Continuing . . .
University of Southern Alabama: This is fairly new program. It was a pure pulmonary program for many, many, many years, and became a pulm/cc program a few years back and this is the first year they matched with ERAS. This program is located in Mobile, AL, which is actually a very nice town. You're based out of the county hospital, but also spend some time at two private hospitals. The division chief and PD are both transplants from Colorado, and both also very nice. ICU is smallish, but busy as it is a county hospital. Call in the unit is split between the fellows. The pulm is of a more general variety, so you get to see all kinds pathology in clinic and don't have to deal with a lot of sub-specialists. Of note, there is a large sickle-cell population, so you get to see a lot of acute chest sydrome and pulmonary htn related to this. You get a lot of exposure to sleep medicine. An interesting little diamond in the rough is the Universty's Center for Lung Biology. They are doing first rate pulmonary research down there, meaning you have the opportunity to do basic science research. You get a year to do research and the fellows seemed to really like it. The fellows were a happy bunch and seemed very satisfied with their program. Overall I think the program has a lot of potential for growth as an academic fellowship, and I think the clinical training would be solid, though is currently probably a good spot for someone considering a private practice career.
Wake Forest: Super, super nice program. Located in Winston-Salem, NC (it's the other program in NC . . . Duke and Chapel Hill being the others), which is a super cool little city. The hospital is gorgeous and the facilities very, very nice. The PD was a very charismatic guy, and I really liked him, reminded me of my own father (a Hopkins trained guy, with many years of experience as a PD). The units is big and busy, tertiary referral form the western part of the state. When you are the unit fellow you are on call basically all the time (they do arrange for you to get your one day in seven off), and because of this unit time is now taken in two week chunks, with the other half of the month being the pulmonary consult fellow (you switch). Excellent pulmonary training. EBUS and interventional bronch available, and soon to start a formal interventional fellowship. Lots of research both basic science and clinical. They have a lot of world class asthma research, especially with respect to genomics. While fellows did have protected research time, how much time available to each fellows was very project and fellow dependent. They had an option for a fourth year. The fellows all seemed really happy and not overworked, most were heading for private practice, but there were a few staying academic. Overall I thought it would have been a great place to do training, and they have the ability to help launch an academic career, which I thought was a great plus.
University of Utah: Great program. Located in Salt Lake City (SLC), and some people hate on SLC, but I actually really like the city, especially the mountains with all of the outdoor activities and the big major hub airport (mormons, mormons, blah, blah, blah . . . who cares?). The program is probably a little critical care heavy, which may be a little more to some people's liking. It's not that the pulm is weak, but rather that the critical care is much better represented IMHO. You spend time at the University, the VA, and a private, but fairly academic hospital in town called Intermountain Health (IMH) (which is really, really big, and nice, with multiple ICUs). At IMH you round with a multidiciplinary team, and some days you'll be rounding with pulm cc, some days with surg cc, and some days with gas cc. You get training in bedside echo. Bronch like crazy. A very well rounded critical care training. Pulm is more general in nature. And if I remember correctly they do have transplant, but you don't get a ton of exposure to that unless you really show an interest. Protected research time of one year, and the option for a fourth year for anyone really interested. The PD was a real stand-up kind of guy - looked you in the eye, was honest about the pluses and minuses of his program. The Chief was a super nice guy and somewhat newish (2007?) but moving the program and division in a more academic and pulmonary direction. Overall I really liked the program and I think it would be great for those folks more interested in critical care who want to do pulmonary as well. I think you could spring board into an academic career or in private practice out of the program very easily. I think the echo training is huge.
Last two tomorrow. I wonder why no one else is posting impressions . . . I think we all should, because it will only help next years folks. The program reviews were fairly scant prior to this year.
