"You should not be sleeping more than 5 hours per night" - Student Services Director

[Stagg737]

I realize this is the MD side of the house, but I thought I'd mention that several DO schools aren't too far off from this. There were weeks first year when we'd have upwards of 30 hours of required coursework on campus. Usually it'd be more like 25, but still. MS2 is much better in that regard, as we're done with our year of anatomy lab. No matter what though, we've got 4 or sometimes 5 hours of lectures in the AM. We can wear headphones if it's not a guest lecturer, and we can skip up to 20 percent of our AM lectures, but any more than that and we get called before the Academic Committee. We're also part of the "required seats and camera" club someone up-thread mentioned.

We have assigned seating and they take a picture of our class every day to take attendance. If we miss more than 10%, we have to remediate unless you have a major illness but they have to independently verify the condition with one of the school's physician faculty.

We have some students that try to study during class, but we have pop iClicker quizzes a couple times per week that usually count for 15-20% of our grade per class. Usually it's on material that was presented that day and not on previous lectures.

To the bolded, what the actual f***. That sounds like some twisted version of a modern medical 1984. Sorry to say OP, but your med school sounds like they have no idea what they're doing.

To the non-bolded, we had the clicker quizzes too, but we would only have 1 about a week before each path test to give us an idea if we were on the right track with studying. They were also only 5 points, so even if you skipped and got a 0 you'd only lose 3-4% of your overall grade.

Erm...did anyone else catch this? That isn't okay. Faculty isn't privy to any of your medical conditions unless you volunteer that information. You do not have to disclose anything.

I did, and I'm also still trying figure out how no students have spoken out about this since it is actually illegal and the school could get sued for it. I was honestly starting to think OP was a 10/10 troll until I saw some other people have had the same experiences. Sounds like the only troll in this thread is whatever school OP goes to...

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[Localnative]

So here's an executive summary of my situation:
-I attend a school with mandatory attendance
-This block is particularly dense material
-Our lectures are very poorly structured, to the point where I can only reasonably learn from outside resources
-Even with good time management, I have been unable to find enough hours in a day to study all of our school's lectures and find any spare time for outside resources
-I went to our school's guidance center for some advice, and they identified my sleeping hours as the problem

I'm former military, so I'm asleep by 10pm and awake by 5am. I usually exercise in the morning, review material for an hour, and make a good breakfast before leaving for class (starts at 8am). Our lectures are mandatory and run until 4pm (including labs) on most days. Headphones in class are not allowed.

By the time I get home at ~4:30pm, I dive right into studying and 5.5 hours is just not enough time for me to get through 4 lectures of material and eat dinner. I've tried pre-studying slides prior to class, to get more out of class time, but I've found our lectures to be very disorganized and difficult to follow.

To this point I have been getting decent grades, typically in the low A or high B range, but I'm struggling this block and I find it difficult to believe that allocating ~14 hours per day to med school is not enough to comfortably get through the material. So I went to the guidance center to see if they could identify any flaws in my study habits, and they recommend I go to sleep two hours later because it's unreasonable to expect to get 7 hours of sleep per night as a medical student.

Would you all say their assessment is accurate? And if anyone has any additional recommendations I would love to hear them.

would not petition your school, that could fuel some fire. they sound fairly unreasonable and could make your life a living hell if they find out you are at the helm of some student protest

Take yourself out of the equation for any surgical residency. This practically defines how those programs are structured.

I'm pretty sure Warren Zevon was an aspiring med student. see "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead"

GL. You're military, I'm sure you have a thick skin around that sleep/wake cycle of yours.

 

[libertyyne]

Can you please share the name of the school so other people can not make the same mistake of going there?

 

[Affiche]

Can you please share the name of the school so other people can not make the same mistake of going there?

It's a DO school. Other people can do their own research from there. You should know your school's attendance policy before matriculating anyway.

 

[bananafish94]

We have assigned seating and they take a picture of our class every day to take attendance. If we miss more than 10%, we have to remediate unless you have a major illness but they have to independently verify the condition with one of the school's physician faculty.

I'm just curious to know what the rationale behind this is in the first place. It's monumentally inefficient, lowers morale, makes it more difficult for people to study...who exactly benefits here?

