, but it's close and convenient and has a lot of spots for rotating students so you aren't getting shipped out all over the nation for third and fourth year.

Board Prep: Meh. The school bought us Kaplan and Truelearn (Combank), I didn't use either. The most helpful things they did for us are A. giving us 8 weeks of dedicated study and B. buying two COMSAEs for us. You have to score above a 450 to take COMLEX. Despite the school not having a great or rigorous curriculum or providing great board prep resources, plenty of people in my class did well on boards. I personally know of five USMLE scores over 250 and 6-8 more above 240 (class size 115). Board success has precious little to do with the school and a ton to do with the individual.

Specialty: Our match lists are fine. 85% of our class is from Oklahoma, and most all of them want to stay in Oklahoma. A lot of people want to do primary care coming into our school. That said, in the last couple years we've had students match ACGME IR (Utah) and Derm (EVMS). The class of 2019 has modest ambitions, but the class of 2020 has several people gunning Derm, Ortho, ENT, IR and high-level IM.


Bonus: Excellent research opportunities. I currently have 5 publications, including a couple first author. By the time I graduate I'll probably have 8-10 publications with a bunch of poster presentations as well. The Vassar research team is highly productive and is beginning to be known nationally. This year, students even got paid (40 hours a week) to do research on his team. You'd be hard pressed to find that at any school, DO or MD.

Grades: Grades are ABC M1/M2 years and your numerical class rank is calculated at the end of every semester. Grades for M3/M4 years are Fail/Pass/Honors. Class rank is set after 2nd year and will not change.


Curriculum: B-
Location: B-
Cost: A-
Faculty: C
Reputation: B
Study Space/Library: A
Board Prep: B
Rotations: TBD, still on my first one
Social: ?
Hospitals: A
Post Grad: A

Overall Grade: B+

I'm very glad I ended up at OSU, even as an OOS student. It is very easy to excel here, there are things that aren't great but you'll find that at every school. Our new building is incredible, the campus is continuously improving. Once they finish the pond and park they are going to be building another new building. They are also currently constructing a new student lounge. If you are an OOS student I would strongly suggest applying here if you have an MCAT >501 and GPA >3.6. They like to bring in OOS students with high stats to balance out some of the in-state students with less than stellar stats.

And by the way, the deposit here is only $100. So rather than forking over 1-3 grand at these other DO schools you can save yourself a bunch of cash up front.

This is spot on.

 

[DO2015CA]

Just one rotation? Psh. You got off easy. We have mandatory omm for the entire year, on every rotation.

Wish this hell was a joke..

My school does for us as well

 

[Oh_Gee]

Your school has a rotation dedicated for just OMM, too? Huh, well go figure. I thought my school was the only one.

i think it's a new COCA requirement

 

[sunshinefl]

No. Actual omm that a physician has to watch us do and sign off. We also have assignments for every rotation.

What school are these? I’m a rising 2nd year, officially on Monday. I don’t know if we do this or not...

 

[sunshinefl]

If your handle is any indicator then it's not the school you attend 🙂

It is lol. Thanks!

 

[pgswimmer]

Is there a recent one for OU-HCOM? If not, would a current student care to give feedback?

 

[UnfortunateTomato]

Is there a recent one for OU-HCOM? If not, would a current student care to give feedback?

I'd love to hear from an OUHCOM student/grad as well!

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Wow, fascinating thread! Started in 2007, yet it appears much has changed and little has changed. Medical school sucks. Period. Worst 2 years of my life. This is why it is so easy to complain about the education process That said, my successes, and yes failures, were on me, not my school or instructors. Any successful person will tell you their success was based on their failures, what they learned from them, how they responded to adversity . No one teaches you anatomy, you have to basically teach yourself. There is way too much to retain from a lecture or podcast. All med schools have good and not so good faculty. When presented with not so good, make something positive out of it. Go read, find another attending or resident you can tag along with. Ask to present a topic the next day on round Don't wait to be spoon fed everything, have some intellectual curiosity. This is what you are going to be doing for the rest of your life anyway, looking up things for cases you have and are not sure how to handle,. etc. I have been on faculty at allopathic and osteopathic institutions and found medical students to be pretty similar. I have taught preclinical, clinical, residents and fellows. They all feel the same, their school and instructors could be better. It is a very trying time in your life and the response is predictable. So chin up. Get to work, and make yourself the best residency candidate you can be. If you don't get what you want, you are not working hard enough. Good luck, work hard, and Best wishes!

 

[alprazoslam]

I appreciate that you sound like you do your best to help students. Honestly the worst problem isn’t bad teachers but bad teachers that persistently waste our time preventing students from discovering good resources on their own.
That’s the problem.
They can be bad teachers and what not but the awfulness comes from how GOOD schools are at wasting students time since no matter how fallicous their method are we must adhere to their stuff because you know they have been there and done that and we haven’t, so to them our option is trash even though some of them can’t even understand what they teach. it seems like a lot of times it’s the bottom of the class doctors that end up at teaching institutions. I don’t think people in the barely passed during school range should be teaching.

End rant

 

[Goro]

Don't wait to be spoon fed everything, have some intellectual curiosity. This is what you are going to be doing for the rest of your life anyway, looking up things for cases you have and are not sure how to handle,. etc.

This needs to be tattooed on the forehead of every medical student in the country!

 

[alprazoslam]

This needs to be tattooed on the forehead of every medical student in the country!

Esp when good chunks of the stuff spooned to us in DO school are moldy Cheerios

 

[getfat]

Thought I'd give a GA-PCOM update.

So now we have mandatory lectures. If you have more than 20% missed attendance you get a unprofessional mark on your deans letter. There is no required attire. Tegrity (our lecture recording software) is posted on every Friday weekly basis. So you can't really do the whole "wear headphones and just do lectures at your own speed". You have to be actively engaged and listening in lecture. Or utilize a good friend that is.

