DO schools trying to dismiss students?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
What disturbs me greatly is that students are being failed and put on probation for things like OMM practical which is very subjective. So that is what led me to believe that schools are finding ways to dismiss students for no good reason.

So if you fail on the multiple choice exams I can see how that would lead to low board scores and would justify probation or even dismissal. but if you fail things like DPR or OMM practical but pass the rest, and they put you on probation or dismiss you it would appear that they are finding ways to have you removed.
OMM is subjective but it can be done wrong or it may be that the person just never learned the treatment. We still do have to learn it. If there was no risk of failing out for not learning it, it would be completely ignored.

Members don't see this ad.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Caribbean schools dont have to have enough rotations for everyone in their first year class. DO schools do. Thats the difference. Caribbean schools have to get their class size down to place the students who get through the first 2 years. Getting rid of 5 extra students in a DO class won't make a huge difference.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
Members don't see this ad :)
Yes, my own school made pre-clinicals hell so that only the students who made it out could attempt boards. Also they required us to pass a COMSAE with 450+ before we were allowed to take the real deal.
 
Yes, my own school made pre-clinicals hell so that only the students who made it out could attempt boards. Also they required us to pass a COMSAE with 450+ before we were allowed to take the real deal.
But also for profit schools like RVU had a minimum of 350 at the beginning of dedicated, then they let us be. With this approach you would think more people would fail the real thing (though RVU actually has very high pass rates). I think they are just two different approaches. Hold students back because they are not ready vs hold students back because they failed.
 
Yes, my own school made pre-clinicals hell so that only the students who made it out could attempt boards. Also they required us to pass a COMSAE with 450+ before we were allowed to take the real deal.
Most DO schools if not all require you to pass the COMSAE with minimum cutoff score before allowing you to sit for level 1. That's not new.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
But also for profit schools like RVU had a minimum of 350 at the beginning of dedicated, then they let us be. With this approach you would think more people would fail the real thing (though RVU actually has very high pass rates). I think they are just two different approaches. Hold students back because they are not ready vs hold students back because they failed.

Also to add on. My class was supposed to have to pass step 1 to graduate. The fail rate seemed to be pretty high, and I've heard they are not enforcing it. So they are actually bending rules to not kick people out.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I personally never understood the idea that schools that are more predatory are more likely to dismiss students. They are literally forgoing 60-250k of tuition depending on when the student is dismissed. And they have no real way to recoup the money considering transfers are uncommon and there are limits on class size. COCA requires there to be enough rotations for each student so the rotations exist somewhere.
Brand new schools will want to milk those students as much as they can for tuition. They need warm bodies filling seats.

Established schools will do everything in their power to get students to graduate.

These are two different things.

Not having enough rotations is an accreditation violation. As is too high an attrition rate.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
OMM is subjective but it can be done wrong or it may be that the person just never learned the treatment. We still do have to learn it. If there was no risk of failing out for not learning it, it would be completely ignored.
At my school, it takes work to fail an OMM class.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
there shouldnt be a profit margin
Reread that line I included about the excess money, it is put back into programing and improvement, that is what happens to the "profit" you claim schools shouldn't have. When you become a practicing physician, should every dollar you collect go to you and your staff? No, the "profit" is what is put into new equipment, upkeep, expanding resources, improving research infrastructure, etc. It is just the money that doesn't directly support faculty/staff salaries, utility bills, rotation expenses, etc. Even though they are private, most schools are not for profit, which means there are rules and guidelines about where money can and cannot go. It isn't lining the pockets of corporations that own the school.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Reread that line I included about the excess money, it is put back into programing and improvement, that is what happens to the "profit" you claim schools shouldn't have. When you become a practicing physician, should every dollar you collect go to you and your staff? No, the "profit" is what is put into new equipment, upkeep, expanding resources, improving research infrastructure, etc. It is just the money that doesn't directly support faculty/staff salaries, utility bills, rotation expenses, etc. Even though they are private, most schools are not for profit, which means there are rules and guidelines about where money can and cannot go. It isn't lining the pockets of corporations that own the school.
Spare me. Our tuition definitely goes to our parent organization. And we're a non-profit school, BTW. We have to fight for every f'ing dollar.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 7 users
Spare me. Our tuition definitely goes to our parent organization. And we're a non-profit school, BTW. We have to fight for every f'ing dollar.
LOL, Goro I would love to sit down and compare notes with you sometime. I think we would have a ton to learn from each other. I enjoy your posts, insight and thoughts and agree with you the vast amount of the time and likely would in this case as well DEPENDING ON THE SCHOOL. I have been around the block long enough to know which schools hide behind the not for profit banner and which ones don't. I worked at one for years, so I know where you are coming from. However, like most things in life, I think there are differences in how other schools approach finances and I don't think some are as bad as people make them out to be. Maybe that is my rose tinted glasses or glass half full approach to life but it helps me get through the challenging days.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Okay...
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
What happens if clinical sites close, or go to another school? Then do you all think that DO schools would make it easier to dismiss? I know at my school, they seem to be making the exams more difficult by reducing the total number of exams and by making them comprehensive.
 
