Washington Hospital Center and INOVA Fairfax

[adpsurg]

so i made my rank list and now i'm trying to figure out whether i should rank these programs at the bottom of my list (which, right now, is only 8 long).

i'm hoping to have the opportunity to do a semi-competitive fellowship maybe (like plastics or vascular), and i'm wondering, would i be better off scrambling than matching at washington hospital and inova?

specifically, i haven't found ANY info on these forums about washington hospital center, but i definitely felt like there was some sketchiness when i interviewed (ie, chair retiring, intense absite requirements). i felt like the operative experience was still decent, but the program didn't really offer up much info about fellowship placement, etc. anybody know anything about the place?

thanks in advance...

[ESU_MD]

isnt it a new program? i remember it was "outside of the match" 5 yrs ago when I was applying.

it is solid from what I hear.

you can probably get a good vascular fellowship from there is you do a good job.

definetly a great trauma fellowship.

.......plastics? I dont have anything nice to say about that "field" so I will keep my comments to myself.

[Winged Scapula]

As noted above, Fairfax Inova has a good rep, although it is new. The facilities are lovely, the area nice and it seems like a solid community program with an academic bent (indeed you can take time off for research if you wish).

I've known a couple of people who have done surgical fellowships at Washington Hospital Center and had less than flattering things to say about it. The hospital leaves something to be desired in terms of location and aesthetics.

But given everything I've seen (having lived in the area and have family there) and heard, I'd definitely rank INOVA higher.

[Castro Viejo]

As others have pointed out I've heard Washington Hospital Center is a dump. Given that, however, their in-house Vascular Surgery fellowship is supposed to be okay to good and run by Anton Sidawy who's fairly well known in the blood clot world. So if you're looking to do Vascular Surgery in the future his name may open doors for you (should he let you leave, that is). I can't comment on the training. I neither applied to it for residency nor for my fellowship. The area of DC around WHC sucks bad, from what I remember, with the only decent housing at least 20-30 minutes by car (and in metro DC area traffic, that translates easily into 45-60 minutes).

I've heard nothing but good things about INOVA Fairfax Hospital. It's a relatively new program. It's in a much nicer area than WHC, as it's in affluent Fairfax County, VA. I don't know about their relative competitiveness in fellowship placement. I think they have an in-house Bariatrics/MIS fellowship.

I'd rank INOVA above WHC. Good luck.

[Tired]

Originally Posted by Castro Viejo

As others have pointed out I've heard Washington Hospital Center is a dump. Given that, however, their in-house Vascular Surgery fellowship is supposed to be okay to good and run by Anton Sidawy who's fairly well known in the blood clot world. So if you're looking to do Vascular Surgery in the future his name may open doors for you (should he let you leave, that is). I can't comment on the training. I neither applied to it for residency nor for my fellowship. The area of DC around WHC sucks bad, from what I remember, with the only decent housing at least 20-30 minutes by car (and in metro DC area traffic, that translates easily into 45-60 minutes).

Lot of residents have been fired the last couple years, I hear. Plus board scores are used to change out categoricals for prelims during the first two years. Or so I've been told (by their residents).

[adpsurg]

thanks to all of you for your help!

yeah, some of the residents told me about washington hospital's neat little policy of firing categoricals for "not doing well" on the absite, whatever that means..

[DoctaJay]

I dont know much about fellowships, but my mentor is a PGY-4 there and out of all the DC hospitals (he said) he felt WHC gives you the most experience starting from your first year of residency. They are always in the OR because there are just too many cases. From the way he was talking about it, it didnt seem like the best place for fellowships, but for overall general surgery experience he felt it was the best in DC. Now if you want WHCs experience with a better name and possibly better fellowship placement, Georgetown Hospitals is now under the same hospital system as WHC, so their residents come to WHC for trauma and other rotations. So you can kind of get the WHC experience with the Gtown name. But once again, this is what I heard from my mentor.

[toxic-megacolon]

One thing to consider between the two hospitals... WHC will give you the true "resident experience." From what Ive seen at Inova Fairfax, residents are sometimes treated like medical students. Attendings often micromanage, write Tylenol orders, update the list, etc. At WHC it seems the residents actually RUN the service.

