Thanks! For you two med students, what has suprised you most since you started at Davis? Good, bad, unusual, anything you share will be greatly appreciated.
Random thoughts: What surprised me the most is it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (med school in general). Our facilities are really nice and our teachers want us to succeed. I think our anatomy staff is amazing! The support staff and curriculum staff do a great job.
The MMI must be working because my classmates and the MS2s are very solid people. I was expecting med students to be a little anti-social and hardcore competitive but I don't feel like that is the case here. I enjoy the fact that we have our own facebook group and class website in order to share study aids. We have a college system where you are assigned a big sib from the previous class who helps you out when you have questions and also a staff member who is only responsible for 4 other classmates so no one falls through the cracks. We have a big student lounge where people eat and play ping-pong and generally hang out.
I actually like Sacramento (a lot of people may not because it is quieter here) and its proximity to Tahoe and San Francisco. Cost of living is noticeably less if you are from So Cal. The hospital is very nice. We have 24 hour access to our med school and can study in there anytime. Our school is small and we share it only with some night classes for business and nursing students (barely ever see them).
We learn how to do physical exams on patients (including rectal, vaginal, and inguinal) in the first block which comes in handy while volunteering at one of the tons of free clinics we have here. Clinics are amazing and you actually do a lot as a first year.
The bad: Some teachers aren't very good (most are). During block 2 there are so many TBLs and PBLs and other cases with mandatory attendance and homework. I feel that half of these are useful and the other half waste my time. Summers are long and hot while winters are long and cold (not crazy bad but trying hard to find things to complain about).
Summary: I would pick this school again even if I had other acceptances in CA. The small class size and awesome students combined with a school that wants us to succeed makes going through all of this work easier.
I am sure I missed a lot but those are the things that came to my head during this study break (quiz on Tuesday).
Hope this helps
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