Hey,

I'm pretty much the most average medical student out there. My scores have been average or above average. My clerkship evaluations and grades were not particularly great although I did work fairly hard. So I do not fully expect to get expected into a top tier IM residency. But I do plan on pursuing a fellowship. How would anyone rank and/or describe the main university programs in chicago? Please help. Thanks.

note: i did not apply for categorical IM, only prelim IM, but i did go to med school in chicago (UIC), so my views are probably somewhat biased.

#1 and #2 - northwestern and U of C. probably the top in terms of reputation, at least from most residency applicants that i talked to. U of C is quite academic and is constantly advertised on chicago area TV as *the* place to go if you have cancer, but can be rather cut throat (per the husband of a classmate in the program). northwestern has the benefit of lots and lots of money, awesome location, and a hospital that looks like a hotel. i was told last year on the interview trail that they are now completely ward-based now. the residents do work pretty hard though.

#3 - probably rush, based on placement in the private sector and amount of money. rush has a large network in the chicago metropolitan area, and the residents seem ridiculously happy there, given the 11 months of q4 as interns. i hear they snagged a large portion of U of C's hepatology department when they left U of C. they were also able to avoid getting involved in the liver transplant scandal of last year.

#4 and #5 - UIC and loyola. i'm honestly not sure where to rank these two. i don't know uch about loyola, because it doesn't lie in chicago proper, but is out in the suburbs. UIC is a pretty solid education (though they only rotate at U of I and the VA), though i think there's a fair amount of envy towards northwestern and U of C. we like to think of ourselves as toughened by working in the "ghetto". the entire liver transplant scandal in chicago last year was centered on UIC (though primarily the transplant section(s) and northwestern and U of C took some hits too). there was also a change of power in terms of PDs last year - i personally like the new PD much, much better. i think he's more personable and a better teacher.

i know nothing of finch's IM program.

all you need to know: you don't want to go to finch's program

Thanks guys,

Since I am not the most competitive student nor do I want to be an environment where everyone is competitive, would UIC or Rush be the better alternatives?

ps. oh yeah, since these are university programs, do they have good enough reputations for their residents to get into a fellowship such as GI or Cards?

depends on what kind of experience you want. UIC (and the VA) is totally ward based, with no private attendings in-house. one team attending for all of your team's patients. rush, IIRC, is composed of private attendings, so you have to deal with different attendings for different patients.

it may not seem important yet but IIRC, rush is q4 for about 11 months. UIC's wards are q6 (your team is q3), unit is q4. i don't remember how many months of call there are at UIC (8-9?).

both are adequate for getting into GI and cards fellowships; i'm not sure which is better. i believe UIC residents tend to try to stay for fellowship; one of the 2nd year cards fellows did a chief year and one of the 1st year GI fellows just graduated from the program.

i personally know of 2 third-year residents headed for gi fellowships next year: one to cleveland clinic, one to university of chicago.

if you want autonomy, go to u of c, uic or loyola. if you want a va experience, loyola or uic. if you want indigent patient populations, uic or u of c. if you want cards, rush or loyola seem to be better. for gi, it's hard to say. fewer people are staying at uic for fellowships. northwestern still has the largest liver faculty in the city. u of chicago has plenty of ibd specialists (kushner was the founder of the ibd center there). you'd want to focus your gi fellowships to the places that have the kind of research you would prefer. i'd like to know which uic folks got cleveland clinic and u of chicago spots. again, i still want to believe in the mantra that if you put in your hard work and do good research, then you will secure a good fellowship SOMEWHERE. having the right connections obviously helps.

hope that helps
-s.

I don't know much about IM as I matched anesthesia. All I can say about Loyola though, is Dr. Martin Tobin is the head of pulmonary and critical care there. If you know critical care at all, you know that he is the man. I'm sure other Chicago programs have big names as well, but Dr. Tobin is pretty huge in the ICU world.