Hi, I'm a 3rd year Alaska WWAMI. Just wanted to drop a note since I remember reading this thread when I was in your shoes. First off congratulations on your wonderful accomplishment if you've already have an acceptance letter, if not no fear -- life works out and there is still a lot of time left in the game. Here are my impressions so far.
+++++'s
Your classmates - top notch people, geniuses that are super-humble, still find time to be outdoorsy, athletic, and go out on the weekends amidst med school craziness. They are easy to make friends with, mostly 22-29yo and not married, WWAMI-region = more married people who are equally awesome. Maybe 5-10% non-trads who are older than 30. Very few, if any gunners. Everyone shares notes for classes, books for boards, hooks it up for housing and research opportunities.
Your attendings - West Coast to the max. Very chill, friendly and forthcoming with teaching points. Almost none of the hierarchy or egotism that is the hallmark of East coast medicine. They have a much more collaborative teaching style that leads to way less stress third year. I once said, "gnarly ulcers found on colonoscopy are the most likely source of bleeding" on formal medicine rounds, and my attending just laughed.
Tuition - UW is the cheapest top-10 medical school. This was a huge factor in my decision, and looking at 180k debt is a different game then 260k+. Remember $1 in loans will take about $3 in income to pay back accounting for cumulative interest and high tax-burden on your physician income. Also if you max out past your Stafford loans, Grad-Plus loans must be taken out an 7.9% interest rate. At UW the tuition is low enough you can stick with maxing out the Stafford loans which have been at 5.41% interest. Saving those percentage points translates into $10,000's of future savings.
Research - Thriving research, abundant access for medical students to on-board with projects while in Seattle. It is the #1 public medical school in NIH funding, second behind Harvard.
Residency - I'm applying to a very competitive specialty and UW is a well-known primary care school (#1 in Primary care 21 out of 22 years in USNWR rankings). So how does this help me? Few of my classmates are gunning for 3rd year honors since most are going primary care and don't need the grades, so it a bit easier to achieve honors here versus other sub-specialty focused schools. Several of my undergrad friends who went to UCSF and USC have told me it takes an act of God to get third-year honors at their schools. In my future specialty you get bonus points in rank formulas if you come from a "top-medical school" which IMO is a little arrogant, but none-the-less, UW rightly counts as a top-tier medical school in all their formulas. If your going primary care from UW you can get any residency in the country w/ the UW name behind you, and there is a ton of institutional support for primary care related activities in the first two years.
+/-'s
Curriculum renewal - UW's first major curriculum overhaul in 15-years. I've looked over all the documents and sat on the curriculum committee's as a student representative. Let me say unequivocally the changes are for the better. Only 1.5 years preclinical leaves much more time for career exploration and research in the later years. The systems based approach is intuitive and the movement away from formal lectures to small-class room learning is the future of education as a whole, so I'm very proud UW is an early adopter. That being said, the first 1-2 years of the transition are going to be a bit of a cluster**** as the professors adopt to a new teaching style and new material -- so be prepared for a bit of upheaval.
Travel - My first year was Anchorage. My second year Seattle. My third year I've moved every 6-weeks from Washington to Alaska to Idaho in a clinical clerkship format we lovingly call "The Safari." I've actually enjoyed my varied experiences and practicing medicine in different environments since it gives me a better idea of what type of city size I want to practice in as a doctor. However no doubt the travel is disruptive to a routine. In the new curriculum you will be at the first 1.5 years at your home site, and traveling the last 2.5 years, so there will be slightly less moving.
No real straight-up negatives. Going to UW for medical school is honestly the best choice of my life. If there any questions I can answer let me know. Any other UWer's lurking on this thread, feel free to chip in if your experiences have been the same or different.
