Med College of WI vs. Rush - SORRY!

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lisa13579

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Sorry, I know there are so many of these types of threads started. Just ignore me if you want to :)

I just wanted to hear people's opinions about these 2 schools. Thanks!

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I loved MCW, it is an up-and-coming school and offers a great education. I was pleasantly suprised at my interview.
 
I loved Rush at my interview. Everyone there was so friendly, and it seems like the students are really happy. But also, youre talking about Chicago. Its a great place to go to school.
 
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Thanks. I really think they both have a great reputations, it's so hard to know which would be the best place for me. I know...only I can decide :) I live in Chicago now and love it here, so I am leaning towards Rush.
 
Here's my two cents about the issue:

I have both a personal experience with Rush (I rotated for 4 weeks during my MSIV year) and a semi-personal experience with Rush (my brother in law is currently a MSIV there)...


I did an away rotation at Rush in Surgery during my MSIV year and I have to say that the students at Rush were used as scut-monkeys. Rotations went something like this, one hour before rounds, the medical students (3 MSIII's + 3 MSIV's would show up to pre-round)....5 minutes before rounds, the intern would wake up and "review" the medical students work and collect the list from the medical students....during rounds, intern would present all of the medical students work while the Medical students run around and gathered supplies and changed dressings. Even worse, during my 4 week rotation, I only got to close the incision once (compared to routinely closing every incision as a MSIII at my home institution, and starting the dissection for a carotid endarterectomy with the fellow as a MSIV at my home institution).

Furthermore, I think that the hospital at Rush is too small to support all of their students. My surgery team consisted of: 1 PGY-5 resident, 1 PGY-4 resident, 2 PGY-3 residents, 3 PGY-1 interns, 3 MSIII's, 3 MSIV's. My team at my home school (caring for the same number of patients and doing the same if not more operations), consisted of: 1 PGY-5, 1 PGY-3, 1 PGY-1, 2 MSIII's. Simply put, the more people on a team, the less that the students get to do / less hands on learning (especially important for surgery, IMHO). Another example, Rush students are routinely sent to their other hospitals to do their rotations: my brother in law did family medicine in Aurora (~45 min - 1 hour west of Chicago with traffic) and surgery at Rush North Shore (located in Skokie (~15 min - 45 min north of downtown). And as stated by the coursemaster, "...not having a car is not considered to be a valid excuse to not do rotations in Aurora...."

Summing up my brother in law's Rush experience: unsympathetic/uncaring faculty especially during MSIII and MSIV years, arbitrary grading scales especially during MSIII and MSIV years, scutmonkey (especially to OB/GYN residents).

For instance, during my brother in law's MSIV year, he was doing an emergency medicine elective in January.....the program director in emergency medicine would "let" him go to interviews for residency, but only if he had worked a ridiculous number of shifts per week: during one week, he had to work a friday 3 PM - 11PM shift, then a saturday 7 am - 3 pm shift, then go to LA to interview for residency from saturday evening to monday morning, and then work a Monday 3 PM - 11 PM shift......

This was not an isolated incident....it happened across multiple rotations and is still happening, even though he has already matched in Anesthesia.....
 
bchang74 said:
Here's my two cents about the issue:
I have both a personal experience with Rush (I rotated for 4 weeks during my MSIV year) and a semi-personal experience with Rush (my brother in law is currently a MSIV there)...
Summing up my brother in law's Rush experience: unsympathetic/uncaring faculty especially during MSIII and MSIV years, arbitrary grading scales especially during MSIII and MSIV years, scutmonkey (especially to OB/GYN residents).

Well, every person and every rotation is different. I am sorry to hear about these bad experiences, they are quite troublesome to say the least. I feel however that I must present the other side as well....
I know 5 MSIII-IV's quite well and their experiences are almost exactly the opposite of what you have been through. Sure, certain rotations suck, but their general impressions are that the attendings are compassionate and caring. There may be too many people in a group but I don't know anything about that yet. Also, everyone mentions that you usually get to do as much or as little as you want to do on most rotations. Anyway, just wanted the OP to know that a lot of students at Rush are quite happy (especially us lowly M1's!) and Chicago is definitely a cool place to be.
Good luck!
 
is there a difference between Rush and MCW in terms of clinical/research orientation? i talked to a recruiter from MCW and she said that, while MCW does have research, they won't make you do a research rotation if you don't want to, while some schools might. when i think of Rush, i usually think of a school with pretty good research programs (maybe i'm wrong in that assumption...haven't looked super close at Rush).
 
Thanks, I really appreciate the opinions and thoughts. I'm not sure about research since it is not something that I am exremely interested in. Although I do realize that I will need to probably do some sort of research to be more competitive for residency (depending on what I pursue). I think your assumptions are correct though, that Rush is probably a little more research friendly. I do know someone who did research in derm from Med College of WI and ended up matching at a good derm program, so the opportunities are out there I think if you look.
 
