Officail 2004/2005 interview reviews

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Swaydaa

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This residency interview guide was started during the the match process fpr prelim/cat 2005 and advanced 2006. I would hope that future years/classes would add to this link to consolidate and provide several comments on each program interviewed to help future residents.

I will start with the few I've been to.....remember, for every person who may love a place another will hate it. Hope many people post on the same location more than once!

SLU- Will probably be the easiest interview you have so far. You will stay at the "university" hotel which is pretty darn basic. They did not ask any hard questions and talked about life rather than medicine. The day started with a review of the didactic portion as a group. Sounds very strong. Good simulator lab. Then we had the residency recruiter Dr. Statzer come in and sell us on the area...etc. Dr. Statzer was one of the coolest docs I've ever met. After my own research, I found that most residents can buy houses or condos on the salary and live pretty well off the salary. Nice houses in the 100k range. We then toured the hospital and ate lunch. After lunch we had the individual interviews with 3 attendings.
I did not interview with the BIG WIG as he was out of town, but I did interview with 3 other attendings. You may have harder questions from him. All of the attendings were awesome. Dr. Connors is is in charge of resident teaching and he is a gem to the program. SLU is a LAID BACK program. They do not care about having a "superstar" resident. All the residents seemed happy. We had a pretty lazy resident doing the tour and did not want to walk to the childrens hospital next door.....like I said in my post, the program might be a litle too laid back. They have a transitional year that is HIGHLY laid back and VERY CUSH. NO RESEARCH which is good for me as I'm not into research. I have an interview at WASH U so It should be a big contrast to SLU. ObGYN is the weak point of the program as many rotate in Oklahoma for that rotation. Overall I was pleasently surprised.

Missouri-columbia....a VERY tiny program in a small college town. IN the middle of nowhere stuck between KC and St Louis. I really enjoyed the home town feel. They pay for your hotel at quality inn which is 10 minutes from the hospital It's a college town so there is adequete amount of social life. As with SLU, housing prices are pretty amazing. 100-150K for brand new house. No problem to purchase a home/condo. They work a litter harder than SLU, but still have an easier schedule compared to other big programs. Didactics not at the forefront. Clinical teaching is good. Little to no research. Awesome physicain lounge with tons of food/deli, internet, big screen TV, etc. You start difficult cases early and have your required numbers rather early in the 2nd year. Questions were the normal like why anesthesia, why us, where do you see yourself in 10 years. Overall, good program for clinical training. One resident transfered back to columbia after being at Penn State....said it was too big and impersonal. Once again he chose to go against his gut feeling and regretted it.

UMASS Small to medium prgram that is up and coming. Building brand new Or's and construction is going on everywhere around the hospital. Small and boring call rooms. Do not pay for Hotel, but took me out to a very nice restaurant. Strong didactic training with Dr Dershwitz (author of the MGH board review book). All residents were happy.....I'm still waiting for a resident to give me the "good stuff" and every resident had nothing but good things to say so far. Start the day at 9:30 with Dr. Duduch the program director for an introduction...very nice lady. From 10 to 11:300 you interview with Duduch, the chair Dr Heard, Dr. Dershwitz, and the chief resident. After the interviews you have lunch with the residents and tour the hospital. Done by 1:30. These interviews went pretty deep into things I put in my CAF and talked about all the interesting things that were in my folder. Make sure you can comment in depth about anything you put on your application as they ask many secondary questions about the same topic. COST OF LIVING is absurd after being in the midwest. 200k for an old shack. Not sure if I will rank yet because of the cost of living...actually cheaper to live in Chicago when you run a few "cost of living calculators"

Feel Free to add on even if you have been to the same place.
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Thanks, Swaydaa. Your report has been really helpful.
Good luck to you!
 
UCONN- Mid size program where they don't offer the first year. Do not offer to pay for hotel or dinner. Morning started out with a quick overview then 3 subsequent interviews with different attendings. NO RESEARCH. They are a clinical training powerhouse....no fellows to compete with for good cases. Do all types of transplant cases. You rotate through 3 hospitals in the area with NO need to travel for extra/more experinced rotations. Hospital staff were awesome and very willing to help the residents. CAll IS q-5 TO q6 DEPENDING ON RESIDENT vacation schedules. Almost every resident came out to see us. One common theme during the interview was that tht OR's can run just fine without the residents. The majority of residents stated they are out by 7am post call. Great benefit package (4weeks vacation) and PAID insurance across the board. You get an extra week during CA2/CA3 to attend any type of conference. All residents very happy. Attendings dont like to be called "BOSS". Director is young and full of energy. Few solid FMG'S...UCONN is generally a very foreign freindly hospital. CAll rooms were private and had computor/internet access in the room...pretty nice! Cafateria was above average. Cost of living is still a llittle high, but it's not as bad as the Boston/Chicago/NY areas. Overall, great program in my eyes. One resident had interviews at UPENN, Duke, and BID.....he chose UCONN because his gut feeling told him UCONN. DO NOT RANK A PROGRAM for the name or you will be depressed for 4 years... Listen to your GUT!
 
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For real..... Thanks for the comments! :D . I've only hit prelims so far, so not much to comment on the gas end of things.... I plan to add to this thread as i complete my interviews.
EVMS, UVA (roanoke) and ECU are easy, non-malignant interviews and I believe them all to be solid programs for a prelim year. Between all of them, I think you will come out better prepared from roanoke (attendings are brilliant and great educators)- although I think EVMS would be a close 2nd with easier call but more expensive local.
 
Thjis is a review written by OLD MAn dave...copied and pasted here

Dartmouth
Overall caseload - quite heavy...in fact, we're in the latter stages of significantly expanding the number of OR & pre/post op services to deal with the volume. We just opened 4 new ORs (and man are they sweet! - I got to de-virginate the new vascular OR) & plan to serially close blocks of the older ones (I say "older", but the entire med center's facilities are only 12 years old) for remodeling.

Peds volume: sufficient to get the numbers you will need w/o having to bump elbows or compete w/ other residents to do so, but inadequate to support a peds anesth fellowship. However, DHMC is actively recruiting another peds GS because the expansion of current volume & demand for services. Due to proximity w/ Maine Med, Hasbro Children's (Providence, RI) & Boston Children's - we do not do, nor appear to be planning to start peds cardio surgery.

Transplant: Currently, DHMC only does renal transplants, but does quite a few of those. There are talks about adding additional transplant services, but that has not become a reality yet.

Cardio: Pretty damned impressive crew of CT cutters & being a tertiary referral center, we don't get too much of the garden variety CABGs. We tend to get the ones that fall apart in the cath lab or more than most want to take on. Two of our cutters do some pretty elobarate stuff in particular. And, we just added a non-cards thoracic surgeon to deal w/ the increasing volume of non-cards chest procedures.

All in all, especially for a facility significantly removed from a major metropolitan area, you will be most pleasantly surprised at the quantity & qaulity of your operative exposure here. Plus, if you're not fond of cities, you cannot beat this place in as far as lifestyle, friendly people & beauty.

As for me & my family...why were we attracted to this program? Well, I was seeking a high-volume, high-acuity, high-variety university-afilliated program in a small to med sized community. We both grew up in & have lived in large cities & no longer have any desire to live in one. So, as you might imagine, your list of options shrinks dramatically with that parameter. However, there are several good programs that fit that billing:






Dartmouth, UFL, UVA, Penn St, URochester & VCU to name a couple off of the top of my head. But, we both love New England & the program here is superb! Personally, I would rate it in the top 20, maybe top 10 - but that is my opinion only. Furthermore, they offer the ability to undertake a co-residency in Leadership/Preventive Med where you add on a year earning an MPH & will be board eligible in Prevent Med. Plus, as I am interested in critical care med, they also offer a very strong ICU fellowship...all of this in a friendly, smallish community that is gorgeous & full of friendly people. Essentially everything we sought rolled into a single program.

The downsides of this area? Only 2 concrete things & 1 relative one come to mind.

Cost of housing - depending upon where you are from, housing prices & rent can be a Kodak moment.

Childcare - generally, the childcare that is here is of good quality, but it is spread very thin, esp if you have a child under 2 years. And, it can be quite expensive.

Winter - we love it, but it can be quite intense. What does bother us is the duration! It generally is pretty solidly winterish by mid-Nov & stays that way until April & can snow into late-April & May. But, if you love winter, or at least don't mind it, it is an awesome place to live. Summers are nice. Spring (mud season) is even better & fall is incredible.
 
