Pros and Cons of your DO School

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KCU update: all OMM lectures are now required. This isn't too bad as we only have one/week, but...

Getting a bit worried about the no required attendance policy overall, which is one of the major reasons that I picked this school. We keep getting threatened that if class attendance drops, teachers have the power to decide not to release their lecture recordings. Not sure why it's so hard for professors to not take it personally when people don't show up to their classes-- it doesn't work for everyone.

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Do not go to GA-PCOM unless you want to go to a school that is regressing and lacks common sense and decency in how it treats its students.
 
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Do not go to GA-PCOM unless you want to go to a school that is regressing and lacks common sense and decency in how it treats its students.

Lol based on a lot of posts in this thread and others, sounds like 90% of DO schools.
 
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Lol based on a lot of posts in this thread and others, sounds like 90% of DO schools.
Eh, this school changed its attendance and lecture recording policy right before school started so no students could leave the program to go to another acceptance. It's not TOURO levels of messed up like a few years ago but it's still awful.
 
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so glad we have this post exposing issues of DO schools. so much better than our uncoordinated bickering that we do. Surprising we do not do it more often... we review cars, rentals, restaurants that we spend 10 bucks at, but yet there is not for sure list of reviews of DO schools for which we dump 200k and four years of our life


Step up and open the floodgates of truth people
 
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KCU update: all OMM lectures are now required. This isn't too bad as we only have one/week, but...

Getting a bit worried about the no required attendance policy overall, which is one of the major reasons that I picked this school. We keep getting threatened that if class attendance drops, teachers have the power to decide not to release their lecture recordings. Not sure why it's so hard for professors to not take it personally when people don't show up to their classes-- it doesn't work for everyone.


we had some like that, usually the ones who were terrible teachers. Its an ego thing, that feeling of power they get standing in front of a crowd.

You know, personality disorders
 
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Do not go to GA-PCOM unless you want to go to a school that is regressing and lacks common sense and decency in how it treats its students.

I wish I could say this wasn't true. But it totally is. It literally feels like the administration is actively working against students at every opportunity.

Case in point, I started an elective rotation this week and emailed the hospital's coordinator to get my EMR access reactivated. She said that she had no idea that I was supposed to be rotating there and that I had to leave the hospital. Turns out, the clinical ed dept just sat on the registration forms that I sent in weeks ago and never contacted the hospital. Of course, this was somehow my fault.

Their response to downward trending board scores was to double down on making attendance mandatory. There's no real dedicated study time allocated for boards since even after the main courses finished in third term, we were still required to be on campus 3 days per week for PCS or OMM or some random garbage. The first rotation, Adv Clinical Skills, was a bloated waste of time. They took maybe a week worth of content and inflated it to fill and entire month, 8 to 5, M through F, all mandatory.

When you've got all of that and a dean who has been quoted as saying "I don't care about board scores", and faculty who tell students "a 400 is a pass", it blurs the line between sheer incompetence and malice.

Naturally, when they address the declining board scores with the students, admin says the class didn't take boards seriously.

One thing about GA-PCOM is that they are consistent. Nothing will ever be their fault, and they will always blame the students.

Can't wait until I graduate in 10 months.
 
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At least your school is honest about its stance on board scores.
 
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I wish I could say this wasn't true. But it totally is. It literally feels like the administration is actively working against students at every opportunity.

Case in point, I started an elective rotation this week and emailed the hospital's coordinator to get my EMR access reactivated. She said that she had no idea that I was supposed to be rotating there and that I had to leave the hospital. Turns out, the clinical ed dept just sat on the registration forms that I sent in weeks ago and never contacted the hospital. Of course, this was somehow my fault.

Their response to downward trending board scores was to double down on making attendance mandatory. There's no real dedicated study time allocated for boards since even after the main courses finished in third term, we were still required to be on campus 3 days per week for PCS or OMM or some random garbage. The first rotation, Adv Clinical Skills, was a bloated waste of time. They took maybe a week worth of content and inflated it to fill and entire month, 8 to 5, M through F, all mandatory.

