columbia anesthesiology

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needadvice

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hey folks, i am contemplating a fellowship at columbia. do you have any sense of the fellowship resident relationship? do fellows moonlight? any inside info on the program? thinking of cv or critical care.
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what the ****? 8-10 pm not onc all in Anesthesia... If youa gree to this get your head examined..
 
this crap is being posted by someone who really wants to go there.

I know people who are already there, and this is nothing like what they said. Much better hours...
 
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what are the icus like there?
 
Columbia had a chance to rise a few years back with the increase in interest in anesthesia. I almost went there, but opted for another NYC big program. thank god. My brother is there now as a CA-1. Chinochulo is a CA-3. My brother is attempting to transfer as fast as possible. He is constantly there until 7pm not on call..rason why??? He spends over three hours per day waiting for beds in the pacu. Imagine finishing a case at 4:30, and everyone else leaves...surgeon, nurse, etc.....but you. Then you wait until 7pm to get a spot in the pacu. Not too bad???? Well, then figure you have a few post-ops and perhaps a pre-op to see........see you at 10pm not on call.
He also complains about the new residency coordinator, and mostly about the residency director. Anything but a resident advocate. Socially handicapped. what else...let me ask, i live with him.......
Oh, **** call rooms........OB call....how about coming in at 7pm, pulling ob call until 7am, then heading to the main or's to do cases till 7pm. think i am kidding, page the chief and ask him yourself. 917-899-1635.
The OB sevice is a bunch of freaks.
cardiac.....well he has not done that yet, so i can not say. It is soo bad he is contemplating returning to medicine.........If you have matched there and are heading into a prelim year, try to get another spot somewhere else. From what my brother says, the CA-1 morale is in the ****ter....
 
Hi Chinochulo and s204367,
I'm very curious about what has changed, b/c it's barely been a year since both of you wrote pretty positive reviews of columbia's program, going so far as calling it cush in comparison to cornell, and now it's being painted in a much different light. I'm not trying to be difficult or rude by pointing this out, but i am curious about this change of heart. It sounds like the main problem re: hours has been PACU waits, but has the surgical volume/PACU structure changed so radically in less than a year? In prior posts, it was also mentioned that the PD and program coordinator were less than user-friendly, but it was also stated that the assistant PD and the chair more than compensated for this deficiency. Has this also changed? If i had to choose between a letter of recommendation between an iffy PD and an awesome Chair, it'd be no contest.

Also, regarding Chinochulo's initial discussion of the CT surgery service and its demanding hours, would you say that's the case for other services? From looking at programs and reading reviews on scutwork, it seems to be a common thread that the CT surgery rotations are usually the most demanding in every anesthesiology residency program.

A lot of the discussion has revolved around "it's great for my class, but the CA-1's are getting worked unreasonably hard," which doesn't seem to be that radically different from how any other residency program works. I can't think of any specialty residency where the saying "s--t flows downhill" isn't applicable.
 
I know both Chino Chulo and the other Columbia guy very well as we are all third years together. There is no way to sugarcoat what is going on with the operating rooms at Columbia Prebyterian. It is a broken system that cannot handle the volume that is going through there everyday. The hospital is operating at 99.5% occupancy at all hours of the day/365 days a week. And because of that there are frequently delays getting out of the operating room because the PACU nurse has to wait for someone to be discharged from a room upstairs to send their last patient out. As you can imagine, this is killing the moral of not only the residents, but the attendings, and nursing staff as well.
The CT service is particularly bad because the case load is simply too large. Columbia just hired away from Lenox Hill Hospital the renowned Dr. Moses and Co. interventional cardiology service which leads to more people eventually needing heart surgery here. The publicity President Clinton getting his surgery certainly has added kerosine to the fire. And the problem also goes down to not enough beds for the patients to go to as the CT ICU has 16 beds and at any time there are 1/3 of them occupied by heart/lung transplant patients or VAD patients- all of which can be long term players in the ICU's.
In addition, every service has added surgeons, whereas we have added one or two more residents a year, with LESS attendings and no additional CRNA help.
So as you read the nasty things being said about CU Gas remember that this is a reflection on the state of affairs of the hospital. I find it particularly sad because I used to consider myself one of the biggest advocates of the program, and now I see it as a sinking ship and find myself happy to be getting off.
 
