Programs with the best lifestyle

UIC chicago- residents are very happy , lifestyle is good

okay take this with a grain a salt b/c I am a MSIII (waiting for board scores )...

On scutwork, the U of Penn/U of Pittsburgh/Penn State Hershey programs have been reviewed as having "easy hours", <60hrs per week. Also St. Caritas in Mass is also laid-back...<55 hrs! However, it may not have the prestige of the previous 3 programs.

West Virginia I heard was okay as well...but the setting is bucolic, thus maybe it's a turnoff for city-dwellers.

GW used to be a decent program, but I have heard from an outgoing resident that it has become pretty malignant (lots of shouting from surgeons, etc.) in the past couple of years.

Any info on Mayo-Jax? I heard it is top-notch, but more relaxed than its Rochester counterpart.

Anyway, I just want to match into a decent program (top tier if my scores are good, middle-tier if they are not), do a pain fellowship, and finally start working and ENJOYING life!

BID has the harvard name and you work about 55hrs a week, come in at noon or 2:00 when on call your last 2 years. but boston is bone chilling and expensive, and the presence of fellowships there may be considered a good or bad thing.

same with late arrivals on call days at miami (and i think unc) but at miami you get worked so hard it can never be considered to have a nice lifestyle. plus you basically have to go there for you intern year, where they beat you down with many surgery months and q4 medicine months.

upenn recently changed their schedule; the scutwork review is outdated. there is a week out of every 2 months where you come in at 10:00 every day and stay until 11 at night...it's no longer staggered. people there told me that they work hard enough that's it's not worth going there if you want to do bread and butter, or just want to have a low-stress private practice job. but you get great training, incredible faculty.

i hear there is a program in texas where you bust it on weekdays, but you never work weekends.

in general, nice lifestyle probably correlates with places that don't see much serious trauma (sleep more on call) and don't get many transplants.

there are a couple of night float programs, if you're into that.

Our program has a nice lifestyle. We come in at 2:30 on call days and leave at 6:30 AM. We have all weekends and hollidays off the weekends you aren't on call (2-3 weekends off a month). We are all extremely happy here. Plus it is in the Texas Medical Center. What more could you ask??

invitro said:

Any info on Mayo-Jax? I heard it is top-notch, but more relaxed than its Rochester counterpart.

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I just finished my first month at Mayo-Jax and can tell you that it is pretty laid back in terms of hours. With the exception of the critical care rotation, we will stand call approx. 3 times per month throughout. Most of the consultants are from Mayo-Rochester and the resources of all 3 Mayo campuses are available. We have some "names" here as well, including our PD Dr. Michael J. Murray, Dr. Roy Cucchiara, Dr. Soren Brull, and Dr. Jerry Dorsch, to name a few. There are many more who are excellent, but the above are the most well published and NIH funded ones.


Overall I am happy about the first month and wait with some trepidation as they release us next week without 1:1 supervision.

Cheers,
PMMD

Tollway said:

Our program has a nice lifestyle. We come in at 2:30 on call days and leave at 6:30 AM. We have all weekends and hollidays off the weekends you aren't on call (2-3 weekends off a month). We are all extremely happy here. Plus it is in the Texas Medical Center. What more could you ask??

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I'm curious about Baylor. What is the cost of living like in Houston? Traffic, etc.? Thanks.

Houston has a fairly cheap C.O.L. The traffic is bad (it is the 4th largest city). The TMC is right by Reliant stadium where the Texans play. Our program is very good. We have bright residents from good US medical schools
(no FMGs). Baylor has a VERY good reputation in the south. There is every kind of fellowship available in the TMC. Our residency director Dr Raty is very resident friendly. Our salaries are great, and we get fully paid parking, medical, and dental insurance. PLUS they give us money for a computer and give us $1000 worth of anesthesia books when we start

Anything else??

Oh, we are at Ben Taub hospital (Very good county hospital). We also rotate at Texas Childrens, MD Anderson, Methodist, St. Lukes, and the VA.

any cush programs in the NY/NJ/CT area?

