Norcalguy, PWNED!!! lol.
Norcalguy, also to be fair, based on your post, it’s obvious that you yourself dissected in your course to learn gross anatomy. Whether or not you thought it was an inconvenience, is really irrelevant and more of an afterthought, bc after all, you don’t know how well you would have learned gross anatomy from prosections only. It’s very easy to say NOW that you didn’t need to dissect and only needed prosections, when your curriculum was not structured that way.
At UMKC, the only options available to students for the mandatory HSF course are looking at prosections and looking at a atlas textbook (which shows structures in 2D). Dissection by students is not an available (unlike for you) in the HSF course, and the dissection electives available above only cover Head/Neck and Thorax/Abdomen.
To again quote from the article:
I’m sorry that you did not “appreciate the significance of each of these observations and the conclusions drawn from them” during dissection. However, most schools that switched to prosections eventually switched back to dissections for a valid reason.
I actually do not do much of the dissection. As is often the case, the people who enjoy dissecting will do the dissecting. The people who don’t enjoy the dissecting will watch. In fact, we are never encouraged to all dissect at the same time. Only 1-2 out of the group is supposed to be dissecting. We also use a rotation system where every 3rd lab, we have a “dry lab” and hence aren’t in the anatomy lab at all. This is a system that is also in place at several other med schools.
If you look at the literature on the issue, it’s not clear whether prosections are more effective than dissections or vice-versa (probably because different students learn in different ways). Half the time in anatomy lab is spent pawing through mountains of fat for some esoteric little nerve. The other half of the time, you have to call a TA over and, if you’re lucky, they’ll find the nerve for you (and in effect it becomes a prosection). Usually what everyone does is look at the cadaver that’s dissected and cleaned by the TA’s for the best examples of blood vessels, nerves, etc. and in effect anatomy lab becomes a prosection.
I would also caution against the use of USMLE scores to judge an institution. Most medical schools do not post their USMLE scores online for the simple reason that they are irrelevant. So, UMKC has below average USMLE scores. Do you expect it have above average USMLE scores? It certainly doesn’t have above average students. Unless you can control for the quality of students, it is useless to compare USMLE scores of various med schools. Out of pressure from the applicants, med schools might give you the USMLE score if you are invited for an interview. But several deans (including a few at schools with 230+ average USMLE scores) have expressed the opinion that the scores are useless because they reflect the quality of the students rather than the teaching (because 90% of your learning takes place outside of the classroom).
Lastly, a lot of the posts here have made comparisons b/w UMKC and other med schools. This isn’t really what’s at stake here. Yes, most other med schools are more prestigous and cheaper and might even offer better education. If someone had multiple offers, they’d probably choose another med school or BS/MD program.
But, many of UMKC’s students aren’t going to have offers from Northwestern or Brown. They’re stuck choosing between UMKC or going to college and getting into med school the normal way. Even if you go to a top college like Harvard, there is greater than a 50% chance you won’t ever attend med school. At other colleges, the rates are even worse. Hence, you are stuck choosing between an expensive, low-tier med school like UMKC or a 70% chance you won’t get to med school at all and a 30% chance you’ll end up at a better med school than UMKC (assuming UMKC is truly the bottom of the barrel). Such a choice is much more difficult to make. Showing that UVA Med School or Penn Med is better than UMKC is really irrelevant because students aren’t choosing between UMKC and UVA Med.
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Yes, while you may not do the dissection all yourself, by either doing it sometimes or watching while someone does it, you do get to appreciate much better which structures are deeper and which are more superficial. On a cadaver that is already completely prosected, you really don’t get that viewpoint, as everything that was to be removed, is gone already. But everyone is different, and needs to decide for themselves. As in the above article, many schools that went to prosection, ended up switching back to complete dissection with reasons stated in the article.
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All I will say is that, numerous out-of-state students in the program, would probably disagree with you, and are above average, as I do know people who got acceptances to prestigious 4 year undergrads as well as Bachelor/MDs at Northwestern, Brown and chose to come to UMKC (due to the 6 year aspect). As far as at the end of six years, did they think it was worth it and would do it again vs. 4+4? No. That doesn’t mean though they are not above average, based on a decision they made. Also you really can’t comment about their quality as they haven’t taken the MCAT or have a GPA from a 4 year degree as they forgoed that option in coming to UMKC. At the time they applied they only had the SAT/ACT, their high school transcript, and CV. On the flip side of the coin, I am sure in your school, there were also people who just because they attended Cornell didn’t necessarily mean they were “above average”.
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I very much doubt that there is a “70% chance you won’t get to med school at all”. If this is in fact correct, please cite a link, as well as for your 30% figure. Also you have to take into consideration those who apply into medical school on the extreme low ends of GPA and MCATs who really have no chance of getting into medical school, although that is not in stone by any means. Those people would bring the total acceptance rate lower based on the total number applying to medical school. If it is in fact 70% (which I highly doubt), that certainly didn’t stop you from going to Cornell, doing the premed requirements, and applying the normal way.
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Please refer to my answer to #2, above.
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First you are assuming that coursework and quality of professors (which is subjective, I know) had nothing to do with one’s learning. While that 90% of learning figure might be true in some cases, where some students don’t even have to come to class and just use syllabus notes or the text, that’s not true in all or maybe even most cases. Many students learn things by attending lecture, and then go home to assimilate and put it together.
While some schools that are strict Pass/Fail, to where students don’t have to worry about grades and can actually study well for boards, at UMKC med school classes are letter graded and test questions are very much dependent on lecture, to where what is taught in the course is not necessarily what is emphasized in the text, boards, etc., not just at UMKC but at other places too. The only difference is the exorbitant tuition being paid. The only way you would know if your statement was true if you took professors from a an institution with a high Step 1 average and had them teach students at UMKC that the USMLE average has nothing to do with basic science instruction but the students.