Kwijibo said:
The hospital is operating at 99.5% occupancy at all hours of the day/365 days a week.
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Youch! I know they work you guys hard and expect a lot, but that's a damn long week! :laugh:

-Skip

P.S. Mehmet Oz is a self-promoting, new-age, alternative-therapy pushing nutcase. I would never go to Columbia, even if they actually did want me, simply because he's there.
 
The situation at Columbia worries me as an incomming resident. My hospital operates at nearly full capacity, and that definitely takes a toll on everyone whenever you try to move a patient from A to B. It seems absurd that a surgical patient wouldn't already have a bed waiting before surgery was scheduled. This seems like an unsustainable situation. Have the residents considered going on strike? If the hospital is going to overbook lucrative OR cases without making the necessary investment in the remainder of the system, people are going to start leaving. They should pay every anesthesia resident who has to babysit a case in the OR for moonlighting time, since that's basically what this is. If the hospital is able to make extra money on the backs of these anesthesia residents, the residents should be paid something resembling overtime.

How long did it take to get to where things are now with backups in the PACU? I haven't heard of any of this until now. What is Dr. Wood's position on this issue?
 
My advice..... learn how to self cath yourself.....Good luck.....
 
s204367 said:
Pissed in a 500cc bottle in the OR.
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:eek:

Be careful dude... you may inadvertently start up a sh*tstorm posting such stuff here. Whether this is true or actually a slight embellishment (e.g., you say you are working '130-140 hours per week' when there are only 168 hours in a week which would mean you are only away from the hospital 4-5.5 hours a day everyday of the week including Sunday, etc.), I'm sure JCAHO and the ACGME wouldn't look too kindly on these practices.

I realize that you are just venting, but I'd vent to through the appropriate institutional channels within your system first, as you can probably be personally indentified and are elucidating some fairly serious program violations here.

Just some friendly advice.

-Skip
 
In all honesty, I have more than one friend who is at CU who, at least in the last 12 months, thought the place was pretty decent hours-wise. Apparently things have changed for the worse, though. I had ranked them fifth on my list, and for a long time I regretted that, thinking I had passed up a great place. While I'm not happy to hear that you guys are suffering, it's somewhat of a relief to find out that I didn't blow it bigtime.

Hopefully things will get better.

Best of luck,

SW
 
Skippy boy,
Read my post, the 130-140 hours per week was when i was a surgical resident.. It was worse than a q2 schedule. Some call was 24/7 "homecall" and there was once a two week stretch that I simply stayed in the hospital.. There was no 24 hour rule, and at times i worked greater than a 60 hour shift. Yes, those times were not long ago.

Again, Columbia will provide you with great training, and those in the area certainly highly recruit our graduates. However, my point has been how miserable the first years have been. This was not the case with my class. We worked hard and partied hard.

Oh Chino, even on this message board some tool is ripping on you....HA.....
 
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s204367 said:
Skippy boy,
Read my post, the 130-140 hours per week was when i was a surgical resident.. It was worse than a q2 schedule. Some call was 24/7 "homecall" and there was once a two week stretch that I simply stayed in the hospital.. There was no 24 hour rule, and at times i worked greater than a 60 hour shift. Yes, those times were not long ago.
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Ah... mea culpa. I got so caught-up in your rant, I lost track of where you were. But, you still might want to try a Texas catheter as I'm sure JCAHO wouldn't like the idea of a doctor voiding in an OR suite... during a case. :laugh:

Anyway, dude, good luck surviving your little slice of hell.

-Skip
 
s204367 said:
In terms of the Tex Cath...and this is a TRUE story, one of my co-residents actually wet his pants in the OR. He was a CA-1 at the time, and I guessed just readched the point of bladder spasmand pissed all over himself right in front of the GYN doctors.......surprisingly, he has risen, and done very well since....one of the stronger residents in the class...chinochulo can confirm this, and no, it wasn't him....
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Well, I've heard stories (but haven't seen yet) about these marathon liver and neuro cases where the surgeons just strap-on a Depends before they go in because they know they are ineluctably going to be forced to soak themselves (or worse) during the case.