When you've got all of that and a dean who has been quoted as saying "I don't care about board scores", and faculty who tell students "a 400 is a pass", it blurs the line between sheer incompetence and malice.

Naturally, when they address the declining board scores with the students, admin says the class didn't take boards seriously.

One thing about GA-PCOM is that they are consistent. Nothing will ever be their fault, and they will always blame the students.

Can't wait until I graduate in 10 months.


At least our intro to clinicals was only a week of wasted time. An entire month? How did you guys survive???? Ours was worthless besides a few lectures and labs on radiology/ suturing. Basically was a week of “why the way we do things is best” and “how to play nice with nurses and staff 101”. Sprinkled in were a few lectures on why primary care is best (even myself wanting to do primary care I gagged a little) and “how to make the most out of your rotation even if it’s in a hospital with 4 beds and a wet gerble powering the place”
 
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I wish I could say this wasn't true. But it totally is. It literally feels like the administration is actively working against students at every opportunity.

Case in point, I started an elective rotation this week and emailed the hospital's coordinator to get my EMR access reactivated. She said that she had no idea that I was supposed to be rotating there and that I had to leave the hospital. Turns out, the clinical ed dept just sat on the registration forms that I sent in weeks ago and never contacted the hospital. Of course, this was somehow my fault.

Their response to downward trending board scores was to double down on making attendance mandatory. There's no real dedicated study time allocated for boards since even after the main courses finished in third term, we were still required to be on campus 3 days per week for PCS or OMM or some random garbage. The first rotation, Adv Clinical Skills, was a bloated waste of time. They took maybe a week worth of content and inflated it to fill and entire month, 8 to 5, M through F, all mandatory.

When you've got all of that and a dean who has been quoted as saying "I don't care about board scores", and faculty who tell students "a 400 is a pass", it blurs the line between sheer incompetence and malice.

Naturally, when they address the declining board scores with the students, admin says the class didn't take boards seriously.

One thing about GA-PCOM is that they are consistent. Nothing will ever be their fault, and they will always blame the students.

Can't wait until I graduate in 10 months.
I'm pretty confident in pulling up my bootstraps and wading through the proverbial **** to get a respectable score for my interests, but I am terrified of how awful the rotations will probably be based on what I knew of the school and then learning more at the school. Shoot me a PM if you have any tips/info on clinical sites. It would be extremely appreciated!
 
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I'm pretty confident in pulling up my bootstraps and wading through the proverbial **** to get a respectable score for my interests, but I am terrified of how awful the rotations will probably be based on what I knew of the school and then learning more at the school. Shoot me a PM if you have any tips/info on clinical sites. It would be extremely appreciated!


Gotta remember we get the table scraps after USMD and carribean schools scoop up hospitals
 
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Eh people seem pretty happy at mine but I guess we're the exception
 
It is sad how trashy DO schools are. Everyone in my class is jaded as f*** right now.

I agree about quality but your class is also jaded because you are a second year. You don’t see it yet but you guys are stressed out because you are ramping up for boards. Expect it to get a lot worse spring semester, but after you pass then you guys will get a lot better
 
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I agree about quality but your class is also jaded because you are a second year. You don’t see it yet but you guys are stressed out because you are ramping up for boards. Expect it to get a lot worse spring semester, but after you pass then you guys will get a lot better

Boards may be a contributing factor but all the people I spoke to only cited the mistreatment of students by the administration and the utter incompetence of the first year professors. We have been jaded for a while, and it got really bad during neuroscience, second semester of first year.
 
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Gotta remember we get the table scraps after USMD and carribean schools scoop up hospitals
See, my issue is that I have knowledge of the hospital landscape of the geographic area and there are not students at several hospitals that would make excellent hospitals to host our students and they are even starting residencies (and not just bs FM residencies to stat pad and make $$$). In fact, I know people on top of the mountain at these places and let's just say it isn't the hospitals declining our students. There is big competition from other schools in the metro area, but frankly our best hospitals are suburban so it doesn't matter where the MD schools send their students in the city. They are the real tertiary referral centers and get the sickest people even if they don't get all the whatever genetic rarities, but I'm biased as that isn't important to me.
It is sad how trashy DO schools are. Everyone in my class is jaded as f*** right now.
After my school enacted their attendance policy, it was palpably hostile in the room and of course our obtuse faculty kept doing that "welcome back how are you?" horse**** which was visibly irritating students.

