Interview-Trail Impressions

Do you care to start? Mine don't begin until December.

darkchocolate said:

Now that most of the interview invites are out, the next hot topic seems to be interviews themselves. To help each other out, let's share our experiences and impressions of the settings, schools, and interviews themselves...

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Rush
This was my first interview, so nothing to really compare it to. What struck me most was how satisfied the residents were with the program. Every resident I saw went out of their way to say how much they enjoyed being at Rush. Plus they all seemed to like eachother, so camaraderie is good. Yea, this could be BS but it seemed genuine. The program director seemed open and approachable. The facilities were really nice, plus they have an Au Bon Pain open 24 hours. There is research going on there, and a 1 month research elective is available, however not sure how much variety there is (probably dependent on department). As far as the program itself, there are two types of general inpatient services, ward vs. private. The private patient service type didn't seem that bad, as most private physician groups now have hospitalists, plus only residents can write orders so they have to go through you. Overall I am more impressed with the program now than my initial impressions before the interview.

Interviewed there last week, I was overall very impressed with the program. PD was very nice, energetic and friendly. Seemed very committed to resident education and mentoring. We sat in on morning report which was small, all the residents participated. The department chair stopped by to say hello, and we were told he attends intern rounds weekly which was impressive to me. The hospital facilities were pretty standard hospital but certainly no worse than what you would find in any large academic institution. The residents were very friendly, approachable, and seemed like a cohesive group. There are a lot of "tracks" available (Women's health, global health, etc) as well as "pathways" (clinical scientist, etc). They got a little confusing but if you are interested in a particular track there was a lot of available information. I am interested in Women's Health and I got a very positive impression of that group. Lots of female leadership in the department, and the Women's Health program is more than just one physician and some electives, it is a well-developed program. Pittsburgh was a surprise, seemed like a nice city. There are residential neighborhoods close to downtown and the hospital that are affordable for residents, seems like there is a lot to do in the city itself.

Overall, I thought Pitt seemed like an ambitious program with a lot of opportunities. The chair just started there, came from BID, and he said he left Boston for Pitt because "BID is the present but Pitt is the future". The atmosphere was supportive without being overbearing, lots of research and educational opportunities. I will probably rank them highly.

I'm probably one of the least secretive people here on SDN. The University of Minnesota is my home program and was my first interview. I'll admit my bias up front - I think it's a wonderful program. I'm honestly hesitant to leave the UofM because they have so many wonderful faculty members who are superb teachers and great people. I know I'd be very happy to stay, but as some of you know I'm applying all over because I've spent too many years in Minnesota and plan to return but feel it might be best if I get some training elsewhere for a while. I hope what I say doesn't come back to haunt me, but I feel I should post an honest assessment since I found last year's "Interview Experiences" thread to be so useful. I'll try to be as objective as possible below. So without further ado...

The Program Director is new this year. The previous PD was promoted to the #2 spot within the medical school when we got a new dean, and they just recently hired a new program director. He was recruited from the US Army, where he was a PD and turned one of their worst IM programs into one of the best, and from my understanding of Army IM programs there is much variability in IM residencies. I do know that he was definitely recruited to come here. Overall he was not as knowledgeable about the program as I had hoped, but I suppose that's expected when you're new. He's clearly interested in changing things, and everybody I've talked to who's interacted with him is impressed with his energy, and he's obviously open to all people for suggestions and ideas. Residents report that he's already had a small impact but reaffirming that during "pull" months residents need to be available to come in to cover for a sick colleague within 90 minutes. Apparently some residents have been able to talk their way out of coming in, which frustrated others. One of the things he's planning on doing is starting up a MKSAP-based board review series, similar to what he ran in his previous program.

The Chair - Dr. Ravdin is one of the longest seated chairs in the country (11 years, longer than 97% of all chairs of medicine), offsetting the newness of the PD. He intentionally shrunk the program by 20-25% 10 years ago in order to force the hospitals to rely on non-resident physician labor to make sure that resident education comes before resident service. He strongly feels that overnight call is a thing of the past and over the next few years is hiring 100 hospitalists to make it happen. At numerous occasions, including on the radio, he has said that by July 1, 2007 overnight call will not exist in the program (except for those on night float). They have already eliminated overnight call on most services except subspecialty services at Fairview (two heme/onc teams, two cards teams, and an ICU team that rotates call q5), cardiology at the VA, and a team at Regions, although this is changing and my info may be out of date. Dr. Ravdin can come off as less than warm and fuzzy, and he's definitely passionate about some things - like insisting that you refer to drugs by their drug name, not brand name. He clearly cares about his residents. He's also openly talks about his intentions to make the U of M the premier IM training program in the upper midwest, and he's apparently got the support of the medical school, hospitals, and greater university.

