What's UNIBE really like?

[shirley07]

Hey guys,

This question are for those who are either current students at UNIBE or alumni's of UNIBE. I am interested in entering the School of Medicine but I hear both good and bad news about this UNIBE institution that's in Santo Domingo.

Now don't get me wrong, I am half Dominican and I've been there a couple of times and I don't mind the cold showers and "3rd world country".
I can adapt to that lifestyle.

What I really want to know if about the school itself, the professors, what to expect when it comes to studying, exams, presentations, lectures, clinical internships.

My spanish isn't all that great, on a scale from 1 - 10 I would give it a 7 1/2 but I really want to know is, will I receive a good education at UNIBE.

Also what are the passing rates of the 3 USMLE that is taken in order to enter the U.S for residency?

Please give me your input, it is greatly appreciated. :p


Thank you.

Shirley Rosa

[shirley07]

Hmm, well I noticed no one has yet answered my post question. So I decided to post previous comments that I read in this forum.

I found Ams and CubanMD's Post Messages to be very helpful and informative. It really gives you an insight of what to really expect. Hope you guys benefit from it too. :-)

You can look for them under "Search" just input their names and their messages will appear.




Shirley Rosa

[losackmd]

when you find the perfect place to go please post it!

when you find one that doesnt have flaws please post it!

do you or do you not want to become a physician?

my advice to you is to ask yourself that!
then ask yourself that again 5 times!
what is the most important question to find the answer to?
i mean no disrespect but you are not asking the right questions.

you are looking for a flood of malcontents to respond and they will surely confuse and frustrate you.

Do you want to become a MEDICAL DOCTOR? Do you want to work your a---s off no matter how hard or what it takes both psychologically and physicially?

then you have answered your question i believe 95%!

find out if the school is who accredited. Then go see it if you can afford it.

THEN stop asking questions. yo repito STOP the questions. Start asking yourself
questions, not of others. Are you afraid, intimidated, unsure of yourself, confused if you want this ARDUOUS road to residency> ceritification > licensure maybe 9-10 more years of your valuable life? Are you willing? Are you lying to yourself or are you serious? If you think you can make it, AND MANY MANY MANY OF US DO and DID no matter what school it was no matter what the answers to your questions are,
then just GO and STUDY. People are everywhere studying and making it.
THERE IS NO PERFECT PLACE. I will venture to say most foreign schools are
compared to US schools pretty S-------y! you are facing a new culture etc.......... not just medical education.

Stop these (excuse me please i do beg your pardon) INANE REDICULOUS IRRELEVANT questions. If you arent afraid and have full confidence in yourself and your desire YOU DO NOT NEED TO ASK THESE QUESTIONS!!!!
YOU WILL SUCCEED. Who is better than you?

[shirley07]

I'm not sure why you posted that message with such a negative attitude. I strongly believe it makes a huge difference on the education one receives from an institution, regardless if it's accreditated.

The school's environment, faculty, and especially the lecturing criteria makes an impact on your academic acheivements. I don't know if I posted anything that made you feel like I was talking negative of UNIBE, but I wasn't. I actually heard postive things about UNIBE (school of medicine) from alumni's and from doctors themselves.

I know there isn't such a thing as a perfect school, but one that will in fact assist me in becoming a great physician is all that matters.

Shirley Rosa

[ecks82]

I'm not sure why you posted that message with such a negative attitude. I strongly believe it makes a huge difference on the education one receives from an institution, regardless if it's accreditated.

The school's environment, faculty, and especially the lecturing criteria makes an impact on your academic acheivements. I don't know if I posted anything that made you feel like I was talking negative of UNIBE, but I wasn't. I actually heard postive things about UNIBE (school of medicine) from alumni's and from doctors themselves.

I know there isn't such a thing as a perfect school, but one that will in fact assist me in becoming a great physician is all that matters.

Shirley Rosa



Well said.......

[losackmd]

i hate to say this again to you all but its my last attempt to knock some sense into all of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have nothing to gain by saying this again to you........

you basically teach yourself to pass the exams to get back home. You study the
english books, what AMG's study, you get the notes from these USMLE courses
and you book and book and book and book!

Professors, schools environment, faculty, lecturing criteria is all HS-----t!
im sorry but the truth bears itself out and i have the evidence................I am the evidence. My best friends my colleagues are the evidence.

Abe Lincoln is the evidence...... a log cabin made him the President.

there is no easy way out here , no one will spoon feed you like they do in American schools with answers to the exams.
You do not learn to be a physician in MEDICAL SCHOOL!
please understand this............
you learn to be a physician in your post grad training and after and after and after that. You are all paying for the privilege to STUDY in an accredited school to take those exams and pass them to get back. Ofcourse you have to pass the schools tests
( cramming the night before like all of us did ) but for the life of me
you teach yourself the basic sciences, you teach yourself the clinical sciences.....
its all in the books.........

