Downsides to New Med School

[Dbate]

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Quinnipiac University is opening a new medical school, that will be open around the time I apply for medical school, and I wanted to ask if there were any downsides to attending a new medical school.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x4877.xml

Are there any tangible (i.e. career related) downsides? People often mention things like matching and specialty and such, but I intend to go into a non-competitive specialty (e.g. IM, Neuro, or EM). Due to the relative lack of competitiveness, would it matter if I attended a new medical school?

 

[MilkmanAl]

Graduating from a new school won't affect your career options directly, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the guinea pig as they fart their way through whatever kind of curriculum they're implementing.

 

[RogueUnicorn]

Graduating from a new school won't affect your career options directly, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the guinea pig as they fart their way through whatever kind of curriculum they're implementing.

you can say the same about any school that's making curriculum changes

 

[young2sj]

The only possible thing I could see going wrong would be the structure of the curriculum, such as implementing new ideas and playing by trial-and-error, which could (i suppose) cause some frustration, especially for students.

 

[SoyRicoSuave]

If they get accredited then you should be fine. Don't worry about years 1 and 2, your sucess on the boards is from personal determination more so than what teachers taught you (or so I hear). Do they have established hospitals to do rotations at, and if so what are the hospitals? With your desired specialties I'm sure any county one would be fine.

 

[Dbate]

To direct the school, they have been poaching deans of medical departments from the University of Connecticut's medical school. From this article: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Quinnipiac-plans-to-open-medical-school-391741.php they are currently seeking a teaching hospital.

In the medical profession, is there a stigma against graduates of new schools or do people care about the school one attends?

From what I have been reading, new medical schools typically subsidize first year tuition for students, which is another incentive to attend.

 

[Barcu]

Don't some schools have connections with residency programs (beyond just doing residency at the same place you did med school)? Not direct connections, but if they like residents from one school, they may be more likely to choose residents from there in the future. A new school wouldn't have that.

Not sure on that, but I think I've heard that floating around before.

Edit: I remembered, it was at an interview. They said that Mayo started taking more of their students for residency, since they were impressed with previous students. Whether that was true or a recruitment tool or both, I can't say. Just something to think about.

 

[MilkmanAl]

you can say the same about any school that's making curriculum changes

Indeed you can.

 

[EpicBearMan]

The main concern I might have is the lack of upperclassmen to serve as mentors and answer your questions.

 

[MilkmanAl]

1. I'm with bleargh. Even established schools make constant changes and use their students as guinea pigs as you put it. If anything a new school has some consistency cuz it tests this curriculum for several years before they decide to make changes. Established schools make changes midway through.

Example:

USF made changes in their curriculum last year and are still making changes in their curriculum. Over the last several years there seems to have been changes almost every year in curriculum. Whereas the last 2 years UCF has maintained consistency as has FIU.

In FAU's case, its new but its curriculum has been consistent the last 6 years as it was under the Umiami accreditation and will be the same thing next year under its new name.

Meanwhile schools like USF are constantly making changes midway through in different years of the curriculum rather then showing consistency for a few years and then changing it. I would argue that students like this year's M1s at USF are more of guinea pigs then FAU's soon to be M1s will be or UCF or FIU's M2s were when they started as the charter class 2 years ago.

Maybe you missed the part where I agreed with him, too. 😉 I mean, if I had to choose between an established school with a new curriculum and an entirely new program, I'd choose the former, but I wouldn't want to go to either.

 

[Mace1370]

Maybe you missed the part where I agreed with him, too. 😉 I mean, if I had to choose between an established school with a new curriculum and an entirely new program, I'd choose the former, but I wouldn't want to go to either.

I'm with Milkman on this one. I was at a Georgetown for a year during their curriculum changes. Needless to say, it was quite frustrating.

 

[FIREitUP]

you can say the same about any school that's making curriculum changes

perhaps, but those schools at least have a model of what works and what doesn't and are using their experience to guide them in altering the curriculum. new schools do not have the luxury of this experience, rather, they must draw off of other schools' curricular experiences. Another issue might be later down the road is that some residency directors have had experiences with graduates from certain medical schools and know them to have undergone good clinical training. Of course, you can argue the converse; that a more established university may have impressed residency directors negatively. Personally, if I had the choice, barring any fiscal decision making, I would go with the more established school.