Medical School

[Steve Smith]



Aren't you going to be specialty restricted? That was the main reason I decided not to do the military programs. Doing flight surgery or something like that would've been pretty interesting, though.

Think about the needs of the Army or Marine Corps. Highly competitive specialties such as neuro type stuff and orthopedics are easier to get there because of the types of injuries which are relatively common.

To clarify, I am referring to the military's own medical school.

 

[facebookdigg123]

I'll be going to med school next year. Anyone know anything about Chicago, Michigan, UTSW, or Baylor? Still waiting to hear back from a few more in March.

 

[Macallan9]



I'll be going to med school next year. Anyone know anything about Chicago, Michigan, UTSW, or Baylor? Still waiting to hear back from a few more in March.

If I were doing it over again, I would decide based on, in approximate order,

1. Pass/Fail Grading
2. Location
3. Cost
4. Amount of PBL (garbage learning format, at least what I've seen - good in theory, never well executed) and amount of mandatory stuff in general.

I suppose the match lists might be important, but I don't have a grasp on how much school affects residency placements and how much of that is self-selection.

Go where you think you'd be happy - of those choices, I'd probably go with Baylor based on location and reputation alone. I'd be tempted by UChicago though - Chicago is a very, very fun city when you're in your 20's. It's just too cold for my tastes.

 

[jsong812]

So I actually just finished medical school at a middle-tier program in Chicago. The four years were definitely tough but well worth it, if you went into it for the right reasons and had reasonable expectations. It's true that the reputation of medical school probably isn't as important as it is for other graduate schools like law and business. But having gone through the interview process for a very competitive specialty (dermatology) myself, I can say that school reputation does matter. This is especially true if you're applying into competitive fields because research will be hard to come by at less-well funded programs. If you have access to previous match lists, great. They can be helpful but you need to read them with a grain of salt. Some schools, even if they're ranked highly, will pump out more primary-care docs than other programs b/c that is their mission. As such, this will skew the distribution of students going into highly desirable specialties. Fortunately for you, those are all OUTSTANDING medical schools and there really won't be much of a drop off between those programs. Just by reputation alone, however, I would say UMich might barely beat out UChicago and UTSW. Baylor is also a good program which boasts some of the highest USMLE Step 1 averages in the nation, but it is not as well-known as the other three. Hope that helps.

 

[TeeKay]



If I were doing it over again, I would decide based on, in approximate order,
1. Pass/Fail Grading
2. Location
3. Cost
4. Amount of PBL (garbage learning format, at least what I've seen - good in theory, never well executed) and amount of mandatory stuff in general.
I suppose the match lists might be important, but I don't have a grasp on how much school affects residency placements and how much of that is self-selection.
Go where you think you'd be happy - of those choices, I'd probably go with Baylor based on location and reputation alone. I'd be tempted by UChicago though - Chicago is a very, very fun city when you're in your 20's. It's just too cold for my tastes.

Ughhh....PBL is the absolute ******* worst. Let's spend 8 hours a week talking about a topic I could read about in Robbins in 30 minutes. In addition, let's let my asshole classmates who don't actually know anything sit around and feed me ****** powerpoints with typos and inaccuracies.

 

[Omar1223]



Ughhh....PBL is the absolute ******* worst. Let's spend 8 hours a week talking about a topic I could read about in Robbins in 30 minutes. In addition, let's let my asshole classmates who don't actually know anything sit around and feed me ****** powerpoints with typos and inaccuracies.

lol.....so true. the worst is getting into an argument with said asshole classmate during PBL

 

[hopkins_student]



I'll be going to med school next year. Anyone know anything about Chicago, Michigan, UTSW, or Baylor? Still waiting to hear back from a few more in March.

In my opinion, which isn't based on any objective data in the least, I would be interested in these schools in this descending order:
1: Michigan
T2: UTSW/Baylor
4: Chicago

 

[facebookdigg123]

Thanks for everyone's opinions. Michigan and Chicago are both pass/fail unranked (from what I hear). Baylor is p/f ranked, and UTSW is only p/f for the 1st semester. I'm fine with the location for all the schools, except I like warm weather over cold (not a deal breaker though). I think all these schools will cost roughly the same for me (probably cheaper at Chicago and Mich). I have a scholarship to Chicago, good chance for one at Mich, none at UTSW or Baylor but Tx schools are pretty cheap already. All 4 are light on PBL too. Gah tough decision.

 

[Zach]

I have a 4 week wait to hear about the match, and 8 weeks total of my 4th year of medical school remaining. It hasn't been too bad but I'm definitely looking forward to getting internship year started. I feel like at this point I'm starting to just stagnate.

 

[Omar1223]

congrats zach. what are you trying to match into?

 

[Zach]

Orthopedic Surgery

 

[mr.orange]



med student here too. my medical school class was very type A super competitive people but i found a really nice group of about 20 of us who did really well and just all around great people. i loved medical school and would def do it all over again. i found it much better than college.
for anyone considering it, the hard part is getting in, once you are in, it really is not bad at all. everyone makes it much worse than it actually is.
i took step 1 recently and did really well. im looking at doing rads.

Encouraging words for someone aspiring to get into medicine.

What is the primary reason people put themselves through medical school? I've heard good things and bad things, but I'd like some input from people who have actually attended or are attending. Is it the prestigious title, job security, great pay, the desire to help mankind and help fight disease or something else?

 

[whodini]



What is the primary reason people put themselves through medical school?

Do you really expect a primary reason when you go on to list several hackneyed ones?

 

[mr.orange]



Do you really expect a primary reason when you go on to list several hackneyed ones?

err good point. I am curious because someone mentioned being 250K in debt and was wondering if they would've been happy studying something less costly.

edit: I made the mistake of assuming they weren't happy.

So to rephrase my question without all of those hackneyed options;

Why did you choose to go to medical school? What goal do you wish to accomplish with your career?

 

[Zach]

I wanted a challenging position, I liked the science, I like working with and for people, to name a few.

Once I was in school and found ortho, I liked that I could utilize my physics background and I liked working with my hands (majored in physics and grew up working on cars so it is kind of a natural progression).