Good evening and welcome.
My name is Dr. Stanley White.
I'm the Senior Associate
Dean for Student Affairs,
as well as Campus Dean here
on our campus in the
Commonwealth of Dominica.
I'd like to welcome everyone
who's joining us online.
And we're looking forward to a really good,
informative and interactive
session with you all.
We're joined this afternoon
by our founder and CEO,
Dr. Arvind Bhagapur.
who's going to tell you a
little bit about his
journey to this point at this table,
academic dean, chief academic officer,
Dr. Romina Mahdi,
and two of our students.
And we want to make sure
that they have sufficient
time to give you their
experience of how they've
got here and what they're
experiencing now.
So there is a slide deck, I believe.
Thank you.
Okay,
so basically AXOM is a nonprofit
school based here in the
Commonwealth of Dominica
and nonprofit status is
extremely important to our mission.
And we operate what we think
is a state of the art
curriculum with a very
differentiating quality
over many of the schools,
which is small group
flipped approach learning.
which is clinically relevant
from the first day of teaching.
One of the other really
distinctive features of our
program is that besides
almost exclusively MD
faculty who are
facilitating the small group teaching,
we have a regular supply of
top quality medical
educators from a whole
variety of top notch
schools in the USA who come down to us,
spend a few days,
giving lectures to the students,
but also developing career
advisement sessions and
other types of activity
which the students can tell
you a little bit about.
We are a fully accredited
ECFMG sponsored note medical school,
and we'll probably say a
little bit about that in
the succeeding minutes of this webinar.
Next slide.
And as I mentioned,
part of our nonprofit status,
as well as our basic ethos,
which I think is our
lifeblood at this school,
is that we have a social mission.
We want to produce
physicians who are socially conscious,
will be working in the
communities in which they serve,
and making a difference.
And we also do that by a
community engagement project in Dominica,
where the school is reaching out,
working with
healthcare partners, educational partners,
to make a positive impact
in the community in which we serve.
So being a good corporate
citizen is also absolutely vital to us.
Next slide, please.
So this last slide is simply
giving you the details of
our accreditation status.
We are fully accredited by
the AAR for five years,
and we have provisional
accreditation from the ACCM.
Both of those organizations
are World Federation of
Medical Education approved accreditors.
And we now are in possession,
which can be verified on
our World Directory of
Medical School web entry,
to have an ECFMG sponsor note,
which is extremely important.
And I'm sure Dr. Imadi will
say a little bit about that later.
So with that,
I'd like to hand over to Dr. Bhagapur,
who will tell us all about his journey.
Thank you, Dr. White.
Hello, everybody out there.
I wish I was with you in
person so I could talk,
but it's great that we have
the ability to talk here
from Dominica with you all.
I like to say that I went
from the Caribbean to Cleveland Clinic,
and that's where I ended up
graduating my fellowship from.
I'm a vascular and
interventional radiologist.
I went to medical school at
Ross University School of
Medicine right here on this very campus.
campus in 2005,
and I graduated in about 2009.
I did a surgical internship
at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City,
which was a great experience.
From there,
I did a radiology residency
where I completed that at
University of Texas in San Antonio.
And then I went on to do a
fellowship at Cleveland
Clinic in what's called
vascular interventional radiology.
I'm a radiologist,
but imaging and various things like MRIs,
x-rays, ultrasounds.
But my subspecialty,
my fellowship was in procedures.
So using imaging equipment
to do procedures inside
people's bodies like
I play stents or stop internal bleeding,
do biopsies and various things like that.
So the reason I like to tell
that story is because that
leads kind of the full
circle of someone that if
you all are considering
coming to a Caribbean medical school,
I'm the person that lived
it and went through it from.
the first days of arriving
here in Dominica, living here,
and then going on to my clinical sites,
which were scattered
throughout the country,
and we'll talk a little bit
about those things and how
it led to the creation of
this institution,
American Canadian School of Medicine,
slash AXOM,
because of the things I
learned and wish I had
different when I was a medical student.
And I didn't have as many
options that are out there for
choices for medical schools.
And I wanted to ensure that
people who have want to
walk my pathway that I went,
I always wanted to be a physician,
but my MCAT scores were not
the greatest scores to get
me into the limited number of spots,
but I had great grades.
And, um,
And the AAMC,
and you can see this on our website,
basically says that 80% of
the applicants that apply
to medical school that
don't get in have the
grades and the scores to be
successful doctors,
meaning it doesn't make a
difference where you ended
up ultimately starting your career.
Where you finish it is an MD,
licensed practicing physician in the U.S.
and or Canada.
A little bit more background to me.
and why it's so important
for the social mission of
establishing a university
that was nonprofit is I was
a fellow in economics and
healthcare policy for the
American College of
Radiology while I was a resident.
And I learned a lot of information,
particularly about residencies,
because there was a lot of
changes happening in the
healthcare system.
And during that time,
I started another nonprofit
that worked with Dr. Ahmadi here,
who's the dean,
And in fact,
he was an attending of mine
when I was doing a clinical
rotation at Yale New Haven
Hospital's healthcare network.
And we got a relationship
and we grew and I learned a
lot from him and I ended up
with him creating a...
residency program in the
state of Connecticut.
So while I was a resident,
I got interested in
creating postgraduate
medical education training,
and with the help of Dr. Amati,
and we worked very closely to each other.
That, you know, Henderson,
I think it's better if you
leave it here for us.
Sorry, guys.
The screen gets distracted as it's moved.
So with Dr. Amati, we created a
residency program at a
teaching health center in
Connecticut and that
teaching health center has
trained hundreds of doctors
since we started that back
in 2012 and through there
grew a bigger passion of
wanting to be able to train
future doctors because I
tell myself as an
interventional radiologist
I could probably train or
help about 10 to 12
patients a day excluding
the imaging that I do
and if I can teach a
resident that was my first
experience with teaching
then they can go and do the
same thing and after that
groove this desire to want
to be able to provide a
better solution for
students that are like
myself to go through the
process have someone who's
gone through the journey
and and guide you and um
and give back and that's
why we created a non-profit
the first private nonprofit
medical school in the whole Caribbean.
And that's really important.
And not to talk too much
about the other
universities that are in the region,
because I did graduate from
one and you can get a
quality education from a lot of places.
