2016-2017 Western Michigan University (Stryker) Application Thread

Getting into Med School is Hard? Not with BeMo.
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The big reason we pushed for a change was because taking step 1 in June (after 3rd year) = no score back until July of 4th year. Which means at that point it's far too late to make any major career changes if you've done worse or better than you expected on step 1.
(ERAS is submitted in September and VSAS for away electives opens in May, before taking step 1)

Not to mention the difficulty of applying for and getting away electives w/o a step 1 score. (Also since no one knows or cares about CBSE practice test scores as a determinate of competitiveness).

That outweighed any and all changes to length of clerkships for us and the class of 2020 as well.

Also they've given us 4 extra weeks of flexible time in 4th year as well and one less week of transition week at the end of 2nd year.

All of that is outweighed (for most of our class) by the fact we are no longer the latest school in the US at taking step 1.

For future classes it may change again but for 2019 & 2020 that's how it's set up.
We all think 2018 will do fine and wish them the best, we just decided if we could make a change that it was worth it to take it earlier.


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tellme_areyoufree said:
It's interesting because I think a lot of the current M3s are happy our Step1 didn't get affected by that change. Having now actually gone through the curriculum, I very very very much see the value in taking Step1 later. If you had asked me at the start of M1 or start of M2 whether I'd like to take Step1 earlier, I probably would've said "yeah duh" - but if you asked me today I'd say "nope, pretty happy with where it is." Your experience in clerkships will be different all around though (a lot of us laughed out loud at the fact that you guys are getting 11 weeks of surgery) and that may affect how one feels about the timing of Step1. It will all certainly be interesting to watch :)
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That is what I am worried about.

Bbroush said:
The big reason we pushed for a change was because taking step 1 in June (after 3rd year) = no score back until July of 4th year. Which means at that point it's far too late to make any career changes if you've done worse or better than you expected on step 1. Not to mention the difficulty of applying for and getting away electives w/o a step 1 score. (Also since no one knows or cares about CBSE practice test scores as a determinate of competitiveness). That outweighed any and all changes to length of clerkships.

Also they've given us 4 extra weeks of flexible time in 4th year as well and one less week of transition week at the end of 2nd year.

All of that is outweighed (for most of our class) by the fact we are no longer the latest school in the US at taking step 1.

For future classes it may change again but for 2019 & 2020 that's how it's set up.
We all think 2018 will do fine and wish them the best, we just decided if we could make a change that it was worth it to take it earlier.


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Wait so when is it?
 
January of third year is the beginning of dedicated prep. Testing will be mid Feb. this will be after 3 of the 4 clerkship rotations.


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Bbroush said:
The big reason we pushed for a change was because taking step 1 in June (after 3rd year) = no score back until July of 4th year. Which means at that point it's far too late to make any career changes if you've done worse or better than you expected on step 1. Not to mention the difficulty of applying for and getting away electives w/o a step 1 score. (Also since no one knows or cares about CBSE practice test scores as a determinate of competitiveness). That outweighed any and all changes to length of clerkships.

Also they've given us 4 extra weeks of flexible time in 4th year as well and one less week of transition week at the end of 2nd year.

All of that is outweighed (for most of our class) by the fact we are no longer the latest school in the US at taking step 1.

For future classes it may change again but for 2019 & 2020 that's how it's set up.
We all think 2018 will do fine and wish them the best, we just decided if we could make a change that it was worth it to take it earlier.


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Bbroush said:
January of third year is the beginning of dedicated prep. Testing will be mid Feb. this will be after 3 of the 4 clerkship rotations.


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How does it change things versus taking it earlier like almost every other school?
 
JB50 said:
How does it change things versus taking it earlier like almost every other school?
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With step 1 becoming more clinical in nature there is data that suggests that it improves your step 1 score to have clinical experience. This was the reasoning behind it being after 3rd year. The issue is the original curriculum had the latest step 1 date of any school. There's 15+ schools that take a 3rd year step 1 ranging from January to march with one on april/may I believe.


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JB50 said:
How does it change things versus taking it earlier like almost every other school?
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I'm not sure I fully understand what you're asking, but I'll take a stab at answering.

Overall, schools taking Step 1 after/during clerkships results in higher scores. This is because students have practical, hands-on experience in the clinic, which Step 1 has moved its question style toward (clinical vs. basic science nitty gritty). The suspicion is that the boost in scores primarily comes from pharm applications. As a green M2 taking Step 1, you don't really know how strep throat is treated except for a paragraph in First Aid. However, as an M3 taking Step 1, you remember seeing countless children during your peds clerkship and know exactly how strep throat is treated.

As bbroush said above, taking Step 1 in February as opposed to June will have a significant number of advantages. We in the Class of 2019 individually reached out to every single program in the country that participates in 4th year Away Electives (look up VSAS) and asked if they would accept a WMed student applying for an away elective without a Step 1 score. Nearly 100% of the programs responded with "lol good luck with that." If you investigate further, you'll see that away electives are incredibly important for securing certain types of residency positions. We in 2019 felt it was necessary to make a change to remove this significant barrier to competitiveness (taking Step 1 in June vs. earlier in the year).