Residents - residents seem as happy here as anywhere and camraderie seems strong. There are large groups that regularly go out, and despite the 3 hospital system the classes are small enough so that it seems everybody knows everybody else. Residents are mostly from the midwest, with 4-8 FMGs per year out of 28, and a few from DO schools and usually around 8 from the UofM's medical school. In years past there would have been many more UofM medical students matching here, but the Minneapolis County hospital (HCMC) and a local private hospital (Abbott Northwestern) in years past have been popular for various reasons. The FMGs tend to be from universities abroad that have formal or semi-formal educational programs with the UofM, and their students are very bright and do a nice job. A small number of other FMG residents were fully trained abroad, some even having sub-sub specialized in their home countries. The U also has a Med-Peds program, which I understand is one of the oldest and perhaps best in the country. I've always been very impressed with the Med-Peds residents, who I feel substantively add to the program.

Faculty - yes, faculty love to teach, bla bla bla. What I think is worth mentioning though is that the relationship between attendings and residents tends to be good. It is rare to hear about an attending yelling at anybody (the only time I've heard of this, it was a surgery attending yelling at a medicine resident). Some attendings are warm and fuzzy who go out to dinner and a movie with their residents after each rotation, others are less warn and fuzzy. With so many faculty members it's hard to generalize.

Conferences - on my interview day we went and saw an M&M, which by tradition involves a packed auditorium and a step-by-step case presentation by the Chief Residents where the faculty are picked on to give their initial DDx, workup, next steps, etc. Very well attended, lots of good laughs, and nothing like seeing your attending struggle through a tough case that turns out to be some strange disease. Morning reports are also well attended and complete with coffee of course; most residents on most rotations have time to attend if they wish. Resident participation ranges from medium to intense, and includes medical students, interns, and residents, and from what I can tell there is little to no hesitation to speak up. To give students and interns more of a chance one day per week is "student & intern report" where they get first crack at the early parts of the case, which are the same across all three sites and conclude with a brief power point presentation by the chiefs. The chair attends morning report at the U 3 days/week, and the PD attends at each site one day/week, and on other days there's always an engaged faculty member who's been invited. Grand Rounds on Thursdays are usually a nationally-known presenter and tend to be very well attended as well. There are other noon conferences for residents, but occasionally there won't be a speaker and it will just be food and social hour.

Sites: the U covers 3 sites, Regions (a county-HMO hospital partnership), the Minneapolis VA, and Univ. of Minnesota Medical Center - Fairview. Faculty claim that the 3 site system gives you great variety in patient populations, faculty, practice types, etc, and makes for the best educational experience. The down-side is that it's 3 systems with different computer systems, locations, populations, nursing staff, etc. Yes, there have been some residents known to drive to the wrong hospital on the first day of a new rotation. I guess this is a personal thing.

The VA is a referral VA, so they seen some specialized cases, including all angiograms for the multi-state area and at least most ERCPs. I was under the impression that all VAs look the same, but the associate PD at the VA clearly said otherwise, and the out of town applicants agreed that the Minneapolis VA is much nicer than theirs. The Minneapolis VA also has a pretty strong research tradition, being the home of the screening guidelines for AAA, various vaccine studies, a national leader in tobacco, and a few other things I'm forgetting. And of course, it has the immensely grateful veterans that we all know and love who treat the medical student or intern or resident like their primary doctor on the team (depending on who's seeing them). Like everywhere else, the VA uses CPRS, love it or hate it (I personally really like it), and the infectious disease section gets heavy local input from our ID and Pharm staff about antibiotic resistance patterns so running through their computer-based system is really tailed or our patients. The VA nurses definitely seem to be the least proficient mong the Twin Cities Hospitals, although the only complaints I've heard more than once is that they're more likely to page you over stupid stuff than nurses at other institutions.