-Skip
 
I can concur, that after 11 months in Milstein OR's, this place really is a horrible place to be. I like the attendings, I like the residents, but I dislike waiting in the OR's for a PACU bed time after time. Know what I dislike more??? A department that talks a lot but does not seem to want to do anything about this. Would I come here again?? Ask me after I have done some OB and Hearts and Peds. The pant wetting story is true.
I do not even know if we have a residency director, but I can say for certain that there is not a single resident ADVOCATE at this place, especially not her. She alone is reason enough to stay away from this place..
 
If only some of these sentiments were expressed last year when I was making my rank list... it sucks that the quality of life at the program seems to have gone from good to bad in such a short time-span. Offhand, I can't think of any other program to have made such a turnaround.

Well, as they say, "They can hurt you, but they can't stop the clock."

At least living in New York will be fun (when I'm not waiting for a PACU bed)
 
Platysma said:
At least living in New York will be fun (when I'm not waiting for a PACU bed)
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Dude, are you gonna work? Yes. Are you going to spend some time babysitting in the OR? Probably. But, you are at Columbia! You're going to be able to write your own ticket coming out of that program.

A lot of people would love to be in your shoes. Don't hate; appreciate.

-Skip
 
:confused:

hey, what’s going on here? just a few days ago there was some really juicy gossip about the columbia anesthesia program. one of the ca-3s had a thread that started something like this describing his last week on cardiac:

“day1, not on call, started at 7am, no morning break, no lunch no afternoon break. called attending. did not call back. came off bypass by myself. recovered in room for four hours recording urine and chest tube outputs waiting for pacu bed. went home at 10 pm.

day 2, same.

day 3, same, but had to take a bathroom break. no one came to relive me so I relieved myself into a 500 cc bottle in the room. came of bypass by myself, etc…

day 4, on call, came in at ? and life really stunk after that, stuck around the next day because no one would help me get out and we were short staffed. went home at 10 pm post-call.

I hate my life and am glad to get out…”

And then, there was another thread that got deleted. it was only posted for about 15 minutes or so, but it was an internal memo of some sort from the residents to either the CEO of the hospital, or the dean of the med school, or the chief of staff. I can’t remember. but anyway, it went something like this:

“dear sir, on behalf of the residents of the anesthesia program we would like to express a vote of no confidence regarding the program director, the residency coordinator, and the chair.” then the memo went on to name names (very tasteful).. it was about 400 words long and both of these threads got deleted when the site was shut down. WHAT HAPPENED? ANYONE?

to those who missed it, it was good stuff. it sounds like someone put the smackdown on chinochulo, jimdoc, kwijibo, s203467, and gasduddette. are you guys still with us or have you been placed into the witness protection program? can you please repost the internal memo?
 
Talking to some friends, it seems that many programs are experiencing similar issues as OR bookings continue to grow exponentially and anesthesia departments continue to hemmorage attendings and crna's. I am at a medium sized university program which for the past year has failed to recruit a single attending or even a crna while losing 2 faculty members and 2 good nurses. All the while our main OR case load has gone up by 20% and the hospital continues to build off site endo/gu/rads suites that have placed an impossible demand on the anesthesia service. Unfortunately the burden seems to always fall on the residents, which has translated into a roughly 10-15 hour increase in average weekly duty hours. The program has made countless concessions to the crnas who at this point are getting paid $100 an hour to take weekend/night call and sleep while the residents break their butts doing endless class 2/3 cases off hours. The nurses have shown us their appreciation by quitting for more lucrative private practice jobs leaving us with hundreds of hours of coverage per week to absorb into our workload. What really sucks is that there is no apparent solution in sight and things will definitely get worse during whats left of my residency. We have already been told that we will have more calls (to cover crna shifts) and less vacation (in frank violation of our CIR contracts) this coming academic year. Sad to see a program go from a comfortable 60-65 hour week when I started to 80-85 hours in just 1 academic year.

Also, to answer the person who suggested a resident strike, I dont know how the gas residents are treated in your hospital but if we were to try something like that the surgeons, hospital administration, and most of our own attendings would CRUSH us in an instant. Back in the 90's when quote a few programs closed their doors the transition from residents in the or's to mda supervised crnas/srnas was so smooth and PROFITABLE that none of those programs have even considered going back despite the renewed interest in gas.

