INDEPENDENT REPOST OF TAMEER SIDDIQUI’S: WHY SGU MAY NOT BE FOR YOU

 

Why SGU May Not Be for You 7/20/2015 136 Comments Let me just say this first and foremost, this post is not intended to attack St. George’s University School of Medicine in any shape, way, or form. I spent quite some time in Grenada and learned a lifetime of valuable lessons that I know I couldn’t have learned anywhere else. I have wonderful memories from SGU with the most wonderful people I have ever met. I can go on and on about how grateful and lucky I am to have had such a rare opportunity to study abroad and I have indeed went on and on about that in my previous posts. But let’s be real, my experience has not been all sunshine and rainbows. Ever since I withdrew from SGU, I have been wanting to share with my readers some insights I have gained from being a student there. I have been writing this for awhile now, but not alone. I have friends from SGU who have worked on this with me. Some are still students there while others are not. Some of them have continued on the medical path, while others have pursued something else. I have been reluctant to publish this for awhile because of the amount of heat I will be getting from current/past SGU students and faculty. But I’m at that point now where I would rather give clarity to prospective students at the expense of being attacked from people who really have no right to judge me since they have no idea what students like myself have been through. Let’s face it, there are just not enough student blogs out there and while I admit mine is nowhere close to being perfect, it certainly is authentic and I take great pride in that. Although SGU did not work out for me, It does work out for others. I am not dissuading students to attend the school, but I am not recommending they do either.  I am not posting this in an effort to “get back” at anyone or anything. I am not grieving. I am however, upset and frustrated with the way things are at SGU and I believe that it would be a greater crime to witness what I have for over a year and a half and to go on living my life without sharing some valuable insights that may help others. This blog-post specifically is about my overall perspective of the school, which has dramatically changed since my first blog post. I apologize in advance if this entry may provoke anyone affiliated with the school. I do not intend to start a debate nor create conflict in any way. I am not asking any reader to agree with me nor am I interested in convincing anyone that I am right. I am not sharing all this for your approval, for I already have my own. If you are on the SGU bandwagon for whatever reason—maybe because you’ve had a wonderful, positive experience and would love to encourage others to attend the school—then feel free to open up your own blog and throw your love for the school all over it. Indeed, you are entitled to your opinion as I am entitled to mine. INTRO Senior year of college, the only caribbean medical schools I applied to (and got accepted to) were Ross University and St. George’s University. Certainly at the time, I was younger and naive. I was asking the wrong questions. “How is the island?” “What are the people like?” & of course, “How good is the food?” Don’t get me wrong, I definitely inquired about the schools’ USMLE first-time pass rate and residency placement as well, but I was asking it the wrong way. Easily, we all know that the “top caribbean medical schools” aka the “Big 4” (SGU, Ross, AUC, Saba) all have excellent first-time USMLE pass rates and residency placements. However, the real question I should have asked is, what percentage of the students that enroll actually sit for Step 1 and make it to residency? Or to simplify things, how many of the students that enroll actually graduate? One thing I didn’t know before but know now is that the reason why the top schools in the caribbean are at the top, is because they have a chopping block.  They weed out a significant number of students and the only students who actually make it through are the cream of the crop.  The problem is, we all think we are the top students when we apply. The reality is, not all of us can be at the top. St. George’s University (SGU) on the Caribbean Island of Grenada SGU IS NOT FOR EVERYONE I’ll say it again. SGU is not for everyone. SGU only favors the cream of the crop. And by all means they should because only residency programs take the cream of the crop! The problem with this is, the school should then only accept the cream of the crop. In other words, they should be more selective in the admission’s process. If they are only going to take into account the students who excel, then they should only accept the student’s who excel! The venture capitalist side of the school— accepting countless students to gain millions of dollars in revenue, but knowing on a deeper level that a good amount of these students are not cut out to be here in the first place is unjust, immoral, and unethical. It leaves these students hundreds and thousands of dollars in debt not to mention emotionally devastated, lost, and confused. In fairness, perhaps all of the students who get accepted appear to be the cream of the crop at first. I know I had a competitive GPA from a reputable university and could have gotten into a DO school if I had retaken the MCAT and given it the chance. However, assuming the admission’s process is all fair game, still doesn’t take away from the manner in which the educational system is set up. It is rigged. It is designed to weed students out. SGU has no problem accepting a surfeit of students, leaving them to fend for themselves once matriculated. There is an overwhelming amount of material to learn (as there is in any medical school), but there are also a surplus of students, not enough resources or faculty on board, thus contributing to a lower quality education, and the constant policy changes which I’ll provide examples for later on, overtly favor academic attrition as opposed to academic retention of students. One thing that really frustrates me is that lots of the faculty and staff at SGU—including some of the students that are doing well—blindly support this money-making machine model without really considering all the facts. You will hear many of them say, “SGU has provided students with an opportunity to pursue their dreams of becoming a physician and it’s up to the student to make that happen.”  Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night. They know that what is happening to the students is wrong but they don’t want to feel guilty about choosing to be at SGU so they convince themselves that it’s entirely up to the student in the first place. Even my own faculty advisor whom I had highly regarded had made it clear to me on many occasions that the school was not the problem, I was. At first, I was deeply offended but only now I have come to realize she was right. A person like me is not cut out to be in such a demeaning, cut-throat place. Even some of the students who are passing (and by passing I mean barely making it through) resent students who are not passing. They are the ones who claim “those who failed out deserved to fail in the first place.” Excuse me? Deserved to fail? What does that even mean? More importantly, how do you live with yourself? Unfortunately, these same students will somehow make it through and become a physician and when their patient dies they will make a similar, illogical claim, “those who died deserved to die in the first place.” For the sake of humanity, please quit medicine and go bake yourself a humble pie. The reason why these staff members and students embrace this thought process allows them to rid themselves of any personal responsibility or guilt they may have.  