Which city is best for med students?

[lakersfan]

Los Angeles!!!

Not too many med schools here (UCLA, USC and then Loma Linda and UC Irvine if you go to the outer reaches of the area "LA"). The beach is always nearby. Always 60-70 degrees in the winter. No snow. Not much rain (except this year). Anyways, I think LA is the place to be so long as you have a car...you can go skiing during the winter, surfing/boogey boarding in the summer, etc etc. Obviously I'm biased since I have lived here my entire life except for ugrad. Oh yeah, Vegas is only a 4-5 hour drive away

I went to UC Berkeley for undergrad and would also have to say that SF (NOT the easy bay) is a really nice place to be. Unfortunately, the only two schools in that area are UCSF and Stanford which are uber-competitive to gain admission to. SF has great weather if you dont mind a little bit of rain and an occasional 45 degrees during the day in the winter (but rarely though). I always enjoy the view of seeing the fog roll in through the Golden Gate Bridge...that is one of hte great things about UC Berkeley (you can always see the bay and golden gate from many parts of campus). SF has great food, esp. if you like sea food (I do not but I love Italian food so great place for that). The BART makes getting around SF very convenient...although if you are heading to UCSF I think you have to make a connection to a bus.

Those are probably one of the two places I would like to settle down in eventually.

Outside of California, NY City rocks!!! I NY!!!

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[lakersfan]

ctwickman...

Always feel the need to show off Chicago, eh?

 

[masterMood]

MORE PICTURES OF SPECIFIC CITIES PLEASE (Those are some good pictures of chicago)

 

[riceman04]

I'd vote Boston, but I'm wicked biased.

I hear Boston is a very racist city!

 

[uproarhz]

That's funny, I've eaten at Reza's. By far the biggest portions you can EVER get, and that comes from a persian whose seen many many big potions! I went there to the recommendation of a post doc on our floor. I was about to fall out of my chair after ordering pomegranate chicken and finding a whole cornished hen on my plate! Fabulous place to eat at... I miss all the middle esatern food in chicago!

 

[jennifermov]

Houston--The world's largest medical center!

After 2 years @ baylor college of medicine, i'm going to have to second the comment that houston is the "armpit".... being in the med center sucks --> students pay more that staff for parking, and it's for crappy off-site parking that requires you to ride an over-crowded shuttle bus to schools/hospitals. to add insult to injury, houston has no character....

you want a city with character? new orleans! besides the party scene downtown, you've got the gorgeous atmosphere of uptown/ the garden district. want awesome opportunities as a med student? you don't get more "hands-on" training than at charity....

but in the end...will we ever agree on the best city? probably not. but i like the awesome pics of chicago!!!

jen

 

[winstonm]

Biased but who cares...Toronto. Why?
1) Safest large city in North America. You can walk out of Toronto General, Sick Kids, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre or Mount Sinai hospital onto University Ave. at any time of day/night and feel safe. Didn't get that feeling in Baltimore or DC last year .
2) Big city and metro area (well over 5 million), lots of stuff to do like...
3) Third largest theatre capital in the English world (Lord of the Rings musical premieres here next year). A brand new opera centre will open soon.
4) Most nightclub sqare-footage per capita in N. America. Perhaps the greatest nightclub in North America (you have to see Lucid to believe it). Most diverse nightclub scene anywhere...hip hop, electronic, rock, Caribbean, Latin...anything. Plus, most of the clubs/pubs are within a few blocks of each other right downtown in the entertainment district, which also includes the major theatres, home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the soon-to-be-completed opera house.
5) Most diverse city in the world. Within 2 weeks in August, we have Caribana, probably the largest "street festival" in North America and Taste of the Danforth in the Greek area of the city, both of which draw upwards of a million people. There are gigantic Irish, Italian, Asian, South Asian, Caribbean, Greek, German, Brazilian, Portuguese etc. communities. Half of the city will be immigrants in the next few years.
6) Beautiful women of every nationality.
6) Way better winters (i.e. much less snow) than NY and basically the entire N.E. US.
7) Relatively cheap housing for a city of this size and importance to province/state. Also really expensive housing, if you have money. Trump is building a tower in the financial district.
8) U. Toronto is the only med school in the city, and has a ridiculous number of fully and partially affiliated teaching facilities of every kind, forming one of the world's largest health science "centres" affiliated with any single school. Aside from usual hospitals, there's an affiliated geriatric centre, and a facility that specializes in rehabilitating and treating disabled children.
9) Hospital for Sick Children, one of the world's best pediatric centres along with CHOP, Boston Children's and Great Ormond.
10) Lots of pro sports. NASCAR might even move up here and the F1 race in Montreal may start to alternate with Toronto.
11) Great food and shopping no matter what your budget is. General mall stuff, or hit the Yorkville area for LV, Rolex, Cartier, Gucci blah blah.
12) You like cars? The only certified international auto show on the continent outside of Detroit. Tons of import shows over the year.
13) UofT's library, always ranking 3rd-5th in North America in terms of number of holdings.
14) Research facilities, if that's your thing. The school has money and is putting up new facilities like crazy.
15) SARS already hit. We now know what to do when s*** goes down. We're ready, dammit.
16) For Americans: Your US $$ still gives you a bonus, though not as much as before. U. Toronto does accept foreigners, but it's very, very difficult to get in.
17) Toronto International Film Festival, one of the most important in the world.
18) Amazing community groups so there are an unlimited number of ways to help a particular group, community or cause.

