Weill Cornell Medical College

Date: Dec 31 1969
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
I graduated from Cornell Med (back when it was Cornell Med) in the 80's so perhaps things have changed.

For reasons that are totally unlcear, this school had an inferiority complex in regard to the quality of the medical students attending. We were contsantly made to feel that we were pretty piss poor academics, espeicially compared to the quality of the house staff at NYH. This turned out to b,e pretty absurd as half of my class ended up at NYH for residency, and another 1/4 ended up at clearly superious hospitals such as Mass General.

At the time I went, the clinical rotations required every third night on call. No sleep and you were expected to stay up all night reading medical textbooks regarding the diseases of whatever patients had been admitted during the night. You were actually expected to do a presentation, citing the liturature, the next day. This did not work for me at all as I am someone who needs sleep in order to think. The residents in the ICU and CCU did every other night call for a month. They were zombies. The Libby Zion case soon after I left and frankly, I wasn't surpirsed it happened.

Some of the fellow students were down right scarey - - major sociopaths. There was a big cheating scandel which was totally mishandled by the medical school. I hope to never run into these people again.

On the other hand there were fabulous people there too - - so you could have friends by avoiding the bad eggs.

One major plus was living in NYC. I loved this and spend as much time as feasible enjoying the city. Only for this reason I don't regret going to Cornell Med.

After graduation I got the hell out and went to California. I discovered I wasn't an idiot. In fact, I was the top resident in my program. I've been in private practice and have found that my skills are top notch in the community. I have a very nice practice and life is now good. I've met people who went to other top Medical Schools and non of the report the major head trip that they subjected us to at Cornell.

If you get in somewhere else, go there.