Overheard

On the elevator at my job the other day, I overheard the following advice dispensed from a 4th year med student (who is going on to a fabulous residency) to a 3rd year med student:

I'd say don't do your residency where you study medical school because if you're interested in let's say internal medicine, chances are, you've been spending your free rotations there and you already know how the system works.  You already know how they do things and you don't get a different viewpoint or any diversity in your training.  Go somewhere else.  Get out of your hometown/where you did college/where you did medical school.

I thought it was pretty sound advice so I thought I'd post.  I don't think it's applicable to just residency, but to everything.  Go somewhere else!  After high school, I wanted to go out of state for college because I just never wanted to see anyone from high school; I wanted to start fresh.  It was really a good decision because I ended up at a school where everyone was different from anyone in my high school.  Now for med school/my masters I want to go somewhere different from college because the majority of people I hung out with in college were similar to each other.  I changed a lot in college just being exposed to a different type of person.  Diversity in med school/residency sounds delightful.  I want to experience different things/people/ways of practicing medicine.  I get that its not always easy to just pick up and leave (i.e. people who are married/with children/other obligations), but if you can, why not do it?