Eh people seem pretty happy at mine but I guess we're the exception
If they didn't change our attendance policy, I would have been perfectly content and accepting of how my school does the first two years. It certainly wasn't far worse than any other school. They all do the same irritating things.
 
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See, my issue is that I have knowledge of the hospital landscape of the geographic area and there are not students at several hospitals that would make excellent hospitals to host our students and they are even starting residencies (and not just bs FM residencies to stat pad and make $$$). In fact, I know people on top of the mountain at these places and let's just say it isn't the hospitals declining our students. There is big competition from other schools in the metro area, but frankly our best hospitals are suburban so it doesn't matter where the MD schools send their students in the city. They are the real tertiary referral centers and get the sickest people even if they don't get all the whatever genetic rarities, but I'm biased as that isn't important to me.
After my school enacted their attendance policy, it was palpably hostile in the room and of course our obtuse faculty kept doing that "welcome back how are you?" horse**** which was visibly irritating students.

If they didn't change our attendance policy, I would have been perfectly content and accepting of how my school does the first two years. It certainly wasn't far worse than any other school. They all do the same irritating things.
so savage lol
 
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See, my issue is that I have knowledge of the hospital landscape of the geographic area and there are not students at several hospitals that would make excellent hospitals to host our students and they are even starting residencies (and not just bs FM residencies to stat pad and make $$$). In fact, I know people on top of the mountain at these places and let's just say it isn't the hospitals declining our students. There is big competition from other schools in the metro area, but frankly our best hospitals are suburban so it doesn't matter where the MD schools send their students in the city. They are the real tertiary referral centers and get the sickest people even if they don't get all the whatever genetic rarities, but I'm biased as that isn't important to me.
After my school enacted their attendance policy, it was palpably hostile in the room and of course our obtuse faculty kept doing that "welcome back how are you?" horse**** which was visibly irritating students.

If they didn't change our attendance policy, I would have been perfectly content and accepting of how my school does the first two years. It certainly wasn't far worse than any other school. They all do the same irritating things.



Yeah part of it is apathy also. Why do more work to send students to better hospitals if all that is in it for the schools is more work?

Some of the rotation sites at my school are Atrocious. I got lucky to get one of the best ones but I have friends in absolute terrible learning environments in the most obscene locations discordant with learning. We also have more hospitals that we could send people to but the school is of course going to pay the lowest bidder/not do extra legwork.
And my school wants to open up a branch campus 5” miles away but they say we are tight on rotation spots lmao
 
I agree about quality but your class is also jaded because you are a second year. You don’t see it yet but you guys are stressed out because you are ramping up for boards. Expect it to get a lot worse spring semester, but after you pass then you guys will get a lot better

Nope. I'm gonna have to start disagreeing here. Yes, the stress of months leading to board exams makes one very prone to being jaded, but lets not put the entire blame on ourselves, or even majority of the blame. From personal experiences, when a school fails to hire competent lecturers, flat out lie to their students that they are preparing them for boards, yet only allocate scraps of time to board relevant lectures while investing lion's share of the time to BS material that you not only have no background knowledge of, but poorly taught, poorly disorganized, and huge waste of time, and there are so many miscommunication between students and teachers, or among administration themselves, I'm not gonna be like "You know what, second year wasn't so bad. I'm glad the school ran it the way they did."

I'm done with second year. I'm done with boards. But looking back at second year, there is no way in hell I feel like the school did anything right. I still feel jaded at the school because of how much inconvenience they brought to us, and how they are still bringing us even more inconvenience during 3rd year.
 
