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can current western u students give some input/review to your clinical year rotation sites? thank you in advance.
Your current list
Alhambra Hospital Medical Center, Alhambra, CA
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Colton, CA
Doctor's Hospital of Montclair, Montclair, CA
Downey Regional Medical Center, Downey, CA
Chino Valley Medical Center, Chino, CA
Corona Regional Medical Center, Corona, CA
Garfield Medical Center, Monterey Park, CA
Kaiser Permanente, Fontana, CA
Marian Medical Center, Santa Maria, CA
North Orange County Pediatrics, Placentia, CA
Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, Long Beach, CA
Patton State Hospital, San Bernardino, CA
Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, Pomona, CA
Citrus Valley Medical Center, San Bernardino, CA
Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center, Downey, CA
Riverside County Regional Medical Center, Moreno Valley, CA
San Antonio Community Hospital, Upland, CA
San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, Rialto, CA
St. Jude Medical Center, Fullerton, CA
Ventura Community Memorial Hospital, Ventura, CA
Western University of Health Sciences Patient Care Center, Pomona, CA
This is what i found from 2007
Originally Posted by Jinyaoysiu
The ones that I talk about below are some of the most major sites that >80% if not close to 90% of all rotations are done at. The ones that I don't mention probably get a couple of students per month from Western, all good nontheless.
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center & Riverside County Regional Medical Center.
Both large county facilities. Arrowhead basically is THE country hospital of San Bernadino County, which is the county immediately east of LA county, one of the fastest growing areas in population in the USA. Arrowhead has new, state of the art facility and is one of the nicest county-type hospitals there is. At both places you get high volume and good pathology and you will work hard and learn a lot.
Downey Regional Medical Center & Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center
These are 2 community hospitals that are larger in scale than many community hospitals. Downey is centrally located in Los Angeles by the 605 and 105 and it's also an osteopathic hospital and one of the larger ones in the country, so there's hospital-based OMT incorproated into their care. Pomona Valley is right next to Western's campus, nice facility, and has more private patients. Both places have good teaching, and lots of work, and my feeling is that Downey is a tougher site with more county like patients and longer hours and work the students hard like residents.
City of Hope
Nationally famous cancer center(look it up) where students do their general surgery rotations, oncology electives and the likes of it. Some say the pathology is not as varied because it's mostly cancer, but as a MS3, the opportunity here is awesome and cancer is more interesting and complexed to do than appendicitis. Either way there's lots to be learned.
Rancho Los Amigos
Nationally famous rehab center(look it up), an USC/LA county site, where the iron lung/early ventilators were invented and played an important role in the modern history of medicine. Its current status, like many LA county facilities, pales in comparison of what it used to be, but nontheless the faculty, teaching, structure, pathology are strong. Even though it's a rehab center, obviously that's not the only service they provide, and it's where some students do core internal med and subspecialty rotations(endocrine, ID, ICU..etc), PM&R rotations, some ortho/urology/surgical..etc, with weekly grand rounds at USC.
Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Osteopathic community hospital in Long Beach close to the ocean. Many students do rotations here but it's a smaller hospital compared to other Western sites. However it has diverse patient population(downtown Long Beach urban, surburbia Long Beach, retired senior citizens, latino immigrants, ..etc) with good pathology, good teaching, and again like other Western sites, they give you lots of autonomy and MS3 get worked like residents.
Patton State Hospital Large state prison where they house the criminally insane. The psych rotation here is amazing and an unmatched opportunity in which a medical student gets see such interesting and rare pathology in abundance. Med director is a Western grad and lectures on campus.
Children's Hospital Orange County & North Orange County Pediatrics Famous peds hospital. I think for peds most students rotate at Arrowhead/Riverside, then these are good but further sites in addition.
