What to look for in MD/PhD Programs?

[Plasmodel]

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Besides the obvious, such as figuring out information about the dept you are interested or the location and being honest about your chances, what were some of the other factors, MD-PhD applicants here took into consideration?

Also, do applicants usually apply straight out of undergraduate college? Would doing an MPhil be overdoing it?

 

[URHere]

When I was figuring out which programs to apply to, I considered:

1) Research. I considered which schools had STRONG (large, well-funded, renown PIs) programs for what I am interested in. This also included which schools had the individuals I was most interested in working with.

2) Location. Obviously, I took into account part of the country, and things like urban vs. rural location, but I also considered which schools were close to my ideal patient base (I want to work with patients with substance abuse problems, so I narrowed down my schools based on the cities with the highest incidences of abuse).

3) Funding. Not all MD/PhD programs are fully funded so I took into consideration if tuition was covered, insurance was covered, and stipends were paid.

4) Feel of the school. This is where factors like competitiveness, clinical strengths of the school, age and background of students, etc came into play for me.

5) MD/PhD program specifics. I considered how large the program was, what specific graduation requirements were, if there were specific seminars/regular meetings/etc. for MD/PhD students.

6) MD program specifics. Most MD programs don't differ drastically, but some schools laid out their courses in ways I liked better than others. Some people also care about whether a school uses a pass/fail or graded system.

7) The rest was based on my gut feeling about the schools. True, you can't tell everything about a school without visiting, but after cruising web pages, I had some idea (well-founded or not) of how much I liked each school.

As for when to apply, you should really apply when you are ready. If you have all of your prereqs, a strong research record, AND you think you are emotionally ready to enter a program right out of undergrad, then do it. Otherwise, do what you have to in order to make yourself ready. If you want to work on a Masters first, then do it. It's probably not worth it if you just want to boost your application, but it's definitely worth it if it's something you want to do for yourself.

 

[StIGMA]

I am not in a program yet (hopefully will be next year), but I have been considering how well integrated the MD portion is with the PhD portion.

Most MSTP's are likely very integrated. State schools may not be. For instance, at the Medical College of Georgia, you have the option of doing your PhD at MCG, UGA, Georgia State, or Georgia Tech. This seems to not lend itself to being a very integrated program, especially if you are a few hours away from the medical campus for a few years.


Also consider how schools consider their MD/PhD program. I've heard that at Harvard the program blends in with everything else, and at Hopkins it is their crown jewel.

I am applying straight out of college, as are all my premed buddies/acquaintances (straight undergrad to either MD or MD/PhD).

 

[gbwillner]

When I was figuring out which programs to apply to, I considered:

1) Research. I considered which schools had STRONG (large, well-funded, renown PIs) programs for what I am interested in. This also included which schools had the individuals I was most interested in working with.

2) Location. Obviously, I took into account part of the country, and things like urban vs. rural location, but I also considered which schools were close to my ideal patient base (I want to work with patients with substance abuse problems, so I narrowed down my schools based on the cities with the highest incidences of abuse).

3) Funding. Not all MD/PhD programs are fully funded so I took into consideration if tuition was covered, insurance was covered, and stipends were paid.

4) Feel of the school. This is where factors like competitiveness, clinical strengths of the school, age and background of students, etc came into play for me.

5) MD/PhD program specifics. I considered how large the program was, what specific graduation requirements were, if there were specific seminars/regular meetings/etc. for MD/PhD students.

6) MD program specifics. Most MD programs don't differ drastically, but some schools laid out their courses in ways I liked better than others. Some people also care about whether a school uses a pass/fail or graded system.

7) The rest was based on my gut feeling about the schools. True, you can't tell everything about a school without visiting, but after cruising web pages, I had some idea (well-founded or not) of how much I liked each school.

As for when to apply, you should really apply when you are ready. If you have all of your prereqs, a strong research record, AND you think you are emotionally ready to enter a program right out of undergrad, then do it. Otherwise, do what you have to in order to make yourself ready. If you want to work on a Masters first, then do it. It's probably not worth it if you just want to boost your application, but it's definitely worth it if it's something you want to do for yourself.

+1. Good review.

 

[bd4727]

Besides the obvious, such as figuring out information about the dept you are interested or the location and being honest about your chances, what were some of the other factors, MD-PhD applicants here took into consideration?

Also, do applicants usually apply straight out of undergraduate college? Would doing an MPhil be overdoing it?