[njbmd]

In terms of operative teaching and non-operative teaching (I rotated through both of these places as a medical student and I live in the area), Inova Fairfax is miles above WHC. In terms of facilites, Inova Fairfax is miles above WHC. Both places are solid community programs but Inova Fairfax Trauma patients are generally suburban (read insured) motor vehicle collision victims. WHC Trauma patients are from the streets of DC (uninsured). Both places will give you plenty of trauma experience and both are pretty busy. The biggest difference is in the location and the patient population. One hospital (Inova Fairfax-dollars billed to dollars collected in the highest in the nation) has extraordinarly facilities and the other is the level on trauma center for DC (uninsured, underserved population).

To CV:
Anton Sidawy is awesome but Robert Podolsky taught me to sew down my first vascular graft (one Saturday afternoon) at Inova Fairfax when I was a fourth-year medical student and thus, there began my vascular surgery experience.

Edward Lefrak, Paul Kiernan and Alan Spier are awesome cardiothoracic surgeons and mentors (Inova Fairfax) though I have done a couple of cases with Mark Soberman (WHC thoracic).

[Castro Viejo]

Originally Posted by njbmd

Anton Sidawy is awesome but Robert Podolsky taught me to sew down my first vascular graft (one Saturday afternoon) at Inova Fairfax when I was a fourth-year medical student and thus, there began my vascular surgery experience.

Wow. During my fourth-year subinternship in General Surgery, I was given a pager and took 1:3 overnight intern call at our county hospital as the "third intern" on the service. And like the interns at the home program, I assisted on only one case without another resident in the room, and it was excising some stupid cyst off some arm. At the time it was heaven.

But I'm jealous that someone let you sew in a vascular graft. That's awesome!

It may be a little embarassing to ask this, but I've heard the name Robert Podolsky somewhere else as well. Is he a heavy in the CVTS/PVS world?

[njbmd]

Originally Posted by Castro Viejo

Wow. During my fourth-year subinternship in General Surgery, I was given a pager and took 1:3 overnight intern call at our county hospital as the "third intern" on the service. And like the interns at the home program, I assisted on only one case without another resident in the room, and it was excising some stupid cyst off some arm. At the time it was heaven.

But I'm jealous that someone let you sew in a vascular graft. That's awesome!

It may be a little embarassing to ask this, but I've heard the name Robert Podolsky somewhere else as well. Is he a heavy in the CVTS/PVS world?

He's been around for awhile at Inova Fairfax. He did residency at Penn (did some nice work there) and Vascular at UMass (nice 2-year program). He is just a super nice guy (has the smallest hands I have ever seen) who loves to teach and really takes great care of his patients and his students. He diagrammed what he wanted me to do, threw in the first couple of stitches and let me do the rest. I have to admit, that experience stayed with me for a long time and he was the first to tell me that if I could "draw the case", I knew the case. Awesome teacher!

[Asdf77]

You know, I interviewed at both of these programs and I actually went back to Wash Hosp Center for a 2nd look. I agree that Inova is a total palace, and I liked the program a lot, but the newness of it kind put it down a bit lower on my list.

As for WHC I think its rep is wholely undeserved. I spent a day with the residents there, and talked quite a bit with the Gerogetown students rotating there. It is in no way malignant; the attendings I met and interacted with were all very friendly to me and the residents. While they do have minimum ABSITE scores, these minimums are not absolute, and they certainly don't kick people out of the program if they are one point away. They'll do everything they can to work on getting you to do better the next year.

Yes, I understand that some aspect of the presentation was because I was an interviewee, but I really got the sense that it's a place with good people and good training. I came away with a so-so impression of the place after my first interview too, but my second look really changed my mind. I think they have a problem with how they market themselves to medical students. They didn't put on a great show for the first looks, but then sent folks emails saying they should come back for a 2nd look, and they even offered to pay for it. At the 2nd look they really did do a good job of showing off the program. If they had done this the first time around, they'd have a better rep.

And lastly, the facilities aren't that bad, especially for an inner city hospital. It is an urban place, no doubt. If that's a positive for you (it was for me), great. If it's not a good fit for you, that's OK too. Just find what works for ya.

Good luck everyone

[misyel]

Not that I'm bitter, but...

WHC automatically got a bad rep in my book after they initially sent me an invitation to interview, then retracting it a day later, when I tried setting up the interview date, after realizing I was a DO student. YES, they explicitly mentioned it in the email.

They could at least have given me the chance, but I guess in the end they were really thinking about my me, and wanted to save me some money on the interview trail. Oh well, their loss!

[adpsurg]

wow that's f*&ked up.

not ranking that place, anyway; too many question marks with the chair retiring and the absite requirements being so stringent...

thanks everybody for the input!