I know exactly what you mean. All we can do is rationalize our lists if we do dwell.
Right? On that note, some quick rationalizations:
1. UVA: Home. Good program. Could be more robust on the inpatient side (at least in-house), but great state hospital exposure (although it's a drive). Wish they had a VA, but I want to do child, so not a huge loss for me. Nice people, turn out very good docs, many of whom I've worked with. Love the child program more than the adult honestly, but adult is good too. If I wasn't from Cville, and had no family ties here, and didn't live here right now, I'd be very concerned about cost of living, small city, traffic, and such. Program works a bit harder than I would like, and isn't quite as robust as say, MUSC, but I'm willing to put up with that for the HUGE benefits of staying at home. Wife can keep her job, kid can stay in school. We know the area, the mechanics. My Step-Dad also has health issues, so I'd like to be around for that. I've already had to save his life once by dragging him to the hospital when he was septic...sigh. One of those stubborn patients that won't call or go to the doctor unless they're dying...
2. USC-Palmetto: Great for people with families that still want good training. Excellent work life balance. Not cold. Great pay and benefits (retirement matching after year 1!). Great moonlight opportunities. Nice places to live for families, decent schools. Amazing people. Happy place. Considered very strongly for #1, even if it meant displacing the family.
3. MUSC: Best weather arguably on the east coast. Warm winters and not too bad summers for the south. Great training. Loved the facilities, the night float system that means no short call situations, just 2 months of horrible night float 1st and 2nd year. Great family city. Biggest (only?) negative is the psych job market post-graduation and lack of moonlighting. Very close race between MUSC and Indy. Still unsure of the placement here, but they're both awesome, so whatever. I'd be just as unsure the other way around too.
4. Indiana: Monorail! MONO-rail! Loved the people, both faculty and residents. Loved the city. Lots of different training sites, relatively close together = some pains, but good diversity. Great place. Only negatives for us were distance and big city. Considered VERY strongly for #1 and #2. Probably #1 for "gut feeling," but logic and family issues won out. Really tough call between here and #3 MUSC.
5. U Kentucky: Similar to Indy in a lot of ways. Great program, loved the people. Nice new hospital, but much of training is at the old one. Still, residents are happy, hours are decent, and training is good. We could be very happy in Lexington, we really liked the area. Good cost of living. Daughter loves horses, lol.
6. Virginia Commonwealth University: I wouldn't go here for any other specialty but psych. Much of the hospital has a quasi-malignant atmosphere, but I have it on good authority that the psych program is the one good one in the hospital, and I trust my sources. Also felt pretty good about the interview day, loved the Chairman. Know the city very well, 1 hour from home and family. Might even be able to convince the wife to live in between Richmond and Cville and dual commute each way so she can keep her job, the kid can keep her school, and 2x the chance of stability. Almost considered ranking it #2 for this reason, but the program wasn't quite THAT good. Biggest negative for me was the mostly urban, underserved patient population (not quite my cup of tea) and the 2 weeks vacation (but 30 sick days make up for it...go figure). Ultimately, we decided we'd rather be here than in Iowa, Milwaukee, etc...despite the programs in those places probably being better than VCU. Too many other good things about VCU (job contacts for wife, TONS of friends there, family very close) and the program was good ENOUGH to warrant the placement here over marginally better programs with numerous location disadvantages (#7-11), and worse programs (#12-13).
7. U Iowa: Think MUSC but in Charlottesville, but now Charlottesville is in Iowa instead of Virginia. That's pretty much this program, with all the attendant advantages and disadvantages this confers. Small town (good and bad), very far away, cold windy winters and hot humid summers, horrible parking I hear, but great training, very biological (maybe too much?), great people. Very safe area. Lacks diversity. Great post-residency options. $$$. Almost put this as high as #5. Seriously considered putting above VCU and was very, very close to that. Still not sure...same old story. Good enough.
8. Med Coll. Wisconsin - Brrrrrr. Other than that, very awesome. Didn't LOVE milwaukee. 20% hispanic population scares me. My spanish isn't THAT good, or I would've applied to Miami, lol. More concerned with the weather and the fact that we didn't seem to find any area there we'd love living in, although we could certainly make do. Downtown was very cool and offered some nice options though. But I'm not 25 anymore. Excellent work life balance, and good reputation for training though. Did I mention the weather?
9. Vanderbilt: Loved the program, the residents, and the faculty. Didn't like Nashville. Have many music friends who live there and aren't huge fans either, but have to for work. Traffic there is NOT fun. Thought I was going to die driving in. Worse than DC, IMO. Program has a reputation for working a hair too much for a family guy, but we'd be willing to do it if need be. Still an "up and coming" program. Maybe we'll see what the new PD can do, whoever it will be. Worried a bit about Fuchs leaving, but not much. Debating ranking much higher, but family schedule is too important too me.
10. Wake Forest: Crazy 1st year call schedule that adheres to the letter of the new work hour rules, but not the spirit. Work 8am-2pm, off from 2pm-10pm, then work 10pm-2pm the following day. No post-call day. Also, too much outpatient dropped them down here. Also, some driving to distant sites. Other than those issues, it would've been a top 5 contender due to proximity to home, good family town, great cost of living, proximity to Charlotte where I also have family.
11. West Virginia: Loved the program, hated Morgantown. We could make it work because the program is so awesome, but the location wasn't our favorite. Still, the program was good enough and the city had SOME advantages for us (mostly the small size and relative safety of it) that it stayed on the list. Loved the off at 4pm every day when not on call, which was also very reasonable. Good schedule. Relaxed atmosphere. Had been higher on the list, but kept falling the more I thought about living in Morgantown.
12. East Carolina: Had high hopes, but wound up being relatively unimpressed. Very nice people here though. Greenville could be a good town for our family too, but probably not a long term place, which dropped it down the list. High % of FMG's, all from Ross was also strange. Still, would be better than SOAP or not matching, and NC offers some good benefits for college education for The Kid (high rate of instate acceptance and cheap instate tuition at good schools like UNC). I do think ECU provides good training, but not as good as #1-11.
13. Roanoke: I worked here for a month. Have family here. 2 hours from home. Great staff, great faculty. Saw a lot of pathology, actually. Work a bit harder than I'd like to put up with for being in Roanoke, which isn't my favorite city, and it's a newer program, so academic side isn't quite there. Was especially unimpressed with the quality of the didactics. PD is super nice though. Again, going here is better than SOAP, and it's really an ok place, but again, not quite as good as 1-12. Had a tough time with 12 vs 13.
More in-depth reviews of the interviews and such coming, but hopefully this sheds some light on why WE chose these.
For future readers, rankers, and researchers. Pick the program that's best for YOU (and your family, if you have one). Worry less about NIH rankings and crap (although that's worth looking at too).
i will take it as a compliment.