Northwestern:
Good program. They accept ~18 people each year (~2/3 advanced, 1/3 categorical I think. I can't quite remember). Lots of research (not as much as U of Chicago, though-they actually told me that). VERY strong in Regional Anesthesia. There is a 2 month dedicated rotation in the CA-1 year where you are the "block doc" and are responsible (along with the block attending) for putting in almost all of the blocks for the day. Some of the Anesthesiologists there are literally THE leaders in the field for regional. OB is really strong. There are ~10,000 deliveries at NW each year and 90% of those women get epidurals. CA-3's were boasting well over 400-500 epidurals before graduation. Dr. Wang actually has an OB Anesthesia text coming out next year. In fact, quite a few faculty are at least contributing to texts, if not authoring texts at the present.

Anyhow, enough of that stuff. The interview day was pretty chill. You are split into two groups. 1/2 interview in the morning and 1/2 in the afternoon. There are four 30- minute interviews. One with the chairwoman Dr. Stock, one with Dr. Molloy the program director, one with Dr. Sullivan the Residecy education director and one with another attending (which seemed to be variable, depending on the interview day). Everyone really just chatted you up about whatever. Dr. Molloy is in charge of the personality questions and actually has a list of questions that he asks you and writes on during the interview. LOL. Anyhow, it was all pretty laid back.

The other half of the day consisted of a tour with the chief resident. The hospital was really nice. I did a rotation there just a few months ago and was STILL impressed by how nice the hospital is. The new women's hospital will be finished in a few months and they've just built a new ambulatory surgery center which should be opening soon.

All and all it was a pretty good interveiw day. Totally non-threatening. The residents seemed happy and were very candid with their opinions.

HTH
 
How was your rotation at Northwestern? Did they get you involved/learning?

Also, I heard a rumor that because there are so many private practice patients at Northwestern, residents sometimes get too much "hand-holding" from attendings during their training. Any truth to that, as far as you can tell?
 
asdash said:
How was your rotation at Northwestern? Did they get you involved/learning?

Also, I heard a rumor that because there are so many private practice patients at Northwestern, residents sometimes get too much "hand-holding" from attendings during their training. Any truth to that, as far as you can tell?
Click to expand...

It was pretty good. It's set up so that you are with one attending or CA-3 for one week at a time. This is good because you gradually get to do more and more stuff (they trust you more each day). There is alot of teaching. You actually have a packet with questions and suggested readings from Baby Miller that you are tested on on the last day. There is also a list of topics that you show to your attending/resident each day so you can talk about them during down time. In short, there is definitely alot of teaching.

As far as hand-holding goes, I didn't see much of that. I saw one attending who kind of stuck around when I was with one particular resident. I thought that it was strange, but come to find out that resident is not very strong, so I guess the attending didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone too much. Otherwise, I saw no such thing.

HTH
 
I recently finished interviewing at this program and was very favorably impressed. The hospital itself has a great reputation in the surrounding region. The facilities are terrific - one of the most attractive hospitals I've been in.

Residents on the whole were very happy. They work hard - as is typical for any residency - but had nothing negative to say concerning their education and experience.

ICU experience here is great. They do 5.5 months w/ option for more (all SICU). Residents learn and perform bronchoscopy, TTE, perc tracheostomy, etc. The ICU experience here seems unparalleled.

The interview day is nice also. Dinner the night before at a great restaurant. Interviews the day after w/ four faculty. Very laid-back. Lunch w/ the residents.

Overall a fantastic program. Iowa City is small - but seems like plenty to do esp if you are a football fan.
 
lets get this thread going!

upenn.
dinner before with residents. i wasnt able to attend, but i heard about 6 residents showed up and it was informal.

morning.
20 min presentations by the chairman, residency director, peds director, and research director. impressive basic science stuff being done. residency director, as mentioned several times before, is really laid back and seems like a great guy. kinda reminds me of Drew (tv show). chairman is charismatic, but very forward so can be a turn off to some. the 20 min presentations are followed by short break and then 5-6 interviews back to back.

interviews
20 mins each, completed by faculty members and chief residents. all were pretty laid back, get to know you stuff. asked common questions like why penn, why anesthesia. i had one interview ask me a question about what to do pre-op for a patient with no previous identified CAD but several risk factors. kinda of a pimp but not too bad. suprisingly, no 'tell me an interesting case' question. pretty benign, half of the time was spent by the interviewer introducing you to the prog and philly. opportunity to ask alot of questions ... the chairman begins by saying 'what questions do you have'. the RD has the last interview, with you and another applicant -- essentially more questions to ask if you have any. at the end of the day i really didnt and was too tired of thinkin of more questions to ask.

afternoon
lunch with residents and philly tour if you want to go.

impression
good program. RD is great, will make changes accordingly for resident education. didnt get to meet any faculty besides the ones i interviewed with. however, the 5 or so i meet seemed easy to approach. ICU's are big and stacked with latest technology. alot of caseload in the ORs. regional being improved with presbytarian hospital's ortho caseload. huge on basic science research. residents seemed happy overall. no nightshift. 4 calls/month in general service. CA3 year all electives. moonlighting avaliable. generally, a pretty good program i thought. personally i dont want to be in philly, but if this prog was elsewhere i'd prob rank it highly.
 
Bottom line...absolute solid freakin program. Took 7 of us out to a nice place ($20-30 a plate). The dinner was very nice. They take pride in wining and dining the new residents!!!
Interview day was the most structured I've been. Hotel shuttle service picks you up at 5:45!!!!!!!!! At the Hospital by 6:00. The day starts with a nice rant by the CHAIR of the deparment. Next, you attend the daily teaching class which takes place at 7:00....they want you to know that teaching is very important. From this uniuque point, EVERYONE changes into scrubs!! 2 students go on a tour, 2 are interviewing, and the rest are in the OR's working with the residents!!! YES, you do your interview in scrubs.
During my visit there was a room doing a liver, one doing a heart, 10 doing bread and butter, 2 vascular, and one renal transplant. Very amazed at the really nice caseload.
If you want a program that holds your hand for the first 6 months, this is place to be. You take blocks where you and another resident will share a patient and responsibility while working with ONE attending. You and your teamate will switch to a different attending for the next few weeks and....so on. Very intense training for the first few months. On the flip side they let you loose after the initial training period.

After interviews we ate lunch with residentrs. As luck would go, I could not get any bad juice from them except the BAD weather during the winter.
Benefits are the best in New York and has the lowest cost of living (for a large city in NY).
Some (not too) bad stuff......Biggest plave I've ever seen. Very spread out. Could be considerded it's own town. Call rooms are pretty bad, but they do have internet. Lounge is terrible. Feels and looks VERY old. Not many Physicain perks when working. Residents work average for CA1-3, but the residents doing the "built in" clinical base year work every bit of 80 hours!!

Overall....Solid!! May want to find your own base year if you want an easier first year. You wil come out of residency really strong. One 3rd year accepted offer of 300k with no fellowship.
 
1.WASH U - The residents work hard but all seem fairly happy, I think i got to meet about 20 of them through out the day. All are very personable and will answer just about anything. They get subjected to a fantastic variety of cases, one of the chiefs even said he has done more transplants than he has gall baldders. The attendings all seem nice and very intellegent, even people that we passed in the hall stopped the group and encouraged us to seriously consider Wash U. The residents do get some nice perks, the call rooms are generally fairly comfortable, cable and computer; they get lunch catered from different restaurants every day, saves time on waiting in line in the cafeteria, then the department pays for a happy hour after the end of each block. If you like research it is readily available but not required. They will be very high on my rank list

2. SLU - very easy interview, the attendings are nice and the chairman is well on his way to building a fairly strong program. The residents seem happy there and they all encourage doing a prelim year at SLU, saying it is a very nice intern year. The dinner the evening before was at the Hard Rock Cafe, was a bit noisy, but I made due. The hospital is older in some places and the program is weak in OB since SLU does not do any deliveries, this is made up for by sending some of the residents to Creighton for a month.

3. VCU/MCV - I HATED this place. It started off with a bad gut feeling that just never went away. In fact I nearly left before i even interviewed. Dinner was at an attendings house and was very nice, though it would have been nice to been away from the watch of the attendings for some more candid conversation with the residents. The interview was the standard tour given by one of the chiefs and then 3 interviews and a light lunch. The attendings are nice but were not quite as direct in their answers as I would have liked. While waiting for various interviews a few residents came by and chatted but they emphasized that they were not hiding any disgruntled residents anywhere, seemed a bit shady, most of the applicants I was with felt something was not quite right. The residents that I met do seem fairly happy and they have a light schedule, about 55 hours a week. Sounds as if they have a decent case variety though it sounds like peds and OB numbers have been somewhat low lately.

