To put it simply, it's a classy place with classy people.
If I had to pick my top 3 favorite aspects, I'd say it would be the receptiveness of the faculty, the class dynamic, and the quality of life here.
To expound a bit, the faculty here are incredibly friendly and it's extremely easy to find mentors that will provide clinical experiences, research opportunities, involvement in course development, and support for student led initiatives. People here are just plain nice and eager to help you succeed. If you're interested in a particular specialty, chances are there is already an established student interest group that can set up shadowing opportunities or if you prefer, you're more than welcome to e-mail professors directly and set up some shadowing independently. Likewise, we have the scholarly concentration program which can link you with mentors and similarly passionate students interested in a wide range of topics (
http://brown.edu/academics/medical/education/scholarly-concentration-program). Regardless as to whether you participate in the SC program, summer funding is also pretty easy to come by (this past year, anyone who took the time to find a faculty sponsor and to write out a well thought out proposal got funding). People are working on a variety of projects (a good friend of mine works on physician use of meditative techniques to improve quality, I work on infectious disease policy, I have friends working on health education abroad, and others strengthening and designing new curriculum components here at the med school, and of course, there are people working on basic, translational, and clinical research). Basically, whatever your interest is, there's an avenue through which to explore it.
As for the class dynamic, I think much of the credit goes to the office of admissions and the admissions committee (if you interview here, you'll get to meet the Director of Admissions, Barbara, and the Admissions Program Coordinator, Melissa, both of whom are incredibly nice). Everyone is just relaxed and friendly. Post exam party invites will be sent out to the entire class and the same holds true with random outings to go hiking, biking, swimming, and whatever else is going on. Likewise, the same students who memorize every lecture, every, tangent, and every corollary of random medical minutia, are also the very same students who put together brilliant charts, mock exams, and slide decks, and post them online so the entire class can benefit.
Which leads me to my third point, the quality of life factor. Coming into the application process I was under the general perception that med school is supposed to be stressful, difficult, and to a certain extent dehumanizing, so I was a little suspicious when I came across an odd trait of the students here...they were happy. Truth is, between having faculty who care , classmates who are supportive and fun to hang out with, and a cozy city to enjoy yourself in, life can be pretty grand. The three week block schedule means that, depending on your study habits, you can spend a devote a good deal of time to extra-curriculars or to just relaxing during non exam weeks (mind you, I also know people who prefer to just spend their time studying diligently so that their test weeks aren't too strenuous). For the east coast, the cost of living here is wicked affordable, which in addition to good financial aid, allows me to have more variety for dinner choices than what is offered by ramen noodle spice packets. Combined with that, there's a good restaurants all over town (for Italian food though, federal hill is a must) and a good bar and club scene . There's great jogging routes all around, the east bay bike path is close, and solid hiking about 45 minutes out of town. This is Rhode Island so of course there are beaches to make good use of. Some of my classmates surf, and one of my good friends has a 24 ft sailboat he likes to take classmates out on during nice weekends. Put all together I would say I'm enjoying med school even more than undergrad (and I loved undergrad). The material can be challenging at times and the drinking from a fire hose analogy is completely accurate, but nevertheless, I simply love being here.
So... this kinda got far lengthier than I had originally intended but I won't be able to respond to any posts for about the two weeks, so I wanted to cover as much ground as I could. Please feel free to post or pm me any additional questions; I'll get to them as soon as I get a chance. Anyhow, it's a WaterFire night (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WaterFire) so I'm off. Cheers!