Temple IM Not taking DO's anymore?

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Instatewaiter said:
I am saying precisely that. There is a reason people do well by memorizing first aid and doing all the usmle world questions. Nbme tests the exact same minutia which has little to no clinical relevance. If you memorize that stuff your score goes up markedly.
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And you think the key to getting a 240+ on Step 1 is memorizing First Aid factoids and USMLE World explanations?
 
DermViser said:
And you think the key to getting a 240+ on Step 1 is memorizing First Aid factoids and USMLE World explanations?
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Well it's certainly not based at all on clinical acumen.

If someone can raise their practice scores 50 points in 3 weeks by reviewing minutia in review books, yeah I'm pretty sure the test is all about memorization.
 
Instatewaiter said:
Well it's certainly not based at all on clinical acumen.

If someone can raise their practice scores 50 points in 3 weeks by reviewing minutia in review books, yeah I'm pretty sure the test is all about memorization.
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I was more talking about sustained high performance in classes with review books. But rote recall of factoids alone is probably not enough for a 240+, although what some people classify as rote recall vs. application varies. A 50 point increase in 3 weeks is probably the exception rather than rule.
 
DermViser said:
I was more talking about sustained high performance in classes with review books. But rote recall of factoids alone is probably not enough for a 240+, although what some people classify as rote recall vs. application varies. A 50 point increase in 3 weeks is probably the exception rather than rule.
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How is memorizing tricks from a review book any different than rote recall?
 
gutonc said:
How is memorizing tricks from a review book any different than rote recall?
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That's the thing. I don't believe memorizing factoids from a review book will directly get you the answers for a 240 or > on Step 1. I'm more talking about using review books over a sustained period of time to promote understanding.
 
DermViser said:
That's the thing. I don't believe memorizing factoids from a review book will directly get you the answers for a 240 or > on Step 1. I'm more talking about using review books over a sustained period of time to promote understanding.
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Yes, not everyone can get a 240 on Step1. That doesn't mean the test is not a test of memorization. The average USMLE scores have gone up 10 points in the last 6 years... it's because people realized you can game the system by memorizing minutia in the review books. The only understanding is the understanding that they test the same facts over and over. If you memorize them, you do better.
 
Instatewaiter said:
Yes, not everyone can get a 240 on Step1. That doesn't mean the test is not a test of memorization. The average USMLE scores have gone up 10 points in the last 6 years... it's because people realized you can game the system by memorizing minutia in the review books. The only understanding is the understanding that they test the same facts over and over. If you memorize them, you do better.
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The reason the average USMLE score has gone up in 10 years is bc there are better resources than there were 10 years ago when it comes to question banks, review sources, and assessment tools (NBME Self-Assessments).
 
DermViser said:
The reason the average USMLE score has gone up in 10 years is bc there are better resources than there were 10 years ago when it comes to question banks, review sources, and assessment tools (NBME Self-Assessments).
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I think you're trying to make my argument for me.

Were this test not about memorizing a handful of key facts, those resources wouldn't matter all that much.
 
Instatewaiter said:
I think you're trying to make my argument for me.

Were this test not about memorizing a handful of key facts, those resources wouldn't matter all that much.
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The resources help you apply facts and concepts which is what the exam tests. If it was memorizing factoids, anyone off the street could pick it up, without going to med school and regurgitate it on the test.
 
DermViser said:
The resources help you apply facts and concepts which is what the exam tests. If it was memorizing factoids, anyone off the street could pick it up, without going to med school and regurgitate it on the test.
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This describes many fmg's. Essentially many get a substandard foundational education however they use all the right books to get that 250/99. When they get to residency they can regurgitate the type of fungus that infect rose gardeners but can't treat run of the mill sepsis. That's the problem with step 1- it's all about clinically worthless minutia and buzz words which you memorize and realize when you're practicing that it was a waste of your time.

Since you're in derm I assume you did well on step 1. For both of us it was probably one of the things that allowed us to stand out among the crowd. The better part of a decade away from it, I can see that the same student using different resources or cramming less would get vastly different scores despite the same understanding of the concepts.

One of the professors at my school did a lot of research into step 1 (and wrote the most popular phys book). She realized that the test was about cramming and not letting too much time elapse after you start cramming. Your scores go down after about a month of cramming because you start forgetting what you first started "studying".
 
