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.
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