Cons
1) Transit system is really good, and clean, but underfunded by federal and provincial governments.
2) Toronto gets abused financially by the fed and prov. governments, which siphon $ out of the city for other purposes.
3) Car insurance sure as hell isn't free like it is in Durham. Are you dookies serious about that???
4) Potholes. Bloody freeze/thaw cycles
5) It's very expensive to travel out of the new $5 billion airport. They're paying for it partially by charging airlines a lot to use it, so costs get passed to the customers.
6) Sales tax, all 15% of it


http://www.toronto.com
http://www.facmed.utoronto.ca

Website with a lot of panorama images of the city
Taste of the Danforth (Greek festival)

small image from Caribana parade

Sassafraza in the Yorkville area...where celebs eat when filming in T.O. (blurry pic, I know)

New Daniel Libeskind-designed addition to Royal Ontario Museum

Skyline in evening, looking NW from Lake Ontario

Downtown, looking NW again from the CN tower

 

[winstonm]

Little pic of Princess of Wales Theatre

Inside of P. Wales theatre

East along Queen St, old City Hall on left

"mountain" at centre of Paramount Canada's Wonderland theme park

 

[winstonm]

Inside of Sick Kids

SickKids atrium

Outside sickkids

Toronto MaRS Discovery District+Toronto General Hospital (everything in the pic is part of it)

HOK's redevelopment of the Toronto General site of the University Health Network
http://www.hok.com/markets/overview...A-20E34F910C03/UHN_Health_Care_DotComWeb.htm#
Toronto Western Hospital Atrium

Princess Margaret (Cancer) Hospital

(If you want to know what the main UofT campus looks like, rent "Skulls")

 

[masterMood]

Skyline in evening, looking NW from Lake Ontario

winstomm, that funky looking building what is that?

P.S. Toronto is beautiful, never been there. If you went to their med. school, how hard would it be to get residency in america?

 

[espinator]

Denver hands down - you've got the mountains, hiking, and skiing every day of the year.

I agree, and lots of sunshine, laid back folks and a cool night life.

 

[OntheRoof55]

Tampa, FL bitch

 

[masterMood]

pictures please, we won't believe your city is the best unless you send in pictuers.


and newark is dah bomb!!!!!!

 

[on_the_fence]

Houston--The world's largest medical center!

agreed! (however, for selfish purposes, I suggest that you apply elsewhere so I have fewer people with whom to compete... )

 

[winstonm]

Skyline in evening, looking NW from Lake Ontario

winstomm, that funky looking building what is that?

P.S. Toronto is beautiful, never been there. If you went to their med. school, how hard would it be to get residency in america?

Hey, which one! The tall one is the CN Tower; the dome beside it is Skydome (now the Rogers Centre ); and the strange angled one in the bottom is probably one of the (too) many condos they're putting up along the lake.

