Hey guys... I just wanted to say that I am ALSO making the choice now between FIU and FAU. Looking through this thread there seems to be an overwhelming majority who are supportive of FAU. I would like to spin the other side and say some good things that I've looked into in terms of getting a very solid and well rounded medical education from FIU.
Bear in mind, that I am still deciding between the two pending scholarship offers, but I would like to share why I am leaning more so towards FIU.
FIU in my opinion has a TON of amazing resources at their disposal. The one negative thing I can say about FIU, is that they are not very good at selling themselves. When you interview you don't get the opportunity to see the amazing facilities, doctors, and hospitals that they are affiliated with. If you go to 2nd look.. they do show some hospitals (such as world renowned Miami Childrens, etc), but even then they didn't show Baptist Hospital (which is OUTSTANDING --- and which is where we would complete many of our rotations such as ER, Internal, Surgery, etc). FIU is also affiliated with Jackson North and Jackson (though UMiami does have a stronger affiliation) but Jackson Health has so much to offer in terms of viewing a more diverse population. There is also the Gordon Center that FIU has access to. It is a state of the art simulation center where FAU's simulation center pales in comparison. The Gordon Center is where Harvey's were first built, and is just an incredible facility to have the opportunity to use. Not to mention we have basically cherry picked the best hospitals to work with in Miami including Mercy, Mt Sinai, Cleveland Clinic.... and of course Baptist, Jackson, and Miami Children's hospital!
PLUS - there's more
A lot of great physicians are associated with FIU, whereas I'm not quite sure who is well known at FAU in academics. FIU is drawing many professors from UMiami as well as other well respected doctors across the nation from Johns Hopkins (Dr. John Rock, founding dean), and Pedro Greer who founded the Camillus House and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama himself for his amazing work. Other deans including Dean Simpson (from Baylor College of Medicine) is part of the national academy of science and has a lot to offer as well. There are obviously more amazing people that are part of FIU but I will not bore everyone with too many name drops
A lot of people get thrown off by having to use pro-sections during anatomy and think this is a big deal in terms of not having the experience of cutting... I've spoken to countless medical students who have now matched at great residencies across the nation and they all say that cutting in anatomy was completely useless and did not have any applicable purpose or benefit for pursuing surgery, etc.
I also know of a few kids who were under UM at the FAU campus and although they did have higher board scores on average in comparison to UM, they actually ended up having a harder time matching and ended up having to do the scramble at the end or take a year off. Perhaps this is attributable to the fact that there are not many well known faculty at FAU which is where your letters of recommendation will come from for residency applications.
Whereas Scripps does offer some amazing research opps for students at FAU, FIU does have access to research at Baptist and people can complete research credits at other institutions, including specific schools where they would like to match at. Doors at UMiami are also wide open to pursue research at. There are no restrictions. There is a lot there if people choose to pursue it.
Another thing I will mention is that there seems to be more of an emphasis in primary care at FAU, whereas FIU has made it clear that they are pro students pursuing whatever specialty they have interest in....
Obviously both schools are incredible and have a lot to offer. But I wanted to make sure FIU was also well represented if other people are between choosing between these amazing schools!! Good luck everyone with your decisions!!
So since some of the clinical sites have attendings who are crazy excited to teach, and others are primo for research (cleveland clinic, scripps), I think FAU is actually pretty good.
