Brigham "instability"?

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Nivens

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Can anyone speak to this "instability"- real or imagined- that I keep hearing about at BWH? A few faculty members at my institution have told me they recently had a big scandal involving a chair getting fired after he retracted a paper from Nature, a major researching committing suicide, and the department losing millions of dollars. I interviewed there at the beginning of the season and had zero clue anything was going on, and really thought the place is great. How, if at all, will this affect the residency? With other great options, is it worth taking the risk? Thanks!
So Toyota had this gas pedal problem a few years ago... Guess what car I bought soon after.

While every Titanic could theoretically sink, it takes a lot of storms to rock a big boat. Especially one that's a Harvard flagship.
 
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I knew about this Nature incident before interviewing at BWH, so I did some research on the story beforehand. From what I gathered, the chair really didn't know what was going on with some of the research collaborators in Japan. So it appears that he was not actively involved in the wrongdoing, but as with any organization the buck stops at the top of the chain of command, so the chair did the honorable thing and stepped away. At least that was my impression of the situation. Regardless, I really loved BWH and would still be ecstatic to end up there for residency.

I see these changes as more of a cyclic thing, rather than instability within the department. Obviously, this specific situation is not an ideal stimulus for the change, but the normal tenure of a PD or chair is roughly 10-15 years anyway, so unless you're going somewhere with a new chair or PD, there's a possibility of a change in leadership during residency. I think the chair at the Brigham had already been there for more than a decade at the time of his resignation, so there was bound to be a change at some point in the near future. The chair at Wash U has been there for over 20 years now, but that's somewhat of an anomaly - at least amongst the places I interviewed with. Many of the programs that I'm ranking near the top have an interim department chair, so it certainly isn't a factor for me, but to each his own.
 
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You should be concerned about who the chair is of your department (an interim chair doesn't always have the vested interest of the department and may be just a surrogate "yes man".). Hence, the excrement can roll downhill to the residency program. The interim chair may not even want to be chair but they had no other choices for the time being. A chairperson of a department can have huge implications on the well being of residents-they may not be the face of the program like a PD but I wouldn't minimize the chair's role/impact/influence on a residency program.
 
Like the original poster I'm interested in this program and trying to get my due diligence in.

Does anyone know about how CRNAs (and SRNAs if they are present) are used at the Brigham? This did not come up on my interview day, but looking around on here I found a post from years back mentioning how SRNAs had equal priority as residents when getting cases, even complex specialty cases. I googled to try to learn about any SRNA training program that exists at the Brigham and didn't find much ... except a job posting for a new CRNA education director there, whose responsibilities will include working with SRNAs. Concerning to say the least.

Does anyone have a perspective on this?
 
This did not come up on my interview day, but looking around on here I found a post from years back mentioning how SRNAs had equal priority as residents when getting cases, even complex specialty cases.
Does anyone have a perspective on this?
That seems very unlikely. It was certainly not true when I was in the military, the home of "independent"* CRNAs.
The SRNAs got the easier cases and priority was always given to the residents. They never did complex neuro, vascular or cardiac. In fact they had to rotate out to get that experience.
I doubt any major referral center gives SRNAs equal case distribution.

* Not really independent at the major hospitals.
 
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