Thread: exam,usmle,c.rotation and residency. prep.

1. Dear all can you please tell me that if this school prepares its students for the usmle (exams I, II ck, cs)? if yes, is it a seperate course or included with the tuition?
2. Do they actually place you in the us for clinical rotations or you have to find it your self and how are the classes attended in the 3-4th yr. with actual teachers or TAs or books?
3. Do you actually have to repeat the whole semester if you unfortunately fail one class?
4. What is the residency procedure. does school helps you with it?

thank you very much for your time and advice in advance.

adnaan

Originally Posted by bukharilv

1. Dear all can you please tell me that if this school prepares its students for the usmle (exams I, II ck, cs)? if yes, is it a seperate course or included with the tuition?
2. Do they actually place you in the us for clinical rotations or you have to find it your self and how are the classes attended in the 3-4th yr. with actual teachers or TAs or books?
3. Do you actually have to repeat the whole semester if you unfortunately fail one class?
4. What is the residency procedure. does school helps you with it?

thank you very much for your time and advice in advance.

adnaan

hey i cant answer all your questions but here's what i know.
1. yes the school prepares you for usmle step 1, it is an integrated kaplan course in the 5th semester of basic sciences
2. yes they place you, but you get to pick where you want to be placed once you get your step 1 scores back. you call the school and they tell you if your choice is available and when you can start
3. i dont know
4. no you don't have to repeat the whole semester if you fail a class. you only have to repeat the failed class
5. dont know

I haven't started yet and will start in Aug, but I've answered your questions to the best of my knowledge. Correct me if I'm wrong you guys. =)

Yes it is true you don't have to repeat the whole semester if you fail a class. However, you can no longer withdrawl from one class if you are failing. If you want to withdrawl and not receive a failing grade on your transcript...you'll have to withdrawl from the entire semester. That may be where the confusion is coming from.

Originally Posted by bukharilv

1. Dear all can you please tell me that if this school prepares its students for the usmle (exams I, II ck, cs)? if yes, is it a seperate course or included with the tuition?
2. Do they actually place you in the us for clinical rotations or you have to find it your self and how are the classes attended in the 3-4th yr. with actual teachers or TAs or books?
3. Do you actually have to repeat the whole semester if you unfortunately fail one class?
4. What is the residency procedure. does school helps you with it?

thank you very much for your time and advice in advance.

adnaan

Hi dude, I looked up some of the stuff you were asking about, hope it helps:
* About clinical rotations - Quoted from user rrod:
"depends on the rotation and the site:

LSU psych: not many formal lectures, maybe two in six weeks. we had house staff meetings every two days and a hospital staff meeting once a month. also some drug company lunches/lectures. you were on your own with your attending and they determined how much you did. some of us saw our own pts in clinic while others still couldn't do a MSE at six weeks.

Michigan IM: morning lectures 7:30 AM 4 days a week (wednesday off), then there are one or two daily medical student lectures daily, radiology lecture every thursday. meeting with the IM medical director every tues at 2: morning med student lecture is at 7:15 or 7:30 afternoon is at either 1:00 or 2:00. in between that time you have to see your pts, do all the scut, read up on your cases, and if you are lucky you can eat. its a lot more fun than basic science.

as far as faculty, you are taught by attendings teaching the US med students the only difference appears to be our schedules. they start rotations on tuesdays i beleive and, unlike us, they get off the tues before they have to take their rotation exam. we on the other hand have to take it when its given, even if you are not done with that rotation you take it (if you are within 7 days of finishing and the exam falls on one of your rotation days, you take the shelf for that rotation plus any other that you haven't taken yet) once again advantage US.

setting them up: cores are set up for you. if you do electives at one of the auc core sites then you can do most electives at one site. if you do them at non affiliated sites you set them up yourself. 5th semester you get a book with a huge list of elective sites were auc students have done at least 10 weeks of rotations. if you go to auc, don't worry about clinicals, concentrate on getting through basic, the slots are there. i know its hard and worrysome and i didn't believe it either when i was told not to worry but its true, you really don't need to worry about clinicals until you leave the island and pass your exam"

And from user Teratos:
"You do get lectures in all of your rotations. Clinicals are different than what most people are used to. It is case based. You will get the most out of your experience if you go see patients on your own, read about their problems, listen to their hearts and lungs, and abdomens etc. Don't just listen to patients with murmurs. Listen to everyone. If you don't know what normal is you can't figure out what abnormal is. I can hear benign flow murmurs in 10-20% of people I listen to. most med students have a hard time hearing a 3/6 mitral regurg murmur the first few times they listen, cause they aren't too sure what they are listening for.

