Reposted below from my post in the MCW vs. MSU thread. As far as prosected cadavers, no big deal. You can dissect if you please, but I feel my anatomy training was more than adequate by the time I hit 3rd year (no I never dissected). Iowa is a fine school, they do have great residencies, but MSU has some great training as well. Residencies are not as sought after as Iowa for sure, but they have solid ER, rads, ortho and gen. surgery. Medicine and peds are weaker as at most places. As far as University hospitals go, no MSU doesn't have them. Disadvantage? Not really. They're still University affiliated in the same way that MGH is Harvard affiliated or the DMC is Wayne State affiliated, but they don't have the University hospital name attached. Your attendings will all be associates of the University. They're all big tertiary referral centers with the exception of the UP campus. More than enough pathology. As I mention below, from what I've seen in Boston, my training was more hands on. Here's my post from yesterday:
I graduated from MSU-CHM in 2004. I can't speak much of MCW as I didn't interview there for med school, but did for residency. As far as hospitals, MCW has great facilities, no doubt. They do a lot of research and are a well respected place. Here's some general things about MSU-CHM:
They don't have one central teaching hospital. Big deal. The clinical center is on the CHM campus and has real live patients, as well as the real actor patients for the physical exam courses. Sparrow hospital is down the road and you go there a few times in the first 2 years for newborn exams and some basic inpatient stuff. You are in no way at a disadvantage of not having a central teaching hospital for your first 2 years. East Lansing is a fun place to be for 2 years as well.
You will most likely move after 2 years. This is not uncommon among med schools. Some of Darmouth's class goes to Providence, RI every year, Tufts goes off to Springfield, etc.
MSU may not be a 'big name' medical school, but it does have some heavy hitters in the academic world. Dr. Potchen of Radiology is one example, he was formerly the chief of Nuclear Medicine at MGH. He does carry some weight in academic circles for sure. Also, never underestimate the fact that it is still a Big-10 university medical school. MSU is a pretty well respected institution across the country. It never has put out a ton of research, but the opportunities are there for sure. I had 2 separate opportunities of research in my first 2 years, without looking very far to get them.
Primary care founded MSU and probably remains part of the overall mission. I nor my classmates never felt pressured to go into FP or IM. We had strong matches in Rad-Onc, radiology, optho, anesthesiology, urology, gen surgery, ortho, just to name a few in my class. We also had mentors in our first 2 years. Mine happened to be a plastics and hand surgeon. Primary care only? Nope.
I had GREAT years 3-4 in Grand Rapids. They have a full service children's hospital (that does everything from pediatric heart surgery to a huge heme-onc service), a busy level-1 trauma center, an insanely busy OB dept-one of the busiest in the country in fact, a shiny new heart hospital with new cath labs and OR's and no fellows, a big regional burn unit, and helicopters that flew 24-7 bringing in sick and injured patients from all over West, Central and Northern Michigan as well as Northern Indiana. I am at a teaching hopsital in Boston now and can say that my experience in Grand Rapids was probably much more hands on than the students here get. It's not uncommon to see them unscrubbed in the OR because the fellow is doing the case, resident assisting, student out in the corner. I got to place central lines, a-lines and chest tubes in GR as a 3rd and 4th year with only the intern supervising me. I haven't seen that here. I delivered a TON of babies my 3rd year, lots of them just me and the attending because the residents were doing there own in other rooms. I first-assisted on some surgeries as a third year, again, there were too many cases for them all to be covered by residents. As a student you learn how to drive the camera and close, etc. oftemtimes from attendings themselves.
Would I go to MSU again? In a heartbeat. Most of all it's just a nice friendly laid back school that will get you where you need to go.
