I came across this post and had to reply to this. I disagree with a lot of things said in this post. As a current UQ-O student, not one person that I've talked to is perfectly happy with the program. Every one has at least one thing that they would change about it.
Yeah. And? This is nothing more than a Nirvana Fallacy argument. I don't know anybody who is or was "perfectly happy with the program." If you don't have at least one thing you would change about
any program, company, or whatever you are in then you simply aren't thinking or caring enough about it.
While UQ is a top-notch university, they are top-notch thanks to the research.
Yeah, and that is actually a really important thing. What is going to get you a residency is your board scores, your LoR, and your research. So being "top notch thanks to the research" is actually a pretty big deal and very much a positive.
The medical school is incredibly disorganized with mediocre lectures that force you to try to master the material on your own from other resources.
A true and legitimate observation. Though I we can quibble about what "incredibly disorganized" actually means, I will agree that this is probably the worst aspect of the program, though it does get significantly better when you come to Ochsner and it has been getting significantly better across the board over time. That said, it doesn't matter what medical school you go to, you will
always be "forced to try and master the material on your own." I'm always amused by this argument that implies that somehow lectures and other means of learning besides independent learning are
supposed to comprise the bulk of your education. That is obviously silly on its face. The amount of knowledge you have to ingest and understand is so overwhelming that trying to actually teach it to you via lectures or others in some way teaching you (rather than you teaching yourself) is simply ludicrously impossible. Trying to communicate ideas to another human being is orders of magnitude slower and less efficient that doing it yourself on your own. That doesn't mean there isn't a role for it, or for study groups for that matter, but it must necessarily be the minority of your intake of knowledge.
Besides the clinicals, the only thing that UQ teaches me is go-dig-out-the-resources-and-learn-on-your-own. and with an enormous class size, the administrators couldn't care less about you.
Excellent! Then you are learning a vastly important skill and life lesson! Now that I am 106 days away from graduating residency (but who's counting?) I can tell you a "secret" that isn't really a secret: the whole rest of your entire life and career is going to be "go-dig-out-the-resources-and-learn-on-your-own." Yes we have teaching and whatnot in residency. But it is even less than what you get in med school (even less than what you get at UQ) and it is very often low on the totem pole of priorities. Because guess what? You'll all of a sudden be responsible for the actual care of patients, including all the tedious BS that we have to do like writing notes, contacting social workers and case managers, making sure med recs are accurate, dealing with insurance companies and reimbursements for medications, denials for placements like SNF and rehab, and so on. And of course, your patients are rude enough to not respect your need to "go-dig-out-the-resources-and-learn-on-your-own" and have emergencies, try and die on you, need to spend time discussing end of life and goals of care, and so on. So you'll be working 60-80 hours per week, in a very demanding job, interspersed with a handful of learning and educational opportunities of highly variable quality (yeah, believe it or not the quality of lecturing and teaching is
always highly variable no matter where you go), and
still be expected to go and learn more on your own, do research (at least in "quality improvement" as this is now required by the ACGME), meet all sorts of little BS requirements (Mini-CEX's don't go away, they are also now an ACGME requirement)... all whilst changing services every 2-4 weeks, working nights interspersed with days, dealing with colleagues you may or may not like but still have to work professionally with, and trying to have a life at the same time. It is not at all uncommon that your 1 day off a week (on most services, and by ACGME rules that is only 1 day off per week
averaged out over a month so you could easily go longer the 6 days without a day off... I am currently in the midst of working 2 weeks of nights and my only night off in 11 will be this Saturday) is spent trying to catch up on sleep, doing laundry, going to the grocery store, and then catching up on whatever extra-curricular work you need to. So if you think that med school can or should be about spoonfeeding you more information rather than "go-dig-out-the-resources-and-learn-on-your-own" you are both delusional and in for a world of hurt when you make it to residency.
If I get the residency of my choice, it is due to my own effort and not to UQ.