 

[order66.exe]

Do the tests/quizzes tend to be based off the lecture slides or the lecture? If the former, just be one day ahead in terms of material and use class time to study/make flash cards. It will be difficult to zone the lecturers out at first but eventually it will just become white noise.

 

[Azete]

I'm just curious to know what the rationale behind this is in the first place. It's monumentally inefficient, lowers morale, makes it more difficult for people to study...who exactly benefits here?

We have an attendance policy at our school, not nearly as strict as OP, but one of the faculty told me that it exists because 1) apparently "studies" have shown students that attend lecture perform better, and 2) lecturers don't like talking to an empty lecture hall so it's more difficult for them to get good guest lecturers if nobody shows up.

I don't agree with either of the above, but that's the logic.

 

[Chromium Surfer]

It's a DO school. Other people can do their own research from there. You should know your school's attendance policy before matriculating anyway.

I'm surprised OP went to a DO school. I remember back when he posted in the WAMC after getting horrible advice from the premed advisor because he was in the military. He had supe high stats, in addition to his unique story. I would have assumed he would have gone MD.

 

[Mr Roboto]

Not trying to expose anyone, but this really sounds like VCOM...

I had similar thoughts. Sounds like the Auburn campus, possibly Carolina.

 

[750335]

Reading this thread for OP has to be what it feels like to be any type of surgical resident looking at derm residents and their normal hours.

I agree with @libertyyne what is the name/s of these schools? Not sure why the need to protect them when they clearly aren't doing the same for you.

 

[purplefrog13]

That really sucks. I agree with above- don't cut sleep, exercise, nutrition. Just make sure you are maximizing your time--are there videos you can listen to on your drive?

Make sure you're actively listening/studying during lecture, since you are forced to be there and have iClicker quizzes. If you've got 10 or 15 minutes between lectures, that's long enough to do a quick pass through the material you just covered- summarize each page of notes, or link concepts across lectures for better memory recall, or write 3-5 questions that you can use to test yourself later, etc.

Has there been anything from previous blocks that you've done study wise that you've found after the exam didn't help? I hope that makes sense. i.e maybe you made flashcards, but only used them once. Or maybe you read in-depth before class, but didn't understand everything til after lecture and had to read again.

You're study habits probably aren't the issue, but it doesn't seem like anything else will be flexible. While your study habits are good, there might be ways they could be improved that will help you keep up with material.

 

[Affiche]

The name of the school doesn't matter and you guys need to stop speculating and posting. If OP wants to stay anonymous, leave it alone. It isn't respectful or helpful to OP to try and out which school he's at when he's clearly left it out of his posts.

 

[Lannister]

We can wear headphones if it's not a guest lecturer

Lol. "You have to be here for lecture! You can pay no attention and study other things...but you have to be here!" Makes sooo much sense!

 

[750335]

Has OP explicitly said he doesn't want to identify the school? Until s/he says it, it is a fair question.

 

[mehc012]

We have an attendance policy at our school, not nearly as strict as OP, but one of the faculty told me that it exists because 1) apparently "studies" have shown students that attend lecture perform better, and 2) lecturers don't like talking to an empty lecture hall so it's more difficult for them to get good guest lecturers if nobody shows up.

I don't agree with either of the above, but that's the logic.

Even so, there are other solutions...the second argument there is the reason that our school cites for not recording their lectures. I think it gives a nice balance in that it encourages people to attend, but those who are there CHOSE to be there and mostly pay attention. And the quality of the lecturers has been, for the most part, pretty great.

 

[Affiche]

Reading this thread for OP has to be what it feels like to be any type of surgical resident looking at derm residents and their normal hours.

I agree with @libertyyne what is the name/s of these schools? Not sure why the need to protect them when they clearly aren't doing the same for you.

Has OP explicitly said he doesn't want to identify the school? Until s/he says it, it is a fair question.

I see you're kind of new here. It's actually against SDN ToS to try and "out" a member. So, looking up the attendance policy at schools and posting which one you think OP is at when OP hasn't himself disclosed this info, isn't okay. You are capable of checking into the attendance policy of the schools you are applying to, so please do so without compromising the OP's anonymity here.

