UWSOM vs Duke

[Hunterg_21]

Hello! Looking for advice on making the final decision between the University of Washington WWAMI program and Duke. I feel super lucky to have gotten into both of these programs but also incredibly torn about making a decision. I'm from Montana and am undecided about what area of medicine I want to go into. I'm leaning towards working with adult patients, outpatient medicine, and hope to practice in the Rocky Mountain West. There's also a part of me that's interested in academic medicine for the teaching side of things, not really doing research. With the decision due by Tuesday, looking for any advice. Thanks!

WWAMI Pros:

• Top 10 program, #1 for Primary Care in the nation
• Close to family/support system
• Small class size, Montana WWAMI is only 30 students
• Huge emphasis on primary care/clinical exposure. You spend one day every other week in a primary care clinic with the same PCP for 18 months. So protected longitudinal primary experience.
• Ability to travel throughout the 5 state region for clerkships
• Exposure to different communities, mainly rural and underserved. But you still have the option to do a good chunk of the clerkships in Seattle at an academic center if you want to.
• Working directly with clerkship preceptors instead of residents +Long clerkships
• Protected STEP study time
• Would get to keep up a lot of the same hobbies I have now: skiing, hiking, camping, etc.
• Time to explore different interests and specialties

WWAMI Cons:

• About 60k more expensive, could be less since they have not released financial aid yet.
• At a satellite campus for didactics, it's in a building attached to the main hospital there. They have one classroom that you use for the 18 months of didactics. So it doesn't really feel like you're on a school campus with places to study, library, etc.
• Small class size could also be a con, harder to find a solid group of people you bond with when there aren't many people to begin with.
• Required to return to practice in Montana for 3 years after residency. Not a huge con but it does mean that no matter where I do my residency or what specialty I pick, I have to hope there's a job open in Montana for that.
• I love Montana but I wouldn't really be going out of my comfort zone, I also did my undergrad here.

Duke Pros:

• Top 10 program, well respected, viewed as more prestigious
• Known financial aid making it cheaper than UW
• Loved the area when I visited, definitely a lot sunnier and warmer than Montana.
• Exposure to more specialists if I decide against primary care. I feel like you can match into or get exposure to just about anything here.
• True P/F
• Impressive facilities and really impressed by all the people I met there.
• More diverse class and more diverse patient population. Atleast for me coming from Montana which is not very diverse.

Duke Cons:

• Farther from home/support system. Potential for culture shock living on the East coast/South
• The accelerated curriculum feels like it was made more for students who have a good idea of what they want to do in medicine.
• An accelerated curriculum also feels like there's no time to figure out what area of medicine you're interested in.
• Higher likelihood of working mainly with residents not attending, less hands-on opportunities
• 3rd year is set aside for research only. I don't want to do research in my medical career, so having a required year of research I'm not sure how much it would benefit me beyond applying for residencies. (WWAMI also has a research requirement but it is done in the summer between MS1 and MS2, not a whole year).

Overall, if the curriculum was the same between the two schools, I would probably pick Duke. Duke was my dream school for undergrad but I wasn't accepted. I think what's holding me back is the required year of research. I did basic science research for 3 years as an undergrad and by the end I hated it. I also like the way clerkships work at WWAMI with more one-on-one interaction with preceptors and less competition to learn/ get hands-on experience with there being virtually no other med students or residents at rotations outside of Seattle. I've spent the last week trying to make a decision and haven't been able to, so open to any advice.

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[ByThe+C]

The third year at Duke can be used for a dual degree, not just research. It can be any kind of "scholarly project", IIRC.

 

[shy_hulud]

3rd year is set aside for research only. I don't want to do research in my medical career, so having a required year of research I'm not sure how much it would benefit me beyond applying for residencies. (WWAMI also has a research requirement but it is done in the summer between MS1 and MS2, not a whole year).

I think what's holding me back is the required year of research. I did basic science research for 3 years as an undergrad and by the end I hated it.

Major congrats on your successful cycle! I'm in basically the same position with Duke being in my final choices and having done basic science research for three years in college (hated it too and never want to it again lmao). So, I did a lot of digging into Duke's requirements for third year and they're extremely open with what you can do. There's no requirement to do basic science research, you can do a project in clinical or health disparities research, for example. You also don't have to necessarily do research, there's a lot of dual-degree options (I'm personally leaning towards the super cheap/free MPH degree with UNC) or a community leadership project.

Duke also has a similar set-up in longitudinal primary care through the Primary Care Leadership Track, which people can transfer into before M1 and leave in later years if they'd like. I've also heard a lot of good things about the accelerated curriculum helping specialty choice because you do clinical rotations in M2. So, you're able to get a good sense of some preferred specialties early on and then use M3 to really dive deep through research in that specialty or additional shadowing that allows you to work really closely with preceptors in your specialty. M3 also gives you the flexibility to explore other specialties beyond the clerkships in M2, and PCLT gives you the longitudinal primary care exposure in each year, similar to Washington.

Fwiw, I have a friend at UDub (caveat being they're in the Washington cohort) and while they like the resources of the school, they also don't feel like there's a lot of individualized attention because of the split cohorts and their size. Personally, I'd also be hesitant to commit to a school without any info about financial aid, but I know things are probably more clear for you because you're in-region for WWAMI.

 

[muramasa]

Seconding that the accelerated curriculum is actually beneficial for students who don’t know what they want to do. The early clerkships are meant to give students a feel for different specialties by the end of M2 instead of the usual M3.

Being required to return to Montana and practice for 3 years even if you change your goals during medical school seems risky. This seems like a bigger con than the 60k extra cost at WWAMI.