You youngins have so much to learn............
im trying to streamline all this ** for you so you dont all drive yourself crazy worrying which school to go to. What is the difference if u study 20 hours a day in SPM or in SFM or in Sto dgo ( mind you Sdgo is a great city) ?
same books same information same desk, same lamp, same fan, same fly swatter, same blackouts, same USMLE wherever you are.
As far as becoming a great physician: THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH WHERE YOU GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL! YOU ARE SO SO SO WRONG AND MISLEAD!!!!

WHere you study means NOTHING AT ALL as far as making you a great physician! I WILL STAKE MY LIFE ON THIS STATEMENT I HAVE JUST MADE TO YOU. I have seen the worst physicians from HARVARD MED SCHOOL, I have seen the best physicians
from UCE!
I dont even know what you mean by a great physician.

look i stay away from these forums because you all dont realize that its all up to you
to get back home. NOT THE SCHOOL THE PROFS THE ENVIRONMENT!!!!!!!!!!

To my detractors: are you going to ask your own physician where he or she went to medical school and if you do are you going to base seeing that physician on the answer. IF so its insane. give this some thought!

[NewHope]

i hate to say this again to you all but its my last attempt to knock some sense into all of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have nothing to gain by saying this again to you........

you basically teach yourself to pass the exams to get back home. You study the
english books, what AMG's study, you get the notes from these USMLE courses
and you book and book and book and book!

Professors, schools environment, faculty, lecturing criteria is all HS-----t!
im sorry but the truth bears itself out and i have the evidence................I am the evidence. My best friends my colleagues are the evidence.

Abe Lincoln is the evidence...... a log cabin made him the President.

there is no easy way out here , no one will spoon feed you like they do in American schools with answers to the exams.
You do not learn to be a physician in MEDICAL SCHOOL!
please understand this............
you learn to be a physician in your post grad training and after and after and after that. You are all paying for the privilege to STUDY in an accredited school to take those exams and pass them to get back. Ofcourse you have to pass the schools tests
( cramming the night before like all of us did ) but for the life of me
you teach yourself the basic sciences, you teach yourself the clinical sciences.....
its all in the books.........

You youngins have so much to learn............
im trying to streamline all this ** for you so you dont all drive yourself crazy worrying which school to go to. What is the difference if u study 20 hours a day in SPM or in SFM or in Sto dgo ( mind you Sdgo is a great city) ?
same books same information same desk, same lamp, same fan, same fly swatter, same blackouts, same USMLE wherever you are.
As far as becoming a great physician: THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH WHERE YOU GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL! YOU ARE SO SO SO WRONG AND MISLEAD!!!!

WHere you study means NOTHING AT ALL as far as making you a great physician! I WILL STAKE MY LIFE ON THIS STATEMENT I HAVE JUST MADE TO YOU. I have seen the worst physicians from HARVARD MED SCHOOL, I have seen the best physicians
from UCE!
I dont even know what you mean by a great physician.

look i stay away from these forums because you all dont realize that its all up to you
to get back home. NOT THE SCHOOL THE PROFS THE ENVIRONMENT!!!!!!!!!!

To my detractors: are you going to ask your own physician where he or she went to medical school and if you do are you going to base seeing that physician on the answer. IF so its insane. give this some thought!



Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez!!! Calm down please! A lady just wanted a few pointers specific to UNIBE life. And many of us on here would've loved some feedback from real students. The "general stuff" is the same all over. I don't think anybody was argueing otherwise. Why go on such tangent? Please don't take it as a disrespect though. I believe she was looking for specifics, and you just give her a lecture with generalities that noone as far as I know have disputed here. These fora are here forexatly that Qs and As, IMHO.

[shirley07]

Thank you NEWHOPE I thought I was the only who thought Losackmd was talking to me with an attitude.

But LosackMD thank you, I SEE clearly what your saying and what your trying to make me realize the (real-life). But if UNIBE happens to be the worse decision of my life, I will point the finger at you. ;-)

Let's stop the MADNESS.


Shirley Rosa

[Cubanito76]

What I really want to know if about the school itself, the professors, what to expect when it comes to studying, exams, presentations, lectures, clinical internships. My spanish isn't all that great on a scale from 1 - 10 I would give it a 7 1/2 but I want to know will I receive a good education at UNIBE and do you know the passing rates of those 3 exams that is taken in order to enter the U.S for residency?



Okay, so getting to your questions.

