Need big help with PCOM and AZCOM !!!

[F/A-18]

Ok here's the story, been accepted by both schools. I live in Philly now, so PCOM would be easier for me but...

I know PCOM is a great school but I'm trying to deceid between PCOM and AZCOM. I tried to get info on the following criteria on PCOM ,but was unable.

Board Pass rates- talked with a lady in the dean's office at PCOM who couldn't have been more unhelpful. She said she knew the pass rates but couldn't disclose this info. I'm paying close to 30 thousand dollars a year, I want to know pcom's pass rates. Does anyone have info on this, if you do could you please site your souce so that I can verify it. What disheartened me is, I love Pcom, but why all the secrecy? PCOM should be proud to share their board scores. The lady said "We are the best osteopathic school in the nation." I said by what criteria is that based on and she said beacause we get the most applicants." I said you're not basing it on board pass rates, grades, or residency." She said "No." There has to be some other reason for this claim as this was lame. This mades me sad to hear about one of my favorite schools. Does anyone know PCOM'S pass rates that can be verrified, it makes me suspect there may be a problem, maybe with the new curriculm(sp?).

At Azcom, the admissions office did provide pass rates for the last 4 years. They have been consistenly above the national average, excellent pass rates.

Also, I'm trying to compare 3rd and 4th year rotations. I have heard PCOM has excellent rotatations. Again can someone provide info on this. Are the rotations good because they have so many or are they good because of quality? If because of quality, please explain what criteria you are using to evaluate them.
Also does anyone know PCOM's board pass rates on COMLEX step 2 after these rotations?

AZCOM step 2 pass rates were again consistenly high for the last 2 years. Don't have info prior to that date.

Does PCOM supply any COMLEX and USMLE test support like 2nd year 3rd trimester review class. AZCOM does.

I m sadden by this info on PCOM as it is one of my favorite schools. THey must have something else backing the claim that they are the "number 1 osteopathic school in the nation" other than because they get the most applications. All I know about both schools so far:

PCOM
excellent facilities
Great professional gym
organ system approach
friendly students
research opportunities
excellent rotations (?)
Good residencies( which would
make you think their board scores
would have to be decent, but they need to make
this public info so schools can be compared)

AZCOM
excellent facilities
traditional approach ( with some organ system in certain classes)
friendly students
Workshop classes where you apply what you learned in lecture
research opportunities
Good residency matches( Mayo, USC, UCLA, see AZCOM match list from 2001 and 2002)
Consistenly high board pass scores( from Admissions office)

Does anyone have any other info on these schools, trying to make a decision, beyond location and wheather. So far AZCOM looks like the better school. Any input would help.

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[jhug]

FA-- congrats on being in a position to need to make a decision!!
I'm taking a refresher anatomy class this semester with about 400 students....it is so HUGE!!! AZCOM's class is 100-ish as opposed to pcom's how many hundred? I'm not sure on the exact number, hopefully a pcom-er can enlighten us. I just can't imaging having a med school class the same size as the one i'm in now. How do teachers get to know you, how do you get to know them, how do they split the anatomy lab, how personal can the interaction be?
AZCOM has a 100% open door policy to every single professor. You don' t get something and that professor MUST be available to help you...how do you get that with a huge class?
This may be (it was for me) something that you may want to add to your list.

Plus, saying you are the best because you are the biggest is quite a pathetic argument!

 

[kristing]

I don't know about any other school but at AZCOM we have MANY clinical classes. 2 the first year and 3 the second year and then we add a whole bunch of clinical lectures next quarter, too (the last quarter of the MS2 year). We are told by our instrucctors there aren't other classes like this at other school (and granted they are biased) but it really is a lot of clinical ed. They attribute these classes to our high pass rate on the boards. I believe it.
Just a little info.

 

[F/A-18]

Kristing- I noticed the large amount of clinical classes at AZCOM and that is definitely a strong point, that I didn't see at PCOM. I was fascinated by whathe discriptions in the catolo9uge. But since you are actually there, can you tell me what you do in these clinical classes. I know you learn how to do H and P's and and such everyone does, but what else, like in the clinical correletes class or how was the work shop in Biochem, alot of problem based learning i understand

 

[nansko]

I am a 4th year Med student at AZCOM. While I agree that the first two years at AZCOM are probably better than at many other schools, thanks to a phenomenal basic sciences faculty, the clinical years SUCK. Every single class that went through before me told me that the rotations here were horrible but I didn't belive it until I went through it myself.

The problem is that all of our rotations are preceptor based. While our sleezy CEO will actually spin this and tell you that you are so fortunate to have preceptor based rotations because "you get one on one teaching from an attending physician", the reality is that attending physicians DONT HAVE TIME to teach because they are too busy trying to see 40-50 pts/day so they can afford to pay their office overhead for the month. The other problem is that the preceptor you end up with is a total crap shoot. Some people end up with physicians who teach a lot and let you do tons of stuff on your own while others make it essentially an observation only rotation. Obs only sucks no matter where you are in your training. You might as well just flip a coin.

