Some Things I Learned While Visiting WVSOM

I was very impressed with the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine. The campus was beautiful. The school used to be an old military base and it was converted into a school. The school has taken great care to keep everything looking nice, and they seem to continually update the facilities.

The lecture halls are huge. WVSOM has 2 lecture halls; one for first year students and the other for second year students. The sound is great and the screens for overheads are big, so really there isn't a bad seat in the room. I sat in on a lecture and spoke with a professor about classes and she took the time to show me the online system. WVSOM records all the lectures in MP3 form. Students are able to go back and listen to any lecture they feel they need. I liked that idea a lot.

The anatomy lab was also really nice. They had 50+ cadavers to work with. One strong selling point was that the lab did not have the tradition stench of other anatomy labs. The faculty at WVSOM has devised a ventilation system that keeps the room smelling pritine and clean.

WVSOM has a fair amount of construction going on at the moment. They had 2 new buildings in progress when I visited. One was a new research facility (I think). The other was a brand new wellness center for students and families to use. It was in the initial phase of construction, but it looked like it will be very nice.

West Virginia, like LECOM, offers lecture track and problem based learning. However, their PBL system is very new and still developing. One nice thing is WVSOM always has a DO and a PhD in the room with the students working their cases. LECOM only had one faculty member.

Last of all WVSOM has robots that simulate real patients. They were very nice. Students have the opportunity to work on cases and learn from mistakes before heading into the real world to work on real people. I will talk about these simulators in a later post since multiple schools have them.

The one downside I found in the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine was the out of state tuition. In-state tuition was fantastic; somewhere around $22,000. Out of state was $50,000+.

What I Knew Before Visiting WVSOM

My second interview was at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM). I was first intrigued by WVSOM after learning about their reputation for producing quality primary care physicians. In fact, WVSOM has been ranked by U.S. News as one of the top schools in the nation for 10 years running.

I looked across their website before attending and it looked beautiful. I felt that if I were accepted at WVSOM that it would be a nice place to study; however, I felt that their out of state tuition was a little intimidating to look at.

I had never met anyone who had attended WVSOM, all I had to base my desire for attending their school was the national reputation that they had developed from their U.S. News rankings.

Where I am in the Process

The process of applying to medical school can be very long and trying. I am glad to be where I am right now. I know I will start medical school in July/August of 2009; I just need to decide which school to attend.

I interviewed with LECOM, WVSOM, LMU-DCOM, and ATSU-KCOM. I was honestly just hoping that someone would accept me for school this year. I feel very blessed that all four schools have offered me a spot in next year's class. This is a tough decision because each school had something that set them apart from all the other schools. 

Over the next while I will be leaving posts about what each of my interviews were like, what I thought of the campuses, and more information about my application process.