4 RUSH - I really enjoyed this interview. They do evening interviews here which was different than all of the others I did, but not in a bad way. The attendings I spoke with were very intellegent and were very excited to talk about their specialty. The residents do work hard but they still reccomended the program very strongly. Great case variety, the biggest weak spot that was noted was trauma, RUSH is not a trauma center. I was told that they did 120 liver transplants last year which seems to more than make up for the lack of trauma.

I hope these were helpful.
 
Medical College of Georgia- If you are from the south and want to be in the south, this is not a bad program. One of the cheapest places to live in the United States. Local school system not great....would be #1 for families if school system was better....however private schools run only 5k per year.

Program is undergoing massive change which has been the theme for the past few years. Residents in general were happy, but a few were resistant to the new change which involves more hours and increased work. One of them stated they would not come here if they had to do it over again. The best thing about the program that residents want to talk about is the NICE hotel they put you up in the night before the interview. No dinner before the interview, which makes me wonder why? I know the dinners get old, but you can find out some good stuff. They got rid of ALL CRNA's which increases workload. This really kills the residents as far as work is concerned....WE all know that there is a balance of hours and good teaching when it comes to 4 years of training.

You will be Well trained coming out of this program... bottom line. They are working at being the best in the region.......just a few years away in my book.
 
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Just returned recently from VCU.

Contrary to the post above - I was pleasantly surprised by this program. Dinner the night before was very laid-back. I appreciated the chance to visit w/ faculty in an informal setting. I left feeling that I would not feel the least bit uncomfortable w/ any of the attendings I met.

This programs seems to be extremely resident-friendly. They make an effort to relieve residents starting at 1500. They want you to work hard while you're in the hospital - then to get out, enjoy life, and still have time to read about the next days' cases. I was left with the impression that residents need to be self-motivated and in charge of their own education, but that the program will assist them in this charge in every way possible.

I visited w/ approx 8-10 residents. None of them said anything that caused me to doubt that VCU could potentially be a great match.

Overall - a solid program in a very liveable city.
 
More reviews?
 
Wake Forest

Overall a very solid program. They put you up in a hotel and take you to a very nice private "club" on the 18th floor downtown. They previously interviewed 2 or 3 people per day, but now doing 7 to 8 per day.

Interview day was very confusing and very disorganized. The chair of the department is awesome. He has done so much for the program. The other attendings were a little too weird for me. Residency Director was aloof and not really paying attention. One of the other interviewers reviewed another applicants file before I came in and was commenting on things I've never done....Had to tell him he was looking at the wrong folder.

You only get 2 weeks of vacation during the first two years which is a BUmmer if you have a family. Bumps up to 3 weeks for CA3-CA4. Hospital looked a little old, not many updates.

Program is very solid all the way around. All residents were VERY happy and were willing to sacrafice work hours and vacation weeks for a great program. If you like pain and regional, this is the place to be. No liver transplants. Excellent research opportunities if interested. Excellent job prospects after finishing this program.

I loved Winston Salem. It's a great place to raise a family. "NOT FOR SINGLE PEOPLE"....was the common theme coming from all residents. All residents were able able to afford a house payment. In contrast to other hospitals, you can buy a very nice house across the street from the hospital and feel VERY safe.
 
This is one of the better threads...so I'll start adding mine as I go...

NYU -
pros - I was very impressed with the program. It's in a great location (midtown Manhattan). The biggest strengths of the program is the contrast between Bellevue and Tisch. Bellevue boasts a huge amount of autonomy. The residents are able to really serve as the patient's primary provider, and the attendings serve more as consultants. As a CA3 on call you serve as a "junior attending" and supervise multiple OR rooms where CA1, CA2 residents are. Only other NYC program to offer this is Columbia. In terms of pure clinical training, NYU is probably among the best in NYC. Tisch offers a slightly different experience - with far more complex patients, diseases, and operations. It is a good site for transplants/CV surgery. At this site the residents/attending work more as a team to provide patient care. "The best of both worlds." The PD is very enthusiastic and really seems to respond well to resident feedback. The chairman is from hopkins and extremely well respected in the academic community. He has really energized the program over the past 3 years since he began, and has brought in a lot of new research funding. NYU is currently building a brand new $150 million plus research center, to be completed in one year (Spring 2006). Regional rotation is at HJD and very well thought of. 1/2 residents go on to competitive fellowships (MGH, hopkins) and 1/2 enter private practice. The residents seemed completely happy with the program, and really seem to support each other. Rarely done after 5 pm when not on call. Call schedule is reasonable. Not as malignant as Columbia or Cornell.

cons - none that I could really think of. Research, while improving, is not yet on the same level as Columbia or UCSF. Probably more research than Mt. Sinai. A tad bit less than Cornell.

Overall - Very impressed. Great location, strong clinical work, good didactics, strong resident moral.

Day -
Arrive @ 8:30, talk from PD, Chairman. 1/2 group interviews (2 of them) and 1/2 on tour. Lunch with residents. Then groups switch.
 
I've been meaning to do this for a while, so here goes....

Mayo Clinic (Rochester): great program with VERY strong regional program; only real weakness being light Peds that you have to go to Mayo-Jax if you really want an in-depth experience (they do put you up in a pretty sweet place for free with a free car, though); people were very nice and laid back; some of the younger attendings were even discussing their Halo 2 groups that they play in (very cool); seems like very little scutwork, they NEVER (I believe) have to do preops; call schedule and daily work hours said to be very good as compared to other comparable programs (the 200 CRNAs on staff helps this - and they don't take any of the good cases); the only bad thing is Rochester (not much to do), but it is a pretty nice place to raise a family (very safe, good schools, etc.) - just likely not a great choice for singles......... overall a very strong program with down-to-earth people, nice interview process and good pre-interview dinner

SLU: I'll echo Swaydaa's post. Those were my impressions as well

UNC: this is an absolutely awesome interview - very nice dinner the night before with many residents present (they were all really easy to talk to and get along with), the next day you take a tour with one of the faculty in a van as he gives funny anecdotal information on Chapel Hill and you stop midway through to get Starbucks - there are more things, but I cannot imagine going on a more well-set-up interview; the program appears to be strong in almost all areas, with Cards being the only light rotation (if I remember correctly) - I believe you go to Charlotte for the rotation; the report that I got many times was that they did a considerable variety of procedures that prepared you for every *way* of doing things as well, and that everyone that graduated felt very comfortable with everything, as opposed to the way that some of their friends felt that attended other institutions; overall residents seemed very happy and the faculty seemed nice as well, and it seems to be a very solid program... also, Chapel Hill is a pretty cool college town with a lot of history; a little expensive, but their is cheap, nice housing about 10 minutes away

That's all for now, I'll add some more later. Thanks to everyone else who is sharing their experiences.
 
Thank you guys for adding reviews.....these posts are awesome!
 
UAB

Lots of good things to say about the program. Strong reputation for anesthesiology and medical school/residency in general but often overlooked due to the Alabama location. Terrific group of residents, top notch, who are all fun loving and also work hard. Couple of best things about the program includes "home call" of which you get paid $50/hr if you take extra cases after 3pm. 3rd years get first sign ups on the list, and can double their salary if they want. 2nd years gets probably half of 3rd years can get, and first years get leftovers, which may still be $10k a year. Second big positive is the new hospital, brand new roomy ORs with cameras and flat screens in each room. They also get patients from all over the area, including Ala, Fl, Miss, Louisiana. The chair of the department is awsome, very down to earth and care about the program. He even wrote a very personal thank you letter to me (and I assume other interviewees). Research is strong, consistently in top 10 in grants. Birmingham is actually nice, medium sized, variety of things to do for the size and easily affordable. Regional has gone from a weakness to a strength over last few years since a couple of additions on faculty.
Really, not much weakness that I can see. They report that they are getting more busy as a service, but usually it means that the people who want overtime can get more, but occasionally cases will be assigned if the signup board is not full. I guess another weakness is that they don't have categorical match, but there are plenty of easy transitionals in the area although it has been reported to be too easy. Chairman has been there for a while and is a hot commodity since he is young and famous and may leave the program.
 
Swaydaa said:
Medical College of Georgia- If you are from the south and want to be in the south, this is not a bad program. One of the cheapest places to live in the United States. Local school system not great....would be #1 for families if school system was better....however private schools run only 5k per year.

Program is undergoing massive change which has been the theme for the past few years. REsidentzs in general were happy, but a few were resistant to the new change which involves more hours and increased work. The greatest thing that most residents want to talk about is the NICE hotel they put you up in the night before the interview. They got rid of ALL CNA"s which increases workload. Loss of CNA's good for private practice, but kills the residents as far as work is concerned....WE all know that there is a balance of hours and good teaching when it comes to 4 years of training.

