aeneid said:
I wonder if you can comment a little more on the intensity of the first year and your relationship with your classmates?
No problem. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the reasonableness of the first year curriculum. To dispel the common myth, Duke does NOT squeeze two years into one. First of all, the Duke first year is longer than most...it begins in late July and only has a summer break of about 2-3 weeks, so it's really a 10-11 month year. Still, there's enough break time to allow you to recharge and relax. Secondly, we don't do much PBL, so it's about half lecture-based and half lab-based. PBL is very inefficient timewise, so I was happy that Duke didn't waste our time with too much of it. I was also pleased with the very early patient contact we had...there's an emphasis on fostering good communication and patient interviewing skills throughout the first year, using standardized patient actors, videotaped interviews, and other such new techniques. It's really a great program!
There have also been many curricular improvements since my first year. Now the entire first block is just straight pass/fail...none of this honors foolishness. Residency program directors don't care about your first year grades for the most part, so I think this is a great feature that allows students to focus on long-term, integrated learning instead of their exam scores. And the material taught in this first block, which is genetics, cell bio and biochem, was mostly on par with courses I took in college, and I wasn't even a science major! This illustrates what I see as one of the great strengths of the Duke curriculum. You don't need a PhD in biochem to be a good physician, so Duke doesn't waste months teaching it. So in about 6 weeks you learn all the genetics, biochem and cell bio you need to be a doc and to do well on the boards. I really like this about Duke...they've perfected the curriculum such that it's trimmed down to exactly what you need to know without wasting your time on peripheral foolishness that you won't remember in a few weeks anyway. The fact of the matter is, you can't possibly learn everything, so Duke focuses on what's most important, and I really think it pays off. This is a common theme throughout the first year, as most of our courses are shorter than what other schools typically do. Yet when I started studying for the boards I found that we'd been taught everything I read in my board prep books. And Duke's Step 1 average is somewhere up in the 230's, so we must be doing something right!
Regarding my classmates, I've been surprised by how cooperative and friendly everyone is. Many of my classmates often study together, help each other, and even e-mailed out their own personal lecture notes and charts to help the rest of us learn the material! After hearing about the competitiveness some of my friends experienced at places like Harvard and Hopkins, I hardly expected students at a top school like Duke to be cooperative, but they really are! Socially, of course certain groups develop over time, but all in all I think Duke classes are pretty close knit. You'll find a group of Duke Med students at a bar in Durham or Chapel Hill on just about any Friday or Saturday night, and it's often large groups! There's more free time in med school than I expected!
Having learned more about the admissions process at Duke, I've discovered that the committee strives to select a diverse group of very interesting, friendly people, who of course also happen to be very intelligent. People with 40+ MCAT's and 4.0 GPA's who aren't very personable or interesting quite simply don't get accepted. And thinking about the composition of my class, I can see why this is the case...it creates a wonderful mix of intelligent people who are passionate about their own particular interests, goals and causes. I can't say enough great things about Duke! I wouldn't change a thing!
