Hey guys, I've been a lurker here for awhile, but now I need a lil bit of help.

As the thread title says, my ultimate goal is to obtain a cardiology fellowship in california (Yes, I know it's tough, but one can hope right?) Of the IM residencies I have interviewed at, which has the greatest chance of helping me reach my goal??

Washington University
University of Michigan
UC Irvine
USC
Harbor-UCLA
Cedars Sinai
UT Southwestern
Baylor Houston
Emory
Oregon Health and Science
Mayo Rochester

Of course I understand there are no definite answers, but I would appreciate everyone's opinion :confused:

WashU, Michigan and UTSW are gonna be the most highly nationally regarded programs on your list (in that group of 8 or so programs that are ranked behind the MGH/Hopkins and Brigham/UCSF by 4th year med students and interns). These will be most likely to place you in the best cards programs on average, but if your goal is to stay in California, I would think ranking California programs more highly would probably beneficial, given how much of fellowship placement is dependent on connections and people who are geographically close are more likely to be well-connected. Emory, Baylor, OHSU and Mayo are also very strong programs and probably better-reputed nationally than the California programs on your list, but I still would wonder whether the Cali programs would be more likely to place you *in* California. I would look at their match lists just to make sure they put a decent number of people in cardiology.

Thanks for the advice. It is just so hard to gauge how well non-calinfornia IM programs do in terms of matching residents into a cardiology fellowship in cali. As far as I can tell, every few of these programs match residents into cardiology in california, but that could just be because graduates from these places don't necessarily have an agenda to go to cali for fellowship like I do...

I guess my decision is basically between going to a great program outside of cali, or going to a not so great program in cali and crossing my fingers that i'll have a chance at my home fellowship program.

Anyone else have more pearls of wisdom?

if the goal is a cali fellowship program the best options would have been standford or ucsf but from your options:

from your out of cali programs, all very good choices but the biggest bang for the buck would be Wash U and Mayo if you trying to impress and get back into cali

of your cali programs here is how i would rank them:
1. Harbor (they inbreed like crazy, last year 4 out of 5 spots went to their own, given all 4 of those kids were very strong but still gotta love those odds)

2. UCI (last i checked they do have their own 2 gauranteed spots and if you do the odds... one of the 10 or so people fighting internally for the 2 spots versus one of the 800-1000 applicants applying for the other 2 spots... gotta love those odds).

3. Cedars (they didn't use to take any of their own but over the past 3 years they have taken 2 each year , no gauranteed spots though)

4. USC (their cards program has officially been canned for now, i'm sure it will come back in the near future but not worth the risk)

Honestly, where ever you end up you just have to work hard and want it bad enough. All the programs on your list are good and i'm sure you'll have a decent shot at a cali cards program.

OP

If priority #1 is a cards fellowship in California (meaning a CA "community" program vs. perhaps a more prestigious University program elsewhere): without a doubt, from your list I'd rank the Cali programs first. Particularly those with good internal fellowship placement. None of the out-of-state programs you've listed have a good track record of placing fellows in CA programs, even though Mayo, Wash U and Michigan are more prestigious than Harbor, Cedars and USC.

You shouldn't have a problem getting into some cards fellowship in California coming from Michigan, WashU, UTSW or probably Mayo. A lot of midwesterners don't apply out to the west coast, so that's why you don't see a lot of them in California programs...WashU has a lot more east coast folks than west coasters also. You may hate Mayo if you are from California so think about living there if you are thinking of ranking them high...I'm not dogging them b/c I heard they are awesome, but the weather will be MUCH different than most of California.

If you definitely only want to stay in California for fellowship (even if you end up going to one of the lesser known Cali community cardiology programs) you may want to stay in California, but I honestly would not go to any residency that doesn't currently have a cardiology fellowship. That's going to hurt you in the end.

Emory has a well known cardiovascular division, and historically places a lot of folks in cardiology fellowships as well. Atlanta also is not cold, if you are afraid of the cold...

California Pacific medical center in San Francisco gives out cards fellowship spots outside the Match (after your interview day) so if Cali is what you want, you may want to store that in the memory banks.

Thanks for all the advice guys. Appreciate it :)