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another bad thing about my school is that I have to often stifle laughter when there's a silent demonstration or explanation happening in the OMM lab.

I can only come up with a finite number of calming things to take my mind off what I'm hearing before one of these days i just start dying laughing and have to run out of the room

OMM should be the comedy hour not the 'everyone be silent and listen to the professor pretend they felt the T3FRS right improve after BLT' hour
 
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Overall, ACOM has solid rotation sites with a high level of support from ACOM once you are there. ACOM does have kinks to work out but I don't see the 3/4th years as one of them.
You will be given ample information and opportunities to talk to current students, coordinators and physicians and even a tour of the hospital if you pursue it and will be able to make an informed decision I believe you will be satisfied with.

What kinks exactly does ACOM have to work out? Are these the same ones (mandatory attendance, dress code) from 2016?
 
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.
Not applying to that school. Wow D**** move. is the philly campus doing the same?
 
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No applying to school. Wow D**** move. is the philly campus doing the same?
I can't stress enough that the two campuses have nothing to do with each other other than name. The PCOM's are completely separate. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise at the school.
 
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I can't stress enough that the two campuses have nothing to do with each other other than name. The PCOM's are completely separate. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise at the school.
Thank you! from lurking around I have not heard about the philly campus doing this. Hoping they dont because they seem ok to me as of right now
 
another bad thing about my school is that I have to often stifle laughter when there's a silent demonstration or explanation happening in the OMM lab.

I can only come up with a finite number of calming things to take my mind off what I'm hearing before one of these days i just start dying laughing and have to run out of the room

OMM should be the comedy hour not the 'everyone be silent and listen to the professor pretend they felt the T3FRS right improve after BLT' hour
I have definitely enjoyed myself in the OMM lab before. I once had a professor ask me what I was laughing about and I told him I loved how people just do the same technique and make up a new name for it so they can be added to the atlas. He kind of looked puzzled and said he guessed he could see how I found that funny. I don't think he could see tho. I can't hate on my OMM faculty friends, I really liked them for the most part, even tho they are crazy, they were at least fun.
 
Nope. I'm gonna have to start disagreeing here. Yes, the stress of months leading to board exams makes one very prone to being jaded, but lets not put the entire blame on ourselves, or even majority of the blame. From personal experiences, when a school fails to hire competent lecturers, flat out lie to their students that they are preparing them for boards, yet only allocate scraps of time to board relevant lectures while investing lion's share of the time to BS material that you not only have no background knowledge of, but poorly taught, poorly disorganized, and huge waste of time, and there are so many miscommunication between students and teachers, or among administration themselves, I'm not gonna be like "You know what, second year wasn't so bad. I'm glad the school ran it the way they did."

I'm done with second year. I'm done with boards. But looking back at second year, there is no way in hell I feel like the school did anything right. I still feel jaded at the school because of how much inconvenience they brought to us, and how they are still bringing us even more inconvenience during 3rd year.

I'm going to have to agree with shadow on this one; 2nd year just the cherry on top of the crap administration sundae that was my school. Even worse, it was one of the schools that was considered "better" in the SDN stratosphere. It wasn't a brand new one, actually had a decent history, and from this pros/cons thread, was apparently a solid choice for a DO school.

But ever since I've stepped foot on my school's campus, I always felt the need to look over my back and not because of the other students. There's no "gunnerish" atmosphere; in fact, everyone does their best to help each other out because we've all bonded over how incompetent our school's administration is. I feel as if my school is trying to screw us over, given the decisions they've made about our curriculum. Our 2nd year focused entirely on the board-irrelevant material. Max, we had maybe 2-3 path lectures each week and 2 pharm. We had another class that took up the bulk of our time. Those are the only 2 classes related to boards that we have all year, and it takes maybe 25% of our total class time, no exaggeration. And what's worse is that our administration is too gutless to face us.

Our class complained all year, the year before that complained; but no one bothers to address our concerns. That's what's the worst feeling. Shelling out thousands of dollars for an education where the school really couldn't care what happens to their students.
 