Even when I was a student, whenever I was asked if I recommend the school, I would do so without hesitation yet at the same time I would feel uncomfortable inside. I could not speak negatively of SGU because I had committed to it and being honest with myself about my unhappiness here would have forced me to deal with even more guilt of choosing the school in the first place. And so I did what it seems most students are doing, I blindly supported it. Cognitive dissonance at it’s finest. With that said, not all students are like that. Some genuinely, truly, madly, deeply, love SGU. Some of these students are my closest friends. They are doing remarkably well, they are humble as can be, and they build me up instead of break me down for withdrawing. These people do exist. They appreciate SGU for their own reasons. More power to them. I would be honored if they were my physician. Don’t get me wrong. I agree it is absolutely a student’s responsibility to succeed in medical school and no one else’s. It is indeed up to the student to put in the time and hardwork and I am not discounting that. All I’m saying is that succeeding is so much harder at a place that practically takes your money and then leaves you hanging, making you have to fend for yourself, and treating you as if you are just another statistic. SGU White Coat Ceremony in Patrick Adams Hall (seat capacity 852 students) “JUST ANOTHER STATISTIC”  First day of orientation, one professor had the nerve to look at all of us ~780 students and told us blatantly, “you or the person sitting next to you will most likely not be here on the day of your graduation.” Basically insinuating that half of the students here will make it, and the other half, will not. How encouraging (obviously the attrition rate is not that high at SGU, and I’ll touch on that later on).Certainly, the quality of education that SGU provides is somewhat comparable to that of U.S. medical schools and that is great. They do indeed have professors with office hours and student-led review sessions and that’s pretty wonderful too. They definitely provide you with help, if needed. So when I say “treated as if just another statistic” I am referring to the fact that SGU does enroll a surplus of students and it does show when you are sitting in an auditorium with over 700 students or trying to get help at a “small group review session” that has 20 other students or even worse, trying to study a cadaver during open hours while there are 25 other students hovering over you and there being only one facilitator trying to show everyone an inconspicuous nerve. The above statement  was posted in 2011, you would think the info in it would be ‘outdated’ by now. Sadly, it is not.  This user has a strong opinion about the school structure and I couldn’t agree more…The administration clearly values capital over people, and that is not okay. But it wasn’t always like this! The recent graduating class of 2014 had approximately ~900 graduates in total! (combining fall/spring classes-Source: http://www.sgu.edu/news-events/news-archives14-sgu-som-graduates-2014.html) That means in 2010, the fall & spring classes had a total of ~450 students each! (most likely more since not all students make it through, but the # is still relatively small!)  SGU alumni always comment about how great of a school SGU is, but as you can see, they really are not the best people to ask! At least, not anymore… Times have really changed! The 900 graduates that enrolled at SGU in 2010 will not be the same number of graduates you will see in 2020! The students entering now already have over 700 students per term! (Source: http://www.sgu.edu/about-sgu/medical-students-enrollment-statistics.html) So technically we should expect to see that number doubled by the time graduation arrives but it might actually still be that 900 students graduate because SGU is doing everything in it’s power to vigorously weed students out! 2014 SGU School of Medicine Commencement Ceremony CURRICULUM Before deciding on which medical school to attend, it is of utmost importance that you have a solid understanding of the curriculum because it is this which determines your ability to learn and master the material of medical school. Majority of the caribbean medical schools (and American medical schools) have block exams. This means they are tested frequently and provide students with multiple opportunities to succeed. SGU does not have block exams. At the time of this writing, SGU offers a midterm and a final exam during the basic sciences (at least for the first three terms, if not also for the rest).  In other words, the midterm and final are essentially the only opportunities you have to pass the classes. While it may seem doable, (and certainly is for a certain type of student) it’s actually much harder than it seems. The amount of material covered in medical school along with the fast-paced learning that is required actually favors students who take block exams as opposed to two big tests. This is because students who are tested monthly or frequently are only required to retain a certain amount of information covered during that period of time whereas students who are tested only twice in one given term are responsible for knowing twice as much information! Although schools that provide block exams to their students also give a comprehensive final examination, these students have a much better chance of passing such a final because they already have a good idea of what to expect since they took 3 or 4 other exams preceding the final. In addition, the final exam, although the most difficult, is usually just a reflection of all the block exams combined. Even more importantly, the comprehensive final exam although weighed the most, does not weigh half as much as the two big exams we take at SGU because those are essentially 50% of our grade. Thus, medical schools which deliver block exams weighed proportionately give these students leverage when preparing for their finals which are not nearly weighed as much as a midterm or final at SGU. In fairness, SGU has what are called, “Unified Quizzes” which are supposed to be mini-tests given to students before their big exams but they barely weigh in on the student’s final gpa and they are not representative of the actual exams since every term learns at a different pace and the unified questions are randomly thrown in from a question bank. For this reason, the averages on these Unified Quizzes are usually lower than the averages on the actual exams. The averages on the actual exams are ~80%. Not bad. What drives the majority of SGU students to do so well? Is it because of the “high quality” education? Or is it because SGU’s mantra of  “survival of the fittest”  causes students to transform into sharks and in desperation gnaw at every other student for “exclusive resources” until the shark tank becomes a blood bath? QUESTIONABLE QUALITY OF EDUCATION My medical school journey did not end after SGU. I had applied and interviewed at several other schools and even matriculated into one. What I’ve learned from all these other schools is that their quality of education is far superior than SGU’s and they are not even deemed with as much regard and respect! Majority of the caribbean medical schools , whether they are at the top like Ross University or up-and-coming like University of Medicine and Health Sciences (UMHS) provide their students with higher quality education and support! For instance, medical schools all over the world generally have a small group of students assigned to a cadaver for their anatomy lab class. Throughout the semester, the students learn from one another and ask their instructor questions whenever they need help. Some schools even have a facilitator assigned to each group while others provide them only when needed. These students stick with their cadaver throughout the semester, they even name it. That’s how attached they become to it. They realize the privilege they have in exploring the human body through dissection and they treat it with respect. Anatomy at SGU is a prime example of the poor infrastructure and educational model of the school overall. The problems encountered in our anatomy lab represent a higher level of problems at SGU on a grand scale. While most schools require anatomy lab every day SGU students have it once a week. The anatomy lab day is the most dreaded day because it would start early, and in no particular order would consist of a discussion, a dry lab, and a wet lab, which would take 4 hours combined, and then by the time it’s over, student’s have to get ready for another 4 hours of lecture. Aside from the fact that the department decided to squeeze it all in one day, the quality of our learning is what really ticks students off.   