I have no idea what passing rates are for the exams. The school itself only prepares you to become a doctor and not to pass the exams. I have seen people fail miserably as well as seen others score in their 90's for step 1. This is directly attributed to the student's work ethic. The school itself will only prepare for approximately 10-15% of the the material on step 1 so there's a lot of work to do.

There are some excellent professors, some mediocre ones, and others that should be teaching grade school. Professors will still expect you to know the material to pass classes so you will learn it even if it's self-taught.

So your Spanish is 7 1/2 out of 10. Wow, that's excellent! A lot of my friends arrive here with a 0 out of 10 and do just fine. After learning a little of course.

Don't worry. Being here is just learning how to do things a little differently. In fact, EVERYTHING here is done differently;it's another country. Don't expect for people to see things your way here, and don't waste your time trying to change the system. You WON'T, and your complaints will fall on deaf ears. The faster you adjust to life here, the easier everything will be for you. Go with the flow, and you will be fine. You might actually learn to enjoy it. I most certainly am.

Good luck with your decision!

[niuyiar]

my 2 cents,

I agree with Cubanito,

1-school won't prepare you for USMLE, you do it yourself.
2-Your spanish is a 7 out of 10 then you are set, I saw tons of people struggling in the hospitals bc they had a 1 out of 10(or just doing nothing).
3-Adjusting to another country sometimes is stressful for some people, for me I loved my time there, made really good friends, and enjoyed a really beautiful island which has a lot to offer for those willing to search (north coast is amazing).
4-You can count on an electric outage almost daily.
5-UNIBE is one of the best in DR.(a/c in classrooms), actual UNIV facilities are good and look good.
6-It is not anything like the US, meaning that things go slow down there, things get lost somehow, and complaining will not be useful.


GL

[Cubanito76]

It's true about those daily power outages, lol. Now that the elections are over the power has been going out continuously. Part of the DR experience I guess. :)

[billydoc]

It's true about those daily power outages, lol. Now that the elections are over the power has been going out continuously. Part of the DR experience I guess. :)

I guess it's the way Carib operates. When I was in Dominica (newbies pls don't confuse with D.R) "planned" but more so "unplanned" power outages were just a second nature. For some freakish reason it almost invariably came the night before Mini (midterms) or finals. I suppose D.R is not too far behind this "luxury" :p

[niuyiar]

I agree with you, I think it's a caribbean thing, having a power outage the night before midterms/finals, then when you get to the library the whole medical school is in there, just to get a seat is a hassle. the famous "all nighters" lol.

[SWATDOC]

hahah...we had a HUGE power outage in San Pedro the night before our Anatomy I first parcial. Can you believe it? the night before what is probably the hardest test in all of UCE, we get a power outage! Luckily, i am a firefighter/EMT and I was able to go to the fire department and use the officer's club to study...with lights and A/C! Otherwise i would have been screwed! :twisted:

[desi@UNIBE]

What if we have power outage on the night before exams? do apartments and houses have other alternatives?????

[losackmd]

SPM/ UCE historical facts/stories/war stories;
from 1976-1980 we had the power off religiously 1-3 PM and 7-10 PM for about a year! water would also shut off regularly, more often than not.

but, this ofcourse became the exception and not the rule. There were days that started
without current for 12 hours straight. Then the power resumed for 5 minutes, the lights flickering, off went the power then they remained off for another few hours, then on again. It was impossible to predict. Exams or no exams, we booked with candles, Coleman lanterns, gave up and waited for lights to come back on, ( Miramar breaking out in a great applause when the lights came back on ). We thought we were cursed, being punished, that Hazim actually owned the electricity grid and shut it off so we would all be unable to study. I had flashlites, battery powered lanterns, never had a generator.
It was war! WW III and we knew that as long as we didnt lose it psychologically we would win in the end and so will you all who are not
scared off by outages. Apagones! The heat in July and August without lights and water ( i was there during Hurricane David when there was no lights or water for 5 days straight ), will test your strength and desire to become a physician. You will curse and vow to never utter the words Dominican Republic in your future vocabulary, but lights or no lights you
do what you have to to study thru the night whenever. The inability to get cold drinks or food during the long outages was also frustrating.
It was explained to me that hundreds if not thousands of impoverished are using the lines without paying and thus those who pay suffer for it.
How much do you want to become a physician?

Ahhhhhhhhhh the good old days in San Pedro, I remember everything.

[desi@UNIBE]

Is this the current condition also???? :(

[losackmd]

i think thats a risk you have to take Desi
the DR is a poor country
the govt is corrupt
the poor stay poor
the rich get richer
you need to go here
Dominican Republic News & Travel Information Service (http://dr1.com/index.html)

the news is good here in english and current
and you can ask people who arent studying medicine ( totally neutral ) about the country.

