undergrad, medschool, and residency at same school

[bluejay99]

Hey guys, has anyone out there done undergrad, med school, and residency at the same place? Also, do you guys think the chances of getting into a residency program are lower if someone already went to the same university for undergrad and med school?

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[ucsfstudents]

There are plenty of people who have done this. If you are happy where you are, there is nothing wrong with staying at your institution. Your chances are determined by your performance and not on how many years you have spent at the school.

 

[Danbo1957]

"Lifers": Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate, Medial Degree, Residency, Fellowship, multiple Professorships, and then work at their School of Medicine and hospital for their whole career.

Example: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/kimm...0E2963F858FC439FAD093DE5E76C3BF1/Drew_Pardoll

 

[2012mdc]

Hey guys, has anyone out there done undergrad, med school, and residency at the same place? Also, do you guys think the chances of getting into a residency program are lower if someone already went to the same university for undergrad and med school?

No.

I do think it's good life experience to change it up a little bit though.

 

[Sheldor]

No.

I do think it's good life experience to change it up a little bit though.

Totally agree. I feel like so much of medicine is learned from Jose around you that the best docs train a couple different places so as to broaden the scope.

Some of the best docs I've worked with did med school, residency and fellowship all at different places.

 

[Morsetlis]

If that one place is John Hopkins, would you ever want to leave?

 

[J ROD]

I think it is possible but not advised. I think it is good to at least get experiences at two hospitals.

I know at my school you can get into residency at home but they only take a few so you have to be the better of your class.

 

[2012mdc]

If that one place is John Hopkins, would you ever want to leave?

I went to undergrad at a comparable, if not better, university than Hopkins and I left for med school. I applied just because it was my home school but I was never really interested in staying. I've learned a lot about myself and others by being in a completely different situation.

Nothing wrong with staying at a great place but I personally think it's good to expose yourself to other places.

 

[NickNaylor]

"Lifers": Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate, Medial Degree, Residency, Fellowship, multiple Professorships, and then work at their School of Medicine and hospital for their whole career.

Example: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/kimm...0E2963F858FC439FAD093DE5E76C3BF1/Drew_Pardoll

A surprising number of faculty that we've met so far have been at Pritzker since med school, and some went to undergrad at U. Chicago as well. It's not all that rare, at least here. And clearly their careers are doing well.

 

[DeadCactus]

Lots of people stay in the same place for various reasons. Academic inbreeding if you will. Personally, I think it's a bad decision if you have other comparable options. You miss out on a lot of opportunities for personal and professional growth...

 

[Barcu]

Yeah, it's pretty common at my school too (my school even has a private high school).

I wouldn't do it, but when school started and we had an alumni event, it was pretty crazy to see just how into one place many people can be. I'm from out west in a place with pretty recent population growth so I thought it was cool that my mom and I went to the same ugrad. Things are a bit different out east.

 

[SuziQ]

I've done this- undergrad, med school, and residency all at the same place. It has been absolutely amazing for me. And I disagree with the comments that you can grow better personally and professionally by training at >1 institution...that is a pretty arbitrary thing to say. That may be the case for some people, but others may do much better staying at the same place all the way through. I have had plenty of opportunity for development here at my institution. I think you just have to make the right decision for you, and I have been thrilled with mine!

 

[NachoBabyDaddy]

Totally agree. I feel like so much of medicine is learned from Jose around you that the best docs train a couple different places so as to broaden the scope.

Some of the best docs I've worked with did med school, residency and fellowship all at different places.

I wish all the Jose's around me in San Diego would teach me something!

 

[seelee]

Being at the same school for undergrad and medical school can hardly be called "academic inbreeding" since the faculty, curriculum, co-workers, etc are completely different.

There is even enough of a disconnect between medical school and residency that "inbreeding" is a stretch.

I have known several doctors who have stayed at the same place. The hospital where I work is a well-known program with great facilities, and a really good, positive atmosphere. A lot of people like that and stick around for that reason.

Getting varied experience is valuable, but can be obtained anytime, not just during your residency. You can do away rotations, you can moonlight, you can get a job somewhere else as an attending.

 

[Pinner Doc]

As someone who did undergrad in New Hampshire, research in North Carolina, med school in NYC, residency in Utah and now works as an attending in Washington, I'm sure you can guess which side of the debate I'm on.

Working/training in different parts of the country has challenged me on many levels. The co-workers are different, yes. But so is the local vernacular, the strains of infectious diseases and local antibiotic resistance patterns, the presenting patient complaints (far more gunshots in NYC, far more ATV accidents in Utah, for instance), to name a few. What's called "lortab" in one part of the country is "vicodin" elsewhere. One place may have a quantitative d-dimer assay, and another may have a 'VTE.' Clinical decision making, while with ultimately similar end-points, is different in different places.