Yeah, and that is pretty much always the case no matter where you go. Just because you went to Harvard doesn't guarantee you will get a residency spot. Of course, depending on where you go it will be relatively easier or harder and there are always certain things that will make it easier for you, but it will
always rest primarily on your own effort. Which, BTW, why is that a bad thing? Would you be more proud of yourself, feel more accomplished, and (especially in light of what I just wrote above) feel more
prepared to take on a residency if you
didn't get it through your own effort and instead was handed something to you because of the institution at which you studied?
If you are thinking about enroling at UQ-O, make sure you try your best to find out what new policy they'll be implementing for your class as things are constantly changing at UQ and what used to be the norm isn't any more.
Also true. But also true of pretty much everything everywhere. You think residency doesn't change things on you constantly? For 3 years in a row the way in which call days and admissions are handled was changed in Ochsner medicine, the cardiology rotation got completely changed, the rules about conferences change, the way the ICU rotation is structured changed, and so on. And it happens in every speciality in every residency. The laws and rules and regs change, the resources change, and so the way in which any individual residency program can meet ACGME requirements must also change. Plus, things change because some people may not like a certain system and ask for a change... and that change may or may not be for the better. Change is not an inherently bad thing and, as the old saying goes, the only constant in life is change. So you better get used to it now, because believe me when you are a doctor and all of a sudden "problem oriented charting" becomes a thing that makes your life miserable but is an institutional requirement or when the way in which CMS or the ACGME administer or require things to be changes, you'll have to adapt with it in much more arduous circumstances. You think it was fun for me to come on service in the ICU, sick, tired, with 25 patients on my census and an all new team, and suddenly have to deal with problem oriented charting all whilst trying to make sure patients don't die? Don't complain about this stuff as if it shouldn't happen, but learn that it will always happen and right now in medical school it is easiest to learn to deal with it.
People keep saying that somehow caribbean schools are the worst because they are for profit. Some US schools are for profit yet I don't hear people say the same thing about them. In general, which private schools are not for profit?
I don't know who is saying that, but I am with you that it is a stupid argument. The Caribs are not worse because they are for profit, they are worse because they don't provide you the resources and opportunities for research that
both UQ
and Ochsner offer and because people who are Carib grads are (unfairly or not) pigeonholed into who they must be to have gone Carib which does not exist in the same way for UQ-O. Furthermore, UQ-O is deliberately poised and has been taking advantage of positive PR that the Caribs don't and cannot have. The administration here have leveraged their positions and contacts within entities like the AAMC, ACGME, AMSA, and more to intentionally create a completely different image of UQ-O grads. And it is working and will only continue to get better as more and more of our graduates continue to fill more and more diverse programs and positions.
Telling people to choose schools regardless of tuition costs is not a good advice. I am so "glad" that I will have to borrow $97,500 USD in COE next year at UQ-O. At least caribbean schools are upfront about the profit... Ehem, simply google up internship shortage in Australia, you'll see that they have no qualm in admitting that foreign students (who study in Australia) are a great source of money for them.
Agreed. Tuition should be a consideration and the steep rise in UQ-O tuition is something that I have said for a while is a negative that is growing. That said, tuition should be a distant consideration to many other things and having an extra $100k in debt given the earning potential of being a physician really is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of your life and career.
Also, you are internally contradictory. Which is it? That UQ is not upfront about the profit motive or that it is? Because on the one hand you are claiming that "At least caribbean schools are upfront about the profit" and then only on ellipse later you say "...you'll see that they have no qualm in admitting that foreign students... are a great source of money for them." Which sounds pretty obviously upfront to me.
Tuition used to be in AUD but they soon figured that American students can borrow limitless amounts from our government.
