Disclaimer: I go to med school here.
1. Important questions you asked/were asked
No hard questions. Mostly stuff about my research interests and career goals. Not asked in such a way to make me squirm, but so that they could better pitch their program to my interests.
2. Big highlights of the programs
- If you want to do research, they are VERY flexible. Their research track is pretty much you sitting down with the PD and figuring out how to best work it in, based on your clinical and research interests. One or two students a year do it. Usually, you can have June and July (end of PGY1, beginning of PGY2) for research if you want it. During your third year, you can do research up to 30% of your time. It's up to you how to schedule it - in blocks, a certain number of days or half-days per week, etc. In your 4th year, you can do research up to 70% of your time. I met with one of their faculty members who did residency here, and she did both the research track and the 5-year child psych track. So it is possible to do both. During her last year, she got a K award, so she started of her faculty career with her own funding. Examples of research areas chosen by students include neuroimaging, clinical trials (both investigator initiated and drug company trials), genomics/DNA microarray, neuroendocrinology. A wide range. Their neuroimaging center is run by a psychiatrist, so it's very easy for the residents to get involved. There is also another neuroimaging center at Cincinnati Children's across the street.
-Lots of supervision. PGY1 you get a ward supervisor once a week, and also an off-ward supervisor, with whom you can meet up to once a week. Most residents don't meet with the off-ward supervisor that often though. In January of your PGY2 year, you get your first therapy patient, so then you have a therapy supervisor in addition to the other two. Your third year is totally outpatient, except for a PES shift maybe once a month. At this point, you get lots of different supervisors: various therapy supervisors, pharmacoptherapy, group/couples therapy, etc. I can't remember all of them, but you can have up to 8 hours of supervision a week. Some of it is one on one, with others (like the pharacotherapy supervision) you meet in small groups with 2-3 other residents and the supervisor. You get to pick or indicate a preference for all of your supervisors.
3. Estimated call hours
-PGY1: Medicine call has traditionally sucked (trust me, my medicine AI sucked the life out of me) but they are changing it next year. They are eliminating all overnight call for the general med teams! The night float will take all admission and calls. On your call night, you stay until 10 pm, check out to the night float, then go home. Sweet. Psych is Q5. The residents say they get 6-7 hours of sleep on call nights, because you only deal with the floor patients while the R2 in PES deals with everything else. I know for a fact that the R1 is often watching the simpsons box set DVDs up in the call room ;-) The exception is Sunday and Monday nights. There is not an R2 in the PES, so you are up all night.
- PGY2: This is when you do your 1.5 months of PES nights. (not all at once) At the beginning of the year there is an R3 on buddy call with you. After that you're on your own. You staff the admissions the next morning. If you decide not to admit someone, then you call the attending at home and staff it before the patient goes home.
- PGY3 and 4: These are outpatient years. PGY3s have buddy call with the R2s for a couple months. After that, no call and no weekends for the rest of the residency, aside from ~10-12 PES shifts a year. The exact number of PES shifts fluctuates depending on how many R4s left to do child psych.
-vacation: you get 4 weeks a year, to taken as one or two week blocks. The PD tries to have them end and begin on weekends, so a week's vacation is really 9 days.
4. Friendliness of the program residents, faculty and staff
- everyone is very friendly, laid-back, and happy. Since I know a lot of the residents, I can testify that they're not just putting on a happy face for the applicants. They really are happy. It's mostly a younger crowd, but some are married with kids. The residents have a social committee that organizes outings once a month or so. One of them is in a Neil Diamond tribute band.
The PD is a great person who is really a resident advocate. The residents have regular meetings to discuss issues and suggest changes to the program. The residents all say that the faculty are into teaching, and as a med student here, I can attest to that.
5. Location pluses and minuses
- I've lived in Cincinnati for 8 years and I like it. You can live like a king on the starting salary of $41K. Many of the residents buy houses either in Cinci or right across the river in Kentucky. It won some rating as the best city to raise a family, which makes sense, esp considering the low cost of living. It has a reputation for being a conservative city, and many parts are, but there are lots of distinctive neighborhoods with their own character. For example, where I live there are lots of college students and professors' houses, and it's got a bohemian feel, and within walking distance to the hospital. It's not the most glamorous city, but there is lots of stuff to do. Pro sports, symphony, theater, concerts, museums. We get snow every winter, but not as much as places like Boston or Cleveland. However, the city freaks out and shuts down pretty much every year because they are unprepared for it, and they are sometimes slow to clear the side roads. But today it's 70 and it's November, so the winter isn't terribly long. Spring is glorious, summer is muggy, but it stays daylight to 10 pm. Public transportation sucks. A car is a necessity. And if Delta goes under, the airport situation is going to suck, because we're a hub and Delta/Comair is pretty much all you can get in and out of here.
6. Most positive aspects of program
- flexibility. Many of the residents made a point of saying that if you want to do something, the PD was great about figuring out a way to make it happen.
- Facilities/patients: Four inpatient units plus the VA. They are building a new psych hospital slated to open Jan 2007 that will be staffed with residents, in addition to the existing inpatient units. Child psych is done at Cincinnati Children's, which has a large fellowship program of its own. They have a 13-bed PES (and lots of lobby patients) which is the busiest in the US and one of the largest. The psychoanalytic institute is down the street. As a third year, you get your own office and even a little $$ to decorate it. You can also rotate at the undergrad campus to see more high-functioning patients. All of the facilities are right next to each other (except the new psych hospital will be a 20 minute drive).
- strengths in both therapy and biological. The psychoanalytic institute is right down the street, and the program has traditionally been very strong in psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy. But there are also leading researchers in psychopharm, and you get a lot of training in that as well.
- didactics are protected and well-attended. We went to a psychopharm lecture during our interview, and it was really good. The other applicant and I even took notes.
7. Most negative aspects of program
-You are kind of thrown into independence early on, which some people may not like. Some of the residents told me they didn't like that at the time, and wished they had more mentoring by senior residents, but in retrospect they said it was good to get an early start at being autonomous.
Quite frankly, if not for the location, this program would be a no-brainer to put at the top of my list. Not that there's anything wrong with Cincinnati, but I've been here 8 years, and neither my husband nor I have family ties here. So on the one hand, we'd like a change, but on the other hand, we like it here and could see ourselves staying.