Phew. I waited a few days after my interview specifically because I felt that I really needed to marinate on my interview experience. I feel that CCLCM, perhaps out of all the schools I selected, has one of the most unique curriculums and expectations. In short, if you’re not pursuing a prolific career in academic medicine (with a large portion of your time doing research), then this isn’t the program for you. The interview day was long and a bit…intense, and I felt that I learned a lot. I will say that there are many similarities between CCLCM and Mayo, and will probably be making multiple comparisons throughout this post.
Allow me to start with Cleveland. As I rode the RTA to Tower City, I was awe-struck by the my view of the city. The closest I can describe it is a mini NYC surrounded by a small forest. Cleveland, I soon learned, is not the most cultured city, and the area immediately surrounding CCLCM and Case Western could definitely be better, but when I compare it to LA, Hyde Park, and Baltimore, it isn’t bad at all. Moreover, the cost of living is extremely low here; my hosts share a 3 bed/1.5 bath and pay $400/mo each. There are stories of 4 upperclassmen who managed to rent a Victorian mansion, hire a maid, and still pay $700/mo each. That’s amazing. You do need a car in Cleveland though, not only due to the lack of student housing, but because CCLCM students have expected to attend regular clinical sites beginning in year 1, which may be as far as an hour away. To be honest, I think I still prefer Rochester to Cleveland, but I do admit that the latter can be much more exciting.
Interview Day started at 7:15am with an optional breakfast, which came in the form of a prepaid voucher. CCLCM hosts very small interview groups (on my day, there were only 4 of us!), and the fellow interviewees and I grabbed a bit to eat before heading back for a formal welcome. We started by watching a few clips on Why CCLCM and the Empathy Series, which made me really really excited about the school. Anyone who knows me knows how much I learning from others and listening to their stories, so to hear that there’s a school which focuses so much on this is amazing to me. It definitely gave CCLCM major brownie points. Like Mayo, CCLCM is extremely patient focused, and the motto decorating its hospitals is “Patients first.” To hear this from a research giant made my eyes glaze over, haha!
Dr. Franco soon joined us, and she quickly demonstrated her knowledge of our applications. She spoke about the innovative curriculum, which comprises soley; there are no tests, grades, or AOA. As someone who prefers a hybride curriculum, I was initially doubtful of a curriculum that only involves cases; after all, cases aren’t going to encompass the general knowledge or range of symptoms of every disease. After learning more about PBL here, however, my fears were assuaged; at CCLCM, the cases do not have learning objectives. The students themselves are the ones who decide what they want to learn and get out of a case; then, after coming up with 8 learning objectives, the students then take the responsibility to research the topic so that they can teach it to others. It’s extremely collaborative and engaging, which I think I’ll enjoy a lot. I’m pretty quiet and introverted, so this set-up seems a bit intimidating, but as my student interviewer told me, it can be an incredibly valuable experience professionally. Life after school doesn’t consist of tests; it consists of seeing a problem, knowing what sources to study, and presenting your ideas to an audience; CCLCM’s curriculum prepares you remarkably well for that.
After receiving a short tour of the PBL rooms, student lounge, and library, we all gather back in the admissions conference room for a mock PBL of our own! I actually found myself enjoying this session a lot, and it was really nice to experience first hand how engaging this format can be, and how it organically stimulates learning. Even when my fellow interviewees and I had disagreements, everything felt really conversational and I’m sure we all had a lot of fun! I don’t know how we were judged during this session, but I’m hopeing everything went well?
From there, we took a tour of the famous Cleveland Clinic, visited the anatomy lab, and had lunch with current students. Like Mayo, the Cleveland Clinic is just…gorgeous, though in a slightly different way. While Mayo Clinic made me feel like I was walking through several luxery hotel lobbies, the Cleveland Clinic made me feel like I was stepping foot in the world’s grandest modern art museums. As an art history alumna, I was esctatic! There’s this nice balance between classical and sleek, and it definitely shows that the hospital was built with the patients’ comfort in mind. In addition to the hospital, CCLCM boasts an incredibly unique anatomy curriculum. Unlike most schools (or any school I’ve visited actually), CCLCM uses “fresh” cadaveurs for anatomy, which means that there is no embalming or formaldehyde. At the same time, medical students here don’t do dissections, but rather prosections (everything is already dissected and pinned). I’m not sure if I would trade this convenience for a chance to really immerse myself in the experience, but there is a summer program where MS2s TA for the summer PA anatomy labs, which would allow MS2s to dissect (and teach!). Lunch was a lively affair, and the the students stressed how much they loved the small class (of only 32!! HOLY COW), the research year (which can be done after M2 or M3), and the early clinical exposure. “Frankly, you’re treated like an MS4 when you’re an MS2. I didn’t really appreciate this until I did rotations at Stanford and UCLA, when I was working with MS3s whose only ‘clinical experience’ was a glorified shadowing gig,” said an MS5, who’s now applying for ortho residency. The clinical exposure sounds incredible!
And finally, the interviews. My host was right: they can be pretty intense. CCLCM conducts three interviews: one with a student (in my case, an MS5) and two faculty (usually an MD and a PhD). My student interviewer focused a lot on CCLCM’s curriculum, and a lot of his questions centralized on my learning style, how I would cope with the transition from As to no tests/grades, and how I work in groups. Fairly conversational, but there was an intensity that wasn’t really present at other schools. My MD faculty interviewer was completely different, and there were definitely moments when I felt that I may have given up reigns of the interview and allowed him to steer the conversation. We talked about topics that seemed to come from left field and barely relevant to my application, but are good topics for an engaging conversation. Halfway through, there was even an impromptu role-play scenario followed by immediate feedback. It was really fun, but I left that interview having absolutely no idea how I did. My last interview, a PhD faculty member, was perhaps the most rigid. She had a list of questions or points she wanted to cover, and pretty much stuck to it. (That said, I think I threw off her timing by rambling…whoops.) It was interesting, but I didn’t feel the urge to run out the room like I did with a few of UCSD’s MMI stations, so I’m guessing that’s a good sign?
Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by my experience at CCLCM. As someone interested in academic medicine, I think I say that an education here would leave me the most prepared, as students here are published 3-4 times with minimal effort, and a few are published 20+ times during their 5-year tenure (HOLY COW). Most of all, tuition is FREE. It’s honestly one of the best medical educaiton models out there, and if I’m lucky enough to be one of the 16 students who hear good news in December, I can see CCLCM as a serious contender. That said, the most-interview acceptance rate is about 1/5, so I won’t be holding my breath!
