I think that this topic is a good one because it's been on my mind a lot. Some good points have been raised, and I think it's important to realize that if you think or know you want to end up in one of the more competitive specialties (dermatology, ophthalmology, radiolgy, etc.) going to the 'best' medical school is somewhat important because it's easy to see, simply by perusing the various residency placements at the various med schools, where students are shipping off to [as an aside, I don't think that the year in-between medical school and these types of residency programs is referred to as a transitional year, rather, it is strictly a preliminary year; I was under the impression that the term 'transitional year' refers to someone who has yet to decide what type of residency program to apply to and is taking another year to do something else (whether it be more clinical rotations or what have you); I say this because when have you ever seen someone take a 'transitional year' at New York-Presbyterian? It's always at a place I've never heard of].
As for the California point: I would agree that if you know you want to end up in California, you should go to a California school. Unfortunately, if you don't live in California, it's rather tough to assume you'll get into Stanford, UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, etc. However, many of the 'top' east coast schools (Columbia, Harvard, Penn, etc.) send a significant amount of students out west for residency programs (check their respective info should you visit the campus or website) [and, also, you can ship off to any number of places should you so desire if you go to one of those schools]. This goes along with a point discussed above by myself and others; namely, that you have more flexibility if you go to one of the 'best' medical schools in the country. I keep typing best in pseudo-quotes because 'best' certainly is a subjective term. If all you're life you've dreamed of becoming a doctor and you have no idea about specializing or where you want to practice or in what type of environment, you should be excited to go to a medical school that seems to fit you best based on what's available to you (i.e. where you interview) and what feels right. If, on the other hand, you know you're deadset on being a radiation oncologist at Mass General, it'd be in your favor if you somehow managed to get into Harvard [as an aside, did anyone else notice how eerie it is that about 50% of HMS graduates remain at HMS-affiliated hospital systems? I mean, sure, a lot of schools send the highest percentage of students to their own hospitals, but 50%? Sounds a bit inclusive to me].
To give you my own personal experience: I work at the Hospital of UPenn in GI within the Dept. of Medicine. On the wall is a list of all of the Medicine Interns for the current year. A lot of them (I don't have the numbers because I'm home right now) are from Penn. There are some from NYU, Yale, Columbia, Case Western, Jefferson, Chicago, Harvard. And then there is a guy from University of Georgia. Now I don't know anything about that medical program, being from the northeast and all, and I can't say whether or not he had to graduate in the top of his class at Georgia to get to HUP. All I know is that he's there. So you can get wherever you want for residency, it's just that some schools feed into certain programs much easier than others. Just like college.
As for me, I'm striving to go to the best damn medical school I can so that more doors are open for me in the future since I have no idea where I'm heading in the health care profession. Also, it seems that the 'best' medical schools have the most pretigious faculty, and though prestige is another one of those grey terms, these docs are at the forefront of their respective fields, meaning you'll be learning the newest/best treatment from the best specialists in your clinical years. Docs are 'less-tiered' schools may not be publishing as often or giving as many talks abroad. Does that matter? It depends. We'll all (hopefully) be going to CME (Continuing Medical Education) conferences in the future and whether we're at the podium or in the audience, we'll all be getting bottomless cups of coffee.
JHU '02
Some Medical School '07 and beyond.
