Q's about University of Washington

[emtp6811]

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I am a pre-med interested in finding out some subjective information about UW's med school from those that are there now or have attended in the recent past, and especially those who are/were there under the WWAMI program. Looking for feedback on:

people- do the students seem to be pretty competitive with each other, or do they generally work well together? Are the instructors just there to teach and go home, or generous with office hours, extra help prn, etc.

the didactic years- how the class schedule is set up ie large class blocks over a couple days a week, or spread out an hour or two per class every day? Mostly lecture based, or are the instructors pretty good at integrating visual and hands-on/experienced based learning? What would you estimate the ratio of lecture to hands on/visual to be? What is the grading system like (ie... ABCDF vs HP/P/F)? Is there opportunities for shadowing or even hands on patient care during the first two years?

community- Seattle is listed as one of the top most livable cities in the nation. Do you agree? I come from a background of San Diego for 12 years, then Boise for 13 years now. How does Seattle compare? How does cost of living within Seattle compare to outlying areas? Traffic? Crime? Pollution? Abundance of outdoor activities and sporting events (as if I'd have that much time...)?

family- Does UW seem to be flexible for those with families? Especially when getting into the clinical years? Any input on elementary schools, or where I could find that info myself?

Clinical rotations- General quality of attendings and instructors? Opportunities for away rotations at other hospitals/programs? Breadth of hospital types (county vs community vs critical access)? I am not sure if there are any workhour restrictions on clinical rotations like there are for residency- do the workweeks seem to be reasonable at UW?

Emergency Medicine- any information about the EM rotations and/or residency would be greatly appreciated! All I really know at this point is that Harborview is a trauma level 1 med center, and that Medic1 is easily the best EMS program in the nation. Shift scheduling and hours? Range of pathology? Ratio of medical to trauma? EMS/Medical direction exposure? Flight/Ground EMS shifts?

I know I'm asking for a lot here. If you know of any websites where I might find these details and more, please tell me. Thanks for any input you can give.

 

[EctopicFetus]

I am a pre-med interested in finding out some subjective information about UW's med school from those that are there now or have attended in the recent past, and especially those who are/were there under the WWAMI program. Looking for feedback on:

people- do the students seem to be pretty competitive with each other, or do they generally work well together? Are the instructors just there to teach and go home, or generous with office hours, extra help prn, etc.

the didactic years- how the class schedule is set up ie large class blocks over a couple days a week, or spread out an hour or two per class every day? Mostly lecture based, or are the instructors pretty good at integrating visual and hands-on/experienced based learning? What would you estimate the ratio of lecture to hands on/visual to be? What is the grading system like (ie... ABCDF vs HP/P/F)? Is there opportunities for shadowing or even hands on patient care during the first two years?

community- Seattle is listed as one of the top most livable cities in the nation. Do you agree? I come from a background of San Diego for 12 years, then Boise for 13 years now. How does Seattle compare? How does cost of living within Seattle compare to outlying areas? Traffic? Crime? Pollution? Abundance of outdoor activities and sporting events (as if I'd have that much time...)?

family- Does UW seem to be flexible for those with families? Especially when getting into the clinical years? Any input on elementary schools, or where I could find that info myself?

Clinical rotations- General quality of attendings and instructors? Opportunities for away rotations at other hospitals/programs? Breadth of hospital types (county vs community vs critical access)? I am not sure if there are any workhour restrictions on clinical rotations like there are for residency- do the workweeks seem to be reasonable at UW?

Emergency Medicine- any information about the EM rotations and/or residency would be greatly appreciated! All I really know at this point is that Harborview is a trauma level 1 med center, and that Medic1 is easily the best EMS program in the nation. Shift scheduling and hours? Range of pathology? Ratio of medical to trauma? EMS/Medical direction exposure? Flight/Ground EMS shifts?

I know I'm asking for a lot here. If you know of any websites where I might find these details and more, please tell me. Thanks for any input you can give.

I dont believe U W participated in ERAS this yr. They have had some trouble in their ED IIRC. I dont think they had enough ED docs there or something like that.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002177303_erdocs11m.html

Harborview promises to begin hiring the specialists. But the 34 emergency-medicine residents rotating through Harborview told deans at the affiliated University of Washington School of Medicine last week the plan is a "superficial fix" and may force them to seek training elsewhere.

"They've got the best of everything, except emergency medicine," said Dr. Ben Betteridge, a chief resident in the three-year training program. "The dirty little secret is there are no emergency-medicine trained doctors in the ER."

There is other info out there on this.

