Is there life after ICB? What are the last 2 years like at the UAG?

I vary rarely see any posts from anyone other than those at ICB (the first 2 years at the UAG). What happens to the students after the first two years? Why do they not post? Does the UAG make cadavers from them? Do they all transfer to Ross?

Well, I am now at the HAL (Hospital Angel Leaño), so I can tell you that they have not become cadavers. Some, however, did transfer to other schools (mostly Ross). Some that transferred never planned to stay the full four years here, some were tired of the UAG **, and some were afraid of the classes being in complete Spanish. For others of us that planned to come and finish at the UAG, we are still here. Even on the days that we think of transferring, many of us realistically see transferring as simply trading some issues the UAG has for new ones at a differetnt school. I will be talking to some students that transferred to see what they think. Until then, I can only tell you what I personally know about the UAG from being here

Is HAL better or worse than ICB? It is both. For example, the parking lot is nice (no more sharp rock to flatten your tires, but it is at 120% capacity and only has one entrance. Thus, it is better and worse. Are the teachers better or worse? That is difficult to answer because the entire situation is different. I will say what I think about them, but try not to compare them because it would be an unfair comparison. What is worse is the communication. If you thought that receiving your schedule the day before classes start was bad, try getting the schedule the day after they start, then having them take attendance for where you did not know you were supposed to be. The planning, attendance policy, and communication are the plague of HAL. However, before you get a negative impression, I will say that the experience and what you can learn is very good. ICB and HAL are two different things, so I cannot compare them. However, so far HAL is a VERY good experience.

A typcial day in the first weeks at HAL are like this:

05:15 - Awaken from bed
06:15 - Leave for HAL
06:25 - Welcome to the Guadalajara 500 Night Driving Street Race. If you drive Acueducto to Periferico to Tesistan to HAL, you will be in the middle of a multi-lane-changing race. Held in the dark with some cars and semis missing some or all their taillight. It is a free-for-all to the finish. If you, like me, value your car and life more than being marked late for your first class, you can take Americas until it becomes Tesistan. It is about 3 to 12 minutes longer (depending on light timing), but better roads and much safer (not as much merging -i.e. cutting off cars or being run off the road by a Lala [a milk company here] semi without lights).
06:45 - Welcome to the Guadalajara “Baja” 15. Here you will drive on a road that GM would love to have as a testing ground for testing the suspensions on their 3/4 ton trucks. Although this part is only 1.5km (about 1 mile), it is called the “15" because the UAG’s parking lot is too small and only has one entrance. Thus you sit for 15 minutes to get into the school (and they have the audacity to mark you late - 2 lates = 1 absence). Thus, thus you can see the synergy of UAG’s NAZI-style attendance policy augmented by poor planning). Photos at end of post.
07:01 - You enter the UAG and search for a place to park. There is usually a place at the bottom of the hill. The time it takes varies depending on how many rude students stop in the middle of the road to let out passengers that do not want to be late.
07:03 - Parking found, but you have to walk up the hill to class.
07:07 - Finally in class. Everyone has different teachers. This is a class of about 12 students for “Clinica Aplicada.” This may be a good class for the Latin students, but for Americans that already have had years of college and have already given presentations, this is time that we could use for studying or sleeping. Given that we (English-speakers) will now need more time to actually read subjects in books to help comprehend classes, this class takes time away from sleep and study time. This is a failure on the part of the UAG administration, relative to the American students. As for the teacher I had, she was this very cute and friendly older lady that seemed to enjoy teaching the class. She was, however, anal about being there on-time despite the parking problems. She also had a default speech rate equal to a Chihuahua with hyperthyroidism that swallowed a box of amphetamines. However, she did not do this on purpose, and when reminded, she was very happy to repeat anything we asked, and did so slowly enough that we could all understand. She was a likeable teacher, but the most difficult to understand out of all my teachers.
08:00 - Harvey. I should state that on the first day of class, we received our schedule. However, it was on CD. Since I cannot read microscopic binary, we escentually did not have a schedule this first day. When we finally did print it, it was still confusing. It gave room numbers, but did not say what building went with the room numbers, It also had changes that we learned by word of mouth. On the schedule for where were were to be at 08:00, it actually said, “Harvey.” They just assumed we would know what this meant. Anyway, Harvey is a mannequin that simulates the feel (heart, veins and arteries) and sound of the heart in normal and multiple pathologic conditions. This was actually very high-tech from what most of what was seen at ICB. This class was a lecture and then listening and working with the device. This class, too, was for a group of about 12. The teacher had attended class in Houston and spoke English, but never spoke it. However, he spoke clearly enough that the only limiting factor was vocabulary. I should also say that from the perspective of an English-speaker, it takes much mental energy to focus on what is being said in Spanish. Thus, this combined with the classes starting at 07:00 made many of us completely exhausted at the end of the day. Needless to say, many of us were behind on reading for the entire block of cariology.
09:00 - Lecture with all the Cardiology students in the auditorium. Good lectures by various teachers.
10:00 - EKG class. This was a small group of 12 students. Our teacher was the “jefe” head of the cardiology department. She spoke some English and would try to make things as understandable as possible. The was no doubt that she was interested in making sure EVERYONE understood (not just most). She, was a real expert in cardio, and did not just “know” it, but understood every aspect of what she taught.
11:00 - Lunch
12:00 - A class like what IPM or PMC should have been. Sometimes in an IPM-type room, sometimes at a “consultorio” ans some times in the hospital. A small group of 5 students working with real patients. For some reason, however, we seemed to understand these teachers much, much better than most in PMC or IPM. They all spoke some English, but the class was in Spanish (like all classes here). However, there was no language barrier. All the teachers in all the classes know how to re-word a statement, stay the term in English, or understand a word in English if we do not know the word in Spanish. With all but one class being 12 or less students, there is ample opportunity to ask any question you have.
13:00 - This last hour was our last class of the day. Here we reviewed (in sub-groups of 4) real clinical cases and tried to determine what the patient had. The next day, the teacher would discuss with us what the patient actually had. This class, too, had presentations. However, not as many as in the 07:00 class. However, this class, overall, was very informative and enjoyable.

