Perhaps the greatest issue elucidated by the student OTM survey is the desire for students to have fewer OTM hours that are taught with greater efficiency. Many students feel the statements and the information from administration regarding OTM hours are inaccurate. The following is research completed by the President of 2002, Jack Hay.
“I spoke with Dr. Sargentini who was involved in an investigation to determine where KCOM ranked with regards to the rest of the nationally accredited ALLOPATHIC schools in terms of curriculum hours. Excluding OTM, we were pretty even with everyone else. When you add OTM, you add an additional 220 hours. But he was unable to make comparisons with all of the OSTEOPATHIC schools because ń to paraphrase Neil Sargentini - they refuse to collectively release their curriculum information into a central publication or put complete details of their curriculum on-line. If you peruse the Summer 1999 issue of the Student Doctor, you will notice an article on Osteopathic Curriculum. 9 Student officers from National SOMA compiled information from all 19 of the osteopathic schools and created a profile detailing each school's curriculum. This information came from college catalogs or from the school itself. Let me detail the OTM info for you where it was made clear or include web findings when information was not detailed in the Student DOctor:
AZCOM - 1 afternoon/week 1st and 2nd year. students get a three month summer break
CCOM - not specified in the article. based on website findings:
40hrs/quarter for 3 quarters 1st year and 3 quarters 2nd year. A 4 week OMM rotation is required 4th year.
KCOM - "KCOM boasts the greatest number of hours of OTM of any school" - from the article. 220 total credit hours. This is not total contact hours, this is only credit hours. If you really want to know the difference between the two, I can send another e-mail. But the bottom line is we do not get credit for every hour we spend in class or lab in OMM; we actually get less credit so we spend more than 220 hours in lecture or lab out of a possible 2169 credit hours.
LECOM - 4 hours each Wed. morning = a 1 hr lecture & two 1.5 hr labs to practice techniques (the class is split in half so that each student receives a total of 2.5 hrs/week of instruction). Students receive a summer break from mid-May to early August.
MSU-COM - "The summer semester is only 10 weeks long and this is when the crux of OMM begins. Students have OMM lab one afternoon each week [during the summer]. OMM lectures continue for three semesters as part of the neuromusculoskeletal course." In case you want more OTM, they do offer "special studies in OMM" as an elective throughout second year.
NYCOM - 1st year=one lecture + two 2hr lab sessions/week. "During the second year, OMM is integrated into the systems curriculum. Each systems course is accompanied by an associated OMM clinical correlation’s lecture and lab". That equals one lecture and lab per clinical course with no additional 2nd year OMM.
NSUCOM - throughout 1st and 2nd year, 1 lecture and 1 lab/week.
OUCOM - was not detailed. Website did not specify, but according to their description of a "typical week", OMT is scheduled one afternoon per week (combined lecture and lab). †I am waiting for them to return my e-mail.
OSU/COM - 1st semester of 1st year=one lab period per week. 2nd semester of 1st year and all of 2nd year=2 afternoon labs per week, one for clinical skills (like we get in the Complete DOctor course) and one for OMM. total = one lab/week for both years.
PCOM (Philadelphia) - 1hr lecture & 1hr lab/week 1st and 2nd year. Students must complete one-month rotations in OMM in both 3rd and 4th year.
PCSOM (Pikesville) - was not detailed in the article but on the website OPP comprises 60 out of 522hrs the first year and 66 out of 706hrs the second year. That represents 126 out of 1228 hours or roughly 10% - the same as KCOM despite the fact that KCOM has an additional 2 summers of coursework. How is Pikesville getting more OTM education than KCOM as you stated? We have more credit hours of OTM and it represents the same percentage of our education, despite receiving more overall educational hours.
