Just wanted to ask about the typical schedule for OMS 1. Are you in class 8-4 Monday thru Friday or are lectures available online? I am going to have an hour commute and was just curious if it is possible to stay home some days.
hey! current OMS2! right now OMS1 has 2 hours of mandatory lecture every monday afternoon, mandatory OMM lab for 2 hours on tuesday as well as mandatory Clinical Skills (CPC) lab for 2 hours on tuesday. You'll have mandatory Anatomy lab either wednesday OR thursday and then asynchronous lectures / optional attendance for everything else. I will say with any school you apply to that says they have "optional" attendance or no mandatory, your OMM, clinical skills, and anatomy labs are almost always gonna be mandatory, and you *have* to keep in mind that schools can change their curriculum/policies without telling you at any point in time. It's just part of the gig of being a medical student.
For example (and for your info) when I started OMS1, OMS2 had no mandatory attendance, so other than clinical skills and OMM, everything was async. The summer between my OMS1 and OMS2 year (last summer) the school changed the policy where we have to be in one of our OMS2 classes (and our highest weighted class / most rigorous) 80% of the time, which roughly comes out to being at 3 hours of mandatory lecture monday, 3-4 hours of mandatory lecture tuesday, and 3 hours of mandatory lecture friday, with OMM mandatory 2 hours on Thursday and Clinical Skills mandatory for a total of 4ish hours on Wednesday.
It's been fine for me personally and you learn to adapt (which is one of the BEST things you can learn in med school), and thankfully OMS1 doesn't have anywhere near that much mandatory attendance, but when I came in as OMS1, we were told and at the time was the case that 2nd year had no mandatory attendance, and then that changed right before we started OMS2, which at that point, you really have no option but to accept it ya know?
It's just something to keep in mind especially at DO programs, that things like attendance policies, rotations sites, etc. can change at any point in time, even if you were told/expected something different before you matriculated, and that goes for any school, not just Carey!
With that being said, we have a TON of people that commute an hour and do just fine!