The need for anonymity is less about protecting the school and more about protecting himself. For that reason, I advise that he does not disclose it.

 

[750335]

I see you're kind of new here. It's actually against SDN ToS to try and "out" a member. So, looking up the attendance policy at schools and posting which one you think OP is at when OP hasn't himself disclosed this info, isn't okay. You are capable of checking into the attendance policy of the schools you are applying to, so please do so without compromising the OP's anonymity here.

The need for anonymity is less about protecting the school and more about protecting himself. For that reason, I advise that he does not disclose it.

I'm not new here, the account is and although I can understand your advice, and he certainly is well within his rights to agree, the question itself is fair. I assume OP also checked the attendance policy of said school yet here he is. Sometimes things don't translate quite as well till you are living it.

 

[Azete]

I'm not new here, the account is and although I can understand your advice, and he certainly is well within his rights to agree, the question itself is fair. I assume OP also checked the attendance policy of said school yet here he is. Sometimes things don't translate quite as well till you are living it.

The big problem with applying to med schools, without having experienced med school, is you don't tend to think things like mandatory attendance or dedicated boards study are a big deal. Everyone just thinks "oh that's fine, I'll just pay attention in class and everything will be fine."

Then two weeks into M1 you realize "oh ****...."

 

[Affiche]

I'm not new here, the account is and although I can understand your advice, and he certainly is well within his rights to agree, the question itself is fair. I assume OP also checked the attendance policy of said school yet here he is. Sometimes things don't translate quite as well till you are living it.

Was giving you the benefit of the doubt, silly me.

The question is fine, but people weren't just asking. I think my posts stated pretty clearly that it's not okay to post names of schools to try and figure out where he is. In any case, OP started the thread for advice, not to have every other post ask him to sacrifice his anonymity to appease a bunch of pre-meds. This is how threads get derailed and closed without actually providing help to the OP.

And to your last point, you can see and understand the effect of an attendance policy without knowing which school has said policy. Do some research. Plenty of threads on here where people complain about attendance. Look into the policies at each school you've been accepted to and make the decision that's best for you.

 

[Affiche]

To get this thread back on track:

OP, I'm sorry you're dealing with this and the best advice I'd offer is to figure out which lecturers you learn from and which ones you don't. Pay attention/take notes during the good lectures, make/review Anki cards or outline lectures for the ones that wasting your time. Wear ear plugs to class if you need to concentrate.

Keep getting a full night of sleep. I agree with @Crayola227 though that 2 hours every morning to exercise and eat breakfast can be condensed. 30 minutes of exercise + shower + quick breakfast on the go gives you another hour to study. I have never had an hour for breakfast before class and I eat a very clean, healthy diet.

 

[750335]

The big problem with applying to med schools, without having experienced med school, is you don't tend to think things like mandatory attendance or dedicated boards study are a big deal. Everyone just thinks "oh that's fine, I'll just pay attention in class and everything will be fine."

Then two weeks into M1 you realize "oh ****...."

My point exactly. When I applied to a few schools with mandatory attendance or letter grades, I felt like sure, I can do this but then the more you know you start to regret that decision.

Was giving you the benefit of the doubt, silly me.

The question is fine, but people weren't just asking. I think my posts stated pretty clearly that it's not okay to post names of schools to try and figure out where he is. In any case, OP started the thread for advice, not to have every other post ask him to sacrifice his anonymity to appease a bunch of pre-meds. This is how threads get derailed and closed without actually providing help to the OP.

And to your last point, you can see and understand the effect of an attendance policy without knowing which school has said policy. Do some research. Plenty of threads on here where people complain about attendance. Look into the policies at each school you've been accepted to and make the decision that's best for you.

Like I said, if OP agrees with you then sure, but let him/her say they feel like you do. Until then, you and I should leave it be.

 

[TheTruckGuy]

Yup. That's pretty much crap. The problem is that if you complain, I bet they'll just say something like "well everyone else seems to be doing it" or "other classes before you have been able to do it." I would suggest all students secretly just not show up to class one day as protest, but I'd bet that there are enough gunners in that class that would either tattle or show up to class anyways to make it not work out.

