Tag Archives: osteopathic

Brittany Stelmar, MS2

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Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine
UCLA, B.S. Biology
Age 24
From Moorpark, CA

What does your typical day of medical school at Touro look like?
Lecture all morning, lunch break, and then OMM/pathology/anatomy/histology/neuro labs in the afternoon

How do your classes and lectures compare to those at your undergraduate institution?
Touro uses a flipped classroom, so we’re expected to watch the lecture videos before going to class. In lectures we have clicker questions with clinical vignettes that apply what we learned in the lecture videos. Undergrad at UCLA was never like that, it was always just a straight up lecture with some clicker q’s for attendance points. They’re similar in that they use clickers for attendance though.

What have you liked about the teaching practices at your institution? Alternatively, how satisfied are you with the class structure at your institution? Are there aspects that you would like changed?
I like how involved the professors are with all of us. If anyone gets a sub par test grade, they reach out via email to schedule a meeting and set up tutoring. Touro is extremely pro active about giving people help when they need it. I like the flipped classroom, but it gets overwhelming because of how many videos are assigned. Even if we have an hour of lecture, some professors will assign 3-4 hours of videos to watch beforehand. And if you show up without watching the videos, you have no idea what the clicker questions in class are asking. I wish the video lengths were cut down. I also wish classes weren’t mandatory… because if you’re not caught up on lecture videos, you’re still required to go to class. But you sit through the lecture clueless/unable to answer the questions, which I think is a waste of time… we could use that time instead to catch up with the videos, and then go over those questions later on our own.

Looking back on when you were applying to medical schools and deciding which school was the best fit, what do you think are the most important things to learn about a medical school when you are deciding which school is right for you?
I think location is important, I knew I didn’t want to be in the heart of a huge city to avoid distractions, but I also didn’t want to be completely in the middle of nowhere. I got a nice balance with Middletown because it’s an hour bus/train from NYC so it’s easy to escape when we need to.

Can you give us a brief description of the area surrounding your medical school? What are some things you like and dislike about the city/town you are located in as a student?
Our campus is in Middletown, NY and it’s about an hour north of NYC. I think the location is perfect for us as medical students because it’s a small town that’s not overly distracting… our distance from NYC makes it easy to go in/out via train, bus, driving, etc if we want, but it’s also not overly distracting from school because of the distance.

What organizations or activities are you involved in outside of your regular classwork? Additionally, are there any organizations (even if you aren’t a part of them) that you think are unique to your school?
I’m a member of Sigma Sigma Phi, which is a national osteopathic medicine honors fraternity. I’m also treasurer of the Health & Wellness Club on campus. There’s a ton of clubs on campus for every specialty too.

How much/well have you been able to develop clinical skills alongside your classroom work first and second year? What does your institution do to help you develop clinical skills before the clinical years?
First year was all classroom based. We got exposure in our Physical Diagnosis class and lab with hands-on clinical skills, but our only classroom “interactions” were with our lab partners or with the actors during our graded OSCE’s. There are also health fairs outside of the classroom that a lot of clubs put on, where we give free health screenings to members of the community, and a lot of mission trips, so there’s opportunities to put clinical skills to work.

What is one way your outlook on medicine or understanding of medicine has changed in your time at medical school?
Getting through a year of medical school was exhausting! It gave me a newfound respect for doctors and everything they had to go through to get to the point they’re at.

Are there any resources that stand out to you as most useful to you in self-learning medical school material or for expanding on material taught in class?
I really like First Aid, and I followed along with it all year to help prep my mind for boards too. SKETCHY IS AMAZING for micro & pharm, and I wouldn’t have survived without it. It basically takes microbes, medications, etc and creates a picture storyline out of it, and each symbol and part of the storyline is some sort of characteristic of that medication or microbe that you’re learning about. It makes it impossible to forget things because you can just visualize the whole storyline and all the symbols/characteristics in your head whenever the name of that microbe or medication comes up.

If a young undergraduate interested in applying to medical school came to you seeking advice about ‘which major is best,’ what would you tell them?
I would definitely recommend a science major like biology, physiology, etc. If I came into med school with no background knowledge I think it would’ve made things a LOT harder. It would’ve taken a lot more time having to learn the basics and it would’ve been really hard to keep up.

What is your favorite event of the year put on by your medical school? Tell us a little bit about it.
Winter formal!!! It’s a big formal dance at a fancy venue with really good food & drinks

What do you wish you had known as an undergraduate and/or as a student in the medical application process?
I wish I knew more about D.O. schools and osteopathic medicine. There was a bad stigma against D.O. schools in undergrad because people were never exposed to it, and it wasn’t until I worked as an ER technician alongside many osteopathic physicians that I learned what D.O. schools are really all about. I saw firsthand that D.O.’s were working alongside M.D.’s with the same exact job title, with absolutely no difference in the way patients, nurses, technicians, or any other healthcare professionals addressed or interacted with them. I learned that the only difference between the two was that D.O.’s were trained in OMM, or osteopathic manipulative medicine. I really enjoy my OMM classes, it ties everything together and has been a great supplement to everything else, and it’s definitely a tool I plan on using as a physician. It’s definitely one of the most hands on classes we have too, we diagnose each other in lab and perform treatments like myofascial techniques or HVLA (like cracking backs).