See patients with X problem, read about X problem. When you see X problem on the boards you will remember it."

Here's the thread for those entries:
http://www.valuemd.com/thread38507.html

* About USMLE prep - from user Esth0001:
"I know AUC course examinations are In USMLE format and in the fifth semester they have 16 weeks kaplan prep course which you do not have to pay and its part of your tuition."

And here's the thread:
http://www.valuemd.com/threadnav38807-1-10.html

* About the 5th semester - from user swimguy23:
"Would somebody share advice about 5th semester? What are the requirements to pass the USMLE prep component as well as the clinical component? Is the USMLE prep sufficient or do most people find that they have to take extra time after 5th semester to do extra prep for Step 1?

no prob.....To pass BBCM (codename for K@plan) there are 2 components you must pass. Within each component there are 2 ways to pass.....Component 1 - you must have a passing average on your shelf exams OR you must pass the comprehensive shelf. Component 2 you must increase 20% points from the K@plan diagnostic to the K@aplan simulated usmle exam OR have 80% attendance. I took extra time because when I scheduled my exam I kinda freaked out that I wasnt ready and my girlfriend did the same thing. We stayed on the island for an extra month and studied. She was able to move her exam closer but I wasnt able to because there were no closer dates available in my area. I think if you put the time in the first 4 semesters and hit 5th semester hard you can go right home and take the USMLE. I was happy to take a little bit more time. I actually take my exam 2 weeks from today (please dont wish me good luck, i hate that phrase).

The problem with 5th semester is you have ICM also. Granted they moved Path2 from 5th but ICM still does take up quite a bit of time during the first 8 weeks of 5th semester, however, dont think ICM is useless or whatever, there were quite a few questions I have gotten right on the shelf exams because of clinical diagnosis.

My advice is go thru the first few weeks of 5th and see how much studying you are able to do. If you feel like you need more time schedule an extra few weeks for yourself, but nothing more. let me know if you need anything else."

And the thread:
http://www.valuemd.com/thread38794.html

* About residency, I would suggest checking out the residency appts for AUC at http://www.aucmed.com/students/resid_appts.htm, and this post by DrB that I found interesting:

"Data suggests little difference in residency placement stats
This is in response to the data posted by ssman.

An analysis like this is LONG overdue. Obviously, there is some missing data but, assuming you have compiled all the available data, this will give a rough indication of differences in residency placements. You are to be congratulated. This is the first time I have seen anything besides anecdotal comparisons on this topic.

I added a few things to your analysis to account for the competitiveness of different fields.

The percentage of IMGs in a field is an indicator of residency competitiveness. While it may not be the best indicator, it is highly relevant for IMGs. I took the percent nonIMGs as an index of competitiveness. Thus, if a field has 25% IMGs then its index is .75. Here is the percentage of IMGs in each field (taken from a previous post on valueMD)

ENT 1.9%
Ortho 2.0%
Derm 3.6%
EM 4.4%
Urology 5.1%
Plastics 5.8%
Ophth. 6.9%
Rad-Onc 8.0%
Neurosurg 9.1%
Transition 9.2%
Rad-Diag 9.8%
Ob/Gyn 21.0%
Surg 21.5%
Anesth. 26.7%
Peds 29.5%
FP 33.5%
Path 33%
PM&R 34.9%
Neuro 38.0%
Psych 42.0%
IM 48.9%


I calculated a weighted average of the competitiveness scores for each school by multiplying the number of placements in each field times the competitiveness index for each field and divide by the total number of students. The results are shown below:

..............SGU.........Ross....AUC....%IMG..... . Selectivity
IM............133.............50..... 44...... 48.9....... 0.511
FP............. 69.............44......56.......33.5....... 0.665
Peds......... 70 ............10......11.......29.5........0.705
Surg......... 41 .............9.......20.......21.5........0.785
Anes..........35..............3........5.......26. 7........0.733
EM.............30..............5........5........4 .4.........0.956
OB/gyn......18.............12.......5.........21..... ....0.79
Psychiatry..13...............6......11........42.. .......0.58
Rehab.........8...............3........1......34.9 ........0.651
Pathology....6...............0........1......33... ........0.67
Neuro.........6...............1........1.......38. ..........0.62
Rads..........5...............0.........2.......9. 8.........0.902


Overall Residency Placement score:

SGU.......Ross........AUC
0.67......0.64.........0.65

Obviously, one can argue with the analysis from a number of perspectives. First, it is obvious that the data is only a sample and may not be representative of actual placements. Second, one can argue with the index of competitiveness that I selected. On the other hand, with complete data this would be a reasonable approach. And, even despite the flaws, I think it gives a good starting point for thinking about this issue.

