Originally posted by taehong81
I have my mind set on attending Emory next fall and I would like to ask current students some questions. What are your thoughts on Emory? When do first get exposed to clinical medicine? Your personal opinions on the grading system and joint test system? How are the students and the atmosphere? Thanks for your answer. Good luck on your studies!
I'm currently an M4 at Emory. I've been extremely happy with my education here. Honestly, the best advice I would give you (or any other applicants) is to go by your gut feeling about a school. If you visit for an interview and get the feeling "this is the place I want to be," I would advise you to go with that. It sounds like you already are thinking strongly about Emory.
That being said, my other piece of advice is to choose a school by its clinical education/reputation more than by the pre-clinical curriculum. I know it's hard to ignore the 1st 2 years since that's what you will be doing in the near future, but honestly, good clinical training is what will make you a good doctor. At Emory, I feel the 3rd and 4th years are superb, with a wide range of hospitals and different patient populations as well as significant responsibility in patient care as a med student.
To answer your questions, the joint exams here are not that bad. Tests in med school are not going to be fun anyway, so you may as well get them over with on one day rather than stretching them out over a week. I was leery of grades while applying to med school, but I don't mind them so much now. I do think I have worked harder than I would have in a pass-fail system, but I definitely do not believe that grades cause a competitive, "cutthroat" atmosphere. There is not a whole lot of clinical exposure during the 1st year- M1s spend 1 week on the wards during the 1st month of school (I'm not really sure what they do, this was implemented only a year or two ago). There is a little bit of hospital exposure the spring of 1st year, but most of the training you get in interviewing/physical diagnosis is during 2nd year. Finally, the other students here (with a few exceptions) are really amazing, interesting, and awesome people that work hard but can also have fun outside of school.
Obviously, I have a very positive opinion of Emory. I'm sure there are some people who are less happy, but I think they are in a distinct minority. Anyway, good luck and I hope you end up at Emory next year!
