Albany vs. EVMS

[sundaymorning7]

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I am a CA resident hoping to do residency back in CA. I am not particularly interested in research. I have been out of college for 2 years. I'm unmarried, social and I like doing outdoorsy stuff a lot (and I hope to continue that in the little free time I have in med school). Don't expect to get any scholarships at either school.

I got into EVMS earlier in the season and just got into Albany after a late interview. I am waitlisted at BU, USC and NYMC, but for now I need to decide between Albany and EVMS.

I really liked the feel I got for EVMS when I interviewed there. Seems solid, academically and clinically, and supportive. Students seemed social and happy, although many seemed a bit older/settled than myself. Norfolk seems like a pleasant place to live, if not the most happening.

And really not trying to bash here but I had a really lackluster interview day at Albany. Part of this was because I had to fly in right before the interview and out right after due to my work schedule so I didn't get to interact with any students besides the tour guide (who was very meh about everything). But I also felt like the school really wasn't trying to impress us or give us much information, which made me nervous (I don't know if they just stopped trying because it was the end of the season?). They didn't talk about the clinical years at all (when I asked our student tour guide she said she didn't know - wtf?!). My interviewer was a PhD who knew next to nothing about the med school. And the weather in Albany - eek.

I'm tempted to just go on my gut and choose EVMS, but I really like a lot of the things I've read about Albany --- clinical training, diverse population, super involved faculty --- and don't want to base my decision off of an off interview day. And I don't know if there is a difference between the two when it comes to getting residency in CA. I'm wondering if anyone has a different impression of Albany (or EVMS/Norfolk - especially the clinical training at EVMS) and could give me some insight.

Thanks!!

 

[TheMightySmiter]

Go with your gut, for sure! I don't think you'll have a much better chance at matching into a Cali residency at Albany than at EVMS.

 

[jinobi]

I'm an Albany MS-I, also CA expat from UCLA - and I want to return too! Sorry you had a poor interview experience; we're sometimes not the best at advertising ourself, but that's why I'm here on SDN instead. 🙂

Some quick points off the top of my head; just PM me if you have more detailed questions:

I still think of myself more as a city guy, but there are a crapton of outdoorsy things to do around Albany. I've been rock climbing (outdoor/indoor), camping (AMC Outing Club has all the coolers, tents, sleeping bags, kayaks, and tarps you'll need for a good time - I came back from a weekend post-exam outing, and it was a blast), ski trips (US/Canada), paintball (played in the woods nearby last week), hiking (went up mountains, saw waterfalls), ice skating (rink in downtown opens for cheap)...

There's been a pretty consistent group of M4s matching back into CA (many clustered around OC), and the school will give you support for away rotations and setting yourself up well for interviews.

AMC grads do get around. my buddy is from UCLA, and he's currently interested in EM. As luck has it, the EM residency director at UCLA is an AMC grad too; so he has some nice shadowing/research/ball-garglin' opportunities already set for this summer when he goes back to LA.

Lots of willing faculty (read: MDs) willing to give you shadowing opportunities, research projects, and just general mentorship. All depends on what kind of effort you want to put into it; one guy is really into Ortho, so he set up Grand Rounds with the ortho residents at their spanking new surgery center - the ortho PD was totally willing to spend time with him organizing this.

 

[SallySparrow]

Hey, I don't know how much time you have to decide, but here's my two cents. I'm also a CA resident at Albany, one of jinobi's classmates. Sorry you had a bad interview experience - if it was the last set of interviews (May 2/3), the first years were having a test that Friday and the 2nd years were gone studying for their boards and the 3rd/4th years were out on the floors. It's a shame no one could talk to you about clinical years, because from what I've heard that's really where a strength of Albany is, and I don't understand why they don't try and sell that a little harder. Lots of cases, good clinical faculty, Albany grad seem to be well respected. The match list is posted, it looks like people have done really well and matched into their top choices. As jinobi said, there's a lot of students here who are from California *and go back to CA* . Also, the student body is really friendly and supportive here - I'm part of the first year committee that is supposed to give talks at the Welcoming Nights, and really admissions just told us to be ourselves and talk to interviewees about the school honestly, because they were pretty confident that we'd naturally sell it just by being awesome😉 But really, they said that the student body is usually the draw for a lot of people, so I'm sorry you didn't get to meet more students.