What happens if clinical sites close, or go to another school? Then do you all think that DO schools would make it easier to dismiss? I know at my school, they seem to be making the exams more difficult by reducing the total number of exams and by making them comprehensive.
No they're not going to dismiss students just because they lose sights, what they would do is make students take a leave of absence if they absolutely could not find a new clinical site
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
What happens if clinical sites close, or go to another school? Then do you all think that DO schools would make it easier to dismiss? I know at my school, they seem to be making the exams more difficult by reducing the total number of exams and by making them comprehensive.
Pay preceptors/hospitals more, raise tuition
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
What happens if clinical sites close, or go to another school? Then do you all think that DO schools would make it easier to dismiss? I know at my school, they seem to be making the exams more difficult by reducing the total number of exams and by making them comprehensive.
No. That’s a Caribbean thing. There’s already another thread on here explaining that there’s not some grand conspiracy at osteopathic schools to dismiss students.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: 2 users
from one of the old five. Almost 10ish/250ish ppl in my class disappeared after the first year. I don't know how many after the second year. There are no enough rotation spots for us so there are virtual rotations. Also, for some specialties (eg. OB, ped), they can't find preceptors so they give a hybrid experience (eg. working with a family med physician for OB with some online OB modules)
 
  • Wow
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
from one of the old five. Almost 10ish/250ish ppl in my class disappeared after the first year. I don't know how many after the second year. There are no enough rotation spots for us so there are virtual rotations. Also, for some specialties (eg. OB, ped), they can't find preceptors so they give a hybrid experience (eg. working with a family med physician for OB with some online OB modules)
Same here. Out of 185 students, 25 students disappear. If you fail one class you get dismissed with no option to repeat the course or the year. Pretty malignant environment. And the school encourages a lot of students to withdraw instead of giving them a leave of absence.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Same here. Out of 185 students, 25 students disappear. If you fail one class you get dismissed with no option to repeat the course or the year. Pretty malignant environment. And the school encourages a lot of students to withdraw instead of giving them a leave of absence.

That sounds very bad. Seems like they are trying to get students dismissed.
 
  • Sad
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
The thing that confuses me about my schools handbook is they seem to use the phrase "could lead to dismissal" a lot. But they use that phrase a lot and I know from friends, that it doesn't always mean dismissal. Its hard to figure out what actually will lead to dismissal.
 
The thing that confuses me about my schools handbook is they seem to use the phrase "could lead to dismissal" a lot. But they use that phrase a lot and I know from friends, that it doesn't always mean dismissal. Its hard to figure out what actually will lead to dismissal.
Pretty much they want whatever excuse to kick you out if need be. Reality is your time there will be correlated to being out of trouble and by how much you're liked
 
  • Like
  • Sad
Reactions: 4 users
The thing that confuses me about my schools handbook is they seem to use the phrase "could lead to dismissal" a lot. But they use that phrase a lot and I know from friends, that it doesn't always mean dismissal. Its hard to figure out what actually will lead to dismissal.
It's legalese. It gives the school wiggle room as some students are worth salvaging, while others are worth getting rid of as soon as possible.

it's also to put the fear of God into students, alas.

Unfortunately there are some schools who would prefer to use this as a bludgeon, rather than being hopeful. Talking to you, Nova and LMU
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
View attachment 357509View attachment 357510
Just because you don't like OMM, your assessment of attrition in the profession might be a little "out of alignment"! The data is very similar on both sides of the education system. Maybe it is because medical school itself is tough?