The anatomy department tries to implement research, discussion, and physical examination all in one sitting. You are assigned to a small group of usually 7-10 people and the clinical tutors who facilitate the discussions change every week. This leaves no stability in the curriculum as every tutor teaches differently leaving students hoping and wishing for the “good clinical tutor.” While SGU does provide students with the opportunity to engage in physical exams by practicing on their fake patients (real people that work for SGU), there are usually not enough clinical tutors to go around to each of the students and ensure that they are examining their patient correctly. There is also not enough time (since they decided to do all of anatomy lab in one day). Students rush through their physical exams, because time is running out and by the time OSCE’s (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) roll around, most students are freaking out and are practicing on each other or on themselves. Luckily, it is very easy to pass these OSCEs (probably because the school knows they don’t do a good job at teaching it). Along with the discussion component, students also attend a wet lab, also known as cadaver lab. Cadavers are prosected (already dissected by pros to save time and room for error) and student’s choose their own group (I usually had 5 or 6 students in mine). The anatomy lab is split into two big sections with ~40 students one one side and ~40 on the other (rough estimate). If I remember correctly, there are ~8 cadavers per section. So 8 other cadavers on the other side with groups of ~5 students per cadaver over there. These are conservative numbers (there could have been more than 5 students per cadaver).Anyway, the students are not assigned a cadaver. Instead, they simply rotate and examine every cadaver about every 5 minutes. The worst part is, there is a long list of structures that student’s should be able to examine within the time frame allotted per cadaver! Students are expected to know all the structures on their own and if and only if they need help, are they allowed to ask a facilitator questions. But here’s the caveat, the facilitator has to be available in the first place! That’s right, the number of students far exceed the number of facilitators in the anatomy lab. After all, there’s two big sections of students and not enough facilitators to go around! You would think these facilitators would be swamped with answering student’s questions, but they are instead engaging in small talk with one another in the corner of the room. I remember my peers yelling out for help and even me having to leave my station and physically going to the facilitators to grab their attention.  Of course, I may have figured out the answer to my own question if I didn’t waste so much time trying to get a facilitator to answer it. That’s exactly what ended up happening. Many times, students no longer relied on the facilitators help because they were not reliable. (For the record, not all facilitators ignore their students, just a few of them made it a problem worth noting. Other facilitators that were present were usually preoccupied at other station’s answering other students’ questions or they were with us at our station and we were hogging them). Point of sharing all this is that the facilitator:student ratio is not good. It’s a problem SGU has now and it’s a problem SGU will keep having as long as they continue this way.Final component of anatomy lab day is dry lab.  This is also known as imaging lab. This opens with a ridiculous quiz where students have to correctly identify an inconspicuous structure on a powerpoint slide that is far from eyesight.  Sometimes it’s a nerve, an artery, a muscle, or a bone. The questions range from first order to third order. The only way a student can really prepare for this type of lab quiz is by labeling and memorizing all the structures on all of the virtual lab images that the department provides. That is no easy task. The virtual lab quizzes heavily affect a student’s GPA and students’ dread this component of dry lab the most for this reason. Dry lab is broken into two different sections. One of the sections consists of students who are once again in groups and must sort through x-ray/image-based questions with their peers while also examining the structures. The second section consists of students learning and performing ultrasound techniques on their fake patients (real people who work for SGU). I would say the ultrasound is by far the best quality of education that SGU provides. Not all medical students gain access to ultrasound upon their arrival as first year students so that is definitely a plus. But once again, student’s are rushed through the process and because the clinical tutors are so diverse in their teaching methods, students race to the best ones leaving others with the opposite. The issues listed above were indeed addressed when I was an SGA Rep at SGU. I had attended a Student Government Meeting with the anatomy department faculty members along with the rest of my colleagues who also served as term reps.  We had openly discussed our concern and contempt for these anatomy lab issues but even though some of these issues were addressed and resolved, majority of them have not been corrected. The faculty of the anatomy department had informed us that the student to faculty ratio is large and they cannot provide an adequate amount of facilitators simply because they do not have them. To improve the dry lab quizzes problem that student’s were having, they have informed us that they will provide each student with an iPad in the future so students do not have to strain their eyes to see the structure in question. I have heard from subsequent terms that the dry lab quizzes are becoming more manageable because the questions are far easier than they were when I was around. Even though I am sharing all this criticism about the anatomy lab class structure, I must say I do love the anatomy staff members. In fact, the school’s course directors, faculty members, and core professors are one of the main reasons I remained. They really do care about the students and that is evident in the changes they make but there is only so much they can do to correct the overlying and overwhelming administrative and academic problems that exist. In fairness, even though students have only ~5 minutes per cadaver during wet lab, they are able to study the cadaver for as long as they want during open hours throughout the week. The problem is that now the window is open for all students in the term instead of just the students on the lab day. So there are generally an influx of students during open hours at the time the facilitator is going through high-yield anatomical structures. This is not helpful when every student in the lab is hovering around one cadaver as the facilitator is trying to show all the students one important, microscopic nerve of the Brachial Plexus. I specifically speak about anatomy because it has always been one of my favorite classes. I really enjoyed learning about the intricacies of the human body and I appreciated every opportunity I had when I laid my eyes upon a cadaver in high school, college, and then medical school. I remember at SGU the person in charge of the lab came to me at one point and even commented on how well I treat the cadavers. She was amazed that sometimes I would hold their hands while I examined them. She said I treat them with a kind of respect she has never been before. That was a compliment coming from the instructor who teaches an elective solely on dissection. Unfortunately, during open hours, when the cadavers are left in the hands of confused students, they