I think what OldDominion and RadRacer were trying to get at was a comparison of UMKC to other medical schools as well along the same caliber if not higher (I understand this is subjective of course): U of Iowa, U of Virginia, Southern Illinois U, UC Davis, U of Washington. What is good about the UVa site is that it does it for 10 years so you see the trend so that one year of a high average isn’t a fluke, although I agree, since it doesn’t have a combined program, UVa is not an option.
Certainly if the national average is (and I’m making this up here), but is 219, and for several years running the UMKC score average is like 205 (I’m making this up here as well), then this isn’t just a fluke, and you can’t say with 100% certainty that it’s bc of the “quality” of students.
Thank you HappytoGraduate & NorCalGuy for your thoughts on cadaver dissection and prosection. Very much appreciated.
No problem. Just offering a differing opinion from the constant negativity you see on this thread.
I think it is interesting that norcalguy (you can see how much time he has by being on College Confidential now with 5,455 messages and counting) feels the need to comment about UMKC’s program when he has not researched the program, has not attended the program, and in all honesty probably knows nothing about the program.
Even when presented an article thoroughly refuting what he says (which he probably did not even read), he says that UCSF does prosection, which is actually false, as they went back to full dissection (not just UCSF but others did as well because of poor performance in knowledge in the clinical years), he still defends his statement as if he was never presented with that information and he defends a point that prosection is only needed, as if it applies to the majority consensus of medical students. This is someone whose school never had a prosection ONLY curriculum. He assumes now AFTER the fact, of getting the benefits of dissection, that prosection would have been just as good.
He does this though for every thread on CC, and thinks that he is all-knowing because he attended Cornell for undergrad and probably attended Cornell or another Ivy for med school. So please take everything he says with a huge helping of salt. The ■■■■■■■■ is getting quite tiresome, norcalguy.
Got an email today saying that my application is “on hold” for further review and to remain patient.
hey everyone, can anyone tell me some specific questions that they were asked during their interview? do they base their interview on your application or do they have generic questions for everyone? also umkc told us we would be taking a writing test on the same day as the interview. Is the prompt from the writing section related to medicine in any way?
thanks!
Has anyone already done their interview yet on here? Impressions?
Have any interviewees actually been inside the UMKC School of Medicine and looked at the quality of the facilities: lecture rooms, laboratory rooms, library, dissection lab, clinical teaching sites, technology, research facilities (basic science & clinical science), study space for students? If so, what did you think about it? I realize it may be hard to compare if UMKC is the only program you’re interviewing at.
The MDApplicants website HappytoGraduate was talking about (some applicants list their financial aid offers they received): [MDapplicants.com</a> - Home](<a href=“http://www.mdapplicants.com/]MDapplicants.com”>http://www.mdapplicants.com/)
[Gov</a>. Nixon proposes tuition freeze - News](<a href=“http://media.www.unews.com/media/storage/paper274/news/2009/01/26/News/Gov-Nixon.Proposes.Tuition.Freeze-3597728.shtml]Gov”>http://media.www.unews.com/media/storage/paper274/news/2009/01/26/News/Gov-Nixon.Proposes.Tuition.Freeze-3597728.shtml)
**
Guess i’m not getting an interview…
az1698- Call their office on Monday & ask. They are really nice there.
Yes, just call on Monday or email Mary Morgenegg today or leave a message today so she gets it the first thing when she checks her messages on Monday. By now, they should know bc as a common courtesy they need to give applicants enough time to arrange for travel plans.
Phone: 816-235-1783
Email: <a href=“mailto:morgeneggm@umkc.edu”>morgeneggm@umkc.edu</a>
Hello, I’m currently a Junior at Liberty Senior High School in Liberty, MO. UMKC’s 6-year Med program is my all time dream school and I can honestly say there is nothing I would rather do than be a doctor. I’m super nervous about if I can get in or not. One of my fellow classmates says i should have no issues getting accepted. PLEASE HELP!
Stats:
4.0 GPA (Number 1 class rank of one of the largest high schools in the state), projeceted validictorian
Honors Theo Chem Sophomore Year
College Chemistry, Advanced Biology Junior Year
AP Chemistry, AP Biology, College Composition, and AP Psych Senior Year
LHS varsity swimmer (since freshman year) and year round club swimmer
NHS Member
Key Club Member (MANY hours volunteering)
Enviornmental Club Member
FCA Member
Teenage Republicans Member
Junior Assembly Member
Numerous Shawdowing Experiences in many different specialities
Employed this summer by doctor’s office
Taking the ACT next weekend…projected to get between 28-32 (I’m a very good test taker)
My AP Chem teacher next year is a professor at UMKC
Very passionate/excited about medicine
Thank you so much for the help!
Hey guys, my life long dream is to get into UMKC but i dunno if i have a chance
my rank is 10/104
no weighted gpa at my school i have a 3.7 OOS
My schedule breakdown
Freshman
Biology
Geometry
Spanish 1
PE
BCA
English 1 Adv.
World Geography
Lab science
Sophmore
Anatomy
Chemistry
World History
Spanish 2
English Adv 2
Computer graphics
Adv. Alg 2
Junior
Physics
AP Chem
SPanish 3
English 3
Consumer Ed
Health
U.S. History
Trig
PE
Extra Curriculars
FCCLA
Math Team
Wyse team
Scholastic bowl captain
president of student council
president of Sadd
Fundraising group
Volunteer at hospital 100+
I also work at a doctors office
I plan to volunteer at 2 nursing homes this summer
ACT Score- 30
plz tell me if i have a chance and what to do ( i am out of state Illinois)