Worked as an EMT in Santa Clara County for a half-year.  Moved out to Ohio.  Did two years of med school, then a year to do my MPH.  Now I'm in my 4th year of med school.

Where the hell are you?

Medical College of Ohio

Oh.  So you're at Ohio State...

Um... unfortunately not.  OSU rejected me twice.  MCO's in Toledo.

Right.  Well, I don't know where Ohio is anyways...

Ohio is bordered by Indiana, Michigan, Pennslyvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

Um, great... So what's like Ohio compared to CA?

Positives:  stronger sense of community, better sports culture, low cost of living, pretty laid back lifestyle, damn good red meat
Negatives:  cultural naivity, narrow worldview, general untrendiness, no authentic Asian food, highest point in Toledo is like 10 feet.

So what's the coolest thing you've done since you've been out there?

Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field on a balmy day in July.  Detroit Red Wings playoff games.  Michigan St./Michigan NCAA hockey title game.  U2 concert at Notre Dame -- first one after 9/11.  Sung in the bass section of a concert choral, accompanied by the Toledo Symphony, doing Mozart's Mass in C Minor.  Traveling like crazy:  Peru (twice), England/Scotland, Chicago, Toronto, NYC, Boston, DC (twice), Charleston SC, Durham NC (Duke), Atlanta, Laredo TX.

Who's your coolest friend out there?

One of my better friends was a cheerleader for the Pistons and Cav's during med school.

Are you as H-O-T as I remember you at UCSD?

Hotter.

So, you're a Christian, right?  What's the deal with that?

If you're truly motivated to know
1) why I am -- just ask, or
2) what Christians believe -- I suggest listening through the sermon series on Romans at Capital Hill Baptist Church in its entirety.  It's as good and fair of an exposition on the subject as I've heard.
 

Why should I go to the Medical College of Ohio (updated 6/29/04)?

Since choosing med schools can be tough, I figure I should give my two cents to anyone in the application process that may be considering MCO and happen to have stumbled on my website.  Since you can find negative info anywhere, I'll try to focus on positives while also addressing significant issues that you should address when evaluating MCO.  So here are some things to consider...

1)  Pre-clinical education -- I really don't think there's a big difference among med schools in the basic sciences, unless you go to Mayo or really want PBL.  The PBL fad is kind of going away, anyways.  Some OSU students told me they're considering dropping their PBL track entirely.
2)  Clinical education --  Your primary teaching sites are MCO and St. Vincent's.  What may be unique to MCO is that since it's the major teaching hospital in Northwest Ohio, you're required to do at least 8 weeks of your rotations in rural areas (roughly a radius of about 1+ hours).  The potential benefit, that depends (as does any rotation) on the individual preceptor, is that you're working one-on-one with physicians.  For example, I'm doing rotations in General Surgery in Bryan and OB/GYN in Tiffin.  On surgery, I'm 1st assist on all the surgeries, so I'm getting a fair amount of suturing experience right now.  An issue to investigate, if you're deciding between MCO and other schools, is how clinical education compares at these super-sexy tertiary/quatenary-level care centers like UM and OSU.  I couldn't tell you since I don't have the personal experience, but it's worth checking out, because I could imagine that my clinical experience may be significantly different than in one of those environments.  However, one way in which MCO has recently tried to compete with bigger schools is expanding our options to do rotations at Henry Ford in Detroit and Riverside in Columbus, both of which are excellent hospitals.  MCO/Mercy has also recently begun repairing a severed working relationship with Promedica/Toledo Hospital, so hopefully by the time you get here you'll be able to do some rotations at Toledo Hospital.
3)  Research --  As far as the quantity of research done, it's obviously more limited than in aforementioned med schools.  But, I can tell you the actual opportunities available are substantial.  Since most MCO students couldn't care less about research, you could basically do as much as you wanted, though the specificity of opportunities may be limited.  I'm pretty happy to have found 2 EM faculty that I would consider mentors.  The school is very supportive of students involved in research.  Among the handful of students I know personally, the school has helped pay travel/lodging for them to present at several conferences across the US and one that I know of in Spain.  Look, if the school is willing to help me out with travel/lodging for a dinky poster presentation at a regional conference... I've got to be impressed.
4)  Extracurricular --  Uh, not much to say here.  We've got a student-run clinic.  AMSA is fairly active.
5)  Other school/hospital stuff --  A recent issue that you want to ask faculty when you interview here is the financial status of MCO.  Since it's a state-supported school and the only medical education center in this area of the state, it'll take quite a bit of work to have the school go under like Hahnemann did several years ago, but it's hit some significantly hard times recently.  We just hired a new president, so the next few years may be interesting.
6)  Cost --  It doesn't get much cheaper.  Toledo is cheap.  Even if you're out-of-state, it only takes one year in Ohio to gain residency status and cut your tuition in half (compare with CA, WI, NY etc).  Put it this way.  Even though I entered MCO as a CA resident and took an additional year to do a MPH and travel to England and Peru, my total debt will be HALF that of somebody coming out of Tufts in four years.
7)  Toledo -- Depends where you're from.  From the perspective of a 'body from CA, it's pretty unsexy.  The biggest redeeming factor of Toledo is the location.  If you need to leave, it's pretty easy... Ann Arbor is 45 min, Detroit 1 hr, Columbus Cleveland and South Bend 2 hrs, Chicago 3.5 hrs.  The Mud Hens are pretty cool.  Red Wings hockey rules.  There are few things bigger than OSU-UM football.
8)  Final advice --  Wherever you end up, don't be one of those people who bitches everyday about how it sucks... there's no worse way to waste four years of your life than to be actively miserable every waking hour...  I've met a fair share over the last four years, and, god, it's pitiful.  Getting into med school is a privilege for a lot of people, and even if you think you're entitled to the highest quality of medical education and social life (which has some validity considering how much we pay for it), you'll be a lot happier if you think of your experience as a blessing than not.  And, if you really hate it that much, go do something else fun... like being a Shania Twain backup singer/dancer...