I have a unique perspective
that I learned as I was
going through this process.
And I'm not too far out of
when I graduated from fellowship in 2015.
And what I saw were large classrooms,
some of which were,
when I started as a student,
there was like 570 near
students in my student body
class in a lecture hall.
And there weren't enough
seats for the number of
students that were accepted
to the program.
By the time I had graduated,
probably only 300 and some
odd of those students
eventually graduated.
And right there, there,
problems already that you
can see with when you're
paying tuition for multiple
years and you don't end up
with your md let alone be
able to apply to residency
that's pretty devastating
both for the rest of your
life on financially as well
as on your morale and all
those other things that you
can imagine uh that that
could happen when you put
your heart and soul into something so
One thing that I wanted also
different besides being a
nonprofit institution and
not having to have the
university be worried about
how much money it's making
and things like that was to
be able to have a true
social mission just like
American and Canadian schools.
I did not want the
university to exist in
isolation where you get
your education for two
years in the Caribbean
country and then you go
back to the United States
and it's as if you never
were part of this community.
And I think it's exceedingly
important and the pandemic
has showed us how global
health interlinks with local health.
And to that nature,
we can also learn a lot
our early stages of our
medical education with
early patient interactions
that you don't really get
or I didn't get when I was
a student um from from that
I think I'll hand it over
to uh who else well I was
gonna say thank you very
much for that eloquent
exposition of your journey
and motivation for
forming the school.
I don't want to bore
everybody with my background,
but I've been in the
Caribbean medical education
field now for about 15 years.
I have about 30 years plus
of leadership experience in
medical education in the UK and the US.
For me,
the opportunity to join this school
was really a no-brainer.
It's a fantastic project,
which is in its early stages,
and I'm very confident
both because of the faculty
that the administration has got,
but more importantly,
probably the students we've got,
that this medical school
will be a successful one.
So now I'd like to ask Dr.
Amadi to say a few words.
Thank you, Dr. Amadi.
Sure.
I'm an internist,
internal medicine physician by training.
I had my residency training
at Yale and also got a
Master of Public Health degree at Yale.
I was
program director for
internal medicine residency
training program at Griffin Hospital,
one of the Yale-affiliated
hospitals for many years,
more than a decade.
And then I was chief medical officer for,
chief academic officer for
the Western Connecticut Health Network,
one of the multi-hospital
systems in Connecticut before I
came here to work on the
development of the
curriculum of this school,
faculty development,
and finally being the Dean
of the American Canadian
School of Medicine.
I'm here today at your
disposal to answer your questions.
I will stop quickly, go to our students.
I want to make sure that you
have lots of time asking
questions that you want,
particularly from our
stellar students that are here with us.
Fatima, do you want to introduce yourself?
Yes, of course.
So my name is Fatima, and I am from Miami.
And let's see if they can hear it.
OK.
So my name is Fatima, and I'm from Miami.
And this is currently my second semester.
So I am about to complete
one year on this beautiful island.
And it's honestly been an
amazing time just being here.
Thank you, Fatima.
Daniel, do you want to?
Hello, everybody.
My name is Daniel.
I'm from Ontario, Canada,
and I'm in my first semester,
just completing my first
semester here on campus.
It's been a wonderful experience,
and I'm looking forward to
answering any questions that you have.
I think one of the things
that I've experienced in
speaking to applicants is
what makes us so sure this
school is going to be successful.
because obviously for
someone to take that step is a risk,
which we have to be open about.
Dr. Mahdi,
do you want to say anything
about the history of the
curriculum development here?
Certainly.
Developing this curriculum
with the help of Dr. Jeff Wong,
the former associate dean
of Penn State University
and a number of Yale
faculty have been involved
in developing this
curriculum for nearly a decade.
So it's not something that
came about a few months ago or a year ago,
even though the school in
current form and state
is only about one years old
and now the testimony to
that is of course the
accreditation organizations
that came and looked at us
you can see how quickly we
had for example from a iaar
which is a wfme approved
creditor a full five-year
accreditation it's very difficult to get
for any of our competitors
or an international school so quickly.
Our ACCM accreditor who's
out of Ireland also has
given us a preliminary
accreditation according to
their protocols.
You can see that we have
pursued two WFME approved
accreditors and not one
like our other accreditors.
again our other competitors
and it is because of the
certainty that we have
about the quality of the
curriculum faculty and the
medical education that we
provide to our students
looking at our website you
can see the number of
faculty that are involved
here from ivy league institutions at
as guest faculty and they
serve in various part of
the curriculum interact
with with our students in
fact earlier today I just
was asking our students how that
was going and how these
guest faculties are doing with them.
And they were telling me they're amazed.
So we really are getting
amazing feedback from our
current students.
We are seeing in front of
our eyes that they're
developing beautifully.
And we have a great track
record for our accreditors.
What we don't have
and we can't possibly have,
is the step one performance
record because our first
cohort is not due to take
their step one for another year.
And there is nothing we can do about that.
The ECFMG has given us their
sponsorship note,
meaning that our students
can take that exam in one year from now.
And I hope to be able to share with you
that record,
I am excited and I believe
that our students will do very well.
This is observation of
someone who has been a
medical educator for 30
years and have seen Yale
medical students firsthand.
I believe our medical
students are very strong,
they're very talented,
they're developing very well,
and they will pass their Step 1.
And I hope that you choose to
join them and be part of
this really vibrant and exciting.
One thing I'd like to add to
what Dr. Ahmadi said,
because as we created this
program was to give
feedback of what the
experiences were that I
went through as a Caribbean
medical student attending
one of the large Caribbean schools.
And I never finished my
thought there earlier,
but I didn't want large
classrooms where we're all
sitting in a lecture hall.
We learn by interactive
talking like this and even
more interactive basis by
fully integrating,
not in the traditional
sense of where you go histology,
microbiology, immunology,
pathology as separate courses.
And you get taught those in
PowerPoints by PhDs or in my case,
even veterinarians
sometimes taught us pathology.
And I didn't want that to happen.
I wanted the university to
to be at an affordable place
with modern education,
just like as if you were in
my hometown of Houston or
wherever anybody else is.
And with that,
we created the small classroom model.