AZCOM is clearly very desperate for preceptors too so they will accept who ever is willing to volunteer, as long as they have a ligit medical license. AZCOM does not even have a hospital with which we are affiliated because the U of A had contracts with all the teaching hospitals in town. These contracts have, for the most part, shut AZCOM students out of many rotations in these teaching hospitals. It's a huge turf battle.

The other problem is that our greedy CEO of Midwestern not only decided to put a PA college in the $ame place as the med $chool, but $he is now opening up a podiatry $chool at MWU in Arizona to boot. The i$$ue with this is that there are really not enough rotation $pots to go around and we are now, not only battling with PA's for rotations but your class will also be battling with the podiatry students who have to do many of the same rotations that med students do (incl. medicine, surgery, etc.). I predict that the number of good rotations will get even slimmer when the podiatry school opens up this year. This i$$ue was addre$$ed at one of our town hall meetings with our CEO but $he disregarded our concerns and said that it would be of benefit to all involved. Hopefully, you are $tarting to $ee where her prioritie$ lie.

Lastly, I saw one of your other responders say that the AZCOM class size is small....it used to be but this year it's huge. They accepted 170 people and filled a class of 155. There weren't even enough seats in the auditorium for everyone to sit. I know that PCOM has like one of the largest classes of all the D.O. schools but that may be a compromise you are willing to make if you know that your clinical rotations will be stellar. I have met and worked with a number of PCOM students and have always been very impressed with their knowledge base.

In my opinion, the clinical years are really where you do all your hard core learning of MEDICINE. The first two years are critical to building a good base but I sure as hell wish I would have gone to PCOM instead of AZCOM.

Just so you know, I am not some totally disgruntled flunkee from the school. I ended up with about an 87% GPA during my first two years and have always gotten excellent reviews from my preceptors. My class is a very tight knit class and I can tell you that, if you polled the entire class, 99.99% of them would tell you the same thing about clinical rotations. I decided to respond because the grip that the CEO of our school has placed around all of our necks has gotten so tight that I needed to scream to let everyone know that she is stealing our money.

Good luck. I sincerely think that you will get a better education overall at PCOM.

 

[F/A-18]

Nansko- wow, I'm so confused. I don't feel PCOM is being upfront and now possibly AZCOM is not being truthful.

However, I don't understand how there can be such discrepancies of opinion about AZCOM. There is another thread I wish you would read, a 3rd year student Dr NickiTay and Tedsaoc state that their experience has been very good. Dr NickiTay states that she has had a good experience at the Arizona Heart Institute, do you know anything about the quality of this rotation?
Tedsadoc stated that he had a good experience with hospitalist group, I believe for internal medicine. What do you know about the quality of rotations with the hospitalist group?

Could it be that there are just some bad rotations with some preceptors, as there can be some bad residents and attendings at other schools traditional hospital rotations??? Or are you saying that the majority 85-90% of the rotations are poor?

Also, they said you could do rotations out of Arizona, why didn't you go else where and do your rotations if you were so unhappy
with the preceptors?

Also Arizona's Step 2 scores are consistantly high, where much knowldge is based on your rotation experience. So if the rotations are so poor why are the board pass rates so high??? Or how do they get such good residency's if the rotations are so poor???

I do appriciate your opinion.

 

[F/A-18]

Is JP Hazelton around?? I understand he has info on PCOM. JP do you know what the pass rates on COMLEX 1 and 2 are for PCOM?? PCOM would not give that info when I called.

 

[metsn02]

Originally posted by F/A-18
Is JP Hazelton around?? I understand he has info on PCOM. JP do you know what the pass rates on COMLEX 1 and 2 are for PCOM?? PCOM would not give that info when I called.

I really don't understand why pre-meds are so concerned with pass rates as a factor in making decisions on going to a medical school. Most schools publish their data about 99% passage rates based on what? First time, second time, pass rates? Really who cares. My suggestion would be to locate a DO in your area who has graduated from either PCOM or AZCOM (it will be much easier to find PCOM grads simply because the school has been around since 1899, while AZCOM opened in 1994) and ask them directly how their experience was, what the curriculum was like, and how difficult it was to achieve the residency that they got. Do some research on your own guys. Keep in mind that the admissions offices at these schools are overworked as it is, without having to answer to passage rates and other meaningless statistics.

P.S. I'm a first year at PCOM and will tell you that I moved from my house last August which was 2 minutes away from AZCOM to go to school at PCOM 2500 miles away. PM me if you want to know specifics about the first year curriculum. peace