Slow Code

So here we are, halfway through the second year at LECOM Seton Hill. I have distanced myself from school, and am just concentrating on studying for the COMLEX in June. I still go to all my classes and take all my tests - and I pass all my courses, since it doesn't seem to matter how much you know or how good you are. The worse a class is taught, the more chance they will make sure that no one gets an F in the final accounting.

Watching the school work is like watching a slow code. Can they really be that incompetent? Are they doing it on purpose? Is it one person sabotaging the whole endeavor? A slow code is when a patient has no DNR, but the Code Blue team or someone on it thinks that there should be a DNR, so they slow down the code with the object of letting the patient die. It is universally decried as unethical, so one hopes that it doesn't really happen much anymore, but who knows. Is it happening at LECOM? How can a school be so bad? How can the basics of education be ignored so blatantly? Is the problem systemic? Are there one or two incredibly incompetent people that are given free rein because the school has no way of monitoring the competence of teachers or administrators? Or is the problem even higher? Maybe the rules of the accrediting body are so permissive that the poor quality of our education is just human nature and the free market at work: crappy supply meeting huge demand.

We can't say anything. We have had a couple of rules of professionalism drilled into us: a) professionals dress like midwestern businesspeople from 1992; and b) it is unprofessional to question your superiors. The standards are vague, but the threats come quickly. Since the students have zero power in this arrangement (we can't transfer, there is no real accreditation requirements for DO schools, nor any government agency in charge of them), we must heed the threats or risk having our whole careers snatched from us before they even begin.

I think that the low accreditation standards are no accident. The more osteopathic schools open up, the more DO's get produced, the more political power the osteopathic organizations have. And there is huge crossover between the state ostepathic boards, the AOA, COCA, the DO schools... What can I do? Or any of us? We can't say anything until we are no longer under threat. And, as long as the agencies that license us to practice as physicians are controlled by the same people we would be criticizing, maybe never. I have a classmate who thinks that all of the boards and agencies should be under federal control: medical school accreditation, physician accreditation. It would be a political war to get the old guard to give up their power: the main force would have to come from Washington, and it would have to be part of a huge reorganization of medicine. What would start it? Americans don't believe in studies or statistics. It would have to be some matter of principle arising from one or two widely-publicized cases...

advice to prospective students

To any prospective students:

I'm sure you get lots of advice from all around. Here is the advice of a first-year student at LECOM Seton Hill.

1. If you have a choice between LECOM and any other school, choose the other school.
2. If you have a choice of LECOM campuses, choose Bradenton first, Erie second, and Seton Hill last.
3. If you have an option to go to any MD school, choose that over any DO school.

I don't know about Caribbean schools. The education would definitely be better, but rotations might be harder to arrange. If I were rich, I would go to the best European or Caribbean private school I could find, then do my residency in the U.S., rather than go to LECOM.

OMM day

Another long but not-very-taxing day of OMM... I do like that it's easy, and I do like that we get a chance to develop our "professional touch". I will probably never use it once I am not being tested on it - not because it seems like a bad idea, but because we don't know what really works or not. There is little scientific basis to much of it, and we are supposed to take it all on faith, which is sort of hard for me. I definitely don't have enough faith in it to go using it on innocent patients once we get to the wards! But as a class it's fun, and we get to dress casually.

Intro

I am a first year student in my second semester of medical school at the Lake Erie College of Medicine (LECOM) at Seton Hill. This is a new campus in Greensburg, PA of an already existing osteopathic college of medicine. There is one branch campus down in Florida that is apparently pretty good, but we are a "satellite campus" of the one in Erie, PA. Our curriculum is all Independent Learning (like correspondence courses) and Problem Based Learning (PBL), which is a form of small group learning.

For prospective students: it's been a long hard year for us, but hopefully it will be better for you. We have been disappointed in many ways with the school, with Corporate up in Erie, with our education, and with osteopathy and the profession. But still, we're happy to be in med school, and excited about becoming doctors. And, really, it's no worse than a Caribbean school. It's really inexpensive (since we have no labs, not many teachers, scant facilities, and old technology), the attrition rate is not bad (only lost five percent so far), and if you can teach yourself the material you'll do well on the boards. We are all pretty sure that it will be a lot better next year. Check back to see how things progress!

For current students: some of you probably disagree with what I write here. It's just one person's opinion and experience of medical school. I invite you to write your own!