Mayo vs Feinberg

[Tots]

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I'll agree that the Mayo name rings more of a bell than Feinberg, at least on the west coast. But to self-identify them as easily top 10 and more like top 5 is kind of a stretch, don't you think?

I certainly heard that comment a few times at Mayo. Does it matter? Why wouldn't you easily consider them top 5? top 10? Do you think US News top 5/10 schools are the top 5/10 schools 🙄? Because we all know by US News standards, Mayo is not top 10. If you don't agree with US News rankings, then what metrics do make top schools? On some metrics Mayo easily surpasses the US News top 10 schools and it falls behind on others: Faculty-to-Student Ratio is 12.8:1(HMS 13:1, UCSF 3.1:1, JHU 5.7:1), Mayo is the most selective medical school, lowest average student debt, etc... Above the age of the school was mentioned. Other then for perception/prestige, is age really important to distinguish a top school? Northwestern is older than Johns Hopkins.

I disagree with alpinism above that people on SDN tend to confuse the medical school and clinic. The biggest reason why the medical school is a fantastic place to be a medical student(imho) is because of the clinic. The medical school(and any medical school) does not exist separately of its teaching hospitals but instead the hospitals are integral components of someone's medical education.(In an educational sense, yes some teaching hospitals are separate institutions from their affiliated medical schools 😛)

Irregardless of how other people perceive Mayo, I think Mayo is an amazing place to be medical student because of the extensive resources, low cost, supportive administration and amazing hospitals. With my limited pre-med knowledge, I easily considered Mayo comparable to some of the top US News schools I interviewed at. I don't think I was alone in this regards either since at second look there were people deciding between Mayo and Harvard, Penn, JHU, UCSF, Duke....etc.

 

[yellowfish]

I agree with Tots, but I really don't think Mayo matches nearly as well as schools perennially considered to be top medical schools - unless you want to match at Mayo, in which case it is the clear winner.

 

[Barcu]

Arguing about the ranking of Mayo and NW is just dumb. Both are top tier schools. Enough said.

OP, you seem to struggle with two issues:

1) The desire for basic science research. I think this is hard at any med school and not a ton of people do it. It is more suited for an MD/PhD program. How important is this to you? And would look into something like MD/PhD?

2) Your SO. It seems like you like almost everything better about Mayo but your SO doesn't want to go there. If you make a decision based on their preferences, you better be getting married. I don't mean, probably. I mean definitely. This is a huge decision for you, and it is a huge decision for a couple. If you are indeed a committed couple, your spouse's inputs should weigh heavily. But if you don't end up together, you will be feeling real bitter. Does your SO work? Will they be able to find a job in Rochester? Will the money they make be able to offset the increased cost of going to NW?

 

[red doctober]

Arguing about the ranking of Mayo and NW is just dumb. Both are top tier schools. Enough said.

Agreed. Just to add to the MD/PhD thing. If you really are looking into it, you should definitely contact the MD/PhD program directors and ask if they consider internal applicants from the med school and if so how successful previous applicants have been in getting accepted. Just as an fyi, Mayo's MD/PhD program is about half the size of NW's. This can have pros and cons, but one thing that any MD/PhD hopeful should think about is that after 2nd year, you go on into the PhD phase while all of your med school friends move on to 3rd year med school. You will make a bunch of friends in med school only to watch them graduate and go to residencies while you are still in grad school. Having a larger MD/PhD class partially alleviates this stress as you will have more friends going through the same thing as you. Also, the impression I got from looking into both Mayo and NW for MD/PhD and interviewing there was that Mayo had less basic research than NW but more clinical and translational research. That doesn't necessarily mean much because at the end of the day you will only be joining one lab.

 

[dadaism]

I can confirm that Mayo accepts internal applications to transition from MD to MD/PhD. You can also do a JD, MBA, MPH or masters in another subject.

 

[spf15]

Arguing about the ranking of Mayo and NW is just dumb. Both are top tier schools. Enough said.

OP, you seem to struggle with two issues:

1) The desire for basic science research. I think this is hard at any med school and not a ton of people do it. It is more suited for an MD/PhD program. How important is this to you? And would look into something like MD/PhD?

2) Your SO. It seems like you like almost everything better about Mayo but your SO doesn't want to go there. If you make a decision based on their preferences, you better be getting married. I don't mean, probably. I mean definitely. This is a huge decision for you, and it is a huge decision for a couple. If you are indeed a committed couple, your spouse's inputs should weigh heavily. But if you don't end up together, you will be feeling real bitter. Does your SO work? Will they be able to find a job in Rochester? Will the money they make be able to offset the increased cost of going to NW?

1) I would look into something like MD PhD, but I also already know that I would pursue MD-PhD only if I were at Northwestern. I don't want to spend 8 years in Rochester.

2) My SO works in the computer industry, which is at this point fairly flexible (he could work remotely; his company has an office in Chicago and I guess there's IBM in MN). There are other circumstances, however, that make it very hard for him to just relocate like that, and it's still a lot to ask for him to just uproot himself from the east coast where all of our friends/family are.

