UTSA - Probation

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Hopefully this makes it easier to get in for the next few years....
 
they're getting a new curriculum next fall so that should help with this issue some
 
HOLD ON A MINUTE....

According to the memo, the school was officially notified on Friday that the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting organization for medical schools, has put its undergraduate medical education program on probation.
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HUUUUUUGE part you forgot to mention.

González-Scarano was clear in his communication that this only affects the undergraduate portion of the school's activities. Its clinical, research and graduate activities are not at issue. He also pointed out that the determination "was not based on any deficiencies in the quality of our medical students or their learning achievements."
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Come on CodeBlue... you are a better investigator than this. JK.. I'm just mad cause this school is my top choice and you made my heart skip a beat.
 
So it says undergrad medical education, but then the article talks about a disconnect between basic and clinical sciences. Is medical school considered undergraduate medical education? I'm confused.
 
Morzh said:
HOLD ON A MINUTE....



HUUUUUUGE part you forgot to mention.

Come on CodeBlue... you are a better investigator than this. JK.. I'm just mad cause this school is my top choice and you made my heart skip a beat.
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undergraduate medical education=MD program

graduate medical education=residencies, fellowships, etc.
 
Morzh said:
HOLD ON A MINUTE....



HUUUUUUGE part you forgot to mention.

Come on CodeBlue... you are a better investigator than this. JK.. I'm just mad cause this school is my top choice and you made my heart skip a beat.
Click to expand...

Slack3r said:
So it says undergrad medical education, but then the article talks about a disconnect between basic and clinical sciences. Is medical school considered undergraduate medical education? I'm confused.
Click to expand...

Let me make this abundantly clear...

Undergraduate Medical Education = leads to M.D. Degree

Graduate Medical Education = Residency Training Programs



Make sense?
 
Hm now I'm confused, too. Am medical students considered undergraduate rather than graduate students??

EDIT: OK. 🙁
 
Morzh said:
Hm now I'm confused, too. Am medical students considered undergraduate rather than graduate students??
Click to expand...

Medicine and the MD degree are UNDERGRADUATE degrees... have you never wikipedia'd MD degree??? 😕 lol



Now I'm sorry, what was that about my investigative prowess you alluded to???
 
Morzh said:
Hm now I'm confused, too. Am medical students considered undergraduate rather than graduate students??

EDIT: OK. 🙁
Click to expand...
All that work for ANOTHER undergrad degree :laugh:
 
Morzh said:
HOLD ON A MINUTE....



HUUUUUUGE part you forgot to mention.
Click to expand...

:lame:


anyway...you probably don't have to worry. It sounds to me like these problems only led to a probation because the school liked the way it was doing things and tried to appeal instead of fixing the problems immediately after they were pointed out the last time the lcme evaluated them. They just need to suck it up and make a few changes and they will be fine; it's not like they have a critical lack of money, facilities, or competent administrators like a certain other school. just my 2c.
 
Suncrusher said:
:lame:


anyway...you probably don't have to worry. It sounds to me like these problems only led to a probation because the school liked the way it was doing things and tried to appeal instead of fixing the problems immediately after they were pointed out the last time the lcme evaluated them. They just need to suck it up and make a few changes and they will be fine; it's not like they have a critical lack of money, facilities, or competent administrators like a certain other school. just my 2c.
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This.

But don't think for a second that this won't affect their applications for the next 2-3 years. Less people want to go to a school on probation....
 
So from reading this more closely now, it sounds like the concerns they've had will all be moot for the incoming 2012 class, since they all revolved around the curriculum of the first two years. The new curriculum wasn't "finalized" sufficiently to satisfy the reviewers when they came in January 2011, so that's what the issue is.

The old curriculum wasn't even bad, it was just very traditional... they didn't convert to the new fad of "PBL" as quickly as the LCME wanted them to. Ironically PBL has, according to the many recent threads on the subject, at best a 50/50 approval rating with many finding it a highly inefficient way of learning.

So how long after being put on probation till they re-review the school?
 
"In a letter dated Oct. 14, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education notified Dr. William Henrich, president of the health science center, of its decision. The LCME first told the health science center it was considering probation after a January site visit.
The health science center had unsuccessfully appealed for a lesser penalty, and now has two years to correct the problems."

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...school-on-probation-2222609.php#ixzz1b4t5Ovyh


Did anyone catch this in the first article?
"...Dr. Flossy Eddins-Folensbee..."
what a delightfully southern name 😍
 
CodeBlu said:
This.

But don't think for a second that this won't affect their applications for the next 2-3 years. Less people want to go to a school on probation....
Click to expand...

Wonder if anyone has the stats for GWU when they were on probation a few years ago since they get like 22.9 million apps now.
 
CodeBlu said:
This.

