That's a great question.

My first instinct was to say, go where the students are happiest, but I quickly realized that would not be the best advice.

It is important that your school matches well in the field that you are interested in. If you are planning on pursuing orthopedics or dermatology, I'd say you'd be better off going to the school with miserable students if it would give you a better chance of your residency of choice. If, however, you are planning on going into Family Medicine, Psychiatry, or even Internal Medicine or Peds, I'd think more carefully about whether it is worth it to go the program that has unhappy students. You may have a better chance of getting into that "elite" program in peds, but you'll also have a lot of choices that will be decent even if you go to a less competitive medical school, especially if you do well and can get decent reference letters.

As to the general question of how important the med school is for residency programs - for most fields, it is not that important, as long as it is a US medical school. The more competitive the field becomes, though, the more important it is to do well and go to a better medical school.

To a certain extent, I suppose Dr. Admin is correct on this point. However, my gut feeling on this topic (and indeed, my own decision about medical school) was somewhat different.

Medical school is a lot of work. I mean, yeah, you THINK you know how much work it is before you get there... and then POW, the actual amount of work smacks you upside the noggin like a friggin' 2x4. It is certainly enough to make you miserable ANYWAY, without any other crappy things around. That being the case, why would I want to spend 4 years around a bunch of sad-sack, cranky-pants, miserable medical students? I really think that experience would have a deleterious effect on my ability to be a positive-minded physician, as a whole.

Four years of negativity and nastiness is certainly a pantload of negativity and nastiness, in aggregate.

Now, to be fair, I still have not made up my mind exactly what residency training I want down the road. I like the Med-Psych idea, but some of the surgical specialties are also of interest to me, among others. So I chose a place where I knew I could be happy... and turned down some other schools with "better names" and all that. Will I live to regret my choice of a medical school where people are generally happy and upbeat, despite the sadistic pace of med school? Will the choice to turn down a "better name" school come back to bite me in the butt? Hey, I guess it is possible, but I doubt it.

(Also, if you think you know exactly what you want to practice before medical school and clinical preceptorships, you might be surprised later on down the line! My experience so far is that most people change their mind AT LEAST once or thrice.)

Bottom line for me... if you are attending medical school in the US, and you do a really good job in your studies and boards, you will likely be able to find a residency in a field which appeals to you. From there, you will go on to take outstanding care of people and be fulfilled and successful... which is the whole point, isn't it?

So, yeah -- I vote for happy and fulfilled. But hey, that's just me. 😎