I will say that you can probably take solace in the fact that most of your class is suffering as well, and probably doing worse than you academically and physically. I made the decision about half way through my M1 year that I wouldn't let my health suffer just to make grades, and my grades came up slightly while my health and diet improved a lot. I lost sight of that during my surgical rotation, and when I planned on going into surgery, but then I looked at myself and saw all the weight I'd lost, and ended up switching specialties. Now I'm happy, healthy, and feel pretty good and don't hate myself for choosing a career in medicine.

Hang in their OP, it gets better after 3rd year. If I was in your place I would probably do something that could get me into trouble, so I'm not going to give you any advice.

 

[Goro]

My gawd, what penal colony is this????? You're adult learners, for God's sake, not 7th graders!

You have my sympathies, and I suggest that you start giving the Dean, and the Dean of Curriculum an earful. Not merely "this is unfair", but with data that shows that alternative curricula, like TBL and flipped curricula, produce better test scores and, I believe, even Boards scores. There's data out there that "the sage ont he stage" is one of the least effective means of teaching. So get on to Pubmed!

We have assigned seating and they take a picture of our class every day to take attendance. If we miss more than 10%, we have to remediate unless you have a major illness but they have to independently verify the condition with one of the school's physician faculty.

We usually have 4 lectures between 8-noon, and then we have afternoon labs from 1-4 3 days per week. The other two days we usually have some type of mandatory clinical skills class or guest speaker or ethics seminar. On average, we get one day every 2 weeks or so that we're home before 4pm.

We have some students that try to study during class, but we have pop iClicker quizzes a couple times per week that usually count for 15-20% of our grade per class. Usually it's on material that was presented that day and not on previous lectures.

EDIT: Any Dean who pulls this is full of crap. There is a movement away from lecture based curriculums, with evidence to back it up, that flipped curricula are better at driving learning, retention, and test scores at the medical school level. And yeah, previous classes may have handled it, but switching to different system would drive up scores AND more importantly, make for happier students.

Yup. That's pretty much crap. The problem is that if you complain, I bet they'll just say something like "well everyone else seems to be doing it" or "other classes before you have been able to do it." I would suggest all students secretly just not show up to class one day as protest, but I'd bet that there are enough gunners in that class that would either tattle or show up to class anyways to make it not work out.

 

[Crayola227]

Some schools have various reasons they're quite worried about Step 1 pass rates & scores, and these are their misguided attempts to address this. In case anyone was wondering why.

I don't know what research is out there about medical education strategies & Step 1 performance, but it might be worth looking at if you do go forward with an insurrection.

 

[Crayola227]

My point exactly. When I applied to a few schools with mandatory attendance or letter grades, I felt like sure, I can do this but then the more you know you start to regret that decision.


Like I said, if OP agrees with you then sure, but let him/her say they feel like you do. Until then, you and I should leave it be.

No, I agree that @Affiche is being proactive to protect anonymity before it can be outed or a thread closed. Once the cat is out of the bag you can't recork that bottle.

Anonymity is one of the most closely guarded things on this board, and it is something we look after as we look out for one another. It is part of the culture here, that you see people that have been around for a while jump in & discourage this sort of speculation.

All of this is why the OP doesn't have to ask other members to help police this. There was more than one member in this thread that could be affected.

Often it is this sort of open speculation by other members that limits some of the potentially useful information people will post.

Speculating what school this is should happen in private & not on this board. You can ask the OP here or by PM, but no one should be googling to see what school this is & discussing that on the open thread. Period. It is against the spirit of this board and a sacred tenet of the TOS.

Just thought I'd clue you in

 

[Stagg737]

It's a DO school. Other people can do their own research from there. You should know your school's attendance policy before matriculating anyway.

Based on the comments of some other users who believe they go to the same school, I'm fairly confident this is actually an MD school. Given that others have come to this thread and said they have similar policies at their schools (some DO, some MD), I think it's somewhat clear that this isn't unique to one school.

Imo if there is any lesson to learn from this thread, it's to ask about the curriculum and policies of the school in-depth on interview days and try and contact current students. While I do have sympathy for those who have to deal with being treated like children, I think we also need to keep in mind that the students attending those schools chose to apply there and matriculate.

