Resurrection Medical Center Residency Reviews

[EctopicFetus]

Ill chime in..

Res- Good community program. Residents are truly happy, I know one of their 2nd yrs and when I saw him on the wards during yr one he told me how much he loved it. Here is an excerpt of a previous post I made on Chicago Programs. I interviewed at Res and I think it is an up and coming program. It is a suburban hospital and while many of their past grads stayed within the Res system they are starting to make a bigger national name for themselves. They are churning out a ton of research. (I think when I was there they said they presented more stuff at ACEP than all of the other Chicago programs COMBINED). The hospital itself is nice and the nurses are solid. They claim they do NO SCUT. The facilities are nice and relatively new and updated. The attendings and residents seem to get along well.

Cook County - Ill give you my $0.02 on Cook County where I rotated. The place is completely busy. There is usually little time to rest. The pathology is at or near the best you will see in the nation due to the people who the hospital serves. The ED is divided into Red, Blue and Green. Red is generally the most sick people, blue is less so and of course green which is fast track. There is no shortage of opportunity for procedures. The traumas are brought into a special trauma area and I didnt have the opportunity to rotate there. They also have a dedicated 24/7 Peds ED. The attendings are great and you get a lot of autonomy. Since the program is a 2-4 the residents are more experienced than at other programs (I also rotated at ORMC which is a 1-3). The teaching is like anywhere else, it is dependent on who you work with. One of the attendings I worked with was absolutely amazing! Always willing to teach and always making time for it. They are starting a big push with ED US but you could say that about a lot of places. They have dedicated time to US each yr (I think). One of the attendings there (Dr. Cosby) is apparently the ED US goddess. I believe she has a book coming out soon on the subject. I worked with her and she was quite excellent. Being Cook County they send their grads all over the country and from what they were telling me that have no probs getting jobs anywhere in the country. The residents seem happy and get along quite well. The seniors basically run the whole show by themselves and seem to barely (I never saw it once) need attending help. The downside is that there is some scut. You will see attendings etc pushing patients to the CT scanner (which is real close). The staff is both a little slow with their work and also extremely busy! In the end I think the training has to be second to none! I hope this helps. If you have specific questions I would be happy to answer them. The program seems strong top to bottom!

Orlando - I rotated here and it has more of a community feel than a crazy county feel. The ancillary staff is amazing. I did NO scut there. The attendings are incredible. Dr. Rothrock who wrong the Pocket EM and Pocket Peds EM is there. The asst Program director sorta runs the show and he is great to work with. The residents get along great and really enjoy their time in the city.

I'm pretty tired so I wont go on but as always I would be happy to answer specific Qs about ORMC or any of these other places. This thread is a pretty good idea IMO.

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[ED crazy]

Interviewed at Resurrection: pretty decent program. Seems like the residents get a lot of procedures. The program directory is a funny guy, though pretty goofy. The residents looked laid back and seemed to be getting along pretty well. Chicago is awesome.

Interviewed at Case western-Metrohealth. Ok program. The residents seemed overworked and grumpy. The Chairman and program director from reports from local students and general impression is that they have a dictatorial style of running the program. One student mentioned that resident concerns during resident-faculty forums are shot down by the PD and chairman very quickly. Somebody mentioned that it's a penny pinching program.

Interviewed at Ohio state U. decent program. Residents love football (maybe because it's football season), some of the residents are over the top about OSU football and that's all they talk about; may not be a fun place if you are not an OSU alum. No other major issues. The PD seems pretty nice guy.

 

[ephedra]

Lets talk about Resurrection in North Chicago. I think this program is pretty sweet but it gets a bad rap by some becuase they started in the 90's and didnt match one year due to ranking a small amount of people. I hear that the locals regard the program highly and when looking for community jobs they have no problem and actually do better than others in chicago. There has not been any reviews of their program on here longer than a few sentences. They train for the most part at 2 sites for EM. Resurrection and St. Francais (which is Trauma 1). They have alot of freedom from surgery and see alot of sick old patients. Peds is questionalble but residents are very happy. Nice hours with great teaching I hear. Has anyone really looked very closely at this program and rotated at St. Francais not just Resurrection who is willing to write a comprehensive review? It was my first interview and things are a little fuzzy and I need some help decided where they sit on my list. I am sure others out there as well could use some more info.

 

[MEK]

Just an FYI about this program that completely changed my opinion and decision to rank them....

Because it is a Catholic institution, they will not allow providers to prescribe any birth control pills (that really doesn't affect an EM doc) or the morning after pill (which may affect an EM doc).

