I did read what you wrote. You wrote that all medical students complain, not just at AUC. But that misses the point - whether or not all students complain, we definitely have more to complain about here. I like being a medical student just fine. But I, like many others here, would like AUC to be run less like a business. I'm not complaining because medical school is hard, I'm doing just fine. I complain because of some of AUC's questionable practices.

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AUC 4th Semester

lol

you got wrong scot...when i do it its "venting" when everyone else does it its whining

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OBGYN PGY II
I see light at the end of the tunnel!!!...wait a minute its just another freakin tunnel!

in all seriousness now. i was just like that, thinking exactly this way until i paid a little more attention to things and showed up to some SGA meetings, then later on in basic science had a few chances to work closely with the dean on things and all i will say is this

have any of you actually EVER tried to get a concensus from 500 people on anything? "listening to students" basically boils down to never doing anything because everyone willnot agree on anything. that is why its important to have admin who have dealt with med schools in the US before so they can try and get things done

i agree that some of the things admin has done, are doing, will do swuck, make no sense, disrupt your life and whatever else you may think but i guarantee that there is logic behind madness and the deans don't do things just to mess with students.

as for scheduling tests at our lovely carib schools you gotta understand that the professors are also on break for limited amonuts of time, some are still active in rersearch and other activities, some actually may live overseas in europe and have a more limited travel platter to choose from than daily flights from san juan, miami, newark, and south carolina that need some minor flexibility at the begining or end of the semester

and i am removed from basic science and would never do it again but you what that gives me? hind sight....hind sight to realize just how ridiculous, inflexible, demanding, petty and self absorbed we were..myself included

i swear it takes a special person to be admin...if i was dean dealing with me or my classmates in basic science there...there would have been times when i would have needed to be talked down from the roof or carried home from cliffhanger

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OBGYN PGY II
I see light at the end of the tunnel!!!...wait a minute its just another freakin tunnel!

here is a point by point run down of your arguments


1)The fact that lots of people don't like medical school does not change the fact that it is worse here than probably any US school.
-yes it does because most everyone also thinks they have it worse than anyone else so you are not alone

2) I'm sorry that you need this spelled out for you, but I'll give it a quick try. AUC gets whatever professor will agree to come here
-not so much. if you look at the CV's most have US teaching experince, some actually are known by some med students i've had that had classes with them

3)there is very little research opportunity,
-agree but this isn't a research university, no governement grants and i would say many of the professors are darn happy to be out of the publish or perrish environment as one of your professors told me when i met him at the hospital "i would never go back to that hell of as life"

4) we have zero patient contact until 5th semester (and even then, very limited),
-hate to break it to you but so do many med students in the US, and actually the one school that has patient contact from second semester by asigning clinic time and patients to the students every single last one abosulutely hates it, they constantly complain about it, can't beleive how bad they have it, how the stupid admin never thinks of them and is making them do this when they don't know what anything is, means, what the disease process is, and so on. many US med students get clinical experience gradually, and some actually increase their standardized patient skills during rotations with oscis exams, and standardized patients. but again these students who have early patient contact think they have it worse than anyone

5)we have very few resources outside of a small library and office hours, we have the added hassle of living out of country, we rotate through less prestigious (and some outright bad) hospitals, we are at a disadvantage for match, etc. etc. etc.
-library yes, very small could be much much bigger to accomodate all the students. then again libraries are becoming obsolte. FSU the newest allopath school in the US does not have a library ..they have a virtual library and when i interviewed for residency it was touted as a model for every other school. as for office hours i would say that it depends on the prfessor, like everywhere else some expand and some help more than others though one of your complaints (lack of research) actually makes it easier for profs to have more time

6)So no, I really could not care less if I have a beach 5 minutes away.
-when you are 3 years in this god for4saken weather you will care

7)I'd take the freezing cold at a medical school that cares more about the students than the money any day!
-so would the wayne state students who have had their tuition doubled again and again, have been told that their hospital may not renew its contract with the school, theymay miss the match, there are no spots to place them in then have the contract extended 2 years leaving the new students to freak out, so would the kmc students who were pulled from rotations..and so on and so on. again simply being in a US school does not mean its all puppy dogs and sunshine...everyone thinks they have it worse than everyone else.


8)Sure, it's nice to be in nice surroundings, but I do not consider St. Maarten to be nice surroundings, no matter how pretty the beaches may be, and it should be at the bottom of anyone's list in medical school priorities. We're not here to get a tan.

-you will probably re-visit this statement later on. i hated sxm with a passion..so much so that i made t-shirts of thatcartoon kid urinating on a pic of the island with big letters saying SXM SUCKS! and wore it to the airport on my way out...now i can't think of a better place to go to school. good education, resonable resources, enough distractions to let me forget about school, the beach, topless tourists...then again there were the down sides..the french, tourists in banana hamocks and the french

9)Moreover, I have never had a major complaint about the actual education - just the steps that we have to go through to get it here. In fact, I've said many times that the education is fine and I'm sure I'll be prepared to take the step, as many before me have been. But, if you do well at AUC, it's likely because of the hard work you put in, not because of anything the school did.