Just my 2 cents, but I think people take into consideration way too many things that ultimately are not important at all. Here is what I think the things to take into account should be, in order:

1. Reputation of the school (by far the most important)
2. Multiple faculty doing research you would be interested in (do NOT go to a school because they have 1 person you want to work with. This is one of the dumbest things you can possibly do)
3. Quality of the medical school/ if you like their curriculum (if you do a 4 year PhD, then half of your time is in medical school, so this is a lot more important that many people recognize)

Things that I think people consider way too much and ultimately are unimportant:

1. Location (specifically big vs. small city)-- you will spend all of your time studying/in lab, and when you are not you will go to the same 3 or 4 bars or whatever. I really feel like this is such an overblown criteron. I go to a school in a major city, and I hardly ever do anything that I couldn't have done if I went to a rural school. I am not saying it shouldn't be a consideration in some regards, but I just don't understand the people who apply to only schools in big cities. Now trying to be close to family/significant other is a different story.

2. How cool/nice the students you meet on the interview are-- I think this is just ridiculous. First, you have to recognize the sample size that you are interacting with, not to mention that they are self-selected students who volunteered to interview/host etc. Then, just like everything else you have done in life, you will find people you like and hang out with them and just be nice to the people you don't like. Everywhere in the world there are people who will be "cool" and people who are annoying/uptight/losers whatever, so IMO this shouldn't even be a consideration.

3. Integration of the MD and PhD-- When you are in medical school, you will be so overwhelmed that having to do anything related to PhD will just be an annoyance. When you are in grad school, the same is true only opposite (at least if you want to get out in 4 years). Furthermore, no program is going to stop an individual student from seeking something out if they want to do it (ie Clinical things during PhD). Lastly, the NIGMS requires that MSTP schools have aspects of their programs that "integrate" so one way or another the schools have this in mind. This concept is such minutae, I don't see why this would actually factor into a decision.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Just my 2 cents, but I think people take into consideration way too many things that ultimately are not important at all. Here is what I think the things to take into account should be, in order:

1. Reputation of the school (by far the most important)
2. Multiple faculty doing research you would be interested in (do NOT go to a school because they have 1 person you want to work with. This is one of the dumbest things you can possibly do)
3. Quality of the medical school/ if you like their curriculum (if you do a 4 year PhD, then half of your time is in medical school, so this is a lot more important that many people recognize)

Things that I think people consider way too much and ultimately are unimportant:

1. Location (specifically big vs. small city)-- you will spend all of your time studying/in lab, and when you are not you will go to the same 3 or 4 bars or whatever. I really feel like this is such an overblown criteron. I go to a school in a major city, and I hardly ever do anything that I couldn't have done if I went to a rural school. I am not saying it shouldn't be a consideration in some regards, but I just don't understand the people who apply to only schools in big cities. Now trying to be close to family/significant other is a different story.

2. How cool/nice the students you meet on the interview are-- I think this is just ridiculous. First, you have to recognize the sample size that you are interacting with, not to mention that they are self-selected students who volunteered to interview/host etc. Then, just like everything else you have done in life, you will find people you like and hang out with them and just be nice to the people you don't like. Everywhere in the world there are people who will be "cool" and people who are annoying/uptight/losers whatever, so IMO this shouldn't even be a consideration.

3. Integration of the MD and PhD-- When you are in medical school, you will be so overwhelmed that having to do anything related to PhD will just be an annoyance. When you are in grad school, the same is true only opposite (at least if you want to get out in 4 years). Furthermore, no program is going to stop an individual student from seeking something out if they want to do it (ie Clinical things during PhD). Lastly, the NIGMS requires that MSTP schools have aspects of their programs that "integrate" so one way or another the schools have this in mind. This concept is such minutae, I don't see why this would actually factor into a decision.

Agree with 2 & 3, 1 not so much. Sure it's better to go to a higher ranked school in general but MD/PhDs match well almost regardless of where they went (OK, anywhere in the top 50 pretty much), so whether you did your MD/PhD at Harvard, Yale, Emory, or NYU (schools that are spaced out by roughly 10 US News rankings) is pretty irrelevant in the long run.

