Difference between Research Medical Schools and Primary Care Medical Schools

[Edivocke]

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Say, I wanted to go into Surgery of some kind. What would be a better choice...going into a primary care school or a research school?

I'm not too sure of the working definition of these schools

What does it mean to be a research school? Does that mean that they only train epidemiologists...and not surgeons?

What does it mean to be a primary care school? Only general practioners?

Thx

 

[snobored18]

The divide between research and primary care schools is kind of something that US News invented. All med schools to a degree have active research, just a few of these schools do more and do it better, these are generally more competive and better known school (the Harvards, Dukes and Mayos). Primary care schools as im sure you can see are dominated by schools in more rural states, the reason is that these schools consciously focus on training and encouraging primary care. The long and short is both specialists and primary care physicians come out of both types of schools. If you finish in the top 10% at Kansas or Nebraska with identical boards you have a similar shot of gaining entry into a surgical residency as someone in the top 10% at Harvard or Hopkins. The research names really only matter if you are dead set on going into academic medicine and doing some research as a living...other than that it honestly doesn't matter the top ranked primary care schools produce surgeons....the top ranked research schools produce surgeons. Its all about being in an enviroment where you are comfortable. For me as someone who has done a lot of research but absolutely loves interacting with people I'm looking at schools like Iowa, Mayo, Minnesota and Wisconsin that are ranked on both sides...its nice to know that your school can train academicians, specialists and primary care docs that have good reputations.

 

[dbhvt]

What sno said with 2 additions:

1) if you want to find out what place trains a lot of x, thats the one good peice of information you can get from match lists.

2) As far as I can tell USNEWS ranked research schools tend to produce more surgeons than USNEWS ranked primary care schools. This is probably less because surgery has anything to do with research than because family practice docs aren't surgeons.

 

[Iwy Em Hotep]

Caveat on the above is that match lists vary from year to year, depending on student interest. Otherwise, sound advice.