[gringostudent]

Yeah its pretty much the same now, more or less, depending on the barrio and who is in charge of the light. My light bill went from 600 pesos to 8000 to 11000 to 27000 back to 8000. That is like 800 dollars for one month for a little house with 1 AC unit. We did a reclamation and we were told that we needed to not use the toaster. The dude that told me that said it with a smile. DR1 is an excellent site to get non biased info and daily news in english.

[losackmd]

ya know its nice to know sometimes that some things never change
we are so spoiled here in the USA, so spoiled...............................
things are predictable and comfortable and when you turn the light switch on
you pretty much know the bulb is gonna do its thing and when you turn the shower
on there is so much hot water you sometimes forget the hard times in SPM.
Look all who are studying medicine in the DR, you are getting a tremendous education not only medical, but in life and in all its vicissitudes. Getting through SPM
is a monumental task in of itself.
Its a great place to go back to after youve made the grade, got your license your certification in your specialty and your feet are planted on the ground. You seem to forget all the hardships. interesting isnt it?

[desi@UNIBE]

thanks for preparing me as to what shld I be expecting there in DR... At least it wouldn't come as a surprise and make me panic if I have a power outage rt before my exams :)

[niuyiar]

desi,
There are plenty of buildings with electric generators which kick in once the power goes down. They are more expensive but is good knowing you have power the night before the exam. Just look around, I know of a couple on gazcue. The other choice are the famous "Inversores" which consists of a group of batteries wired to a charger, once the power goes out you have enough electricity to use a couple of lightbulbs and a fan, the problem with this sistem, is if the power is out for more than 24 hrs then chances are the batteries would die. Then there are few places known by the veteran students in which the lights went out but it was for short periods at a time, one was near *****l ********* house, I lived there and it was sweet, the power when it did go off it would come back in about 2-3 hours. another was near el palacio presidencial, the power was good on dominican standards. Once you live there for a while you would know where to look. Ususally living next to a high ranking political figure works.
GL

[ERNEST714]

Yes, the power situation is to the point of being insufferable and a solution does not seem to be in the near future. However, the University has their own power supply to run the entire school (sans A/C I think) but one thing good for the students is they keep the library open 24/7 during mid semesters and finals. A definite inconvenience to go there after hours but it is an alternative.

[desi@UNIBE]

thanks a lot for ur replies.

[october]

i graduated in 1982 in SD and the power situation was quite good. SPDM was not so good, nor was the power. Pretty decent that unibe has a 7 Eleven Library and generators.

Really, I don't know why they cannot improve/fix the power problems, after all they have had so many years to do it and if I am not wrong, multinational assistance.

I have never experienced such outages/frequency anywhere else in Latin America. eg; ecuador, venezuela, colombia, argentina, brasil, panama, etc. not even in cambodia, laos, vietnam, indonesia. I have heard cuba HAS power outage problems.

Nowadays, NOBODY should need to suffer at a place like uce considering all the options available.

I visited unibe about 4 years ago and it sure seemed a nice place. Some of my same professors are still teaching

[october]

i think thats a risk you have to take Desi
the DR is a poor country
the govt is corrupt
the poor stay poor
the rich get richer
you need to go here
Dominican Republic News & Travel Information Service (http://dr1.com/index.html)

the news is good here in english and current
and you can ask people who arent studying medicine ( totally neutral ) about the country.

the govt is corrupt

If the DR did it right, the power would not go out. The USA power almost never goes out yet is there not a vp whose ex corporation is getting no-bid multibillion dollar contracts by just sending sons and daughters to fix the mess after the WMD's mysteriously evaporated in iraq?


the poor stay poor
the rich get richer

no, that couldn't be america either!

[losackmd]

OCTOBER
quote me thats fine: im flattered!
you got a bone to pick with me thats fine too: im pretty easy going intelligent funny
and absolutely know what i am talking about from experience.

but look at the reality. You cannot compare the USA TO THE DR when it comes to these issues you are focusing on. A poor person in the USA and a poor person in the DR. come on !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

its apples and oranges.
the DRepublicans have become NY's highest minority group
people from all over the world still run to come here
I dont see it the other way around do you?
no arguing here, just peaceful coexistence. we are trying to teach one another to live in peace. we can both disagree and still be great men of medicine.


and btw read this when youre not in the ER.

Understanding Poverty in America (http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm)

[october]

losack


your points are also valid and well taken and i have no bone to pick.

actually, i meant to say that as far as corruption goes, if the RD did it right(corruption, that is), they would be able to provide better infrastructure for their own people.

in one way we are different, in that I never considered myself a great man of medicine.