You will be Well trained coming out of this program... bottom line. They are working at being the best in the region.......just a few years away in my book.
Click to expand...

Hey,

You ought to consider living in Columbia County if you match at MCG - where the school district is significantly better. Even then, consider Davidson Fine Arts if you can get your child into school (Richmond County magnet).
 
Cornell: recently interviewed there and thought this program was fantastic. great regional training at hospital for specialty surgery, lots of OB volume, good cardiac cases, lots of ICU time especially if opt to do intern year there as well. no trauma, no heart/lung transplants, no livers - but PD told me they are starting up a liver program there soon. peds volume is probably average for a non-children's hospital so residents do one rotation at a children's hospital in new york which is near the columbia presby campus. not that this is the end all or be all, but they provide housing nearby for relatively cheap rents in a nice part of new york. overall I thought this program was great - anyone else have any thoughts on cornell?
 
Penn State-Holy cow Dung. Stuck in the middle of dairy farms and chocolate factories. I kinda liked it though....I must be getting older.
They do the interview process over 2 days. The best hotel stay to date. First day starts with an introduction and tour of the faciltiy at 2:00. You head back to the hotel for an hour and proceed to dinner. On the second day you do your formal interviews and meet the residents for lunch. Day is over around 2:00.
Very good program. They were one of the first programs to incorperate the CBY. Essentially, they spread out the "Intern" year over the entire four years. So, you are actually doing 4-5 months of Anesthesiology during your first year. The downside...you must pick up the intern rotations during your 2nd/3rd year (CA-1/2). Many may find this odd, but I love the idea of starting anesthesia early and spreading the rough "intern" type rotions over 1-3 years. The fourth year is the same for most programs...Do whatever you want! Sim lab was awesome...best to date.
Weakness......Little regional exposure. Most of us love procedures and i must say this will be a few slots down on my ROL because of this. The chair stated new staff to be hired for regional, but you cant rank a program on a promise. Residents were very happy about being here. The program director is awesome, but she is leaving and I dont know how things will be when she is gone??All the residents are sad to see her go.
 
Swaydaa said:
Penn State-Holy cow Dung. Stuck in the middle of dairy farms and chocolate factories. I kinda liked it though....I must be getting older.
They do the interview process over 2 days. The best hotel stay to date. First day starts with an introduction and tour of the faciltiy at 2:00. You head back to the hotel for an hour and proceed to dinner. On the second day you do your formal interviews and meet the residents for lunch. Day is over around 2:00.
Very good program. They were one of the first programs to incorperate the CBY. Essentially, they spread out the "Intern" year over the entire four years. So, you are actually doing 4-5 months of Anesthesiology during your first year. The downside...you must pick up the intern rotations during your 2nd/3rd year (CA-1/2). Many may find this odd, but I love the idea of starting anesthesia early and spreading the rough "intern" type rotions over 1-3 years. The fourth year is the same for most programs...Do whatever you want! Sim lab was awesome...best to date.
Weakness......Little regional exposure. Most of us love procedures and i must say this will be a few slots down on my ROL because of this. The chair stated new staff to be hired for regional, but you cant rank a program on a promise. Residents were very happy about being here. The program director is awesome, but she is leaving and I dont know how things will be when she is gone??All the residents are sad to see her go.
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I absolutely agree with Swaydaa - despite of rural (very rural :) ) location I was impressed by program.
I found them very resident and education oriented! Chair seems to be realy interested in improving of anesthesia services as well as residency program. Amazing simulation lab! Although program director is leaving, the guy who will take this position have worked with her as assistant for 6-7 years and residents think he will be excellent PD. Residents are sincerely happy.
Drawbacks for me: Weak regional (agree with Swaydaa), too rural area
Still can not decide for myself how to consider the Integrated CBY in two first years. :confused: Is it advantage or drawback? On the one hand you are exposed to anesthesia from first year, on the other I would preffer to finish with all non anesthesia rotations in one year and never come back.
 
Pittsburgh- Very solid program. Most people will agree that you will probably not find a better rounded system. This is the birth place of critical care medicine. The only problem is you work at 6-7 different hospitals. Don't get to know your peers very well. The main hospital is huge like Rochester. Many residents bring thier lunch because it could take up to 45 minutes to walk to the cafeteria, wait, and walk back.

From talking to residents this is easily the easiest program out there. They all stated 45-55 hours per week and a really easy call schedule. Most stated this was their 2nd to 3rd pick on ROL.

The traffic in Pittsburgh is pure Hell. Agrree with prior posts. City roads not enough to handle the volume of people. Took me an hour to get outside the city limits (4:00 p.M.).
 
UPenn: Residents seem a mix between very friendly, and arrogant. New Chair gave an incredibly inspiring talk at the beginning of interview day about his goals for the program. Research seemed top-notch with some novel study areas (bubbles? how cool!), nice mix of bench-side that wasn't the standard gels and such, along with clinical and policy-type stuff. Gaiser was awesome; well-deserved award from IARS for teaching, I can see why he won it. Class act, very honest, pro-resident. A bit weak on didactics but seems to be improving; same story with regional and pain. Cardio and Neuro seem strong as well; peds, it goes without saying, is literally as good as it can get. Well, almost; 8 peds fellows, so you may not get everything you want, but should be plenty to go around. Chair during interview wasn't exactly pleasant, a bit abrasive and stuffy. Quite the turnaround from his talk earlier in the day. To be fair, residents were pretty excited about him. Call was called at 3 nights/month at first, but talking to more residents it seemed like 3-4, and then by the end of the day 4+ nights per month was the norm. Fishy. Elaborate late stay with extra-pay.


Duke: Very strong program in the southeast, I would put them on-par at least with UPenn, maybe/probably even higher. PD seemed pretty advocatish, residents during dinner impressed by her. Chair was extremely impressive; earned and commanded respect, but also down-to-earth during interview. Had taken the time to read ERAS info; all interviews contained thoughtful questions. Assistant PD used a controlled-nonresponse format, which I heard other interviewees noting as well. Impressive facilities, Saturn system in place, no complaints about surgery being overbearing. OR's seemed a bit dark and small and "Duke Blue", for what it's worth. Duke infoces short white coats for interns, but not white pants. Night float system in place, "moonlight"-type experience for OB anesthesiology on weekends available/mandated. Fantastic regional, perhaps the best I've seen. Also big on hearts. When asked about weaknesses, mentioned peds as UNC is the peds referral center for NC. Nonetheless, residents easily got their numbers in, and seemed to have people doing peds anesthesiology fellowships as well. Residents friendly overall.

UVa: Very impressive. You'l either love or hate Charlottesville. Relaxed interview day, very nice Chair; some of the most collegial faculty/resident interactions I've seen. Morning lecture was actually pretty good. Physical plant very nice, constructing newer OR's but no immediate plans for computerized charting. Strong caseload, virtually no fellows except for Pain (and CCM, I think). Ambulatory and regional seemed strong as well. Most residents married +/- kids, and again very friendly with good turnout to dinner. Night float with complex, yet well-thought out, late stay system. Charlottesville is a small college town, very charming with lots of country around it. Lots of stuff to do outdoors.

UNC: Probably the best recruiting job out there. Again very friendly residents, Chair was awesome. Nice women and children's hospital with own OR's. Beautiful area to live in, hospital itself was quite impressive situated in a very large medical center. Plenty of cases to go around with the exception of hearts and neuro; surgery dept is in flux, but once this is smoothed out will be a fantastic program. While many other programs seem to have plateaued, this one is enthusiastically growing in all aspects of the academic mission. Call 1-2 a week it seems, escalating as move from CA1-->3. Great first year with lots of anesthesiology months thrown in. Fun interview day, possibly one of the best coordinated out there. Overall an up-and-coming program, will be the place to be in another 5-10 years.

Wake Forest: Winston Salem is another love-it or hate-it town. Hospital was impressive, a regional referral center, great caseload. Residents seem to get out a bit earlier on non-call days, but take call 1-2 times a week. Strong regional, strong hearts, strong peds...strong all around, but interestingly a very low-acuity schedule was posted on our interview day. Hard to make much of this fact, and the residents didn't comment on it. Cheap housing, very light traffic, fantasic reputation as a program.
 
Space Cowboy said:
Cornell: recently interviewed there and thought this program was fantastic. great regional training at hospital for specialty surgery, lots of OB volume, good cardiac cases, lots of ICU time especially if opt to do intern year there as well. no trauma, no heart/lung transplants, no livers - but PD told me they are starting up a liver program there soon. peds volume is probably average for a non-children's hospital so residents do one rotation at a children's hospital in new york which is near the columbia presby campus. not that this is the end all or be all, but they provide housing nearby for relatively cheap rents in a nice part of new york. overall I thought this program was great - anyone else have any thoughts on cornell?
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Can you do electives at Sloan Kettering while at Cornell?
 
