Wayne State or UIC

I interviewed at Wayne State; it's a solid med school, I think if you're into emergency medicine, especially urban trauma, you're going to get the experience of a lifetime. WSU is the only med school in Detroit, and has monopoly over the hosptials. Plus, it's Detroit, you're gonna get trauma up the Yangtze. On the other hand, although Detroit is known for being run-down and dangerous, I felt it was just like any other big city. It's a big class at Wayne too though, 300+ students. However, I know some people prefer having a large number of peers, more variety of people to interact with. Also I think WSU is known for churning out excellent, well-experienced clinicians, whilst at the same time being very weak on the research side of things. So you might choose to go there if you have no interest in research and want a ton of gritty clinical experience.

UIC doesn't want to talk to me as of yet, so I can't speak for their school. UIC has slightly more prestige though, in terms of ranking.

 

Do you mean UIowa-Carver, or UIllinois-Chicago? both are ranked and thus have a good research component.

Cons about Wayne State

- Very little research focus (or related encouragement) and thus NOT ranked by USNews - most important factor that can gie you a bump when applying for residency
- Mostly-in state school, focus is to put their students into Michigan hospitals
- Most people place into Emergency Medicine or Family Medicine (I do not know waht specialty you are considering)
- Facilities are not that great (most of our tour was spent sitting in the cafeteria)
- Detroit isn't the best city in the world
- I wasn't accepted

Pros about Wayne State

- Amazing hospitals (I think 23 affiliated in total) that are all around the med school.
- You can't get better trauma than in Detroit (IMO)

 

Honestly, if you aren't completely fixated on one school or the other, I would go to whichever school you are instate for (If you aren't instate for either, go to Wayne-UIC is ridiculously expensive for out-of-state students). Wayne and UIC are both great schools, and I don't think that one is overall that much better than the other to make spending all the extra cash worthwhile. If you knew specifically what specialty you want to go into, you could better compare the schools (for instance, in my opinion Wayne has an awesome infectious disease program). However, if you're just looking at overall prestige across the board I don't think that one school will confer a huge residency advantage over the other.

 

Wayne matches well in terms of their surgery specialties. Just because you're not pushed to do research, it doesn't mean you can't get research experience. There are more than enough labs to go around, even if there are 300 students. So in the end, you can still match into whatever you want, if your score high enough on the USMLE.

 

Wayne might not be a powerhouse research institution, but I don't know where the idea is coming from that it's weak on research. It is actually strong within certain fields such as neuroscience, cancer, and perinatal. The university is something like 22nd in total NIH funding and highest in ObGyn funding. Also, Henry Ford Hospital is right down the street, which has a higher research portfolio and endowment than many medical schools. In fact, Wayne has been pushing for a more formal relationship with HF because although Wayne students have access to their research in many aspects, they can't list it on their ledger. The combination would make Wayne's research budget MUCH larger competing with some of the best.

Overall, if it's research you want to do, there is certainly no shortage of it around here, I promise.

 

I will second that Wayne is not necessarily weak on research. Every school has strengths and weaknesses. Wayne is strong in OB/Gyn (as mentioned by ddmoore), they have a perinatology research center and an NIEHS branch (that's the National Institute of Environmental & Health Sciences--so if you've got an interest in this area of public health...) as well as the Karmanos Cancer Center. I know from experience that they've got a strong research program in imaging, with some great work in TBI (traumatic brain injury). They're also very active in MS research. While they may lack a little on the basic science end of neuroscience/neurology (they don't actually have a basic science neuroscience dept), their clinical neuroscience/neurology/psych is pretty strong. That being said, UIC's imaging research is pretty good too I believe. I think they're stronger in the computational end of the cog sci/neurosci spectrum.

So really, it depends what type of research you're interested in. What'll get you into a residency are solid grades (basic science and clinical), high board scores, and good letters. Depending on the area you want, research experience may be expected or help. I don't think the name of your school will matter all that much. Looking at the match lists for a variety of schools, I think you'll see people go pretty much everywhere. I was told by an interviewer recently that undergrad names matter a bit, but the med school you go to doesn't, because the material being taught is so similar across all the schools. However, there may be regional biases so you may have a slight advantage if you want to stay at the same school or nearby for residency versus someone else coming from farther away.