If you went here for med (they take up to 7 visa students a year) it would probably be easy to get a residency in the US (all Cdn. schools are LCME). Toronto has a strong history of discoveries and medical advances, a great rep, and its hospital sytem is outstanding (a lot of international people come here for fellowships, especially in pediatric sub-specialties) but really as others have said, if you're very specific about where you want to do your residency e.g. MGH in Boston, it may make sense to go to med school in the area. There is no allocated prep time or anything for USMLEs here because there are different boards but many people write them and do well (to keep the doors to US residency and fellowships open); Kaplan and TPR are very aggressive here!

The Canadian match almost always come out before the US one and if you match at a Canadian program you're automatically booted from the other one. I also think that the interview times for the two matches may be different. I believe interviews are in Jan. here and that's when time is given in the curriculum. In 2004, 5 Canadian citizens from UofT went to the US for residency, but there's no info on how many applied. I don't know how many US students there are at Toronto (there are probably a few) because it's very difficult to get in and most who do would get into good schools in the US and probably elect to stay home.

- I would have put other pics; I'm probably the only person who hasn't purchased a digital cam yet so I had to rely on stuff already on the net.

- PS: I hear Chicago is really nice in summer; what's the best month to visit?

 

[Llenroc]

I agree, and lots of sunshine, laid back folks and a cool night life.

Didn't it snow 30 inches in Denver yesterday?

They say Columbus gets a lot of snow, but here it's usually less than 30 inches in a year.

I think Toronto's skyline would look nicer without the CN Tower, even though it is the most distinctive part of it.

 

[-Goose-]

you want a city with character? new orleans! besides the party scene downtown, you've got the gorgeous atmosphere of uptown/ the garden district. want awesome opportunities as a med student? you don't get more "hands-on" training than at charity....

*sigh*

 

[Rafa]

I'm either going to be in Cam-Boston, San Fran, Palo Alto, NYC, or the midwest. Hopefully PA, SF, or NYC.

 

[masterMood]

Boston

The pictures of Chicago (I think it's Chicago on page 3) are beautiful

 

[masterMood]

St. Louis, Missouri --- Very Nice City.

If you notice, the city is layed out in a grid. That's because Tom Cruise ordained it.

 

[rehanyazdani]

i am biased- and no it's not because of it's medschool but portland oregon is clean, safe, recycles, is cheap, and simply beautiful. i like seattle as well. i'm more likely to end up in medschool in nyc but i vote portland any day of the week. an hour or so to either the beach of all year round skiing? beat that

Not with the Portland Trailblazers in town!

 

[troszic]

I've seen an awful lot of NYC and I've lived in Chicago for the past 4 yrs. of undergrad.

Chicago
Pro's: Is one of the cleanest, prettiest (architecture, LOTS of parks, some really nice neighborhoods) cities that I have seen in my life. The city is very serious about its food, and there's tons of great restaurants for every type of food available.
Con's: The city proper (Downtown-Loop area) shuts down at 6:00 PM everyday. Night life not as kicking as in some places, like NYC. Hyde Park (for us UChicago people) is not "in the thick of it." It takes a little less than 20 minutes to get to Downtown by bus. And that's not even the cool part of town. The choicest neighborhoods are on the Northside, which is even farther away. Those are where all the great clubs/bars/entertainment venues are.


From what I've seen on my interviews, I was extremely impressed with Seattle. I won't be going there for med school, but I definitely want to live there at some point. The weather is very temperate (mild winters, not-too-hot summers). For outdoors activities, it can't be beat. Skiing, kayaking, and backpacking opportunities are right Freaking there. From what I understand, it has a really great music scene, too. It was a very pretty city, as well.

I really liked visiting the Westwood neighborhood (UCLA) of LA, as well. Great weather, very aesthetic neighborhood, beaches nearby, lots of clubs and bars.

 

[riceman04]

For medical students I would have to say somewhere like houston or Atlanta b/c you still get the major city vibe (most people in the metropolitan areas dont have those southern tendencies...lol) and housing is extremely affordable.

Of course these places dont have the flash of NYC, Chicago, or Los Angeles, but there are still many things to do outside of med school related activities.

Houston has the largerst medical center in the world and it is continually expanding.

Atlanta...well...it is just Atlanta...peace up, A-town down.

 

[masterMood]

what about boulder, chicago or denver, colorado?

Btw, anyone have pictures of Houston/Seattle/Boulder/Denver?