MCW has more research opportunities than Rush. In recent years, Rush has been dead last in NIH funding, while MCW ranks 44th. Rush does get a fair amount of private research funding, but so does MCW. (i have done research for over a year at Rush)
 
MCW has plenty of research opportunities, if you're looking for it. We get a tremendous amount of funding (for a small private medical school) and since I've been here, the school has gone from $40 million to $80 million per year in research funding.

I can't speak for Rush, but if you want an excellent clinical experience, MCW will give it to you. Some people complain that medical students shouldn't learn to do "scut", but I've done it all, IVs, NGs, blood draws, ABGs, central lines, thora/paracentesis, lumbar punctures, thoracotomy, lumbar drains, subarachnoid bolts, IVDs, vein harvests, I&Ds, biopsies, delivered 30+ babies, yadda yadda yadda. That and the fact our school tends to be much tougher when it comes to exams/grading (which may be a negative, depending how you look at it), meant that at least I can say my experience is near the top of what medical schools can give.

In terms of reputation, I would say that MCW probably has a very slight edge over Rush outside of the midwest (especially the West Coast). I only say that though experiences during my and my friend's residency interviews. The Rush students I met were all happy though, and it is 4 years of your life in Milwaukee vs. Chicago. If you're used to a social life in Chicago, you'd probably wouldn't be happy in Milwaukee. Good luck in your choice!
 
duffmckagan said:
MCW has more research opportunities than Rush. In recent years, Rush has been dead last in NIH funding, while MCW ranks 44th. Rush does get a fair amount of private research funding, but so does MCW. (i have done research for over a year at Rush)

I agree, MCW is stronger in research than Rush in terms of research dollars and variety of opportunity.
 
A friend told me that the city that MCW is in is a great college town. Maybe that lil' bit of information will help.
 
Milwaukee has a couple large colleges, UW-M and Marquette, but they're more downtown Milwaukee-ish. The actual school and hospitals are in a sleepy suburb, about 5 miles west of downtown, which makes for a fairly safe neighborhood, but not a lot of excitement. Half of the med students live downtown though, so there's plenty of places to go out and drink your sorrows away...
 
thanks again for the replies. i acutally went to Univ of WI-Milwaukee and am from a suburb of Milwaukee, so I am very familiar with the area :) I've just lived in Chicago for the past 5 years since graduating. It seems to me like these two schools are very similar in reputation. I'm just going to have to really evaluate where I want to live.
 
Hello,

As an applicant to both schools last year, here's my advice.

I was accepted to Rush, and wasn't even invited for an interview at MCOW. In any case, I didn't end up going to Rush for a few reasons. Besides the price (I had gotten into my state school), on my visit to Rush, they wouldn't show their match statistics, such as X% of students match into their top 3 specialties. In addition, after a few months, I had to request repeatedly for Rush to send me some of their matchlists so I could see how their graduates were doing. It almost seemed as if they were hiding their matchlists. In any case, on the AAMC website, it publishes the amount of NIH funding each U.S. Medical School gets, and Rush ranks dead last out of the 126 medical schools. I really wanted research to be an integral experience for me in medical school, and felt that I wouldn't have many opportunities for research at Rush.

For MCOW, they publish their matchlists, and from my knoweldge, their students seemed to match very well. This doesn't even seem like a question to me, other than location... choose MCOW.

Peace,

FF
 
MCW seemed like they're quite strong in research. I just got a phone call from the director of admissions today and he told me that I was accepted. I have to choose either this school or NYM. What do you think?
 
I was told by several MSIVs that Rush is great, both, clinically and pre-clinically. They were very satisfyed and stressed that research opportunities are there if you're willing to take them. I saw the match list for 2004 and it's good (discredits the theory of the school keeping them secret). Apparently, Rush is very well perceived in the Midwest. All the doctors I've told I'm going there give me a postiive response. So, especially, if you wanna stay in Chicago or the Midwest for residency and beyond, Rush is great. I just checked out their housing the other day, and loved it, and besides you are gonna be in the Medical District of Illinois for Med. School. It's just a very conducive atmosphere for our purposes. Don't know much about MCW.
 
Hi,
I was suprised to see my thread bumped up :)

In case anyone cares, I ended up choosing Rush. I really think both schools are similar in reputation, but I want to stay in Chicago and really got a good feeling about Rush at my interview.

Nacentdoc: I'd be curious what you found on Rush's housing...Maybe I'll PM you.
 
I'm headed to Rush also. If you guys find anything for housing, could you post it here? The places in the city I've seen are really expensive. Thanks guys.
 
17shakespeare said:
I'm headed to Rush also. If you guys find anything for housing, could you post it here? The places in the city I've seen are really expensive. Thanks guys.

The city is expensive. If you want to live near Rush you can find a good 2 br apartment for around 1000 bucks, give or take a few hondo, depending on what you need/want.

Oh, yeah... C. Gallucci realty and New West Realty (about 1400 W Taylor St, Chicago) both have a ton of rental units in the area. Your best bet for a bargain is to walk around the neighborhood and look for "for rent" signs.
 
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