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another bad thing about my school is that I have to often stifle laughter when there's a silent demonstration or explanation happening in the OMM lab.

I can only come up with a finite number of calming things to take my mind off what I'm hearing before one of these days i just start dying laughing and have to run out of the room

OMM should be the comedy hour not the 'everyone be silent and listen to the professor pretend they felt the T3FRS right improve after BLT' hour

We laugh during cranial while the professor is giving some bull**** rationale for something or teaching something that contradicts everything anatomists know about the cranium. Especially when we were told to "spread the V" (use thumb and pointer finger to spread the cranial bones, yep, they actually believe you can do that). We just laughed and cracked sexual jokes until the end of lab. Cranial is hilarious and really sad at the same time, because cranial is a dogmatic religion full of contradictions with established reality. I wonder what kind of medication you have to take before gaining the confidence to step in front of a medical school class and claim that cranial is real. These professors are probably IV infusing diazepam all day to be that lucid.
 
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Our class complained all year, the year before that complained; but no one bothers to address our concerns. That's what's the worst feeling. Shelling out thousands of dollars for an education where the school really couldn't care what happens to their students.

Good to see I'm not crazy when I talked about my experiences at the school. What ticks me off the most is that the administrations somehow assume we're clueless, like we don't talk with the upperclassmen. Like we don't ask them how their boards went, and what helped them, and what didn't...Like we don't ask them if the lectures the school provided to them helped them for boards or not.....

Also, gutless is an understatement. They just told the second years this year that the course we all hate is the biggest indication for boards. Instead of trying to justify it, or even pretending that the issue doesn't exist, they somehow thought that doubling down on the idiocy will somehow make the issue go away. Pathetic...
 
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FACT:

DO schools prefer to see a 600+ COMLEX score than a 250+ USMLE score

Reality: PDs don't gaf about the COMLEX and only care about the USMLE
 
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Almost forgot what omm was until one of my preceptors said he’d sell me his savarese for 5 bucks
 
I'm going to have to agree with shadow on this one; 2nd year just the cherry on top of the crap administration sundae that was my school. Even worse, it was one of the schools that was considered "better" in the SDN stratosphere. It wasn't a brand new one, actually had a decent history, and from this pros/cons thread, was apparently a solid choice for a DO school.

But ever since I've stepped foot on my school's campus, I always felt the need to look over my back and not because of the other students. There's no "gunnerish" atmosphere; in fact, everyone does their best to help each other out because we've all bonded over how incompetent our school's administration is. I feel as if my school is trying to screw us over, given the decisions they've made about our curriculum. Our 2nd year focused entirely on the board-irrelevant material. Max, we had maybe 2-3 path lectures each week and 2 pharm. We had another class that took up the bulk of our time. Those are the only 2 classes related to boards that we have all year, and it takes maybe 25% of our total class time, no exaggeration. And what's worse is that our administration is too gutless to face us.

Our class complained all year, the year before that complained; but no one bothers to address our concerns. That's what's the worst feeling. Shelling out thousands of dollars for an education where the school really couldn't care what happens to their students.

Wow lol almost our second year stuff was path and pharm which was taught well. It was our clinical stuff that was hit or miss depending on who was teaching.

What did they teach you if it was almost no path? Like algorithms and stuff ???
 
Wow lol almost our second year stuff was path and pharm which was taught well. It was our clinical stuff that was hit or miss depending on who was teaching.

What did they teach you if it was almost no path? Like algorithms and stuff ???

Imagine onlinemeded or first aid Step 2 CK, except not taught as well, or even organized as well. Didn't you read my ridiculously long post that no one reads? They literally taught us Step 2 materials instead of Step 1. They overemphasized clinical medicine at the expense of path and pharm.

Oh, and lets not forget the types of wheelchairs and canes. We had on total 4 hours of lecture on that. Boy can I not wait to see the current second year's reaction to sitting through all that. It'll be so priceless!
 