And I think the students can
talk a little bit about
their experience more than
I can about how this
classroom study model is in
the way you learn and how
you prepare for class.
And it does result in a more
robust understanding
instead of rote
memorization of some of the
experiences that I had when
I was a medical student.
So I just wanted to add that
piece in there because
that's something you'll
feel that's markedly
different than if you
attended a large university,
even in your undergraduate,
like I went to University of Texas.
So I had 600 people in my
organic chemistry class and
made organic chemistry very hard.
But for instance,
one of their modules is
attack and defense.
Like you don't generally see
that as a book or as a topic.
But in fact,
it integrates all those things
that I just talked about
into cases and ways to remember things.
So then when you get them on
your board exams,
It's not you're cramming for
that six weeks before USMLEs or whatnot.
It's being ingrained in you throughout.
And I'd like to address one
other thing Dr. Imadi mentioned is,
you know,
we haven't had our first set of
students take the USMLEs,
but they are taking the
National Board of Medical
Examiner examinations.
Those are called the NBMEs,
and that's how they get
tested on and quizzed on along with other
platforms of learning
education that we have.
So what is that?
Those are common data
question banks that come
from the National Board of
Medical Examiners to
reflect the type of
questions that you would
get on your USMLEs.
so as you're preparing for
the ultimate graduation of
pre-clinical years and
taking your board exams
you're constantly taking
board exam style questions
so you know how you're
doing against everybody
that takes the nbme tests
throughout the country of
the United States and
Canada or anywhere else that apply it.
So you're not just being
graded or know how you're doing against,
let's say these two students,
you're really finding out
how you're doing against
the other 20,000 or so odd
people have taken that
question or use that database set.
So that's incredibly
important tool towards your
passing every step once.
So I'll hand it back over to you, Stan.
Daniel and Fatima,
Dr. Bhagapur mentioned this
really quite unique
approach to our teaching and curriculum,
which is a fully integrated
systems-based clinically
relevant one in its design,
based around a flipped approach,
which means you've got to
do an awful lot of work
before you come to the
classroom and be prepared to participate.
But maybe each of you could share, A,
your experience of that so far,
and the other point that
Dr. Bhagapur raised was the fact that
We're not using our own
faculty-authored questions
for so-called high-stakes assessment.
We're using a fully
independent National Board
of Medical Examiners question bank.
So I'd like you to also both
comment on that part of it as well,
if you could.
Daniel, do you want to go?
So as of part A, the small group,
the entire idea of the
small group is honestly one
of the best ideas that the
school can possibly have to offer.
we learn in different ways
and yes we do um pre-work
but one of the best parts
about the small group is
that we're applying all our
material clinically so
we're seeing how we're
going to see it in the real
world so and it really
helps with active recall
everyone talks about it we
have an active group
discussion and you get to
kind of get an insight from
your peers and you get to
put everything together
along with faculty who are
you know they've done step
one they're practicing positions so
It's honestly very helpful.
And then as of for the
second part with the NVME questions,
that is something that I
love because step one is
something that everyone is
so scared of and worried
about because you think
it's such a difficult exam.
But being here, I'm definitely,
I can confidently say that
it's something I'm not
worried about because every
single day we're preparing for it.
We do questions with various
resources on a daily basis.
every morning, every Fridays,
and we're prepared nonstop
with questions.
And we actually just had a
guest lecturer this week and he told us,
he's like,
I hope you guys know how lucky
you are to be like,
to have this kind of
resources because it's all
about questions.
And he literally told us
that the key to success and
just having knowledge is
through questions.
And we do that every day.
So I couldn't be more thankful.
or practice test every day.
So every day in class we have a test,
and we go through the
questions together as a group.
The groups are typically
about five or six students,
and in my class, for example,
we have about two
professors typically every day,
which is amazing.
So two MDs in the class with us,
and we're going through the questions.
Beforehand, we're going through
we're going to discuss the day after.
And then we do the problem-based learning.
And this has been a
phenomenal experience for me.
Personally,
I think that I'm really able to
retain information.
And I'm actually feeling
really confident about the steps.
And I feel like I'm going to
be able to handle this really well.
So one of the reasons that I
thought it was important to
create that was because
we've all been in a
classroom where someone's
just showing you a PowerPoint.
Then your phone text message comes in.
You get distracted.
Now you just missed three
questions on the test.
Who knows?
And more importantly,
you're not just learning
exactly what you need to
know for the board exams.
Obviously,
you're learning it for your own
clinical practice.
But when you get to the wards,
your second two years of medical school,
you've now had these
processes of clinical
patient presentations.
And you're going to remember it down to,
you know,
the clotting cascade if you're
learning about like von
Willebrand's disease or some sort of,
you know,
some case that may say your
patient presents with a clot in the leg.
You're thinking, what's the diagnosis?
They go, the diagnosis is DVT.
Now,
what could be the contributing factor?
And they give you some
questions like you can take
it to second and third
level thoughts because
you're learning in not a
first level thoughts.
You're always working in a
how do I take this to fit in
within the entire scope of
clinical practice,
which I think is important.
I mean, I practice medicine so routinely.
My families are all physicians.
My brother's a former
program director as well in
interventional radiology.
So all this stuff I thought
would be the way that you
can integrate your
learnings that you start at
your beginning of your
educational career all the
way through your residency
and your practice and your
life moving forward.
Do you want to add to that, Fatima?
Yeah, it is exactly what he said.
you know this the clinical
relevance and the second
and the third um thought
process that you said we
actually practiced that all
week and I feel like our
confidence with the guest
lecturers that have been
coming in and the advice
they give us and the
clinical correlations they
give us it's absolutely and
we're able to answer these
questions like clinical
questions that they're
giving us we're able to
answer it and we can if
they tell us a clinical
case they've just experienced
we are able to figure it out
and narrow it down to what
this patient had.
And I feel like it's
something we're very
grateful that we can do
that at this level.
I think a unique piece of this curriculum,
as the students and
everybody in this room knows,
and I'd like to convey to everybody else,
is this is a school created
by physicians for physicians.