On the second part, agree with 2, that you cannot know what it's like until you're in it. As for 1, re: location, it does matter. You don't want to go somewhere where it's perpetually a matter of fearing for your safety or the weather is constantly depressing to you or there's absolutely nothing to do on your time off. You will have weekends, days off, evenings off, and the like, and while most medium-large cities should provide plenty satisfaction, be wary of location. I both disagree and agree with 3. Do not look for integration fluff - i.e. extra "integrative" courses since they are a pain and add nothing to your residency application or your education. However, integration is important in terms of getting med school coursework recognized by graduate departments. That can save you from many months of redundant graduate school class.

 

[Neuronix]

Just my 2 cents, but I think people take into consideration way too many things that ultimately are not important at all. Here is what I think the things to take into account should be, in order:

1. Reputation of the school (by far the most important)

You just contradicted yourself.

How is this by far the most important?! As mercapto pointed out, MD/PhDs have little difficulty matching. MSTPs are the top-40 medical schools to begin with. Who's splitting hairs between a top-5 school and a top-20 school? MAYBE there's some small effect on residency, but of course your performance in medical school matters way more, and then once you're done residency nobody will ever care where you went for medical school. Did they care where you went to high school when you applied for medical school? It's the same kind of deal.

IMO reputation of the school should be ignored as long as that school is MSTP. It's been certified to be a quality MD/PhD program at that point. If you're looking beyond MSTPs then you might want to think a little bit about the program for other reasons, but reputation? Who cares?! You think grant reviewers are going to somehow factor in the name of the school you trained at for medical school/grad school someday? Research-oriented fellowships probably don't even care about this at all. You're MD/PhD, come on over.

3. Quality of the medical school/ if you like their curriculum (if you do a 4 year PhD, then half of your time is in medical school, so this is a lot more important that many people recognize)

I disagree with this one too. You pretty much have no idea what the "quality" of the medical school is or if you will like their cirriculum. Is a medical school "quality" if their local hospital is failing and uses medical students for a lot of labor as soon as they start, hence you become more clinically proficient? Cause if this is the case there are several and they don't meet your #1 criteron. Or is a school more "quality" if the med students are at the biggest name hospitals not really doing anything because they have a huge layer of fellows/residents/rotating med students buffering their hands on experience.

If you're a pre-med, you haven't been to med school yet. I was sucked in by touchy feely small-group/PBL crap and grew to realize how annoying it was being required to be at class every day, sometimes multiple times a day (most small groups/PBL at most med schools are this way). I quickly realized the best way to learn was to skip lecture, grab the lecture notes, and read on my own. The social science oriented material and lectures were almost, with few exceptions, completely useless. The worst ones were so poorly attended they became mandatory. Yet this is the sort of thing med schools sell themselves on. The core body of knowledge you need to know is pretty much standardized across med schools. Third year and Fourth Year is roughly the same anywhere.

There's a few caveats:
Anywhere that still requires a rural med rotation out of MD/PhDs is kind of nuts IMO.
I'm biased towards programs that have less basic science cirriculum so you can get into clinics BEFORE the PhD. If I had my way I'd do all of third year before the PhD, but you can't do this usually because they're too afraid you'll run off without the PhD when you get screwed/goings get tough in grad school.

Things that I think people consider way too much and ultimately are unimportant:

1. Location (specifically big vs. small city)-- you will spend all of your time studying/in lab, and when you are not you will go to the same 3 or 4 bars or whatever. I really feel like this is such an overblown criteron. I go to a school in a major city, and I hardly ever do anything that I couldn't have done if I went to a rural school. I am not saying it shouldn't be a consideration in some regards, but I just don't understand the people who apply to only schools in big cities. Now trying to be close to family/significant other is a different story.

I strongly disagree with this. The idea that you will spend all of your time studying or in lab is ridiculous unless you are one of those types that feels the need to do that all the itme. But this all depends on your personality. For me, I like to do a lot of things that are location specific. I will also be factoring in location heavily for residency. I like to ski, so I like to be near mountains. I also like city environments because I'm a foodie and enjoy exotic foods regularly. I guess you can find microbrews anywhere?

2. How cool/nice the students you meet on the interview are-- I think this is just ridiculous.

Agreed there. You get to meet the bubbliest first years when you interview typically. Oh joy!

3. Integration of the MD and PhD

Sort of agree. Taking PhD classes during med school is helpful. It's especially helpful when both sides are flexible enough or designed well enough that you have many PhD class choices that don't conflict with the MD schedule.