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Imagine onlinemeded or first aid Step 2 CK, except not taught as well, or even organized as well. Didn't you read my ridiculously long post that no one reads? They literally taught us Step 2 materials instead of Step 1. They overemphasized clinical medicine at the expense of path and pharm.

Oh, and lets not forget the types of wheelchairs and canes. We had on total 4 hours of lecture on that. Boy can I not wait to see the current second year's reaction to sitting through all that. It'll be so priceless!


Nah I couldn’t find the post haha

We had some of that but prob not as bad as it sounds like you had it. Actually didn’t mind learning clinical medicine but a lot of ours was taught badly. Esp renal cardio and resp and GI. The clinical parts to those courses at my school where terrible. Path and pharmacy where good tho
 
We laugh during cranial while the professor is giving some bull**** rationale for something or teaching something that contradicts everything anatomists know about the cranium. Especially when we were told to "spread the V" (use thumb and pointer finger to spread the cranial bones, yep, they actually believe you can do that). We just laughed and cracked sexual jokes until the end of lab. Cranial is hilarious and really sad at the same time, because cranial is a dogmatic religion full of contradictions with established reality. I wonder what kind of medication you have to take before gaining the confidence to step in front of a medical school class and claim that cranial is real. These professors are probably IV infusing diazepam all day to be that lucid.

Well guys, that day has come for me.

I am sitting in our cranial lecture as we speak. Which, btw, our OPP lectures are normally 1 hour. But cranial today was 2. Because they did the normal lecture first hour. And now we’re in the bonus 2nd hour which is basically to justify cranial.

And on the schedule for lab this afternoon.... the V spread. Can’t wait.
 
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I added my thoughts on DCOM

PROS
strong basic science faculty (a few professors, definitely not the majority.)
nice facilities (but very limited space)
new anatomy lab (dont think it would have been different in an older lab)
great campus with no parking problems (campus is terrible, nothing to do. parking is irrelevant. but can be terrible if you go have to go to MSB while its full of undergrads,. the ONE indoor gym on campus is always booked and you may get to play basketball 2x a week, if 50 people dont show up. have to reserve the DCOM intramural field, and its mainly being used by people who dont even attend the school. security will kick you off if you go to the campus field unannounced)
relatively cheap area to live in (only solid perk of of the area)
not super OMM heavy (but they got a new teacher this year who seems a bit more fanatical so) (annndddd he left for another $chool)
average tuition, 49k, nice that they didn't really increase this year (tuition is ridiculously high and you certainly dont get what you pay for)
they just got chik fila a couple weeks ago (nice, i guess you dont have to drive 45 mins to get something other than subway and taco bell)
if you live in KY you can get medicaid (for the nontrads) (good)
The good faculty are very helpful. The ones who are not are meh (very true, but they also play favorites and love when students suck up to them)
its a medical school
perfect if you want to do primary care, especially rural setting
farmers market is really, really fresh and good
the locals are insanely sweet and genuine
lots of awesome places to hike if thats your thing



CONS
Some clinical faculty are overall egotistical and poor teachers (some do not understand what they teach and its noticeable by start of M2) some are decent. High turnover rate so may change by the time a new class starts (100%, and its not looking better from what i hear)
rural AF (theres a huge cow field right next to campus, in case you were wondering)
campus housing is expensive (dont live on campus)
clinical sites are hit or miss, some people have community hospitals for their main rotation site (lol) (all of our sites are community hospitals, with only 2-3 programs containing residents. some people have rural sites as their core where you dont do anything all day and see nothing)
3 weeks board prep. For some reason they cut it down this year (sigh) (sounds like DCOM)
lots of time wasting activities in our "doctoring" class (yup)
bad board prep advice (yup)
bad PE prep advice that does not line up with the real deal (yup, we have a terribly low pass rate, our clinical faculty are a joke)
not enough study rooms (for a class of 250, you'd think they would have planned ahead for something like this)
M2 we are cramped into the original medical school building for mandatory stuff without enough real seating (IE seats against back wall) (shows lack of foresight once again)
gym here is tiny and overcrowded (and only one squat rack and one bench press to share with undergrads, the grad student housing has a gym that is only open to its residents, its empty most of the time)
nothing included in tuition (equipment, board prep, etc) except combank but thats worthless (100%. were still paying for printing credits we'll never use)
pointless didactics during M3 that take away from study time (Interprofessional educational trash where we have to write papers) (dont forget mandatory primary care rotation, forced vacation month and only one true elective to explore specialties)
administration is non flexible and honestly some are fairly toward students, not all of them, but many- this may stem from strict and unchanging policies from the board of trustees so its hard to point the finger at the true problem (academic administrative layering) I think the dean wants to help but is greatly limited by those who are "old school" and on the board (from what i understand, they're are people in different camps among the admins and they refuse to work together, stubbornness and old school thinking )
people can fail out for notoriously ridiculous reasons (failing the soft/worthless classes holds same merit as the science classes) (some of the stories ive heard are unbelievable, and as i mentioned before, they play favorites with students and keep them in the program)

