Kalamazoo Residency

[jchamp]

So I'm setting up my rank list and Kalamazoo has been popping up in my head. Does anyone have updated information on the residency? I liked my interview, but am a little leery on the size of the town and how many residents there are in the class. Seems that 20 seems pretty large. Anyone have any info on the type of residents they turn out?

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[scummie]

So I was going to wait until after lists were due to write a full review of this program, but here's to a head start. I am not a resident there, but I did spend a good chunk of time there as a medical student.

Hands down, WMed was my favorite rotation for all of medical school. While Kalamazoo itself is smaller than someone in a bigger city might want population-wise, the ED itself doesn't suffer in volume. They get crazy amounts of patients and lots of blunt trauma. You rotate through two main hospitals, each with their own flavors. One sees more trauma, the other more gomers. The residents are usually incredibly busy and there's not a lot of down time, even in the 3-5 AM lull. The didactics were solid and really well done. I can't speak highly enough of their old PD who was awesome. The residents are treated well and the EMS program is top notch.

I think if you're looking for a county experience or need to live in a huge metropolitan area, this program is probably not what you're looking for. You may want to check the mother of all stickies thread for some other reviews.

Hope this helps.

 

[willen101383]

Sorry for the long reply time, I hardly ever go on this site anymore but had to reply to this. I am a PGY 1 at WMU and will give yo a no holds barred review of my program. We are an ACGME accredited residency with 20 residents per class. About 60 percent MD 40 percent DO. Mainly midwesterners but we have residents from all over the country as well. The program is attractive for DOs in that we have an AOA internship year you can do for intern year that seamlessly meshes with the rest of the program, and as a PGY2 automatically change to ACGME. You lose 1 or 2 good rotations which are replaced by AOA required rotations, but the flexibility to practice in all 50 states makes this option well worth it.

Kalamazoo is a small city, yes. However the restaurant scene here is SOLID. Not to mention there is a new brewery opening seemingly monthly. Bells brewery is located in Kalamazoo and have a great homebrew supply store if you brew. About the only thing you dont have locally are some of the "big city" clothing stores. You have grand rapids about 45 mins away, which is a big enough city to have everything you want available. Home prices here are very affordable and many residents opt to purchase a place. I spent around 130 on my house and have 1500 square feet with a separate heated garage, a finished apartment above the garage (mancave) and about an acre of land, for less a month than it would cost to rent a 1 bedroom. My wife has a pretty specific finance background and she had no problem finding employment locally. Kalamazoo city school district has a program called the "Kalamazoo Promise" and if you are enrolled K-12 in the district you get your college education at any Michigan College financed 100 percent. Which is an insane deal, so resale is high.

The residency is solid. The size of the city really has no bearing on the quality or quantity of patients we see in our ED. As residents you staff 2 EDs. One of the EDs is at Borgess Medical Center, which is a 350ish bed level 2 trauma center, the other is Bronson Methodist, which is 500ish beds and level 1. We have a massive catchment area and have a vibrant aeromedicine program (that you get to do shifts on starting in pgy2). You see a mix of rural type patients as well as urban...with the corresponding pathology common to both patient types, trauma both blunt and shockingly plenty of penetrating. Bronson is >100,000 visits a year, I am not sure of borgess but anecdotally I would estimate it to be around 75,000. Borgess has T sheet documentation currently, Bronson has EPIC with dragon as well as scribes starting in your PGY2 year. Both EMRs can be accessed remotely which is a huge win. We have an $800 dollar a year education stipend which can be used for conference, books, laptops, ipads, etc....and it rolls over year to year. I would say our 2 strongest attributes are: the amount of ICU time you get...and procedures, and our WMed 1 ED physician response SUV. PGY 1 you get 2 dedicated ICU months, and then 1 during pgy2 and 1 during pgy3. Both of the ICUs are very very busy and you will learn a ton and get a ton of lines/tubes. Wmed 1 is a fully stocked SUV (we actually have 2 vehicles now), with full fire turnout gear, ACLS meds, various antedotes, airway gear, etc and is part of the regional EMS command system. Starting in PGY2 you have 1 dedicated month per year on the truck and can be both dispatched to scenes or voluntarily go to scenes if you deem a physician is needed. A month ago we had a 190+ vehicle pile up on our interstate which involved a hydroflouric acid tanker explosion and a semi carrying 40,000 pounds of fireworks catching fire. 2 of our residents were dispatched on Wmed 1 to this scene and one of our PGY 2 residents rapidly identified and needle decompressed a tension pneumo laying in the snow and mud underneath a semi, and subsequently saved this drivers life! Incredible save and great demo to the public about our role in the community.