are not treated with respect. Now I don’t expect students to hold their cadavers hands but I certainly don’t find it acceptable to mistreat them. I would walk into the lab during open hours seeing the body parts severed and separated. A cadaver’s arm would be under it’s leg, intestines would scattered, a heart would be missing from one cadaver while another cadaver had two livers. Organs would be all over the place, outside the cadaver, not inside it. It was repulsive. I’m sure it was an accident. Student’s don’t intentionally want to play around with cadavers and misplace their parts. I just don’t understand how some people can be so careless. Do they not realize that these cadavers were once living human beings who gave up their bodies for us to learn how to treat people like them? I’m sure if these cadavers saw just how their demised bodies were being treated (or should I say mis-treated) they would have wanted to die all over again just so they could change their mind about giving it to science. I honestly stopped attending open lab hours because of this reason. I mean, how are you supposed to learn about the normal anatomy of a human body when it’s not even in it’s normal condition? There was no one to supervise and the facilitators only came once in awhile. By the way, these facilitators were actually upper-classmen who simply had to pass the class to get to this teaching position. Many of them were my friends. When they were not around, the whole room was left open and unguarded. The cadavers were left in the hands of inexperienced, unwise, and incompetent students like myself. The treatment of cadavers during open hours was despicable and I will forever resent it. RossU SOM Anatomy Lab Compare SGU’s anatomy lab conditions to it’s competition, Ross University SOM they have anatomy labs like this: http://www.rossu.edu/medical-school/blog/12/432 UMHS SOM Anatomy Lab Or compare it to newer schools like UMHS which have anatomy labs like this: http://www.umhs-sk.org/index.php/news-and-events/anatomy-lab-opens-may-13-2008.html After withdrawing from SGU, I flew out to Ross to tour its campus and facilities. I also have many close friends from there. UMHS (also founded by the Ross family) is another school I grew very fond of and because of it’s small class size, 100% USMLE pass rate, high match rate and low attrition rate (no chopping block), I find it comparable to the “top caribbean schools.” Both Ross and UMHS have anatomy labs with dissections built into their curriculum which means students will engage in personal learning with their cadaver, giving them more time to understand it. Groups are small, technology is brilliant, and facilitators: student ratio is conducive to a learning environment. Ever wonder why SGU does not have a picture or a webpage for it’s anatomy lab? Now you know. Anatomy is one of the most important classes a medical student takes. It provides the very foundation upon which all learning can occur. If the lab component of this class has such a flawed structure and layout at the very basic level, what does that say about the rest of the classes? What does that say about the administration? What does that say about the school? Aside from anatomy lab, even at the basic-lecture learning component, the quality of education that SGU provides is still questionable. If SGU prides itself on a high quality education then why in the world are students having to refer back to lectures from years ago in order obtain the level of understanding they need to do well on the exams? That’s exactly what happens at SGU. While studying for physiology, I along with the majority of my classmates had to refer back to our course director’s teaching on Sonic Foundry-MediaSite in order to learn the material. SGU will proudly proclaim that it has visiting professors from all over the world and as exciting as that sounds, this actually creates more problems for students than it solves. The core faculty at SGU create the exams but then leave the teaching part in the hands of visiting professors who have no idea what’s going to be on the exam. Surely, they have a list of objectives to cover but the manner in which we are taught does not parallel the manner in which student’s before us were taught. In the past, SGU core faculty professors actually taught the students and they taught well. Visiting faculty members teach well too but it can be really confusing keeping up with their lectures while our essential/supplemental class notes we ordered from the bookstore are on a completely different pace. Students have to hustle through the plethora of notes to align themselves with the visiting professors who are doing their own thing. Some of the modules are indeed taught by the Core faculty and those subjects I usually learned well. However, important topics like GI, Endocrine, and Respiratory physiology were all taught by visiting professors. To save time, avoid confusion, and focus solely on high-yield information in an effort to prepare for the exams, majority of students including myself referred back to lectures from years ago by watching online, the lectures taught by the core faculty at a time when they weren’t too busy to teach their students the material. I can go on and on forever about the lower quality of education at SGU but instead, I will move on to other equally, important issues, by now I think you get the point. ACADEMIC POLICIES Earlier I stated the educational system at SGU resembles that of a venture capitalist but it is actually worse. It doesn’t even invest in it’s students. I can already hear what every caribbean medical student is saying in response to that, “haha tameer, you’re such a spoiled brat you want the school to invest in students like you. Please, grow up. Every Caribbean medical school does not invest in it’s students. SGU is no different. Invest in yourself and deal with it.” Okay, that may be true. It’s no surprise to any caribbean student that their school is not invested. After all, it’s generally accepted that student’s (med and vet) in the caribbean have to fend for themselves. But all that aside, even if you just look at the very basic policies you can see that SGU is actually far less invested than the other caribbean medical schools making it so much harder for students to fend for themselves. Here’s how… Chancellery Building: Primary Academic, Administrative, and Business Offices ACADEMIC DISMISSAL POLICY No student enrolled in medical school ever doubts their ability to succeed. After all, they made it to medical school, didn’t they? Yet, it’s important to be realistic and aware of the policies a school has regarding academic dismissal because more often than not, student’s will struggle if not fail a course maybe a little or maybe by a lot. Don’t be another student to walk into a school like SGU and find yourself completely shocked at the stringent, strict, and unreasonable policies they have regarding student dismissal and promotion. Most caribbean medical schools have a very reasonable academic dismissal policy. They allow students to repeat a failed course. However, at SGU the only option a student has to repeat a failed course is by deceling. Deceling means the student drops the course mid-way and takes it again next term, never having really failed it in the first place. Students who take a course without dropping it/deceling and actually fail the course are automatically recommended for dismissal. They can either appeal the recommendation for dismissal with the hope of getting reinstated or appeal with the risk of getting dismissed. Or they can avoid putting their fate in the hand’s of the administration altogether and withdraw. During the basic sciences at other caribbean medical schools like American University of the Caribbean (AUC), failing the same course twice are grounds for dismissal. Other than that, a student may fail up to 17 credit hours before getting asked to leave. After this, students have the opportunity to appeal in front of a committee consisting of faculty and honor students who will decide whether or not to allow the student to stay (Source).  