Sloan Kettering is an intergral part of our program. You spend 15 weeks in the ICU, 9 weeks in surgery, and up to an additional 9 weeks in electives (renal, pulmonary, cardiology, ID, etc) there in your intern year.

CA-1 residents spend three weeks, primarily doing gyn onc and general surgical onc. CA-2 residents spend three weeks in the ICU as supervising resident/procedure resident in the ICU, and CA-3s spend at least 6 weeks doing thoracic and pediatric onc cases, with additional time for electives if one so desires.

Memorial cases are some of the most interesting, complex cases around. Esophagectomies, Whipples, major liver resections, abdominal debulkings on a daily basis galore. This combined with the unparalleled regional experience at Hospital for Special Surgery make us a unique program.

http://www.nycornell.org/anesthesiology/residency/rotations.html



cloudnine said:
Can you do electives at Sloan Kettering while at Cornell?
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I'd 2nd GasPundit's opinion on the UPenn program. Gaiser rocks. I only heard great things about him all day. His appearance reminds me of Drew Carey - and seems very friendly and in-tune with the residents. The chair on the other hand (Dr. Fleisher) most certainly rubbed me the wrong way during my "interview" with him. Seemed very aloof, disinterested, and arrogant. Certainly a very well respected man, but of all the chairman I interview with at all the programs, he didn't really seem to even be paying attention to my answers, interupting me frequently and seeming very distant. Just my $.02
 
NYC_anest_2004 said:
I'd 2nd GasPundit's opinion on the UPenn program. Gaiser rocks. I only heard great things about him all day. His appearance reminds me of Drew Carey - and seems very friendly and in-tune with the residents. The chair on the other hand (Dr. Fleisher) most certainly rubbed me the wrong way during my "interview" with him. Seemed very aloof, disinterested, and arrogant. Certainly a very well respected man, but of all the chairman I interview with at all the programs, he didn't really seem to even be paying attention to my answers, interupting me frequently and seeming very distant. Just my $.02
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Thanks for the support; by way of disclaimer, I posted comments on the chair after corroborating my experience with a couple of other interviewers. Gaiser and Fleisher could not be more polar. It's sad, too; UPenn had the opportunity to be ranked tippity-top high, but joins the pack after the experience with Fleisher. I was advised by some that resident contact with the chair is often limited, and so not to factor this experience into consideration. However, the chair IS the LEADER of the department, and I met some incredibly personable chairs on the trail. I wonder how much he will hurt recruiting to his program.
 
Ohio State- Well rounded rock solid clinical program. Pain, regional. and hearts are huge. Good TEE exposure. They don't have a Simulator lab which is a relief to many people...who wants to be stuck in a sim lab all day while your peers laugh at all the mistakes you make!!! Weakness...no research and subpar to average teaching/didactics were the only comments from a few residents and 1 attending (you interview with 7 attendings for 30-40 minutes each!!!!!). VERY long day. Easily the longest and most tiring interview to date. They do pay for your hotel and take you out to a really nice dinner. The new Ross cardiovascular building is the most awesome facility I've seen (600-1100 sq feet per OR). Although the residents appear to work their butts off they all seemed very happy. Most of them were married and grew up around the area and more than willing to sacrafice the extra hours and call days to be back home. VERY nice place to raise a family, but also a nice atmosphere for singles.......2nd largest university in US. Traffic situation top notch for the city size. You can be 20-30 MILES away and be at the hospital in under 20-30 minutes (1-1.5 hours for the same distance in Chicago/New York/ Boston). This will increases your home search distance and housing options are AMAZING. RRC had a few items of concern on the previous visit, which subsequently resulted in them taking away 2 residency spots (from 12 to 10)...but now back to 12 and hired a billion surgeons... No issues now withcase load, in fact they are looking to hire additional CRNA's to keep up with the caseload. RRC most recently was A+. Bottom line....rock solid clinically and rock solid for a family looking to buy a house. Will rank in top 3 at this point.

Kentucky- A very solid program that is set up like Penn State. You start with a CBY in which you spend 6 months in anesthesia and 6 months off service as a PGY 1. Once again, I like the idea of spreading out the "intern" type rotations over 3 years and getting EARLY anesthesia exposure. Small simulator lab which pales in comparison to the very active lab experience at Penn State. Columbus (Ohio State) was a much nicer area for families and singles. Lexington was pretty darn boring. The residents were very happy and I felt they had an easier load when compared to Ohio State. No weakness in my opinion. Received the full 4 year (or is it 5? either way it was the maximum) stamp of approval from the RRC. Program director was awesome and full of energy. Not one resident unhappy. All joked around and had a good time during the interview day. Had one of the best dinners to date. Also the best hotel room by far...thought penn state was going to take the cake, but this one had a huge jacuzzi bath tub and a separate living room/office area with a leather chair......nice.

Cant's decide which program wins out here. Columbus would be a much nicer city to live in....BY FAR. I believe Ohio State has a slight edge in pure clinical exposure. Kentucky has a slight edge in resident happiness, work load, and education. Ohio State football or Kentucky basketball....I guess you can decide???
 
Kentucky Basketball. Moreover, (sorta) Midwestern Values versus Southern Comfort. And you're not in Lake Wobegon yet!
 
Sorry I have been I taker and not a giver so here goes. Also had to change my login. So here goes I will go in order of interviews I have been to.

1)Einstein 7.0/10 (my rating scale to base my ROL)

Solid program with good cases and pathology. I feel would get good education here and be very happy. The residents were happy with the program. This was my first interview and now it seem to me to be very average with an over all good foundation. Didactics are weak but this not a concern for me since I never went to lecture anyway and I am a did it myself kind of person. If you are big into lectures and spoon feeding not a good place to go for you. +/- only one month of pain if thats your thing. they help with housing which I heard was nice $400/month. I have a wife and we would live in manhattan anyway so no big deal. Very affordable with the housing though. ave call 2-3/month and 2 noon-late/month. meal at hospital paid. over all good program.


2)Rush University 1/10
Ouch!!!!! Bad experience here. interviewer said some pretty negative things during the interview and really turned me off. Kind of a bummer for me b/c was really hoping I would like it since I really like chi-town. not sure if I will rank. also only meet 3 residents that were not very excited. also friend of a friend is a CA-1 there has been looking to leave program.


3)Ill Masonic medical center (7.0/10)

Great location. pretty good interview day. also have housing which is right across the street. I really likeed the program but it is a community hospital and it worries me if market gets tight will I have a hard time finding job/fellowship. That being said program has good placement for fellows and jobs. PD I really liked (dr. afifi). He is very commited to teaching and job/fellow placement. Would not be upset to match here. Call is OK but one month of ICU is 24hr on 24 off.

4)Loyola (8.0/10)
Really liked this program and had a very good "gut" feeling. Residents I met were very happy with the program. Attend/resident relation seemed the best I've seen. Workout facility is TOP notch. Call is more than many other places I ve been like Q4-5. THis years class will be smaller at 10. whereas others are 13. so this may mean more call??? Did not see anything that turned me off. I will rank this program high and would be very happy to match here

5)Iowa (9.0/10)
Awesome pain center, Regional is TOP notch. Cases are tops too. +/- night float system instead of call 5weeks/year SICU is Q3, pain Q3 from home(resident said he came in once) Hospital nice.Many out door activites. VERY AFFORDABLE. -not sure if wife will be able to work. Not sure What I think about Iowa City. Planning to up for a weekend to hang with a friend and get a better feel. Still waiting to see who the dept Chair will be for next year.

6)Miami (8.5/10)
Pleasently surprised. Had heard bad thing about this program, ie too much call, CRNAs were taking the good cases, mal faculty, etc. THis is NOT the case though. Program has done a 180. CA-3s said the the rumors were true but new chair and PD have changing this. Lots of cases and the work load is probably the biggest I ve seen and maybe in the country. YOu will work A LOT at this program but recieve an excellent education. Large program like 30 residents. Affordable living, Weather, it is miami.