Dont get me wrong, anesthesia is a great job and I couldnt dream of doing anything else but the realities of university politics and $$$ issues can really be a drag on morale. Next time you call up a gas program just ask them what their resident/faculty attrition rate is and while you're at it ask them how many suicides there have been in the department over the past 5 or 10 years. The answer you get might really shock you.
 
It is amusing to seee this unfold as it has...I was under the impression from interview day and other talks (granted I didn't know any 'insiders') that CU was not only a top program, which it is, but that the hours were relatively GOOD. In fact, there was a thread about 'cush' Gas programs started back in sept. 04 in which CU's program was raved about by current residents, 55 hour per week, etc.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=136188


Who to believe? Has the program done a 180 in the last 6 months? Were the previous posting hot air or the current ones? Was I intentionally deceived on interview day and pre-interview dinner? I won't be there next year, but it's funny cause I was just telling my wife yesterday about how much more free time I would have had if I had ranked CU higher, with there being no trauma etc. It's all good.
 
soon2bdoc2003 said:
Talking to some friends, it seems that many programs are experiencing similar issues as OR bookings continue to grow exponentially and anesthesia departments continue to hemmorage attendings and crna's. I am at a medium sized university program which for the past year has failed to recruit a single attending or even a crna while losing 2 faculty members and 2 good nurses. All the while our main OR case load has gone up by 20% and the hospital continues to build off site endo/gu/rads suites that have placed an impossible demand on the anesthesia service. Unfortunately the burden seems to always fall on the residents, which has translated into a roughly 10-15 hour increase in average weekly duty hours. The program has made countless concessions to the crnas who at this point are getting paid $100 an hour to take weekend/night call and sleep while the residents break their butts doing endless class 2/3 cases off hours. The nurses have shown us their appreciation by quitting for more lucrative private practice jobs leaving us with hundreds of hours of coverage per week to absorb into our workload. What really sucks is that there is no apparent solution in sight and things will definitely get worse during whats left of my residency. We have already been told that we will have more calls (to cover crna shifts) and less vacation (in frank violation of our CIR contracts) this coming academic year. Sad to see a program go from a comfortable 60-65 hour week when I started to 80-85 hours in just 1 academic year.

Also, to answer the person who suggested a resident strike, I dont know how the gas residents are treated in your hospital but if we were to try something like that the surgeons, hospital administration, and most of our own attendings would CRUSH us in an instant. Back in the 90's when quote a few programs closed their doors the transition from residents in the or's to mda supervised crnas/srnas was so smooth and PROFITABLE that none of those programs have even considered going back despite the renewed interest in gas.

Dont get me wrong, anesthesia is a great job and I couldnt dream of doing anything else but the realities of university politics and $$$ issues can really be a drag on morale. Next time you call up a gas program just ask them what their resident/faculty attrition rate is and while you're at it ask them how many suicides there have been in the department over the past 5 or 10 years. The answer you get might really shock you.
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I wonder why these programs don't offer to pay the residents to work extra hours. I mean it is BS that the damn nurses get the money when the residents, albeit, overworked, would have something to show for that extra work.
 
soon2bdoc2003 said:
Talking to some friends, it seems that many programs are experiencing similar issues as OR bookings continue to grow exponentially and anesthesia departments continue to hemmorage attendings and crna's. I am at a medium sized university program which for the past year has failed to recruit a single attending or even a crna while losing 2 faculty members and 2 good nurses. All the while our main OR case load has gone up by 20% and the hospital continues to build off site endo/gu/rads suites that have placed an impossible demand on the anesthesia service. Unfortunately the burden seems to always fall on the residents, which has translated into a roughly 10-15 hour increase in average weekly duty hours. The program has made countless concessions to the crnas who at this point are getting paid $100 an hour to take weekend/night call and sleep while the residents break their butts doing endless class 2/3 cases off hours. The nurses have shown us their appreciation by quitting for more lucrative private practice jobs leaving us with hundreds of hours of coverage per week to absorb into our workload. What really sucks is that there is no apparent solution in sight and things will definitely get worse during whats left of my residency. We have already been told that we will have more calls (to cover crna shifts) and less vacation (in frank violation of our CIR contracts) this coming academic year. Sad to see a program go from a comfortable 60-65 hour week when I started to 80-85 hours in just 1 academic year.

