Part 2 response to @HopingMD
Research
Research, both clinical and basic science research, has always been a huge weakness for UMKC’s med school. It takes a while to build up a big enough name to attract smart and intelligent people who conduct biomedical research. As a medical student here, you really have to be proactive and look hard to find something that is of interest to you and that will help you for residency applications. It does seem like at least now, they are more organized when it comes to helping students who are interested in finding research.
You can see here:
http://med.umkc.edu/research/
http://info.umkc.edu/cures/?page_id=12
http://www.umkc.edu/mubig/default.asp
http://info.umkc.edu/news/three-kansas-city-health-sciences-schools-partner-in-consortium
If you’re going for something competitive, then having research publications will matter. There are people who take one year off to do this somewhere else, but it’s obviously easier if you are able to do research while you’re in medical school.
Basic Sciences and USMLE Step 1
The USMLE Step 1 exam is an important multiple choice exam. But that doesn’t mean the sole or even the majority of the job of a medical school is to prepare you for that 1 exam. More on this in a little bit. Medical school and medicine in general really is a lot more than teaching you the science or medical facts, and it’s supposed to prepare you for that reality. Having clinical exposure is important bc patients don’t follow the textbooks, and bc when you hit internship and residency when you start getting paid, no one is going to give you that exposure or reteach you something they think you should have learned in medical school.
First, just as an FYI, UMKC has never been great at teaching basic sciences. It’s a long history that I think @PinkPrincess2014’s Article #8 touches on, but this has always been the case. Certain courses have high turn over in teaching faculty, but it’s well known by students and by alumni, that UMKC’s strength is not really in USMLE Step 1. The problem with this is that USMLE Step 1 is a big thing when it comes to being able to apply for certain specialties where having a high USMLE Step 1 score is pretty important. It’s kind of sad bc when it comes to the ability of being a physician, USMLE Step 1 is not very predictive of how good you will be but how well you take exams, but that is just how the residency process work. Still Step 1 isn’t the only factor, since you still have to get good rotation grades, but having a very high USMLE Step 1 score can open up a lot of doors.
I think it’s an exaggeration on that person’s part to say to you that UMKC’s lower Step 1 scores are because students don’t take the MCAT. There are other BS/MD programs where students also don’t take the MCAT, http://www.collegeadmissionspartners.com/bsmd-programs/bsmd-programs-dont-require-mcat/, and they do very well on the USMLE Step 1 – i.e. Northwestern.
I’m very biased, but I don’t think UMKC med students are dumber than other medical students. There might be lazy people here and there, but for the ones who stayed in the program, students wanted to learn, and they wanted to do well on the boards. All of us study hard for classes especially since they are letter graded, and do the preparation necessary independently to study for Step 1.
I think there are several factors that contribute to our lower board scores, but one contributor is that we don’t take that many undergraduate classes before jumping into medical school classes. You don’t get enough undergrad “practice” learning how to study for upper level science classes. They could easily change this, but then the program would have to be 7 or 8 years.
I had the same basic science professors who are current teaching now, except maybe Biochemistry, as the guy just recently retired. I think as a whole, the faculty are nice people and genuinely want to help. That being said, I would hardly say their course tests had board type test questions. They may think they do, but they really don’t. I also don’t think the teaching quality is the best, although there are notable exceptions. The practice board exam we take as med students at the end of Year 4, is more to allow us to sign up for boards, it’s not for practice. If you don’t do well enough on it to pass, then you aren’t allowed to sign up for the real thing and take it.
When I was there, there were always yearly complaints from students that classes weren’t good at preparing students for board exams. I would ask current students who have taken the exam, about how classes are now, but realize different people will say different things, and not everyone will be as forthcoming. Like other UMKC students, I ended up taking a Kaplan course also, and I owe doing well on it more to that class.
*****One thing that gets thrown around a lot about UMKC is that UMKC med students do better on USMLE Step 2 bc we do a lot more clinical stuff.
1 - At all medical schools, students usually do better on Step 2 than Step 1 bc it's more clinically relevant and in your third year you rotate on the clinical side.
2 - UMKC's Step 2 average isn't higher than other schools even though we have a lot more clinical exposure.
The UMKC average USMLE Step 2 score in 2012 was 229: http://med.umkc.edu/docs/sa/announcements/2013/InTheKnow_07-22-13.pdf
The national average USMLE Step 2 score in 2012 was 237: http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/handbook/academics/licensure.cfm
Match Lists
Realize that how a medical student chooses their specialty is a complex process. It’s a little difficult for those not in med school to understand yet. At most medical schools, a large majority of the class will be going into Internal Medicine/Pediatrics/Family Medicine. The people in the first 2 specialties generally do a fellowship - called a subspecialty, so they will not be practicing primary care medicine when they are done.
Where we’re lacking is in matching many UMKC students to competitive specialties: Plastic Surgery, Radiation Oncology, Dermatology, Ophthalmalogy, Orthopedic Surgery (this one has improved a lot), Urology, Neurosurgery, Radiology, etc. This job is even harder to do if you don’t have a home residency program at your medical school. It doesn’t mean that it is impossible, but if you look at prior lists starting from 2003, which @UMKCRoosMD posted in this thread, you will see a pattern.