This is not a school created
by PowerPoints and...
you know only phds and
someone who's an expert in
microbiology or an expert
in pathology these are real
life we're all mds that are
teaching our goal is so you
can apply what you learned
today to 20 years from now
it's not about what you can
do just for your test
because you're going to get
do well on that test like
when you want a residency
position I'm sure we'll get
questions about this um
The three things that are
very important are, one, you passed,
you did what you needed to
do to get to where you're
at in your clinical rotations.
Two is you work really hard
and the people you work with like you,
because those are likely
the people that'll hire you,
because a residency is a job.
And three is networking.
And because our sizes of our
classes are fairly small, I mean,
average size with the U.S.
Medical School,
but not as large as some of
the large schools in the region,
our goal is to provide
mentorship to our students.
So as they go on to their
clinical years and start deciding,
I want to be an OBGYN or I
want to be primary care or
let's say subspecialist.
If you look at our adjunct
faculty lists of 40 some
odd faculty members,
many of which are almost
all of which are from
academic institutions currently,
they serve as associate program directors,
some of them program directors.
and others were just deeply
involved in medical
education you're going to
have the opportunity to
have a mentor assigned to
you and guide you through
the path which is is really
important because when you
start applying to residency
programs you know you don't
want your score you know
it's pass fail on your
assemblies now like that's
not your differentiator
your differentiator is your
letters of recommendation
and who's willing to go to
bat for you and how hard
you've worked to get to
where you are because like
I said you know you can go from
here to any place that you
want to go and whatever you want to do.
What my goal is and our
institution's goal is to
give you all the modern day tools
at a low cost with
subsidized scholarships and
financial aid that's
aggressive to give you
competitive loans that
aren't going to leave you
saddled in debt because I was there.
I think I left Ross
University by the time it
was all compounded and all
the deferments and
everything with roughly 500
and some odd thousand
dollars in student loans to repay.
And I didn't want that to happen.
And I think both of our
students here can account
for the amount of
scholarships that we give
out and amount of care and
nurturing that we want to
have in our community.
Because our goal, again,
this is a nonprofit,
is to ensure that we
produce high quality physicians.
And with that,
I think we went about
halfway through our time here.
And we should probably turn
over to questions, if that's all right.
So there's a couple of
questions which have come up.
The first one I want to address is,
I think, from someone called Prabhakar,
who's online,
who is telling us basically
his MCAT requirement.
And all I would say on that
before perhaps asking Dr.
Ahmadi to chirp in is that
our basic requirement for
direct entry to the program
is a degree and an MCAT score.
But we've just recently
announced some exciting news,
both for people without an
MCAT and also the fact that
Prabhakar Isai is a pharmacy graduate.
So our admissions team will
work with anyone who is
interested in applying on a
personal level.
And I think our online
helpers will put on the
contact details for our admissions team.
But Dr. Ahmadi,
do you want to talk about
admissions in general?
Yes, I think if someone has a
pharmacy degree and no MCAT,
the best route is to engage
us in our prep course.
We have a prep course now
starting this next August
that will be one semester long,
will prepare you adequately
for the regular entrance into our program,
does not require you to have MCAT,
and is really perfect
for people who have a degree
in things like pharmacy, nursing,
or other healthcare fields and areas,
public health, and so forth,
so that they can come and
really prepare that first
semester and be ready to
enter the regular program.
I will present that to all
of you who are in the same situation,
same shoes as Papa Khan, to do the same.
So just to really be clear on that,
you can't apply.
The admissions committee,
if you don't have an MCAT,
they have a program available.
It adds essentially one
semester to your studies.
And that prepares you for
your first semester and
ensures that you can get
through the first semester
and then you move into that program.
It is a requirement.
If you don't have an MCAT, just a second,
what Dr. White said,
you don't have direct entry
into the four-year medical
school program.
but you have a pathway
without having to take the
mcat that prep program uh
to get you into that first
semester and that goes back
to our mission that if if
you are looking for a
career change or um but you
have what it takes to
become a physician we'll
provide that opportunity
for you and um that
information is also
available online and at the
end we'll share everybody's
contact information that
you need to get in touch
with us and I'll share my
uh cell phone and my
my email for this school.
So if anybody wants to have
one-on-one discussions with
me at any time,
they can schedule that
through our office and
we'll do that for you as
long as I'm not in the
clinic or I'm available.
All right.
So Daniel, Fatima,
do you want to comment at
all on your experience of
the application and admissions process?
How did you find the school
in that respect?
You know, if I could floor it to one word,
I would say that you really
feel like you're being taken care of.
Like, you know,
you get an admissions
counselor and they're kind
of guiding you through the
process and they're working with you.
The key thing is that
they're going to work with
you to figure out what you need to do.
And they're going to make it
very easy for you to get to
where you need to be to get
into the program.
So I don't think you have to
worry too much about it,
but I think that you will
feel taken care of.
It's everything he said.
You're definitely going to
be taken care of.
as long as you apply and you do your part.
And the admissions committee
is actually very active at
responding and helping you out.
So you're never left lingering.
And it's a very smooth
transitional process when
it comes to the application itself.
Thanks.
And the next question we've
got is from Sierra, who is asking,
how is the school planning
to become integrated
into the Dominican community.
Have we considered students
doing practice rotations or
hosting clinics for locals?
I think that will help
students have a better
appreciation for the
country while gaining
valuable experience.
Well, Sierra,
I don't think you could have
put our mission more clearly, really,
in terms of our commitment
to making a positive impact in Dominica.
And that's already started.
Even though we only took our
first class in last August,
our students have already
been involved in community
health outreach projects,
doing health fairs in the community,
doing health screening,
taking health information,
and providing health
education information.
But before I want to hand to
Dr. Ahmadi to talk more
about this and the future
plans for our engagement in Dominica,
How do you want to comment
on your experience with
these outreach opportunities?
So we've participated in
quite a few community
outreach outside and we've
had an amazing time
participating and getting
to know the people and the
community itself and it's been
pleasant ride because
they've welcomed us you
know and they felt
comfortable to share with
us and trust us to be able
to take their history we've
done we've had diabetes day
we've had a World Health
Fair day and they've all
celebrated with us and you
know they spoke to us like
like as if we're family and
they were so comfortable
they even brought us
presents and so it was very
welcoming and it was a lot
of fun Daniel what was your experience
Yeah, so in addition to that,
we also sponsored and
actually competed in a 5K
run just a couple weeks ago.
