Yes, most definitely. But you should factor in the reputation of the core hospital sites as well, and how many rotations ares spent there. Each school should have a list of the core sites... check out the websites for each one. An honors grade and solid LOR from Mt Sinai Medical Center of Miami Beach or Miami Children's Hospital (both NSU-COM affiliates well-established as strong teaching hospitals for both DOs and MDs) will carry more weight than from a small outpatient clinic.
I'm not plugging my school here, it's just what I know.
Imho the reputation of the core hospital doesn't really matter. What one should be looking for is a solid teaching environment where one will be able to learn medicine. There are many factors to look for at a core site but there are several that stood out to me when I had to decide;
1) Diverse patient population- I didn't want to be at a core site that was in a ritzy suburban area which only saw middle and upper middle class patients. You really want to see the broad spectrum of patients; from those that live on the streets, to those that drive BMWs. To not have a diverse patient population does one's education a disservice.
2) Variety of pathology- this goes with the above, but I felt it was important to see not only the bread and butter cases like diabetes and MIs, but also gun and knife club trauma, HIV, high-risk deliveries..etc. I wanted the full gambit when looking at a core site.
3) High case load- I wanted to be at a program where I wouldn't have to fight with other med students to be on a case. I wanted enough admits and cases to be done at the hospital to insure there would be enough cases to go around and that there wouldn't be fighting for cases.
4) Student to attending ratio- This goes with the previous. It is important that there are enough attending around to teach and insure the ratio is low. If there are too many students per attending you run the risk of not getting enough hands on experience.
5) Some resident programs, but not a lot- some core sites don't have any residency programs and sell themselves as being better since it is strictly preceptorship based giving you the lime light with your attending. This is very true in many circumstance and I have had friends that were 1st assist for all their surgery rotations. However, this kind of setup can be hit-or-miss imho. If you have a preceptor that isn't really good at teaching/explaining things, or giving you hands on experience, it can end up being a very very long month in which you feel like it was a waste. On the other hand if there are residents, you run the risk of loosing the hands on experience since the residents need to log cases in order to become certified in their residency. However if you go back to #3, if there are enough cases to go around, there should be enough for even a medical student to get hands on experience during a rotation. Also if an attending isn't a good teacher, hopefully you can count on a resident to teach you and show you things.
6) Variety of medical specialties- this is another important factor. Sure it might be nice to have your core site at a place you want to do your EM residency, but what happens if you do that rotation as your elective in 3rd year and found out you don't like it? I think it is important to have the possibility of being exposed to the vast majority of specialties; like plastics, ortho, uro, med specialties, rad onc, trauma surgery...etc. All core sites will have the general rotations of medicine, surgery, peds, FM...etc. I felt it was important that other rotations were available in case I become interested in 3rd year and wanted to do an elective to see if it was something I liked before 4th yea.
7) Didactics- I feel this is an important aspect of any core site/clinical rotation. Some sites don't offer this, and I feel that leaves students at a disadvantage.
Not sure if any of this helped you, but those were some of the thoughts that I had when I had to pick a core site. Each person will have different criteria when looking where to go. Some people want to move closer to family or a significant other. Some will want to go to one particular core site because that has their derm residency that they want to apply to. Others pick a place that they think will be fun. So I think it is important to determine what you want to get out of your clinical rotations.
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