Conclusion so far:

The bad... Planning and communication still suck - worse than ICB if you can imagine that. Babysitting attendance policies still plague us. There are also some areas of the campus that look like they lead to steps (no railing or barrier), but there are no steps (unless you consider a 1-meter drop to be a step). Swarms of “tame” bees at the outside food place.

The good... The campus is actually very nice. Although it shows signs of wear, it was VERY nice and modern when built. The student cafeteria on the 5th floor of the administration building is VERY nice and with better food than ICB. It also has windows 3/4 of the way around to give a very good view of the area. Most of all, the teachers I have had so far are 100% excellent! I will not compare them to ICB because the situation is completely different for both students and teachers. Take into consideration also that I have not interacted with teachers in other departments yet (some that do have bad reputations), the teachers with whom I dealt were all very knowledgeable (experts) in their fields, and sincerely wanted us to learn and did everything they could to help us understand. Even with all the ** that makes the UAG notorious, the teachers here at HAL make this a great place so far.

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"You do not truly understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." Albert Einstein

The 4th year is by far the best of them all. Make sure you spend some time in one of the IMS hospitals. For those of you going to 5th Pathway, you will learn so much clinical medicine by spending the whole 4th year in Mexico, just leave the 5th Pathway year to get some US hospital experience.
Life @HAL is great!!!
ACGT, you forgot to mention that 8th semester students have vip parking.

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Moderator - UAG Forum

Hmm. I did not know that. Is that the small parking lot closer to the exit side?

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"You do not truly understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." Albert Einstein

I say try to go maimonedes in brooklyn if you can. I remember seeing some of my former uag classmates there when i rotated through as student. They told me HAL was ok...a step up from ICB.

ACGT and UAGDOC,

Thanks for taking the time to fully describe life in and out of UAG! I will be starting UAG in Jan. 2008 (hopefully). I visit this forum on a regular basis just to see what kinds of things current students are facing. Some of these posts are very informative as well as entertaining.

I've noticed that sometimes both of you get concerned about many of the negative posts on this forum, but I just want to let you know that despite all these negative posts, it is posts like yours...honest and not single-sided...that encourage other students to enter UAG. I am very open-minded and always try to view things with a positive attitude, so I value others with these similar traits.

Thanks,

Pisces26

Thanks, Pisces

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"You do not truly understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." Albert Einstein

I just try to be objective.

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Moderator - UAG Forum

Any updates, one semester later?

this is a great post...can we make it sticky by any chance? porfavor!

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"All I know is that I know nothing"

I will return and write later today or sometime this week.

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"You do not truly understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." Albert Einstein