Tulane vs NYMC

[moonb]

Ultimately I'm waiting to hear from a certain NY state school, but these are my current options. There have been a few NYMC vs Tulane threads earlier but they're all closed and kind of old. I get the feeling that things have changed in the recent past regarding the reputations of these schools.

I'm from the NY area so NYMC would be close to home. I'm not entirely certain I want to stay here for residency but having a good chance of doing so is important to me and NYMC's match list this year looks pretty great. On the downside, it seems like no one is really excited about going there, and the Touro merger just confuses me. I got a bad feeling about the place on my interview day.

As for Tulane, I've never lived in the South and have no interest in staying there for residency. From what I understand, Tulane has kind of lost a lot of what made it great (Charity Hopsital, top faculty who left after Katrina). On the other hand, the prospect of change is exciting, and living in New Orleans for 4 years sounds like it would be a great opportunity. The class there just seems like good people. The match list has some high points but it seems like many didn't match outside of the South. Is this more likely a self-selection thing?

Thoughts? Which school do you think better prepares students for residency?

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[Brachyury]

Ultimately I'm waiting to hear from a certain NY state school, but these are my current options. There have been a few NYMC vs Tulane threads earlier but they're all closed and kind of old. I get the feeling that things have changed in the recent past regarding the reputations of these schools.

I'm from the NY area so NYMC would be close to home. I'm not entirely certain I want to stay here for residency but having a good chance of doing so is important to me and NYMC's match list this year looks pretty great. On the downside, it seems like no one is really excited about going there, and the Touro merger just confuses me. I got a bad feeling about the place on my interview day.

As for Tulane, I've never lived in the South and have no interest in staying there for residency. From what I understand, Tulane has kind of lost a lot of what made it great (Charity Hopsital, top faculty who left after Katrina). On the other hand, the prospect of change is exciting, and living in New Orleans for 4 years sounds like it would be a great opportunity. The class there just seems like good people. The match list has some high points but it seems like many didn't match outside of the South. Is this more likely a self-selection thing?

Thoughts? Which school do you think better prepares students for residency?

The argument that Tulane is worse-off after the storm is false, and in fact, the opposite is true. I'm not going to tell you where I think you should go, instead, I'm going to clarify several misconceptions/examples of how the med school has improves since Katrina

First, Tulane's current Dean came in a year or two after the storm from BIDMC, and he has drastically changed the med school for the better. He has added new programs, hired a lot of new faculty, initiated new curriculum changes, and has overseen the growth of the campus. Tulane did lose faculty after the storm, but five years later, this isn’t a problem

Before the storm, pathology, rad onc, and only a few departments were still in Charity; starting in the mid-1990's, Charity's faculty/departments were shifted to University Hospital down the street. There was actually supposed to be a ballot measure in the fall of 2005 to permanently close Charity (obviously that ended-up not being an issue). Even if Katrina never happened, Charity still would have been abandoned: it's filled with asbestos and the entire building is a major fire hazard. University hospital is the parish (county) hospital, and the only difference between it and Charity is that they are different buildings. Just to reiterate, Tulane (and LSU) only lost the physical building of Charity, they never lost the educational opportunities.

Total research funding was higher in 2010 than it was in the years before the storm. A lot of the increases in funding is due to the new dean's push to continue and build upon research opportunities. He has also overseen a renovation and an expansion of research facilities

In conjunction with LSU, Tulane is sharing a new cancer research building, and Tulane and LSU will both be using the new Charity and new VA hospital. Construction on new Charity began last month, and the new VA hospital (next to new Charity) has been under construction for about 6 months. Tulane also has its own hospital.

Two years ago Tulane started a branch program in Baton Rouge that allows for longitudinal care in the third year. This program also allows MPH students to do internships/interact at/with the state department of public health. No student is forced into the Baton Rouge program: it is 100% voluntary

One of the oil companies adjacent to the med school donated a new building after the storm, and the university is still in the process of moving more operations into the building.

After Katrina, Tulane developed a large system of community health clinics in New Orleans. Tulane students have many, many opportunities to get involved with these clinics. Even if you aren't interested in primary care, it gives you the opportunity to get early, hands-on clinical exposure (you also see a lot of the weird pathology Charity is known for). Here's a good link
https://www.aamc.org/initiatives/awards/2010/155710/2010_ocsa_recipient_tulane.html

 

[Mango419]

Either school will prepare you for residency, I think it's more a matter of where you would like to end up. If you think you'd like to stay in NY, the best thing you can do is go to a school where your rotations are in NY hospitals and get to know the faculty. That will obviously be a lot easier if you go to NYMC.