 

[spf15]

I agree with Tots, but I really don't think Mayo matches nearly as well as schools perennially considered to be top medical schools - unless you want to match at Mayo, in which case it is the clear winner.

Could you elaborate on that? I don't want to match at Mayo. (I have no clue how to evaluate a match list or what people say when a match list is strong, etc.)

 

[red doctober]

The typical saying concerning MD/PhD goes, "If you have any doubts about your dedication to pursuing the dual degree and the future career as a physician scientist, you should not take the MD/PhD route." At this point, you seem like you're casually considering MD/PhD, in which case you should think really hard whether you want to do it or not. If you aren't positive that you really want to do it, I would say not to let that influence your decision. It would be a shame for you to regret your decision to go to NW (or not to have gone to Mayo) because you thought that you might have wanted to apply to the MD/PhD program. I'm just curious, why didn't you initially apply MD/PhD? Based on your acceptances to competitive MD-programs, you probably would have been a competitive MD/PhD applicant.

 

[spf15]

The typical saying concerning MD/PhD goes, "If you have any doubts about your dedication to pursuing the dual degree and the future career as a physician scientist, you should not take the MD/PhD route." At this point, you seem like you're casually considering MD/PhD, in which case you should think really hard whether you want to do it or not. If you aren't positive that you really want to do it, I would say not to let that influence your decision. It would be a shame for you to regret your decision to go to NW (or not to have gone to Mayo) because you thought that you might have wanted to apply to the MD/PhD program. I'm just curious, why didn't you initially apply MD/PhD? Based on your acceptances to competitive MD-programs, you probably would have been a competitive MD/PhD applicant.

It wasn't that I wasn't interested in MD-PhD... I was actually more interested in PhD than MD at various points in college. I thought that I wouldn't get in to MD programs at all so I thought I wouldn't have a chance at MD-PhD. So instead, I applied broadly to MD programs and after my first acceptance / interviews at top schools, I declined some interviews.

I know for sure that I want to go into academic medicine and do research. I still have a heavy bias towards basic science research, and I understand that it's much easier to do via the MD PhD route. Maybe I'll become interested in clinical research eventually, but I have no way of telling that for now.

Maybe this sounds weird... but Mayo is probably the only school where, if I attended, I'd be fine with not switching into MD-PhD. If I attended any other medical school, I'd almost certainly try to switch into MD-PhD. Part of this is due to the fact that I can't see myself living in Rochester for that long, and the other part is that the patient-centered focus at Mayo is so strong and amazing that I don't think I'd have major regrets focusing more on clinical work and working on becoming the best clinician I could possibly be.

 

[byaaaaaaah23]

It wasn't that I wasn't interested in MD-PhD... I was actually more interested in PhD than MD at various points in college. I thought that I wouldn't get in to MD programs at all so I thought I wouldn't have a chance at MD-PhD. So instead, I applied broadly to MD programs and after my first acceptance / interviews at top schools, I declined some interviews.

I know for sure that I want to go into academic medicine and do research. I still have a heavy bias towards basic science research, and I understand that it's much easier to do via the MD PhD route. Maybe I'll become interested in clinical research eventually, but I have no way of telling that for now.

Maybe this sounds weird... but Mayo is probably the only school where, if I attended, I'd be fine with not switching into MD-PhD. If I attended any other medical school, I'd almost certainly try to switch into MD-PhD. Part of this is due to the fact that I can't see myself living in Rochester for that long, and the other part is that the patient-centered focus at Mayo is so strong and amazing that I don't think I'd have major regrets focusing more on clinical work and working on becoming the best clinician I could possibly be.

Keep in mind that it is 100% possible to be a physician-scientist with only an MD as well. You can do a research-track residency as an MD (provided you demonstrate interest in research during medical school) that most MD/PhDs will also pursue.

 

[spf15]

Keep in mind that it is 100% possible to be a physician-scientist with only an MD as well. You can do a research-track residency as an MD (provided you demonstrate interest in research during medical school) that most MD/PhDs will also pursue.

Is this the AIBM pathway that I've heard of? Or where can I find out more about this?

Thank you very much!

 

[byaaaaaaah23]

Is this the AIBM pathway that I've heard of? Or where can I find out more about this?

Thank you very much!

To be honest, I don't know very much about it. The research track residencies are going to be program- and specialty- specific, I believe. Ex: http://www.radiology.emory.edu/index.php?id=326

Also, from a Yale website: Many residents who pursue the Physician-Scientist Residency Pathway have already had extensive research training (e.g. graduates of M.D.-Ph.D. programs). However, the Physician-Scientist Residency Pathway is also appropriate for residents strongly committed to research careers who have not had extensive prior research training. For these individuals, enrollment in the Investigative Medicine Program during subspecialty fellowship training offers the opportunity to receive formal graduate training in laboratory-based or patient-oriented investigation leading to the Ph.D. degree.

http://residency.med.yale.edu/programs/traditional/abim.aspx

 

[red7]

Is this the AIBM pathway that I've heard of? Or where can I find out more about this?

