Why is the burden of proof on me? You're talking out of your ass with a clear ax to grind against the school, and I'm speaking from direct experience. Find me an SGU or Ross student that, since the schools implemented this policy, was not placed in a clinical spot due to unavailability. These aren't "donations" as
@pseud0 stated, they are contracts. They are legal agreements with clear aforementioned ramifications for breaching them. Clinical placement is secured upon
matriculation into the program (
pending successful completion of MS1, and Ms2, of course), not upon reaching M3. You're arguing as if these middling details don't matter when they are actually really important. The details of this agreement are clearly stated in the acceptance letter. This is not some backroom deal brokered over cigars and bourbon by mustachioed men wearing monocles.
C'mon man wake up, they can say "pending" or use any amount of colorful language but they will weed you out of basic sciences so when they say "pending" it sounds like it's on you the student but you could give 100% and still be victim to the weed out process. I will agree that SGU probably has spots for all the third-year students unlike lesser Caribbean schools. I've looked at their clinical centers and all of their locations and it is impressive. I have no axe to grind with SGU. If you read my other post, I am actually working on reapplying to SGU in the future and I hope to succeed there. Only this time I have more experience than the average incoming applicant regarding what is expected of me as a Caribbean medical student.
Except for when those students report data that doesn't reinforce your false narrative, right? Because in case you missed it, I'm a former SGU student who was involved in school administration, successfully graduated without issue and secured a great residency, and now works with hospital administration in a program that recruits heavily from Caribbean and foreign medical schools. I'm far from an expert, and don't claim to be, but I also didn't just start googling stuff and call it "research," either. I'm reporting to you that you are wrong. Y
ou make it sound like you know how things work behind the scenes over at SGU. I don't doubt that you might have "worked" with some people but I highly doubt they shared all the inner workings with you. I can't produce a document or a voice recording but I have heard from my sources that a professor in Grenada told the students in one of the undergraduate programs that administration says "don't pass everyone from pre-med to term 1" as encouragement for their upcoming exam. Sure it's pre-med but it's still SGU and it says a lot. Notice, I am not speaking or criticizing anything about SGU regarding third and fourth year and beyond. My issue with SGU and the whole Caribbean system for that matter is what is happening during basic sciences and the admissions process. Every one of these schools is working with figure "X" which represents clinical positions. Clinical positions are less than the incoming first term class and I believe they can even fluctuate considerably. I'm even saying SGU is more fair in this regard compared to the lesser schools. But you can't argue that if SGU is taking 1000 students per term that SGU somehow has 2000 clinical spots for those students. If they do, produce a document and I will cease this discussion. Now of course this idea is much worse, if not scary, at a lesser school.
Are you serious? Find me an overworked sleep-deprived resident (or an attending for that matter!) that doesn't say that medical school isn't worth it. We're all drama queens when it comes to valuing our professional selves. 50% of doctors claim they wouldn't choose medicine again as a career. This is an anecdote, not a statistic.
Oh he wasn't saying medical school wasn't worth it. I asked him about SGU and he said SGU WAS NOT WORTH IT.
Clearly you haven't been following these forums for very long then, because I've been a pretty vocal critic of my own school and Caribbean med education in general since I joined these forums some 5 years ago. But of course you don't want to hear that nuance, because it doesn't fit this black/white paradigm that you seem so interested in peddling.
The problem I have with what you are saying is that you are making it seem like there is no risk involved for the good student or the hard worker or something along those lines. I'm saying that even at SGU, you are not safe till you are matched. To be fair, OK, you graduated you matched, you've moved on and you would want to promote that to a prospective student. But I have a hard time believing that SGU was a walk in the park even for you. I am promoting awareness to the prospective student.