 

[futuremdforme]

Based on the comments of some other users who believe they go to the same school, I'm fairly confident this is actually an MD school. Given that others have come to this thread and said they have similar policies at their schools (some DO, some MD), I think it's somewhat clear that this isn't unique to one school.

Imo if there is any lesson to learn from this thread, it's to ask about the curriculum and policies of the school in-depth on interview days and try and contact current students. While I do have sympathy for those who have to deal with being treated like children, I think we also need to keep in mind that the students attending those schools chose to apply there and matriculate.

It is insane that this occurs at multiple schools. Current students cannot speak out, but I would hope alumnae, as they find secure employment, can. Med school is hard enough already with supportive faculty. With a 1984 admin, complete conflict of interest physician faculty, and a grading system designed to make the school get terrible Step 1 scores, no wonder there is such high burnout.

 

[Crayola227]

Yes I will second that I was accepted to an *MD* school with this sort of policy.
That would have been for loved one reasons. I had other choices.

Just to lay to rest that the issue of Draconian attendence policies are an MD vs DO school issue. And that the reasons for applying to and picking one school over another can be complex.

Policies can even change after acceptance to school or residency.

This is why it is essential to be adaptable, committed, able to deal with ambiguity & adversity, and accept that if it's not just one block or attendence policy or evil Dean or Program Director, or patient presentation, that medicine will always find ways to present you with challenges that take you to your limits of ability/coping.

That makes it rewarding and terrifying.

TLDR
This isn't the last or only way that medicine finds to dick you hard in your career. It's fine if you like to get dicked hard.

Also, quit with the DO vs MD crap. In the long run, ie after 4 years, that will have little to do with all the stupid admin & policies you will deal with your whole career.

 

[Bootes]

We have an attendance policy at our school, not nearly as strict as OP, but one of the faculty told me that it exists because 1) apparently "studies" have shown students that attend lecture perform better, and 2) lecturers don't like talking to an empty lecture hall so it's more difficult for them to get good guest lecturers if nobody shows up.

I don't agree with either of the above, but that's the logic.

My administration has been considering an attendance policy and looked into studies about this, they found no link between attendance and grades.

I'm a dental student, but honestly there is little doubt in my mind that my previous semester would have gone way better if I had skipped more lectures.

 

[hopefulERdoc251]

So here's an executive summary of my situation:
-I attend a school with mandatory attendance
-This block is particularly dense material
-Our lectures are very poorly structured, to the point where I can only reasonably learn from outside resources
-Even with good time management, I have been unable to find enough hours in a day to study all of our school's lectures and find any spare time for outside resources
-I went to our school's guidance center for some advice, and they identified my sleeping hours as the problem

I'm former military, so I'm asleep by 10pm and awake by 5am. I usually exercise in the morning, review material for an hour, and make a good breakfast before leaving for class (starts at 8am). Our lectures are mandatory and run until 4pm (including labs) on most days. Headphones in class are not allowed.

By the time I get home at ~4:30pm, I dive right into studying and 5.5 hours is just not enough time for me to get through 4 lectures of material and eat dinner. I've tried pre-studying slides prior to class, to get more out of class time, but I've found our lectures to be very disorganized and difficult to follow.

To this point I have been getting decent grades, typically in the low A or high B range, but I'm struggling this block and I find it difficult to believe that allocating ~14 hours per day to med school is not enough to comfortably get through the material. So I went to the guidance center to see if they could identify any flaws in my study habits, and they recommend I go to sleep two hours later because it's unreasonable to expect to get 7 hours of sleep per night as a medical student.

Would you all say their assessment is accurate? And if anyone has any additional recommendations I would love to hear them.

That is absolutely incorrect. We do not have mandatory attendance, but I go to all the lectures because I don't trust myself to be dedicated to watch the lectures out of class, and I find a way to get 7-8 hours of sleep. Only time I fringe on that is during exam week.

 

[cellsaver]

.

 

[mehc012]

That is absolutely incorrect. We do not have mandatory attendance, but I go to all the lectures because I don't trust myself to be dedicated to watch the lectures out of class, and I find a way to get 7-8 hours of sleep. Only time I fringe on that is during exam week.

