Importance of location

[personal jesus]

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Im going through the med school interview process right now, and the location of the school appears to me to be very important. However, I wanted to know med students opinions on location. Does being rural vs. city make a big difference? I guess a better question is if you go to school in NYC or another big city do you have the time/money to enjoy the city?

 

[Dr. Xavier]

I live in L.A. and I go clubing every weekend, price club, dance club, internal medicine club, x-men comic book club, and my favorite the strip clubs on sunset blvd. Nothing beats a lap dance after 6 hours of studying on a Sat.

 

[doepug]

You'll have more time on your hands than you think. Med school isn't half as bad as legend would have you believe, and you will have time to enjoy whatever city you've chosen.

Location will also make a difference in the patients you see... by going somewhere rural, you may never see the consequences of IV drug abuse, gunshot wounds, or other problems that are routine in urban hospitals. Personally, I think people in rural settings miss out on quite a bit of medicine.

 

[ckent]

Doepug,
But what about all of the tractor injuries and bubonic plague infections you guys miss at Hopkins? Also, don't forget about the expertise in genetics you gain by training in West Virginia. 😉

I am just joking, of course urban training is superior to rural/suburban training IMO. Besides the increase in patient population and diversity, the pathology you see in indigent populations and in vets (who tend to only present when their cancer is stage IV and has metastasized enough to obstruct their vision) is not normally seen in suburbia or small towns. Almost all the major academic centers (the exceptions that I can think of being Mayo, and a few of the California schools) are in urban settings. Location should matter in terms of how well you think that your med school will prepare you, and it should also matter in terms of whether or not you could see yourself living in a place for 4 years. The cost of living is higher in the cities, and crime is worse as well, but I wouldn't let that be your sole determinant in picking a med school. Safety is an important issue to consider, as well as having things to do in the community as you will have time to explore whatever city you end up at, but remember that most of your time during med school will be in the hospital, so if you don't like the med school, I certainly wouldn't choose it just because it was next to some ritzy night club.

 

[Seaglass]

I am just joking, of course urban training is superior to rural/suburban training IMO.

I beg to differ. If you are at any tertiary level center your will see enough zebras to keep you interested. Here at Penn State we see just as much DKA/Withdrawl/HIV as everyone else. We do have a more interesting mix of trauma but trauma but IMHO it's better then having 90% gunshot wounds etc. Although Hershey is pretty rural students rotate at Harrisburg which is 10-15 minutes away and inner city, and also York (inner city). IMHO you live where you want to live.

Casey

 

[::Seabass::]

if you're worrying about a city for free time now, it will probably make a difference to you. in made a much bigger difference for me than I expected.

think about what you like and find it if you have options btwn med schools. when you have free time you'll really want to be somewhere you like and where you can do things outside of med school that make you happy.

 

[BiggMann79]

ckent,

I hear what you are saying about the VA. In a microanatomy lecture last year a dermatologist showed us slides of various patients. In one picture their face was pretty much grown over with a huge tumor, and that was their first trip to the doctor!

 

[souljah1]

Originally posted by cg1155
Here at Penn State we see just as much DKA/Withdrawl/HIV as everyone else.

Casey,

I'm sure that you see a fair share of the above at Penn St., but I highly doubt that you see as much as someone who attends an urban school that has, as part of their hospital system, a general/public hospital. San Francisco General has more HIV management, withdrawal/harm reduction treatment, gunshot, stabbings, accidents, etc. than you'll know what to do with. Yes, San Francisco is very unique when it comes to having, as part of its city, a very large population living with HIV, an epidemic of syphillus, and a lot of IV drug use. Then throw in the VA hospital and you'll see plenty of diabetes, CVD, HTN, CA, etc. Then throw in Moffit Hospital and you'll see more zebras than horses. Wegener's, vasculitides, ITP, glioblastomas, etc. Between those three hospitals, all within the city, I think that we are more likely to be exposed to a more diverse amount of diseases seen at different stages, a more diverse amount of people who may have different views about different illnesses, and a greater amount of people coming from rural areas with problems that couldn't be solved. So much of Moffit hospitals patient population are from rural surrounding areas where their diseases were too complicated to be dealt with.