This is entirely irrelevant. The fact that tuition used to be in AUD and is now in USD has nothing to do with our borrowing capacity and the fact that you would argue this shows how little you know on this topic. I started out paying tuition in AUD and then switched to USD my M2 year. The US government gives you money in USD no matter what. The amount they give you is based on the tuition and the cost of living of wherever you happen to be. When tuition was in AUD the amount was converted to USD and that's how they figured out how much to give you. The problem was that with fluctuations in the value of the AUD and USD, what ends up happening is that the amount given gets set at the beginning of the year (as it always is) and then if the exchange rate screws you... oh well, now you just have less money to survive on. Furthermore, the change from USD to AUD always involved banks and banks always skim a little off the top for the "convenience" of changing your currency and so you get even less money because that is
not factored into how much is given to you by the gov't. So the fact that things were changed to USD is not because they somehow after the fact figured out that we could borrow limitless amounts of money but only if they charged USD (because they obviously already knew we could borrow however much was needed and the money is
always given in USD no matter what) but because myself as part of OMSA and others in my class argued for the change so we wouldn't continue getting screwed on exchange rates.
The incoming class of 2020 will pay $95k per year. Not to mention that UQ has the freedom to raise tuition every year which is what they're doing mercilessly, so the classes after me will look forward to $100k/year in 2018 (let that sink in). Remember, these are all the money you will have to repay, it is nondischargeable debt, it may not affect you now because the day of repayment seems so far away but you will end up with $400k of debt (plus whatever interests) from UQ *alone*.
Yeah, these are all very valid points. But not at all unique to UQ or UQ-O. My best friend is now in his opthal residency at UPMC and he went to a third tier US medical school and also has >$400k in debt, same as me. Tulane students graduate with similar amounts of debt since, until the last couple of years, their tuition was actually
higher than UQ-O tuition. And even right now isn't that far off with tuition at $61k and total cost of attendance $86k/yr (
reference). So around $10-15k a year less than UQ-O. Is $40-60k of debt extra going to break your later on in your career? Hardly.
If I had the chance to do it over again, I wouldn't come here. Many things the school do make me wonder if they know what they are doing and how they're affecting us. I applied one round in the US and did not know about other options.
Well, as I and others have long said, UQ-O is certainly not for everyone and there are unquestionably serious negatives associated with attending. But it is important to actually understand what those negatives are and based on your comments thus far I am not convinced you have a grasp on that even now. So yeah, you wonder about whether they know what they are doing and didn't know about other options, but that is on you my friend. The information is there and it is your responsibility to find it and understand it, and you clearly still aren't doing that. The fact that the program went from AUD to USD is an excellent example of that - it was an unmitigated positive, yet your lack of understanding and knowledge of the matter led you to believe it was somehow sinister.
I did not choose caribbean because of the stigma. Now that I have more understanding of DO, I will never get people who say or think that they don't choose DO because they will be "limited" in some way. If you aim for a number-one ultra competitive specialty, DO will no doubt limit you compared to MD, but what makes people think that coming as an IMG will be any easier!??
No, it is not necessarily any easier to get a residency as an IMG vs DO. Which is why I have said for years now that except for a fairly small and select population it will nearly always be better to attend a US MD program over any foreign or DO program. If you look through my comment history you will find where I discuss in detail the differences between IMG vs DO in terms of residency and career opportunities, and why I think it is probably a wash but there are arguments and reasons to believe that specifically the UQ-O program may in fact be better than a DO program. I also agree that the stigma associated with Caribs as well as the distinct lack of research opportunities is a valid reason to prefer UQ-O or some other foreign programs over the Caribs. But in regards to the DO pathway, the fact that you didn't research that option and make an informed decision about your educational path is entirely on you.
My only solace is that I'll finally get away from UQ in a few days. Tuition is not getting any less but from what I heard from upperclassmen, Ochsner New Orleans is a quality institute that truly cares about your success as a future doctor.
Yes, they do. And yes, it is better over here for a number of reasons, including the fact that clinicals are just a lot more engaging and fun than pre-clinicals. But instead of feeling sorry for yourself and thinking that you somehow got duped, try and learn from all of this and educate and inform yourself on these and other relevant matters in the future. Even if in retrospect going DO or other IMG would have been the better option for you, that ship has sailed. So stop continuing to get it wrong and make the best of it for yourself. I can assure you that in the end, no matter where you went or what you did, it will all still rest squarely on your shoulders to become a success and be happy with your life and career. And that the UQ-O program will enable you to actually do that, so long as you actually take that personal responsibility and do the work.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]