residency ranking

[akhim]

so i'm trying to figure out how how competitive some residency programs are and i can't seem to find any formal ranking of residency programs. i'm only finding rankings of medical schools. so my question is:

does a top tier/highly ranked (usnews) medical school translate into a highly ranked residency program?

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[gutonc]

so i'm trying to figure out how how competitive some residency programs are and i can't seem to find any formal ranking of residency programs. i'm only finding rankings of medical schools. so my question is:

does a top tier/highly ranked (usnews) medical school translate into a highly ranked residency program?

No.

For all of your follow up questions, find the specialty-specific forum and ask there. Not because we can't help you here, just that an institution that is strong in one specialty may not be in another. As a very generic example, the "best" EM and FM programs tend not to be in the same places that have the "best" IM, Peds and Gen Surg programs.

 

[akhim]

No.

For all of your follow up questions, find the specialty-specific forum and ask there. Not because we can't help you here, just that an institution that is strong in one specialty may not be in another. As a very generic example, the "best" EM and FM programs tend not to be in the same places that have the "best" IM, Peds and Gen Surg programs.

i wasnt going to have follow up questions but i think you misunderstood my question. i understand what you are saying how an institution cant be the BEST in everything, but generally speaking do the top med schools have the top residency programs, or is it possible to see a mid/low tier med school to have a high tier residency program

 

[gutonc]

i wasnt going to have follow up questions but i think you misunderstood my question. i understand what you are saying how an institution cant be the BEST in everything, but generally speaking do the top med schools have the top residency programs, or is it possible to see a mid/low tier med school to have a high tier residency program

No, I completely understood your question. It's one that gets asked every year and the answer is always the same. No.

Yes, it's also possible for a "top" med school to have a complete **** show of a residency program in one or more specialties. It's also the case that hospitals without med schools can have some of the top-rated training programs in the nation (Carolinas for EM; Cedars-Sinai and CCF for Cards, MSKCC and MDACC for Onc, etc all come immediately to mind).

So put away your reliance on USNWR rankings and swing by your specialty of choice forum and read (don't post...just read) what people are saying about the relative strength of programs in that specialty.

 

[Law2Doc]

i wasnt going to have follow up questions but i think you misunderstood my question. i understand what you are saying how an institution cant be the BEST in everything, but generally speaking do the top med schools have the top residency programs, or is it possible to see a mid/low tier med school to have a high tier residency program

No -- You aren't hearing him. The best med school in the country can actually be a bad place to do, say, OBGyn, FM, but a great place to do IM. A hospital you may never have heard of may have one of the top ten ortho programs. There are no formal residency rankings. You really need to figure out what specialty you want, and then align yourself with 1 or more mentors in the field who know the program reputations, chairman personalities etc. Each specialty is a very small world unto itself, they all go to the same national meetings and often know each other, and so lots of faculty in each specialty can be very plugged in and know which places are up and coming, which ones are benign versus malignant, which ones have great reputations, which ones just lost or gained key faculty, which are mired in a protracted chairman search, and the like. Nobody with a brain picks a residency based on the med school reputation.

 

[DrMattOglesby]

...so my question is:

does a top tier/highly ranked (usnews) medical school translate into a highly ranked residency program?

I found this

*These are NOT rankings of residency programs.
FWIW, I can vouch for the high correspondence between these rankings and what I've learned through the grapevine about PM&R programs.

 

[45408]

does a top tier/highly ranked (usnews) medical school translate into a highly ranked residency program?

No.

 

[Danbo1957]

does a top tier/highly ranked (usnews) medical school translate into a highly ranked residency program?

Yes and no. Harvard and Hopkins, yes. Everywhere else, no. Reality, though, is that every specialty has its own "Top 25" ranking...

 

[Sheldor]

Yes and no. Harvard and Hopkins, yes. Everywhere else, no. Reality, though, is that every specialty has its own "Top 25" ranking...

Not true at Harvard and Hopkins either. For example, family medicine at Harvard is far from the best because you have specialists to compete with for everything. The advise from gutonc and law2doc is definitely correct. There are some top 10 places for various specialties that most people ha e never even heard of! Barrows for Neurosurgery and Beaumont for Rad Onc, etc.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Yes and no. Harvard and Hopkins, yes. Everywhere else, no. Reality, though, is that every specialty has its own "Top 25" ranking...

Not even close. Ask psychiatrists how prestigious the Harvard South Shore program has been. They have taken many IMG's over the years as American graduates have historically not even wanted to apply there.

 

[scarletgirl777]

Not true at Harvard and Hopkins either. For example, family medicine at Harvard is far from the best because you have specialists to compete with for everything. The advise from gutonc and law2doc is definitely correct. There are some top 10 places for various specialties that most people ha e never even heard of! Barrows for Neurosurgery and Beaumont for Rad Onc, etc.

In fact, I'm pretty sure Harvard doesn't even have a family medicine residency--at least when I was applying, there was no department and no family med rotation for its students. But if it were there, I'm sure what you said would be true