Chexpool, I'm not looking for an alumni association or any of that pablum. I am a student that has worked in groups for the bulk of my upper division work, and was hoping to find more of that type of community in a medical school. From conversations that I have had with other medical students in the last couple of days, your description of not really being around people outside of your class and where you work is fairly typical. It was, from my naive perspective, unexpected though.

I very much appreciate your comments and suggestions with this, and I don't want to come across as critical or confrontational - please excuse me if I have.

The impression that I am getting from the bulk of the comments from the Poznan students is that the school provides classes, and that is all. You are responsible for your own examination scheduling (for the STEP 1 and 2), for your own extracurricular activities, for your own residency placement work, etc. Is this a fair assessment? And is this typical for all the schools in Poland (as far as you know, or if there are other students who would care to comment)?

You are totally on your own here. You have to figure it all out on your own.

haha well first off excuse my grumpiness; it was 330am when i wrote that stuff and i have a pathophys exam... I would say most schools in poland you are $$$$ and thats it. if you succeed or not or do whatever is you own problem. They just want there 50k GL and you get your shot at the steps. its all you. just like narcan says.. haha

I'm not a student at any European institution (yet), but from my understanding the concept of "marketing" isn't exactly well-understood by medical schools in former East-Bloc countries. Yeah, the schools would likely see long term benefits from creating an environment which would spawn alumni groups, or by keeping lists of their residency matches to entice excellent Western students to their school. However, they just aren't "programmed" to think along those lines, it's very focused on the here-and-now, pay-yer-tuition-you-capitalist, type of mindset. They have a niche market which sells their school to a certain subset of Western students every year, and they are seemingly happy with that rather than seeing what they COULD become.

When I was visiting a med school in Bulgaria recently, even with all of the booming changes in the economy there since joining the EU, customer service was almost non-existent... people simply aren't focused on their relationships with future customers very much. I think that attitude carries over to the medical schools and other institutions.

__________________
MS (Health Sciences) - Brigham Young University @ Provo, UT
BA (German Language & Literature) - University of Oregon @ Eugene, OR
Navy Hospital Corpsman (Fleet Marine Force) - 2nd Marine Division / 4th Marine Division

"Pains nor toils nor trials heeding, and in heaven's own time succeeding..."
Wm. E. Hickson (1803-1870)

More students might equal more money, but more importantly more students equals more work, and though you may think that dropping $50k per student is a lot of money, in actuallity very little of it actually trickles down to the people that do the actual work. Hence, the fridgid responses most people here have experienced with the offices of these schools. They're not paid on commission, based on how many students are enrolled and what their "satisfaction level" is. Also, very little if any of that money is trickling down to the attendings that teach, unless they happen to be chiefs of their departments. The junior attending might get, literally, a few extra $ a month for their efforts. It's unfortunate, but the system still hasn't gotten out of its commie shell. Also, in case you haven't noticed here, plenty of people apply and go to places that come with giant warnings. It doesn't seem to hurt anyone's bottom lines, not the schools, not the agents. It's win-win for everyone.
Well, almost...

That was a great point, KluverB. The voice of experience, huh?

With regard to people paying to attend Giant Warning University... I guess it's true that there's one born every minute.

__________________
MS (Health Sciences) - Brigham Young University @ Provo, UT
BA (German Language & Literature) - University of Oregon @ Eugene, OR
Navy Hospital Corpsman (Fleet Marine Force) - 2nd Marine Division / 4th Marine Division

"Pains nor toils nor trials heeding, and in heaven's own time succeeding..."
Wm. E. Hickson (1803-1870)

Right on...

Let me add of the tradition of students being complete pooh pooh and professors being complete gods...

In poland its the master and the bat... you are the dog. 90% of the prof's hate you because you are an american, and you probably make more money from interest then they do the entire year.

They change stuff on the fly and dont tell you, and some flat out disrespect or ignore the entire class requests. like signing the god damn index's

Chexpool, Devildoc, and Kluver - all of these points are excellent, and not things that I think anyone who had not gone through the process would be as well aware of. Very much appreciated. I lived in Germany, and went to school there for several years, and think that I simply assumed that the Polish systems would more closely mirror my experiences in Munich than not. Clearly, this is not the case.

So, let me ask you this: If you had it all (from applications on, not college) to do again, would you have gone to Poland? Or would you have gone to a caribbean or other school?

With my experiences and readings of the programs in Poland so far, I think I will stick with Jagiellonian, or go elsewhere. That would appear, from what I can determine, to be the most comparable to school in Western Europe... and even Jag seems to have its shortfalls.

__________________
MS (Health Sciences) - Brigham Young University @ Provo, UT
BA (German Language & Literature) - University of Oregon @ Eugene, OR
Navy Hospital Corpsman (Fleet Marine Force) - 2nd Marine Division / 4th Marine Division

"Pains nor toils nor trials heeding, and in heaven's own time succeeding..."
Wm. E. Hickson (1803-1870)

UJ has the same problem. Krakow is just nicer. For that matter there is a warning about UJ at the USA embassy; informing US nationals about student abuse that went on a couple of years ago. So choose your poison. Having said that krakow is a way more cultured (socially speaking)(international); so there is less of the kebabs (idoits/ neo nazi's). So my point being is a polish culture thing more then its a poznan/ krakow thing.

I have been trying to transfer there for two years haha. so yeah, if anywhere you go in poland. I would say only consider UJ, and beyond that prauge

To answer the question. If i wasnt 27 when i started here what i would have done.

Lets say you are 22 and fresh out of undergrad.

Best choice; do a masters in basic medical science in your target school, do well in the first year. you have 95% chance transfer into the MD program. So you spend a year working your medical chops; it can onlly help you, and time is not so much an issue at 22.

Next DO, yeah its less then an MD, but many school DO programs, like MSU for example are ranked top 10 within MD/DO rankings for primary care.

Following that; well its up in the air; caribbean or europe. if you have a EU passport, i say the EU may be a better option. But if you only american, well schooling in europe may sound romantic, but eastern europe is not venice.

And as for my friends at AUC, you get education, and you still get the drunk european chicks on vacation. So its a little bit of both worlds, with some deep sea fishing, and sailing involved in dec.

Price tags; well everything is expensive. But nothing is cheaper then polish medical schools.

GL ...