7)CCF (8.5/10)
Big program but surprised that only aprrox half the spots anr in the Match. like 16 spots in the match and 10 spots start in Janurary. Immense hospital system. Will do very complex cases always and from the time you get there. similar to miami with respect to case load and how sick the patients are.even with the huge number of fellows there is NO shortage of cases. they have like 20 Cardio fellows, 10 pain, 6 CC, 4Peds, 2 neuro, 2 OB. Moonlighting system in house if that is your thing. Not important to me wife has good paying job. Chair is stepping down and they have not name new chair yet

8)Case Western Metrohealth (7.0/10)
Good program. I Like that they start you off fast and you start specialty rotation in ca-1 year. also like that there is a mix of cases throughout the training. ie your will see peds even when you are not on a peds rotation. I think this is better than just doing a few months of all peds. You still do your regular rotations but b/c it is a trauma center you wil get a good mix of case thoughout. average didactics. residents were trying to sell the program alittle to hard but they seemed happy there.

9)Michigan (9.5/10)
This is my number one. I think this program is very solid and I want to be in michigan. Family, friends, and soon to be wife works in detriot and she loves her job.
 
Solid work Dr lightsout. I also use a number system as I go along, but will also use my own reviews I write here when I Start the ROL process. I think it'a a good place to jot down some info as soon as you finish the interview to help yourself and others (for many years to come) when the interview season is over. Thanks to everyone!
 
University of Arkansas
Interview day: They start in the afternoon ,reached half an hour before scheduled 2 PM.The program coordinators greeted us and they told us what they do,which I think was unique.And yes there was a subtle discussion on J1 visas,but then I was interested in knowing.We were then,greeted by the chairman Dr Pablo,she asked us for an informal introduction and randomly asked why people wanted to go into anesthesiology.Then came the Program Directors,yes there are two, they gave a slide show presentation about the hospital and the city( which even they knew didn't have much to offer).The Arkansas children hospital is quite impressive and thus a very strong pediatric exposure.
Then were interviewed by two faculty members.Both of the faculties who interviewed me were very very friendly,infact I found myself discussing Indian classical music with one of them for 15min.
Couldn't get to talk to many residents and they definitely seemed overworked and there seemed to be some awkwardness between the faculty and residents.
Took us to dinner directly from the interview session,the food was nice(chinese) and few other residents joined us.
Location: Nothing much to offer except the Clinton's presidential library,but I like staying in small towns so good for me.
Overall:strong didactics,very frequent resident evaluations,long hours.

University of New Mexico
Interview day:Reached at 8 a.m ,The PD gave a power point presentation along with the chairman,then were taken for a round and later randomly interviewed by two faculty members.
This is the program the I most enjoyed,visiting.The faculty resident relationship is awesome.The faculty memebers are very approachable and almost like family.
Residents buy their own houses, 90% residents are married with kids
Strong regional exposure altogether different facilty for surgeries done using nerve blocks.
OBGYN :less to none,native americans don't consent for painless labors.
CARDIAC and NEURO: Not much either,one of the surgeons left
Then they took us to sandia mountains.........awesome and later on were shunted to a mexican restaurant,not to forget that they put us up in Radisson which I think is very very considerate.
Location: Great if you are an outsdoor person,lot of skiing,hot air balloon rides.Overall the place is dirt cheap and very affordable
 
An interview started with a pre-interview dinner in a very nice restaurant with great food. There were 9 of us and the equal # of residents, all of them seemed really happy, though they admitted they work hard, much harder than in most of the programs. The day usually starts at 6 am, but the end is often 6.30, 7 p.m and later. Though it may happen( rarely) that they end cases at 5 p.m or even earlier.
The interview itself was nice and not malignant at all :)
Everybody has been interviewed by Dr. Zapol and PD Dr. Baker. Other faculty members varied for different applicants.
Questions all were around my CAF and some about international politics :)

The tour didn't differ from any other tours.
The CA-3 resident, who took us around has a great sense of humor, though I must admit, that almost every person I encountered has this valuable trait ( I do think this is essential for everything in life, but particularly for anesthesia band).

I do not think, that I have to describe the strength of the program - it's obvious. I just want to tell about my impression, especially knowing all the word of mouth around.
Yes, they work much harder, though do not seem to regret it - all of the residents were prepared for that. No, they do not seem to be miserable and unhappy, at least all of those I met ( 6-8 residents). Yes, the program is huge and you may feel lost, though they start in a small group of 5-6 residents every 2 weeks, and get to know each other quite well. Yes, they do socialize together. When they have time :)

It was freezing cold ( 2F) and windy at the day of my interview. Weather isn't pleasant, that's true. The city is expensive, though you may have some options. But it's definetely not the options you may have elsewhere( cheap housing).

As a summary - if you decide you are willing to go through tough 3 years, you'll get great training and a lot of options later on. If you need more relaxed atmosphere, or better weather, or cheaper environment - it's not the place.

P.S. I would like to ask anybody else, who interviewed at MGH to share his/her impressions, because I may have different perspective, being and old IMG :)
 
MGH
I also got a similar impression. You meet with a couple of residents who were pretty outgoing and friendly. I did not get to meet with the PD, but he contacted me through email to apologize for not getting the chance to meet with me. I thought that the chair Warren Zapol was phenomenal and charismatic. We talked about how mass was one of the few blue states and how much he loved the Red Sox. Lunch with the residents were great. All of the people I talked to were friendly, helpful, and stated the obbious that they worked hard, but they had a life. I came in thinking i wouldn't like it, but came away very impressed. If you want to do ICU, MGH is at the top of its game and i think it is cool that only the anesthesiologists run the SICU.
SLR
I thought that overall that this is a great program. The interview is at Roosevelt campus and they give you a tour of the housing that is literally across the street. You interview with the new Vice Chair Dr. Wasnick and the chair. Dr.W was really cool, but is new to SLR. The interview with the chair was freaky, he had a pregenerated list with weird numbers on it and he wasn't really engaging. The residents were cool, but they did look overworked. Plus they have an influx of new cases because of recent hospital closing, but no increase in residents yet. They are looking into hiring about 2 CRNA's though. I think this program is a steal because the hospital is affiliiated with Columbia, a lot of faculty trained at Columbia and they did excellent when it came to fellowships. The drawbacks were that you can be on OB call even when your not doing an OB rotation and the fact that they didn't really talk about st lukes, which you spend half of your time.
Columbia
This interview had more of a formal tone than other interviews. There are about 20 people interviewing and they show a slide show of how great Anesthesia is and how even greater it is at Columbia. You meet with different people and there is a group session with a peds anesthesiologist. You eat lunch at the Ikea lounge room with plasma screen TV and meet with the residents. They were cool like every other anesthesia residents. Columbia gives you all the books that you need and they give you your own laryngoscope. They pride themselves on not being a trauma center and call is suppose to be really chill because of this. It is in washington heights, but the residents live all over the place. I have heard from my other classmates who actually interviewed at Columbia and it is 50-50 on whether you like Columbia or were put off by the snootiness. i liked it, it is an awesome oppurtunity, but I haven't seen NYU or Cornell ye, so i can't say were it ranks on the Best of NYC list.
 
The night before was spent at a nearby pub eating, drinking and having fun. It was amazing to see their residents so incredibly laid back, happy and so extremely sociable. The interview day was as mellow as they come. You either started at 8:00am or 11:00am and the whole interview process lasts about 3.5 hours. You interview with Dr. Dangerfield, Dr. Barrigan (PD) and the chief resident (Dr. Hsu). All were extremely benign. No questions… more of the typical “lets get to know ea. other”. GWU hospital is a brand new hospital. Very nice facilities and OR’s located in the NW section of DC which is also quite nice. The program does tend to ship you out to a private group in town to do non-stop hearts. Dr. Dangerfield is very much into regional (discussed a paravertebral block for a mastectomy), in fact he’s doing some funky regional research at the moment. The chief was nice, mellow and down to earth. Since he has been there he’s put out 4 publications that according to him were easily done thanks to the faculty. Dr. Barrigan is very chill and relaxed individual-very easy to talk to. Easier working hours with plenty of time for yourself and others (55-60). ICU experience is awesome… (GWU actually came up with the APACHE score). Things I didn’t like: No CRNAS!! I only want to do one or two optho cases if I have to. I see this as a big negative. Case load didn’t seem varied enough although it is mostly based on gut feeling and at glancing at the OR board on a Saturday. NO TRANSPLANTS- many people may not care about this since most of us wont be doing them…. but…. it’s residency and I want to be part of those cases. One big negative for me was the cost of living (although some CA-3 residents have made >$100,000 on their homes on appreciation alone), they don’t pay you enough for DC and the traffic absolutely blows!- took me nearly an hour just to get out of the city… grrrr... one resident spent 15 min to get to work in the am and sometimes 1.5 hrs to get home during rush hour. Everything said, I feel this is a very good program. I would be very happy to match at GWU.
 