This may not be a big deal to most people, but it was to me and I was glad to find out this information before ranking them highly. What can I say, I'm a liberal.

Otherwise, it is a great program, good teaching, wide range of exposure, and very happy residents. I can only comment with confidence on this because I am a Chicago med student.

 

[cordelia81]

Hey EM people,

I was just wondering if anyone out there has any info/opinions about resurrection. I'd never heard of it before I applied, but was totally sold on it during my interview. Though since I've never heard of it before (I'm not from and don't go to med school anywhere near Chicago), I'm just a little wary of ranking it really high (especially above so-called 'big name' programs, which I'm leaning towards doing). So any help from people more in the know than me would be appreciated. Thanks!

- long-time (though intermittent) browser, first-time poster

 

[pratik7]

Hey EM people,

I was just wondering if anyone out there has any info/opinions about resurrection. I'd never heard of it before I applied, but was totally sold on it during my interview. Though since I've never heard of it before (I'm not from and don't go to med school anywhere near Chicago), I'm just a little wary of ranking it really high (especially above so-called 'big name' programs, which I'm leaning towards doing). So any help from people more in the know than me would be appreciated. Thanks!

- long-time (though intermittent) browser, first-time poster

I am one of the first years at res. I love it here. The people are awesome..everyone from fellow residents to attendings. I think that the training here is strong. It is a lot of sick patients. Today i admitted 80% of the patients i saw. The other thing i like about the program is the fact that we dont get scutted out and learning is a priority everyday on every rotation.

I know the big name vs community prog is often a question and the only response i have is it depends on what you want to do in the future. More than 90% of the jobs are in community practice. Now if you are sold on academics and see a future in heavy research it maybe slightly easier to get your foot in the door now. That being said, we have graduates at strong academic programs (emory comes to mind). However there are a lot of skills that i think you pick up or learn to manage when you dont have a resident/consult in house for the various specialities....ent doesnt want to come in for the kid with the bead in the nose or the old person on coumadin with a bloody nose that wont stop. Ortho doesnt want to come in for a reduction at 2am, and uro wont place a foley in middle of the night. That being said, they are pretty good about coming in for truely emergent conditions.

I think most if not all programs will train you well. For me it is about being in a supportive enviro where i can learn and succeed. There is a lot of supervised autonomy here and it has really helped me build my clinical judgement and comfort.

Questions??

 

[opb]

Overview: A 3 year program located near Chicago, Illinois. You will end up rotating at 5 different sites throughout your 3 years at the program. There are 4 months of ICU and 3 months of trauma. There is an ultrasound fellowship here as well, so you will likely get a lot of ultrasound exposure.

Residents: The pre-interview social was held at a sports bar across the street from Wrigley Field. I think there were about 5 or 6 residents present at the outing, and the ones I spoke with seemed nice and happy overall with the program. The ones I met during the interview day were also nice and more than willing to answer all of your questions and give you their honest opinions about the program. There are 13 residents per year.

Interview Day: There are two interview sessions per day - the morning the session and the late session. I went to the late session which started at 10:30am (sweet) but ended at about 4:00pm (not so sweet). I think there were 7 applicants per session. The day started with a light breakfast and coffee, program overview by the PD, tour of the hospital/ED by the Chief Resident, then 4 interviews (3 faculty and one Chief Resident) each about 20 minutes long. All were low-stress and conversational.

Faculty: All were very approachable. I interviewed with the ultrasound fellowship director, and we talked about my interest in cars for a good 10 minutes. The residents had no complaints about the attendings.

Curriculum: 3 year program. You can find the specifics of their rotations on their website. You do 4 months of EM during your first year, 6 months during your second year, and 8 months during your third year. You do 2 months of Peds EM during first year, 1 month during second year, and a PICU month in second year as well. You have 1 month of Selective in second year and 1 month of Elective in third year. 3 months of Trauma (1 month at Cook County, and 2 months at Mt. Sinai Hospital, which gets a lot of penetrating trauma). Standard off-service rotations, and other not-so-standard ones (i.e. infectious disease, radiology, toxicology). And, as I said in the Overview, there is an ultrasound fellowship here so you probably will get a lot of ultrasound experience.

Didactics as per required 5 hours a week. A combination of lectures, resident lectures, small groups, simulations, and journal club.

Shifts depend on the site and year, but I forgot the specifics. Sorry. I do know that for shifts that you do about 18 10-hour shifts at some sites and 15 12-hour shifts at another.