Chuck Chan, OSM1

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Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine
From Cerritos, CA
UC Berkeley, B.A. Public Health
Age 25

What does your typical day of medical school look like?

Typically we have 4-8 hours of class per day depending on the day of the week. 4 hours a week are spent learning to prepare for patient encounters and another 4 hours a week are spent on learning principles of OMM.

How do your classes and lectures compare to those at your undergraduate institution?

In general, I don’t find the material to be harder to grasp than in undergrad, but the pace is significantly faster. Each course will be integrated with several professors teaching us their specialty in a given course. For example, in our neurology course, we had different professors for neuroanatomy, pharmacology, pathophysiology, microbiology, etc. We tend to have a lot of lecture hours per science course and people tend to like to webcast all of them to save time. There is a focus on clinically relevant material and board material.

How has your approach to learning and/or studying changed since you were an undergrad?

Definitely switched my approach to getting information that is high-yield only. There is so much information in medical school that it is hard to learn everything so I usually spend time trying to decipher what is going to be tested on, whereas in undergrad I would just study everything and try to understand it in depth. I supplement my lecture powerpoints with board materials like Pathoma, Sketchy, and Boards and Beyond to know what material is the most important. Also, I use Anki to retain information better.

Looking back on when you were applying to medical schools and deciding which school was the best fit, what do you think are the most important things to learn about a medical school when you are deciding which school is right for you?

The most important things to me would be putting myself in a situation where I could succeed. That includes having established curriculum, P/NP courses, going to a school with a good match history, location, presence of a teaching hospital, board scores, and research opportunities. At the time of my application I didn’t really have the luxury of choice to hit all of these criteria, but definitely chose based on what other people said about the school.

Can you give us a brief description of the area surrounding your school? What are some things you like and dislike about the city/town you are located in as a student?

School is located in Pomona, CA. Typically known for a medium level of crime, but have not experienced any negative experiences myself. Bad thing is that there aren’t very many good food options compared to the OC or LA but is close enough in distance to travel to after exams. Homelessness and poverty is fairly prevalent in Pomona, CA and there is not much to do in the city itself. I personally don’t feel unsafe because I usually drive places, but it would not be safe to walk the streets alone at night. I feel bad for the city sometimes and try to give back through volunteering at clinics when I can.

What organizations or activities are you involved in outside of your regular classwork? Additionally, are there any organizations (even if you aren’t a part of them) that you think are unique to your school?

I am involved in a medicine track called Lifestyle Medicine. We have sessions where we learn about diet, physical health, mental health, etc. I really like it because I do feel it to be important to be well informed to teach future patients about ways to manage their health and I want to learn for my own health as well. I don’t know if there are organizations that are unique to my school itself, but being a DO school we do have a lot of osteopathic specific clubs. Some of these clubs hold workshops with physicians to teach us how to treat low back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, etc using OMM.

In retrospect, which classes in undergrad do you think were the most useful coming into medical school?

Physiology and biochemistry were probably the two most helpful classes for the MCAT and medical school. Several molecular biology class were helpful as well as endocrinology. I did not take a microbiology class, but I think it would have been helpful. I took anatomy in undergrad and it felt like I had never taken anatomy before when going through the med school version. Useless.

What is a unique aspect of education at your medical school that has been valuable to you thus far as a medical student?

We have about 8 patient encounters per semester which initially sounds annoying, but is such good practice to deal with patients later. Not sure if this is unique to my medical school, but we recently had a psych focused OSCE where we diagnose a patient with either bipolar, depression, panic disorder, PTSD, etc. and really got a chance to practice empathy and how to ask questions for a difficult patient.

What is one way your outlook on medicine or understanding of medicine has changed in your time at medical school?

There are some days I think I would never encourage someone to go to medical school then there are days I am like wow this is really a blessing. I find it pretty hard on average to enjoy learning every detail about some obscure disease or histology, but every now and then I get to reflect on how much I’ve learned so quickly and how incredible these tools are going to be after preclinical years and in practice. I struggle mostly because of the lack of weekends and breaks we are given and often think about long term consequence of being a slave to medicine (such as having less time to start a family, being too busy for anyone), but am genuinely grateful that I have this opportunity and the challenges it poses in so many ways in my life that will hopefully make us all better doctors.

If a young undergraduate interested in applying to medical school came to you seeking advice about ‘which major is best,’ what would you tell them?

I would tell them to pick whatever major they like the most, but to take science courses as electives to fill their schedule. I don’t think there are too many courses outside of the prerequisites that are essential before starting school. College is there to learn cool shit that they will never take a course on again – not reinforce all the courses you will already learn in medical school

What do you wish you had known as an undergraduate and/or as a student in the medical application process?

In general i think it is good to take advice with a grain of salt. I probably sought advice too frequently while taking everybody’s advice without considering my own needs. If I stopped to think about what I do best, I think I would have had more success

What is one thing you would do differently if you could go back to your undergraduate years or the time between undergrad and medical school?

It seems like the best route would be to not be pre-med in college and fully immerse yourself in the college experience would be the best way to go. Then take a post-bacc and kill it so you get into med school. But this option is expensive.