 

[ckent]

It's not so much the gun shot wounds, IVDA's and MRSA/VRE cellulits/endocarditis (bleah, if I never see another one of these I'll be happy), and HIV/Hep C that's interesting in pathology, it's the fact that these people just do not take care of themselves for obvious reasons and tend to present later in their pathology and present with multiple co-morbid conditions. It's nice knowning how to manage DKA in a patient who missed taking their insulin one day, but it also helps you learn better management skills when you have to take care of patient in DKA with sepsis and a history of ESRD and cirrhosis. Anyways, I'm sure that Penn State has a diverse population of patients, and I do agree that it would be nice to not work up patients and send them home with proper follow up appointments and a new list of outpatient meds to start taking while getting social work to set them up with some pharmaceutical charity program only to find them re-admitted with the exact same condition 2 weeks later secondary to med non-compliance 🙄 . This reminds me of a patient that I had who didn't want to see the follow up doctor whom I made an appointment with because of their intial 60 dollar co-pay for first visit. At first, I was going to give her the phone number for a homeless clinic, when I remembered that not only did she have housing, she also had a $500/day heroin/cocaine habit. Oh well, you try your best I guess.

 

[Adcadet]

my school (U of MN) has a program where you spend most of third year (9 months) in a rural community. I did a two-day experience through this program shadowing a rural FP doc, and I'm convinced that you can learn a lot from a "country doc." For one, you see more "normal" people, which is important. If you only see zebras, how do you know when you have a horse and not a weird zebra? And second, FP docs in rural areas generally have a scope of practice that is much larger than any other doctor.


Depending on what you want to do, I think there is much to be learned form rural FP doctors.

For me, however, I'm glad I'm in a city.

 

[raining4days]

Location is very important to me. I wouldn't want to be in a very homogenous city. I like to be in a city where I can get Chinese food, Greek food, Indian food, Italian food and Latino food. A diversed city of ethnic and religous people is very important to me, because I'm going to be dealing with people of all walks of life. And also because I want to learn how to deal with religious people especially (ex. muslims, sikhs, jewish, orthodox greeks, etc..)

personal jesus, it depends on what *you* want to get of your medical education (ex. the location of the hospitals --> patient population).

 

[BlackPuma]

Originally posted by personal jesus
Im going through the med school interview process right now, and the location of the school appears to me to be very important. However, I wanted to know med students opinions on location. Does being rural vs. city make a big difference? I guess a better question is if you go to school in NYC or another big city do you have the time/money to enjoy the city?

location is not going to be important to you at all...since you love jesus and jesus loves you and will always be with you wherever you are so you wont be lonely..

jesus will look after you my child 😀

 

[Jalby]

Originally posted by Dr. Xavier
I live in L.A. and I go clubing every weekend, price club, dance club, internal medicine club, x-men comic book club, and my favorite the strip clubs on sunset blvd. Nothing beats a lap dance after 6 hours of studying on a Sat.

You do know they banned lap dancing in strip clubs in LA. I AM SO PISSED!!!!!!!!!!! And by the way, the best strip club is over by UCLA on Cotner. Just south of the 10 and east of the 405. You can see it from the freeway. It's like right out of a rap video. Called 4Play. Highly recommend it.

 

[Dr. Xavier]

Originally posted by Jalby
You do know they banned lap dancing in strip clubs in LA. I AM SO PISSED!!!!!!!!!!! And by the way, the best strip club is over by UCLA on Cotner. Just south of the 10 and east of the 405. You can see it from the freeway. It's like right out of a rap video. Called 4Play. Highly recommend it.

What no lap dances in L.A., I haven't actually been to one in a while. Yes I know 4play, it's a quality establishment w/hi quality girls, I live down the street from it. Shiz that means I have to go all the way to the city of industry(sperament rhino), to get a good full contact lap dance. What about the valley, is it banned there too or just L.A. city proper? Bobs classy lady in the valley had some raunchy girls there, willing to give you good service.

 

[Rod Farva]

Go somewhere warm..... snow sucks, and there will be a better crop of women to look at. Am I bitter about being in the northeast? You could say that.

 

[Seaglass]

Hey, I'm not arguing that Hershey has as much pathology as everywhere else, what I am saying is that we have more than enough to ensure a great general medical education, at that with few exceptions almost all MD programs do. IMHO the type of pathology a hospital sees plays a lot more into residency choices than medical school choice.

Casey

 

[thackl]

Originally posted by doepug
You'll have more time on your hands than you think. Med school isn't half as bad as legend would have you believe, and you will have time to enjoy whatever city you've chosen.

Any of you other med students agree with this? I start next year.

 

[fava]

i agree with doepug. i'm actually finding myself with more free time than in undergrad, if that's possible. granted, i'm just in the 1st month of 1st year, but so far, i've been very pleasantly. surprised.