OMM and clinical practicals are stupidly organized and graded. you could get the OMM professors and fail, or get the OMM fellow who isnt even watching you and gives out 100% like candy. they also post a schedule when to show up, and then an hour or two into the morning they tell everyone to come in and it gets completely back logged. ive failed multiple clinical practicals because they proctor was having a bad day and they never told me what i did wrong during the test. this ties into grading, which is obnoxiously slow. remember that OSCE you did in December, here's the grade in March, oh and you failed, come to remediation. im pretty sure all of my class had our OMS-3 clinical grades added in May/June because professors dont do any of the didactic grading (that they love to assign) until the last minute.
faculty turnover is a huge issue, clinical faculty dont want to take students and even some core sites are limiting students to what they can actually do with patients
gota add core sites are all over the place. from houston to tampa and everywhere in between. training/experience varies depending on where you go.



@alprazoslam hit most of the points. ive had personal issues with faculty and honestly had awful pre-clinical years. Third year was a mixed bag. My biggest issues have been having no advising or connection with upperclassman/alumni or even fellow students at some points. I've seen a handful of my peers on clinicals and spending all day with private practice physicians who are 10+ years outside of residency really have no idea whats going on with boards/applications/academic medicine. unless you're going into PM&R, FM or IM, there is really no one on faculty who can help guide you to residency. i really dont recommend anyone coming here unless its your last choice, sorry not sorry. D-
 
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Things are changing. All residencies have become competitive. FP and IM at community high hospitals with tentative accreditation are on the rise. The first 2 yrs are critical in transforming yourself into the best candidate. I have trained, worked and been on faculty at allopathic universities and COM's. Medical student complaints at both are surprisingly uniform. One mistake is students believe everything they see in class is all they should need to know for boards. Class lecture time is not nearly enough to provide that amount of information. You have to read the reading assignments a few outside sources. As for Comlex PE results, my experience is students put off studying and practicing with equipment,( understandably, but misguided) due to other courses, anatomy, path, etc. The results speak for themselves. I have had students attempt to look in the eye with an otoscope, inexcusable! BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS!
Your brain can be trained to digest and retain more information than you are able to now. It requires organization, smart studying, applying concepts to studying rather than memorizing, and intense dedication. Try to make up questions as if you were writing questions for the exam. Can you have an MCAT of 497 and score 225 or higher on usmle? Sure, it's a matter of how hard and smart you want to work. Get to it! Good luck and best wishes!!
 
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Things are changing. All residencies have become competitive. FP and IM at community high hospitals with tentative accreditation are on the rise. The first 2 yrs are critical in transforming yourself into the best candidate. I have trained, worked and been on faculty at allopathic universities and COM's. Medical student complaints at both are surprisingly uniform. One mistake is students believe everything they see in class is all they should need to know for boards. Class lecture time is not nearly enough to provide that amount of information. You have to read the reading assignments a few outside sources. As for Comlex PE results, my experience is students put off studying and practicing with equipment,( understandably, but misguided) due to other courses, anatomy, path, etc. The results speak for themselves. I have had students attempt to look in the eye with an otoscope, inexcusable! BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS!
Your brain can be trained to digest and retain more information than you are able to now. It requires organization, smart studying, applying concepts to studying rather than memorizing, and intense dedication. Try to make up questions as if you were writing questions for the exam. Can you have an MCAT of 497 and score 225 or higher on usmle? Sure, it's a matter of how hard and smart you want to work. Get to it! Good luck and best wishes!!
I can't help but notice that you have had two very similar posts, both after DCOM reviews. If you want to defend it, man up and own it. Perhaps you are the aforementioned clinical faculty?
 