At Ross University SOM, if you fail a course you will have to repeat the entire semester again and pass. You will only be dismissed after failing a repeated semester. (Source). At American University of Antigua (AUA),  students (in Semesters I-III) with a final grade between 65-69%, failing in no more than two courses, and are not on academic probation may be eligible to re-test for the final exam(s).  There is only one exception, if a student fails in semester IV, they have to repeat the entire semester. A student who receives an aggregate (weighted mean) score of less than 55% may be dismissed (Source). At Medical University of the Americas (MUA),  students who fail a repeated course, students who fail while on academic probation, and/or students who fail two or more courses while enrolled in Basic Sciences, whether or not on Academic Probation may be dismissed (Source). At University of Medicine & Health Sciences (UMHS), a student who fails a course does not have to repeat the entire semester, they just take that course and are only recommended for dismissal if they fail it again (Source). Notice how all these schools allow students to repeat a course as if it’s a fundamental right. Having these kinds of policies means the schools value their students’ to the extent that they will allow them to make a mistake long as they learn from it and correct it. At SGU, on the other hand, a student will be automatically recommended for dismissal after failing a course of 4 credits or more (which is majority of the courses), or for failing two courses that are less than 4 credits each. The students have no opportunity to repeat a failed course unless they are reinstated after already making an appeal for their dismissal (students who are reinstated are generally an exception to the rule). Notice I could not provide a legitimate source for SGU’s academic dismissal policy. I wish I could provide one but there is no updated handbook stating these policies publicly on the SGU website. The only way to access SGU’s current handbook is by already matriculating and obtaining access to the MySGU page. There are previous versions of handbooks available online, but they no longer provide valid information nor do they adequately state the policies that currently exist. Please note, all these dismissal policies are regarding the basic sciences program! The clinical sciences are another component of medical school in which these schools have additional yet reasonable grounds for dismissal usually providing students with multiple upon multiple attempts to pass the required basic science comprehension examinations. Thank you to my friend Benji Ho for recommending my blog to prospective caribbean school viewers and for helping out with this section. Learn more from his blog here! CHANGES IN POLICY FAVOR WEEDING OUT One thing I strongly dislike about SGU is the sudden changes in policy they make over the course of a single term without really asking for students’ input. For instance, the WMPG (aka cumulative gpa) increased from 73% to 75% as the minimum gpa a student must maintain in order to be promoted to the following term. Even though passing a class remains at a 70%, a student who has passed all classes > 70% is still recommended for dismissal if their average is <75%. It may not seem like a big difference that the WMPG only shifted two points up, but for the students who before managed to have a cumulative WMPG of 73% would be considered as successful students promoted without hesitation to the next term, students now with that score are recommended for dismissal and these students are left with the difficult choice to either withdraw or appeal their recommendation for dismissal with the risk of being officially dismissed or luckily getting reinstated. In other words, you can pass all your classes at SGU and still be dismissed if you do not meet the minimum gpa requirement of 75%. This is also true for students at SABA, another “top” caribbean school that most closely resembles SGU in many other ways it might as well be called it’s twin. I know many students who have failed a course by .5, 1, or 2 percentage points and actually appealed. Some of them were reinstated, others were not. Just google it, it’s a common occurrence and not a fair one I might add. I also know students who passed all their classes and had to appeal their dismissal because it did not meet the WMPG of 75% which was not what we signed up for when we first matriculated. In another example, when I first matriculated to SGU, basic science courses like genetics & immunology used to be separate classes that were comprised of 2 credits each. A student could actually fail these courses and continue onto the next term. However, once again the administration changed the policies without students’ input or consent and combined both those classes, now making them one class, total of 4 credits. The first 2 months are genetics, final 2 months are immuno. This means if you fail genetics and pass immunology or fail immunology and pass genetics, you are still automatically recommended for dismissal. Whereas not too long ago, you could fail one of these courses and not be recommended for dismissal! Allow me to make it clear, I am not advocating for students to fail. I am simply stating that they have the right to a “second chance.” Still, people argue that caribbean medical schools in and of themselves are “second chance schools” so giving students another chance at retaking a course is just a waste of time because they are clearly “not cut out to be here since they can’t even make it at a second chance school” or so we’ve heard. But in reality, caribbean medical schools are far more difficult than american medical schools. The administration at american medical schools fight for their students and do everything they can to keep them because they chose their students selectively out of thousands of other applicants. That is why the medschools in the States have extremely low attrition rates (1-3%). In caribbean medical schools, the curriculum is generally accelerated, the quality of education is lower, and the administrative policies usually favor weeding out in an effort to only take into account the cream of the crop so that only the best students can sit for STEP 1 & 2 making the school look far better than it actually is. ATTRITION RATE  SGU has always been known to have a much lower attrition rate than the other caribbean medical schools (which I think at the time of my withdrawal was approx. 6%) After being a student here and really observing the way things work or don’t work, I’ve noticed there are many students who voluntarily withdraw midway during the semester or they take a “leave of absence” but then never come back. Also far as the students who fail a course, the attrition rate may only take into account the number of student’s who actually appeal and get dismissed. But there’s a significant amount of students who do not even go through with the appeal because they do not want to risk academic dismissal so they are essentially and forcibly cornered into withdrawing because the alternative choice is not really a viable one for many students. Some questions that need to be truthfully answered: Does SGU’s  dropout rate also take into consideration the students who withdraw or take an LOA and never return? Or does it only take into account the students who appeal and get dismissed? I would ask the administration this question but quite frankly, I do not trust their answer. I’d rather have an outside source that’s an expert in this field look into it. Such a low attrition rate with such a high enrollment of students with such stringent academic policies, dismissing majority of students who appeal does not add up. Something does not look right here. The attrition rate is masqueraded. Only a fool would believe it. I once did. It’s a clever tactic. The fact that students are given the choice to withdraw after they have failed a course removes any responsibility the school has when students inevitably “drop out” one way or the