This was a program that I was looking forward to seeing, despite some of the harsher comments I had heard or read about it (i.e. "busiest program in the country..perhaps too busy.." "terrible interview day" "new york personalities"). I personally don't mind the idea of a very busy program and Brooklyn is a plus for me. Everyone always talks about how bad the neighborhood is. I don't think it's fair for me to comment on it because I haven't spent much time there, but my thought is that it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. That said, if you've never lived in a marginal urban environment before, I can see it being daunting or challenging. I can't speak to safety. Flatbush is not one of the nicer hoods of the borough, but it's very close to some great south Brooklyn neighborhoods that you could easily live in commute-wise (Park Slope, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, DUMBO, Windsor Terrace, etc.). Living in a place like Williamsburg or Greenpoint might be challenging.
In any case, this was far and away the worst interview day I had on the trail. Totally disorganized, running way behind schedule, one interviewer who I found to be borderline rude to me and certainly not friendly... They even started their grand rounds, lunch, and brief presentation about the program for the applicants without all of the applicants present at the beginning and made a bunch of them sit through a resident presentation before they could eat (while everyone else was munching away at their food). I guess the late applicants were on a tour that wasn't going according to schedule. But this was pretty par for course for the day. I was absolutely incredulous that this was allowed to happen. Every other applicant there that day felt the same. It left an awful impression, whether you were part of the late group or not.
While waiting for interviews they have you sit in a long hospital hallway with two rows of chairs facing each other. All of the applicants sit here as they await their inteviews. It kind of feels like a high school that was built in the 1970s and makes the whole day feel much more like an "audition" than any other place I went to. Interviewers clearly ignored whatever time restrictions or schedule they were supposed to adhere to and many of us were 1-2 hours behind where we were supposed to be on our schedule for the day.
On the bright side, there were always residents around to chat with about the program and they would frequently approach groups of applicants who were not talking to anyone and made an effort to spread out geographically among the seating arrangement. I thought this was very good, as they were very helpful and seemingly honest about their thoughts and feeelings re: the program. This was perhaps the most useful aspect of the entire day. A couple of the residents seemed very worn out and tired, others were more chipper and enthusiastic about things.
One thing that drove me NUTS was that the email from the coordinator said something like, "Traditionally the residents will meet with the applicants for drinks and food after the interview day, but I do not have any information about this as of now." And, as the weeks went on, no information came. So I just booked my travel plans as though there wasn't going to be any meet and greet type event. Of course, after grand rounds (the very end of interview day), one of the residents casually says, "Hey everyone, we're going to do a happy hour tonight at ______." That was super frustrating because I would have liked to go, even though I already had a bad feeling about the program. In fact, some applicants had already left the room I think before the announcement was made. And the kicker was that shortly after the announcement, they decided to change the venue for the happy hour after many applicants had left the room and would have had no way to know this. I found this all to be completely ridiculous, and made an already bad impression even worse.
My feeling was that if this place could not get it together for their one recruitment day of the month (they have two interview days total), what was 3 years going to be like? I suspect many of my co-applicants felt the same way, because I noticed that they have a vacancy open currently for a PGY-2 spot beginning 2017...
It's unfortunate, because there are actually A LOT of pros about this program, and despite it's busy nature, or perhaps because of it, I think you'd come out of the training as a great comprehensive ophthalmologist.
I hate that this "review" is really the only one left by an applicant in this compendium so far and I hope someone offers a counterview to mine. I also hope, as with any of these reviews, that applicants understand that any of our opinions are not radically different than amazon.com reviews and this impression was based on one day of interactions and observations. That said, I stand by my gut feeling I got from Downstate. I feel that they REALLY need to work on their presentation on interview day, but perhaps that's just the culture of the place. I think, had things gone differently on interview day, I would have a lot more positive things to say about this program.
Pros:
- in house ocular pathology. The PD is a fellowship trained ocular pathologist.
- many different rotation sites for good breadth of practice settings (also a con -- call covers many of these sites and you have to travel to them)
- Brooklyn VA exclusively Downstate's. Other sites include Coney Island hospital, Downstate/university hospital, Kings County (across the street)
- Very good surgical numbers for NYC. Actual numbers can be found in a chart for the past few years if you dig around their website enough. Info was provided in packet in interview folders I think.
- Will see a ton of interesting pathology.
- Brooklyn/NYC (if that's your thing)
- good #'s for this particular region
- very respectable fellowship placement
Cons:
- see above --
- lots of travel to different clinical sites spread all over Brooklyn
- very poor benefits/perks (iirc, they don't even buy you the BCSC... though i might be confusing this with somewhere else)
- facilities are run down seeming
- seems like lots of languages that you probably won't be able to speak frequently roll through clinic (Haitian creole, eg)
- not the softest personalities I encountered, faculty wise.
- residents get different pay/benefits depending on which hospital they get assigned to contract-wise... I believe this is alphabetical. It's not a drastic difference, but one includes better health benefits and the other some pension-type benefit.