Depends on the school, though. Do your lectures go until 4 every day? Because that is not universal across medical schools. I get plenty of sleep despite also going to all the non-required lectures, but that's because our lectures end at noon pretty much every day and we get a full weekday off every week (it's the only day with recorded lectures and they are always review lectures, not new material). It'd be a different story if we were stuck there until 4. By 4 most of my classmates have attended all lectures, gone to the gym, gotten lunch, and gotten a few hours of studying in...I can't imagine how much it would suck to be starting your day after.

 

[IslandStyle808]

Depends on the school, though. Do your lectures go until 4 every day? Because that is not universal across medical schools. I get plenty of sleep despite also going to all the non-required lectures, but that's because our lectures end at noon pretty much every day and we get a full weekday off every week (it's the only day with recorded lectures and they are always review lectures, not new material). It'd be a different story if we were stuck there until 4. By 4 most of my classmates have attended all lectures, gone to the gym, gotten lunch, and gotten a few hours of studying in...I can't imagine how much it would suck to be starting your day after.

Yep schools are different, I have some days where it goes till 5pm, luckily that there are 2 days where class goes till 12pm. I am luck that my class are not mandatory also (I thought they were initially), but professors have their ways of making us come to class even with the policy. It sucks hard having to go to a school with >26 credits per week.

 

[Ace Khalifa]

My condolences to OP and everyone else who is forced to attend lectures every day. I can't imagine having to go to campus every day for 4+ hours just to sit in class.

 

[mehc012]

Yep schools are different, I have some days where it goes till 5pm, luckily that there are 2 days where class goes till 12pm. I am lucky that my class are not mandatory also (I thought they were initially), but professors have their ways of making us come to class even with the policy. It sucks hard having to go to a school with >26 credits per week.

I'm confused...where do credits come in? Are we talking undergrad all of a sudden?

 

[UBC2014]

So here's an executive summary of my situation:
-I attend a school with mandatory attendance
-This block is particularly dense material
-Our lectures are very poorly structured, to the point where I can only reasonably learn from outside resources
-Even with good time management, I have been unable to find enough hours in a day to study all of our school's lectures and find any spare time for outside resources
-I went to our school's guidance center for some advice, and they identified my sleeping hours as the problem

I'm former military, so I'm asleep by 10pm and awake by 5am. I usually exercise in the morning, review material for an hour, and make a good breakfast before leaving for class (starts at 8am). Our lectures are mandatory and run until 4pm (including labs) on most days. Headphones in class are not allowed.

By the time I get home at ~4:30pm, I dive right into studying and 5.5 hours is just not enough time for me to get through 4 lectures of material and eat dinner. I've tried pre-studying slides prior to class, to get more out of class time, but I've found our lectures to be very disorganized and difficult to follow.

To this point I have been getting decent grades, typically in the low A or high B range, but I'm struggling this block and I find it difficult to believe that allocating ~14 hours per day to med school is not enough to comfortably get through the material. So I went to the guidance center to see if they could identify any flaws in my study habits, and they recommend I go to sleep two hours later because it's unreasonable to expect to get 7 hours of sleep per night as a medical student.

Would you all say their assessment is accurate? And if anyone has any additional recommendations I would love to hear them.

I'm going to go ahead and say it: Your guidence counsellor is a ****ing idiot. Full stop.

This is why mandatory lectures are utter and complete **** - not everyone learns the same way. The goal of medical school should be to help an individual student find what works for them, to do well and succeed and become a great physician. Not follow b.s. rules for the sake of it.

I am so sorry for the situation you're in. I personally have just started leaving class and doing my own thing. I've gotten a few looks, but other than that I can cover things much more efficiently and effectively on my own.

 

[Crayola227]

I'm confused...where do credits come in? Are we talking undergrad all of a sudden?

Read the handbooks. Most schools do actually have a credits system of keeping track of requirements but yes, it's not like undergrad in many ways.

Most didactic and required clerkship rotation curricula is so similar across the board for a class that you don't really notice until 4th year when you get electives.