I was one of the runners myself,
and it was a great experience.
Yeah,
and it was in conjunction with the
Diabetes Association here
and the pharmacy, Jolly's Pharmacy,
they did the run.
So it was a really great experience,
and we sponsored the event.
We were one of the co-sponsors, and again,
I participated in the run.
It was great.
i think um I'll let dr amadi
just comment here also but
this leads to a bigger
question uh of our
community health
initiatives and the
programs that we have and
that we're developing and
uh the future things that
we're also building upon is
uh providing a clinic to
the community and providing
the resources our
physicians to the community.
Again,
the difference with the university
is that other medical
schools in the Caribbean,
traditionally their
physicians don't see patients.
If they have physicians on the faculty,
their only role is to teach.
Well,
if you go to a US or Canadian medical
school, every physician,
unless they're tenured and
retired and all they're
doing is teaching now,
will spend a significant
amount of time treating patients.
And that provides a unique
perspective to students
because you can have a real
clinical application of something.
And that's when you do retain it.
And the community health piece,
I think we might even do a
separate webinar because we
have some faculty here that
are quite involved in that.
Dr. Madi,
you want to say anything else about that?
No, I think you guys all covered it.
I think that we do have
plans for a free clinic
here on campus and it's
progressing very well.
Our original curriculum
planning was such that the
students start their first
year with standardized
patients and the community
health work that
they describe to you.
The standardized patient
interaction is both real
standardized community
patients here in the simulation center,
as well as a cyber patient
experience where they have
sort of a simulated
web-based patients that they manage.
But those kind of activities
fill up the first year.
And then during second year, at some point,
they are in that free
clinic with their faculty who,
as we speak,
are completing their process
of their licensure on the island.
I believe some of them have
completed that.
White is following and
tracking that much better
than I have been.
And some are in the process
of getting that licensure.
So according to our curriculum,
at some point,
they would also add that
one day per week or one
afternoon of clinical
activity per week to their license.
to their daily routines,
both student and faculty together,
of course.
So yes, we are very excited about it,
and we are integrating very
well to our local community.
Here you go.
Thanks, Dr. Amari.
And I think the only thing I
would add is that a lot of
the community involvement
that we're rolling out is
in consultation with
Dominican stakeholders.
So we're having discussions
with local health teams,
other areas of Dominican
community health awareness.
So we're really doing it in
partnership with the Dominican people,
not just our own agenda.
I think it's an important point.
So there's a question from Aya Ghisan,
I think, which is,
can you expand on the
mentorship aspect and its benefits,
please?
So all I'll say is that with
a student-to-faculty ratio
of less than 10, you, from day one,
begin to build a very
strong relationship with
the faculty who are
responsible for your
teaching and learning.
I don't know whether...
I think we should let the
students mention about
their experience in these
clinical science years on mentorship,
really what they're getting
from their faculty.
And then me and Dr. Amadi
can talk about when you get
into your clinical years,
what I was talking about earlier.
And then moving on
throughout the rest of your lives,
there will continue to be
that friendship and support.
Today we studied in class
ankylosing spondylitis and
one of our professors is a
rheumatologist and we're
able to get very good
understanding of that
condition from her and I
think the professors are
really able to coach us and
kind of steer us in the
right direction clinically
so we understand the
conditions that we're studying.
Yeah, the mentorship,
it starts honestly from day
one itself because we're
such a small group itself.
And it's not just what we do in class and,
you know,
how they provide us with the information,
how we discuss it.
It's also the time they give
us even after class.
The fact that, you know,
we send them one email and
if you need help with something,
if you just want to sit
there under their presence
and answer questions, you know,
they're available to help you.
They're available to provide
you with the constructive
criticism that you need so
that you can build character and become,
you know, the best possible physician and,
you know, just be like good student,
I guess.
So it's definitely good.
So I'll add on a little bit
about their mentorship that
they're getting right now.
And then what we're what you
will be getting when you
get in your clinical years.
even to understand you have
full-time faculty here that
teach and they live here in
Dominica and those are the
ones that will be available
all the time to you and
then weekly as been
mentioned before expert in
their various fields of
medicine from North America both from
Canada and the United States,
come down and teach on a rotation basis,
one to two week blocks.
And you get those lectures
early in the morning.
And they provide you
opportunities now to build
relationships with doctors
and fields that you may not
even know much about.
I think more recently,
I just heard that one of
the lecturers that came and
taught this week already
reached out and said,
I'm available to reach.
Can you guys tell us a
little bit about that?
Something that actually
happened today in real life?
Yeah, so we had a guest lecturer this week,
actually.
And even the week before,
we've had two great
physicians that they were
really surprised with what they saw.
And they sat through all our
small group sessions.
And, you know,
they've personally asked us
to email them and to be a part of,
you know,
their mentorship and to learn under them.
And it's been honestly like,
something we're so thankful
for because there's so much
to learn from them and even
the smallest stories that
they share with us it
there's so much to learn
and it's honestly the
greatest thing because you
just see that they want to
teach you and there's some
like it's it's honestly
something that we're so
thankful for ultimately
right and specifically now
I think that the question
they had a little bit more
questions in regards to
guidance through the
medical school journey
and going through completing
your step ones or your
Canadian boards and then
obtaining residency.
Dr. Ahmadi, you want to take that?
Yeah.
So what happens is that the
first two years they covered,
so that gets you to this step one.
And toward the end of your second year,
we have a
very extensive program of
USMLE step one preparation,
even though you have been
preparing for it throughout
the first two years.
But there is also an intense
preparation toward those
sort of those last days or
weeks that leads to you taking the exam.
Beyond that,
you then enter your clinical
year and the first
clinical year,
your year three is
essentially your core
rotations are in internal medicine,
family medicine,
obstetrics and gynecology, surgery,
psychiatry, and pediatrics.
And these rotations will
determine to a large extent
your final destination
because you entered the
medical school thinking
that you want to become a
surgeon or you want to become an
obstetric gynecologist and
then over the course of
your maybe five other
things I wanted to be
before I landed on theology
but once you finish your
really your that core those
core rotations you have a
very good understanding
about your capabilities
your talents your interest
your passion and
And that is when we engage
you in one-on-one discussions.
