WashU vs UCLA vs UW vs Yale vs Cornell + more

[neuroboo]

Hi. If you guys could help me out with my ROL I would appreciate it.

Things that are important to me in a residency: fellowship placement (obviously), strong epilepsy division, clinical research, big city is a plus, global health opportunities

WashU... UCLA... University of Washington ... Yale .. Cornell .. Duke .. Miami


Thanks!

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[2heavy]

IMO...

1. Wash U-Given your goals, epilepsy is very strong there, big EMU that is going to expand even more, residents have solid EEG skills as they read their own stat EEG's/any overnight EEG/cEEG. Also lots of ictal spect and other neuro-imaging for epilepsy, grid placement/defining seizure focus for surgery, intra-op, good relationship with neurosurg. Current class sending someone to UCSF for epilepsy fellowship.

2. U Wash/Cornell/Yale/UCLA-I only interviewed at Yale and Cornell so that's my limitation. Yale has a good, well known epilepsy group that is one of their strongest sub-specialities. For any of these, don't hesitate to email the PD or other people involved in epilepsy to get a more specific idea of their setup. Questions you want to ask are 1) EMU 2) Amount of resident involvement with EEG group 3) Who reads the EEG at night 4) where people do fellowship.

Big city-nobody can beat the upper-east side if you have the $$$$ to live well. I'll leave that to your preference.

Global health-hopefully you got some sense at these places if residents/faculty spend any time abroad or with refugee populations. Certainly NY would give you easy access to this without traveling abroad. Can't provide much useful info on this outside of my home institution if you want to PM me about it. Hope this was useful.

 

[neuroboo]

Thanks for your input. I appreciate it.

 

[Jubears09]

My sense is epilepsy fellowships are a buyers market and all those places should be able to place you into a great fellowship unless there's one specific place/region you HAVE to end up in down the line, in which case you should just aim for residency there or near there since everyone likes to promote internal candidates first.

You're not going to beat Cornell for a traditional big city location, though if you want a west coast city feel both LA and Seattle would be great options. Seattle is a bit cheaper, but LA weather is fantastic.

For global health, I second 2heavy in that NY is the place for the refugee population. If you're interested in Asian global health UCLA is the place to be, especially on the public health side. Duke also has a interdisciplinary global health institute, though I don't know how/if neurology residents have been involved. I know nothing about global health in the other programs.

Honestly all this is nitpicking and all those places on your list would be solid launching pads for your career.