Basing my review on the fact that I am an international graduate who has worked abroad post-graduation and taught students from other universities, I am listing the following personal opinions/observations:
Pros:
-Well organized schedules. You get to be in one group for the full 4 or 6 years and have a fixed table for your group.
-Diverse English Division community, some are competitive and some are chill and friendly people.
-Dedicated staff and intelligent physicians.
-Clinical training is great in terms of quality and portion. From 3rd year/6, most of the seminars will be held at the hospitals followed by hours of practice.
-Orientation and guidance from senior students for the first few years.
-Various events for English speaking students. Educational, social and fun events.
-Very nice library, so practical!
-You get to enjoy the beautiful city of Warsaw!
Cons:
-As an international, it is inconvenient to study guidelines than practice others. so yeh.. you will be asked often to check your own country’s info, data and guidelines. I guess this is a general issue for studying abroad.
-Few of the seminars and lectures were outdated and somehow subjective. That doesn’t work with medicine.
-In terms of discrimination, it’s really really rare to meet any racist educators, but there is a program or two that had a few bad apples.
-Limited number of clubs for English speaking students. But am sure you can start and organize your own.
– Not all physicians are good teachers. That’s just a fact everywhere! Teaching is a talent. You will meet many “readers of the slides” type of teachers.
-No shifts, no on-calls for students. You will have to ask for it. (This is how I saw another senior student in my hospital trained. They are treated like interns)
-There is no attention paid to your career goals, no training for your future Board Exams of any kind, no 1:1 mentorships. You are on your own. I think in my last year, the USMLE Prep Course was added as an elective!! (This is another observation that I have noticed done in other universities)
I did enjoy my time at WUM! The university is great has some amazing and talented teachers with a pretty cool community. I think the English division is very vibrant and constantly being improved.
Best of luck!