I do feel like the administration tries to shield us from some information because they're trying to create well-rounded medical students who aren't necessarily just studying for a test (but they do try to prep us well for the Steps) and because they want to lessen our anxiety. I get less anxious by getting more information, so this has been a little annoying for me😉 And as an older student, I feel a little babied by it, but I can see that they have good intentions.

I can't say anything about EVMS, but I did go to Norfolk to help out at a summer camp for the deaf a couple of years ago. Coming from California (and having spent a good amount of time in both SF and LA), Norfolk and Albany both look like they have equal amounts of stuff to do. Not a whole lot, but enough to complement Med School where you'll be pretty busy as it is!
I don't think the weather is that bad, but we had a piddly winter this year (I can count the number of times it snowed on one hand). I personally like the idea of snow (and mostly that I can try it out for a few years and then I can move somewhere else if I don't like it.)

Cost is probably a factor - Albany is expensive! I don't know how much it costs to go to EVMS, but there's no chance of "in-state" tuition at Albany. If you can get residency in Virginia and lower your costs after a year or two, that's definitely a plus. For me, any US MD school is probably a good place to get an education, so all other things being pretty much equal, I'd look at cost.

 

[jinobi]

so, you going to the slider thing tonight too sally? 😉

You're going to get an equivalent medical education at any US MD school. While you may have gut feelings, cost should be your primary determinant - it's the main thing that's going to be looming over you after graduation. Match lists aren't a predictor of where you'll be ending up after, they only state the preferences (specialty and location) of the 4th years that match.

 

[DrAntiDentite]

Can you guys me if anyone you know has done some 3rd or 4th year rotations in NYC?

 

[jinobi]

Can you guys me if anyone you know has done some 3rd or 4th year rotations in NYC?

Just yesterday, we had a 4th year matched Peds panel - one of them did 2 away rotations in Manhattan. Keep in mind these were arranged via VSAS (Visiting Student Application Service), which anyone at any US medical school can do.

As far as I know, there aren't any official core rotations that you can do in NYC for M3; the NYC schools and the Caribs have got that part locked down. Don't quote me on that though.

 

[DrAntiDentite]

I understand, thanks a lot for the input.

 

[SallySparrow]

I told you jinobi, I'm shadowing in the OR today😉 This doc has cases scheduled til at least 5, so I don't think I can make it. And I didn't get tickets in time anyway, but good luck to your sliders!

Indeed, most of the available rotations seem to be around here - AMC, the VA, CPDC, St. Peter's, Latham, Saratoga, Glen's Falls, Ellis (Schnectady), Samaritan (Troy), Clifton Park... I think the farthest that isn't an away is probably Cooperstown? If that's still a site and not part of the longitudinal clerkship that we were piloting (they'll be working with Columbia as of next year)
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/12/26/prl21226.htm

But DrAntiDentite - lots of people do away rotations, especially fourth year. One of the students who matched into Peds said yesterday that she pulled of 5/10 periods in her 4th year as aways.

 

[sundaymorning7]

Thanks for the input everyone! I really wish I got to meet more students at Albany too! Tuition at EVMS is 56K and Albany is 52K. No chance of establishing residency in Virginia - they lock you in to the OOS tuition for all 4 years.

 

[jinobi]

Well, that's 16K right there over the course of four years. Do you know how much grant/scholarship based financial aid EVMS gives?

AMC doesn't give much to M1s (it's the way they allocate funds), but it ramps up progressively as you go on. I have a EFC of $300; I've received $6,900 from AMC scholarships and a $2,500 outside scholarship for the 2012-2013 school year.

 

[hiyaman]

Nvmd

 

[sundaymorning7]

Still on the fence. Can anyone speak to the amount of small group/problem based learning at either place??

 

[SallySparrow]

Still on the fence. Can anyone speak to the amount of small group/problem based learning at either place??

Albany does not have much problem based learning, at least not in first year. Most of it is lecture and learning on your own. We are having two Patient Oriented Problem Solving (POPS) sessions next week, and supposedly we'll have a few more of these modules next year. They're in groups of 4. You could look these up online, as the content was made elsewhere. We were told that most of the learning for these sessions would be at the 2 hour session itself as we worked through the exercise with our groups. We were specifically told at the beginning of the theme last week that the purpose of the exercise was to learn to work well with others and work and learn in a group, despite its inefficiency compared to studying the information on one's own.
(Sounded like they got some negative feedback about these sessions last year and were trying to do some damage control... like with any group project it probably depends on who is in your group and whether or not everyone is on the same page about how much effort they want to put in.)