For me most important was (and I would still expouse these with the caveats above and below):
1) Location
2) Strength of research in my area -- For me this ended up not being important. For various reasons I couldn't work in the half dozen or so labs here I'd identified before I interviewed. I should have known when I didn't get hardly any of the people I asked to interview with and the one guy I did was kind of anti-MD/PhD, but I was naive then.
3) Time to graduation/extra requirements that hold students up. Turns out this is misleading too. I joined the program thinking the average was 7.5, but the average since I've been here has been 8 years.

Fully prepared to duck the tomato for this post

😀

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

You just contradicted yourself.

How is this by far the most important?! As mercapto pointed out, MD/PhDs have little difficulty matching. MSTPs are the top-40 medical schools to begin with. Who's splitting hairs between a top-5 school and a top-20 school? MAYBE there's some small effect on residency, but of course your performance in medical school matters way more, and then once you're done residency nobody will ever care where you went for medical school. Did they care where you went to high school when you applied for medical school? It's the same kind of deal.

IMO reputation of the school should be ignored as long as that school is MSTP. It's been certified to be a quality MD/PhD program at that point. If you're looking beyond MSTPs then you might want to think a little bit about the program for other reasons, but reputation? Who cares?! You think grant reviewers are going to somehow factor in the name of the school you trained at for medical school/grad school someday? Research-oriented fellowships probably don't even care about this at all. You're MD/PhD, come on over.



I disagree with this one too. You pretty much have no idea what the "quality" of the medical school is or if you will like their cirriculum. Is a medical school "quality" if their local hospital is failing and uses medical students for a lot of labor as soon as they start, hence you become more clinically proficient? Cause if this is the case there are several and they don't meet your #1 criteron. Or is a school more "quality" if the med students are at the biggest name hospitals not really doing anything because they have a huge layer of fellows/residents/rotating med students buffering their hands on experience.

If you're a pre-med, you haven't been to med school yet. I was sucked in by touchy feely small-group/PBL crap and grew to realize how annoying it was being required to be at class every day, sometimes multiple times a day (most small groups/PBL at most med schools are this way). I quickly realized the best way to learn was to skip lecture, grab the lecture notes, and read on my own. The social science oriented material and lectures were almost, with few exceptions, completely useless. The worst ones were so poorly attended they became mandatory. Yet this is the sort of thing med schools sell themselves on. The core body of knowledge you need to know is pretty much standardized across med schools. Third year and Fourth Year is roughly the same anywhere.

There's a few caveats:
Anywhere that still requires a rural med rotation out of MD/PhDs is kind of nuts IMO.
I'm biased towards programs that have less basic science cirriculum so you can get into clinics BEFORE the PhD. If I had my way I'd do all of third year before the PhD, but you can't do this usually because they're too afraid you'll run off without the PhD when you get screwed/goings get tough in grad school.



I strongly disagree with this. The idea that you will spend all of your time studying or in lab is ridiculous unless you are one of those types that feels the need to do that all the itme. But this all depends on your personality. For me, I like to do a lot of things that are location specific. I will also be factoring in location heavily for residency. I like to ski, so I like to be near mountains. I also like city environments because I'm a foodie and enjoy exotic foods regularly. I guess you can find microbrews anywhere?



Agreed there. You get to meet the bubbliest first years when you interview typically. Oh joy!



Sort of agree. Taking PhD classes during med school is helpful. It's especially helpful when both sides are flexible enough or designed well enough that you have many PhD class choices that don't conflict with the MD schedule.

For me most important was (and I would still expouse these with the caveats above and below):
1) Location
2) Strength of research in my area -- For me this ended up not being important. For various reasons I couldn't work in the half dozen or so labs here I'd identified before I interviewed. I should have known when I didn't get hardly any of the people I asked to interview with and the one guy I did was kind of anti-MD/PhD, but I was naive then.
3) Time to graduation/extra requirements that hold students up. Turns out this is misleading too. I joined the program thinking the average was 7.5, but the average since I've been here has been 8 years.