other. For this reason, no law suits are being made because everything is being thrown under the rug as if it’s the student’s choice to begin with. In SGU’s defense, “The student failed, that was on him/her, the student’s appeal sucked, or the student withdrew” are all great attempts at justifying why students at SGU drop out. But the reality is, “the school does not give students a chance to retest or retake a course, the school would rather disregard a student’s appeal & dismiss a student so that they can accept another incoming first-termer who would have to pay for a full course load rather than accept the other student’s appeal and reinstate them because that once failed student would only have to pay for only that one failed course.” And for those students who withdrew? Oh, SGU forgets about them. They are no longer under SGU’s responsibility, (as if SGU was responsible for it’s students in the first place). After all, the students who withdrew could have appealed, so it’s the student’s fault once again! Clever. Turning tables, blame-shifting. Giving a “free choice” when really it comes down to a student appealing and getting dismissed or being cornered into withdrawing. As for the ones who appeal and get reinstated? They are usually the ones who failed by 1 or .5% and are passing with flying colors in all their other classes. It does not take a statistics expert to know that these kinds of students are statistically insignificant, rare, lucky gems in a stone cold world. Other students who get lucky like this happen to be connected in some way with SGU administration. Like the USGA president-elect who failed a course but still managed to continue on because, well, he/she was going to be the next president! Talk about cherry-picking… TRANSPARENCY IS KEY Not many student blogs will take the time to actually “expose” a school because it either comes across as complaining or because everyone has already accepted that this is what we signed up for when we went to the caribbean and therefore we must simply “deal with it.” To each, their own. I for one, did not know I signed up for this. From the time I matriculated (2013) to the time of this writing, SGU’s student handbook is not readily accessible for prospective students, but once you enroll at SGU and login into the “mySGU” page, only then can you view the handbook and see what you signed up for. It wasn’t until I was sitting in orientation the first week when they put a slide up on the projector that said in bold, “Failure is not an option.” At first, I thought they were being cute. I didn’t take it as seriously…Certainly, no one ever thinks they are going to end up failing any course. We hold ourselves to high regard and become overconfident and overestimate our abilities before we even begin. Whatever the case, the school should be more transparent and allow students to obtain access to the student handbook which can adequately answer all their questions. The academic catalogue, on the other hand, although publicly accessible, does not provide important information regarding academic policies and processes. One might argue, however, that even if the student handbook was available publicly on the SGU website (as it is with all the other top caribbean schools) where any prospective student can access it, they still might not want to because after all, “SGU is SGU, no reason to look into it.” Seriously, how many students actually take the time to read through a caribbean medical school’s handbook? They are too busy preoccupying themselves with STEP scores & match rates as they should be but they neglect to read up on the critical information regarding a school’s structure and curriculum. I kid you not, there is this blatant and blind worship of SGU, a school that is completely overrated. I’ve seen it throughout my time as a student and even after I withdrew. I still have prospective & current students reaching out to me and asking me about SGU’s policies and curriculum without really looking into it themselves. In fact, this entire paper has been sitting on my desktop for over 6 months now and it’s been going under constant revisions, additions, and omissions from my peers helping me with this. Only now, I am serious about posting it publicly because people are still curious about SGU and want my honest opinion of the school. Thanks to them pushing me to voice my concerns, I am finally completing this and publishing it. SGU students in class ATMOSPHERE Despite knowing all these negative factors at SGU, students who “choose” to withdraw or are academically dismissed constantly belittle themselves for not succeeding at SGU. I think that’s due largely in part to the overwhelming negative atmosphere at SGU. It’s almost like “don’t ask, don’t tell”.  If you are unhappy, shut up. If you are struggling, just suck it up. Why? Because this is medical school and everyone is struggling and sucking it up. But does that really make it okay? And is SGU really like any other medical school? When I was sitting at my graduate school interview, and sharing all of this with my interviewer, he was baffled. He asked me why in the world I decided to stick around for over a year and a half and why the other students presently struggling through the system decide to do the same. I responded that by the time I had realized exactly what I had gotten myself into, I had to stay. I honor the commitments that I make. I don’t walk out—not from schools or relationships or anyone or anything. I don’t walk out, unless I absolutely have to. Eventually, that time came when I had no choice but to leave and immediately I was glad I did. SGU students in Taylor Hall, Grenada It seems like every student has implicitly consented to the way things work at SGU. Perhaps they have realized it’s too late to back out now like I did. As I have previously mentioned, the faculty and students who are content blindly assume you are the perpetrator and that the school is an innocent victim. I am sick and tired of blaming myself for my shortcomings and watching my colleagues in similar situations do the same. The truth is, we can say, “If only I had studied more” for as long as we live but we know in our hearts it wouldn’t have made a difference. Really believe it was only a matter of time before some of my friends and I had to take our leave. Such is the way SGU makes it out to be. In a society that profits from your self-doubt, standing up for yourself is a rebellious act.  Looking back in retrospect, taking all of these factors into account, I have come to realize that students do not fail SGU, SGU fails their students. As for the students who make it through, they did not pass SGU, they survived it. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Indeed, every caribbean medical school has its flaws, no matter how great its step scores or match rates are. I am not here to shame SGU and declare it a lost cause. If the administration really takes the time to listen to its students, ask for their consent when changing policies that favor weeding out, or perhaps even decrease the incoming number of students per term, that’s a promising start. There’s always hope. But they have got to start somewhere. Seeing the direction it is currently headed in, motivated me to get this message out there in the first place. I hope SGU officials will not read this message merely to respond with every reason why I’m wrong, but will rather, take the time to seriously consider these concerns and address them moving forward.  Seeing the direction it is going in seems like it’s headed for a downward spiral. Unfortunately, many of the students will go down with it. As if not enough already have… While I acknowledge that there may be worse schools out there, that is not the purpose nor the scope of this message. I could rant on about lower tier schools but that’s not the point. These serious issues at SGU should be evaluated without comparing to other schools that are not of its “caliber.”  