Facilities: We only toured the ED at the "home" institution, which is Resurrection Medical Center. It was a smallish ED with maybe 30 or so beds and they see about 40,000 patients per year. Also, due to its location, it's serves as a catchment site for O'Hare airport. So, per the PD, you may see some exotic diseases which come straight from the airport. The patient population at Resurrection is mostly older patients (who usually are sicker).

Another site is Our Lady of the Resurrection, where you do 2 months during your third year. This particular site was stressed during the overview by the PD as the place where you will be "running the ED" as there is a paucity of consult services at this site and minimal back-up.

Saint Francis Hospital, in Evanston, IL, is where you will get your inner city/urban patient population. I think the census here is also about 40k.

Trauma months are done at Cook County and Mt. Sinai Hospital which, due to their locations, see a lot of penetrating trauma (knife-and-gun club).

Location: Chicago, Illinois. Resurrection Med Center is located about 20 minutes west/southwest of downtown. Saint Francis/Evanston is about 20 minutes north of downtown. Cook County and Mount Sinai are about 10 minutes southwest of downtown. Of course you will need to add to these times based on traffic, which is pretty bad in Chicago. The city itself has TONS to offer - sports teams (Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Bears, restaurants, bars, cultural activities, lakefront with beaches, etc. Cost of living is high in Chicago. Also, the winters can get bad with single-digit temps for days at a time not that uncommon. Summers can get hot and humid as well. However, if you can put up with the weather for 3 years, Chicago will keep you more than entertained.

opb's final thoughts: Overall, I had a positive experience during my visit to Resurrection. I thought the residents were friendly and happy, and the attendings were nice and approachable as well. I think one thing that you might have to consider is that this program is often labeled as a "community program". I guess this is true since the program is not affiliated with a university nor is it a county program. However, I don't think that being a community program is necessarily a bad thing (anyways, most of us end up doing community EM). Another thing you might need to think about is rotating at 5 different sites, which has its own positives and negatives (positives - broader exposure; negatives - commuting, learning a new system). And finally, the Chicago winters may affect your decision as well.

 

[911emergencyonly]

Any recent updates on this program? Reviews from current/former residents?

 

[TraumaMed]

Any recent updates on this program? Reviews from current/former residents?

I'm a current Resurrection resident. I can answer whatever questions you want.

I love it here. I ranked Res number 1 and I would do it again. I think our program is pretty cool in that we get a good exposure to different types of emergency departments. Resurrection Medical Center and St. Francis are our main hositals with rotations at outside EDs (Community First, Mount Sinai, UofC-Comer). Resurrection Medical Center is located in Chicago, but it is more of a suburban hospital. It's a level 2 trauma center with lots of older patients with sepsis/MI/stroke/COPD. Intubations and central lines are extremely common in the Resurrection ED because of the older population and high incidence of chronic illness. St. Francis, in Evanston, is a Level 1 Trauma Center. St. Francis, while located in the suburbs, is more of an urban hospital (younger patients, more trauma, ect.). The ED residents at both these places run the show. All procedures go to the ED residents with most going to the interns. The pediatric exposure is great for Chicago. Both are ED's are far enough away from Comer/Lurie's that really sick kids end up coming to Res and St. Francis. It's not uncommon for the intern on Peds to have a few pediatric arrests/intubations/LPs under his or her belt by the end of the month.

The attendings at both places are pretty cool and down to earth. For the most part, they let the residents run the room helping out when it's needed. There is no graded responsibility. Seniors see the bulk of the patients, but if the next patient is really sick and the intern wants the patient she can have the case.

Our off service rotations are well thought out. Most of our harder months (MICU, SICU, Trauma) are followed by easier months (Anesthesia, EMS, Peds-EM). The MICU and SICU are ran by the ED residents. The ICU docs are great about teaching and are nice people to work with. MICU and SICU are really tough, but by the end you develop the guts to deal with really sick patients. Trauma is at Mount Sinai first year and Cook County second year. Both are on the the west side of Chicago. Both see an insane amount of Trauma. By the end, you a pretty comfortable with GSWs/Chest-tubes/Cordis Catheters/typical trauma stuff.

Overall, it's a great residency. There are lots of great programs in Chicago and you will be well trained at any of them. Choosing a residency is more about gut feeling than anything else. On the interview trail, I realized that for the most part EM residencies are the same. Most programs are going to tell you they have an abundance of procedures and see tons of sick patients. It's true though. If you are an Emergency Medicine residency your hospital sees the sickest patients in the area. Res is a great program if you want to be a solid community ED doc and work with nice people during residency. Let me know if you guys have any other questions. I would be happy to answer them.