Fully prepared to duck the tomato for this post

😀

Fully agree on the med school reputation thing. As for classes, 100% agree. I did not want a PBL school and I ended up getting PBL maybe once a week or once every two weeks and even at that it was a huge pain. PBL sounds nice in theory but it's a huge pain because of mandatory attendance/commute, timewasting, student irresponsibility, and no assurance that you have all the info that's liable to be tested. I didn't care for lectures either. I just took the syllabus, downloaded the powerpoints for extra stuff not in the syllabus, and studied from that - at home. I managed to honor classes that I never once stepped into a lecture or workshop. And the humanities classes were utter BS as well - avoided attendance at all costs and of course the regular attendees were pissed off at the non-attenders because they were getting the same or better final grades, so they then enforced mandatory sign-in sheets the next year. Ugh. Nobody should be in a lab all the time. Ultimately it's counterproductive. Unless I'm getting exciting results, grinding through nights and into the wee hours of the morning makes me pissed off and despondent. Having a life outside lab during the PhD years makes getting through the PhD much easier, even if it takes a little longer.

 

[bd4727]

First off, like I said this is just my 2 cents, but I feel like some of the ideas I expressed are things that are never/rarely discussed on here and IMO they are relevent/important and I think other people besides myself find them to be true as well. I am not saying my list the the correct way, just trying to offer up some other insight.

You just contradicted yourself.

How is this by far the most important?! As mercapto pointed out, MD/PhDs have little difficulty matching. MSTPs are the top-40 medical schools to begin with. Who's splitting hairs between a top-5 school and a top-20 school? MAYBE there's some small effect on residency, but of course your performance in medical school matters way more, and then once you're done residency nobody will ever care where you went for medical school. Did they care where you went to high school when you applied for medical school? It's the same kind of deal.

IMO reputation of the school should be ignored as long as that school is MSTP. It's been certified to be a quality MD/PhD program at that point. If you're looking beyond MSTPs then you might want to think a little bit about the program for other reasons, but reputation? Who cares?! You think grant reviewers are going to somehow factor in the name of the school you trained at for medical school/grad school someday? Research-oriented fellowships probably don't even care about this at all. You're MD/PhD, come on over.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I think it is almost silly to truly buy into the fact that having gone to MUSC is the same as Harvard. All I am saying is all else being equal (which I know it never is), you should not let things which I consider frivolous (PBL, how cool the person you stayed with was) trump the fact that one school is generally perceived as being a stronger biomedical institution than another.

I certainly agree that in US News, for any given school on the list, that school should be regarded as the same "tier" as the other 10 schools above it and below it. But I just really don't think it is true that school 40 is held in the same regard, on a whole, as school 3. I am speaking in particular about residency applications, and nothing else. Again, assuming all else is equal. Of course killing the Step 1 will beat out going to Duke and just doing average any day.

I disagree with this one too. You pretty much have no idea what the "quality" of the medical school is or if you will like their cirriculum. Is a medical school "quality" if their local hospital is failing and uses medical students for a lot of labor as soon as they start, hence you become more clinically proficient? Cause if this is the case there are several and they don't meet your #1 criteron. Or is a school more "quality" if the med students are at the biggest name hospitals not really doing anything because they have a huge layer of fellows/residents/rotating med students buffering their hands on experience.

If you're a pre-med, you haven't been to med school yet. I was sucked in by touchy feely small-group/PBL crap and grew to realize how annoying it was being required to be at class every day, sometimes multiple times a day (most small groups/PBL at most med schools are this way). I quickly realized the best way to learn was to skip lecture, grab the lecture notes, and read on my own. The social science oriented material and lectures were almost, with few exceptions, completely useless. The worst ones were so poorly attended they became mandatory. Yet this is the sort of thing med schools sell themselves on. The core body of knowledge you need to know is pretty much standardized across med schools. Third year and Fourth Year is roughly the same anywhere.

There's a few caveats:
Anywhere that still requires a rural med rotation out of MD/PhDs is kind of nuts IMO.
I'm biased towards programs that have less basic science cirriculum so you can get into clinics BEFORE the PhD. If I had my way I'd do all of third year before the PhD, but you can't do this usually because they're too afraid you'll run off without the PhD when you get screwed/goings get tough in grad school.

Maybe quality was a poor choice of words. I think I was going for the school's philosphy/approach. I am talking about in particular do they take an old school, sequential approach or the newer more intergrated approach. I think depending on how you think one or the other of these could drive you nuts or mesh well with your way of doing things. I think in the end, if you are intelligent and flexiable it won't matter, but on a day-to-day basis it could reduce your aniexty some. For instance, some people would want to sit down and take a true Pharm course first before trying to understand why and how certain drugs work in different systems, etc. I am sure you get the point so I won't continue the example, but I do believe this is something that you can easily gather information about as an undergrad applying to schools and decide which learning style is the best fit for the way you think.

