I interviewed, was accepted, and nearly went to CCLCM. I loved it. The clinic has some of the world's best doctors, especially in cardiology. Okay, so you knew that already. The five year research track certainly isn't for everyone, but it'd be a great way to keep research integrated into your schedule if you're interested in academic medicine but not seven years for an MD-PhD. The dark side of that scheduling is that classes and a research project start right away in the beginning of July. Burnt out coming off of a stressful quarter and in something of a funk, I was in no condition to start school at that point. Those who are taking a year off might feel differently.
Things to note about the school:
-PBL: It might not prepare you quite as well for the USMLE, but it's a lot more fun for a lot of people than lectures. (A side note: Students from Case's main program tend to stay at home and watch videos of the lectures, often at 1.5x or 2x speed.)
-Prosections: They say it saves time. Lame.
-Advising: Terrific advising system. You're one of only 32/class, so you'll get plenty of attention.
-Early clinical interaction: Hang out in a doctor's office starting 1st year. I guess it would depend on the doctor how much you get to do. You get a full white coat instead of a dorky short one.
-Research, research, research: The Lerner research center has awesome facilities and researchers. You'll also have the resources of Case available. Of particular interest to me was Case's terrific neural prosthetics work. You can get an MS in biomed engineering, anatomy, or "biomed. investigation" or something like that.
-Reputation: CCLCM may be new, but Case is a member of the 13 school consortium (Columbia, Harvard, Yale, WashU, a bunch of other top schools) and the Clinic has a reputation matched only by the other clinic (Mayo). Even so, this was a big sticking point for me. I want to match well in neurosurgery in SF or NY, most likely, so I need all the help I can get. The residency directors I contacted advised me to go with Columbia. Even one of my interviewers thought reputation might be a little bit of an issue for that sort of residency. Obviously, if you want peds, this shouldn't concern you. And keep in mind that you'll have an inside track at residency at the clinic, which is nothing to sniff at.
Location: I kept getting told that Cleveland has the rock and roll hall of fame. What does that tell you? And I hear LeBron wants out. At least housing is cheap. Your classmates will mostly be midwesterners.
More on classmates: Bright and nerdy was my impression. Mostly (2/3) male in the first class, I don't know about this year. Case kids seemed like the kind of people I don't get along with all that well, but that could be a function of only meeting a few I didn't click with. If you're more of a partier than a nerd, you'll probably like them better than the CCLCM students.
Fifth year continuation fee is to keep you on the books as a student. You'll be paid a stipend for the research year and for both summer research rotations. Financial aid seemed pretty good. (My host cited that as a big reason he went with CCLCM.)
As far as applying goes, the best thing to do is stress how you want to combine research and clinical practice. That's their whole idea of the "physician investigator." I talked a large amount about how working in a lab connected with people that worked with Christopher Reeve on spinal cord injury and rehab. reflected my interest, based in part on football and snowboarding, in being able to help those with spinal cord injuries through research into new neurosurgical procedures involving neural prosthetics or maybe stem cells. More important than the actual amount of research experience (I hadn't had a huge amount.) is your ability to show that it matters to you and to make them believe that you really want to do it as a major part of your career.