Given those caveats, the data suggest there is little difference in quality of residency placements among established carib schools. It would be interesting to compare this against a few DO schools and a couple of US schools at different levels of competitiveness. I think the results would be very helpful to new students."

As for the procedure, you have to go through the match, and what really determines your residency appt would be your USMLE scores, GPA, LORs, and of course the difficulty of your choice of residency and the place you want to do it, I dont think there's much your school could do there to help you out there.

And since I myself am not an AUC student, but just someone reading through the forums like yourself, please be sure to get 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinions on each of your decisions!!!

Originally Posted by drkriti

* About residency, I would suggest checking out the residency appts for AUC at http://www.aucmed.com/students/resid_appts.htm, and this post by DrB that I found interesting:

"Data suggests little difference in residency placement stats
This is in response to the data posted by ssman.

An analysis like this is LONG overdue. Obviously, there is some missing data but, assuming you have compiled all the available data, this will give a rough indication of differences in residency placements. You are to be congratulated. This is the first time I have seen anything besides anecdotal comparisons on this topic.

I added a few things to your analysis to account for the competitiveness of different fields.

The percentage of IMGs in a field is an indicator of residency competitiveness. While it may not be the best indicator, it is highly relevant for IMGs. I took the percent nonIMGs as an index of competitiveness. Thus, if a field has 25% IMGs then its index is .75. Here is the percentage of IMGs in each field (taken from a previous post on valueMD)

ENT 1.9%
Ortho 2.0%
Derm 3.6%
EM 4.4%
Urology 5.1%
Plastics 5.8%
Ophth. 6.9%
Rad-Onc 8.0%
Neurosurg 9.1%
Transition 9.2%
Rad-Diag 9.8%
Ob/Gyn 21.0%
Surg 21.5%
Anesth. 26.7%
Peds 29.5%
FP 33.5%
Path 33%
PM&R 34.9%
Neuro 38.0%
Psych 42.0%
IM 48.9%


I calculated a weighted average of the competitiveness scores for each school by multiplying the number of placements in each field times the competitiveness index for each field and divide by the total number of students. The results are shown below:

..............SGU.........Ross....AUC....%IMG..... . Selectivity
IM............133.............50..... 44...... 48.9....... 0.511
FP............. 69.............44......56.......33.5....... 0.665
Peds......... 70 ............10......11.......29.5........0.705
Surg......... 41 .............9.......20.......21.5........0.785
Anes..........35..............3........5.......26. 7........0.733
EM.............30..............5........5........4 .4.........0.956
OB/gyn......18.............12.......5.........21..... ....0.79
Psychiatry..13...............6......11........42.. .......0.58
Rehab.........8...............3........1......34.9 ........0.651
Pathology....6...............0........1......33... ........0.67
Neuro.........6...............1........1.......38. ..........0.62
Rads..........5...............0.........2.......9. 8.........0.902


Overall Residency Placement score:

SGU.......Ross........AUC
0.67......0.64.........0.65

Obviously, one can argue with the analysis from a number of perspectives. First, it is obvious that the data is only a sample and may not be representative of actual placements. Second, one can argue with the index of competitiveness that I selected. On the other hand, with complete data this would be a reasonable approach. And, even despite the flaws, I think it gives a good starting point for thinking about this issue.

Given those caveats, the data suggest there is little difference in quality of residency placements among established carib schools. It would be interesting to compare this against a few DO schools and a couple of US schools at different levels of competitiveness. I think the results would be very helpful to new students."

As for the procedure, you have to go through the match, and what really determines your residency appt would be your USMLE scores, GPA, LORs, and of course the difficulty of your choice of residency and the place you want to do it, I dont think there's much your school could do there to help you out there.

And since I myself am not an AUC student, but just someone reading through the forums like yourself, please be sure to get 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinions on each of your decisions!!!

very impressive.....its like im famous now that ive been quoted.....i hope you have other hobbies tho, you lost me at the calculations

I'm glad you feel that way swimguy, I was kinda worried I'd be killed for plagiarism or something .

Oh and about those statistics, those are "plagiarized" from DrB's post: http://www.valuemd.com/thread28904.html.

As for other hobbies, as a pre-meddie trying to get into med school, who has time for them??