June 1, 2000
Dear Dean Gaber and KCOM:
I am writing this letter to tell you that I have decided to drop out of school. There are many issues which have contributed to my decision and I would like to address each of these. They are the quality of education versus the money I am spending, the disorganized third and fourth years, the threat of decreased residencies, the OTM curriculum, and not having as much time as I would like for starting and caring for my family.
With the leadership that is now directing where this school is headed, I have no confidence in my educational needs being met anymore. I feel that my tuition money is being spent fulfilling goals that are on the personal agenda of our administrators and do not have my education as the primary focus. This certainly can be exemplified by the large sum of money spent on an exhibit to tour the country, when neither I nor many of my classmates have seen it (in fact my parents, who were interested in seeing it, were denied entrance when they visited). I have found several of the professors here to be terrible and I feel frustrated that my tuition money is not being spent to improve the quality of teachers and materials needed for my education.
I have only heard negative rumors about the third and fourth years. It is distressing to hear students say that we are turned loose in some foreign place with no supervision. Or that we will need to spend time on course work that should have happened in the second year, but was moved to expand OTM hours. It is also distressing to hear the AOA's prediction of the huge deficit in residencies in the year that I would be competing for one, when I am a member of the largest class at KCOM and there are plans to increase the class size permanently. I was interested in medicine because of the flexibility it offered about choosing where you live, but with the decrease in residencies, there will be a decrease in the ability to choose where to live.
I have been appalled and extremely upset by what has transpired during the past several weeks at KCOM. It has interfered with my and many of my classmates' education. There is something seriously wrong with a school that has almost one hundred percent of its clinical professors, the heart of the school, walking out in protest because they feel the students' education is being compromised, I support what these professors are trying to achieve for the students, and I have been very disappointed with the administration's response to their, and the students', repeated requests. This is another example of the students' education not being at the forefront of all decision making being made by the administration, and I have no confidence that any of this will change.
One of my greatest frustrations has been with the OTM curriculum. When I came to KCOM, I had no exposure to osteopathic theories and manipulation, I looked forward to learning and mastering it, and certainly expected to implement it into my primary care practice. I have become so frustrated with the way that this is taught, that I have found my mind closing to all aspects of it, when I was once excited about having an extra tool to use in my practice. I feel that the hours for this course are excessive and much of this time is not used constructively in making us better physicians. I feel that the grading is frequently unfair, although I understand the difficulties in making a fair practical, I still do not understand why we are lectured about not practicing enough, when frequently we do not get the information that we will be tested on in the practical until a week before the exam. I am confused why all of our courses are taught in a scientific, evidence-based way, yet OTM is taught almost like a religion. We are expected to believe everything without questioning, especially since our grade is on the line. It is very confusing learning something that is taught one way by one professor, and another way by another professor and when it comes to exams old practicals you are not sure which way is the right answer, I am wary of any lecture that consistently has mistakes and contradictions with our science lectures and an OTM lecture is frequently full of mistakes and contradictions. Even when confronted about a contradiction, the question is skirted around and answered insufficiently. It is confusing taking a quiz and having the answers announced in class and then at the end of class having a retraction about an answer that was announced incorrectly. If our professors can not keep things straight, how can we? I feel that a large part of lab is spent teaching thousands of techniques which I could not sufficiently master due to the unrealistic quantity, much less remember. There is also a large quantity of lab time spent teaching techniques that I cannot believe are used in a busy primary care practice. It appears that we all are being trained as OTM specialists when very few of us will become one. Will we spend a year and a half learning techniques of surgery or pediatrics? When I heard rumors of clinical hours being cut to increase OTM hours, I became very distressed. Especially since I already felt like every moment spent on OTM was taking away from studying for other classes which I saw as being more
useful for me to know. Many of these issues I addressed have been addressed in the survey put together by first and second years, and repeatedly at dinners with the president, but again, I do not believe that these things will change as these are not new issues to our class and no change has happened so far.
(name withheld to protect the students privacy-webmaster)
Class of 2003
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