Thinking of transfering from Scholl?

[TheBee]

EDIT: I looked it up.

3rd year
PSUR 800 Affiliated Podiatry Clinical Experience
PELE 700 4-Elective Podiatry Clerkships

4th year (will probably change)
PMED 801 Internal Medicine Clinical Experience
PMED 802 Emergency Medicine Clinical Experience
PSUR 802 General Surgery Clinical Experience
PMED 803 Fourth Year Podiatric Medicine Clinical Experience (Hines VA)
PACE 801 Cook County (Stroger) Hospital Podiatry Clinical Experience
PACE 802 North Chicago (James Lovell) VA or Westside (Jesse Brown) VA Clinical Experience
PELE 800 6 Elective Podiatry Clinical Experiences

I don't know the specifics on the affiliated pod month so that's 4 definite outside rotations just in 3rd year alone. Then 6 in 4th year. IM, ER, Gen surg are in chicago. So are the Hines VA, Cook County (Stroger), and North Chicago VA. But the 4th year might change. I believe this is the current P4 schedule which are still of the older curriculum. The current P3's are the first to go through the new curriculum.

So 10 pod clerkships (outside of chicago), 3 core medicine rotations in chicago, 3 chicago pod rotations, and 1 "affiliated" pod rotation spread out from Jan. of P3 to May of P4.

I have talked to a few P3's and they all said atleast 8 before interviews (all outside of chicago). They hadn't gotten their 4th year schedule yet when I spoke to them.

So I'm not sure which P3's you spoke to at Scholl regarding their 4th year schedules, because we all were required to have them signed off on and finalized by the end of January. Here's how the P3/P4 schedule works....

We were all given a grid of twelve different schedule options, listed in rows A through L. Students are then given a couple of weeks to look over the different schedule options and rank them in order of preference. The schedules differ as far as which specific months are assigned to elective rotations (where you can choose where you want to go) and mandatory or "core" rotations. Of the core rotations there are 4 podiatry (Haines VA, North Chicago VA, Westside VA, and Cook County) and 3 non-podiatry that are also all in Chicago (internal med, ER, general surgery). As of my year, class of 2012, there are four schedules that allow you 8 electives before interviews, and the rest grant you 7 before interviews and one after interviews. All of the schedules give you 8 total electives.

Then one a pre-chosen day all of the students go into a large classroom and pick a random number from a box. There are as many numbers as people in your class, going from #1 to whatever. They then start by calling whoever has #1 to the front, they write their name on the big chalkboard under the schedule letter of their choice, then the person with #2 gets to go and so on. The schedules are on a first-come, first-served basis, so once a schedule fills up (which is usually 7-10 people per group), then no one else can sign up for that schedule. Needless to say with this system, the person with the last number gets the last schedule left on the board that is not filled.

Not to get too confusing but 6 people in two of the particular schedule groups are allowed to do their three core rotations at an outside facility. That is what an earlier poster referenced when they said they did them outside of Chicago. However if you're interested in doing that you have to choose from one of the two schedules that have three core rotations in a row, allowing you to do that, and it's first-come first-served once again to get those coveted spots. Only 6 overall can do it, three from each of the two schedules.

Hope that helps

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[TheBee]

Here's a question for you...

Would you have preferred the M1 schedule to taking exams? Like taking an exam every two weeks? Or would you prefer a modified version of that such as taking a combined exam every week?

After experiencing the schedule so far this year I would NOT mind taking a combined exam every week (on Mondays similar to the M1s). Therefore our schedules would match up better and we would not be thrust into situations where we have to take multiple exams prior to an ECR exam (for example).

Another scenario that has seemed to arise (since the P1 and M1 schedules vary greatly) is that when we have upcoming gross anatomy practicals...the P1s will have multiple exams throughout that week prior to the practical (which is the following week). Where M1s will just have their combined exam that Monday, which leaves them the entire week to study in the lab and prepare for the gross anatomy practical without having to worry about any more exams. Its an advantage for them any way you slice. Sure they have to take combined exams where we only have to focus on one topic but our one topic exams can be anywhere from 12-15 lectures per exams...which is still a significant amount of material.

Case in point...the P1s & M1s have a gross practical next Tuesday but this week alone the P1s have had a gross anatomy lecture (which was apart of the M1 combined exam) this past Monday, a Final in Pod Med and Surg (half course content worth 50% of our grade) that was today, and now we have an ECR exam tomorrow (that I am currently cramming for right now). The M1s have to take that ECR exam too but obviously they are not cramming right now for it since they have been done with their testing since this past Monday.

Its situations like these that kind of piss me off but overall I still have been enjoying my Scholl experience. TheBee, if you could offer some more comments about this I would love to hear your perspective. We have class meeting coming up next week. I'm pretty sure these are topics that are going to addressed.

Sorry I haven't been on in awhile AnkleBreaker, and I hope I can help answer some of your questions. From my understanding the new structure of the CMS exams is a more systems-based approach. All of their classes from biochemistry to anatomy and physiology and pharm go along at the same rate covering one system at a time and then they have a test on that area. Is that true? If my understanding is correct, then I do see benefit in Scholl adopting this. I think a system-based approach is a great way to learn a subject...comprehensively, and is more realistic to what you will be seeing once you're out in a clinical environment. I also found that a great way to study for boards, and is the style you'll find the First Aid USMLE Step 1 book uses. Really helpful to gain a well-rounded understanding of seemingly disparate concepts.

