Is it true that it doesn't matter where you go to med school?

[Brooklyn-doc97]

One thing that I sometimes hear people say is that the med school you end up attending does not matter, just as long as it's in the mainland U.S.A and not some Caribbean school. But the thing though is that in every other profession, prestige of your professional school matters a lot in that: Law, Business, Phd programs, etc. All have it where someone from M.I.T or some other great school will thrive meanwhile people from state schools will struggle to become successful. Overall, is med school exempt from this being the case as well? I mean I would imagine that a graduate from Columbia University's medical school is going to get leaps and bounds better opportunities than someone from say Rutgers University or Virginia Tech. Thank you.

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[Osminog]

Going to a prestigious medical school can make you a more competitive residency applicant (especially for more selective specialties or for programs at elite academic centers), but the prestige of your medical school is only a single variable among many others. Other variables include board scores, clinical performance, networking/connections, personal statement, letters of recommendation, and interviewing skills.

The job market in medicine is different from those in law, business, and academia, in that there's a shortage of physicians and a huge, unfulfilled demand for medical care. You can go to the trashiest for-profit medical school in the Caribbean and finish the most undesirable rural family medicine residency program in the US, and you will still make a six-figure salary and have the same job as an FM doctor who went to Yale. This economic situation doesn't exist in those other industries—so in those other industries, there's a much wider gap between graduates of elite programs and non-elite programs (e.g., top 14 law schools vs. the others).

 

[deleted1114112]

If your career aspirations include academia or research, then yes. Otherwise going to a school with strong home programs should keep all options open. Going to a prestigious school or your state's 'best' hospital/school is obviously beneficial and can give advantages in regards to accessibility and obviously on paper (essentially T40), but as the above comment said a lot of other factors influence post MD success. Even for competitive specialties the vast majority of matches come from outside top schools.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Guessing it matters if one wants derm, Plastics, NS, Ortho (?). I don’t know about ortho. It ranks as being one of the most competitive but all schools seem to have a least a 2 or 3 matches, whereas I’ve seen schools with no matches in plastics and neurosurgery.

There is usually at least a handful who match in very competitive specialties at every US MD school based (oftentimes home program if they have it) on match lists I’ve seen, but that doesn’t necessarily seem like great odds.

Fortunately, there seem to be only a handful of these extremely competitive residencies)

 

[jhmmd]

One thing that I sometimes hear people say is that the med school you end up attending does not matter, just as long as it's in the mainland U.S.A and not some Caribbean school. But the thing though is that in every other profession, prestige of your professional school matters a lot in that: Law, Business, Phd programs, etc. All have it where someone from M.I.T or some other great school will thrive meanwhile people from state schools will struggle to become successful. Overall, is med school exempt from this being the case as well? I mean I would imagine that a graduate from Columbia University's medical school is going to get leaps and bounds better opportunities than someone from say Rutgers University or Virginia Tech. Thank you.

This is a very ambiguous question and the short answer is that it all depends on what you want to do with your degree. Prestige is a factor that impresses some people and not others. I mean AOA is AOA and not many people are going to say, "Oh man, you were AOA at X state school, but this other applicant was AOA at X prestigious school..." The not-so-easy answer is that med school attracts all kinds of smart people. And the makeup of each medical school graduating class is different, because some top students were attracted to lower-ranked schools due to scholarships, etc. So you can't just assume that a more prestigious school has better candidates...and I think most reasonable people are aware of that. Just my POV.

 

[LizzyM]

I would challenge you to look at the list of faculty at any medical school in the country and record where they did their MD training. I think you may be surprised, particularly if you take a look at some of the top schools. Then look at the lists of residents at residency programs at big name hospitals. (The residency program could be toxic, too much to get in to here, but let's say that your aunties will be impressed if you match in Surgery at Cornell or Derm anywhere.) Where are their residents coming from?

There are two things at work here: 1) which schools recruit and matriculate the most academically driven students who plan for careers in academic medicine and 2) which schools select for students who are destined to do primary care in the boondocks. Schools in that second group are not hoping to have their grads match in Orthopedics and Plastics in any great numbers.

 

[ChiDO]

Yes. /thread

 

[deleted1106140]

Does it matter where you do your residency if you matched into the specialty you wanted?

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Does it matter where you do your residency if you matched into the specialty you wanted?

From what I’ve gathered, not unless you want to go into academia. Even then, I would imagine that if you can secure grants and have a good publication history, it wouldn’t be impossible. Probably also matters for administrative positions at hospitals.

But Its not like an anesthesiologist who trained at UPenn will make more money than one who trained at X community health center. Exceptions may include cash-pay specialties (I think this may be a function of wealthier people, who are more likely to be overeducated, paying more attention to prestige/credentials)

 

[Goro]

Keep in mind that no matter where you went to med school, whether ACOM or Yale, John Burns or UNECOM , U WA or U Miami, your salary in your specialty will be the same.

 

[Dral]

Maybe, maybe not.

When I was on the interview trail for Dermatology, there definitely seemed to be over-representation of schools like Harvard, Hopkins, Yale, etc. There could be a little bias since a lot of the places I interviewed at were what would be considered good programs (Emory, Northwestern, UPMC, Cornell, NYU, Hopkins, Mayo, Miami, UCSF, etc). However, we could assume that there is a trickle down effect where those from top med schools get more interviews overall. There are factors like accessibility to research, mentors, programs, and other opportunities.

