FAQ: What are the Top Medical Schools?

[jeremy]

That’s great news. It seems you know a lot about AUA. Do you know any US students doing Medical Science at AUA? I would like their experience like yours of the Caribbean system.

[Moore]

Almost all of AUA's students are from the US. The rest would be a combination of Canadians and a few from other random countries. The best way to contact current students is through online forums. They also conduct Info Seminars periodically where a few of their Clinical students come and speak.

But unfortunately I don't know anyone personally.

[LightElf7]

As someone else already said (and this has been repeated quite a lot of times across the entire forum, but people still dont seem to get the point across their heads), ranking and image of schools DOES NOT HAVE ANY ****ING influence on you being a "better" doctor than another from a different school. If this were true, then ALL the doctors from the so-called "high-ranking" unis would get all the patients and the rest would die of hunger cuz they'd suck at medicine.

Besides, did anyone ever wonder about HOW the rankings are placed? It is done by the number of nobel prize winners, how much research it does, student-faculty ratio etc etc etc, which are all things which does not have anything in connection to you receiving your medical training. It is how much work you do for yourself and how well you can practice as a doctor later on which is important, not which goddamn school you graduated from! If you put the neccessary work in, than you can become a top, respected doctor, and no soul will care about which school you studied in.

The reason why people still go rambling on about which school is "better" is cuz they want to be seen as high-class, smarter-than-other-lower-ranked-people, etc etc, and are hence only after the prestige and image. This is so obvious. If you're the type of person with a distorted mind as this (and I am sure most of you people who boast about rankings are) you dont deserve to become a doctor, as you'll just be nothing more than an arrogant, I-feel-so-important self-centered person.

[Spencer Wells]

As someone else already said (and this has been repeated quite a lot of times across the entire forum, but people still dont seem to get the point across their heads), ranking and image of schools DOES NOT HAVE ANY ****ING influence on you being a "better" doctor than another from a different school. If this were true, then ALL the doctors from the so-called "high-ranking" unis would get all the patients and the rest would die of hunger cuz they'd suck at medicine.

The people above are talking about US-offshore medical schools (located in the Carribean), and for them reputation does matter in a big way.

I would strongly discourage someone from going to an off-shore medical school. Go to one on the mainland US - the quality of teaching will undoubtedly be higher, and you have more of a chance of matching a residency in a specialty that you want.

[LightElf7]

Um some people before that were talking about medschool rankings in the US, and I was replying to them. not sure myself about the offshore medschools, but too many people seem to be obsessed with uni image even in the US, so I thought I'd say a few words, thats all.

[jackwilliams1234]

i reckon it's a bit naive to say it doesn't matter what medical school you go to and that all graduates are doctors and that's all that matters.

grades aside, when applying for jobs, consultants, surgeons, whoever's hiring you etc, are going to look at what med school you went to and it's going to affect there decision. they may be biased toward wherever they went for example, and in the eyes of the wider medical community surely graduates of certain medical schools will be favoured over graduates of others?!

however backward, old fashioned and unfair it may seem, reputations must count for something in the real world.

[Gizmo says -]

i reckon it's a bit naive to say it doesn't matter what medical school you go to and that all graduates are doctors and that's all that matters.

no ones actually said that in the bland way you reduce it to, Jackie.

grades aside, when applying for jobs, consultants, surgeons, whoever's hiring you etc, are going to look at what med school you went to and it's going to affect there decision.

they may be biased toward wherever they went for example,[/quote] you fink that bias wont be dwarfed by dozens of other biases?


and in the eyes of the wider medical community surely graduates of certain medical schools will be favoured over graduates of others?![/quote] or perhaps graduates with the more appropriate skills weill be favoured over those wif the less appropriate skills?
remember that employers are making decisions based on peeple's lives. These appraisals are most definitely not the same decisions that posh skool twats make on filling in their ucas forms.

however backward, old fashioned and unfair it may seem, reputations must count for something in the real world.

yes, it counts for misjudging the skills of your new employees by concentrating on med skool rep rather than available skills.
in other words it counts for deaths of patients.

is that somefing you are in favour of then?

[jackwilliams1234]

firstly, judging by the time and date of my last post it was almost certainly written after the ingestion of eloquence-lowering substances, so apologies for its 'bland'ness as you put it, gizmo, although i think you mean probably mean crudeness.

i think you're stating the obvious when you say employers will mainly be basing their decisions on prospective employees on their lives and skills; the point of the quote is that whereabouts one has qualified from will not be completely ignored. For example, PBL divides many people. some love it some hate it, and it may affect their opinion of you if your medical degree was taught that way.

and of course i'm not in favour of medical school reputation being weighted over available skills, that's an idiotic suggestion. my point was that it is naive to think your medical school will have no affect whatsoever on your prospective employer's view of you. if you're in favour of a standardised medical curriculum in all medical schools, that's fine by me.

and, finally (!), gizmo, could you tone down the blind hatred of public school kids? i'm state school through and through but even i think it makes you sound a little prejudiced.

ironically, if and when gizmo comes to employing medical graduates, i'd hazard a guess he'd wouldn't pick the graduate from the medical school where, tradionally, the "posh skool twats" were educated.

[giella]

Aye, do you think I would get away with randomly dropping "coarse school thickos" on the board? I don't believe that but regardless of whether I did or not, my saying it at regular intervals would certainly undermine my posts' credibility. Every post of Gizmo's is simply a vehicle for his unveiled and prejudiced opinions.
I've actually never read a post of Gizmo's before where I read anything that I thought sounded really dangerous before. That kind of comment was divisive and the language sounded like it was motivated by hate.

[Singh.Simran]

Probably you would, moderation is exactly on the level here if you ask me.

While we're on the subject of a certain fellow, he's a numpty*, but if you cut the crap there's often something well worth saying in there, somewhere.


*Or as some believe, a highly intellegent alter-ego. But I have no comment on the matter, and care not.