Kirksville College of Medicine (KCOM)

So.... A.T. Stills University Kirksville College of Medicine. Hmmmm..... An old school, bucketloads of tradition and reputation. About a 3 hour drive from anything.

PROS:
-A well-established, well-known, respected medical school with a looong history of success.
-Dr. Stewart who I shadowed (and love) graduated from Kirksville and said nothing but good about it.
-The area is super safe. No one locks their doors.
-Everyone knows everyone. I interviewed with a professor that complained that all his students know what brand toilet paper he buys. (There's only one grocery store)
-Racquetball tournaments.
-Friendly, cooperative student body.
-The staff were all wonderful and so proud to be working there.
-If the second coming were to happen when I'm in a clinical or something, heck I'll be right there.
-My favorite and most challenging interviews so far.

CONS:
-No wonder Dr. Stewart loved the area so much, 30 years ago it must've been brand-new. No so much anymore, it's pretty much a dump now.
-Cadaver labs were ghetto. Ghetto, my friend.
-Really, its a good three hours from anything.
-Kirksville Missouri: Population 17,000


Basically, I don't think I could handle the area so far. Even though it IS a "great school". I loved the school, but felt grimy in the old beat-up small town Missouri. No offense.

And while we're on the subject of "great schools" I just read a fantastic article about medical school "rankings". It compared Harvard and Johns Hopkins to a bunch of no-name dumps, and guess what, their stats were the same. ALL medical schools in the country have a 95% pass rate for licensing exams (Meaning that even the Harvards and Yales of the world have a 5% fail rate just like everyone else). ALL medical schools have students that get into fancy-schmancy residency programs, and ALL medical schools curricula are 98% the same as others. The article even compared a small, inexpensive, unheard of state school with an Ivy-League school that was charging over 60 grand a year and the smaller school's board scores were much higher. It recommended choosing a school based on the cost of the school, the area - where you'd like to live for four years, and on how the school feels to you.

I couldn't agree more.

Anyway, I don't think I could do Kirksville. I have two more interviews scheduled so far, and I don't think I'm going to go to the one in Florida.

But I'll give a second thought to that whole "second coming" thing....


-Jonathan