Another advantage to having Step 1 scores back before the end of 3rd year is being able to plan your future. The strategy for applying within a specialty when you have a 200 vs. a 250 is vastly different, not to mention that doing better/worse than you anticipated can drastically change your plan. If you think you're going to score a 200 and end up with a 240, maybe you'll decide to go for Ortho afterall.
 
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JB50 said:
That is what I am worried about.
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If anything they have improved our clerkship schedule as well. The increase in surgery may seem controversial but it is more in line with what other schools do.

Decreasing the time spent in FM while increasing IM is also massively beneficial. Not each rotation should / needs to be the same length, so I see this change as an improvement in several ways.

Also a lot of wasted time has been removed, like 6 prep weeks and 6 post weeks during 3rd year which are now only going to be 4 partial prep weeks and 4 post weeks (the schedule during those weeks has yet to be nailed down); and they removed ACLS certification before 3rd year, which was completely unnecessary seeing that if something you have to do as an intern and you never will/should be leading a code as a med student.

The 3rd year clerkship changes were done with very little student input and actually worked out great IMO.


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Has anyone with a phone interview in November been invited to interview at the school? I had mine at the beginning of Nov and haven't heard anything yet, I'm seeing people were invited in 01/11 so I'm guessing no more interview invites this month? :-(
 
no_this_is_patrick said:
Has anyone with a phone interview in November been invited to interview at the school? I had mine at the beginning of Nov and haven't heard anything yet, I'm seeing people were invited in 01/11 so I'm guessing no more interview invites this month? :-(
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Nope :\
 
Can anyone speak as to how they like/dislike the TBL at WMed? In general, I hear some people love TBL and some people hate it, so I wanted to know what it was like at WMed.

Edit: Also, I'm really interested in Active Citizenship. Do you get to pick the project/community you're working with? Or is it assigned to you?
 
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plzhelpme12345 said:
Can anyone speak as to how they like/dislike the TBL at WMed? In general, I hear some people love TBL and some people hate it, so I wanted to know what it was like at WMed.

Edit: Also, I'm really interested in Active Citizenship. Do you get to pick the project/community you're working with? Or is it assigned to you?
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Overall, I've enjoyed my experience with TBL here. Our events have gradually improved through the year, so it seems that the faculty have done a good job taking and incorporating student feedback. There are interesting cases and a good mix of attendings/residents who come in each week to help.

In the beginning of the year you'll fill out a form with a list of Active Citizenship sites you're most interested in, and you'll be put in a lottery which determines where you end up. Most students get their first choice, but if not, you have the option to swap with another student who is willing (I did this). From what I hear, the next class will have AC merged with Explorations, which is a good thing.
 
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plzhelpme12345 said:
Can anyone speak as to how they like/dislike the TBL at WMed? In general, I hear some people love TBL and some people hate it, so I wanted to know what it was like at WMed.

Edit: Also, I'm really interested in Active Citizenship. Do you get to pick the project/community you're working with? Or is it assigned to you?
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The general structure of TBL: 1st hour - iRAT/gRAT (aka weekly quiz) and discussion, 2nd-3rd hours = working through cases.

Honestly, I don't have a bone to pick with TBLs at all (mainly because there are bigger fish to fry). They go by relatively fast and you get out what you put in. It's totally possible to show up to TBL and just zone out, if that's what you want to do. However, it's also possible to just deep dive into the content and talk to clinicians if that's your thing. Honestly, what most people dislike about TBL is that it's mandatory attendance for 3 hours, typically on a Friday morning.

The concept of AC looks great on paper. In practice, however, it severely chips away at your available hours to study in a week. Fortunately, improvements to AC (read: reduction in hours) have been made via feedback from each class. Ultimately, we would all love to see some sort of community involvement that we get to choose which institution we work with (rather than be assigned to) and what we get out of it. Some people just want to volunteer for a few hours, others want to do IRB-approved research and get a publication. The administration has been very receptive to our feedback on this issue.

To be completely honest, we're scheduled 4-5 days a week from 8-5 pm, with 1-2 hour breaks in the middle of the day. Then, after those hours, we have to study the lectures from that morning and labs from that afternoon, in addition to complete anywhere from 4-12+ independent learnings (note: ILs can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 4+ hours, and these hours are not included by faculty when considering our scheduling). Of course, some weeks are lighter, and others are really packed. This demanding schedule is the primary source of frustration for events like TBL, AC, Explorations, etc., which are mandatory and eat into what could be free time for studying and focusing on academics.

Just as an example, this week my class has 9 lectures (total of 9 hours), 2 labs (total of 4 hours), 4 hours of AC, 3 hours of TBL, 4 hours of ICE (mandatory clinical experiences), 4 hours of POM (playing doctor in the SIM lab). That's 28 hours. Added to that are 6 ILs (that's light, tbh). Conservatively estimating that the ILs will take 12 hours to get through, that's 40 hours spent this week on just first-pass of material. Then, you need to study for those lectures, labs, and the ILs. Insanely conservative estimate of spending just 1 hour to re-review each event, that already puts you up at 60 hours. This would be the bare minimum just to stay afloat. We all (edit: I shouldn't say "we all" since I'm not speaking for everyone. However, I suspect most/a lot of us) do way more than this.

