Does anyone's medical school have an official Discord for their students?

[GUH_rayson]

I know the answer is likely no because I can't find anything on here about it, but I can't seem to get it out of my head of how useful a student-run and school endorsed Discord server would be.

My vision is to use Discord as a common meeting place for students in all years to meet, discuss, game, study, etc. I am in my school's class of 2024, and when we started mid-pandemic people were making GroupMes left and right, and I think it goes without saying how annoying being in 12 different GroupMes is and some people chose to disengage entirely. Also, with GroupMe and the pandemic there was no opportunity for people to talk face to face other than Zoom meetings, finding out who the gamers were, or breaking COVID guidelines and throwing live events.

I think Discord has the capacity to be a better tool for med students to connect virtually and with greater participation.
-The text channels allow for the consolidation of many topics into one place that people turn on/off notifications for without having 1000000 red badges on thier phone and could check at their leisure without having to join a GroupMe.
-The voice channels allow for people physically talk to each other without coordinating a Zoom meeting and would allow for more impromptu hang outs/study sessions/etc.
-If it was school-wide and endorsed then multiple years would be using it and checking it regularly, thus increasing cross-class interactions as a M4 and a M1 could both be interested in cooking and interact in the Cooking text channel.

There's more, but to summarize, I see the potential in Discord as a tool to foster better med student communities but nobody knows what it is and Discord itself is kinda confusing to newcomers. I was just wondering if anyone else thought this was a good idea or not or has seen it done somewhere.

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[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

We unfortunately have both a slack and a GroupMe, neither of which have our whole class.

 

[stickgirl390]

I tried to get a discord running for my class. No one was into it. We have a class wide group me. It’s a shame because discord is such an amazing resource. I suppose it will remain a hidden gem for us gamer nerds.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I tried to get a discord running for my class. No one was into it. We have a class wide group me. It’s a shame because discord is such an amazing resource. I suppose it will remain a hidden gem for us gamer nerds.

We used it for a virtual interest group fair last year, and everyone loved it. But no one wanted to adopt it for our class lol.

 

[Chelseadagger]

We have a school run slack space (I think that's the right word). I dont think its very widely used, however. Also have a groupme, which I detest, but as others have said, good luck getting people to change once they're dug in.

 

[GUH_rayson]

We have a school run slack space (I think that's the right word). I dont think its very widely used, however. Also have a groupme, which I detest, but as others have said, good luck getting people to change once they're dug in.

Yeah my current plan of action that I'm taking is finding the right faculty to talk to that would let me do a Discord tutorial for next year's orientation. Already started on the PowerPoint

 

[GUH_rayson]

Our class ('24) does have a discord, but unfortunately someone made a Groupme first and people were very reluctant to migrate completely, even though the Discord has proved to be infinitely better organized (e.g. separate channels for each class, etc). Most of the students are on the discord now but Groupme is still the primary means of communication, despite it being an utterly disorganized mess in comparison.

For any incoming c/o '25 students, I'd highly recommend getting a discord server getting started up asap and distribute it before someone inevitably makes a Groupme since that seems to be the "in" thing nowadays. Remember that this will be the primary means of communication for your class for the next 4 years. I strongly encouraged my brother to set up a discord asap for his class, and I'm so jealous of how their server is flourishing now.

I also think a school-wide Discord would be incredible, like you mentioned. You could easily set MS1/2/3/4 roles so that each year's students had exclusive access to their class channels, and then also set up things like specialty-specific channels where students interested in them could easily find mentors and find helpful info for rounds/rotations, etc. without having to shoot out a flood of emails that would be lost in the 50 random emails we get from admin every day. Now that I think about it, I don't know why this isn't the norm. Seems like a school-wide discord server would be an incredibly useful and cohesive method of school-wide communication.

Yeah everyone I've talked to about it and who knows Discord sees that it's a no brainer. I think my next step is presenting it to the school and trying to get a Discord tutorial/mandatory sign up during orientation

 

[CaptainWEMT]

My medical school has a school-wide discord, with individual chats for each class and learning community. We still end up primarily using Groupme though...

 

[Lost in Translation]

I prefer IRC where you're actually anonymous and can vent about anything with minimal fear of repercussions.