A for-profit DO school is opening up in Colorado:
Tien’s grand plan, revealed in an application with state accreditors, is to have tuition revenue explode from $2.7 million this year to $25 million in 2012 as four classes of students arrive on campus. In 2012 net income is supposed to be $3 million.
Here’s another instance of an entrepreneur taking advantage of the primary care shortage. Retail clinics are another example.
As most osteopaths tend to enter primary care fields, for-profit schools can point to the fact they are simply fulfilling a need.
The problems begin if the school doesn’t meet their profit target, which will inevitably lead to cost-cutting, increases in tuition, or a decrease in staff quality.
Intriguing business plan, let’s see how it works out.
Related posts:
- A for-profit DO school is about to open
- Free medical school
- Why do so few Americans apply to medical school?
- Primary care disrespect starts early in medical school
- Medical school: A poor investment?
- My take: Night float, free medical school, triage and disease management
- Are there too many immature people entering medical school?
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I am a medical student at a well-established DO school. Personally, I think this will further degrade our reputation both with the public and in the medical community. The AOA has done an embarrassing job of promoting evolution in this profession and this is yet another reminder to me, that while I feel that I received among the best medical education in the world, that I will always be seen as second rate doctor by the public. No matter how hard I work, people will always have this assumption. By continuing to push the “separate but equal,” crap, the AOA has jaded nearly all of the DO students in this country. By not allowing our MD colleagues to enter into our match, yet allowing us to enter theirs, forcing astronomical tuition (I will take out 60grand in loans this year alone,) and supporting ridiculous methods of treatment like osteopathic manipulation, they have really let me down. I chose to go the DO route because I truly believe in many of the principles of osteopathic medicine. Yet paying down nearly 300 thousand dollars in student loans does not make a job in primary care look so good in my future. In my class, the lines were sharply divided between three groups; Group A had parents or close relatives who were DO’s, Group B felt that there was something to the osteopathic philosophy, and Group C went to the only medical school that would let them in. I will let you figure out what was the largest group…By far. In the end, I imagine Rocky Vista will be hugely successful, just as the Caribbean schools have. And if the goal is to create more quality physicians, they will also succeed. Still, I can’t help but realize that even though I will be a fully licensed physician, with the student loans to prove it, people still ask me in the clinic if I will ever be able to write prescriptions and if I can do some “chiropractic stuff” on their necks.
This school already has a full DO class in session – it’s not in the future.
And at $40k in tuition, it will HARDLY produce primary care physicians. That’s about $65k cost of attendance, thus about $300k debt on the other side of med school.
“Beatrice Taylor, 41, worked in computer support for years but yearned to be a doctor. After taking organic chemistry classes at Colorado State University near her home in Fort Collins, Taylor applied to three medical schools. She was accepted by one: brand-new Rocky Vista University in Parker, Colo.” ~Forbes
The way I read the first paragraph makes me suspect entrance requirements and undergrad prerequisites may be less rigorous than those of established U. S. medical schools.
Kinda scary.
Maybe someday we’ll see Carribean DO schools…anyone know of any?
This IS a carribean DO school that has been picked up and moved to Colorado…
Actually, Rocky Vista’s entrance averages were higher (3.4, 24) than a handful of other DO schools, and only slightly lower than the national average…not bad for a new school.
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