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I can't help but notice that you have had two very similar posts, both after DCOM reviews. If you want to defend it, man up and own it. Perhaps you are the aforementioned clinical faculty?
He’s from another school. They get six weeks board prep and his posts are too logical. Think he just approaches posts from the view point of we just have to manage schools downsides by upping our own game

But since he’s listening in I don’t really take much advice from faculty unless it’s professionalism (which doesn’t change really much)

Back in the day, anyone could get into med school, sub par usmle would get you any residency, and school was cheaper.
Half of you faculty wouldn’t even make it in our day. Upper class man are better advice givers than current school faculty.

Half the faculty never even took boards at my school and my adviser was a PHD. Why would I listen to how to study from boards from a PHD lol. Even if it’s a md/do faculty I still wouldn’t listen since they 1. Took boards years ago 2. A good amount of our faculty probably didn’t even do that great when they took it years ago. We have some good faculty but meh still out of touch with modern times.
 
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Do you guys think your run of the mill mid tier allopathic school prepares you better for boards than say a pcom or dmu? If so why?
 
Do you guys think your run of the mill mid tier allopathic school prepares you better for boards than say a pcom or dmu? If so why?
Literally no idea but I still toss salt bc we have to do OMM and less options for rotations at academic centers.
Lack of Boards prep we can alleviate with hard work. Can’t fix the rest
 
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Based upon what I've seen as a management consultant in the health care industry, a significant number of these DO schools are simply mismanaged. I believe most DO School Dean's are DO's with little management experience. That is why you see a curriculum which does not parallel the USMLE, countless wasted class hours on material which is not board relevant, sub-par clinical rotations, etc. I've also seen advice lacking in regard to preparing students for the boards, the match, and the list goes on and on. Maybe some of these Dean's should take a management class related to continuous improvement.

It is simply reprehensible that these DO schools charge outlandish tuition to their third and fourth year students. ...Who need to, in many cases, incur significant incremental expenses for out-of-state rotations during their fourth year. I'm beginning to think it is a pure money grab, particularly when you look at all of the new DO schools which are opening (which will surely offer a sub-par educational experience while charging premium tuition.)
 
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Based upon what I've seen as a management consultant in the health care industry, a significant number of these DO schools are simply mismanaged. I believe most DO School Dean's are DO's with little management experience. That is why you see a curriculum which does not parallel the USMLE, countless wasted class hours on material which is not board relevant, sub-par clinical rotations, etc. I've also seen advice lacking in regard to preparing students for the boards, the match, and the list goes on and on. Maybe some of these Dean's should take a management class related to continuous improvement.

It is simply reprehensible that these DO schools charge outlandish tuition to their third and fourth year students. ...Who need to, in many cases, incur significant incremental expenses for out-of-state rotations during their fourth year. I'm beginning to think it is a pure money grab, particularly when you look at all of the new DO schools which are opening (which will surely offer a sub-par educational experience while charging premium tuition.)


Why do they care tho they fill their seats no matter what. Tons of wanna be doctors.

It’s not a bad product if it sells out
 
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I can't help but notice that you have had two very similar posts, both after DCOM reviews. If you want to defend it, man up and own it. Perhaps you are the aforementioned clinical faculty?
DCOM??? Nope, he must be my brother from another mother. I like him already. But thank you for reading my posts carefully. Good luck to you and best wishes.
 
Any word on if PCOM-GA is reversing mandatory attendance requirements?
 
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