We had maybe 3 group projects during the year (about 4-6 people) - one for a nutrition class, a short lit review for our ethics class, and a journal club style paper presentation for our evidence based medicine class. A little bit of class time was scheduled for the last two exercises to help compile the work we had done individually toward the projects.

In Anatomy, we are split into groups of 6 and further split into pairs. Two people will dissect on a given day, and then a couple of days later we have an hour where they will "teach" the dissection to the other 4 people in the group. I put teach in quotes only because the other students are ideally expected to have done some studying on their own beforehand (e.g. watch the recording of the prelab.) Many groups also email out study guides or notes to their members ahead of the demo. The anatomy professors are in the lab during the demo too and are available to answer any questions. At the end of the session, the pair who was teaching leaves the room and the other 4 people take a short quiz on the dissection. (usually 5-6 questions, worth 1 point total)

Our ethics and evidence based medicine classes involve a fair amount of small group discussion - our ethics class has us broken up into groups of about 12-14 and our evidence based medicine class is in groups of about 24. We probably meet once or twice a month in each class.

In our clinical skills class, we learn the parts of the physical exam in pairs with a 4th year student helping us out.

I think that's about it. Then there's a lot of lecture and studying on your own. There are some case conferences usually scattered within a theme where there is basically a relevant patient presentation/vignette and some questions that you can work through ahead of the class. Some professors call on raised hands during the session, so it's only whoever wants to contribute or ask questions. Though one of our professors in Neuro likes to start in the front row and ask a question of everybody in order, so you have to come prepared to those! I have worked with a few study partners on these at times, but it could also be a more solitary event, depending on your preference. The sessions aren't mandatory; I just happen to go to class all the time. But if you're behind, or have other commitments or whatever, you certainly don't need to go to the conference and usually they are recorded and you can listen to the discussion later once you've had time to study the material. Some professors specifically request that we don't record the discussions to encourage us to come to class or because they feel the value in the session is to have your questions answered real time and work through any misunderstandings. Usually they post the answers online later.
Similarly, our histology professors love answer questions in person or in small groups. There are usually two sessions of the histology labs where you can work through the slide boxes or online slides, look at the demo stations they have set up, or look at some EMs with practice questions printed on them. Not everyone comes, but we usually all freely help each other out in the lab. Sometimes I feel like that's the part of our curriculum where I get the most interaction with varied members of my class - because in lecture most people sit with their friends or in the same places every day, on their own people usually keep steady study groups/situations, in anatomy we have assigned tables to work with all year, etc. whereas in histo labs it's much more free flowing and there is constant flux (of people coming and going during the session itself, of people jumping into whatever microscopes are free)

Our class is about 140 students. I'd say class attendance in our year ranges from about 30-70 people on a regular day. Some people are watching from home at their leisure but will come in person for particular lecturers based on lecturing style. (e.g. there's usually even more attendance if there's a physician presenting, or if it's our anatomy/embryology professor who often likes to make crazy hand motions that aren't captured too well on the recording which is audio and computer screen only). There are a only few required classes (ethics, clinical skills sessions, evidence based medicine) where everybody has to show up at the same time.
I'm told there is less class attendance amongst the second years. I am not sure whether this is just due to the particular makeup of individuals in their class or due to the 2nd year curriculum.

 

[nu2142]

So I actually am in the same situation right now! Have you made your decision??

This may be a no brainer but I'm not sure: Does going to medical school in NY increase your chances of getting a residency in NY? I'm a NY resident and would like to get my residency in NY but the idea of going away to Norfolk for 4 years sounds kinda nice to me. Any input is helpful, thank you!!

 

[sundaymorning7]

Hey!
I see from the EVMS group that you already made your decision, but I ended up getting into Albany and NYMC and choosing EVMS over both. I think they are all pretty comparable schools, but I got a better feeling at EVMS (along with a few concrete little things I like better about EVMS). Good luck!

 

[nu2142]

Ahhh yes it was such a tough call but I just went with my gut and wanted to be closer to family so Albany it was! Good luck to you too!