Just to reiterate what was said above: it is extremely important for you to understand that going to a 6 year program does not give you any advantage whatsoever, especially at UMKC. Maybe USCD or USC would be considered prestigious but not a lot of the other ones.
Rather it is more of a negative aspect of you application in ways. I mean not literally but people see six year program and they think: 1) way too young and probably immature and 2) don’t know the school, that must mean its not very good. You will not land top tier interviews or even top tier programs in non-competitive specialities when coming from UMKC unless you are the grace of God, and even then UCLA will probably risk not accepting you.
Don’t come here with those aspirations. UMKC has a: “its not the best but it will get the job done” sort of a philosophy. Its up to you to decide if you want to spend $360k on that education.
The people who regret coming here the most are the ones who regret not exploring their options. Yea they loved medicine, but what if you take an architecture course in college and that’s the best thing you’ve ever done. My best friend (from high school) who was dead set on medicine and super upset that he didn’t get into a BA/MD program, changed his major seven times and is now studying architecture.
Others are the ones who fall in love with radiation oncology and realize that they will never match into here coming from here, yes it does happen, but those students are on another level, and end up settling for something else. If you love two different things, that’s not a big deal but if your heart is dead set on a competitive speciality you are end up compromising because of your circumstances you will regret that for the rest of your life. Just think about it. Two extra years of school and doing what you love vs. saving two years and then being stuck with a speciality you hate.
To answer the questions that were brought up:
- Research medical center is solely used for Year 1/2 docent, if you never have docent there, you will never see that hospital.
- Lakewood - that's just for family medicine
- St Lukes - again Year 1/2 docent (if you get that), all doros (if you are placed on Purple team), and one month of surgery (that's for everyone), that's it.
- Childrens - two months of peds
- TMC west - everything happens here
As for the interest group stuff:
- you basically just create one if there isn’t one there to put it on your CV that you created one. Most of them have like bi-yearly meetings and for the most part don’t really do anything except like post match panels and an occasional lecture here and there.
My class alone is responsible for the creation of: gasteroenterology interest group, skin cancer awareness group, ENT interest group, and neurology interest group.