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DermViser said:
The resources help you apply facts and concepts which is what the exam tests. If it was memorizing factoids, anyone off the street could pick it up, without going to med school and regurgitate it on the test.
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I am pretty sure one could memorize the **** out of first aid, do a handful of UWorld questions, have little understanding of biology, and get a 240+ on Step 1. What little research out there shows very mild correlation between Step 1 scores and residency performance and you would expect "understanding" to correlate well.

Also, unlike mathematics and physics, there are really no difficult concepts in biology (the nephron is medium difficulty and all the medical students **** their pants, but then even the dumbest IM residents can become nephrologists). The critical thinking in biochemistry is basically knowing that an inhibitor of an inhibitor can be an activator... and then you get tested on minutae of Step 6 of the Kreb's cycle. Unless the student is functionally ******ed or has a photographic memory I'm pretty sure the latter is more difficult to do than the former.
 
padastra said:
I am pretty sure one could memorize the **** out of first aid, do a handful of UWorld questions, have little understanding of biology, and get a 240+ on Step 1.
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And you would be completely WRONG.
 
DermViser said:
And you would be completely WRONG.
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Ok bro. Looks like we disagree. Here's my analysis of why:

In my opinion, if one has to memorize that Drug A is metabolized by P450 into its active form, and one has to memorize Drug B induces P450 activity, it really doesn't count as a "critical thinking" question to ask whether Drug B increases, decreases, or has no effect on the levels of Drug A.

In your opinion as a Dermatologist, it's good to memorize the **** out of everything, and any sort of thought process outside of prescribing steroids counts as "critical thinking".
 
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Weinberg Angle said:
I'd take a hot female DO w krap steps/grades over an AOA ugly male MD, any day.
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The real question is, why do good looking people get a significant advantage even when they're not single? It seems like a large portion of the advantage gets lost when you have to multiply the gain by 0.1 (or whatever value estimates their likelihood of infidelity during residency).
 
padastra said:
Ok bro. Looks like we disagree. Here's my analysis of why:

In my opinion, if one has to memorize that Drug A is metabolized by P450 into its active form, and one has to memorize Drug B induces P450 activity, it really doesn't count as a "critical thinking" question to ask whether Drug B increases, decreases, or has no effect on the levels of Drug A.

In your opinion as a Dermatologist, it's good to memorize the **** out of everything, and any sort of thought process outside of prescribing steroids counts as "critical thinking".
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Have you actualy seen the questions on Step 1? They aren't regurgitative/recall type of questions.
 
DermViser said:
Have you actualy seen the questions on Step 1? They aren't regurgitative/recall type of questions.
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I will admit to being a math major, and thus anything that can be Googled in under five minutes counts as a recall type question. In my opinion that was nearly 100% of the questions.
 
padastra said:
I will admit to being a math major, and thus anything that can be Googled in under five minutes counts as a recall type question. In my opinion that was nearly 100% of the questions.
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By that parameter, EVERYTHING is a recall question, which tells me you have no idea the difference between a "recall" question and a "critical thinking"/"application" question.
 
DermViser said:
By that parameter, EVERYTHING is a recall question, which tells me you have no idea the difference between a "recall" question and a "critical thinking"/"application" question.
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If that's true then medicine is no more than 5 years out from being replaced by machine learning.
 
padastra said:
If that's true then medicine is no more than 5 years out from being replaced by machine learning.
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How does that apply to my post? You apparently don't know how USMLE test questions are constructed.
 
DermViser said:
How does that apply to my post? You apparently don't know how USMLE test questions are constructed.
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As I said, maybe things that require more than one or two logical steps counts as critical thinking for you, and if that's your threshold then so be it. This app is the next dermatologist:
 
padastra said:
As I said, maybe things that require more than one or two logical steps counts as critical thinking for you, and if that's your threshold then so be it. This app is the next dermatologist:
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That app has nothing to do with dermatology. You realize that skin lesions evolve right? They are not pathognomonic.
 
DermViser said:
That app has nothing to do with dermatology. You realize that skin lesions evolve right? They are pathognomonic.
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Sorry I was referring to the dog. Kidding aside, you realize that dogs grow right? You don't think visual recognition after machine learning based on prior labeled pictures has anything to do with dermatology huh?
 
padastra said:
Sorry I was referring to the dog. Kidding aside, you realize that dogs grow right?
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Dogs grow, yet they remain the same breed of dog. Skin lesions evolve so the the diagnosis made at one stage might be different at another stage based on the morphology. Hence why even Derm involves coming up with a differential diagnosis.
 