gasman2005 said:
Ok... This is probably one of the best posts on the site. Now, I KNOW that people are going on interviews. PLEASE take the time to write a review for the programs that you have interviewed at. The interview day is like visiting a used car salesman, who tries to tell you that everything is perfect. In reality, the "car" probably has a few problems, hiding under the surface. The most people that post reviews, the better we are all at being able to figure out what a program is really like. So, if you are reading this post, and have been on interviews, PLEASE do your part and post a review. Don't just read ours, without contributing!

these are my impressions 5/5 being awesome, hope this helps, i would be willing to discuss any in more detail if somebody wanted or would love to dispute or know if anybody thought different about any of this

clinical/didactics -- hours -- single life --married life -- city

hopkins 5/5 70 3/5 3/5 3/5
residents: "the program is getting better"- they are starting to get more didactics and bringing in crnas to get them out to didactics or home?

washu 5/5 70-75 2/5 3/5 2/5
residents: seemed nice/happy, residents work very hard and are highly motivated, charismatic chair

emory 4/5 65 5/5 5/5 5/5
residents: loved it, work at wide variety of clinical sites which residents like

wake 4/5 60-65 0/5 5/5 0/5
residents: all married, but loved it, crna's get them out by 3 most days not on call to go home

ucla 4/5 65-70 5/5 3/5 5/5
residents: wishy washy about living in LA and program but i feel like i didn't get a good grasp of this

vandy 4/5 60-65 4/5 3/5 5/5
residents: loved it, great city, interim chair seemed pretty cool

uva 4/5 55-60 2/5 5/5 4/5
residents: happiest group of residents i saw, most of them were married, by far the best call schedule

rochester 5/5 60-65 1/5 5/5 2/5
residents: very happy, winter sucks, night float for call which is great

3 more after new year's day
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for those who interviewed at MGH and are considering it on their rank list - i just want to offer my services if you have any last minute questions or concerns about anything (lifestyle, housing, salary, etc...) IM me when ever you want
 
Vanderbilt
First off the city of Nashville is great. The medical center sits on the campus which is beautiful. The campus is adjacent to downtown Nashville but when you are on the campus you would never know you are a stones throw away from downtown. Lots of great places to live and do within minutes from the hospital. The interview day was sort of strange with a lot of wasted time. I had an hour and a half between interivews with nothing to do but sit in a room with other applicants. The format they use for their interviews was based on some behavioral model. My two interviews consisted of 30 minutes of answering ethical and scenario questions. After walking out of the interview I feel there is no way they have any idea who I am as a person or what my interests are. I have no idea how they rank students based on the interviews. The facilities are nice. The new childrens hospital is absoulutely amazing!! It was hard to get a feel from the residents what their hours were. Everytime it came up it seemed the response was "it varies." However the residents are all very happy. They do have a lot of cool techy equipemt for monitoring rooms and their computer system is outstanding if that is your thing. Their call system is nice in that you come in at 3pm to begin call. Their OB call is great. It is Q3 but you get the post call day off and the post-post call day you are off between 9-11am. Overall I think it is a strong program in a great city. Their interview style in my opinion is not the best or most efficient.

Wake Forest
This has already bee reviewed previously. I liked the program a lot and agree with the other positive comments. I like that their post post call day you spend in pre-op from 8-4.

UNC
By far the most structed and thought out interview day. I defiantely had the most fun all around. They put their best foot forward and make you feel very welcome. All of the residents are very happy. They said their hours are very good. The interview was very benign. $ in total and all very conversational. The womens and childrens hospitals are outstanding with excellent OB and peds training. Chapel Hill is an amazing college town but the sorroundings of raleigh and Durham allow you to escape the college scene. Cost of living is great outside of chapel hill as most residents own a home. The only con I saw was that if critical care is your thing, during your CA1-CA3 year from what I understand is that you are only in charge of lines. Could be a plus or minus however you look at it. Calls seem to be 6-7 a month and you start call at 11 am. Overall, UNC has done their homework when it comes to the interview and their program.

Johns Hopkins
I believe this has already been reviewed. The interview is well structed and very laid back. 4 Interview total and all very easy. A very friendly faculty. The residents all seemd happy and all stated that they work pretty hard. Their hous seemd a little longer that most of the other interviews I have been on. They said usually out the door by 5-6 but it was not rare to be there between 6-7. However, none complained, and doesn't seem to be an issue. The facilities are a little run down and it sits in a pretty run down area of Baltimore. It is an inner city hospital. They are building a new hospital which will be state of the art but won't be done until 2010. Their callsemms to be about 3-5 a month. You begin call after your morning conference only for the on call teams. You are used as relief throughout the day until about 3 when you begin revieving rooms. I was also amazed at how expensive the cost of living is in Baltimore. I quess it is b/c they are so close to DC. Their didactics are improving according to most of the residents. There is a daily morning conference for thos going into call and those coming off call. The conference was great but looking at the the residents coming of call it looked like they were struggling to say awake and participate. Overall a solid program with great training.

Mayo Jacksonville
I was very impressed with Mayo. The day is set up with interviews, lunch, a tour of the hospital (St. Lukes) and then they take you over to the clinic. The facilities are great . They clinic itself it like a hotel. You do a few months of outpatient there but other than that you spend most of your time at St. Lukes. The hospital is nice. Outstanding computer system which is carried throughout the whole hospital. Intraoperative computer charting. The residents were extremely happy and raved about the program. The faculty is very impressive and the resident said you actually work with the big guns on a daily basis. Most seemed to be transplants from Mayo Rochester. Call is 2-3 times a month with one weekend. Residents said the hours are very good and tech support is outstanding. No trauma as it is not level I but they are 2nd in livers. They said that this makes up for the trauma since both are all about fluid recussitation. Jacksonville is a smaller town with a big southern influence. However, it has many big city qualities and the Beach. Mayo has only 4 residents per year which could be both a positive and neg.

I will write some more reviews later. NFL is on......
 
Overall-Very good program. You will see and do all things at this program. Would not be unhappy to match here.

They take 8 Pgy1's and 24 Pgy 2's!! The entire anesthesiology program had close to 90 residents (including fellows). I have been at programs with 18 total! This is the largest program I've visited. Nothing really bad about this program, but nothing really exciting either. They get tons of cases per year. Again, another clinical training powerhouse. Most of the residents stated they worked really hard and get most of their numbers early in the second year. All residents were happy. This was the first place I've been where they will give you honest answers to ALL questions. This really impressed me. No BS at this program. Chair of Dept has been there for 24 years! Program director was very nice and down to earth.

Good things about program- Large caseload (see everything), 1.5 hours from Chicago!!, decent cost of living, tons of things to do in the city, good relationship with attendings, and great Fellowship options. Traffic pretty darn good for city this size. Research...top 4-5 in the nation. Residents and staff were down to earth and the staff showed high respect for the residents!

Negative- Bad weather, didactics (getting better), McDonalds Bigmac supersize class size, and work hours.
 
Strong thread guys. You're helping out future applicants more than any other source out there (besides speaking with the residents themselves).

I strongly recommend Playa Del Carmen for a vacation destination. Bombing mission complete. Back to reality and the forums, of course. :)
 
Emory:

Weekend interview system unique, but I liked it. Residents all seemed very happy with the program. Rotate at quite a few hospitals, which the residents enjoyed. Their favorites seemed to be the CHoA and Grady. This program is proud of Grady, and for good reasons. The hospital actually has a pretty nice physical-plant, as well as an OB-ICU which is rare throughout the country. All faculty, including PD and Chair, were very impressive; enough so that it would be worth moving to Atlanta just to train under them. Very relaxed atmosphere. Possible downsides: program is in Atlanta, if you're not a city-folk. Call and work schedule are similiar to Wake and UNC, with frequent calls but home very early (~3-4) if not on call. Regional seemed a bit weak, but they've addressed this with a new ortho rotation they're quite happy about.

Summary:
Regional only possible weakness, and by next year I'm sure this would be fixed. Otherwise extremely strong across the board, just a matter of preferences in living location and call schedule.


Hopkins:
Pretty relaxed interview day. Area around the hospital wasn't THAT bad, and the new hospital is beautiful. Baltimore seemed patchy with good and bad spots randomly distributed. Lots of homelessness. PD seemed solid, moving forward with some good changes and improving resident morale. Noted revolving PD and Chair situation in recent years. Program seemed strong in all areas. Proud of their name. Then again...I walked away trying to figure out what made this program "special", and aside from the name couldn't think of much. Perhaps a great place to be a fellow or to launch an academic career, but so are Mayo, UPenn, MGH, etc etc.

Summary: Perhaps I'm missing something. Strong program no doubt, but so are lots of other places. Baltimore is hit or miss.
 