-i can tell you the wayne, msu, kmc and poma people don't think the school did anything for them either

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OBGYN PGY II
I see light at the end of the tunnel!!!...wait a minute its just another freakin tunnel!

Hey guys, I have a riddle for ya:

What do you call the guy who graduates last in his class at the worst medical school in the world (whatever that school may be)?

Give up?

You call him a Doctor.

There is no sense in complaining over temporary situations that will eventually lead you to the realization of your dreams....

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~Slaol

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WCU Biology '07
AUC May '08


"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."
~Edmund Burke

Get Involved: PM me if interested
http://www.dagodalahera.org/
http://www.ivdn-africa.org/medical_programs.asp

Wow. Your glass is half empty, isn't it?

The three universities I have worked at (both as a teacher and staff), and the one I attended in undergrad, all had major problems, and dissatisfied students. In my experience, if you're a complainer, you're going to find stuff to complain about, anywhere you are, regardless of your situation. Since you're a blogger, I don't need to tell you that the vast majority of med student blogs, from students all over the world, complain about stupid stuff on a regular basis.

Since you so obviously enjoy your complaining, I'll leave you to it. But before I do, I'll say this: Life is a lot more fun if you look for the good stuff once in a while too.

Sure there are difficulties inherent in attending a for-profit institution that cares more about the bottom line than about student satisfaction. Sure there are difficulties inherent in living on a second world island. Sure there are difficulties inherent in living in the tropics. Sure there are difficulties inherent in attending a second (or third, or fourth) tier medical school.

But who cares? I'm willing to bet that if you'd gotten in to Yale or Harvard, you'd be complaining about something there too.

<cue inspirational string riff>

Life is hard! And what defines us as individuals is not how easy our road was, but how we faced it. We can choose to complain and whine about the negative stuff in our lives and accomplish nothing other than a sour taste in our mouth. Or we can choose to either work to fix it, or work to accept it. You Sir, seem to be choosing the sour taste.

All I can say is, you're missing a lot of fun on the beach.

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Suffering is optional.

You make a lot of good points and I'll admit that I didn't know that some other US schools had rotations problems - I thought they were all pretty much guaranteed.

Well the schools I applied to all had patient contact. And MD students (my first choice school) are in the hospital from the first semester. My friend who is there loves the experience she's getting. And, whether they like their experience or not, I bet they'd prefer what they're doing to sitting in ICM for 2 hrs. doing introductions on a spouse or upper semester for 15 minutes, then spending the rest of the time listening to other people fumble through introductions. Anything with a real patient would be nice. Again, I can only base this on what I've seen, but what I've seen is a lot better.


If they're going electronic, that's great. But, AUC is not going electronic, and is still very small.

I've lived my whole life with 4 seasons and an often very cold winter. I like the cold, love skiing, and I miss the seasons.

Well honestly, I didn't know any US students had those problems. But, even if they do, they only have a couple of major issues...we pretty much have them all. And at least when they graduate, they're US graduates.


I guess we'll see once I leave here. But, for the time being, I hate it with a passion and I'd love to get that shirt! I can think of much better places to be in school though. Maybe every US school isn't significantly better, but some are. The only thing that I like about being in school here is that I hate being here and I don't think there's much of anything to do. Because of that, I have few distractions and study a lot more than I think I'd be able to if I were in school at home.

Out of curiosity, why did you dislike the french more than the dutch locals? I find the dutch locals to be just as bad - if not worse. And, you have to deal with the a lot more often.

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AUC 4th Semester

I didn't say I don't enjoy the beach, I've had some good times there. Just said that I wouldn't pick a school based on it. Maybe all of the inherent difficulties you mentioned with being here just bother me more than some other people. Although, I can assure you that I'm not the only one who feels the same way.

In any case, I honestly complain on here a lot more than I usually would. This is kind of my place to vent. Although I wish I got into a US school, I really am usually pretty satisfied with things. Life's not bad.

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AUC 4th Semester

While some complaining is going on (being in the caribbean, the profs, etc), I think there were some vaild concerns expressed about the organization of the MCB classes. Unlike the former problems, which have no remedy, there is no reason to settle for chaos in MCB as the material could be rearranged in a meaningful way easily.

Cell biology, Genetics, and Biochemistry were not such bad classes that a rush into the MCB change was needed, IMO. I am glad that they are slowly integrating the material, but that seems like something that could have been done in meetings before the students were impacted.

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Proud to be a step 1 survivor.

I totally agree. MCB was a nightmare, one that I'm glad I made it out of alive. Believe me, I did my fair share of whining about it while I was taking it. And I wrote a thoughtful, but very frank evaluation detailing exactly why I thought it was an poorly put together class. But I didn't for a minute think that it couldn't have happened to me in a N. American school. My sister went to med school in Canada during a major curriculum revision, and some of the horror tales she tells makes AUC's craziness look tame in comparison. Horrifically bad teaching, assinine course rearrangement, and poor planning can happen anywhere, even at top tier schools. Anywhere you end up, your best bet is to put your head down, get your degree, and get out of Dodge.

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Suffering is optional.