^^ Could not agree more. I think that sometimes, we're all so determined and so hard on ourselves that we feel that we NEED the best, NEED to go to this school, but at the end of the day, the only thing I need is to go to a medical school. Ideally, one in the continental US that is MD (Which very fortunately I will be doing next year). I also find tremendous comfort in the fact that this is Harvard med, one of the top institutions in the country (if not the top, hehe). That being said, no one, not any combination of test scores, GPA, and ECs can feel entitled to a spot here. There are so many qualified applicants, even for a school of this caliber. You can only feel grateful for the opportunity to be in the running for a spot and proud of yourself for being in a position to be seriously considered. I have no doubts that all of you who interviewed here will be successful doctors, no matter where you matriculate. Let's just celebrate living our dreams.
I agree completely. HMS is a nice place, but there are a number of great schools out there. Most of the ~800 students interviewed probably deserve a spot here, but there just isn't space for you all. And, of course, it's not a perfect place. There are plenty of problems, frustrations, limitations, etc., just the same as everywhere. You'll all be fine. The next four weeks will be over before you blink.
Their brand new, untested one-year preclinical curriculum with mandatory early morning attendance is a weakness in my book.
Edit: also Boston
I can't say I was a big fan of that either. Mandatory 8 am classes sounds awful
Yeah, they are the only school that could get away with that switcheroo without a wild backlash.
Heh. What makes you think that there isn't a wild backlash? Maybe we're just good at keeping our b!#@&ing in-house...
Do they at least record the lectures...??
Cuz me attending and me paying attention are two completely different things...
Lol
There are no recordings unless you make them yourself. Besides, most of the lectures are quite good.
Most of it is small group PBL with little actual lecture, which is probably why class in mandatory.
That is very true. The curriculum structure requires attendance. There's also a strong sense of paternalism among some of the faculty.
Gotcha. Still...is the lecture part recorded??
Please say yes. I seriously do not learn in a traditional lecture format.
Nope. But the amount of time spent in traditional lectures is relatively small compared to the amount of time spent learning in other ways.
If there are any Pathways students around feel free to chime in if I got anything wrong, but here's what I remember from hanging out with my host and his study group, and attending one of their classes:
Class materials (notes/readings, some videos to go with the notes) are posted in advance and students are expected to go through them before class - my host says most people go through the material the afternoon/night before that particular topic is going to be covered. Each society meets in a classroom with many 4-person tables. On the day I sat in on a class, cases/discussion questions were presented (it was an Immunology session) and each 4-person table had a certain amount of time to work through those (using what they learned from the material they got in advance) before the instructor starts moderating a full class discussion, taking answers from different tables and explaining anything that needs to be explained. Also, I vaguely recall my host telling me about an actual in-class lecture (1x a week as
@Pastamahn mentioned sounds about right).
You've got it mostly right. The tricky part is that the curriculum is always changing.
For the two blocks of classes in the Fall, it was almost all PBL by society (as you described), with everyone sitting at a 4-person table discussing questions. The January block (mostly epidemiology, health policy, social medicine, medial ethics, etc.) consisted of about 40% PBLs by society, 20% whole-class lectures (which were actually great), and 40% 12-person meetings. The PBLs were mostly for the biostats and epidemiology classes. The small-group meetings had a faculty leader, and we mostly just talked about problems and questions regarding ethics, policy, and the like.
Now we're in Homeostasis I (heart, lungs, and blood). We've only had a week, but the schedule is generally:
1 hour of small group discussion - 4 students sitting around a table, talking about the prep work from the day before, trying to answer prep questions together and help each other understand things.
1 hour of whole-class lecture - Your traditional format. The instructor is good, he asks a lot of questions, and mostly lectures by drawing things out (no ppt).
1 hour of small-group round-robin or PBL discussion - On days with the round-robin we bounce from histology to radiology to anatomy to physiology stations, rapidly getting an idea of what things look like. The PBL discussions are like the mini-cases below.
1 hour of mini-cases - The PBL-by-society model. We go through 2 clinical cases and try to reason through the day's learning to see how it applies in a medical setting.
I have no idea if we'll still be doing this sort of thing in 4 weeks, much less 4 months. It's exhausting to be a guinea pig. Hopefully they'll have things figured out a little better by the time you arrive.