I admit SGU is better than many other caribbean medical schools that are not even worthy of talking about. We all know those ones that have been around for decades and still cannot place their students in decent residencies. But this is SGU we are talking about; a school that is highly deemed and regarded as the “Harvard of the Caribbean.” So while students from other caribbean medical schools like to assume SGU students have it so easy, they are undermining this message and ignoring the reason for it. This is a school that most american premed students drool over and dream of attending. That is why it is so important that these issues are openly stated and addressed. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge once again that everyone is entitled to their own opinion; to each, their own. Prospective students, please remember, regardless of what you read or don’t read, it’s all up to you at the end of the day. Just because I have written something with the help of peers doesn’t mean every student at SGU agrees. We would never “not recommend” a school just because of our personal experience/performance. There are many issues that need to be brought to light and we’re finally doing that. It’s a collaborative effort. But it’s not enough. More students need to speak up at SGU but we understand those currently enrolled who desire to speak up are unable to do so because they are “enslaved to the system.” If SGU’s administration keeps throwing these issues under the rug then eventually the rug will become an obstacle and will start tripping more and more students over to the point where no one will be able to make it to the other side.  A listening ear and the willingness to change goes a long way. CONCLUSION By going to SGU, I used to think that one day I’d be able to proudly proclaim, “I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference…”  But I’ve come to realize that sometimes the road less traveled, is less traveled for a reason. “THINK BEYOND” SGU’s motto is, “think beyond.” I strongly encourage all prospective students to do just that before matriculating to SGU.  Think beyond the extravagant campus, the alluring website, the fancy white coats, and the excellent statistics. Think beyond all that and you will start seeing what you are really getting yourself into… There’s no doubt SGU is a top caribbean medical school. I’m not here to argue against that. I’d be wasting my time as well as yours if I were. SGU prepares it’s students for the board exams and places students in brilliant residencies. It gives each and every student a fair chance to be a doctor and that’s a rare opportunity that must never be taken for granted. A good number of students excel and their dreams come true. Those are the students that are shown on paper and are glorified to the fullest extent. But a good number of students are also cornered into withdrawing or are dismissed and those students go unreported, are left in tremendous debt, and have no voice. This blog post is a voice for the voiceless; it speaks for all the students like myself, who appreciate the opportunity that SGU has given us, but we are just better off without it and you may be too. *All image rights reserved to their proper owners* Update, July 29th, 2015: Lately, I have received lots of positive feedback from prospective & current SGU students regarding this blog post and I appreciate you all for taking the time and want to thank you for all the support & encouragement! Even several SGU instructors and clinical tutors have reached out to me and admitted that this is sadly very accurate but with respect to their privacy, I will not disclose their names. Due to the many comments being left on this page, I am no longer requiring that they be “approved.” Feel free to share your story, drop a comment, etc. Differing opinions are more than welcome. 136 Comments Why I Withdrew from SGU 4/5/2015 6 Comments Photo Credit goes to my friend and SGU colleague, Kevin Ly. Check out his blog at https://kevinlymd.wordpress.com/ Last I wrote, I shared about my personal experience deceling at SGU and doing well because of it. Now I share with you my experience term 2 onwards and let me warn you, it’s not pretty. In a nutshell, Term 2 went well. At least, in the beginning it did. I enjoyed it so much more than term 1. Even though the classes are much harder, they are so much more interesting, and the labs were so much better in that they were not as tedious or time-consuming as term 1 labs were. Not to mention, the professors and clinical tutors are a lot easier on you since you’ve made it through term 1 and believe me that makes a world of difference. The best part about term 2 was passing all my midterms. For the first time on a full course load, I had passed all my midterms at SGU and it felt empowering. Made me believe I could make it through. All my first term courses, I passed on a reduced course load, so imagine my excitement when I realized I had made it through midterms during term 2 on a full course load! It was a great time and while it was the best part about term 2, a part of me wishes it never happened. I wish I had failed my midterms, because only then would I have realized I need to study harder and smarter for my final exams, rather than getting too comfortable. Term 2 is scary because soon as you think you are doing well, tables turn and you realize you are not. There is this false phenomenon at SGU, it’s called, “Just Pass.” Majority of students here tell you to “just pass” because they believe that’s all that really matters in medical school. That couldn’t possibly be farther from the truth. All of my midterms during term 2, I scored 80% or higher, except for one of them, I had “just passed” and instead of studying harder and smarter, I thought, “what an accomplishment” instead. I blame no one but myself for this false sense of confidence that I had during this time. I share this because I want to put a stop to it immediately. Take a lesson from this! If you are enrolled at SGU or at any medical school for that matter, let it be known, a grade C is NOT safe! Now I’ve learned to see it as this: an A is a green light, a B is a yellow light, and a C is a red light. As the term went on, I continued studying but I was also very much committed to other things. I not only performed but also hosted a cultural show within the month of our final exams. I certainly had overcommitted myself and I learned that the hard way. I was very distracted as finals neared, I was going through a lot of problems in my personal relationships and many developments were taking place on the homefront that needed my time and attention. Despite all this, I studied as much as I could but I already had a bad feeling about the dark future that lay ahead…I knew I wasn’t ready to take my physio final. I knew the night before when I was practically pulling an all-nighter trying to solidify the concepts in my head, but they just weren’t sticking. I wasn’t doing well on the questions but I wasn’t doing awful either. I was scared because I wasn’t prepared like I was for my other classes. Soon after I took my physio final, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. There was an overwhelming darkness consuming me. It was a familiar feeling because I had felt it before. I felt it when I had failed all my midterms first term. I knew this feeling, I knew it like I knew myself… On 12/13/14, I received my final exam scores from SGU. It was a sunny Saturday, I was sitting on my bed in Sauteurs, building M. It was a lovely dorm. Had my own bedroom and bathroom. Shared a common kitchen with loving, caring, genius roommates. After completing a year and a half at SGU, I found out i got a failing grade on my final physiology exam (65%), bringing my final grade down to a 68% F. I was already on the borderline for that class after only passing that midterm with 73%. Strangely enough, in that moment, I felt a sudden sense of liberation mixed with disappointment and devastation. I was shocked but at the same time, I was too relieved to grieve… A year in a half in this place, getting ~80% B’s or higher on all my other midterms and finals yet waking up every morning with a cloud of doubt