Almost all schools do small group/PBL in some form or another, so to me this is not relevent. But like you said, your learning style was best to just go do your own thing. Some schools do more to support this approach (taping lectures, giving syllabi, etc) whereas other have class 9-5 that isn't taped and have more mandatory classes. If you already know which is best for you going into the process, why not seek out those schools?

Lastly, again you said you would do better at a school that got you into the clinics before PhD. This is something you have ultimate control over, and again fits into what I would call the schools philosophy. I happen to agree with you that this is an amazing way of doing MD/PhD training, and my point is these really important type of things should trump the frivilous that gets too much consideration, IMO.

I strongly disagree with this. The idea that you will spend all of your time studying or in lab is ridiculous unless you are one of those types that feels the need to do that all the itme. But this all depends on your personality. For me, I like to do a lot of things that are location specific. I will also be factoring in location heavily for residency. I like to ski, so I like to be near mountains. I also like city environments because I'm a foodie and enjoy exotic foods regularly. I guess you can find microbrews anywhere?

I realize this is by far the most personal thing, and so I anticipated getting a lot of slack for this. As someone who has lived in about 6 different places in my life (both very urban and very rural) I think that medical school is the time when your location matters least. Time-wise, you will spend most of these years of your life in about 3 buildings. I guess this isn't even worth discussing because it really is just a very personal thing, but I just cringe when I hear people tell me they didn't apply to a really great school because it wasn't in NYC, Boston or LA. I really feel that the spare time you have in medical school makes a city like Ann Arbor semi-equavalent to Boston, in terms of the places you go explore/eat at/drink at, etc. Now if you need to be around big buildings and have the "city life" to feel comfortable, then that is a different story. I just don't think you are missing out on that much that an average size city doesn't have, especially microbrews.

Agreed there. You get to meet the bubbliest first years when you interview typically. Oh joy!



Sort of agree. Taking PhD classes during med school is helpful. It's especially helpful when both sides are flexible enough or designed well enough that you have many PhD class choices that don't conflict with the MD schedule.

For me most important was (and I would still expouse these with the caveats above and below):
1) Location
2) Strength of research in my area -- For me this ended up not being important. For various reasons I couldn't work in the half dozen or so labs here I'd identified before I interviewed. I should have known when I didn't get hardly any of the people I asked to interview with and the one guy I did was kind of anti-MD/PhD, but I was naive then.
3) Time to graduation/extra requirements that hold students up. Turns out this is misleading too. I joined the program thinking the average was 7.5, but the average since I've been here has been 8 years.

Fully prepared to duck the tomato for this post

😀

Again, all else being equal then location should be a big factor. But if you are talking about doing BME and your options are WashU vs. Mount Sinai, I am not so sure the best move is to go to NYC for med school if you can still be happy elsewhere.

 

[Neuronix]

First off, like I said this is just my 2 cents, but I feel like some of the ideas I expressed are things that are never/rarely discussed on here and IMO they are relevent/important and I think other people besides myself find them to be true as well. I am not saying my list the the correct way, just trying to offer up some other insight.

That's all fair. I appreciate you posting such a long and detailed contribution to a common question. I just disagree with you. Applicants can make up their own minds of course, and I always say nobody should listen to me more just cause I have that little Senior Mod badge (I liked Super Moderator better darnit!). I apologize if I come across too strongly and I mean no disrespect.

I am speaking in particular about residency applications, and nothing else. Again, assuming all else is equal. Of course killing the Step 1 will beat out going to Duke and just doing average any day.

So we come back to school reputation is maybe important for residency and only of minor importance. BTW, my previous PI did his MD/PhD at MUSC and seemed to be doing fine. Remember that the most common MD/PhD specialties are very MD/PhD friendly and not very competitive to begin with.

I am sure you get the point so I won't continue the example, but I do believe this is something that you can easily gather information about as an undergrad applying to schools and decide which learning style is the best fit for the way you think.

I don't, but we'll just have to disagree and see what others think.

Some schools do more to support this approach (taping lectures, giving syllabi, etc) whereas other have class 9-5 that isn't taped and have more mandatory classes. If you already know which is best for you going into the process, why not seek out those schools?