Nothing is recorded. Attendance is mandatory but it's the shortest class time I've seen, you're there 8-12 four days a week and that's it, no evening sessions, no extra group meetings. I hated having to cut dinner short in college b/c there was recitation at 8 or whatever. I'll take 16 hrs of no bullsh*t instruction early in the morning over 30+ hrs of crap lecture I have to speed through at 2x. At least my afternoons will be free to nap or take electives or play chess. After working for 3 years being free after 12 sounds ****ing awesome. I understand the people still in school balking at the 8 am mandatory but real talk, if that's your major reason for turning down any school, that's kinda dumb but to each their own. Your body will adjust to the schedule and PBL will make you engaged instead of falling asleep in a lecture environment. Plus once you're on clerkships your ass gonna be up at 6 am anyway so might as well get used to it in the long haul folks
Yes, 8-12:30 isn't too bad, but that's just a fraction of what you actually have to do. You will have a minimum of 4 hours of prep work to get done for the next day. Some days, the prep work can take 10+ hours. You will spend less time in the classroom, but more time hunched over your desk. And those 4 hours in the classroom are not the same as 4 hours in lecture. They are a very active 4 hours of learning. You cannot turn your brain off during this time. Many of us remember fondly those days of our youth when we could sit in the back of chemistry class, daydreaming about the TA, and catch up on everything back in the dorm that evening. You will not have time for that here. Yes, there is less strictly-structured time, but your afternoons will not be free. If you are a Pathways student and you regularly find your afternoons free, I suggest that you talk to someone in the administration because you will probably be failing out soon.
You also need to remember that our Wednesdays (from ~8-5) are spent in our Practice of Medicine course, where we work in a clinic, shadow doctors (and not the bs pre-med kind of shadowing), practice patient interactions, take histories and physicals, sit through lectures about all sorts of things, and generally learn all the non-classroom skills of being a doctor. This is usually the best part of the week, but it eats up a huge amount of time.
I agree with you about 8am, though. You'll survive. And if getting to class by 8 is a deal-breaker for you, perhaps you should look elsewhere.
The major ones for me, with the disclosure that this is my undisputed top choice:
Size. HMS literally has everything you can think of, which is great to get involved in, but it also literally has over 1500 residents and fellows and postdocs who are competing for the same time and energy people have to give. The impact of this varies depending on the scenario but size is not always a good thing
Shortened preclinical. I worry that I won't be able to keep up with the pace, esp after being out of school for a while. But observing their PBL classes makes me worry about this less
Financial aid. Compared to everyone else they're ****ing amazing. Compared to some other schools I've interviewed at, their unit loan at $34k is rather high
School sports. Literally nonexistent, as with most Ivies. Maybe basketball is worth watching here. Also crimson is pretty ugly, I like Columbia's blue a lot better
As others mentioned, the wintry east coast is not for everyone. I like to think of it as we'll take all the hardier individuals who can brave 3 months of real cold, the west can take all the crybabies who never want precipitation even as that does horrific damage to their environmental surroundings 😛
I was worried about size as well, but I haven't found it to be a big problem yet. Yes, there are ~1500 residents and fellow here, but there are also ~1500 resident and fellow positions. It's not like they're all competing for only 100 seats. There are a tremendous number of opportunities to go along with the tremendous number of people. The competition for resources will be intense anywhere - that's life - but Harvard has
vast resources.
Same with the shortened pre-clinical. We'll see how it works out. Every week I swing back-and-forth between "This curriculum is awesome. I'm learning so much. Maybe I won't know everything in 14 months, but they're setting us up for success," and "What the @#$% did I get myself into? I'm in way over my head. This is a mess and we're all going to end up killing our patients." In the end, we'll still get the same 4 years of medical school as everyone else, so
hopefully we'll end up knowing about the same amount of medicine.
The financial aid isn't amazing overall. That's a known issue (which will not improve by next year, sorry), and we've brought that up with the administration. Still, $140k of debt isn't too outrageous. Especially considering the caliber of education, resources, and opportunities that you will get in exchange.
Ice hockey isn't too bad. And I'm a big fan of blue, but a deep, navy blue. Not that baby blue stuff.
I love Boston.
I can't argue that the actual class time sounds like it would be a very refreshing change of pace from straight up lecture all of the time, my only gripe is that it's mandatory. For PBL to work I definitely get attendance is vital, but to have to be in class every day takes a little flexibility away. That might still be minor to some but I have my reasons that it's an inconvenience.
If you liked high school more than college, you'll love this new curriculum. Remember the good ol' days of mandatory attendance, assigned seating, nightly homework, and never talking with people because they belonged to a different clique? If that's what you like, you'll love Pathways. Unfortunately, if you prefer to be treated as a adult - to choose when, where, and how you will get your work done, just as long as it gets done - perhaps this new curriculum is not for you.
Of course, I understand that. But still, if the first-year schedule is the main reason to not consider a school, especially a well-resourced place like HMS, I think that's silly. 14 months goes by so quickly when you're busy it's ridiculous, and there is no other school in this country with as much flexibility in the latter half of med school as HMS gives its students. That's the clear tradeoff there
That's what I keep telling myself. We're almost 50% of the way through this pre-clinical circus. It'll all be worth it, right?