But don't think for a second that this won't affect their applications for the next 2-3 years. Less people want to go to a school on probation....
Click to expand...
This news may have more of an impact on their yield than on their applications. It only costs $10 to add a school once you've decided to apply via TMDSAS and San Antonio has no secondary!
 
sector9 said:
This news may have more of an impact on their yield than on their applications. It only costs $10 to add a school once you've decided to apply via TMDSAS and San Antonio has no secondary!
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But I'd imagine some of the applicants with stats better than the average accepted at UTSA wouldn't even care to apply to a school on probation....
 
Stumpyman said:
But I'd imagine some of the applicants with stats better than the average accepted at UTSA wouldn't even care to apply to a school on probation....
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For 10 bucks and no secondary, I don't think this news will really deter anybody from applying, like sector9 said.
 
Whatyousay said:
For 10 bucks and no secondary, I don't think this news will really deter anybody from applying, like sector9 said.
Click to expand...

Agreed. If anything, it might deter gunners who want to go for surgery or other competitive specialties from matriculating. But who knows? I guess we'll see when the stats are published next fall.
 
For the record, its UTHSCSA (UT Health Science Center- San Antonio), and has almost nothing to do with UTSA, other than that they are both part of the UT system of schools.

As for the probationary status, it is unsettling, but it is simply a formality. The school has been providing nearly the same exact curriculum since the early 70's, with many of the same professors still currently teaching. I'm pretty sure UTHSCSA has put out a few successful physicians in that time frame, and felt as though they shouldn't "fix" the system if it wasn't broken. As a first year medical student here, I can understand why the changes were felt as necessary by the LCME when compared to other schools though. We spend at least 8 hours per day in lecture and are required to do two dissections per week after class. We get a minimal amount of clinical hands on experience, and spend most of our time in the same lecture hall as we listen to 6-8 lectures per day. I do love the curriculum and learning style here, but it is definitely time consuming, and not as "study efficient" as some of the new curriculum schools.

With that being said, I highly respect our school for the willingness and ability to adapt to new suggestions and regulations, when they have been producing successful doctors nearly the same way for 40 years. Some of our professors are nationally renowned experts in medical education, and have even taught new generations of professors that teach at other schools across the country. These are the people that have been open to critique by the LCME, and instead of being stubborn or retiring, will be innovating a new and assuredly better curriculum for future students. The new curriculum has been under construction for at least the past year and will be ready in time for the class of 2016, immediately meeting the requirements set by the LCME and lifting the probation. I'm not sure why the LCME decided to enact this probationary status at this point, since all of the deficiencies have either been met or are in the final stages of being met. Its not as if this was some surprise to the school, as we have been preparing for change for quite some time. The probationary status has not, and will not affect the performance and placement of students, and the new curriculum will only make things better in the future.
 
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The Dean's letter was included in the article linked above, and two things he said are curious. He described the accredation visit as routine, and he mentions calmly that recommendations from 2003 review remained unimplemented.

There's nothing routine or casual about the periodic review of an accrediting body, nor optional about its recommendations. Hopefully there are people in leadership at the school who "get it" more than the dean, who seems not to.
 
Musclemass said:
The Dean's letter was included in the article linked above, and two things he said are curious. He described the accredation visit as routine, and he mentions calmly that recommendations from 2003 review remained unimplemented.

There's nothing routine or casual about the periodic review of an accrediting body, nor optional about its recommendations. Hopefully there are people in leadership at the school who "get it" more than the dean, who seems not to.
Click to expand...

He means the new curriculum that is to be implemented next year was not ready to present to the LCME this past Janurary. As soon as they get the new curriculum finished, the probationary status will go away. Its just poor timing. UTHSCSA continues (and will continue) to be successful in STEP scores and in the match. Literally thousands of students have been successful with the old curriculum, and I'm confident the new curriculum will build on that success.
 
Musclemass said:
The Dean's letter was included in the article linked above, and two things he said are curious. He described the accredation visit as routine, and he mentions calmly that recommendations from 2003 review remained unimplemented.

There's nothing routine or casual about the periodic review of an accrediting body, nor optional about its recommendations. Hopefully there are people in leadership at the school who "get it" more than the dean, who seems not to.
Click to expand...

We received the maximum 8 year accreditation in 2003. The LCME accreditation process is routine for every school and this was our year to go through the process again. I can assure you nobody at at our school views the accreditation process as a formality and LCME recommendations as merely suggestions.

I wouldn't be surprised to see an increase in the amount of schools that are handed down a probationary status from the LCME in the future. They seem to be cracking down and the amount of didactic lecture hours in favor of PBL and individual learning.
 
