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Duke - loved it. Too many people (from all over) have referred to it as a "pressure cooker." Too hard core. Keep in mind I am in Cali now, so laid back (but still producing) is my thing.
As a former Duke student, please allow me to dispel this annoyingly persistent myth about our curriculum. Duke Med is in no way, shape or form a "high pressure" environment, at least not any more than any other medical school. People who say this have not been Duke students. While Duke students work hard, it's not any more so than other med students, and often perhaps even less so (in a good way, not a slacker kind of way, as I'll explain). I strongly encourage you to do a search about this in the forums here, as several of us have discussed this topic on countless occasions, and have worked diligently to dispel this myth. You owe this to yourself as you approach a very important, difficult decision...it's crucial that you be as informed as possible, with good, quality information rather than rumor and hearsay. Read through those posts and you'll get a sense from many different posters who've actually been through it that the Duke environment is actually an incredibly supportive, close-knit, unique one that provides some amazing opportunities that you should really think twice about passing up.
The presumption about "intensity" comes from the false assumption that we somehow cram 2 years of basic science into 1 year. It's just not true! In fact, Duke basically cuts out almost half of what's covered at other schools, and only teaches the core topics that are necessary for taking step 1. Coupled with a slightly longer first year without a 3 month-long summer break and voila, you get to start clinicals a year earlier! The summer break is kind of wasteful at most places...you're basically expected to do research for most of it, so it's not like you get real time off. But I digress...here's how the pre-clinical thing works out. At other schools you'll likely take courses in dermatology, orthopedics, radiology, and the like during your pre-clinical years, whereas at Duke we recognize that these topics are much better learned and integrated in the context of patient care, on the wards, so we don't teach them didactically. You'll pick them up along the way, and you'll remember them better when you actually see them, instead of just cramming it in for an exam and promptly forgetting it thereafter. This is a critically important point. Honestly, the pre-clinical courses aren't all that important in the grand scheme of things...you really learn medicine by taking care of patients, and it is only through seeing pathology in action that you'll actually remember it for the long-haul. Now that I'm about to finish my residency training, I recognize how little value my pre-clinical coursework really had, and how incredibly important my ward experiences have been. But for some reason people seem to focus on the pre-clinical concerns when thinking about Duke's curriculum, instead of recognizing the incredible educational advantage we're given by getting onto the wards an entire year earlier. Plus, Duke students have some of the highest board scores of any US medical school, and have a tradition of incredibly successful match placements, so we're clearly doing something right!
I had friends from college who went to med schools all over the country, and in talking with them I felt like we spent about the same amount of time on pre-clinical topics as they did, and that they were often working quite a bit harder than I was. In part, this is because Duke does a superb job of cutting our the proverbial fat from traditional pre-clinical curricula. This means that less of your time is wasted covering things you probably don't need to know, and with the incredible volume of information in medicine there's clearly always WAY more than you can possibly ever learn and retain. In this way, Duke is much more considerate of your time than other schools, especially in light of the streaming/recorded lectures now. Plus, as history demonstrates you'll be more than prepared for the Step 1 exam, but you won't have wasted as much of your valuable time with your nose buried in a book instead of taking care of and reading about patients.
I could go on and on extolling the virtues of the Duke curriculum, but it's all been done here before. You should definitely do some searches and read through those posts, as we haven't even scratched the surface about so many other incredible advantages of Duke, including the 3rd year research/dual-degree opportunities, scholarship opportunities, advantages of the Duke healthcare system and the local patient population, financial aid, faculty, etc. etc. Good luck with your difficult decision, and feel free to ask me further questions about Duke. I've been incredibly happy here, for countless reasons, and opted to stay here for residency. I would definitely choose Duke again in a heartbeat, and feel very strongly that the Duke curriculum and other unique opportunities put me in a great position for the future.
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