Thank you very much!

For medical subspecialties, you can also look up fast-track (or maybe short-track?) pathways to fellowship. Some of them that I've seen involve doing 2 years of IM or peds instead of 3, and then doing 3-4 years of fellowship so that you have an extra year for research during residency/fellowship. I think ABIM has a description on their website, which is maybe where I saw it.

Also, there are scholarships available to med students to take a year off for various types of research (e.g. NIH, Howard Hughes) - these aren't open to MD/PhD students and are geared towards producing medically-trained scientists.

Edit: Also, I've never looked it up, but I have heard of straight-up research fellowships that you can match into either right after med school or after residency. Basically, I think that if you want to go into basic science, the door doesn't close even if you do MD-only. You'll just have to spend more time in research training/fellowship after med school than you would have if you had gone the MD/PhD route. I don't know the pros/cons of each pathway though

 

[byaaaaaaah23]

For medical subspecialties, you can also look up fast-track (or maybe short-track?) pathways to fellowship. Some of them that I've seen involve doing 2 years of IM or peds instead of 3, and then doing 3-4 years of fellowship so that you have an extra year for research during residency/fellowship. I think ABIM has a description on their website, which is maybe where I saw it.

Also, there are scholarships available to med students to take a year off for various types of research (e.g. NIH, Howard Hughes) - these aren't open to MD/PhD students and are geared towards producing medically-trained scientists.

Edit: Also, I've never looked it up, but I have heard of straight-up research fellowships that you can match into either right after med school or after residency. Basically, I think that if you want to go into basic science, the door doesn't close even if you do MD-only. You'll just have to spend more time in research training/fellowship after med school than you would have if you had gone the MD/PhD route. I don't know the pros/cons of each pathway though

I'm not sure that this is necessarily true, as an MD-only applicant can do the same research-track residency as an MD/PhD applicant. Whether or not that applicant WANTS extra research training is a completely different story, but I don't think he or she necessarily HAS to fulfill anything that an MD/PhD doesn't. However, it also may be that MD/PhDs are more competitive for these types of residencies. Again, I am only a pre-MS1, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[GoWiththeFlo]

For the record, I find these kinds of posts totally stupid.....School A vs. School B, and oh yes, I am waitlisted at School C.
Hey OP, most of the people responding to your thread are people just like you, will be attending Medical School in the fall or waiting to hear, are these the people you want to take advice from?
Some of the people who responded to your thread are Med Students who have lived through some of this, but you need to make you own decision. I would not be surprised if some of the people telling you to go to one school or the other is waitlisted or waiting to hear from that school, hoping you will give them a spot. Best of luck.

 

[yellowfish]

For the record, I find these kinds of posts totally stupid.....School A vs. School B, and oh yes, I am waitlisted at School C.
Hey OP, most of the people responding to your thread are people just like you, will be attending Medical School in the fall or waiting to hear, are these the people you want to take advice from?
Some of the people who responded to your thread are Med Students who have lived through some of this, but you need to make you own decision. I would not be surprised if some of the people telling you to go to one school or the other is waitlisted or waiting to hear from that school, hoping you will give them a spot. Best of luck.

Because telling people "you need to make you own decision" is so much more helpful than the advice that's been given in this thread.

 

[byaaaaaaah23]

Because telling people "you need to make you own decision" is so much more helpful than the advice that's been given in this thread.

obv

 

[red7]

I'm not sure that this is necessarily true, as an MD-only applicant can do the same research-track residency as an MD/PhD applicant. Whether or not that applicant WANTS extra research training is a completely different story, but I don't think he or she necessarily HAS to fulfill anything that an MD/PhD doesn't. However, it also may be that MD/PhDs are more competitive for these types of residencies. Again, I am only a pre-MS1, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

I phrased my original statement incorrectly. Basically, all I meant was that there is more than one pathway to becoming a PI with your own basic science lab, and that there are multiple options to get your research training if you want to go down that road - before/during medical school, before/during/after residency and/or fellowship. You could even spend 2-3 years at the NIH or some other research institute as a research fellow. All of it depends on your own career goals and how you want to balance clinical/research time.

Anyway, good luck in your decision OP

 

[seracus]

I'll agree that the Mayo name rings more of a bell than Feinberg, at least on the west coast. But to self-identify them as easily top 10 and more like top 5 is kind of a stretch, don't you think?

To be fair, looks like it's in his best interest to spread that myth. He's a student there.

I would choose Feinberg.

 

[spf15]

went to NU second look and didn't like it... it's between Sinai and Mayo now.

 

[Nymphicus]

went to NU second look and didn't like it... it's between Sinai and Mayo now.

Haha. Good thing you went to second look then.

 

[tungsten184]

went to NU second look and didn't like it... it's between Sinai and Mayo now.

Curious, what didn't you like about it?