The only hurdle I see Scholl encountering when adopting this is all the courses that are taken with other students. For example, if pharm was spread out to cover systems over a whole year, would the CNA students still be able to take it with us? And the same goes for the other courses we take with other groups. Plus you will always have podiatry-focused exams that won't fit into most of the systems, so those would have to be separate...

I feel your pain as far as the difference in the Scholl vs CMS schedules goes. It was the same for my class too. The one good thing for us is we did have a separate curve from them, so the fact we had three hard exams the week before when they had one or none, was evened out. Do you still have a separate curve too, or was that changed?

 

[bonvivant07]

This is something that a lot of people don't know about Scholl. We get ATLEAST 8 podiatry clerkships BEFORE residency interviews. Very important with the residency shortage. I don't know any other school that comes close to that.

Oh that def. helps. I know the more clerkship, the better. However, what are students at other Pod schools besides Scholl, doing during that clerkship time? Do they just have those months off?

Because from what I have heard from other students at other schools is that even though a school may have lets say 4 official clerkships, they give you time off where you can do more clerkships during that time if you wanted to.

 

[janV88]

So I'm not sure which P3's you spoke to at Scholl regarding their 4th year schedules, because we all were required to have them signed off on and finalized by the end of January. Here's how the P3/P4 schedule works....

We were all given a grid of twelve different schedule options, listed in rows A through L. Students are then given a couple of weeks to look over the different schedule options and rank them in order of preference. The schedules differ as far as which specific months are assigned to elective rotations (where you can choose where you want to go) and mandatory or "core" rotations. Of the core rotations there are 4 podiatry (Haines VA, North Chicago VA, Westside VA, and Cook County) and 3 non-podiatry that are also all in Chicago (internal med, ER, general surgery). As of my year, class of 2012, there are four schedules that allow you 8 electives before interviews, and the rest grant you 7 before interviews and one after interviews. All of the schedules give you 8 total electives.

Then one a pre-chosen day all of the students go into a large classroom and pick a random number from a box. There are as many numbers as people in your class, going from #1 to whatever. They then start by calling whoever has #1 to the front, they write their name on the big chalkboard under the schedule letter of their choice, then the person with #2 gets to go and so on. The schedules are on a first-come, first-served basis, so once a schedule fills up (which is usually 7-10 people per group), then no one else can sign up for that schedule. Needless to say with this system, the person with the last number gets the last schedule left on the board that is not filled.

Not to get too confusing but 6 people in two of the particular schedule groups are allowed to do their three core rotations at an outside facility. That is what an earlier poster referenced when they said they did them outside of Chicago. However if you're interested in doing that you have to choose from one of the two schedules that have three core rotations in a row, allowing you to do that, and it's first-come first-served once again to get those coveted spots. Only 6 overall can do it, three from each of the two schedules.

Hope that helps

Thanks for the explanation. I believe I spoke to the P3 in the beginning of January so maybe that's why her schedule wasn't finalized.

Oh that def. helps. I know the more clerkship, the better. However, what are students at other Pod schools besides Scholl, doing during that clerkship time? Do they just have those months off?

Because from what I have heard from other students at other schools is that even though a school may have lets say 4 official clerkships, they give you time off where you can do more clerkships during that time if you wanted to.

The other schools have class till the first half of 3rd year and then spend the second half of 3rd year in their clinic. At Scholl, we are done with classes in 2nd year and then spend the first half of 3rd year on "capstone projects" which are basically to help us integrate what we learned in the first 2 years into clinical practice. It is also during this time that we spend more time in the clinic. Therefore Scholl is outside of our clinic for an extra 5 months (January - May).

I believe that the other students you spoke to meant that they would visit other programs during the weekends and breaks they have off. Like I said above, most of the other schools are stuck in their clinic the second half of 3rd year. And I don't believe any school has "summer break" anymore after the 1st year.

 

[txlioness]

Sorry for the delay....

Yes i did all of my core in Detroit. Actually it was 4 consecutive months long. I had a month of podiatry as well. The rotation is thru Detroit Med Center. If you do one of the the outside core rotations, you will be there for 3-4 consecutive months. For the Chicago core rotations, they will be broken up or maybe 2 back to back. that will depend on the group that you get during the lottery.

However, for the actual ER, Gen Surg rotations they(DMC program) sent me and my classmates to DVA Detroit. Don't know why, but they did. IM was done at one of DMC's internal med clinics.

For 3rd year, it was different for us than it may be for you.

We rotated outside as well, but we had to do some rotations as Scholl College (Radiology, Ortho/Sports Med, etc.). For y'all, you may be strictly doing your outside rotations and be totally done with any rotations at Scholl.

I hope this helped and answered your question

txlioness,

Did you do all your core (IM, ER, Gen Surg) rotations at Detroit and, if so, was it a consecutive 3 months? Which hospital was it at? Did you have time to visit some Podiatry programs while you were there?

Also, I'm curious, what did you guys do in your P3 year?