Originally posted by kungfufishing
Im pretty interested in the program in El Paso. Ive actually heard El Paso is a nice place to live and I really like the southwest. my questions
1. I dont speak spanish. will it hurt me in getting a spot (part of going there is id like to learn)
2.Im a DO applicant with only the comlex ( a good score, though)
will this matter?
any good general overview is of course appreciated as well.
El Paso is something of an acquired taste, and it depends on your taste. I learned to enjoy it, though I had no desire to settle down there long-term. The desert air is pretty nice, especially to the humidity I'm currently living in. The weather is temperate, not nearly as severe as the other desert cities partly I think due to the city being built in the Rio Grande Valley. So the summers aren't anywhere as hot as Phoenix, for instance, and the winters aren't nearly as cold either. The vast majority of the year was shorts and t-shirts, and you could do without the t-shirt most of the time. If you really like the Southwest, El Paso should suit you just fine. It's amazingly cheap to live in El Paso, and you can buy a pretty nice 3-bedroom house in the 70's (cheap labor abounds in El Paso).
If you're not Hispanic, you'll have to get used to being a minority as the population is 70% Mexican-American or just Mexican. I'm a minority anyway, so it wasn't anything new to me, but I'm sure some of my "white" colleagues had to adjust a little. The "official" language is still English, but Spanish is probably a more commonly spoken language in the city, and not just among the working classes. The upper classes of El Paso are pretty often native Spanish-speaking as well, though most of them will speak English in addition.
The residency is one that stresses clinical practice over research, though research opportunities are available. The residency director (who is also the research director) is Brian Nelson, who is one of the most well-educated I've known (and I've got lots of over-educated people in my family). He's a little intimidating, as he just has that "presence" that some people have. Add that to his encyclopedic wealth of medical knowledge and the fact that he is a past president of the Texas College of Emergency Physicians, and you can see why.
Most of us graduates go into the private world, though a few do stay on in academics. In general, the grads are more commonly in Texas and elsewhere in the Southwest, though the residency has been around long enough for us to spread far and wide. My class in particular got jobs elsewhere. Two in Florida, two in Southern Cal, two to Houston, and two in Oregon. We seem to have migrated in pairs.
The training is excellent, and the faculty are a good mix of lifetime academics and docs who have been in the private world in a variety of settings (and some who continue to work part time in the private world). I think that's important, because a department of nothing but academics isn't going to be able to give you the education in the business of emergency medicine that you'll want when you go job-hunting for the first time.
Given that the hospital sees primarily indigents and immigrants, the pathology you see is utterly amazing. Thanks to the Pima Indian blood in the area, you'll see more cholecystitis and gallstones in a month at Thomason than you will in a whole residency elsewhere. The best thing about the residency though I think are the patients. This population of patients is remarkable in that they actually
appreciate your help and will thank you (sometimes profusely) for helping them. There were even a couple times where I just felt like saying, "Stop groveling, please," only I don't know how to say "groveling" in Spanish. Contrast that to almost anywhere else in the country where the patients mostly just feel that they're entitled to free health care and that any delay in providing it constitutes a grounds for suing.
Not speaking Spanish will not hurt you as long as you're willing to learn. The program has an introductory Spanish class during the first month or two (I don't remember exactly, since I didn't bother with it). I spoke some Spanish when I got there, and became reasonably fluent by the time I left. A couple docs in my class didn't speak any Spanish at all when they started, and they were both at least functional in medical Spanish in reasonable time.
Being a DO won't hurt you, and I don't think taking only the COMLEX will be an issue, though I'd ask. Email the residency coordinator Mary Lou (
[email protected]) and ask her specifically. If she doesn't know, she can find out. The faculty is pretty much MDs with one DOs. I think we had one or two others when I was there. In any case, the program is very open to non-traditional candidates, so being DO is hardly an issue. Looking at their website, 4 of the current residents are DOs.
