- Joined
- Jun 20, 2006
- Messages
- 30
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First I must say that I agree with EVERYTHING ElZorro had to say about Vandy. It is EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION. The residents are really nice (good southern hospitality) and they genuinely love where they are. As with every other program I've been to "it was my number one" was pretty rampant when talking about ranking. The free-standing children's hospital was a definite +++: who doesn't like seeing children ONLY in a peds ED and adults ONLY in the adult ED?!! Research is not very strong, and there was no mention of a required "scholarly project." Which could be a + or - for some of you (definitely a plus for me). I'm sure most of you have at least heard about how the interview is so different in that they don't ask you anything about your file but it's simply a "what do you want to know about me" kind of thing. That throws some people off, but as my first interview, it was definitely quite refreshing. Okay, okay, PM me if you want to know more about them....
Now on to the main topic - Louisville. I can't say I've seen many posts on here about this school. So not sure who will really care about this post.
Interview day: started late with an hour-long + presentation by the chair herself. She's relatively new into the position and has a lot of great ideas on the way she wants her program to be and where she sees it going. There was interview "tag teaming" where you have a faculty and resident together, however, because some residents and/or faculty like to talk more than the allotted time, the interviews were ran in tandem by the end of the day. I remember specifically Dr. Vicario (who may or may not be the program director - it says he is on the website, but his actual position was never confirmed during the entire day) was pretty malignant (more than what I was used to) by grilling me on my application and trying to put words in my mouth. I'm not kidding. "So since you live in X, you would naturally want to match at Y and not here, right?" What is that?!! Aren't YOU trying to sell your program to ME?!! So anywho, they definitely pride themselves on being the second EM program in the nation, flaunt that they don't fly (risks outweight benefits to them), and are quick to tell you average board scores and how honored we should be that we were granted an interview with them "as it is very hard to even get your foot in the door."
Wow, this is getting long so I'll cut down to the pros and cons
Pros:
- LOTS of autonomy. If any word would sum up the program, that would be it.
- It is "resident run," where the residents certainly have a HUGE say in how their education is going to be. Any suggestions made by the residents are taken seriously.
- There is a didactic orientation month with minimal ED shifts, which I find is not that unusual these days. It may be more unusual if you DON'T have this month. Apparently the residents have *great* bonding time with lots of mention of beer and beer.
- GREAT shift time. Apparent good spread with 8-10 (can't remember which one) hour shifts during the week and 12 hours shifts on the weekend. Interns only work about 18 shifts/month on average. And it progressively declines from there (R2s about 17 and R3s 14-16).
- Pretty decent curriculum in that you really don't have much off-service after intern year. Peds anesthesia is only 2 weeks and you have a month of MICU in R2 year. Other than that, you're either doing EM, an elective or on vacation. That's SUPER sweet.
- There are 2 or 3 (can't remember) chief residents who are R3s. Nice you wouldn't have to stay an extra year for this position if this is a goal of yours.
- Separate peds hospital - so again, kiddies seen in peds ED, adults in adult ED.
Cons:
- Medicine floor is still an off-service rotation here. Yuck.
- No real diversity in residents. All from mainly one region (southern or KY specifically). Can't really blame this on the program, but if it were REALLY strong, perhaps people would be willing to leave their midwest/northeast/northwest comfort zone to come here?!! Not sure. Perhaps they got the same question from Dr. Vicario as I did - that REALLY turned me off.
- MC trauma are farming accidents.
Pro or Con:
- No mandatory flights. Yes, you can try to fly optionally (didn't ask if it would replace a shift or not! I can still email....), but if this is very important to you, you may not like this program very much.
- Location. They say they're "northern" but KY is backwards enough to truly be considered the south. In the same vein, they pride themselves on having lots of undeveloped land to "play" with: good parks, hiking, etc. So lots of outdoor activity if you want it. Great place apparently for singles and couples.
- Trauma EVERY DAY. One resident mentioned he did not care for trauma by the time he finished because you get SO MUCH of it. So this could be good or bad for some of you. You have your main patients in the 20+ bed area, but then you abandon all when the traumas come in and the nurses run everything while ALL of you are gone. You are supervised (by upper levels)as an R1 but you're pretty much running it all by yourself as an R2. One 4 bed trauma bay coined "Room 9."