 

[skeletor06]

Often in these threads, people say "well, you should have known the attendance policy." How is that helpful? All of the schools I was accepted to had attendance policies. What are we supposed to do? Just curious.

@Goro, I very much appreciate your advice in almost all respects, including the usefulness of required attendance. However, as faculty you'd likely know better than anyone how difficult it would be for students to butt heads with administration regarding rules like required attendance. It's risky for our careers, Dean's letters, etc. We embrace the suck because we can't afford to do anything else. I'd argue that COCA is the only group with the juice to implement curriculum change.

 

[Crayola227]

Often in these threads, people say "well, you should have known the attendance policy." How is that helpful? All of the schools I was accepted to had attendance policies. What are we supposed to do? Just curious.

@Goro, I very much appreciate your advice in almost all respects, including the usefulness of required attendance. However, as faculty you'd likely know better than anyone how difficult it would be for students to butt heads with administration regarding rules like required attendance. It's risky for our careers, Dean's letters, etc. We embrace the suck because we can't afford to do anything else. I'd argue that COCA is the only group with the juice to implement curriculum change.

Also unhelpful as I mentioned that schools can drastically change things up on a dime. That didn't happen to me but I watched it happen to the class below mine.

Med school, like residency, like life, is something you try to gather as much info as you can to prepare yourself but you're never really gonna know until you get there.

Not to say the interview & website are useless... just

 

[DrDarce]

Not sure if anyone said it yet, but it seems like the only answer is to study through the night and sleep during class. It can be done.

 

[mehc012]

Read the handbooks. Most schools do actually have a credits system of keeping track of requirements but yes, it's not like undergrad in many ways.

Most didactic and required clerkship rotation curricula is so similar across the board for a class that you don't really notice until 4th year when you get electives.

Ah. Mine does not, and also I didn't have them in UG, so I'm less comfortable with them.

Sent from my phone, sorry for any typos or brevity.

 

[IslandStyle808]

I'm confused...where do credits come in? Are we talking undergrad all of a sudden?

I'm getting this more word or mouth, but they do have a official tally of credits for each block. Its not like undergrad as stated by Crayola

 

[mehc012]

I'm getting this more word or mouth, but they do have a official tally of credits for each block. Its not like undergrad as stated by Crayola

I see what you mean; my school does not seem to do this, and again my undergrad did not use a credit system either, so the only place I've even seen credits is on SDN (and through the convoluted conversion I had to do for AMCAS given that my undergrad did not use them.) Sorry for being unfamiliar with the credit system. It's just never come up in my own education so I've looked into it very little.

 

[Lawpy]

Based on the comments of some other users who believe they go to the same school, I'm fairly confident this is actually an MD school. Given that others have come to this thread and said they have similar policies at their schools (some DO, some MD), I think it's somewhat clear that this isn't unique to one school.

Imo if there is any lesson to learn from this thread, it's to ask about the curriculum and policies of the school in-depth on interview days and try and contact current students. While I do have sympathy for those who have to deal with being treated like children, I think we also need to keep in mind that the students attending those schools chose to apply there and matriculate.

Yes I will second that I was accepted to an *MD* school with this sort of policy.
That would have been for loved one reasons. I had other choices.

Just to lay to rest that the issue of Draconian attendence policies are an MD vs DO school issue. And that the reasons for applying to and picking one school over another can be complex.

Policies can even change after acceptance to school or residency.

This is why it is essential to be adaptable, committed, able to deal with ambiguity & adversity, and accept that if it's not just one block or attendence policy or evil Dean or Program Director, or patient presentation, that medicine will always find ways to present you with challenges that take you to your limits of ability/coping.

That makes it rewarding and terrifying.

TLDR
This isn't the last or only way that medicine finds to dick you hard in your career. It's fine if you like to get dicked hard.

Also, quit with the DO vs MD crap. In the long run, ie after 4 years, that will have little to do with all the stupid admin & policies you will deal with your whole career.

this is scary. you'd expect the LCME to find out about this and slam that school with heavy sanctions and penalties. maybe even put that school on probation or even revoke its accreditation.

 

[Crayola227]

this is scary. you'd expect the LCME to find out about this and slam that school with heavy sanctions and penalties. maybe even put that school on probation or even revoke its accreditation.