DocMcCoy said:
We received the maximum 8 year accreditation in 2003. The LCME accreditation process is routine for every school and this was our year to go through the process again. I can assure you nobody at at our school views the accreditation process as a formality and LCME recommendations as merely suggestions.

I wouldn't be surprised to see an increase in the amount of schools that are handed down a probationary status from the LCME in the future. They seem to be cracking down and the amount of didactic lecture hours in favor of PBL and individual learning.
Click to expand...

Which is why I think this whole thing is dumb to begin with. A medical school's curriculum style should be entirely their own to explore and tweak with as they see fit for their students.

Licensing is important of course to ensure that qualified and competent faculty exist, that the schools' hospital affiliations are sufficient and secure, that the students are meeting a certain standard in terms of board scores and match rates, that finances are in order, that no major conflicts of interest exist amongst the administration, that students are treated fairly, etc...

But forcing schools to adopt new-age teaching methods or nit-picking the number of hours students spend doing specific types of study is dumb. If a school and their student body prefer a primarily lecture-based, traditional approach to teaching the basic sciences, why not let them do that (UTSOMSA is not like this, they are in fact transitioning to a highly integrated curriculum next year)? Or if another school wants 100% PBL, that's fine too. Even if a student body/school decide that they value independent learning and gives students 3 days off a week to watch online lectures, sink their teeth into textbooks, do online interactive stuff, etc. and then only physically meet two times a week for a PBL case discussion and clinical skills development, why not let them experiment with that? Schools are extremely interested in their students USMLE success and will adapt and change whatever they need in order to ensure that happens. As long as incoming students know what the curriculum is like and the school is open about everything, who cares how much PBL they use? If a school uses a particular teaching technique more than others, then they will attract the students whose learning styles match that.

Maybe my ideas are dumb and naive, since I really have no experience with any of this. It just seems like common sense to me, though. And telling the public that a school is on "probation" gives the entirely wrong impression and damages its reputation in the community in ways that are entirely unfair given the specific grievances the LCME found.
 
O well. this was a school that I was going to apply to.

SC: When you guys said that the MD degree was an undergraduate degree, i was a little bit confused. I thought it was a professional doctorate.
 
Morzh said:
But forcing schools to adopt new-age teaching methods or nit-picking the number of hours students spend doing specific types of study is dumb. If a school and their student body prefer a primarily lecture-based, traditional approach to teaching the basic sciences, why not let them do that (UTSOMSA is not like this, they are in fact transitioning to a highly integrated curriculum next year)? Or if another school wants 100% PBL, that's fine too. Even if a student body/school decide that they value independent learning and gives students 3 days off a week to watch online lectures, sink their teeth into textbooks, do online interactive stuff, etc. and then only physically meet two times a week for a PBL case discussion and clinical skills development, why not let them experiment with that? Schools are extremely interested in their students USMLE success and will adapt and change whatever they need in order to ensure that happens. As long as incoming students know what the curriculum is like and the school is open about everything, who cares how much PBL they use? If a school uses a particular teaching technique more than others, then they will attract the students whose learning styles match that.

Maybe my ideas are dumb and naive, since I really have no experience with any of this. It just seems like common sense to me, though. And telling the public that a school is on "probation" gives the entirely wrong impression and damages its reputation in the community in ways that are entirely unfair given the specific grievances the LCME found.
Click to expand...

On some level, I agree that schools should be afforded some level of autonomy with respect to their curriculum. But what cursory awareness I have of educational methods (from friends involved in education) makes me feel that if there are improvements to be made that are generally beneficial, why not make them? I've been around long enough to say that PBL is not "new age" but has been worked on in various teaching settings for a long time, and I'd argue that mixing up the curriculum so that it's not 100% didactic (as what seems to be the LCME's vision here) is a good thing.
 
Mount Sinai said:
O well. this was a school that I was going to apply to.

SC: When you guys said that the MD degree was an undergraduate degree, i was a little bit confused. I thought it was a professional doctorate.
Click to expand...

Strictly speaking, a bachelor's degree isn't required to pursue an MD. In that sense, it is an undergraduate degree. It's also "undergraduate" in the sense that you are not qualified to perform in your intended career until you have received your degree, and also in the sense that you are still being educated in residencies and fellowships, which are "graduate medical education."

Med school is graduate education from the point of view of financial aid.
 
SitraAchra said:
Here we go again what? You stole a story from the Allo forum and then duplicate it in Pre-Allo?

You surely aren't comparing this to the SJB loss of accreditation.
Click to expand...

u-mad-bro.jpg


You must be trolling.
 
SitraAchra said:
Here we go again what? You stole a story from the Allo forum and then duplicate it in Pre-Allo?

You surely aren't comparing this to the SJB loss of accreditation.
Click to expand...