Also, to answer the person who suggested a resident strike, I dont know how the gas residents are treated in your hospital but if we were to try something like that the surgeons, hospital administration, and most of our own attendings would CRUSH us in an instant. Back in the 90's when quote a few programs closed their doors the transition from residents in the or's to mda supervised crnas/srnas was so smooth and PROFITABLE that none of those programs have even considered going back despite the renewed interest in gas.

Dont get me wrong, anesthesia is a great job and I couldnt dream of doing anything else but the realities of university politics and $$$ issues can really be a drag on morale. Next time you call up a gas program just ask them what their resident/faculty attrition rate is and while you're at it ask them how many suicides there have been in the department over the past 5 or 10 years. The answer you get might really shock you.
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Alsom, the name or location of your program might help since many of us are applying this year.
 
Skip Intro said:
:eek:

Be careful dude... you may inadvertently start up a sh*tstorm posting such stuff here. Whether this is true or actually a slight embellishment (e.g., you say you are working '130-140 hours per week' when there are only 168 hours in a week which would mean you are only away from the hospital 4-5.5 hours a day everyday of the week including Sunday, etc.), I'm sure JCAHO and the ACGME wouldn't look too kindly on these practices.

I realize that you are just venting, but I'd vent to through the appropriate institutional channels within your system first, as you can probably be personally indentified and are elucidating some fairly serious program violations here.

Just some friendly advice.


This is america he is allowed to post anything he wants here unless it is offending someones race gender or sexual orientation so chill out and let the thread run its course.. This forum is probably one of the best things on the internet... it opens peoples eyes.. ..................
-
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anyone have a sense of the fellowships at columbia not the residencies
 
let me preface this by saying by giving a different take on the program (i'm a CA-3), it doesn't discout everyone else's.

Cardiac: most have had a rough time of it. personally, my most recent rotation i got off between 4-5 each day. never missed lunch. and always had a break. clearly it wasn't the routine week, and my other times on the service were tougher. i think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. personally, i think that Dr S. is pretty aware or resident hours, and does a pretty good job with the 80 hr work week (though many good friends tell me they're gone well over)... just giving my own account.

PACU waiting times: not an issue for most CA-3's so i'd be a bad person to comment. probably waited a total of <10hrs for the entire last year in a room waiting for a bed. i'd believe the CA-1's on this one and say that this is a real concern.

Residency director: reasonable person, but poor choice by program chair three years ago. 1) marginal personal skills 2) is a peds person so not very visible in milstein 3) only contact with her is when she is policing the program (which is actually part of her job). she's not too bad, but certainly few feel they have an advocate with her. my overall impression is that she's done VERY LITTLE to affect my happiness/unhappiness with this program. unfortunately, during theses contentious times, that's not a good trait to have as a director. just REALLY needs to work on personal skills and being more visible in milstein (other than to check up on things)

Program secretary: ah the "virus". she's the "black hole" of secretaries. send something her way and never see it again. it's caused UNBELIEVABLE frustration for the residents.

Honestly, i've been extremely happy with my experience here. there are about 5-6 weeks (total guess) that you're hating life. and there aren't too many "cush" rotations where you're getting off at 2 every day. let's face it, anesthesia lends itself to disgruntled people because there's always someone who's the last one to go home.

positives are still: no trauma (most nights get some sleep on call), high end training (peds hosp, cards, ICU, regional, pain), name recog

PACU is still an issue (admittedly a huge one). if i were an intern coming in or a med student who just matched, i'd be patient. remember, people aren't exactly going to "vent" on a chat site about their good days. would i choose columbia again? probably, but again, that's just the opinion of one, and should be taken as just that.
 
does anyone have any new/changed impressions of columbia? i was totally pumped up abou this program until i found this thread from the search menu.
 
