Who's pissed?

I just did and I feel a lot better, thanks.

I hear you on that brother... The model I think would do all of us the most good is to admit basically anyone with a dream and a clean reccord. They might just shock you... After that... the slaughter needs to begin, and the students who get cut shouldn't be able to retake classes 3 or 4 times. I think anyone could fail a class... MAYBE two... after that, the schools need to be thinking about whether or not the ******** alarm is functional. Typically though, schools will string this poor guy along for another 20-30 grand until he fails the boards or worse... graduates.... What then? Now, you've got some schmuck with ruined credit, no future and your name all over him. Not only that, the cut needs to happen during basic sciences and not in clinicals... that's why I am a huge fan of step 1 being required to go into clinicals. It's better for everyone. If you're not going to pass, then better to learn earlier than later. If you did pass, then it's better not to have some idiot with your school's name on his lab coat putzing up the rotation...


why am I speaking yiddish?

Not only that, this way the schools could pack out the ** classes, make their money, and still have a good reputation in the clinical world. I think we've actually entered a new realm in economics here which are causing unique problems that prevent this though.
There are now so many schools out there, that they are competing for tuition dollars instead of reputations. BAD BAD BAD.... If you got a pamphlet from every carib school, you'd go blind these days. So prospects often don't know where to look. The harder schools generate flunkies who ramble about politics and unfair grading... which leads to a ballooning of apps to another school. If you could somehow take the top 1/3rd of all carib schools and roll them into 2-3 good schools, man.... you'd have a stellar program. SGU seems to have done this by steadily raising admissions... which gave birth to the next 20 schools full of people who didn't get in there or know to apply there. I think SMU really has a shot to be THE school in the carib, but the students are going to have to play along and toe the line for it to happen.

IMG2006: Your points are well taken. I agree that it would be more humane to slaughter in the beginning rather than in the middle or beyond. To damage one's credit in the process of a mid-season slaughter and then to brand your initials all over their *** is reprehensible. Thanks for the advice -- it is well taken.

ITA , but more of a 'weedout' school doesn't translate in better students or USMLE preparation.

JUst when you thought having the shelf as part of your grade- now 20 PERCENT- was a bad idea, take for example, the NEW policy of grading pt-doctor for next semester.

I know what people are going to say "wow- great", but how is it that someone reading off the powerpoints, changing the schedule and structure of the class around a few times, and then giving us some weird non-USMLE style test we have to study for helping us be better doctors/students?

Its trying to cram us with over 30 credits- i smell a 'weedout' tactic- if we were to really LEARN something, we should emulate SGU and have students get experience in local hospitals and clinics in the lower semesters.

This new policy is better for the pocketbooks again and not for the students - It has been said before , but the new 'investors/ownership' of the school seems to want to emulate Ross and not SGU...

Where I was going with the shelf is that if you can't pass those... you're not going to pass the boards... 20% or not.....

With the PD thing... I'm on board with you 100%. They either need to make this a softball last semester for you guys who have made it through the culling, so that you can study for step 1, or space this out over a wide area where it is a building process that isn't very stressful.


I had this talk when I was down there with a then professor, now dean, who was very critical of that program. He called it medical drama lessons and made an excellent point. No one will care how great your exam skills are if you're never going to get a license because you fail the board. I remeber being tested on what side of the bed you should stand when taking a history... I can remember thinking, "has this guy lost his freaking mind? Aren't I here to learn something useful..." If that doesn't sum up the pee-pee poor focus of the whole program, then I don't know what does. It's the right side, by the way... I got it wrong. Now, I stand on the left just to tap-dance on the grave of my ** career.


I also agree with you 100% about trying to emulate SGU... you know why they're so good? Because they emulate the schools in the US and Canada... given the fact that these are the best schools the world has ever known, I question the wisdom in trying to do something new before you've perfected or even aproximated the standard. However, I think the first step in getting to that point is going to have to include a Ross phase so that we can generate enough good clinical people to get a good rep, so that we'll have more residents in better spots, and later a better image that will raise the admissions standards to near or equal those of many US schools-The SGU phase.

I start SMU in Jan 2005, in the past year SMU changed a lot, some for the good and some for the bad. The grading system is the worse I have ever seen between Maine and Cayman. How can you have two campus and two diffrent grading. At the end of the day the transcripts do not say Maine it say SMU cayman. Yet in cayman you get extra credit, you have 3 exams NOT 6. Califonia was right on the money when they talked about Maine and Cayman, how hard is it to have the same system in place. You would think a year and a half after the Ca report, SMU would of fixed the problems. Instead of being more a like, we are more apart. Shelf worth 10% instead of 20%, 6 class exams vs 3, and it keeps going and going

I think it is very very important to have a representing student body like a Student Council to bridge communication between the administration and the students

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" The human body has the potential to move 2 tons if all the muscles contracted at once. Imagine what the mind can do... "

[quote=IMG2006]Where I was going with the shelf is that if you can't pass those... you're not going to pass the boards... 20% or not..... quote]

Well said. There are many people talking about we only hav 2-6 days to study for the shelfs where in reality we had the entire semester....

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I can do all things through Christ who strenghten me"

I have to agree with you on that one. During our 4th semester (last Summer) my class made a big stink about this. Was anything done during the semester? Nothing...There was a rumor started around the Maine campus that there would be no extra credit for the Comp for both campuses (which proved to be false). Incidentally the shelf was worth extra points for the next semester.

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Juni