Too much face & ass saving takes place. All in the name of the good name, the front, we do actually need to maintain to some extent for patient benefit, but you can see that it can throw us under the bus needlessly, or worse, negatively impact patient care while simultaneously making us patients.

Schools have pretty wide leeway for lots of policies if you read some of the LCME stuff, which was years ago for me, admittedly.

 

[Lawpy]

Too much face & ass saving takes place. All in the name of the good name, the front, we do actually need to maintain to some extent for patient benefit, but you can see that it can throw us under the bus needlessly, or worse, negatively impact patient care while simultaneously making us patients.

Schools have pretty wide leeway for lots of policies if you read some of the LCME stuff, which was years ago for me, admittedly.

wow, so the administration can be really malicious and get away with this. what a tragedy.

 

[Goro]

I know the administration and faculty mindset of :this is how we've always done it", but really, schools aren't aren't in the business to be vindictive just because student complain about something. Do you think they';s actively sabotage your career over this?

Here's what you can do: Surely you must have a student gov't or organization or class representatives that interface with the Deans and voice concerns.

The entire class has to take a stand against the attendance policy. Simply saying that this is unfair or is too hard" isn't going to work, but showing them actual data will get attention. My wise colleague Crayola is correct that schools are like ocean liners and they can't turn on a dime, but turn they can and it's doable. The flipped classroom is becoming more and more popular, and there's evidence to back up its efficacy. Hit them with that over and over.

In the mean time, I want to voice that I think this policy is sadistic. And to do grade-dependent clicker questions on same day material is also sadistic. It takes time to soak in data, even if you're pre-reading everything.

So Resist.

COCA or LCME aren't going to touch stuff like this. Change has to come from the students and Faculty.

@Goro, I very much appreciate your advice in almost all respects, including the usefulness of required attendance. However, as faculty you'd likely know better than anyone how difficult it would be for students to butt heads with administration regarding rules like required attendance. It's risky for our careers, Dean's letters, etc. We embrace the suck because we can't afford to do anything else. I'd argue that COCA is the only group with the juice to implement curriculum change.

 

[Mr Roboto]

I know the administration and faculty mindset of :this is how we've always done it", but really, schools aren't aren't in the business to be vindictive just because student complain about something. Do you think they';s actively sabotage your career over this?

Here's what you can do: Surely you must have a student gov't or organization or class representatives that interface with the Deans and voice concerns.

The entire class has to take a stand against the attendance policy. Simply saying that this is unfair or is too hard" isn't going to work, but showing them actual data will get attention. My wise colleague Crayola is correct that schools are like ocean liners and they can't turn on a dime, but turn they can and it's doable. The flipped classroom is becoming more and more popular, and there's evidence to back up its efficacy. Hit them with that over and over.

In the mean time, I want to voice that I think this policy is sadistic. And to do grade-dependent clicker questions on same day material is also sadistic. It takes time to soak in data, even if you're pre-reading everything.

So Resist.

COCA or LCME aren't going to touch stuff like this. Change has to come from the students and Faculty.

Our school has that as up to 20% of our grade in some classes. It sucks.

 

[jw3600]

Didn't read every post but how is trying to guess what school OP is at even remotely similar to doxxing OP himself? Doxxing means outing an INDIVIDUAL and usually for malicious reasons. Letting it be known that there is a school that treats its students like concentration camp goers is good for everyone, especially prospective students. Not good for the school I guess, but **** em.

 

[Affiche]

Didn't read every post but how is trying to guess what school OP is at even remotely similar to doxxing OP himself? Doxxing means outing an INDIVIDUAL and usually for malicious reasons. Letting it be known that there is a school that treats its students like concentration camp goers is good for everyone, especially prospective students. Not good for the school I guess, but **** em.

Don't be obtuse. You know that once you ID his school it isn't difficult for the school to find his thread and figure out who the student is, especially since he was military and has given away other info.

My school is routinely on SDN, supposedly to address interviewee questions but I'm skeptical. If we don't want to turn this forum into a place where med students don't post at all for fear of their home program discovering them, leave it alone. If you have questions for OP you can always PM him.