Trouble at KansasCom

[RichardDickWinslow]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I will end this post with just one fact. CO2029 is at 201 students, CO2028 is at 180 students, CO2027 is at 87 students, and CO2026 is at 77 students. Making it out to being 0 dismissals for CO2029 and CO2028, 5 dismissals for CO2027, and 10 dismissals for CO2026. Not bad at all in my opinion. Take it as you want. KansasCOM is not a bad school and will be around long after all of these antagonists who are on the hook for 65k-80k for a repeat year that many of them don't need are gone. Please, lets being promoting positivity from now on, instead of negativity!

Fixed your typos. Warm regards

 

[Goro]

A medical school has a psychologist as a President???

I'll quote a professor of mine from grad school:
Deans are paid to lie.

Dr Winslow conveniently forgot to mention the number of students who have to repeat the year AFTER the policies for COMLEX practice tests were changed. The attrition rate has been posted previously in this thread.

Paid antagonists indeed.

 

[wysdoc]

Closing this thread temporarily while addressing multiple issues.

OK, those interested in continuing to talk about events at this school can now continue discussing.
Many posts that were off-topic, or direct insults/attacks/attempted doxxing of other members have been removed.

Reviewing the SDN rules, doxxing of members is not allowed, personal attacks on others is not allowed.
If you disagree, disagree with the statement itself & resist trash talk.

A little-known SDN feature: If someone sends you a DM (direct message) that is unwelcome, you can report it to moderators as a "conversation report" and then mark "leave the conversation" and block that sender from contacting you again.

 

[Goro]

Nice to see the thread opened up again. Kudos to our wise SDN moderators!

I've been told that classes begin in two weeks. Good luck to you all!

And you have a COCA site visit coming up. Students typically will be given a chance to talk to the COCA accreditors on such visits. Talk to them professionally, and state your cases just like a lawyer would. The session should NOT be a bitch-fest. The situation you have of a part-time Dean, who is not allowed to be contacted, should certainly be discussed.

Good luck, and do keep in touch!

 

[LSTR]

I don't know if this has been asked yet, but how badly would the chances of matching into certain specialties be impacted for students being made to repeat by KansasCOM? more specifically, if a KansasCOM student who had to repeat attempts to match into a very competitive specialty, can other aspects of a student's application--e.g. performance on clinical rotations--compensate for that blemish on their academic record?

I don't think I have a particularly competitive specialty in mind for myself, but I thought I should ask, as a worst case scenario....

 

[saltysol]

Nice to see the thread opened up again. Kudos to our wise SDN moderators!

I've been told that classes begin in two weeks. Good luck to you all!

And you have a COCA site visit coming up. Students typically will be given a chance to talk to the COCA accreditors on such visits. Talk to them professionally, and state your cases just like a lawyer would. The session should NOT be a bitch-fest. The situation you have of a part-time Dean, who is not allowed to be contacted, should certainly be discussed.

Good luck, and do keep in touch!

I heard a few people got together with COCA for a Zoom meeting. They laid everything out while avoiding the personal attacks. Thankfully, even though we’re angry, we took their lessons professionalism to heart.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I don't know if this has been asked yet, but how badly would the chances of matching into certain specialties be impacted for students being made to repeat by KansasCOM? more specifically, if a KansasCOM student who had to repeat attempts to match into a very competitive specialty, can other aspects of a student's application--e.g. performance on clinical rotations--compensate for that blemish on their academic record?

I don't think I have a particularly competitive specialty in mind for myself, but I thought I should ask, as a worst case scenario....

I don't think there's a simple answer to this question. In general, more competitive specialties / programs will look for 1) top performance in your school, 2) high score on USMLE (or perhaps COMLEX), 3) Honors in rotations in that specialty, 4) Higher caliber school plays some role, 5) Research or something else to make you stand out. Repeating a year is a big negative. Since the repeat is due to low exam scores in practice exams, that doesn't bode well for a top score on the real thing. If someone repeated a year and then had a stellar performance afterwards, perhaps it would not be a big deal. But the chances of that are not great. Top performers don't end up repeating years.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Just stumbled on this for the first time. I spent 30 minutes reading through most of it. This is wild. How inappropriate of the school to act this way then send their people to this thread.

I wish I had a way to help the students. If the school reaches to hire me as dean, I promise I'll be at the school and turn it around. These failures are entirely due to poor leadership

 

[Starr_key]

I don't think there's a simple answer to this question. In general, more competitive specialties / programs will look for 1) top performance in your school, 2) high score on USMLE (or perhaps COMLEX), 3) Honors in rotations in that specialty, 4) Higher caliber school plays some role, 5) Research or something else to make you stand out. Repeating a year is a big negative. Since the repeat is due to low exam scores in practice exams, that doesn't bode well for a top score on the real thing. If someone repeated a year and then had a stellar performance afterwards, perhaps it would not be a big deal. But the chances of that are not great. Top performers don't end up repeating years.

I disagree.

A lot of the students being forced to repeat performed well in their courses. If I was a PD, I would puzzled as to why a student who didn't fail any preclinical courses would be forced to repeat. Yes, the practice exam thing was a course, but again, why on earth would a student who did well in everything else fail a random course? That would seem iffy to me and I would ask what happened. Student would explain and I'd be like "omg that's awful."