It's me, your campus dean,
and also your clinical dean
at that point that will
start talking to you.
Okay,
now you have decided that that's what
you want.
What you wanted from the
beginning is also what you want now.
Or maybe you have changed your mind.
You want, let's say,
maybe interacting with me
have convinced you that you
want to really be an
internist or interacting
with Dr. Bhagarpur here has
convinced you you want to
be an interventional radiologist.
Regardless,
this is a point where your
electives are not going to
be planned around that.
We together will plan those
electives in such a way
that will maximize your
chance of getting to the
residency that is your top choice.
So I'll give you an example.
Let's say you want to do
interventional radiology.
That's what happens.
you have decided well there
are a number of program
directors of in
interventional radiology
that are close and work
with dr boger poor and
we're going to make sure
that you do several elect
of your electives in your
senior year three or four
of them with every one of
those program directors
that's how truly you you
increase your chances of
matching because those
programs become then
the prime target for your residency match,
your interaction during
your elective months gives
those program directors and
faculty a very first-hand
experience with what
they're going to get if they match you.
And you are trying to get that position.
So I know you will be on
your best behavior.
You will work very hard.
You will try to shine in those programs.
And that's how ultimately
you match into one of those programs.
So this is a continuous process.
It starts pretty much with
your experience during your
third year that will give
us a sense of the target,
that what is it that you want, and that
what where is it that you
want to match and then we
proceed from there I think
just just to reiterate one
thing is that this advice
and this this model is
built from dr amadi's
background of over 15 years
as a internal medicine
program director at a top
university hospital system
who did take a significant
amount of international
medical graduates into
their program who went on to become
primary care, doctors,
and even fellowship trained cardiologists,
GI doctors, you name it,
infectious disease.
And I've seen that firsthand.
And so the information
that's coming from it is not from theory.
Like you may hear from other
universities where they're just saying,
oh, somebody's talking to you about it.
You're getting information
for a person who lived it.
went through it likewise
when I talked to you I went
to the caribbean schools I
graduated from it and I
practice medicine now and I
think when you're talking
to someone you should
demand that people who have
experienced it are talking
to you from a place of
knowledge not a place of
theory I i just would like
to add that in fact some of
our guest faculty are my
former residents who were
international graduates
and they did residency with
me and then got their
subspecialty training in endocrinology,
cardiology,
For example, those are nephrology.
Those residents actually are
now specialists in the
great university system in
the United States.
They have come back.
They came back.
They interacted with our students here.
They have been providing mentorship.
And so it's a full circle of
getting back that
experience so you know that
as an international graduate,
you will have the highest
chance to hopefully match
to your top targets.
So the next question is from Ben,
and I'll paraphrase it
because it's quite long,
but it's essentially asking
about a very talented student at age 19
And being so young,
how will Axon really
support someone of that
young age and how do we
ensure and support learning
service as well as safety equity?
I think I could just kind of
start that and then, you know,
I don't think the age of the student
Makes a difference to
maturity of the individual
entering a program and the
educational background.
Obviously,
if you're obtaining your
bachelor's of science in
biology at the age of 19,
you've achieved the things
that you need to do to get
to that phase of being
effective in school.
The bigger thing that I
think is important to
understand for everybody on
this webinar and in the
part of the community is
that we're a safe
environment with student
housing that's all around campus.
You're not going far away.
If you look at my current
alma mater that's in Barbados,
their drive from student
housing to the campus is 35 minutes.
Our location for student
housing to the campus is a
five minute walk.
So it's like just walking
the campus with just 30
some odd acres and it's safe.
And I think that's a very
important thing to know.
The university has great security,
like any proper university,
but you're not ever gonna
have to think about it
because you're in a safe environment.
Additionally, food.
There's all sorts of food that you want.
I eat fresh fruits and
vegetables and fish and things like that.
In fact, when I lived in Dominica,
I probably lost 25 pounds
because I was eating pretty
good and healthy.
They have food for everybody.
If you're religious, you go to church.
There's churches here.
There's a mosque here.
I think there's some
non-denominational stuff.
You have the community to be part of.
uh and community I think
that's the biggest
important thing and
students here I'm not going
to speak for them I'll let
them talk about the
community that you all live
in that you experience
daily and the student
services that you have
available to you because
student services is a big
piece of this community life
The community itself, it's very opening.
As I mentioned earlier,
they honestly welcomed us with open arms.
They help us out.
Even the local stores that
we have around here,
ever since we have attended
campus and they've seen students around,
they've been modifying their store,
they're building a cafe.
they're bringing stuff from
the states you know and
they ask us consistently
hey is there something that
you want is there something
that we don't have here to
offer you and it's very
safe um like you mentioned
we have perfect security
they're available for you
24 7 and it's a literal
five minute walk anywhere
you stay for housing and
there's security by every
housing also and you're
it's never a fear like it
could honestly be 9 p.m and I can walk
and I'll be fine.
Like, I'm not scared.
So honestly,
I think you can't say that
about very many big cities
in the United States.
Yeah, please.
Yeah, so just to piggyback on that,
you know,
I was really surprised by how
safe this island was.
Like, like Mateen was mentioning,
you could walk at 10 p.m.
and not even be worried about it.
But also security on campus
will actually drive you
home or they'll drive you
to where you need to be.
They're very responsive to the students.
You know,
there's been times when it's
raining and they'll come pick you up.
They'll come to your
apartment and come grab you
and bring you back to campus.
So, you know,
you're going to feel supported.
You're going to feel like you're at home.
And I think it's really
important for you to know that, like,
you're going to feel, like,
comfortable when you're here.
And just to go ahead, Dr. Amadi,
and I'll close this so we
can move on to the next question.
You know,
they talked about safety for you
and how you would be kept
safe and supported.
And I just wanted to comment that, okay,
at the age of 19,
if you have a bachelor
degree and you're starting
medical school.
You are very young.
And there is a certain
amount of maturity and
worldview in terms of
learning to communicate or
learning about various
things in the world that
comes with experience.
And the school does have an
introduction to clinical medicine
program as a part of the
curriculum that does have a, if you will,
a hidden curriculum within it.