Regarding the comment about sticking around if you were at JHU, I did leave a great platform for staying at an Ivy med school (good marks, AOA) for residency, but took my chances on an unknown out west. Sometimes you feel the pull and you just have to follow your wanderlust....

 

[tiedyeddog]

I am doing undergrad and med school at the same place. I hope to God I get into a residency in another part of the U.S. Not because my med school has poor residencies, they are pretty great overall, but because I am tired of living in my current area.

 

[HolySmokes]

I am doing undergrad and med school at the same place. I hope to God I get into a residency in another part of the U.S. Not because my med school has poor residencies, they are pretty great overall, but because I am tired of living in my current area.

Amen.

 

[isoquin]

This happens often enough, and chances of getting into a residency in the same place you did med school is usually very slightly higher simply because you have (theoretically) had time to rub elbows with all the decision makers, and impress the people at that program.

 

[Danbo1957]

I've talked to some attendings who have gone vertical, many told me that they had an early desire to not move from one place to another (in the PhD. program, got married, started a family, bought a house). And students can only go from undergraduate to attending at academic institutions that have instruction at every level. One needs to start at JHU, Harvard, U of Chicago, Columbia, Duke, Yale, Penn, U of Washington, Miami, Washington U, UCLA, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconson, Iowa, etc.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Being at the same school for undergrad and medical school can hardly be called "academic inbreeding" since the faculty, curriculum, co-workers, etc are completely different.

There is even enough of a disconnect between medical school and residency that "inbreeding" is a stretch.

The first part is very true - in multiple instances (very common with state Universities, but true even at some place like Northwestern) the undergraduate campus and the medical school campus are entirely separate...in some cases by several hours.

The second statement...I'd disagree with. Inbreeding is very real, and as you go forward, you'll find people who definitely only know of one way to do things. It takes going somewhere else though to recognize just how much clinical decision making (or vernacular, or residency structure or whatever) can differ. The level of inbreeding only extends further as one stays in place for fellowship training.

Is it good or bad? Probably neither, but if you have particular career goals, you need to evaluate what you're going to get out of staying in one place. For example, the peds program at my home medical school has only 2 months of Peds ER - 1 in the both the 2nd and 3rd year. During the month, residents do 10 ER shifts and 5 Acute Care evening clinic shifts. At the residency program where I ended up at, interns are in the ER for portions of three months (rest of time is spent in the general outpatient clinic), generally averaging between 12 and 16 ER shifts each month. As second years, they have 2 more of these combined outpatient/ER months, and finally as third years have one month of nothing but ER, typically about 20 shifts, so the typical resident has done roughly 90 to 100 ER shifts over the course of their residency. Those are two very different extremes and depending on future plans, if you're planning on going into critical care field (PICU/Cards/NICU) or ER, residency #2 is likely going to catch your attention. If you're planning something more like a career in endocrine or rheumatology, you may find residency #1 more enticing. And the agrument can be made in either program's favor for the future general pediatrician (more clinical visits vs being more comfortable with sicker patients). That's just one example how structure can matter, but there are lots of others for things like ventilator strategies, how frequently patients get particular lab tests or procedures, and what types/specific brands of medications get used...these other examples may not necessarily dictate career plans, but they do influence how you'll actually practice medicine day to day.

Again, there are advantages to each and I'd figure that for every attending who stayed at U of XYZ for med school, residency and fellowship, you'll find another who traveled all over the country for their training. I think the concept of staying put is often hard to understand for many younger pre-meds and pre-clinical med students who have only ever thought about prestige and finding "the best" program possible (especially if the home residency or fellowship in question is only 'average'). As one's station in life changes and roots get put down in one spot, avoiding the disruption of moving can be very attractive.

 

[Sailor Senshi Dermystify]

so I am from New York, went to my undergrad (SUNY) for two years in New York and then transferred to a school in GA. In undergrad, I researched in Brooklyn, NY, Cape Coast, Ghana (3 months) and Boston (Merck). I lived in Nepal for a month volunteering and now I am living in South Korea for a year on a Fulbright fellowship. I love to travel and I hate staying in one place for a long period of time unless it's New York 🙂, 😀.

I went to go to a medical school in the North East region, so we shall see

 

[Valadi]

People pull the ugrad, med school, residency hat trick at my school all the time. At least here, it's not shunned at all. I think places understand there's good reasons to stay at one place (family, financial), but there are benefits to trying out another institution.

In short, no, you won't be discriminated against for staying.