Tulane students match more in Louisiana and the South in general because that's where they do the majority of their rotations and have the best chances for residency. Of course, you could do away rotations from Tulane. New Orleans is great, but how much free time are you going to have in Medical School to enjoy it? I'd personally rather stay closer to home so that I can spend whatever free time I have with family instead of in airports flying back and forth.

 

[NDundergrad]

When it comes to residency, a major factor is the ability to rotate with those faculty/clinicians and/or hope that some of your professors have contacts with that program. Tulane is in the south and generally their physicians have contacts/networks in the southern US. I think both are good schools academically. The only real difference is where you want to end up living.

 

[MCAT guy]

TULANE x

 

[moonb]

One other thing that's been on my mind: NYMC's match looks great this year, but will future classes suffer because of the loss of most of the rotation spots in NYC? Has Lennox Hill definitely been lost to Hofstra?

 

[MCAT guy]

One other thing that's been on my mind: NYMC's match looks great this year, but will future classes suffer because of the loss of most of the rotation spots in NYC? Has Lennox Hill definitely been lost to Hofstra?

Do you honestly believe you will have any better luck in the match depending upon whether you attended Tulane or NYMC?


This will not be the case.

 

[NDundergrad]

School plays a role in the match geographically (only because of networking, which is a HUGE factor)... if you don't belive this you're misleading yourself MCAT guy. Now Step 1 scores are the great equalizer but you can't just bank on a great score.

 

[nola2015]

Ultimately I'm waiting to hear from a certain NY state school, but these are my current options. There have been a few NYMC vs Tulane threads earlier but they're all closed and kind of old. I get the feeling that things have changed in the recent past regarding the reputations of these schools.

I'm from the NY area so NYMC would be close to home. I'm not entirely certain I want to stay here for residency but having a good chance of doing so is important to me and NYMC's match list this year looks pretty great. On the downside, it seems like no one is really excited about going there, and the Touro merger just confuses me. I got a bad feeling about the place on my interview day.

As for Tulane, I've never lived in the South and have no interest in staying there for residency. From what I understand, Tulane has kind of lost a lot of what made it great (Charity Hopsital, top faculty who left after Katrina). On the other hand, the prospect of change is exciting, and living in New Orleans for 4 years sounds like it would be a great opportunity. The class there just seems like good people. The match list has some high points but it seems like many didn't match outside of the South. Is this more likely a self-selection thing?

Thoughts? Which school do you think better prepares students for residency?

I have a few friends at NYMC who are very happy, and say it's a really close-knit class who party together/play intramural sports etc., and that the real strength is in the rotations available in the NYC area. It's my understanding the Touro merger isn't particularly problematic. Nothing will change with NYMC, and it does not mean Touro-NY and NYMC will be taking classes together or sharing facilities. It's sort of a win-win, where Touro gains the prestige of buying an allopathic school, while NYMC will retain it's administration and operate autonomously with no financial problems. There may be some more overlap now in rotation sites (but there already is with all the NYC schools and hospitals). At least that's what they tell the students. Who knows how it will play out?

As to your bolded point, I think it's partly self-selecting. The most important things to getting a match of your choice are doing away rotations, having a good step I score, and good clinical evals/3rd yr grades, no matter where you go. This can certainly be done at Tulane or NYMC.

But certainly on the wider scale, hospital systems and programs may have regional preferences with schools. i.e. the LSU and UT system may look more favorably on Tulane students than NYMC students, because they have had many hard-working ones in the past and have good experience with them. It's why Tulane does so well in the region. On the other hand, some NYC or northeast system may look favorably on NYMC, who has a history of reliable residents from the school in the past. For example, if I remember NYMC's match list correctly, they constantly are sending high numbers of people in radiology year after year, in the greater NYC area. This may be an additional explanation to the trends of match lists, other than the self-selecting factor.

That said, you honestly can't go wrong with either. To me, the decision would come down to finances (which are probably the same), fit of the school, family, and considering the region you eventually want to be in. For the record, I picked LSU-NO over Tulane and a handful of northeastern schools, for financial reasons. For me, as a LA resident, and someone who doesn't want to leave the state, it was a no-brainer!

 

[kiwifruit487]

I am planning to attend Tulane and had actually turned down NYMC's interview invitation. And I am from the Northeast with a strong desire to stay in the NE. But... the impression I got from Tulane is that people go there because they choose to go there. And related to your concerns about the match list... here's the thing, a lot of Tulane grads stay at Tulane for residency (out of the 20% who decided to stay in LA), I think that says something about the place, that people want to stay. Not just for geographical reasons or else you'd have a lot more people in other southern schools. On the other hand, the match list of NYMC... a lot of people seem to bolt. Even if they stay in the area, they choose other schools, not NYMC, for their residencies. To me, that seems like NYMC was never a top choice for them. But anyway, overall, I don't think you will be stuck in a geographical location due to a medical school.