That hidden curriculum talks about ethics,
talks about skills of
communication with patients,
talks about humanities and
the role of the humanities in medicine,
and will bring various
aspects to the table for
you that will allow you to grow
and to become more
experienced and more mature
as you spend your four years with us.
So I believe we would be
able to help you to become
a very seasoned young
physician at the end of the
four years with us and
maturing in other areas, not just science,
but developing life skills,
communication skills,
and an appreciation for
other fields other than
science by the end of your
education time with us.
I think that's very well said,
and that applies to anybody
entering the medical school.
And I, myself,
I'm doing an executive
leadership course right now
at Yale School of Management,
and learned a lot.
I spent some time at their medical school.
And it's very attuned with
what the creators of our
curriculum who come from
those communities created.
So very well said for everybody.
Thank you.
We'll move on to the next one.
So since the next question
is directed at you, Dr. Malifaux,
which is,
and you've got the mic.
You mentioned taking
internships and fellowships.
How does that actually work
in the program?
And is there a body that
students can work with for
internships and fellowship opportunities?
I think that question
probably needs a little bit more
Clarification,
because you will not be in
your internship or a
fellowship while you're in
medical school.
Again, to clarify,
you have four years of
medical school unless you
do one of the prep programs or to get in,
which I had just an extra semester.
But you have four years of med school.
Two years of that are preclinical years,
which isn't really a fair
statement because you get
clinical experience in your
first two years.
And then your second two
years are in the hospital wards.
And from there,
then you apply for residency.
And depending on if you're
going into a subspecialty
or a straight residency pathway,
you have an internship year
or you're considered an intern.
So that could be your first year.
And regardless of what field you are,
surgical intern,
internal medicine intern.
Now, fellowship,
depending on if you go to
internal medicine,
being three years in the field,
array of fellowship
opportunities start after
your residency and
generally after you get
board certified or you do
your board certifications
in your residency time so
for me I did my fellowship
after I finished uh
diagnostic radiology which
was four years and I did a
one-year interventional
radiology fellowship so I
hope that explains some more um
And I'm happy again,
I think we're gonna have a
webinar that's gonna talk
specifically about
residencies and a podcast.
So we'll be inviting program
directors from various
organizations throughout
the States and Canada to be
able to field your
questions and for us to
give you our input on what
it takes to get a residency
and from all different perspectives.
The next question is from Debbie, which is,
what if you have no medical
experience or background,
which I assume is in
relation to actually
applying to enter the school?
So again, Dr. Mahdi,
do you want to say anything
about prerequisite?
Having a bachelor degree and
having taken your MCAT,
those are the requirements for admission.
If you have a bachelor
degree but haven't taken
MCAT or you feel that you're
uh science courses and
backgrounds are not
adequate then I recommend
considering either our prep
program which is one
semester that's mainly if
you have had some
background in health
profession if you haven't
if let's say you have a
bachelor degree in history
or my favorite literature
because that's what I had
before going to medical school.
Mine was history.
Yeah.
And so I did history,
actually Russian history
and Russian literature was
my background before going
to medical school.
So if that's the case with you,
what I recommend doing,
we have a pre-med program also,
a two-year program that we
are putting together
actually this year for next
August to have you prepare
adequately for a medical school program.
You do chemistry, physics, and biology.
biology and anatomy and sort
of the courses that you
didn't have to take to that
extent when you were studying, let's say,
Russian literature.
And then you, after those two years,
you do take an MCAT and you
enter the program as a
medical student of Axel.
So I think this is a key
differentiation so nobody
gets confused on the web
chat here is that
If you like for me,
I was a history major in
the liberal arts college,
but I did do my prerequisites.
I took genetics.
biology one, biology two,
and all those prerequisites,
you still apply.
You can apply and you took your MCAT.
So the question is a little vague,
whether if you have any
academic background or
actually experience in the field.
If you already did the
academic prerequisites,
regardless of what field
you're in or you took the MCAT,
You know,
the admission advisors will work
through that with you and
plug you into the right
program so we're not confusing people,
but we have a pathway for
different people.
Thank you.
So the next question is from Adezi,
which is how does the
school support or provide
resources for students who
plan to relocate to the
island with spouse or children?
So I can just very quickly
say that as soon as a
student is accepted into the program,
our student services team
will begin reaching out to
every one of you.
They provide a number of
so-called pre-departure orientations,
and they're always
available to answer
questions such as the one
that you've just asked.
We do have at least one
student who's here with his spouse.
We don't have any students
here with children.
But I could talk about that
with my experience.
And we have faculty with children.
Of course.
So there are students with a spouse.
When I was attending school in Dominica,
which, again,
I should say this country
has graduated over 20,000 students.
practicing physicians in the
US and um but and so with
that being said an
infrastructure within the
community is already in
place in addition to what
student services and
everything will provide if
your children need to go to
school we have schools
depending on the age
student services we'll talk
to you about that and all
the different pieces about
relocating for everybody
will be handled by student
services and you can talk
to them in advance to your
application during the
application process or after
but those opportunities are there for you.
I mean, we're a very close-knit community.
Yeah.
Students,
you should comment on that question.
I think that you have
experienced it already,
and that's what they're asking for.
I mean,
in specific terms to your question
in regards to spouse,
I do have a classmate.
He's here with his wife and
she's settled in pretty well.
There's housing available
that fits your comfort.
And like Dr. White mentioned,
through student services,
you can always get in touch
with specific students per
se that are experiencing this currently.
As far as we go,
it's a very close-knit community.
So even to be here with kids,
your kids will be taken care of.
We've spoken to the community.
There are schools, there's daycares.
It's a very safe environment,
and there should be
absolutely no problems with that.
Daniel, do you want to add anything?
I mean,
I would just add that two of our
faculty members do have
children here on Ireland.
They located one couple from Russia,
and one couple from Nigeria, in fact.
And all of their children
are attending actually the
same school in the same village,
close to the school,
and they're having a great time.
And as Dr. Bhagapur said,
there are other schools in
the area and student
services will help
facilitate that sort of journey for you.
How long is the program,
including residency?
I'll answer that.
The program's four years.
It's two years here in Dominica,
actually less than two years.
It's about 20 months, but it's two years.
And then it's two years of clinicals.