As far as community, I believe Seattle has had rain for the last 30 days or so. Friends who are from there went back and they said that it is a little depressing. COL is increasing.

you can go to Bestplaces.net and look it up and compare to any other city you want!

hope this helps.

 

[crewmaster1]

Currently a MSIII at UW and very interested in EM...

The people: generally pretty well rounded; not a ton of geeky book nerds. Very little competition, very few if any classes are curved such that a fixed percentage of students can get top grade. We go out and party lots (well some of us do, probably about 25% of the class are consistent partiers!)

Didatics: I was at a WWAMI site 1st year (WSU/ID), great experience. Classes were mixed together with some ending and starting at random times during the quarter. 1st year is pass vs fail; 2nd year is honors/pass/fail. Tons of classes have stuff besides lectures, ie small groups (less than 10 people per group often, discussion led by attendings, fellows, etc)..it doesn't feel like you are at a huge school. There is tons of hands on in the first two years...read up on the ICM program (introduction to clinical medicine), you will be performing full histories and physicals on patients during your second year and spending a 1/2 day in the hospital each week. Students are strongly encouraged to do a "preceptorship" in any field they want from family med to neurosurgery where you shadow/work with the doc (you really get to do stuff depending on the doc and your experience). Most students do a 1/2 day per week.

Community-I love seattle, calm, liberal, fun city. Very little crime. Housing market is getting expensive, but not for you from CA. Lots of small, unique places to eat, shop, drink. Decent transit system, easy to get to UW and hospitals from anywhere. Not nearly as much rain as people think, great summers. The most outdoor activities you could ever dream of...what city has snow capped mountains and salt water only 45 minutes apart! Hike, bike, fish, run, ski, whatever you want...it's the northwest.

Family-I don't have kids, but lots of people do. The average age of matriculating students is 26, most have life experiences, and plenty have kids. Don't know much about schools here.

Clinical-UW is #1 in the nation for primary care and top 10 for research...of course the attendings are great...then again I don't have much to compare to. As far as away rotations...read up on the whole WWAMI thing. You will find more variety in where you can do your rotations here than any other med school in the nation...guaranteed! Let me tell you, you get to do quite a bit when in are in BFE Alaska working one on one with an attending for your medicine rotation(the best part, you can do half of it in alaska then the other half at UW to make sure you see plenty of the crazy stuff too). HMC is county hospital and it sure shows (tons of underserved pathology, HIV/drug use/homeless/crazy stuff; tons of private hospitals here, group health, etc; childrens, then all the small community stuff on your WWAMI rotations. No workhout restrictions for med students, but they are reasonable...obviously vary by rotation.

Emergency medicine is very ****ed up here. Here is the deal in short...Harborview, the level 1 county hospital has an old ass system...no boarded EM docs..all patients in the door are split to medicine or surgery depending on CC, then they are either seen by a surgeon or internal med doc, no EM doc! UW used to have a joint residency program with Madigan Army Hosp (4 civillian, 6 military residents), this year the military said they need all the spots...so, no more civillians at UW for ER residency. Their program had problems anyways because they were training residents at harborview and there were no boarded EM docs there...bad. Rumor has it they may have their first boarded EM attending starting this summer, it will be a new grad. Maybe a residency in the future, but no idea when. Either way there is so much political stuff there, stay the hell away from any UW EM program for a while! But, you can still go to med school here. The down...Harborview has all the cool trauma/sick patients that you want to see on your ER rotation, but you can't get a good EM boarded letter from HMC because they don't have a boarded doc! So you have to also do a rotation at UW ER (which gets no trauma because it all goes to HMC), really not a super great ER in my opinion, but totally awesome attendings at UW ER. So, I am doing HMC er for the experience and skills, then an away rotation where I can get my letter. Medic 1 is world known, I am not sure how much experience you get with them as a ER resident (well none soon since the program is gone), but the surg and IM residents get some exposure, like being the medic 1 doc (radio stuff) for a few months, doing some teaching, etc.

Hope this helps. Feel free to contact me. I would read a ton on the UW website for more info: www.washington.edu

Sorry the spelling sucks, I'm typing fast!

 

[leviathan]

I'll testify about the weather up here in the pacific northwest....Winters SUCK, but summertime is absolutely amazing. Today was the first day of sunshine in 25-30 straight days of rain (we almost broke the record for most days of rain). However, some would argue that having 30-50 degree weather in the Winter and rain is better than freezing temperatures and snow.

In the summers, it is warm (70-80F), sunny, and great for going to the beach and enjoying the ocean..yet if you want to go skiing, the mountains are not a far drive to see snow. At least up in Vancouver, Whistler is only a 2 hour drive for the best ski/snowboard resort in N. America, and site of the Winter 2010 Olympics.