UTSW post-residency

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DangMD

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Hey everyone,

I'm really interested in staying in the South for residency, liked UTSW on the interview day, but have read some things about UTSW being malignant and the "friends don't let friends go to UTSW..." way of thinking. Any current residents care to comment about the program??

Also, what is the thought on the fellowship programs there? Are they malignant as well or does it get better?

Thanks for everyone's help!:scared:

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You've probably seen this already.



UT Southwestern Fellowship Match 2011:


Allergy and Immunology
UT-Southwestern
Scripps Clinic, San Diego
Cardiology
Univ. of Iowa
UCLA Harbor
Duke Univ.(2)
Cleveland Clinic
University of Missouri, KC
Emory
Scott & White (2)
UT-Southwestern (2)
UT-Houston
Univ. of Colorado
Endocrinology
Mayo Clinic
UT-Houston
UT-Southwestern(2)
Massachusetts General Hospital
Gastroenterology
John Hopkins Univ.
Wake Forest
Washington University (2)
Univ. of Maryland
GIM
UCSF (2)
Hematology/Oncology
UT-Southwestern (3)
Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa
Sloan Kettering, NYC
Vanderbilt Univ.
Infectious Diseases
UT-Southwestern (2)
Nephrology
Brigham/MGH (2)
Cornell Univ.
Pulmonology
Vanderbilt Univ.
UT-Southwestern
Washington University
Geriatrics
Duke Univ.


Source:

http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept26481/files/523535.html
 
Their match list looks good, particularly for GI and hem/onc and nephro. Nephro isn't quite as hard to match into competitive places, b/c apparently nephro apps are down. Oh, pulm/critical care also matched really well - not surprising since it's a good residency and known for ball busting amount of ICU time, from what I've heard.

I would only go there if you are ready to get your balls busted with a lot of busy ICU and wards rotations...that has been their reputation for years. That might not be bad if you want to do something like pulm/critical care, cards or hospitalist. It might not be necessary if you want to do endocrine or allergy/immuno, particularly if the large amount of heavy duty hospital clinical time cuts into research time, since research tends to hold a lot of weight in getting in to fellowship for certain specialties. This is especially true of cardiology lately- their cards match is pretty good, particularly if the people wanted to stay in Texas, which might be the case. However, I wouldn't say their cards match is awesome for the reported level of difficulty of their residency program. It could be that they don't have a lot of research time, or that their cardiovascular medicine division isn't quite as well known as some of their other divisions, or a lot of other reasons.

If you're interested in the place you should go for the interview and see what kind of impression you get about your fitting in there. Also if you know what specialty you want to do, or have narrowed down to 1 or 2, really try and talk with residents there, not just the hand picked tour guide or the program director, and see whether they feel people have been matching well into that specialty, and are well trained in that area you are interested in.

Also, one thing you want to know first and foremost is are there people NOT matching at all into the specialty they wanted - at a place like UTSW the match rate should be almost 100%, even into a specialty like cards or GI. Even at a lot of less prestigious university programs, the match rate is near 100% - if it's not then that means the program isn't helping people match (i.e. no research opportunities for a lot of people or the program director and faculty aren't using their influence such as not writing strong LOR's, not putting in a good word for people during the fellowship match process). My general impression is that IM is getting more popular in the past couple of years among med students (not sure but so it seems...). Since primary care has a lot of problems, you can expect specialty match to stay competitive in the next few years, although with hospitalist becoming more popular I guess it could stay the same or get easier. Remember the hospital and department have their own interests but you have yours to protect.

I am sure you would be excellently clinically trained by UTSW - have never heard anyone say otherwise.
 
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Hey everyone,

I'm really interested in staying in the South for residency, liked UTSW on the interview day, but have read some things about UTSW being malignant and the "friends don't let friends go to UTSW..." way of thinking. Any current residents care to comment about the program??

Also, what is the thought on the fellowship programs there? Are they malignant as well or does it get better?

Thanks for everyone's help!:scared:

Hello. I'm a current resident at UTSW. I think when most outsiders say that UTSW has a malignant reputation, it refers to the rigor of our clinical training and this certain mentality among housestaff. I would say that this was certainly true say 5-7 years ago (also if you think that this most recent match list is impressive, you should have seen one a couple years ago). However, with the whole ACGME duty hours, I would say that UTSW is definitely trying to change the culture of this program. Nonetheless, you are going to work hard at this program which I think would be a given at any top 10 tier medicine program which UTSW is by looking at any measure.

Bottom line is, if you don't want to work hard and want an fairly cushier path to fellowship, then UTSW is not the place to come to. Let me know if you specific questions.
 