However, I am at program that isn't an ivy league type program, and we rarely if ever interview people from those places. So there may be a bit of self selection.

So maybe...maybe not. Overall in my opinion it does matter. However, for most things in general it probably doesn't matter a great deal. If your goal is really to become a solid IM doc for instance, I can't see how it matters a ton.

However, as alluded to by others, if you're going for a higher stakes competitive specialty or if it really matters to you to get into IM residency at Penn, then it could very well matter.

Does it matter if you go to Hopkins vs Wake Forest for most things? Probably not. Does it make a difference if you go to Harvard vs a newly minted DO school? Yes and no. If your goal is to become a doctor probably not. If your goal is academic Neurosurgery, probably so.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

OP, it depends on where you see yourself after med school. Lots of variables to your question as so adroitly pointed out by the posters above. My friend who was number 1 in my class is a FM doc. If all you want is FM, school prestige matters little, unless you are applying to an elite FM program. If you see academics and a possible Dept Chair in your future, then prestige of the school will matter. The sticky issue is that most students change their mind on specialty during their clinical rotations. My wife and I both changed specialty choices from those that brought us to medicine. I believe the best answer is to target schools where you will be a competetive applicant to give you more options should you change your mind. Good luck and best wishes!

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Even if it didn’t matter professionally, it’s kind of cool to tell people that you go to HMS, Stanford, jhu etc.

 

[deleted1114112]

Even if it didn’t matter professionally, it’s kind of cool to tell people that you go to HMS, Stanford, jhu etc.

Ah so we've finally come full circle huh. Tbf you can probably do that without actually attending if you really want a little bit of dopamine that badly. Yeah I go to Harvard (summer school) I mean who has to know. Same vibe as the plastic surgeons in Miami who have "Harvard Trained" plastered on their website but just did some online education program.

 

[jhmmd]

Well if that is the case, I can certainly claim being both a Harvard and Yale resident as the house I grew up in was on the corner of Yale Blvd and Harvard St (trivial but true)

Small world I lived on a road called Harvard...can I put that on my application?

 

[Lost in Translation]

Not going to add much, just to say that for Match where you go to school does not really matter unless your school is in a location that doesn’t give you good opportunities to do research in [insert competitive field that requires research here].

However, I will say the quality of students does depend on the school. Students from a school that gives more responsibility to their M3/M4s will be miles ahead of their co-interns/co-residents who went to schools that sheltered their students through clinical rotations (though this is more of a dichotomy and less a gradient of course since you’ll have both stellar and lackluster students are every school, but on average there is a trend by virtue of the culture of the school).

Unfortunately, it’s not really easy to find out which schools do what without talking to residents around the country who have experience working with students from multiple schools. Personally, I can say I’ve worked directly with students from no fewer than 5 med schools and I can rank them by the average performance/quality of the students. And those from the lower schools will be in for a rude awakening when they start residency.

 

[KnightDoc]

Just to add to this, I saw a doc today who graduated St George's in 2001 but went on to a Weill-Cornell Residency and a Columbia Fellowship. That was of course 20 years ago but just an example

Of what? How things change over a generation?

Without knowing your true feelings, this post sounds like an endorsement of St. George's.

 

[Spectar]

Keep in mind that no matter where you went to med school, whether ACOM or Yale, John Burns or UNECOM , U WA or U Miami, your salary in your specialty will be the same.

One could even argue that, if you go to Harvard med, you have a higher chance of staying in academia and then make a lower salary then everyone else....

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

One could even argue that, if you go to Harvard med, you have a higher chance of staying in academia and then make a lower salary then everyone else....

It’s interesting than medicine is the one academic subject that doesn’t seem to match what professors could make in private practice/industry. Some of the business school finance professors at my university made more than the president. Law professors also do pretty well unless compared to colleagues who are big law partners.

 

[allseasons]

It’s interesting than medicine is the one academic subject that doesn’t seem to match what professors could make in private practice/industry. Some of the business school finance professors at my university made more than the president. Law professors also do pretty well unless compared to colleagues who are big law partners.

haha looks like someone forgot about computer science professors

 

[Planes2Doc]

Thankfully medical school isn't law school, where people say T14 (top 14) or bust. You will find specialists that went to Harvard all the way to a medical school you have never heard of. The same for those in what some may consider less-desirable specialties. If you complete a US MD or DO school and match into residency, you will practically be guaranteed a good life.

 

[deleted1129181]

In so far as post-residency job prospects are concerned, there isn’t an issue because, as @Osminog said, there is a huge shortage in most specialties. However, another big factor is that success in med school and the med school that you go to is pretty far removed from your competency as a physician. There are a lot of ancillary skills that physicians must have (time-management in heavy patient loads, communication, billing services, humanism) which make a huge impact in patient care but aren’t taught (at least historically not taught) in medical schools. To a certain extent, this includes residency as well. I have heard multiple surgeons discuss how graduates from top surgical programs may not be as desirable because, though they are brilliant and have seen several great cases, graduates from the more average residency programs have been trained to be more efficient and resourceful, so they can do 15 high billing appendectomies a day without any hiccups. Back in the olden days, doctors were hiring other doctors. But now, doctors are hired by corporations, and all they care about is how efficient and resourceful you are, which has nothing to do with where you went to med school.