Hopkins Thoughts and Experiences

[Premed2003]

Could current Hopkins students or other students who have friends at Hopkins please comment on their experiences? Is the stress level really as high as it is said to be? How many hours do you study per day and what is your quality of life? If you have friends at other top med schools, it would be marvelous if you could comment on your experiences compared to theirs.

I am looking for a low stress med school with a great qualify of life. I really like Hopkins other than the rumors about high stress and bad qualify of life. Are these rumors truly unfounded, or just student pride for the school?

Thanks in advance🙂

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[BlueJayBill]

bump...

the opinions on this topic arent even similar.. from a bunch of kids i've heard it's practically the disneyworld of medicine (from the kids who go there).. and on the other hand, i've heard it's a high-stress lobster tank from those who didnt choose to attend.

-Billy Bob

 

[indianboy]

Note: This mess that is to follow deals with nuances. The docs that come out of almost all the top schools will be excellent, get good residencies, and be able to college trophy husband/wives yada yada blah blah:

Hopkins is a place where the school itself has a strong part in transforming a person into a worldclass doctor. They take students from wide backgrounds, podunk schools to ivies, hardcore scientists to matadors and literally transforms them. This differs from a few other elite medical schools because they simply start with the best material (students) and all they have to do is not screw them up and they will be great regardless. This is not to say that the other schools would not be able to, they simply don't need to, and their curriculums prove it. Harvard's NP? Yale System? Put an underprepared, marginally motivated student into that environment, and watch them flounder ... when they get to the boards. Throw them into Hopkins, where it used to be graded, but more importantly, where there is a reputation of being hardcore about medicine, and they may still struggle, but they now have a fire under their ass. I wonder how the change to P/F or H/P/F at hopkins will effect the environment - probably not much, because the reputation isn't going anywhere.

Basically what I saw is this (was accepted to med school) - The clinical training is second to none. Every top medical shcool I went to acknowledged that Hopkins docs were the best trained. In order to garner that sort of mass agreement, there is an amalgam of factors that must be present. The instruction itself during basic science years is not much unlike many other schools - 'parade of stars format', and you get some good lecturers, and some bad ones. You simply are very responsible for knowing a lot of material. Now, stories of cutthroatness etc... are just propgated by 1)bitter people or 2)stories of the undergrad - people seemed very willing to share material and old tests, as well as join study groups. There is simply so much you are responsible for (like many med schools - UCSD comes to mind) that it takes a lot of work. But most importantly, the clinical years are amazing apparently, because the amount of responsiblity they give the students is very high, rotations are like sub-I's at many other places.

I did not find the students to be as interesting or outgoing as at other schools, and nor did I recieve a warm feeling from the institution. Reed dormitory, and the surrounding areas made me want to stab myself in the eye, until I realized that someone would probably do me the favor in the next 4 years if I went there. Some people think that it is very safe, after all, their is a battalion of Hopkins police that won't let you walk around without them. This all goes into the personal 'gut feeling' category, which resulted in my withdrawal. Its all about what you are looking for in your school, what your priorities are, no matter how stupid they seem.

Hope that Helps

P 'retrodildonic' ShankOut

 

[MacGyver]

when I interviewed there (got rejected later) i noticed some similar stuff as indianboy, except the students all seemed nice.

the fact is, Hopkins loses a lot of applicants/acceptees because of the neighborhood/city its located in.

If location was a nonfactor in selection, I bet Hopkins would outrank every other med school on the planet in acceptance yield.

As it stands now however, Hopkins loses a good chunk of their accepted people to other schools because its located in the hood of Baltimore. Baltimore is an awful, awful city. Almost every city I can think of has mostly good parts with a few bad sparts interspersed here and there. With Baltimore, its the opposite: Baltimore has mostly BAD areas with a few good areas (i.e. the inner harbor) spread around.

I bet that if you moved the Hopkins med campus into an area like that of Stanford or Cornell, they would get a 99% yield rate on all their accepted students, because the hospital and clinical training is really that good.

So, the bottom line is if you dont care about location, then you really cant beat Hopkins. But if you do care about location, then look somewhere else. Based soley on the strength of the med school, Hopkins in my mind is the undisputed leader in medical education. Its the location that drags it down, the institution itself is absolutely stellar.

 

[fonzy]

Among research med schools Hopkins ranks second [U S News ratings], next to Harvard. I know a neurologist from Hopkins. He is good though he was very happy to hear that I knew how great Hopkins is.
Long time ago when I applied for a PhD in biomed engineering, I was not accepted. Now I am aspiring for an MD or MD-PhD. I do not know if I willtry there.

 

[Street Philosopher]

although i was rejected there, i have nothing but good things to say about the school itself. so much of medicine as we know it came from hopkins. from sir william osler, to "residents", "rounds", etc... the tradition is simply unbeatable.

neighborhood is well, bad. but personally i think it's worth the tradeoff... for the best medical education in the world.

 

[Adcadet]

This is taken from http://www.amsa.org/resource/cardev/medsurveyresults.cfm

Take it for what it's worth.



Below are the results for Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. As of January 11, 2003, 4 surveys have been completed for this school.