From what I remember U.Conn was pretty cushy. I only interviewed there though. They let you moonlight as well. From what I remember they have a night float and maybe q5-7 call the when not on nightfloat.

Programs where you come in late when on call (and still get the next day off):
Baylor, BID, Miami, UCSD, UNC

Programs with night float:
Duke, U. Florida, U. Rochester


am i missing any?

How do you know about the Miami system? I am going to be going there and I have never heard that. Do you know what time they are expected to start on call days?

with miami, you can only come in late when you take OB or trauma call, not general OR. I think you come in at 2PM on ob and trauma.

UNC i think only OB call comes in late.

BID, you come in late for all calls starting your second year.



also, UVA has a night float

UNC - after July, you usually(certainly not always) arrive at 11 AM for call.

OB is on night float system during weekdays (7 PM-7AM) - one resident for 2 weeks at a time. Weekend OB call is 24 hours (not by night float resident)

Michigan seemed to have a great schedule from my interview. Post-post call PACU days or something.

BID has good hours (on-call come in at 2pm after first year), good learning, and the good Harvard name.

Here are the hours and perks of Columbia:
1. On average 55-60 hours per week.
2. Get out daily between 4:00-5:30. I can count the times I have had to stay past 6 on one hand. This is not including the CTICU and OB floor which have different hours.
3. 4 person overnight call team which means post call day off. No trauma so residents sleep more than 3 hours almost guaranteed or all night I would estimate at greater than 50% of the time. Second years can get screwed if a liver transpl. comes in at night because you are doing the case and they can be 8 hours long, but it is a major vascular case.
4. Senior resident (Ca-3) comes in at 4pm, but he/she usually gets the least sleep because they are the team captain.
5. One weekend call a month. That can be friday, saturday, or sunday. That means that you have 3 full weekends off.
Perks:
1. 1 Paid conference per year- airfare, hotel, food, transport to and fro airport. I went to Ft. Lauderdale, Miami and now to Vegas this year.
2. The usual book stipend.
3. We can moonlight at our institution. 350.00 bucks for 4 hours during the week and 750.00 for a saturday (that one is 24 hours though, but you are a backup person and usually don't have to do any work on Sat. Weekdays you are working.
4. You will get the best training/experience in NYC here.

In Chicago its UIC and Masonic. Happy people at both places. Its nice to see.

thought i would bump this thread to see if anyone has saomething to contribute for all of us rising 4th years contemplating various programs..thanks a bunch guys and gals!

waldo

I interviewed at Albany. Small class, relieved for didactics by CRNAs, ~55hrs/week on average. Pretty cush. Happy residents too. I ranked the program highly, but matched higher.

-Skip

Just had to add some of the "perks" at UTMB....

1. Get paid for "late room" (i.e. staying in a room past 4:30, kinda like moonlighting, but you are doing anesthesia)
2. $750/ year for educational fund (book, meetings, etc.)
3. Get a brand new lap top to use for the 4 years
4. they pay for your Step 3 (if you take it before the end of pgy 2) and your anesthesia boards (written)
5. $100 shoe allowence per year (crazy!)
6. Some kind of reimbursement for a PDA, although I'm not exactly sure how that one works
7. every 5 day vacation is actually 10 days...Thursday call so Friday and then both weekends off (although I know a lot of programs do that)
8. Parking is VERY cheap, close and easy(I don't know how much...but compare that to parking in the Houston Medical Center and it's a blessing! UT -H doesn't even give you parking at all.
9. MEdical insurence for you AND your family is completely covered, dental insurence for resident is completely covered
10. Happy residents= good work environment=better for EVERYONE

I know some people say that the problem with UTMB is that it is in Galveston, but...you know what, it's really not THAT bad, and you have the ocean (even if it is brown water most of the time) which lately I have really come to appreciate! And you are 40 miles away from Houston which has anything you could ever need.

How many weekends off do you get at BID as a CA-1?

What about the small community-based programs in the Mid-West??

anyone have input on socal programs?

How many residents does utmb take a year?

JamesD said:

What about the small community-based programs in the Mid-West??

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Bump..

BUMP to answer a question in one of the current threads.

Feel free to add to this if you know anything about laid back family programs.