The reason that I am starting this IMHO thread is because I’m trying to find a list of 4-6 medical schools to apply to. Although I’ve thumbed through the books and Googled past dozens of medical school websites, I’m still confronted with the sobering reality: there are a lot of medical schools in the United States.
So, I’ve decided to turn the question to my most trusted source of information, the teeming masses of the SDMB. I want you to recomend a medical school to apply to and tell me why you or someone that you know was happy to attend there.
My criteria aren’t all that picky; I’m not looking for any names which encourage people to use mocking accents when they say the name. As long as the medical school is generally pretty well respected and going there won’t actively hurt applying to any internship or residency program, that’s enough as far as reputation goes. Also, it would be nice not to have to attend in a massive city, in a climate that lends itself to being outside at least one or two days a week in the dead of winter, and not have to pay more than half of Guatemala’s GDP in tuition every four months.
The only medical school I attended as a medical student was Johns Hopkins. I can’t say it rocked, but it sure offered me a lot of opportunities.
Wish I’d been bright enough to recognize that at the time, and take full advantage of it. But things worked out pretty much ok.
As for “mocking accents”, all that’s really important is to say “It’s Johnzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Hopkins, you twit!” Accent don’t matter.
I’m with Doctor Qadgop here - Johns Hopkins is the ‘best of the best’, #1 in the country. My father-in-law attended for his residency and loved it so much he never left.
Baltimore’s got pretty darned nice winters, too. At least to me. I’m from Canada though, so take that as you will.
I have a friend attending Washington University in St. Louis and she loves it. She said that University of California - San Francisco has a great program as well.
Your thread - your rules. I won’t try to argue you out of your specifications. However they seem loose (maybe that is wrong) and perhaps some perspective might shed some more light on them.
I know 2 people who went to Georgetown Medical School, in a big city, baddish winters, at one time in the 90’s was the 4th most expensive Medical School in the U.S. It still “rocked” for them in many ways.
A. The Students, not residents, did “rotations” at 4 city Hospitals in D.C. They saw things that had they been at rural/suburban med school hospitals would never have been exposed to. They made contacts that helped them in matching to the right residencies and presumably afterwards. It was a very rewarding situation.
B. In a sense isn’t worrying about Medical School Tuition a bit like worrying about getting sand in your shoes in the desert? Unless you are a Heinz or Bush, you are going to come out 10’s of thousands of dollars in debt. In 2003 the median price of a Public Med School for a resident was $14,544 (4 year cost $60,000 w/o worrying about room, board). Probably approaching something double that on Tuition if you go to a Private Med School (2003 Median 30,000 per year).
It is your deal, but might I suggest some other directions to think about as you make this decision:
What do you want to specialize in? What is the best School for that…
Do you want to be a Clinician or go into research?
Do you want to do your residency somewhere special? What schools can get you there?
Is there a particular Dr. that you would like to work with, does he teach somehwere?
Ginger, who’s your FIL? You can email me the reply if you like. I’m curious as to whether I know him. I hung out at the Med School even as an undergrad, thinking I wanted to be a Medical Scientist! So I was down by the Dome pretty regularly from 76-79, then constantly until 1983.
One of my best friends (and former roommate) is going to the University of Vermont medical school. He and his classmates I know all seem to like it; a lot of people chose it because they’re outdoors-type people and VT offers a lot in that regard. And, it’s not a bad school, either. One of my friends there is actually from Colorado as well.
I feel like I am doing a disservice to the University of Maryland by going on about Hopkins. See, I worked for the UMMS, and really enjoyed it. However, I know nothing about the medical school, I worked in the central pharmacy.
It’s on the west side of downtown Baltimore. Go much further west and you’re in slum, much like Johns Hopkins is in East Baltimore slum. We’re fond of our crappy areas here - makes trauma that much more interesting.
Have you considered the University of Alabama at Birmingham? UAB is well respected and lots of research and development of new medical treatments takes place there. I’ve known plenty of UAB grads throughout their residencies (I’m an ER nurse, so care and feeding of recent med school graduates is part of my job) and all were complimentary of the program. Birmingham is a nice city, not too large, and has very mild winters. And the only accent you’ll have to worry about will be the southern drawl.
I have a friend who is attending USC medical school and as much as it pains me to suggest anything positive about USC (me being a Bruin and all ) she really likes it. And…she was also one smart cookie while we were undergrads so I’m pretty sure it’s a great academic program as well!
Two of my good friends are going to University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (at Dallas.) Dallas is a nice city. It’s sizeable, but well organized and UTSW is kinda off to the side. I never felt that I was in a big city like Houston or anything. Winter is pretty pleasant for the most part.
I don’t know about cost, but it’s supposed to be one of the best schools in the country.
Well, thank you to everyone contributing to this thread. I’m off to the websites of everyones suggestions to investigate all of the specifcs, including application deadlines, which I’m over in a number of cases.
I appreciate the input which people that have actually been somewhere can provide. The websites and brouchures would have you believe that they’re all singularly recognized facilities in any specialty that you can name. Going through, “the book” is a little overwhelming, and having a starting place is appreciated.
Something that I don’t think anyone has pointed out is that many public medical schools either don’t accept out of state residents or only have a very small portion of their incoming class made up of out of state residents. Of course, this is less of an issue for private schools.
Email sent, Doc.