jimdoc said:
Columbia had a chance to rise a few years back with the increase in interest in anesthesia. I almost went there, but opted for another NYC big program. thank god. My brother is there now as a CA-1. Chinochulo is a CA-3. My brother is attempting to transfer as fast as possible. He is constantly there until 7pm not on call..rason why??? He spends over three hours per day waiting for beds in the pacu. Imagine finishing a case at 4:30, and everyone else leaves...surgeon, nurse, etc.....but you. Then you wait until 7pm to get a spot in the pacu. Not too bad???? Well, then figure you have a few post-ops and perhaps a pre-op to see........see you at 10pm not on call.
He also complains about the new residency coordinator, and mostly about the residency director. Anything but a resident advocate. Socially handicapped. what else...let me ask, i live with him.......
Oh, **** call rooms........OB call....how about coming in at 7pm, pulling ob call until 7am, then heading to the main or's to do cases till 7pm. think i am kidding, page the chief and ask him yourself. 917-899-1635.
The OB sevice is a bunch of freaks.
cardiac.....well he has not done that yet, so i can not say. It is soo bad he is contemplating returning to medicine.........If you have matched there and are heading into a prelim year, try to get another spot somewhere else. From what my brother says, the CA-1 morale is in the ****ter....
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i can see why that would make sense after I interviewed there. :laugh:
 
i actually liked my interview. i did find it interesting that a resident there did confirm some of the things said in this forum. i like the program, i love the city and the neighborhood, and the opportunities the program offer (esp no trauma). i read this forum and it is very discouraging. another funny thing, a resident told me i'd be happier at another program. i know to take things with grain of salt and to experience things for yourself, but still, a bit discouraging. basically im trying to decide whether i want to suck it up so i can live in the city or go to another great city and be happy. oh the drama of the match.
 
i actually liked my interview. i did find it interesting that a resident there did confirm some of the things said in this forum. i like the program, i love the city and the neighborhood, and the opportunities the program offer (esp no trauma). i read this forum and it is very discouraging. another funny thing, a resident told me i'd be happier at another program. i know to take things with grain of salt and to experience things for yourself, but still, a bit discouraging. basically im trying to decide whether i want to suck it up so i can live in the city or go to another great city and be happy. oh the drama of the match.

any more resident input would be very helpful and great.
 
Soon2BENT said:
i actually liked my interview. i did find it interesting that a resident there did confirm some of the things said in this forum. i like the program, i love the city and the neighborhood, and the opportunities the program offer (esp no trauma). i read this forum and it is very discouraging. another funny thing, a resident told me i'd be happier at another program. i know to take things with grain of salt and to experience things for yourself, but still, a bit discouraging. basically im trying to decide whether i want to suck it up so i can live in the city or go to another great city and be happy. oh the drama of the match.

any more resident input would be very helpful and great.
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Same here, I actually really enjoyed my interview at Columbia, and had a nice enough impression of the program to possibly bring it up to #3 on my list. However, reading about this past issue, which although past, is quite discouraging in regards to the administration's response to whatever problems might arise in the future. Problems arise in any program, but how the problem is handled and addressed is of great importance, imo.

I too would really appreciate any further info on this.
 
chicamedica said:
Same here, I actually really enjoyed my interview at Columbia, and had a nice enough impression of the program to possibly bring it up to #3 on my list. However, reading about this past issue, which although past, is quite discouraging in regards to the administration's response to whatever problems might arise in the future. Problems arise in any program, but how the problem is handled and addressed is of great importance, imo.

I too would really appreciate any further info on this.
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Okay- these posts are getting ridiculous. Here is the current scoop on Columbia. I'm sitting here with three other residents ready to comment.

PACU waiting times: Almost non-existant since I started 7 months ago. Usually not an issue, 5 minutes wait at most.

Call schedule: Very reasonable. 2-3 long calls per month. 3-5 short calls per month. Most weekends completely off. Most CA-1 days out by 5pm, even after doing pre-ops. Some rotations seem to have you being relieved later (regional), there was a month when I was typically leaving 6-7pm not on call. Sleep through call 60% of time after finishing cases around 11pm. Off the next day promptly at 7am. For the CA-3s, team captain call is great. Come in 4pm, leave 7am, post-call day off. Anyone looking to finish work at 2pm every day as a resident doesn't deserve the responsibility we are saddled with as anesthesiologists.

