The response I've accumulated of over months of being asked similar questions haha:
The atmosphere at Miller is very collaborative; people here tend to be relatively friendly and laid back; it's hard to be a dick in such nice weather haha..we share a lot of resources with each other through our facebook group. Also, I haven't met one faculty member yet who didn't care about their job or the students.
There are so many opportunities for shadowing, volunteering, research, etc. For instance if you wanted to shadow trauma surgery, you have the ability to just walk in so long as you're credentialed. In terms of MD/MPH rotations, you do your 3rd year at West Palm Beach and can either stay there 4th year or come back down to Miami. The reality is, attending/resident-to-medstudent ratio is much better at the regional campus but you get a good training either way.
As far as any negatives, it's really just been a lot of logistical things that could be improved on as far class/session scheduling but once again, I'm not sure how the MD's feel about their experience. Otherwise, I'm content with the program. No program is perfect.
As far as interactions between the two cohorts, there are so many opportunities to get out there. We host health fairs almost every month and you meet people there. We also volunteer at free health clinics. All ~200 of us are divided into societies where they put together md and md/mph students. In these groups we do random doctoring skills things or whatever else. Socially, I'd say we get along pretty well and do cross-over from time to time. There are intramural sports/activities. At least one my classmates lives with an MD. It will definitely feel like a divide only because you don't see each other a lot on a daily basis but it's not negative. Personally, I like being in the smaller cohort.
I think being in such an urban, underserved environment plays a very strong role in the quality of education that we receive here. You have to opportunity to interact and learn from some of the sickest patients across many different cultures in addition to being exposed to people across a wide socioeconomic range. People travel from all over (including the Carribean) to come to Jackson Memorial Hospital, UMiami Hospital, and the VA. At Miller, they really teach you how to incorporate all of these influences in your practice to make you a more conscious physician...
This is what one of my classmates on the MD-side said a couple months ago:
"What I love about Miami (The city): In short it's one of the most vibrant cities in the US. There's always things going on (concerts, sports, etc) and the number of avenues to blow off steam is crazy. Aside from the beach (a whooping 15 minute drive from UM's campus) there are tons of awesome restaurants and bars and some people in have parents with boats too. Most med students live in brickell, which means you can take the train directly from where live to the medical campus...A traffic free commute in ~15 minutes!
What I love about Miller: The clinical setup is second to none, period. You have Jackson, one of the biggest hospitals in the nation 20 feet from the med school building. It's a 1500 bed county hospital with an insane level 1 trauma center...its so crazy that they actually train military trauma surgeons there before deploying them to Iraq/Afghanistan. I wandered into the Jackson ER a couple days ago as a 1st year med student with 0 clinical skills and was able to do basic physical exams, take histories, and talk with attendings about how they work up various complaints. Thats really not something possible at many medical schools. Theres also a million specialty hospitals and clinics on the med campus (Miami transplant institute, sylvester cancer center, Bascom Palmer eye institute, etc) along with the VA and the private UM hospital. So basically any kind of medicine under the sun that you're interested in is being practiced within walking distance of the med school building.
What I'd change: I'm not a huge fan of UM's technology service. Its sort of cobbled together out of a bunch of older systems and doesn't integrate very well. That said while its annoying that our schedule, powerpoints, and lecture recordings are on different websites it's not THAT big a deal lol. Worst thats ever happened is we had to wait an extra day to get our grades back on an exam or lecture videos delayed getting uploaded. Also the med building itself is kinda old and jenky but theyre building a new one soon, which will be beautiful."