"doesn't bode well for a top score" my dude. They're practice exams. What PD out here would be like "oh you passed the real thing but performed poorly on practice exams? Bye." Also (students please confirm) that was the students' first practice exam, or one of them. It's entirely reasonable that some students would have low scores.

Tldr; I don't think this would have a huge impact because it was leadership failure, which any smart PD would realize.

 

[ETKL]

New leadership at KansasCOM?

 

[Dr.Hobbes]

Man I reeeallllyy wanted to like this school when it first opened. It was promising on paper and I was even considering going there as an individual who plans on practicing in the primary care starved state of Kansas. Unfortunately that lack of physicians is all too easy of an excuse to use to open a new medical school.

Seeing everything online about how administration has effectively thrown everything in the garbage, doused it in gasoline, and set it on fire is so upsetting. The dean and associate dean living in different states alone is enough to reflect on that. If you can't stand to stay in the state that you're supposedly creating more physicians for, then you shouldn't have come in the first place. The physician shortage here is bad enough, we can't afford for them to drag the city of Wichita and the rest of the state down with them.

If the previous post about change in president is true, I hope somebody takes over that actually cares first and foremost about the STUDENTS, as well as our state. There's been enough tomfoolery as is.

 

[DO2015CA]

Man I reeeallllyy wanted to like this school when it first opened. It was promising on paper and I was even considering going there as an individual who plans on practicing in the primary care starved state of Kansas. Unfortunately that lack of physicians is all too easy of an excuse to use to open a new medical school.

Seeing everything online about how administration has effectively thrown everything in the garbage, doused it in gasoline, and set it on fire is so upsetting. The dean and associate dean living in different states alone is enough to reflect on that. If you can't stand to stay in the state that you're supposedly creating more physicians for, then you shouldn't have come in the first place. The physician shortage here is bad enough, we can't afford for them to drag the city of Wichita and the rest of the state down with them.

If the previous post about change in president is true, I hope somebody takes over that actually cares first and foremost about the STUDENTS, as well as our state. There's been enough tomfoolery as is.

If you’re from Kansas, ok state likes those applicants too and although not instate, they are seen favorably for applications (I know some Adcoms there). If you get in there over either this school or kcu, you go to OSU.

 

[Dr.Hobbes]

If you’re from Kansas, ok state likes those applicants too and although not instate, they are seen favorably for applications (I know some Adcoms there). If you get in there over either this school or kcu, you go to OSU.

I did, but didn't meet their LOR requirement unfortunately. It sucks because I heard many good things about OSU, but I landed at a reputable COM in the Midwest so all is well. I really appreciate the insight though!

 

[Starr_key]

New leadership at KansasCOM?

Yup I'm the new dean, guys. I'll be establishing Taco Tuesdays, additional help for board prep, and shiny, new equipment. Free stethoscopes for all.

Do I know anything about running a school? No, but neither did the last guy apparently.

 

[wysdoc]

Yup I'm the new dean, guys. I'll be establishing Taco Tuesdays, additional help for board prep, and shiny, new equipment. Free stethoscopes for all.

Do I know anything about running a school? No, but neither did the last guy apparently.

Are you a current or past student here? I would like to ask you to keep this thread on topic if you’re just here to get a laugh

 

[ForgottenSeraph]

New leadership at KansasCOM?

A medical school has a psychologist as a President???

I'll quote a professor of mine from grad school:
Deans are paid to lie.

Dr Winslow conveniently forgot to mention the number of students who have to repeat the year AFTER the policies for COMLEX practice tests were changed. The attrition rate has been posted previously in this thread.

Paid antagonists indeed.

Yes, the president of KansasCOM was removed and is officially “pursuing new opportunities elsewhere,” effective immediately. Notably, the announcement came directly from the Board of Trustees, not the Dean or campus leadership, which speaks volumes about the level and urgency of the decision.

 

[Goro]

The Associate Dean also lives out of state????

 

[Dr.Hobbes]

The Associate Dean also lives out of state????

Stated by someone on the recently linked reddit post. Obviously can't directly fact check that but his LinkedIn lists "Liberty, MO" as his city.

 

[Ho0v-man]

I disagree.

A lot of the students being forced to repeat performed well in their courses. If I was a PD, I would puzzled as to why a student who didn't fail any preclinical courses would be forced to repeat. Yes, the practice exam thing was a course, but again, why on earth would a student who did well in everything else fail a random course? That would seem iffy to me and I would ask what happened. Student would explain and I'd be like "omg that's awful."

"doesn't bode well for a top score" my dude. They're practice exams. What PD out here would be like "oh you passed the real thing but performed poorly on practice exams? Bye." Also (students please confirm) that was the students' first practice exam, or one of them. It's entirely reasonable that some students would have low scores.

Tldr; I don't think this would have a huge impact because it was leadership failure, which any smart PD would realize.

This is wishful thinking, unfortunately. No one spends that much time reviewing an application, especially for competitive specialties where you can fill up every interview slot with applicants that are perfect on paper.

Most places have applications sorted by a secretary who screens for red flags before an application is ever reviewed by anyone who knows anything about med school.