 Advice for 3rd year MCO rotations?

Family Medicine:  Dr. Figy, WWKnight Clinic at Toledo Hospital
Pluses:  Figy was super-chill.  WWKnight has great faculty that teach a lot.  And they do a lot of procedures at the practice.
Minuses:  The faculty are hard-a**es.  Some of my toughest evals were from these guys.
Recommended study books:  None.  I bombed the thing.  No opinion on Blueprints.  NMS questions was a waste of money.  I recommend finishing third year if you want to do well on it.

Pediatrics:  Henry Ford Hospital and Sterling Heights Clinic
Pluses:  Great outpatient experience.  Diverse patient population.  Great faculty.
Minuses:  Besides short NICU experience, no inpatient experience at all. 
Recommended study books:  None.  I liked Recall and Pre-Test, but still did poorly on the SHELF exam.

Medicine:  Cardiology (red) at Riverside Methodist, General Medicine at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center,  Ambulatory/Hospice
Pluses:  Cardiology was awesome -- great experience and a lot of independence, you could function as a 4th year/intern on the service.  GM was decent for SVMMC/MCO.  Hospice was excellent.
Minuses:  Cardiology will kick your a**.  Those faculty were hard a**es on my evals too.  GM is pretty dull stuff.  Teaching is hit or miss.
Recommended study books:  None.  Boards and Wards was okay.  NMS was a good reference.  MKSAP was good to learn from, but not to evaluate your knowledge.  Recall was too much.

Surgery:  Vascular at SVMMC, Drs. Harvey and Rao in Bryan OH, ER at MCO
Pluses:  Vascular was great -- lots of OR time, nice attendings.  Bryan was great -- lots of 1st assist, lots of time to study.  ER was decent -- good attendings, lots of clinical independence, and time to study.
Minuses:  The MCO ER isn't very sexy.
Recommended study books:  Essentials of General Surgery (Lawrence).  Recall.  Appleton-Lange questions.  I think I used NMS as a reference.

Psychiatry:  Adult Outpatient, Northcoast Behavioral Hospital N-200
Pluses:  Adult Outpatient has good faculty.  NBH is chill -- you can do as much or as little as you want.  Pretty entertaining place.
Minuses:  Adult Outpatient has a loaded schedule and lots of assignments.
Recommended study books:  I used Blueprints, Recall, and Pre-Test and destroyed the stupid test.

Ob/Gyn:  Dr. Hedges in Tiffin OH
Pluses:  Great doc.  Lots of experience with pelvics, paps, surgeries, deliveries.
Minuses:  None.
Recommended study books:  Blueprints.  Pre-Test.  Don't know what my score is yet.

Feel free to contact me at [email protected] if you have any questions.