Personally my biggest issue was how this was being effectively rolled out. There was zero notification or any heads up. A lot of students signed apartments in locations assuming they didn't need to go class a lot. We received an official email the Friday before school started. Even our DO council representation was blindsided by this. Our reps and upper level (OM3/4) students are working on trying to get this reversed.

The one good thing about this school remain the same (The Students). A couple really smart classmates and select professors are working on a solution for the interim if we have to do this for the rest of the year.

Anyone debating going to this school and has options should f/u with current students and have a good hard discussion about it.

 

[alprazoslam]

There a reason? We’re the instructors salty since nobody went or listened to their lectures with all the better resources out there?
A couple of our (albeit the ones with the worst lectures) made attendance a soft mandantory by having a quiz over material in our second year. They got tired of nobody showing up so they did this. Logic would say if nobody is listening to your lecture maybe you should make it better by the easy route was just to give us a quiz every day we had the class.


Lol do schools

Thought I'd give a GA-PCOM update.

So now we have mandatory lectures. If you have more than 20% missed attendance you get a unprofessional mark on your deans letter. There is no required attire. Tegrity (our lecture recording software) is posted on every Friday weekly basis. So you can't really do the whole "wear headphones and just do lectures at your own speed". You have to be actively engaged and listening in lecture. Or utilize a good friend that is.

Personally my biggest issue was how this was being effectively rolled out. There was zero notification or any heads up. A lot of students signed apartments in locations assuming they didn't need to go class a lot. We received an official email the Friday before school started. Even our DO council representation was blindsided by this. Our reps and upper level (OM3/4) students are working on trying to get this reversed.

The one good thing about this school remain the same (The Students). A couple really smart classmates and select professors are working on a solution for the interim if we have to do this for the rest of the year.

Anyone debating going to this school and has options should f/u with current students and have a good hard discussion about it.

 

[getfat]

There a reason? We’re the instructors salty since nobody went or listened to their lectures with all the better resources out there?

Theres a ton of theories being spread around the rumor mill. I won't go into detail because most of them are absolutely ridiculous and I'm surprised they don't blame the illuminati.

Some professors care about attendance. Others didn't because they understand that we're adults and learning at home through tegrity is a blessing.

I genuinely think it was just a random idea that came up among select faculty and they all just agreed to try it out. It will go terribly and thank goodness our school will eventually come to their senses.

Logic would say if nobody is listening to your lecture maybe you should make it better by the easy route was just to give us a quiz every day we had the class.

I'm starting to realize some professors don't understand that every student is different. The way one concept is covered may work for one and be inefficient for another. Some professors assume a "one size fits all" standardized approach is the best. Maybe for making cars standardization is good but education is different.

Most lectures aren't bad per say but the way they are presented works for some and is a waste of time for others. Thats why they don't see select professors don't see these "low quality lectures" as a problem. If the lecture wasn't being portrayed properly then nobody would understand the concept. The problem is you if you don't get the material. The only solution is that you need to stick to their advice. And keep doing what didn't work for you in the first place.

Some professors assume if I'm not listening to you its because I don't have a proper work ethic or professionalism deficit. Because if others are understanding the way I'm teaching it why don't you?

 

[hallowmann]

Thought I'd give a GA-PCOM update.

So now we have mandatory lectures. If you have more than 20% missed attendance you get a unprofessional mark on your deans letter. There is no required attire. Tegrity (our lecture recording software) is posted on every Friday weekly basis. So you can't really do the whole "wear headphones and just do lectures at your own speed". You have to be actively engaged and listening in lecture. Or utilize a good friend that is.

Personally my biggest issue was how this was being effectively rolled out. There was zero notification or any heads up. A lot of students signed apartments in locations assuming they didn't need to go class a lot. We received an official email the Friday before school started. Even our DO council representation was blindsided by this. Our reps and upper level (OM3/4) students are working on trying to get this reversed.

The one good thing about this school remain the same (The Students). A couple really smart classmates and select professors are working on a solution for the interim if we have to do this for the rest of the year.

Anyone debating going to this school and has options should f/u with current students and have a good hard discussion about it.

The bolded is probably the most egregious part of the whole thing. That makes a huge impact on the student's residency placement. A much more reasonable option would be a 5-10% deduction in the class grade or something. At least then if you are an "OK" to good student, you could afford it. An unprofessional mark on the Dean's letter is huge. That is completely ridiculous.

 

[getfat]

The bolded is probably the most egregious part of the whole thing. That makes a huge impact on the student's residency placement. A much more reasonable option would be a 5-10% deduction in the class grade or something. At least then if you are an "OK" to good student, you could afford it. An unprofessional mark on the Dean's letter is huge. That is completely ridiculous.

Agreed but well see what happens over the next couple weeks. So initially we were told attendance would be determined via clicker quizzes throughout the lecture day. Then it was decided they would do a sign in sheet.

Then today it has changed to "if the class doesn't look full well take attendance".

The policy is in a fluid state right now. So idk if the "professional mark" was just a threat. I really hope so but overall I'm confused what this school wants to do right now.

 

[alprazoslam]

Agreed but well see what happens over the next couple weeks. So initially we were told attendance would be determined via clicker quizzes throughout the lecture day. Then it was decided they would do a sign in sheet.

Then today it has changed to "if the class doesn't look full well take attendance".

The policy is in a fluid state right now. So idk if the "professional mark" was just a threat. I really hope so but overall I'm confused what this school wants to do right now.

Yeah putting a mark on a deans letter is a little ridiculous. Esp if they are a good student that learns as you said via different methods