Current or incoming students: talk to me about the Trover Campus! Thanks!
1) How good/bad is Madisonville?
2) If you have a change of heart before MS-3 about Trover, what happens?
http://www.baptisthealthmadisonville.com/education/university-of-louisville-school-of-medicine/
I'm an MS3 for another 6 days, doing the Trover program.
Madisonville, as you'd guess, is smaller than Louisville. There's a ton less to do. And contrary to what you may think--there is some free time during 3rd year. And there's going to be A LOT of it in 4th year.
There are plenty of nice restaraunts though. There's a fairly new gastropub. There are a handful of bars throughout town. We tend to go to El Bracero's because it's close to the hospital, it's cheap, it's delicious and 2 for 1 beers.
I certainly like being able to get from 1 side of town to the other in under 10 minutes. In Louisville, I lived a 10 minute drive from a Kroger--but it took 20-30 minutes to get there depending on traffic. Cost of living is so much less expensive. It's a smaller market--so there's no whole foods or Trader Joes. And Kroger doesn't even have the A&W Diet Cream soda here.
The medical school stuff: I think for the most part it's a better experience at Trover. You work with attendings 1 on 1. The residents are family medicine residents--and you usually work with the 1st years. But even when working with the 2nd or 3rd years--you're never treated as an inferior. On OB--you can get A LOT of babies if you're pro-active. You can get in on A LOT of surgeries if you're proactive.
There's a free clinic elective. You go to free clinic and see patients on Thursday nights--you can get 2-4 weeks off in 4th year based on the # of hours you put in.
For 4th year schedules, you'll get thrown into tracks in Louisville where you have to adhere to a certain sequence of electives and required rotations. In Madisonville, you can pretty much schedule it however you like--then switch it around how you like.
Once you've been here, and you're known as a student, the whole hospital is kind of your oyster. If you want to see or learn something, most of the doctors or nurses are more than happy to show you something whenever. In Louisville, I'd imagine there are always several students in every area. You've got literally no competition for anything.
The library here has books for every rotation. And they're the books that everyone uses. It's really nice.
We had several people from my class--3 or 4---decide they'd rather stay in Louisville. I really entertained the idea. But, most of them had reasons other than "I just don't want to."
If anyone has any questions, especially regarding Trover/Baptist/Madisonville--whatever they're calling it these days---feel free to PM me