hovering over me and an overwhelming fear of failure consuming me day in and day out…you can pass all your classes, in fact you can even have a higher WMPG (cumulative gpa) than the minimum requirement (which is currently 75%) like I did but if you fail any class by 2 percentage points like I did or by 0.5% like my close friend did, then you are automatically recommended for dismissal…what a battle to conquer each and every day…what an awful way to live. Indeed, medical school is hard, but it shouldn’t be almost impossible, unfair, and unreasonable like this. I felt like almost every day at SGU was a lost cause, it was a pressure cooker, I felt like I was a guinea pig in an unauthorized science experiment that was already set up for failure, and there I was constantly fighting for my survival. It was surprisingly liberating to finally experience my greatest fear. Let me tell you, when what you fear the most actually happens, and you are still alive and well, then all of a sudden, it isn’t your greatest fear any more. When you survive and overcome the worst thing that you think can ever happen to you, it’s no longer the worst thing…in fact, it becomes the best thing that could ever happen to you because it opens you up to a whole new world of possibilities and that’s what it did for me. Instantly and without hesitation, I had decided to withdraw from SGU. It was the only thing that made sense to me. It was the best thing I could do for myself. Deep down, I knew it and like ripping off a bandaid, I just wanted to get it over with. Felt like this was long over-due. Unfortunately, it was a Saturday, which meant I couldn’t run to the registrar and submit my withdrawal form right away. It meant I had to process what my gut reaction was telling me, and believe me, I hate having to think over things because then I tend to overthink them. Luckily, I had a strong support of friends that became a family to me and I’m still lucky enough to have them. They came over immediately, gave me a hug, and when I told them I am withdrawing, they became emotional. From the depths of my heart to the core of my soul, I knew more than anything, SGU was not for me, at least, not anymore. I wanted so badly to have nothing more to do with it. I was not angry or bitter, instead, I was euphoric and relieved. My friends thought I was crazy.  I just knew I did not belong here and I had been fighting that conviction since the day I stepped foot in Grenada. I just couldn’t admit it because I had convinced myself that a part of me wanted this more than anything. And maybe for awhile I did… Finally, Monday arrived and I met with Sara Rabie, the Associate Dean of students, who by the way, has been tremendously kind and helpful in supporting me throughout this withdrawal process. She knew me well because of this blog and because of my videos on youtube. In fact, I had told her I was going to get rid of all of them because I no longer felt qualified to advise students on how to study for medical school, she immediately stopped me and told me not to feel that way. She made me feel better about myself. She acknowledges those videos reach an overwhelming number of prospective medical students and she herself found them helpful and wanted to share them with SGU students. She told me while I may not have performed well in one class, it shouldn’t take away from all the other classes I performed well in…I really appreciated that. Since that conversation, I’ve decided to keep the videos up, although I still feel a bit iffy about it. Anyway, Dr. Rabie felt I was making the right choice. It’s very unlikely for a student to get reinstated at SGU. Especially a student like myself that has already deceled. Not saying it’s impossible, it’s just highly unlikely. I wasn’t interested in appealing because I wasn’t interested in risking dismissal. With that said, even if by some miraculous force I was reinstated, I would still choose not to continue. I would not be willing to take physio over again at SGU because I knew that the underlying problem was not with physiology or with SGU, but with me. I no longer fit the school and the school was no longer a good fit for me. I felt it was a matter of time before I would be withdrawing or failing again. If not now, then maybe term 4. If not term 4, then maybe term 5. Just wasn’t worth it. I was not learning here. I was not happy here, at least, not anymore. I just knew deep down, I was no longer meant to be here. I’ll never forgot what Dr. Rabie said to me as she took the withdrawal form from her cabinet, she laughed waving it to me and said, “Funny, isn’t it? All the work one has to do to get into SGU but just this form one has to fill out, to get out.” I think it was a perfect example of the way things work at SGU. I worked my whole life trying to excel in high school and undergrad to get into a medical school, yet one failing grade at SGU and I was dropped like a fly. She handed me the withdrawal form and I felt like I was finally free… (Side note: for those of you who don’t know, at SGU if you fail a class of 4 credits or more [which is majority of them] then you are automatically recommended for dismissal. You have the choice to withdraw  or appeal the recommendation with the chance of getting reinstated or dismissed [majority of students who appeal, get dismissed]). The truth is, you know in your heart when something is meant for you and you know when it no longer is. I believe I came here with good reason and I believe I’ve left with good reason too. I can’t believe for a second that God put me here to destroy me, I refuse to play victim, I’m better than that. I know I must have served a purpose here and now my work is done. I know I have touched the lives of people who crossed my path and I know people who crossed my path have touched my life in a way it could not possibly be touched by anyone else…  I am not the same person I was when I first started at SGU, I’m a better person because of all that’s happened. It’s a humbling experience and I am truly grateful for it. Let me just say that I am fully aware of my limitations and I am not here to blame anything or anyone for my experience at SGU. I realize I didn’t have to overcommit myself to other activities on campus, I realize we all have distractions and problems in our personal lives and so that does not justify my poor performance in any given term.  I am not here to make excuses. The little that I do share is not meant to be judged heavily upon but rather taken lightly and accepted for what it is. I apologize if this blog post is coming across as me being in denial and self-righteous. I don’t feel that way at all. I have definitely gone through the whirlwind of emotions that comes with going through a challenging experience like this but I don’t find it relevant to share all those details. I’ve certainly accepted the consequences, I have given myself the time to heal from all of this, and I’ve definitely allowed myself to process everything that’s happened, but I honestly do not see it as something “tragic” as others do. I almost feel like people have to convince me that what happened was bad. I don’t feel like it was. I prefer to leave the judging to my Creator. It happened, a part of me feels like it was meant to… it is what it is. I can choose to dwell on it and victimize myself or I can choose to see the good in it, learn from it, rise above it, and share it to help others in similar situations realize that they are not alone. Better yet, may my SGU journey prevent others from being in this situation in the first place. That alone, would make this all worthwhile. Although my time at SGU was short-lived, the lifetime lessons I gained are not. The lifelong friends I made are still my family. In fact,    saying goodbye to SGU was one of the easiest things I’ve ever had to do. But saying goodbye to my closest friends was the hardest. SGU is a good school, but it is  not for everyone.  While my SGU chapter is over, my  story is just getting started. I’m moving forward. Thank you for sharing this painfully rewarding part of my life with me.