The current classes have done nothing but emphasize to administration how little free time we truly have; it's as if we're working a full time job (8-5) on top of being responsible for being medical students and studying. At other schools, the 8-5 attendance is all-inclusive and all you have to do at home is go study. Not at WMed. I will say that the class of 2018 and 2019 have been INCREDIBLY VOCAL about the work hour demand and we have seen progress. I would expect the class of 2020 to soon chime in about the demanding work hours.

That said, I couldn't have picked a more fantastic group to be overworked and frustrated with. My classmates are my family and I wouldn't hesitate to help out every single one of them.
 
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Heyo! I just got accepted off the waitlist. There is movement! :)
 
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Waitlisted just now, but I'm encouraged to hear that others in my position are eventually hearing great news.
 
Hi all, just scheduled my interview here for February 10th. Anyone want to split a hotel room with me from Thursday-->Friday or Friday-->Saturday or anything inbetween? I'll be in Kalamazoo from Thursday until Saturday (flights are so expensive otherwise). I'll even have a rental car. I'm a woman, very friendly :) . Feel free to PM me.
 
II today after having a phone interview back in September(?) for anyone who has given up hope. Can any current students tell me about opportunities to get involved in research here?
 
medicalmayhem1 said:
II today after having a phone interview back in September(?) for anyone who has given up hope. Can any current students tell me about opportunities to get involved in research here?
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Not a student, but we discussed intensively about research during my interview. They are just starting up, so as far as basic science research, they only have an immunology department.
 
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medicalmayhem1 said:
II today after having a phone interview back in September(?) for anyone who has given up hope. Can any current students tell me about opportunities to get involved in research here?
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The school doesn't really promote research to the students, but there are definitely opportunities to get involved if you network a bit and ask around. Medicine and EM seemed fairly productive the last I checked. I know a few people doing projects in ortho, vascular surgery and also public health. For some fields like rads/anes/derm/etc., there is not much going on and you're better off looking elsewhere, like MSU or UM.
 
ShortRound07 said:
The school doesn't really promote research to the students, but there are definitely opportunities to get involved if you network a bit and ask around. Medicine and EM seemed fairly productive the last I checked. I know a few people doing projects in ortho, vascular surgery and also public health. For some fields like rads/anes/derm/etc., there is not much going on and you're better off looking elsewhere, like MSU or UM.
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Can you comment on the MD-PhD program here at all? I understand there are two options, one through Van Andel Institute and one through WMU, and I know it is not funded like other MD-PhD programs, but do you know of anybody who is pursuing either of these routes and what their experience is so far?
 
Alzeebo said:
Can you comment on the MD-PhD program here at all? I understand there are two options, one through Van Andel Institute and one through WMU, and I know it is not funded like other MD-PhD programs, but do you know of anybody who is pursuing either of these routes and what their experience is so far?
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None of the M2s or M3s are doing this. I can't speak for the M1s


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Received a campus II yesterday! Phone interview was in November.
 
Today I turned down a II for Western (received yesterday). Hope that its headed to one of you guys!
 
Alzeebo said:
Can you comment on the MD-PhD program here at all? I understand there are two options, one through Van Andel Institute and one through WMU, and I know it is not funded like other MD-PhD programs, but do you know of anybody who is pursuing either of these routes and what their experience is so far?
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2 of my classmates in the M1 class are doing this. I know one of them is set to meet with a few different PIs from VanAndel, and they may be taking step 1 after year 2 instead of year 3 like the rest of us. Aside from that, I'm unsure of the details. Sorry!
 
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Anyone else get the hand-written postcard post interview? This school is so nice
 
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So, current students, if you could, would you choose this school again?
 
Hoping for a campus interview! The last few given out has given me hope, but I also realize the season is coming to a close :nailbiting:. Telephone interview offered late Nov, completed in Dec.
 
kipper68 said:
So, current students, if you could, would you choose this school again?
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Depends on what other school I get to pick from. WMed or Michigan? I don't think I need to answer that one. But if Wmed was the only option, I'd still come here.
 
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Got accepted off the waitlist today! Interviewed Nov 18th
 
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WMed UpToDate said:
Depends on what other school I get to pick from. WMed or Michigan? I don't think I need to answer that one. But if Wmed was the only option, I'd still come here.
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Thanks for the response! I'm getting kind of a mixed bag of feelings from current students. Basically, would you recommend this school? Are you happy with the program?
 
Was accepted off the waitlist on Wednesday! :soexcited:
 
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coffee makes me poop said:
Congrats!! Very jealous of you and everyone else getting off the WMED waitlist. How did you find out?
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Thank you and hang in there! It seems like the committee meets fairly frequently and they haven't concluded interviews yet so plenty of opportunities left for you to get an offer.
 
Waitlisted today :/ At least there seems to be a bit of movement off of the waitlist
 
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McAwesome said:
Waitlisted today :/ At least there seems to be a bit of movement off of the waitlist
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Sorry to hear that. Hopefully you will get off the list soon.
 
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