Philippines Medical Mission

Medical students have given me the advice to travel while you get the chance, before med school starts.  Fortunately, I'll have the opportunity to do so.  Follow my journey at: filipinofun.blogspot.com  I look forward to soaking up knowledge from medical assistants, nurses, and physician's assistants who will be joining me on the trip.

R.O.S.S.

After perusing sites such as ValueMD, it is fairly common to come across complaints that Ross treats its students like just another paying customer and are not very supportive.  This was a concern that I had when trying to decide between schools, especially with Ross's large class sizes.

When browsing the Ross website, I came across the acronym R.O.S.S.  This stood for Remarkably Outstanding Student Services.  I'm no stranger to corny acronyms, as they help me remember material during studying.  In my limited experience, this acronym has proven to be quite accurate.  My New Student Coordinator has been extremely supportive and has always given timely responses to any questions she didn't know at the moment.  So far... so good.

Criteria for Caribbean Medical Schools

It is important to establish a criteria for yourself when comparing medical schools.  I had a list of about 25 aspects that were most important to me.  The top 11 most important were:

1. Chances of getting a residency
2. Rotation spots available/ Average wait time for rotations
3. USMLE Average scores
4. Hospital affiliations
5. Tuition Costs/ Average student debt
6. Availability of federal loans
7. Technology of equipment/ dummies
8. Attrition rate
9. Student: faculty ratio
10. Difficulty of curriculum
11.  Living Conditions

 * I didn't include average USMLE scores because this is an arbitrary percentage.  A more beneficial % would be the pass rate of the Comp test that students must pass in order to take the USMLE.  This is a better indicator of how well these schools prepare their students, however these numbers are hard to access.

Acceptance!

After eagerly waiting for two and a half weeks, I received the call from Ross that I was accepted to the September 2013 class!  I had been praying that the call would come before May 1st, the day the deposit for AUC was due.  My mind was set on going to Ross after I found out the Ross and Kern Medical Center (KMC) signed a contract for rotation spots, as I want to go to Kern County to practice.  After notifying the recruiter at AUC, she called back and mentioned that AUC has a clinical affiliation with KMC and that she thought AUC's smaller class sizes and personalized attention would suit me well.  She also added that she thought I would make a great physician and wished me luck.  I would've felt much better about my decision to choose Ross over AUC if she just would've said "good riddance."  However, Ross has many more rotation spots at KMC as a result of the contact; I couldn't pass that up.