So that's what medical
school takes on a traditional path.
Residency,
depending on where and what you
want to do, mostly what,
that's a different frame.
Your internal medicine's three years,
and then your subspecialties can go
longer or if your fellowship
so um at our when we have
our webinar about
residencies we can go
through some of the basic
stuff if you had a specific
uh program we can talk
together offline and answer
any of those questions for
you okay any more questions henderson
Is there a teaching hospital in Dominica?
If so,
are internships offered to graduates
from the Caribbean?
Well,
there is a major hospital in Dominica
which is currently
undergoing an accreditation
process of its own with a
Canadian accreditor,
and it hopes to become a
residency training program.
We actually met with the
management of the hospital
just yesterday.
So currently,
rotations of types do go on
in that hospital for
students and graduates from
a number of other schools
but not so far us but do I
think I think that the most
important thing for you to
get away is that your heavy
clinical experiences will
occur at your u.s or
training site and soon to
be a canadian one and other
ones that are coming online
and that's where you're
going to get your most
number of hours per day,
more than you're ever going
to want occurring.
But in your first two years,
you will have clinical
experience that is tailored
for you to be able to get to that level.
So Ben is asking about
scholarships and financial aid.
And again,
I just say that there's a lot of
information on the website, financial
team are always contactable,
and those contact
information will be put up on screen.
But we have a wide variety of scholarships,
which Dr. Baganpour can talk to,
as well as our own student
loan program at the moment
with new ones hopefully
coming online in the near future.
Do you want to say something about that?
Yeah.
I'm not going to talk about
each individual scholarship.
When you want to talk to the
financial aid,
that and when you get
accepted that they will
offer you a scholarship I
think every student has a
scholarship um merit-based
as well as needs-based
there is a goal for
everybody that can qualify
to come to the university
to be able to come to
university and finances not
to be an obstacle and I
think that students could
talk about you know how we
ensure that that occurs
In addition to that,
we have financial aid.
It runs along the same lines
of the Graduate Plus
program served by the US
federal government, competitive rates,
and we'll plug you into
that for any differences
that scholarships don't cover.
Many of you on this webinar
may qualify for honors
scholarships that may get
you a scholarship all the
way through for the four years of school.
You don't know until you apply.
So I'm not sure when they're
going to ask everybody to apply,
but I'm going to ask you
all on the webinar that
it's important to apply.
You won't know what you have
until you ask for it.
And if it's not enough, wait, and you say,
I have different needs.
our financial aid department
will work with you to
customize a program that works for you.
So again,
I'm going to ask to give us the
privilege to teach you and
for you to go ahead and apply.
What kind of immigration
requirements are needed for
Canadian citizens?
We have a Canadian citizen here.
I'm from Ontario.
It's really straightforward.
Actually, when you get to customs,
you fill out the form,
and then the school will
help you with the process
of completing that visa.
But it's very straightforward.
Nothing to worry about.
Easy.
Very easy.
Are there plans still in
place to have clinicals
occur in LA area hospitals,
or has it been changed or been updated?
Well, I'll mention the first part,
and then I'll let Dr. Imadi
talk about the second parts
of additional clinical
sites coming on board.
There has been no change in
our clinical sites.
You could see them online,
Hollywood Presbyterian,
Los Angeles Downtown Hospital,
and one of the other
hospitals within the
community over there.
where they're all under
what's called green book
that means there's a
residency program
associated with each
teaching rotation so you
gain credit for that but
with that said we're
actively pursuing
additional high quality
clinical sites we do not want to have
10, 20 clinical sites,
which you may see in some
of the large schools.
That's where they get into
problems with accreditation.
And you can go read online
about the issues that have
been surrounding that for
many of the Caribbean schools.
That's why we're going to be
very controlled in the way
that we provide teaching to our students.
So, Dr. Amadi, you want to add on to that?
Exactly.
I agree.
We do have our sites.
in LA as you see them
described on our website.
And we have new clinical
campus sites that we will
be announcing hopefully in
the next few months.
Our current student group is
still one year away.
from their first clinical
rotation more than one year away.
But we believe that in the
next five to six months,
we will finalize our main
clinical campus sites in
addition to the ones that
we have announced in LA.
Well,
it seems that we've answered all of
your questions up to now.
So I think that there's no
other late-breaking questions.
I'd just like to thank Dr. Mahdi,
Dr. Bhagatpour, our students
providing you all the
information that we hope
has persuaded you all to
sit on get on the website
and apply today but most of
all I'd like to thank
everybody online who's
participated in this uh in
this uh event so do you
have any parting yes thanks
dr white thank you
everybody for coming I just
wanted I mean I don't know
everybody on the other end
but if you have a dream of
becoming a doctor and
you've hit in a roadblock I
was there I went through it
there's no reason that
roadblock will be permanent
there's a it's just a detour and
There's a reasonable pathway
that someone has walked
through and that's me.
And it took me 15 years to
walk through that pathway
to be able to say,
I think this is how it should be done.
And it wasn't too different
or outside idea to say it
should be done to the same
standards in the countries
that we are coming from the
United States and Canada.
And so our program was
created like that in light
of that made by physicians
for physicians.
And I would be incredibly
honored and everybody else,
part of our team to have
you part of the first
private nonprofit medical
school in the Caribbean
that will be able to serve
you right and provide you
all the opportunities that you deserve,
but you have the grades to achieve it,
to become great physicians.
And thank you for joining us today.
Every week we're planning on
having webinars on different things.
And your advisors are also
available to you to contact
me individually or Dr. Ahmadi.
And if any time you need to
speak to a student,
you want to get some information,
we've got to just be
cognizant of their time
commitments because they're
pretty busy with school.
But we will make ourselves
available to you, talk with you,
talk with your family.
so all the student services
people that hold regular
webinars there'll be
podcasts coming your ways
and things like that but I
do encourage you to apply
there's only a limited
amount of scholarships they
don't they when they're
done for this semester
they're done so please
apply capture those
scholarships get your honor
scholarships get your
merit-based scholarships
and uh and let us get you
started on this journey and
not delay uh what you
should and can achieve and
there's nothing that can stop you
So on that very persuasive end note,
thank you once again and
have a great remainder of your day,
everyone.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.