new medex applicants

[newmedexgrad]

hey everyone, 

I have some hesitancy posting this because I know it's not what people want to hear. You may have seen postings similar to this from other students/grads of the program in other forums, but I just wanted to make sure everyone applying now is aware of a few things with this program. I graduated in August and my classmates and I felt unsupported from the beginning of our didactic year. We had poor instruction, consistent faculty turnover, and it worsened during clinical year. I'm trying not to come across as angry here but the lack of education and general dismissal of students' needs during my time at medex continues to infuriate me. I know of a situation during clinical year when a student was basically denied an advisor during disciplinary proceedings- the majority of our true advisors had quit and the director of the program, Terry Scott, became our "advisor," in name only. When we graduated we knew one person out of the faculty sitting on that stage. This is not how I imagined my PA school experience and it seriously saddens me that this is how it went. Last thing, the PANCE scores this year are pretty bad. Huge drop- I believe Seattle campus is mid 80s, Spokane 70s, Kona 40s. Not certain about Tacoma or Ankorage, but these aren't that surprising given the education we received. 

I just want to encourage anyone who has other interviews to take them, and to seriously think about what each school is going to offer you and how you're going to be supported as a student. It's so important. I think someone said this previously but if you've accepted, I do hope this is improving for incoming students. Try your best to connect with faculty from the get-go (even if they leave) and support each other as much as you can. 

[MilitarytoPA]

2 hours ago, newmedexgrad said:

hey everyone, 

I have some hesitancy posting this because I know it's not what people want to hear. You may have seen postings similar to this from other students/grads of the program in other forums, but I just wanted to make sure everyone applying now is aware of a few things with this program. I graduated in August and my classmates and I felt unsupported from the beginning of our didactic year. We had poor instruction, consistent faculty turnover, and it worsened during clinical year. I'm trying not to come across as angry here but the lack of education and general dismissal of students' needs during my time at medex continues to infuriate me. I know of a situation during clinical year when a student was basically denied an advisor during disciplinary proceedings- the majority of our true advisors had quit and the director of the program, Terry Scott, became our "advisor," in name only. When we graduated we knew one person out of the faculty sitting on that stage. This is not how I imagined my PA school experience and it seriously saddens me that this is how it went. Last thing, the PANCE scores this year are pretty bad. Huge drop- I believe Seattle campus is mid 80s, Spokane 70s, Kona 40s. Not certain about Tacoma or Ankorage, but these aren't that surprising given the education we received. 

I just want to encourage anyone who has other interviews to take them, and to seriously think about what each school is going to offer you and how you're going to be supported as a student. It's so important. I think someone said this previously but if you've accepted, I do hope this is improving for incoming students. Try your best to connect with faculty from the get-go (even if they leave) and support each other as much as you can. 

Sorry to hear you had a horrible experience. The Kona rates were in the 80s even prior to this years test. I know Anchorage had some issues with staff turn over and had horrible support several year ago where Seattle staff had to come up and teach. I've heard horror stories about clinical year as well and saw the frustrations of a MEDEX grad myself. 

I made Anchorage my second and am glad I was accepted to another program after reading this and stay strong and good luck with the PANCE if you haven't taken it yet!

[AmandaL]

I know autocorrect tried to help you on the spelling of anchorage… come on

[cmcnamara]

During my interview someone actually brought this general idea up of the complaints of turnover and some other issues. My interviewer said there was a lot of complications during COVID which they have worked hard to fix. During student interview a similar question was asked and the first and second years seemed to indicate no real complaints, besides that their anatomy class had to be reworked a bit, but that it was handled pretty quickly.

But I also understand that might be due to survivorship bias. Someone who had a poor experience is likely not to come to the interview event for qna. 

I also talked with a current first year student at Anchorage campus who basically said their biggest complaint was sometimes they would get their schedule or some new info at almost the last second. They said as long as you're flexible it is 100% worth it, especially if you plan on staying near the area.

So I get the feeling they got messed up pretty bad during COVID, but a lot of schools apparently did, too. I know of another school that apparently is going into pretty hard damage control to keep from going into probation for its covid school years.

 

Any thoughts on that? I'm not saying all that to invalidate you, cause I do think that class had a rough time. I also admit I might be biased here because I've been aiming to move back to Alaska and this is the only PA program in Alaska so I might be subconsciously looking to defend it.