Numbers like this cant really be fudged. It is analogous to calories when watching your diet, students in vs students out. COCA requires matriculation dates and graduation or dismissal dates for students on a regular timeline as well as off-cycle students. Students are allowed 150% of the standard enrollment time to finish the curriculum (Standard 6, Element 6.3). This is why reports like I provided above show 4, 5 and 6 year graduation rates. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it broken down as such for COM's, but the end result is how many made it to graduation, so assume that is the equivalent of the 6 year results for MD schools. If the numbers don't add up, then Standard 11, Element 11.5: Program and Student Outcomes will be deemed non-met. This is a CORE element by COCA and a COM is eliminated from full accreditation consideration if a single CORE element is un-met. By the current Standards, this puts a school at best into Accreditation with Heightened Monitoring, which is a 4 year accreditation with required interval updates and annual reports. This is a big deal for DO schools and every one wants to avoid that status, not to mention the potential legal issues this could get into with the US Department of Education and State Education Boards, etc.

The way this is fudged is semantics and specifically the way the data is presented. As you can see AAMC posts the data as a class matriculation rate, whereas AACOM posts it as an annual average attrition. What that means is that while AAMC shows a 4-5% attrition over the course of training, AACOM shows a 2-3% attrition annually, meaning that on average each class is really losing 8-12%. This is inline with older reports (2012 quoted an attrition of 8% with a lot of variability between school ranging from 3-4% to as high as 15%, and I believe I did the math back in 2014 and got 8.5% then).

DO schools absolutely lose more students than MD schools, but there are likely a lot of reasons for this, including that the bottom 5% of MD schools and DO schools are very different from each other.

Most DO schools if not all require you to pass the COMSAE with minimum cutoff score before allowing you to sit for level 1. That's not new.

This is always posted like its a bad thing by students, but its mutually beneficial for both the student and the school for you to pass boards on your first try. In fact, its much more important to the individual student that they pass on the first try, because not passing could severely limit their residency options. Schools absolutely should require a practice exam cut off before sitting. I disagree, however, that schools should be able to dismiss you or not let you sit at all for the exam based solely on these practice scores (something I don't believe any DO school does and something I know Carib schools do).

Nope. More like 2-3,000

Varies by school. My school famously didn't pay anything for rotations except for offering CME credits. They also put money into developing new residencies in smaller hospitals or communities, so they created an incentive for systems to take our students as rotators. They pocketed a ton of money as a result, despite having very low tuition for a private DO school.

Same here. Out of 185 students, 25 students disappear. If you fail one class you get dismissed with no option to repeat the course or the year. Pretty malignant environment. And the school encourages a lot of students to withdraw instead of giving them a leave of absence.
Name and shame.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users
from one of the old five. Almost 10ish/250ish ppl in my class disappeared after the first year. I don't know how many after the second year. There are no enough rotation spots for us so there are virtual rotations. Also, for some specialties (eg. OB, ped), they can't find preceptors so they give a hybrid experience (eg. working with a family med physician for OB with some online OB modules)
I finally got my OB preceptor, and I need to drive five hours to that place. A place has less than 20 restaurants and the only fast food chains are McDonald's and Wendy's, I don't know how I can survive now.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: 1 user
Update:

A little bit of buzz on reddit about perceived attrition increases at DO AND MD schools. This is all obviously anecdata and should be taken with a grain of salt. But it would be interesting if attrition increased secondary to the past round of preclinical students bombing boards this year.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Update:

A little bit of buzz on reddit about perceived attrition increases at DO AND MD schools. This is all obviously anecdata and should be taken with a grain of salt. But it would be interesting if attrition increased secondary to the past round of preclinical students bombing boards this year.
That would be a yin/yang situation!

On the one hand, an administration might want to let a failing student go so that they don't accrue four years of debt instead of two, due to worries of them never graduating.

On the other hand, an administration, like at my school which is pro student, would want to see the student through after they've already invested two years in medical school.

The newer schools might not want to lose an extra two years of tuition.

So I suspect that the attrition rate may increase at particular schools, not across the board. It will be interesting to which schools this happens to
 
That would be a yin/yang situation!

On the one hand, an administration might want to let a failing student go so that they don't accrue four years of debt instead of two, due to worries of them never graduating.

On the other hand, an administration, like at my school which is pro student, would want to see the student through after they've already invested two years in medical school.

The newer schools might not want to lose an extra two years of tuition.

So I suspect that the attrition rate may increase at particular schools, not across the board. It will be interesting to which schools this happens to
As many already know I went to ARCOM, and n=1, but I particularly know a friend of mine who had to remediate our basic science courses at least 3 times during our first 2 years, but they always managed to pass their increasingly difficult/almost impossible remediation test. That person went in and pass both COMLEX Level 1 and 2 on their first try, graduated on time, and matched IM at a good comuniversity program down south at which they auditioned at. So that's one example where a new school gave a struggling student multiple second chances (and gained an additional 2 years of tuition in the process), and it still worked out in the end.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users
Top