How does TUCOM assign 3rd year rotations? Lottery system of
Does the school have more ward based or preceptor based rotations? And do you think you got enough exposure and hands on experience at your rotation sites?
Overall do you think the rotations offered by TUCOM prepare you for residency?
Also any pros and cons about the school would be appreciated.
TUCOM assigns rotation sites via a lottery process midway through the 2nd year. I just checked our 3rd year options, and this years class has 12 core site options available to them-- each with a different range of preceptor/residency program/ward based rotations available. I think this is ideal, as different students will have different goals for residency. Some people want intense rotations and some people want chill with more time to study for shelf exams (remember if you don't honor the shelf, you don't honor the rotation no matter how hard you work in clinic), and there are sites that can facilitate that. At least in my class, I believe everyone got one of their top 3 choices for their 3rd year CORE site-- at least until we lost the Arrowhead core site. Some people definitely got the short end of the stick with that situation. You also have the opportunity to use up to 3 months of 3rd year to do whatever you want, so you can get more WARD or preceptor based experience depending on your needs.
One good thing Touro has done is to make St. Joseph's in Stockton our defacto teaching hospital-- and I think we send about 30 students a year there. We have a transitional year, FM, IM, and ER residency there right now, and I believe we are getting accreditation for OBGYN and Anesthesia in the coming years. I've heard our preclinical students are actually finding summer research opportunities there now as well (but that's on hold due to COVID).
The best part of 3rd year at Touro is that you get 2 Clinical Distinction months and 1 elective month. I'm not aware of any other schools where you get that much time as a 3rd year to try to figure out what you want to do, or improve your CV. Clinical Distinction months are designated months where you can do essentially whatever you want. If you feel like you want another month to study for Step 1/2, you can do that. If you want to do an IM research project to make yourself competitive for an academic program, you can do that. If you want to rotate in a residency program you are interested in, or explore another specialty that is not a CORE rotation, (ie: PM&R, Rads, CT surgery, etc) you can do that to. You can use your third year to build your CV for your desired residency-- and I think it is very unique to our school. Through these experiences, I've met quite a few students from DO and MD schools across the country, and they were all jealous of how much elective time we get. The only negative of this is that you will have to do the ground work to find these opportunities, or create them for yourself for the most part.
It's also important to consider how schools allow you to set up your 4th year. At Touro, you have to set it up, but I think this is a good thing-- as you can go where you want. Current 4th year requirements are 5.5 months of electives (so you can do five 4 week audition rotations if you want) to get that competitive residency spot, 1 month FM, 2 weeks Peds, 2 weeks OBGYN, 1 month ICU, 1 month EM, and a 2 week OMM rotation. That's pretty sweet. Keep in mind that some DO schools only allow 3 months for electives during the 4th year, and force you to do months of rural/FM/primary care rotations. That is great if you want to do primary care, but if not, it will limit your residency chances in certain specialties that require you to do a lot of audition rotations. Luckily, we do not have that issue.
Let me know if you have any other questions.