Thank you!
I'd love to hear what some of your favorite things have been about the program, and if you are open to sharing, anything you wish was different.
Also I'm curious, do most people live in Lebanon or does anyone commute from corvalis/salem/portland?
Hi there! Sorry for the long post. Feel free to message me or post more questions and I can expand on my thoughts.
For my class, we were only on campus 2-3 times per week for anatomy, clinical medicine, and OMM. All lectures were on zoom and recorded. I am not sure how much this is gonna change now that COVID is less prevalent. For my class, I'd say 85% lived in Lebanon, 10-15% in Corvallis/Albany (20 minute drive), and 1 person lived in Portland (1.5 hour drive) and 1 in Salem (~45 minute drive). I personally lived in Lebanon and drove back to Portland most weekends to see family and my SO, which was super doable. I think living in Lebanon was good for making friends early on, attending events, hanging out with people, and forming solid study groups.
Favorite things:
1. Community - cliche answer, but it is the truth. All my classmates are great and everyone always tries to help each other. We share study resources, and we all do fun things together (sports, hikes, bars, etc) when we are not studying. The greater Lebanon community is also great! Several business really like us and they really make an effort to get to know the students. Hazellas bakery and Mugs Coffee Shop were always amazing.
2. Anatomy - The anatomy department, particularly the ISAC program, is fantastic. If you are able to get into the ISAC program do it. You basically do all the anatomy dissections over 6 weeks during the Summer before starting school and take all the practicals. It will make your first year so much easier and then you can be a TA (and get paid!) for the year.
3. Sim Center - The simulation center is very new, but really fun. You learn how to intubate, put foley's in, place IVs and central lines, birthing simulations, etc.
4. Research - You have to be proactive to do research, but the opportunities are certainly there. There's a lot of ongoing projects involving anatomy, ultrasound, microbiology, anthropology, basic science, surveys, etc...The professors are also very nice and always willing to help and answer questions. Some students also get connected and do research with our local hospital in Corvallis (Good Sam), which has a lot of residency programs.
5. Extracurriculars - Lots of different things to be involved outside of just studying. There's the track to become a firefighter, mentoring at the local high school, free Spanish clinic in albany and a free clinic in Lebanon, the DREAM program every Summer for mentoring underrepresented pre-meds, SOMA pre-med mentorship, community garden, soup kitchen volunteering, etc. There are also many, many clubs that put on events throughout the year. The best part is you get to decide how involved you want to be!
Things I wish were different:
1. Communication/organization/admin - I think this is a problem at pretty much any med school. Sometimes the school will schedule mandatory things in the days leading up to finals, forget to tell us about an assignment, or just generally cause inconveniences. Not the biggest deal, but gets annoying after 2 years.
2. OMM - The school has a pretty heavy OMM curriculum and practicals were difficult since they are cumulative. I wish these were not graded and simply made pass/fail. I felt like studying for these kept me from studying more clinical material for exams and boards, especially 2nd year. Overall, my least favorite part of the curriculum.
3. Rotations - The clinical education department and rotation sites got really messed up during COVID I think. The department is going through a restructuring phase right now and dealing with staffing issues. The biggest issues are preceptors cancelling rotations at the last minute, students being sent to a different state for a rotation with a few days notice, and poor communication. However, this might be fixed by the time your class starts. The Pomona and Lebanon departments merged to help with the staffing issues and they are actively working on recruiting more rotation sites to increase opportunities for students.