Got placed in Peoria.. can anyone comment on how life is like as a med student there? Thanks, in advance.
Hey.. I'm a second-year in Peoria. If you have any specific questions you can feel free to PM me.
As you probably know, first year is done in Urbana-Champaign.. so you won't come to Peoria until 2011. I have to say, after living here for about 7 months, that I enjoyed living in Champaign a little bit more. The town is overall catered to the University student... there's more restaurants, which are open later and are of a bigger variety, there's better libraries (and you have access to them as you're technically a UIC *and* UIUC student), there's more activities to get involved in if you have the time, and it's just a much more lively place. The medical school itself, however, is just a building on campus. Nothing special at all. There's a small staff that caters mostly to the MD/PhD crowd, but deals with the first-years, too. The classroom is crowded, the chairs are hard, and the temperature is never right. The student lounge ("HUB room") is pretty much just a room with a microwave, refrigerator, TV, and mailboxes. You'll be happy to get out of that building. I never spent any time studying there. If you're a UIUC student right now, you probably know all this.. otherwise here ya go.
Peoria is completely the opposite. The city is pretty lively during the day.. but then quickly dies around 7pm. There's the occasional night club, bar, etc... but nothing special, frankly. You need a car in Peoria as the public transportation is non-existant (much unlike C-U). Signs of Peoria being on the verge of a ghost town are everywhere. The medical school is quite nice. It's its free-existing establishment. The adjacent parking is free (and you will need a car), the lecture hall is comfortable and modern, and the student lounge is being renovated as we speak and will be ready next week with all brand new furniture and amenities. There is a rec room (pool table, ping pong, plasma TV), comfortable study rooms, and a full-sized medical library with a friendly staff that is always happy to help. The Student Affairs staff go the extra mile to make sure you are happy.. and when there's a couple dozen of them and only 150 of us, you get very personal attention.
As far as life as an M2... it's primarily focused on boards. You start the year in August with General Path, General Pharm, and Infectious Disease.. by September you move into specific drugs, by October you are done with General Path and are into the organ segments (Skeletal/Skin, Neuro/Psych, GI/Heme, Cardio/Pulm/Renal, Endocrine/Reproductive) which last the rest of the year. You have an Ethics and Epidemiology course inserted inconveniently in October. You also have Intro to Clinical Medicine throughout second year. This is where you learn how to take a medical history and perform physical exam. You are required to do 14 patient write-ups which entail you going to the hospital next door and bothering patients in hospital beds (believe me, you feel like a major pain in the *****). Interspersed within the year are three full weeks of "Immersion" which happen after exams. Here you're paired up with a primary care physician who you will follow for each of the three weeks.. it can be in Peoria or hundreds of miles away in IL. Mine's in Pontiac, which is about 60 miles away.
Life is OK.. you find time to do stuff with friends.. but you will be super busy.
In my humble opinion, M1 is a bigger b!tch than M2... you are enslaved to Anatomy. Nothing is worse than navigating through greasy fat trying to find trivial structures you will never need to know in clinical practice. (I'd say about 20% of Anatomy will actually come in useful during M2.... maybe more during Clinicals... but by then, who remembers?)
PS: Rockford is a lot less stressful. My friends who are in Rockford have far fewer class hours and their coursework during M2 is not designed to be "harder" than boards. I envy that... but Peoria has a higher mean Step One score, too...