I've never heard of a MSTP school with 9-5 mandatory lectures. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this point. I rarely see mandatory lectures at any school. The only things that tend to be mandatory are labs, small groups, PBL, and the BS social science crap I was alluding to earlier. The schools that don't videotape their lectures have notetaking services and often the professors give out notes. My school tapes the lectures and I never watched them. I still think it's a very minor point, though I'm glad we agree on the pre-PhD clinics bit. If I could change the world I'd probably put the PhD after med school or during residency, but that's just me.

As someone who has lived in about 6 different places in my life (both very urban and very rural) I think that medical school is the time when your location matters least.

So when does it matter? Residency when the hours are even harder? When you become faculty and the hours are harder than med school? Never because you spent your whole life in a hospital? That's a fair response if that's the kind of person you are. Just how much harder is a MSTP than a real job anyways? I'll say I averaged 50 hours a week through my program, with some weeks being less and some being more. Is that worse than a job for someone else in their 20s? It all depends on how you live your life I guess. I'm a fairly average medical student and graduate student. I guess if you want to the best at anything you need to sacrifice your life in other areas. Again, don't apologize for it. If you want to say I'm going to be the biggest baddest mofo out there in surgery/research/MD/PhD/whatever and ignore the rest of the world, please do it. But make it sound like what it is. Med school and PhD aren't that bad unless you want them to be.

Still, I have to realize that I'm in the extreme minority by doing the things I do. When I sent out an e-mail to my whole MSTP looking for skiing partners I got 0 responses. I don't think it's ever happened before that someone took a year out from the program this late in the game. But, I think it's a cop-out to say "I chose this rural place because I wouldn't have any time" because in reality you will. It's your choice how you want to spend it. Don't apologize if you like rural. Don't apologize if you say Houston has everything I'm looking for in a city. But, I think it's really silly to compare St. Louis to NYC or Ann Arbor to Boston. Those cities are full of 20somethings paying a fortune in rent for a reason.

I really feel that the spare time you have in medical school makes a city like Ann Arbor semi-equavalent to Boston, in terms of the places you go explore/eat at/drink at, etc.

For 8 years of your life are you really going to the same places over and over and over again or are you interested in a large and dynamic city? I mean it works both ways. If you love some outdoor activity you can't get in NYC, by all means stay away.

I didn't like Ann Arbor for other reasons. Namely the city is expensive as heck (as expensive as Philly!) for the privlege of taking a bus to class in the fridgid cold all winter. No thanks for me! But if that's your bag...

Again, all else being equal then location should be a big factor. But if you are talking about doing BME and your options are WashU vs. Mount Sinai, I am not so sure the best move is to go to NYC for med school if you can still be happy elsewhere.

That's a highly personal decision. For me I'd probably pick Mt. Sinai. I've definately known people who have made that kind of decision, but I've known those who have chose both ways.

Still, overall I think it's very misleading to say that the reputation of your program is the most important thing to consider. I also think it's misleading to insinuate that you won't have time to enjoy your surroundings in your program and you shouldn't really consider that part. If you're the type of person that works all the time and comes home to sit in your apartment, ok, do what you want. If you don't enjoy life while you're in your 20s, when will you enjoy it? Never? Cause it only gets harder from here folks. I've seen the light, and it's not really any closer finishing your program than it was starting. You have another set of hurdles coming up and they're higher than the ones you've already been jumping. Remember that when you're in medical school. How long will you put off the other things you want to do? Do you think life is going to become magically easier and more fun as you get older? To me it seems like it might by the time you're too old to enjoy it.

 

[gbwillner]

But, I think it's really silly to compare St. Louis to NYC or Ann Arbor to Boston. Those cities are full of 20somethings paying a fortune in rent for a reason.

You are right- it is silly to compare St. Louis to NYC since St. Louis is so much better. If I have to hear another date mention that they can't leave the house without a Prada/Gucci/LV handbag I'm going to throttle them. Plus, the Yankees are there and I hate them.

In St. Louis I can walk everywhere, I live 5 min walk to the hospital and dining/clubs/coffee shops, and I can buy a house in just about any neighborhood I want, or I can pay $850 /mo rent in a high rise all utilities included. No, it's not Boston. It's a cheaper, viable alternative.

/All I'm saying is don't knock a place till you live there.
//People pay a ton to live in LA too, and that place sucks hardcore

 

[Ariodant]

How much time do you have to fully enjoy your big cities anyway, especially during grad school? My city is rated one of the best in the country, but I hardly notice the difference. No matter where I am, I just hope the lab could be more spacious, since I live there😀