I may be missing some highlights, but all in all this is a great program and I am happy to be here. We get great training and have great, highly educated attendings who are clearly dedicated to our success. We currently have 2 PDs (okay 1 is the actual PD the other had been PD since the program's inception and still is very involved). The former PD, Dave Overton, is nationally known, widely published and has been active in EM since the beginning of the specialty, he has contacts all over the country so he is a great resource for us!

Let me know if there are any specific questions, and I would be happy to answer them!

Stay warm,

Willen

 

[JuliaJulia]

Sorry for the long reply time, I hardly ever go on this site anymore but had to reply to this. I am a PGY 1 at WMU and will give yo a no holds barred review of my program. We are an ACGME accredited residency with 20 residents per class. About 60 percent MD 40 percent DO. Mainly midwesterners but we have residents from all over the country as well. The program is attractive for DOs in that we have an AOA internship year you can do for intern year that seamlessly meshes with the rest of the program, and as a PGY2 automatically change to ACGME. You lose 1 or 2 good rotations which are replaced by AOA required rotations, but the flexibility to practice in all 50 states makes this option well worth it.

Kalamazoo is a small city, yes. However the restaurant scene here is SOLID. Not to mention there is a new brewery opening seemingly monthly. Bells brewery is located in Kalamazoo and have a great homebrew supply store if you brew. About the only thing you dont have locally are some of the "big city" clothing stores. You have grand rapids about 45 mins away, which is a big enough city to have everything you want available. Home prices here are very affordable and many residents opt to purchase a place. I spent around 130 on my house and have 1500 square feet with a separate heated garage, a finished apartment above the garage (mancave) and about an acre of land, for less a month than it would cost to rent a 1 bedroom. My wife has a pretty specific finance background and she had no problem finding employment locally. Kalamazoo city school district has a program called the "Kalamazoo Promise" and if you are enrolled K-12 in the district you get your college education at any Michigan College financed 100 percent. Which is an insane deal, so resale is high.

The residency is solid. The size of the city really has no bearing on the quality or quantity of patients we see in our ED. As residents you staff 2 EDs. One of the EDs is at Borgess Medical Center, which is a 350ish bed level 2 trauma center, the other is Bronson Methodist, which is 500ish beds and level 1. We have a massive catchment area and have a vibrant aeromedicine program (that you get to do shifts on starting in pgy2). You see a mix of rural type patients as well as urban...with the corresponding pathology common to both patient types, trauma both blunt and shockingly plenty of penetrating. Bronson is >100,000 visits a year, I am not sure of borgess but anecdotally I would estimate it to be around 75,000. Borgess has T sheet documentation currently, Bronson has EPIC with dragon as well as scribes starting in your PGY2 year. Both EMRs can be accessed remotely which is a huge win. We have an $800 dollar a year education stipend which can be used for conference, books, laptops, ipads, etc....and it rolls over year to year. I would say our 2 strongest attributes are: the amount of ICU time you get...and procedures, and our WMed 1 ED physician response SUV. PGY 1 you get 2 dedicated ICU months, and then 1 during pgy2 and 1 during pgy3. Both of the ICUs are very very busy and you will learn a ton and get a ton of lines/tubes. Wmed 1 is a fully stocked SUV (we actually have 2 vehicles now), with full fire turnout gear, ACLS meds, various antedotes, airway gear, etc and is part of the regional EMS command system. Starting in PGY2 you have 1 dedicated month per year on the truck and can be both dispatched to scenes or voluntarily go to scenes if you deem a physician is needed. A month ago we had a 190+ vehicle pile up on our interstate which involved a hydroflouric acid tanker explosion and a semi carrying 40,000 pounds of fireworks catching fire. 2 of our residents were dispatched on Wmed 1 to this scene and one of our PGY 2 residents rapidly identified and needle decompressed a tension pneumo laying in the snow and mud underneath a semi, and subsequently saved this drivers life! Incredible save and great demo to the public about our role in the community.

I may be missing some highlights, but all in all this is a great program and I am happy to be here. We get great training and have great, highly educated attendings who are clearly dedicated to our success. We currently have 2 PDs (okay 1 is the actual PD the other had been PD since the program's inception and still is very involved). The former PD, Dave Overton, is nationally known, widely published and has been active in EM since the beginning of the specialty, he has contacts all over the country so he is a great resource for us!

Let me know if there are any specific questions, and I would be happy to answer them!

Stay warm,

Willen

Thank you for this excellent post. I have a question about the DO situation - at other programs, in other states, you do 100% of the regular curriculum and apply to the AOA for whatever it's called so that you can practice in all states. At your program, you lose some great rotations & do the DO required ones instead and end up with the same result - the ability to practice in all states. Am I understanding this correctly? I'm trying to figure out if this internship year that is combined into the curriculum at your program is an advantage or disadvantage?!