Alhambra Hospital & Garfield Medical Center Both community hospitals with good facilities but not too many rotations are done here, i think its mostly family med and internal med for a couple of students per month, but I thought i'd mention it because these 2 are unique in that the patient population is mostly Asian and I hear mostly Chinese speaking. So the students that pick those sites are interested in such patient population and it's good for diversity if you want it.
Thanks for your feedback. I hope you don't mind me sharing some of my first-hand experience here at sites I've rotated at so far...
Rancho Los Amigos: On my rotation there, I saw around 1-2 patients PER DAY. We had a lecture about 3 times a week. That was it. Not the best experience for 3rd year.
Pacific Hospital of Long Beach: Everybody I've spoken to (in 3rd an 4th year that rotated here) agrees that you do not see enough patients in the FP rotation, the OB rotation has close to ZERO gyn and hence does not prepare you well for the shelf exam. I experienced only 1 rotation here and could not agree more.
North Orange County Pediatrics: This is an outpatient clinic which pretty much only sees well baby checks, physical exams before school starts and a few rash or injury typicallly seen in outpatient. On top of that, the student isn't allowed to take history or do a physical. You can only shadow like in undergrad. That, my friend, cannot provide good clinical training or preparation for the shelf exam.
City of Hope: This might be a good sub-specialty for a surgeon going into oncology, but for a general surgery rotation for 3rd years? I don't think so. You're worked all day M-F giving enough time to drive home and sleep. Then you're tested on the shelf exam, known to be one of the hardest, on general surgery.
As you can see, a common theme here is inadequate training and preperation for the shelf exam. If you're interested in any competitive specialty, you better be honoring your 3rd year rotations (one recent study showed significant results that program directors look at these grades as the most important when deciding to invite you for an interview - more important than Step 1). With inadequate prep for the shelf exam, you can forget about your honors evaluations as the school requires you to HONOR the MD shelf exams written by the NBME in order to honor the rotation. Keep in mind - the school started using the above grading with the shelf exam last year so we have not had a class match yet after having to let go of their honors evals. This is not bashing the school, just making sure the pre-DOs take the glorifying posts by above poster with a grain of salt.
Your current list
Alhambra Hospital Medical Center, Alhambra, CA
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Colton, CA
Doctor's Hospital of Montclair, Montclair, CA
Downey Regional Medical Center, Downey, CA
Chino Valley Medical Center, Chino, CA
Corona Regional Medical Center, Corona, CA
Garfield Medical Center, Monterey Park, CA
Kaiser Permanente, Fontana, CA
Marian Medical Center, Santa Maria, CA
North Orange County Pediatrics, Placentia, CA
Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, Long Beach, CA
Patton State Hospital, San Bernardino, CA
Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, Pomona, CA
Citrus Valley Medical Center, San Bernardino, CA
Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center, Downey, CA
Riverside County Regional Medical Center, Moreno Valley, CA
San Antonio Community Hospital, Upland, CA
San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, Rialto, CA
St. Jude Medical Center, Fullerton, CA
Ventura Community Memorial Hospital, Ventura, CA
Western University of Health Sciences Patient Care Center, Pomona, CA
This is what i found from 2007
Originally Posted by Jinyaoysiu
The ones that I talk about below are some of the most major sites that >80% if not close to 90% of all rotations are done at. The ones that I don't mention probably get a couple of students per month from Western, all good nontheless.
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center & Riverside County Regional Medical Center.
Both large county facilities. Arrowhead basically is THE country hospital of San Bernadino County, which is the county immediately east of LA county, one of the fastest growing areas in population in the USA. Arrowhead has new, state of the art facility and is one of the nicest county-type hospitals there is. At both places you get high volume and good pathology and you will work hard and learn a lot.
Downey Regional Medical Center & Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center
These are 2 community hospitals that are larger in scale than many community hospitals. Downey is centrally located in Los Angeles by the 605 and 105 and it's also an osteopathic hospital and one of the larger ones in the country, so there's hospital-based OMT incorproated into their care. Pomona Valley is right next to Western's campus, nice facility, and has more private patients. Both places have good teaching, and lots of work, and my feeling is that Downey is a tougher site with more county like patients and longer hours and work the students hard like residents.
