I am a current anesthesiology resident at stony brook and feel that an accurate and honest description of our program is well overdue
The best feature of the program?
-that everyone who applied to a pediatric fellowship matched
The worst feature of the program?
-the PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Our program director constantly threatens residents to create the illusion that we have a strong program in order to promote his job security. Because were all scared of getting fired nobody speaks up. How would we get fired? He uses any and every excuse to give residents an unsatisfactory in any of the ACGME core competencies and he says that two unsatisfactories are grounds for dismissal from the program. If we score below 20% on an in-training exam we get an unsatisfactory. We get written tests at the end each rotation that are graded A,B,C, or F and if we get two Cs then we get an unsatisfactory (we rarely see the answers to any of these tests, just the final letter grade). If he gets any complaint about a resident from an attending in our department or another department hell give an unsatisfactory for professionalism or whatever category he feels is appropriate. He has made residents come in on weekends during our free time for supervised study sessions without any notice because he feels our medical knowledge is not where it should be. He meets with residents on his own time without any respect for our time whatsoever, it doesnt matter if were on vacation, post-call, or in an interesting case.
Our last chairman retired in July of this year and since then we have had an interim chairman who was already a member of our department. They have been interviewing candidates for a permanent chairman position for 6 months
CRNAs always receive priority over residents when it comes to being sent home at the end of each day whether their shifts are over or not. CRNAs get a 30 min breakfast break and 45 min lunch break, residents get 15 min breakfast break and 30 min lunch break.
Most of the time 24 hour call is exactly what it sounds like doing cases in the OR for 24 hours straight because the hospital does not treat emergency and elective cases any differently. As long as there is an anesthesiology attending and residents, any case can go at any time no matter how trivial it is. If an elective case is scheduled to start at 7:30 am, a surgeon can call and ask for the case to start at 6:30 am and if the 24 hr call team is not busy at 6:30 am, then that elective case will start at 6:30 am instead of 7:30 am. Even if the anesthesiology call team has been awake and working for 23 hours, they have to start the elective case early.
Im not sure how residents at other programs feel, but the residents at stony brook are not happy.
The best feature of the program?
-that everyone who applied to a pediatric fellowship matched
The worst feature of the program?
-the PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Our program director constantly threatens residents to create the illusion that we have a strong program in order to promote his job security. Because were all scared of getting fired nobody speaks up. How would we get fired? He uses any and every excuse to give residents an unsatisfactory in any of the ACGME core competencies and he says that two unsatisfactories are grounds for dismissal from the program. If we score below 20% on an in-training exam we get an unsatisfactory. We get written tests at the end each rotation that are graded A,B,C, or F and if we get two Cs then we get an unsatisfactory (we rarely see the answers to any of these tests, just the final letter grade). If he gets any complaint about a resident from an attending in our department or another department hell give an unsatisfactory for professionalism or whatever category he feels is appropriate. He has made residents come in on weekends during our free time for supervised study sessions without any notice because he feels our medical knowledge is not where it should be. He meets with residents on his own time without any respect for our time whatsoever, it doesnt matter if were on vacation, post-call, or in an interesting case.
Our last chairman retired in July of this year and since then we have had an interim chairman who was already a member of our department. They have been interviewing candidates for a permanent chairman position for 6 months
CRNAs always receive priority over residents when it comes to being sent home at the end of each day whether their shifts are over or not. CRNAs get a 30 min breakfast break and 45 min lunch break, residents get 15 min breakfast break and 30 min lunch break.
Most of the time 24 hour call is exactly what it sounds like doing cases in the OR for 24 hours straight because the hospital does not treat emergency and elective cases any differently. As long as there is an anesthesiology attending and residents, any case can go at any time no matter how trivial it is. If an elective case is scheduled to start at 7:30 am, a surgeon can call and ask for the case to start at 6:30 am and if the 24 hr call team is not busy at 6:30 am, then that elective case will start at 6:30 am instead of 7:30 am. Even if the anesthesiology call team has been awake and working for 23 hours, they have to start the elective case early.
Im not sure how residents at other programs feel, but the residents at stony brook are not happy.