these might be useful to others so if you don't mind i'll ask here. what year are you and what do you like most about the school and city so far?
I'll post my $0.02 here.
School:
1) Incredibly supportive faculty. They want you to succeed and will go to great lengths to help you. I was presenting at an international meeting (more about research later) and missed a week of school and small groups. The attending leading (an orthopedic surgeon, no less) my small group arranged to meet me the following week during lunch to teach me the small group material individually and even bought me lunch! This is only one example but there are many. On the wards, the faculty and residents are always nice (you'll hear horror stories from other schools, read the "clinical rotations" forums for examples) and I've never encountered malignant behavior on the wards. They make an effort to teach and let med students do far more in many cases than theyd be able to do at some programs. I was able to do full surgeries under supervision of an attending when no residents were around and they'd seen me do it before.
2) Amazing research opportunities. All students are eligible for the Shapiro summer program between m1/2 which gives you $6k in research funding for 8-12 weeks of research and gets you an automatic poster/oral presentation. Other research opportunities are present as well. I was able to travel to more than 10 national/international meetings in 4 different countries to present research, all expenses paid. I was also able to publish many papers and had a lot of support from research faculty, grad students, and staff.
3) Students/environment: I'm not exagerrating when I say that people in WI in general and at UW SMPH specifically are the nicest you'll meet anywhere, and are generally just good people. Despite there being grades m2/3 I've never seen any competitive behavior and people generally share notes, study guides, whatever, regardless of the situation. Many people buy test banks and/or textbooks and share them. I've had classmates switch activities, shifts, call etc without thinking about it, usually when you email about this type of stuff people will volunteer in minutes!
4) City: I have to preface this with two disclosures 1) I am a Madison native 2) I love big cities and will end up in one. That being said, Madison is a pretty awesome place to live. It has low cost of living, lots of great restaurants, a decent amount of cultural events, and is close to other major cities. I think the nightlife is somewhat underrated, but is a bit lacking in terms of dancing, that being said, there are a lot of cool bars/lounges, especially on the near east side. Madison has a lot of comfortable places where it's easy to be a regular. I'm currently in San Francisco on a rotation and still miss some of my old haunts!
5) Schedule: The schedule for m3/4 is pretty flexible and will be more so now with the class of 2015 moving to a 4 week neurology clerkship. That will let all required coursework besides the preceptorship, surgery month, and sub-I to be done in m3, giving you 4.5 months of elective time to use for away rotations, electives, international rotations, or vacation.
6) facilities: with the exception of the anatomy lab, all the m1/2 facilities are brand new (built in 2004). There are two brand new research buildings that are/will be built right next to the med school as well. The hospital, VA, and children's hosp are all attached to the med school. Most people will do 3 months away during 3rd year and some amount away as a 4th year, so you'll get exposure to many health systems including urban and rural medicine.
If you have any qs, feel free to PM me.
I'm figuring they had a pretty big batch come in all at once, so I wouldn't worry for a week or so.