It is my semi-educated guess (I know a couple of residents/grads well) that training at UTSW is still relatively more of an ass-kicking than most places. Hour regulations aside, some places just have a more "intense" mentality - think of your surgery rotation. The amount of stress you endure during residency isn't only dependent on hours, it's about the people you're with and the institutional culture. Not how I would like to spend 3 years, but I'm sure most Parkland residents would consider me a pu$$y, and I'm also NOT chasing a cards fellowship so I never needed to consider places with such a reputation. It's your life, your call. If I were intent on having a fancy name on my resume I would try to go get my ass kicked somewhere more interesting than Dallas, but that's also personal.

They put on a great interview for sure. They do have the name and a good fellowship match. Dallas is cheap and has good food. Aesthetically/architecturally and culturally it's a bit meh...people there are quite pretentious too for no good reason (it's TEXAS! lol). Certainly, you could do worse. If your first priority is to get a competitive fellowship it's worth considering - due to their reputation and location it's likely less competitive than comparable training programs.
 
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I have no axe to grind with UTSW but the people that I know who went there for fellowship got pretty beat up in terms of work hours and the culture of the place which is pretty hard core. seems like a good program if you want to be in texas.
 
I have no axe to grind with UTSW but the people that I know who went there for fellowship got pretty beat up in terms of work hours and the culture of the place which is pretty hard core. seems like a good program if you want to be in texas.

I think that this, and NOSquid's posts are the key to the "UTSW Issue." It's not all about the hours, a lot of it is the culture. You can get your butt kicked just as hard working 70-80 hours a week as you can working 120 if that's the culture of the institution/program.

That said, the training there is stellar, the post-residency/fellowship options are on par with any other Top 10 program and, if you can tolerate both the hardcore attitude and Dallas (and Texas in general), it's worth checking out.
 
i agree about the whole hardcore mentality issue but its definitealy something that we're trying to change. case in point, we started out this year with an newly implemented icu rotation at our university hospital that was q3 but we were able to get it changed to q4. i don't think this would have happened several years ago.

and can we please stop with the whole dallas bashing thing. i can understand that you guys are jealous of our recent nba championship, multiple world series, the awesomeness of the red river shootout, jerry world and thats just sports we're talking about but seriously.... atlanta, st louis, baltimore, durham, nashville, ann arbor etc has no place to talk
 
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and can we please stop with the whole dallas bashing thing. i can understand that you guys are jealous of our recent nba championship, multiple world series, the awesomeness of the red river shootout, jerry world and thats just sports we're talking about but seriously.... atlanta, st louis, baltimore, durham, nashville, ann arbor etc has no place to talk

Agreed...those places all suck balls too. But they don't pretend otherwise like TX (in general) does.
 
i agree about the whole hardcore mentality issue but its definitealy something that we're trying to change. case in point, we started out this year with an newly implemented icu rotation at our university hospital that was q3 but we were able to get it changed to q4. i don't think this would have happened several years ago.

and can we please stop with the whole dallas bashing thing. i can understand that you guys are jealous of our recent nba championship, multiple world series, the awesomeness of the red river shootout, jerry world and thats just sports we're talking about but seriously.... atlanta, st louis, baltimore, durham, nashville, ann arbor etc has no place to talk

Those places are still not in texas. I'm confused. :confused:
 
We have a couple of UTSW grads (from MED SCHOOL) in our program, and the people from UTSW (med school) tend to be the more intense ones. I don't know how that med school culture translates into their IM residency culture, and I don't know how one can generalize the UTSW grads who matched at my program and the residents they have.

I have a suspicion it's just a whole culture thing (like what's been mentioned above). On the intensity scale, they tip toward Surgery more than other grads.

Again, I may be generalizing, but that's just my (and some of my friends' - and even some UTSW people who have become my friends) opinion.
 
I went there for med school and got the hell out (thank god). I am at UCSF and the culture on the west coast is much, much more laid back. I felt the program (med school) didnt stand behind you unless you are AOA (which I was) and the residents were equally as hard core as the students. My friends who are interns there are supposed to leave by 9PM so they can return by 7 AM on call days but ALWAYS violate hours. Think leave at 11 and back by 530. Day off's are 24 hour off so leave at 5 PM and back at 5 or something awful like that. The are always pushing 90 hours and lie on duty forms so they dont get called into Carol Croft's office to ask whats going on. Dont get me wrong training is good but you will work your tail off. Med students before the new dean were pushing 90 hours - residents more. You do 4 months of ICU a year and they just call it something else because the ACGME says no more than 6 total in 3 yrs. Just know what ur getting into.

In the bay we work hard but at least its not malignant and we are compliant and our program always stands behind us.
 
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