DermViser said:
Dogs grow, yet they remain the same breed of dog. Skin lesions evolve so the the diagnosis made at one stage might be different at another stage based on the morphology. Hence why even Derm involves coming up with a differential diagnosis.
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Ok, think of the entire range of dogs with all the speciation as one type of lesion, and the individual species as the specific stage. Plus it's relatively trivial to return a probabilistic list with multiple different diagnoses, i.e. a differential.

I can see why you found critical thinking to be the most challenging aspect of Step 1.
 
padastra said:
Ok, think of the entire range of dogs with all the speciation as one type of lesion, and the individual species as the specific stage. Plus it's relatively trivial to return a probabilistic list with multiple different diagnoses, i.e. a differential.

I can see why you found critical thinking to be the most challenging aspect of Step 1.
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Your app made it seem like you thought Derm is see lesion, identify lesion, done. You're wrong. How that is difficult for you to understand is beyond me.
 
DermViser said:
Your app made it seem like you thought Derm is see lesion, identify lesion, done. You're wrong. How that is difficult for you to understand is beyond me.
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Don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows the Derm algorithm includes at least two more steps, namely "biopsy to maximize reimbursement" and "prescribe steroids of various types".
 
padastra said:
Don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows the Derm algorithm includes at least two more steps, namely "biopsy to maximize reimbursement" and "prescribe steroids of various types".
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I would expect someone like you to believe that. I apologize it's not a 2 page front and back H&P that no one reads.
 
DermViser said:
Dogs grow, yet they remain the same breed of dog. Skin lesions evolve so the the diagnosis made at one stage might be different at another stage based on the morphology. Hence why even Derm involves coming up with a differential diagnosis.
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And then biopsying it and having the pathologist tell you what it is
 
Instatewaiter said:
Isn't there a dermpath specialty?
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It's a subspecialty of Derm for those who want to do full-time Dermpath or for insurance purposes and getting slides sent to you from other Derms. But Dermatologists also get extensive Dermpath training which is on Derm boards.
 
Oh my goodness.

In an attempt to contribute something useful to this conversation, I will say two things:

- I am a DO who interviewed at Temple IM the year before last. During that interview, I was told explicitly by an interviewer that Temple only took DO applicants from 3 institutions: PCOM, UMDNJ-SOM and NYCOM. Apparently they were afraid to take DOs from elsewhere because they didn't know what they were going to get etc. Perhaps this has changed, and now they're not taking any?

- At the end of the day, I wasn't all that impressed with Temple anyway and ranked them fairly low. Expand your horizons. I interviewed at several programs in the Midwest that I felt were waaay better than Temple (Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, OSU, among others) - and all are happy to take DOs. UMDNJ-RWJ was better than Temple and matches DOs too. Just look around.
 
Instatewaiter said:
I am saying precisely that. There is a reason people do well by memorizing first aid and doing all the usmle world questions. Nbme tests the exact same minutia which has little to no clinical relevance. If you memorize that stuff your score goes up markedly.
Click to expand...

Yup, there are FMG's who went to med school in third world countries that spend several years doing exactly the above, memorizing first aid and memorizing all the questions and they know the USMLE is their meal ticket to residency in this country and they blow the test out of the water. Many of these same people have very poor communication skills when they get here, speak broken English, have a medical education vastly different than one by US med students.......but still do great on the USMLE because they can sit there for days, months, and years and memorize that stuff from a book.
 
dozitgetchahi said:
Oh my goodness.

In an attempt to contribute something useful to this conversation, I will say two things:

- I am a DO who interviewed at Temple IM the year before last. During that interview, I was told explicitly by an interviewer that Temple only took DO applicants from 3 institutions: PCOM, UMDNJ-SOM and NYCOM. Apparently they were afraid to take DOs from elsewhere because they didn't know what they were going to get etc. Perhaps this has changed, and now they're not taking any?
.
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Interesting because I know one of the DOs that matched at temple last year went to lecom-b.
 
ussdfiant said:
I did my IM residency at Drexel, what's your f'ing point?
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When? It's bc their emblem is ugly.
drexel%20dragon.jpg
 
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Isn't the purpose of osteopathic education to crank out primary care physicians and bone docs?

So... Why Temple?
 
As an update to this thread, someone at PCOM matched into Temple IM. So, they do seem to be taking DO's.
 
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