 

[sunset823]

I've moved around a lot since high school, lived in 4 states, spent significant amounts of time in 4 more in all parts of the country (and abroad as well) - sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity. Most likely going to do residency, or at least would like to, in a state I've never lived in. I'm nomadic by nature, but I do think it is good for your professional and personal growth to live in different parts of the country - I have found that I can have better interactions with people I meet during M3 (patients, residents, attendings) cuz I can find something in common with pretty much anybody, from a person who has grew up on a farm in Iowa milking cows as a kid to someone who grew up in a high-rise penthouse in Hong Kong and went to Andover.

A lot of people from both my undergrad and med school (both in the midwest, where I've grown up as well) are lifers in the city or state, and while that would be incredibly stifling to me, it works for them. They like their long-term relationships and white picket fences, I like my frequent flier miles and the interesting people and adventures I meet along the way.

That being said, you don't suffer any disadvantage from being a 'lifer', and in fact, it's more common than not in certain smaller cities in the Midwest and South (and in big cities like LA, SF, and NYC as well, I'm sure).

 

[45408]

That being said, you don't suffer any disadvantage from being a 'lifer', and in fact, it's more common than not in certain smaller cities in the Midwest and South (and in big cities like LA, SF, and NYC as well, I'm sure).

I don't know many smaller cities in the Midwest that have institutions that you could stay at for all three. My undergrad didn't have a med school, my med school doesn't have an undergrad, and my residency doesn't have an undergrad. Ohio State, UK Louisville, UW-Madison and WashU are the only ones that come to mind, and only Madison is that small. That's a pretty small fraction of the overall number of programs too.

 

[sunset823]

I don't know many smaller cities in the Midwest that have institutions that you could stay at for all three. My undergrad didn't have a med school, my med school doesn't have an undergrad, and my residency doesn't have an undergrad. Ohio State, UK Louisville, UW-Madison and WashU are the only ones that come to mind, and only Madison is that small. That's a pretty small fraction of the overall number of programs too.

Michigan, Case Western, Cincinnati, Iowa (and then if you're counting big cities, Northwestern and U of Chicago, though granted, NW med school isn't in Evanston)...in the south, Vanderbilt, Emory, Duke, UNC - I'm defining smaller cities pretty loosely here (as in, <500,000 people), but you get the idea, all these places seem to have people who never want to leave. Especially in Michigan, my alma mater, there are MANY lifers on the faculty there. I love Ann Arbor, but can't imagine living there from age 18-80

 

[Maxwell7301]

I have lived in Buffalo, NY for my entire life. I went to SUNY Buffalo for undergrad, and now I'm still here for med school. Although residency seems very far off (I'm 5 weeks into 1st year), I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up staying here for that too.

Anyway, it happens. I'm a very family oriented person, and my entire family is here.

 

[410322]

Michigan, Case Western, Cincinnati, Iowa (and then if you're counting big cities, Northwestern and U of Chicago, though granted, NW med school isn't in Evanston)...in the south, Vanderbilt, Emory, Duke, UNC - I'm defining smaller cities pretty loosely here (as in, <500,000 people), but you get the idea, all these places seem to have people who never want to leave. Especially in Michigan, my alma mater, there are MANY lifers on the faculty there. I love Ann Arbor, but can't imagine living there from age 18-80

You forgot U of MN - Duluth and U of MN - Twin Cities (minneapolis). Both have undergrad campuses and medical schools, though UMN-Duluth is more of a rural med program.

 

[2012mdc]

Michigan, Case Western, Cincinnati, Iowa (and then if you're counting big cities, Northwestern and U of Chicago, though granted, NW med school isn't in Evanston)...in the south, Vanderbilt, Emory, Duke, UNC - I'm defining smaller cities pretty loosely here (as in, <500,000 people), but you get the idea, all these places seem to have people who never want to leave. Especially in Michigan, my alma mater, there are MANY lifers on the faculty there. I love Ann Arbor, but can't imagine living there from age 18-80

I know it doesn't change your point (which I agree with BTW) but it's funny that you included Atlanta when it's one of the biggest metro areas in the country.

 

[IlDestriero]

If that one place is John Hopkins, would you ever want to leave?

Yes. Faculty salary is among the lowest anywhere!
I work with a couple of faculty that were here for undergrad, medical school, residency, fellowship, and are now staff. One did 2 residencies here. Personally, I think it's good to go to different cities and experience life in different places, and see how many hospitals function. I did each step of my education, training and employment in different places. I'm thinking about another change in a few years, before the kids are too old to make new friends easily.
Change is good, unless you're a partner in a PP, than change is usually bad.😉

 

[mrwesticles]

This feels like the equivalent of homeschool but for medicine.

It's definitely best to leave your comfort zone for at least a year or so, unless you physically need to be near a batcave or something.