For each question, students were asked to rate their schools according to the following scale:

5=Excellent
4=Above Average
3=Average
2=Fair
1=Poor

Average values are shown for each question, and student comments are listed at the bottom of the page. Also, please realize that students were allowed to leave some questions blank. Therefore, "N/A" is used to indicate that there are no responses for that particular question. The standard deviation is shown in parentheses only for those questions for which there was more than one response.
Atmosphere JH
Learning environment (for this question only: 1=competitive, 5=cooperative student body) 3.3 (1.5)
Opportunities to get involved in extracurricular activities and level of student involvement 3.8 (1.0)

Geography
JH
Safety of the campus 2.3 (0.5)
Enjoyment of the area 2.8 (0.5)

Supportive Environment for:
JH
Careers in primary care 2.0 (0.8)
Underrepresented ethnic minorities 3.3 (1.2)
Lesbian, gay, and bisexual students 3.3 (1.0)
Students with disabilities 3.3 (0.6)
Married students 3.0 (0.0)

Academics (Years 1 & 2):
JH
Quality of teaching in years 1 and 2 4.5 (0.6)
Adequacy of curriculum in preparing you for USMLE Step 1 3.7 (1.5)
Hours per week in lectures for students in traditional curriculum (actual hours, not rated according to scale above) 26.3 (4.8)
Opportunities for patient interaction in the year 1 and 2 curriculum 3.8 (1.0)

Academics (Years 3 & 4):
JH
Quality of teaching in years 3 and 4 4.5 (0.7)
Amount of responsibility given to students for patient care 4.5 (0.7)
Overall assessment of the clinical training at your school 4.5 (0.7)

Facilities
JH
Adequacy of computer labs 3.5 (1.0)
Adequacy of libraries 4.5 (0.6)
Adequacy of study space 3.0 (1.4)

Administration
JH
Helpfulness of administration, i.e. Dean of Students 4.3 (1.0)
Financial aid counseling 3.3 (1.2)
Administration's support/encouragement of student organizations 3.8 (1.0)
Student involvement in administrative decisions, i.e. admissions, curriculum, etc. 4.3 (1.0)

Opportunities
JH
For research 5.0 (0.0)
To receive career guidance and mentoring 4.0 (1.2)
For experience with underserved populations 4.0 (0.8)

Overall satisfaction
JH
Provide an overall rating of your school 4.3 (0.5)

Open Questions
What do you like best about your school?

* Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine clinical experience in the last two years is phenomenal; in addition, the flexibility in the curriculum allows students to explore their career interests and make a more informed choice about residency training
* Supportive environment--you think of what you want to do, and it can happen. It's a wonderful place to grow and learn.
* Excellent opportunities for research and meeting the "top minds" in medicine. A lot of history in the school.

What do you like least about your school?

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
* there are some inadequacies in the curriculum during the first year, but I understand that this has improved somewhat.
* The neighborhood in which the school is located doesn't make me feel very comfortable.
* Its location and the competitive nature and introversion of the students.

Please share any other thoughts you may have about your school.

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
* the patient population is extremely varied with excellent exposure to everything from the bread and butter stuff to the rare.
* I really am disappointed in the lack of other openly queer students in my class. It would nice to have some people with related interests.

 

[doepug]

Adcadet, the above AMSA page that you copied is based on the feedback of only three students. Take it with a grain of salt.

Hopkins is fantastic. In my opinion, the school is second to none. I think the students are fabulous.

Baltimore is an acquired taste. It's a city that you begin to appreciate after living there for a while. There are plenty of great B'more neighborhoods, and rent is half of what you'd pay in most cities. About half of the first year class lives in Reed, but most people start moving into apartments pretty soon after landing in Baltimore.

I think Hopkins is truly an amazing place. I love it here, and I'll probably be staying here for residency. I've answered a bunch of questions in previous posts (try searching for Hopkins in the pre-allo forum), but if anyone has specific questions or would like to chat, please PM/e-mail me.

Cheers,

doepug
MS III, Johns Hopkins

 

[Adcadet]

Originally posted by doepug
Adcadet, the above AMSA page that you copied is based on the feedback of only three students. Take it with a grain of salt.

We've discussed this before. Of course you need to take into consideration that the survey is based on 3 students.

 

[NineSixteen]

I'll second doepug's resounding endorsement of Hopkins - I love it here so far and it's only going to get better. I'm a first year now, and although there have been a few complaints about the curriculum so far, they mostly relate to the fact that the faculty here thinks that we are all competent, mature students and they do very little hand holding. Some students prefer less independent learning, but I have really appreciated the hands-off approach. The switch to P/F (actually Honors/High Pass/Pass/Fail) is good, but I can't comment on it being less competative since I was not here last year and can't really compare. The mean on our first exam was something ridiculous like a 93, but people have chilled out since then and the means are a little more normal 🙂 You're always going to have the gunners in any class who really want that High Pass, but since 80% of us are going to pass, the emphasis is just on learning the material and not on competing with one another. My classmates are really healpful and send out to the entire class any learning aids that they find - outlines they've made, websites they've found...it's great.

If you're hung up on the neighborhood, there's nothing I can say to get you to come here, and I would say that I'd prefer that you don't come. There's nothing more annoying than people who just talk about how dangerous the neighborhood is. 🙄 If you are excited about working in an urban neighborhood and treating physicial disease as well as social issues, in addition to seeing just about every rare disease in the world, then get over it and come here. If you'd rather continue to live a sheltered life, stay away. Baltimore has great neighborhoods, great restaurants, great bars, the most "real" people I've found on the entire East Coast, and it's affordable.

PM me if you want more! Hopkins rocks 🙂