So in totality, it was a great day besides the one interviewer. Lots of perks, but not really loving the location. No pro football or basketball team (who doesn't like cheering for the home team?!!), but U of L gets LOTS of love (as you could imagine). Won't rank them high, but hopefully this will help someone else....
PM me for more questions.
Now on to the main topic - Louisville. I can't say I've seen many posts on here about this school. So not sure who will really care about this post.
Interview day: started late with an hour-long + presentation by the chair herself. She's relatively new into the position and has a lot of great ideas on the way she wants her program to be and where she sees it going. There was interview "tag teaming" where you have a faculty and resident together, however, because some residents and/or faculty like to talk more than the allotted time, the interviews were ran in tandem by the end of the day. I remember specifically Dr. Vicario (who may or may not be the program director - it says he is on the website, but his actual position was never confirmed during the entire day) was pretty malignant (more than what I was used to) by grilling me on my application and trying to put words in my mouth. I'm not kidding. "So since you live in X, you would naturally want to match at Y and not here, right?" What is that?!! Aren't YOU trying to sell your program to ME?!! So anywho, they definitely pride themselves on being the second EM program in the nation, flaunt that they don't fly (risks outweight benefits to them), and are quick to tell you average board scores and how honored we should be that we were granted an interview with them "as it is very hard to even get your foot in the door."
Wow, this is getting long so I'll cut down to the pros and cons
Pros:
- LOTS of autonomy. If any word would sum up the program, that would be it.
- It is "resident run," where the residents certainly have a HUGE say in how their education is going to be. Any suggestions made by the residents are taken seriously.
- There is a didactic orientation month with minimal ED shifts, which I find is not that unusual these days. It may be more unusual if you DON'T have this month. Apparently the residents have *great* bonding time with lots of mention of beer and beer.
- GREAT shift time. Apparent good spread with 8-10 (can't remember which one) hour shifts during the week and 12 hours shifts on the weekend. Interns only work about 18 shifts/month on average. And it progressively declines from there (R2s about 17 and R3s 14-16).
- Pretty decent curriculum in that you really don't have much off-service after intern year. Peds anesthesia is only 2 weeks and you have a month of MICU in R2 year. Other than that, you're either doing EM, an elective or on vacation. That's SUPER sweet.
- There are 2 or 3 (can't remember) chief residents who are R3s. Nice you wouldn't have to stay an extra year for this position if this is a goal of yours.
- Separate peds hospital - so again, kiddies seen in peds ED, adults in adult ED.
Cons:
- Medicine floor is still an off-service rotation here. Yuck.
- No real diversity in residents. All from mainly one region (southern or KY specifically). Can't really blame this on the program, but if it were REALLY strong, perhaps people would be willing to leave their midwest/northeast/northwest comfort zone to come here?!! Not sure. Perhaps they got the same question from Dr. Vicario as I did - that REALLY turned me off.
- MC trauma are farming accidents.
Pro or Con:
- No mandatory flights. Yes, you can try to fly optionally (didn't ask if it would replace a shift or not! I can still email....), but if this is very important to you, you may not like this program very much.
- Location. They say they're "northern" but KY is backwards enough to truly be considered the south. In the same vein, they pride themselves on having lots of undeveloped land to "play" with: good parks, hiking, etc. So lots of outdoor activity if you want it. Great place apparently for singles and couples.
- Trauma EVERY DAY. One resident mentioned he did not care for trauma by the time he finished because you get SO MUCH of it. So this could be good or bad for some of you. You have your main patients in the 20+ bed area, but then you abandon all when the traumas come in and the nurses run everything while ALL of you are gone. You are supervised (by upper levels)as an R1 but you're pretty much running it all by yourself as an R2. One 4 bed trauma bay coined "Room 9."
So in totality, it was a great day besides the one interviewer. Lots of perks, but not really loving the location. No pro football or basketball team (who doesn't like cheering for the home team?!!), but U of L gets LOTS of love (as you could imagine). Won't rank them high, but hopefully this will help someone else....
PM me for more questions.