Yale
Very impressed with Yale. The residents seem very happy. I was suprised that the majority of residents weren't from the northeast. Finally a pre-interview dinner that you don't sit there for 3 hours at a table talking ad nauseum about the program. The dinner was at the medical school with a nice presentation by the residents and then off to a local bar for drinks. It was great to finally be in a setting where everyone let their guard down and felt like you were actually getting to know the residents. The interview day was typical. They tend to interview a larger group (approx 20). I have heard in the past that some people don't like this but I felt it was fine. The larger group didn't distract from the ability to get a feel for the program. In fact, I think the larger group is a positive thing b/c it forces them to bring more residents out to dinner and to lunch. Therefore, you really have the opportunity to meet a lot of the residents. The interviews were very relaxed. Facilities are the same as every other hospital. The PD and chair were extremely nice as were the faculty I met. The chair gives a detailed presentation of the program. Hours seem decent. Seems like they are out between 4-5 pm. First years hours seem a litlle longer and progressively get less in CA2-3. Call is about 4-5 per month. Out at 7am. Caseload seems great. No livers but lots of trauma. CT seems very strong. Regional is the only weakness the residents state, but improving. There seemed to be a lot of joking around between the residents and attendings. The atmosphere seemed very congenial. Several big names at the program. I was very suprised by New Haven. The downtown seemed clean and the areas around campus are very nice. lots of cool bars and restaurants. The Yale campus is very impressive. Cost of living is a little high but many of the residents seemd to own a house. It seemd that most of the residents are married and many have famalies. Overall I think this is an outstanding program. It seems to me New Have will always live in the shadows of Boston and NYC. I think that is why they have a lot of residents from outside the northeast. Seems that most north easteners would rather be in Boston or NYC. Yale has lots of attractive resources for residents. You get a student ID that gets you into everything yale has to offer. 3rd years say they have no problem getting job across the country as Yale has a national name.
 
Colorado
Interview day: begins at noon with a lunch with the residents. Lunch followed by a presentation on the program made by the residency director. After the presentation you begin interviewing, it's just 2 interviews with faculty members. Both are easy, laid-back interviews. During your down time you'll be in the conference room with the other applicants and the chairman. The chairman is just there to spend time with you, put your mind at ease and answer any questions you or the others may have about the program. Very nice and really warm guy. A little unusual compared with other programs in that you have your dinner with the residents at the end of your interview day, compared to the night before at most programs. Still, different scheduling, but good opportunity to meet residents and pick their brains.

One major pro for this program is the chairman, he's really involved and intent on moving the program forward and improving its quality, caliber and importance at UCHSC. Residents all spoke highly of the residency director as being a real resident advocate. New hospital is already up and services should be completely moved into the new facility by 2007. Work in a variety of OR settings: UCHSC, VA, Denver General, outpatient ORs, Children's and St. Joseph's thus giving you exposure to a diversity of patient demographics and practice modalities. The city of Denver is a big plus, even the program seems to really pump this. It's just an all around great city, it's clean, friendly, great for outdoor exercise, has a good cost-of-living and is freakin' beautiful. It even has more hours of sunshine per year than San Diego, who knew? :eek:

So what's the catch? Residents said that they felt weak on cardiac anesthesia, for which they have a rotation at St. Joseph's hospital to supplement, and overloaded on general cases. That's probably due to their CA-1 year being almost entirely general OR cases. They don't get into subspecialty anesthesia until their CA-2 year. A couple of residents complained about slow surgeons. Another thing the residents weren't too stoked about was the call schedule. You have first and second call a combined 5-6 times per month and fifth and sixth call about the same amount. Making for ~10-11 call duties per month. Also you can end up with Friday + Sunday weekend call meaning your Saturday post-call day is your one day off. Plus, on your first call day you're not supposed to show until 3pm, but it's not protected so it is possible for you to be called in at 8am or earlier on your first call day. Still, they didn't give me a good idea what they were clocking in weekly hours. If anyone has any idea on this would greatly appreciate it.

Overall: Good program that provides a solid training base coupled with friendly and involved faculty actively working to improve their program and make them more of a player and name in the field.
 
My interviews:

1. Univ of Kentucky - This is, in my opinion, an average program. I just didn't fit in well with the overall atmosphere of the program. Residents revealed that the ICU rotations are below average and that attendings there only "expect you to put in lines." Cardiac volume, also, is just enough to ensure program completion - there are no excess of heart cases here. On the up side - if didactics are your thing - I don't think you can find a better place than Kentucky - they have the most well-organized lecture schedule that I've come across.

2. Washington University - A fantastic all-around program. There are no glaring deficiencies in this program at all. Residents all around seemed happy and confident in their abilities. Program director took at least half an hour to visit with us. Intern year sounds difficult - but worth the effort with great ICU experience, etc. Attendings are truly world-class and love to teach. They boast about their ICU, heart, and PEDS programs, although OB, pain, etc. are also well-represented here. They gave us a nice tour of St. Louis - I left very impressed with the city and the program here. The medical center is easily accessible from most parts of St. Louis - it is also right next to a huge city park with a large zoo (free to the public). Most residents buy homes, although a good number live downtown or rent condos. This must be one of the top programs in the country - they do an amazing number of anesthetics/year - 60,000.

3. Med Coll of Wisconsin - Overall good program. Milwaukee seems to be a very liveable city - if you can tolerate the long Wisconsin winter. The hospital complex is away from downtown, which is nice. Residents can typically afford to live close to the hospital. That said, residents also have rotations away from the main complex - may require a significant amount of driving - not sure. Peds is a definite strength of this program. Cardiac volume is low, you will get your numbers and then some - but not huge excesses. All of the other rotations seemed fantastic. Residents were very friendly and happy.

4. Oregon Health Sciences - This program is definitely going places. The chair, Dr. Kirsch, has shaken things up since coming here two years ago - he is working hard to turn OHSU into one of the premier training locations in the country. Residents work hard but seem very satisfied with the quality of education and clinical experience. Cardiac volume is somewhat low - but the program is making every effort to increase it. That said, you will have no trouble getting the adequate number of cardiac cases. ICU experience is phenomenal. Faculty love to teach and are good at it. Facilities themselves are picturesque. The hospital is on a hill overlooking the Williamette river and the city of Portland. Portland, itself, is an extremely safe, liveable city with plenty to keep a resident occupied. Just about an hour from the coast and the Columbia river gorge. Beautiful country.

5. Maine Medical Center - a gem of a program. This program is private-practice based and truly prepares you for that kind of practice. They are a small program without fellows - which translates into terrific case volumes and difficulty. Residents provide anesthesia for complex pediatric cardiac procedures, as an example. Portland is a small, beautiful town on the coast with plenty to do. It is extremely safe and two hours or so from Boston. Residents all around seemed very friendly and very happy with the program. I was extremely impressed with this program.
 
One word for the program........AWESOME
Never seen a program with such a hard working PD.

This was the only program where there was no interview on the interview day.
They invited us to a sports bar a day before ,a ton of residents turned up,they seemed really happy with the program.
The PD was sitting separately for a while and invited one person at a time for an informal chit chat.
I didn't realise that this was the only interview I will have.
He stressed a lot on talking to residents,as he seemed really confident about his program
The residents talked us to death,both the day before and on the "interview day"
I loved the atmosphere,awesome hospitals,very good exposure in pediatric anesthesiology
Pros:All round experience,all the latest technology
Nice campus
Affordable city
Cons: Fills 80% positions with its own students
Invited just 25 candidates ,outside their school
No active research
 
COLORADO

Sorry...interviewed here a while back and forgot to post review. I'm glad the interview season is coming to an END!

I will echo what "Leto" stated about the structure of the program and interview day, but I found this place to be average in terms of training.

Negative-Throughout the day different people stated problems in many different areas.....Cards (big), Pain/regional (from an attending), and critical care/ICU were the big ones. Didactics average. I have no idea what the facilites look like because they don't give you a tour of the hospital..... I know we are kinda getting sick of the "hospital tour", but it makes me wonder if they hiding something?? It's only a 3 year program with a limited number of good first year spots.....you may have to pick up a preliminary surgery year if you want to stay here the entire 4 years. Cost of living is crazy. Forget about buying anything half way decent near denver. You can buy in Aurora and other areas, but there is tons of crime/homless in the those areas. If Denver lacked the mountains next door, I doubt anyone would rank it high.

Positive- OB, research, and PEds are strong. The Chair and Director were pretty awesome. They really care for the residents! Last RRC visit gave them the full 4 years. They are due back this year. All the residents were nice and very honest. They are moving to a brand new facility in the spring of 2007 (Aurora)....very nice! Denver is one of the nicest cities I've been to and you can SKI on your days off!!!!!
 
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