😕 This story does not "belong" to the Allo forum. Anyone could have accessed it from the news and that is where CB most likely got it from. Are you going to accuse the school-specific thread of stealing this story from Allo too? :laugh:
 
mauberley said:
On some level, I agree that schools should be afforded some level of autonomy with respect to their curriculum. But what cursory awareness I have of educational methods (from friends involved in education) makes me feel that if there are improvements to be made that are generally beneficial, why not make them? I've been around long enough to say that PBL is not "new age" but has been worked on in various teaching settings for a long time, and I'd argue that mixing up the curriculum so that it's not 100% didactic (as what seems to be the LCME's vision here) is a good thing.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I found PBL to be pathetic and "other" things were a waste of time in M1-M2. I don't see a problem with just all lectures for the basic sciences.
 
Suncrusher said:
"In a letter dated Oct. 14, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education notified Dr. William Henrich, president of the health science center, of its decision. The LCME first told the health science center it was considering probation after a January site visit.
The health science center had unsuccessfully appealed for a lesser penalty, and now has two years to correct the problems."

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...school-on-probation-2222609.php#ixzz1b4t5Ovyh


Did anyone catch this in the first article?
"...Dr. Flossy Eddins-Folensbee..."
what a delightfully southern name 😍
Click to expand...
Thanks link
 
KnuxNole said:
I disagree. I found PBL to be pathetic and "other" things were a waste of time in M1-M2. I don't see a problem with just all lectures for the basic sciences.
Click to expand...

Am I reading the citations incorrectly? From what I understand theres nothing about forcing them to do TBL, it seems more like they're saying that 8 lectures a day is excessive and creates an entirely passive learning experience. I don't go here so I really don't know but as a student I'd be bored to tears if I had 8 didactic lectures that I had to attend every day, and not to mention like no time to study.
 
eli20 said:
Am I reading the citations incorrectly? From what I understand theres nothing about forcing them to do TBL, it seems more like they're saying that 8 lectures a day is excessive and creates an entirely passive learning experience. I don't go here so I really don't know but as a student I'd be bored to tears if I had 8 didactic lectures that I had to attend every day, and not to mention like no time to study.
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yea they want us to use problem solving skills based on patient profiles and such.... kinda like House.... just sayin.
 
GandalfTheWhite said:
yea they want us to use problem solving skills based on patient profiles and such.... kinda like House.... just sayin.
Click to expand...

What exactly are you "sayin"? I never understand why people say "just sayin". It doesn't add anything to what you just said, so why say it? My guess is that people who consistently say this don't have comments that are well received because they lack substance, so they add the phrase "just sayin" and they think people will immediately tell themselves its okay because he/she was "just sayin". But in reality, you come across even dumber.

Sorry for the side rant, but I really can't stand that phrase. :laugh:
 
crprep23 said:
What exactly are you "sayin"? I never understand why people say "just sayin". It doesn't add anything to what you just said, so why say it? My guess is that people who consistently say this don't have comments that are well received because they lack substance, so they add the phrase "just sayin" and they think people will immediately tell themselves its okay because he/she was "just sayin". But in reality, you come across even dumber.

Sorry for the side rant, but I really can't stand that phrase. :laugh:
Click to expand...

Me too. Just sayin' 😉
 
KnuxNole said:
I disagree. I found PBL to be pathetic and "other" things were a waste of time in M1-M2. I don't see a problem with just all lectures for the basic sciences.
Click to expand...

That's a perfectly fair opinion to have. Just realize a couple of things:
- optimal learning is an individual characteristic
- implementations of PBL may vary

I can disagree with you by saying that I learn nothing from lectures and find them to be a waste of time. However, that says nothing about the validity of the LCME's goals in medical education, just as your personal experiences likely don't translate to the whole.
 
CodeBlu said:
Medicine and the MD degree are UNDERGRADUATE degrees... have you never wikipedia'd MD degree??? 😕 lol



Now I'm sorry, what was that about my investigative prowess you alluded to???
Click to expand...
don't be a dick, you say a lot of stupid **** too
 
crprep23 said:
What exactly are you "sayin"? I never understand why people say "just sayin". It doesn't add anything to what you just said, so why say it? My guess is that people who consistently say this don't have comments that are well received because they lack substance, so they add the phrase "just sayin" and they think people will immediately tell themselves its okay because he/she was "just sayin". But in reality, you come across even dumber.

Sorry for the side rant, but I really can't stand that phrase. :laugh:
Click to expand...

just sayin is the same as "my 2 cents" or FWIW. Just a little different than those two because FWIW is used to give advice. My 2 cents is generally used to counter an opinion previously stated without factual evidence.

just sayin is used to put forth new information where one action also leads towards an unintended consequence.



CodeBlu said:
Me too. Just sayin' 😉
Click to expand...
👍
 
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