Specifically medical schools? What makes one school different from another?
Students who graduate from all medical schools are doctors.
Differences…sizes, locations, facilities, faculty, weather, cost.
Medical school didactic curriculums are pretty much identical as far as content is concerned. This is because all med student have to take and pass the same national standardized exams.(USMLE for allopathic students, COMLEX for osteopathic students)
The differences are in how that material is taught. There are variety of approaches, each with its own pro and cons. Different people learn differently and so a particular curricular approach may work well for some people but not for others.
The first curricular difference is whether material is presented in traditional individual topic courses (pathology, anatomy, pharmacology, etc) courses or in organ/systems based courses (GI, cardio-pulm, neurologic/nervous, reproductive, etc)
The next difference is how that material is delivered. There are variety of formats: traditional lectures ( w/ mandatory or non-mandatory attendance), team-based learning, problem based learning, flipped instruction, or some combination of some or all of the above.
Clinical curriculums are also fairly standardized in term of topics and goals, but have a lot more variety in the student’s experience. There is a great deal variation in clinical instruction even at the same program using the same location due the differences among individual preceptors. Which preceptor a med student is assigned to is luck of the draw.
But how much choice does the student really have? Most pre-meds who apply get shut out, and most of those who get admitted get one admission, so there is no choosing based on curricular organization, cost, or whatever. Yes, application lists could have been made on such criteria, but the need to apply to dozens to get possibly one admission means that the applicant cannot be that picky.
I’m sure students adapt to whatever curriculum their school uses. But assuming a student has multiple acceptances where he/she does have a choice and everything else is equal, is there an overall preference among med school students? I guess to answer that students would have had to been exposed to both models which doesn’t seem likely. Students who are at schools that used a systems-based curriculum seem to like it, but is it “better” than a traditional curriculum?
US medical school education is pretty flat.