hello,

according to the schedule on rossmed.edu, it has every single "subject" exam (shelf exams most likely) given at 8am on the same wednesday in august.

so for example, the 2nd semesters would be taking the Anatomy, Neuro, and Physiology shelves at the exact same time, on the same day, which is clearly impossible.

it also, as Luis pointed out, has Mini 3 listed as Friday Aug 20th...which may actually be true. if so, that is a big time change.

If anybody is still on the island, go to the Admin offices and figure out the facts about this. Its important to everybody. Otherwise, make contact with somebody on the island who can figure it out for you.

MitchDC

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MitchDC/MD
RUSM 2006 Graduate

So what's up with the schedule??? The last exam of the semester has always been on a monday...I am still assuming semester ends on Aug. 16th...the new shelf exam schedule looks way out of whack...
http://survey.rossmed.edu.dm/student...-May-Aug04.htm

This school is good at giving people headaches...

The rumor that I heard was that each student will only take one exam but won't know which subject that he or she will be taking the day that they sit for it. According to the rumor who gets what when they sit for the exam is randomized. For example, a second semester student sitting for the exam might get Neuro, but the person to his left might have Anatomy and the person to his right might have Physiology.

Anyway, this is the scuttlebutt. I haven't heard this confirmed from professors or anyone like that. Only word of mouth from the students.

I heard the same.

Only 1 blind shelf per semester. (for 3rd and 4th)
In addition the new 3rd semester students do not have local finals like before.

Shah_Patel_pt:

If the new 3rd semester students don't have local finals why does the schedule on the DOminica website show them at 1pm on Aug 20th. Also why do they do away with shelf exams when they are supposed to be the best barometer on how a student would do on the USMLE part 1?

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When you become my age you will realize all of the hard work and studying was worth the effort.
"60 years young" another 60 to go if my doctor sons keep me alive with free prescriptions!!

This is where i got my info: Student who attended a meeting with 4th sem and Obensheim.

New policy:

Only 1 blind shelf. (I Know it sucks, it was are only comparative to US students)

We do have 1 local final (mini3) but unlike previous semesters we do not have 3 local finals worth 55% of our grade (each)

please tell me that someone else agrees that the concept of a blind shelf exam given at random is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing they've heard of !?

studying for up to 3 or 4 shelf exams and getting 1 at random? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say nothing like this is done at any other med school....if someone has heard of this unorthodox idea....please speak up.

and to those who were at this meeting, please explain what exactly is going on if you can

thanks

I guess this means we all have to re-schedule our return tickets!!!
A full week to study...wow!!! This will be interesting...

This is the memo from Dean Obensheim

There has been a major change in the exam schedule. I was amazed when I arrived at Ross to find that not only do we have an accelerated curriculum, but in addition we do not even use all of the time available for student learning. It was therefore proposed to the Chairs, the promotion committee and approved by the faculty to actually give our students more time to learn all of the material they were expected to master. We have therefore changed the examination schedule for all semesters beginning with the May '04 semester. The final cumulative examination for each semester will be administered on the last day of the semester, instead of 4 days prior to the end of the semester. In addition, each student will be required to sit for one subject examination at the end of each semester to be administered on Wednesday of the final week of the semester. Unless a student is repeating a course, they will not know which subject examination they will be taking until it is handed to them in the examination room, for semester 1, 1/2 of the students will take Biochemistry and one half Histology and Cell Biology, for semester 2, 1/3 of the students will take each of the appropriate subject exams, for semester 3 all will take Behavioral Science and for semester 4, 1/4 of the students will get each of the exams. The subject examination will count 15% of the total grade. Students will have one week to study without there being any teaching or reviews prior to sitting for the subject examinations. They need to study for all courses since not only will the subject examination be cumulative but so will the Final local examination.

It kinda sucks that the May exam schedule wasn't announced alot further in advance, but I do like the idea alot that we have one full week to study for these subject exams without having all the exams on different days. Now we can get it all done in one day. But I wonder how many students will have to pay for changing their airline ticket return date?