City of Hope
Nationally famous cancer center(look it up) where students do their general surgery rotations, oncology electives and the likes of it. Some say the pathology is not as varied because it's mostly cancer, but as a MS3, the opportunity here is awesome and cancer is more interesting and complexed to do than appendicitis. Either way there's lots to be learned.
Rancho Los Amigos
Nationally famous rehab center(look it up), an USC/LA county site, where the iron lung/early ventilators were invented and played an important role in the modern history of medicine. Its current status, like many LA county facilities, pales in comparison of what it used to be, but nontheless the faculty, teaching, structure, pathology are strong. Even though it's a rehab center, obviously that's not the only service they provide, and it's where some students do core internal med and subspecialty rotations(endocrine, ID, ICU..etc), PM&R rotations, some ortho/urology/surgical..etc, with weekly grand rounds at USC.
Pacific Hospital Long Beach
Osteopathic community hospital in Long Beach close to the ocean. Many students do rotations here but it's a smaller hospital compared to other Western sites. However it has diverse patient population(downtown Long Beach urban, surburbia Long Beach, retired senior citizens, latino immigrants, ..etc) with good pathology, good teaching, and again like other Western sites, they give you lots of autonomy and MS3 get worked like residents.
Patton State Hospital Large state prison where they house the criminally insane. The psych rotation here is amazing and an unmatched opportunity in which a medical student gets see such interesting and rare pathology in abundance. Med director is a Western grad and lectures on campus.
Children's Hospital Orange County & North Orange County Pediatrics Famous peds hospital. I think for peds most students rotate at Arrowhead/Riverside, then these are good but further sites in addition.
Alhambra Hospital & Garfield Medical Center Both community hospitals with good facilities but not too many rotations are done here, i think its mostly family med and internal med for a couple of students per month, but I thought i'd mention it because these 2 are unique in that the patient population is mostly Asian and I hear mostly Chinese speaking. So the students that pick those sites are interested in such patient population and it's good for diversity if you want it.
Thanks for your feedback. I hope you don't mind me sharing some of my first-hand experience here at sites I've rotated at so far...
Rancho Los Amigos: On my rotation there, I saw around 1-2 patients PER DAY. We had a lecture about 3 times a week. That was it. Not the best experience for 3rd year.
Pacific Hospital of Long Beach: Everybody I've spoken to (in 3rd an 4th year that rotated here) agrees that you do not see enough patients in the FP rotation, the OB rotation has close to ZERO gyn and hence does not prepare you well for the shelf exam. I experienced only 1 rotation here and could not agree more.
North Orange County Pediatrics: This is an outpatient clinic which pretty much only sees well baby checks, physical exams before school starts and a few rash or injury typicallly seen in outpatient. On top of that, the student isn't allowed to take history or do a physical. You can only shadow like in undergrad. That, my friend, cannot provide good clinical training or preparation for the shelf exam.
City of Hope: This might be a good sub-specialty for a surgeon going into oncology, but for a general surgery rotation for 3rd years? I don't think so. You're worked all day M-F giving enough time to drive home and sleep. Then you're tested on the shelf exam, known to be one of the hardest, on general surgery.
As you can see, a common theme here is inadequate training and preperation for the shelf exam. If you're interested in any competitive specialty, you better be honoring your 3rd year rotations (one recent study showed significant results that program directors look at these grades as the most important when deciding to invite you for an interview - more important than Step 1). With inadequate prep for the shelf exam, you can forget about your honors evaluations as the school requires you to HONOR the MD shelf exams written by the NBME in order to honor the rotation. Keep in mind - the school started using the above grading with the shelf exam last year so we have not had a class match yet after having to let go of their honors evals. This is not bashing the school, just making sure the pre-DOs take the glorifying posts by above poster with a grain of salt.