This nonsense about OB call starting at 7pm, ending at 7am, with a regular OR day to follow is total BS. OB call runs 5pm-7am weekdays, 7am-7am weekends/holidays. A few of the attendings are kind of nuts, but most are great. Every program has 'crazy' attendings who you won't get along with.

Cases: Great cases mixed in with bread & butter. Tons of major ortho, neuro, vascular, cardio, pulmonary, and transplant cases. Surgeons are a mixed bag. Some are great to work with, a few suck. Probably true everywhere else.

ICU experience: Sickest of the sick. You will work HARD and become a better doctor here. Call is not easy. In the SICU call is from 1pm-1pm. You will be up all night, and rounding all day. This sucks, but you do learn a lot. The only lifestyle benefit is that you can go out the night before call and sleep in. Regular days run 7am-4pm.

Tons of money for books, confrences, palm pilots, and moonlighting (2nd year, must complete OB). Airway course with minimal OR responsibilities, get to play with all the cool toys, and lecture 1-2 hrs/day. Lots of interview dinners with applicants twice weekly during the season. Each is like a free party for the department with great food and an open bar. I would trade this for catered lunch every day in Milstein, but not my call. I doubt it affects people's ranking decisions much.

Weaknesses: Administration get the job done, but only adequately. Others are pretty accurate in their assessment. Could be A LOT better. Teaching is almost non-existant. CA-1's have one powerpoint lecture per week. You get relieved from the OR at 4pm for this lecture and they feed you pizza. If you don't like lectures, this is a plus. Sometimes we don't get relieved on time, but it's tolerable.
 
powermd said:
Okay- these posts are getting ridiculous. Here is the current scoop on Columbia. I'm sitting here with three other residents ready to comment.

PACU waiting times: Almost non-existant since I started 7 months ago. Usually not an issue, 5 minutes wait at most.

Call schedule: Very reasonable. 2-3 long calls per month. 3-5 short calls per month. Most weekends completely off. Most CA-1 days out by 5pm, even after doing pre-ops. Some rotations seem to have you being relieved later (regional), there was a month when I was typically leaving 6-7pm not on call. Sleep through call 60% of time after finishing cases around 11pm. Off the next day promptly at 7am. For the CA-3s, team captain call is great. Come in 4pm, leave 7am, post-call day off. Anyone looking to finish work at 2pm every day as a resident doesn't deserve the responsibility we are saddled with as anesthesiologists.

This nonsense about OB call starting at 7pm, ending at 7am, with a regular OR day to follow is total BS. OB call runs 5pm-7am weekdays, 7am-7am weekends/holidays. A few of the attendings are kind of nuts, but most are great. Every program has 'crazy' attendings who you won't get along with.

Cases: Great cases mixed in with bread & butter. Tons of major ortho, neuro, vascular, cardio, pulmonary, and transplant cases. Surgeons are a mixed bag. Some are great to work with, a few suck. Probably true everywhere else.

ICU experience: Sickest of the sick. You will work HARD and become a better doctor here. Call is not easy. In the SICU call is from 1pm-1pm. You will be up all night, and rounding all day. This sucks, but you do learn a lot. The only lifestyle benefit is that you can go out the night before call and sleep in. Regular days run 7am-4pm.

Tons of money for books, confrences, palm pilots, and moonlighting (2nd year, must complete OB). Airway course with minimal OR responsibilities, get to play with all the cool toys, and lecture 1-2 hrs/day. Lots of interview dinners with applicants twice weekly during the season. Each is like a free party for the department with great food and an open bar. I would trade this for catered lunch every day in Milstein, but not my call. I doubt it affects people's ranking decisions much.

Weaknesses: Administration get the job done, but only adequately. Others are pretty accurate in their assessment. Could be A LOT better. Teaching is almost non-existant. CA-1's have one powerpoint lecture per week. You get relieved from the OR at 4pm for this lecture and they feed you pizza. If you don't like lectures, this is a plus. Sometimes we don't get relieved on time, but it's tolerable.
Click to expand...

Thanks for such an informative post. Like others I also got a great impression about the program during my interview day.
1.What do you think of intraoperative teaching?
2.Do you have time to read?
 
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