Regions Hospital is not included on the tour. It was "taken over" about 10 years ago by a large HMO who runs it as their referral hospital and it also serves as the county hospital of St. Paul complete with an active ED that gets cases flow in from much of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Regions has just switched over to Epic for an EMR, and I'm told everything works reasonably well. All of the Regions patients the IM residents see are seen by a hospitalist service, one of the oldest in the country, which has both a teaching and non-teaching service. Only a selected subset of the hospitalists are allowed to work on the teaching service, with many more interested in doing so than there is room for, and getting to do so is based on resident evaluations. They do and have removed attendings from the teaching service who's resident evaluations weren't up to par. The only downside of Regions is that the quality of the ICU doctors seems to vary, ranging from very good to less than pleasant. Regions is in downtown St. Paul, perhaps a 15 minute drive from the U of M Campus.

Univ. of Minnesota Medical Center - Fairview, recently renamed from Fairview-University Medical Center, is located on the campus of the Univ of Minnesota. Like most university hospitals, it specializes in the zebras and weird, including a variety of transplant programs including of the oldest and biggest major bone marrow transplant programs. The facility is relatively new, having been built in the late 1980's IIRC and is nice enough. UMMC has a variety of computer systems in place and still uses paper order entry and daily charts, which I personally find rather annoying. The outpatient clinics use Allscripts, which is a pretty usable program IMO but it's annoying having so many different programs to use (at least 4 inpatient, up to 7 if you need to see echos and other tests). UMMC recently seems to have backtracked in its efforts to get a single, unified EMR, and the Chair said that he doesn't know when it will be clarified.

The U is planning a merger with Abbott Northwestern. It was supposed to happen for this match, but it's been delayed at least another year. Both programs promise that it will have no substantive impact on those who match this year. There are already residents from both programs doing electives at the other program.

Location - yes, it's cold up here. If you can't stand a few days of below zero weather, this isn't the place for you. On the other hand, if you love camping, biking, skiing, rollerblading, etc this is a great state for you. Minnesota is one of the healthiest states in the US, generally well-educated, the most insured state in the US, and the most mature in terms of the managed care revolution (we went through it before anybody else, starting in the early 198os) so by now it's not a big deal. Public transportation is decent around Minneapolis, but it's really a car town. Residents live all over the Twin Cities, from some of the more posh suburbs to downtown.

Schedule - they claim that they allow more elective time than anybody else, and they offer a huge variety of elective options at the various sites. There are 4 months of elected in the G2 year, and 1.5 months of electives intern year. It's hard to tell if the new schedules are really reducing the number of hours the residents are working - some note missing the post-call afternoon off and don't really think they work any fewer hours now. There's also concern about using night float and multiple patient hand-offs. Their schedules are frequently changing so it's hard to tell exactly what you're signing up for, as they admit, but it's because they're always working to improve the schedule. While true, and probably a good sign that the dept. is anything but complacent, it's also a bit scary since you don't know exactly what you're signing up for.

Tracks: The U has a number of tracks, including a Global Health Track, Physician Scientist Track, and I believe a Women's Health track (IIRC). The Global Health Track is the only program that the CDC runs in conjunction with a university, consists of a number of lectures and seminars that you can do without extending your residency, and offers the chance to sit for the tropical medicine/travel medicine certificate at the end, which apparently typically requires very expensive coursework abroad. Regions offers a lot of international exposure given that the Twin Cities is the home of the largest Somali population outside of Somalia and a major Hmong population, and their have a few very well-regarded international health experts. The Physician Scientist track is relatively new, with their first group of residents now in their second year IIRC. They anticipate that most of their residents in this track will apply after their first year, and it guarantees them a fellowship slot.

Research - it can't be overlooked that the IM program is part of a larger university, one of the largest in the US and one of the top 3 public research universities. The University of Minnesota has well respected schools of medicine, nursing, dentisty, public health, veterinary medicine, and pharmacy, all within the Academic Health Center, not to mention large departments of biological sciences, a top engineering school, etc etc. Between the amount of elective time, non-call time, and research time within a large research university, I can see why they claim to be one of the most research-friendly programs. I had a less than positive experience getting time and money to present some research as a medical student, so I'm asking every program I'm interviewing at about policies about giving residents time off and funding to present accepted work at conferences. The night before at dinner I asked a Chief Resident, who said that you get a certain amount of "sick" days/days off and can use those for traveling to conferences but you need to arrange for coverage if on a rotation; no specific funds for research travel but can use your $600 educational funds for that. Not exactly what I was hoping to hear. When I asked the PD I was told that residents would be helped arranging coverage and would be fully funded to go. I'm guessing the different answers are either because it's rare enough for residents to go present posters and/or the new PD has a new policy.

Fellowships - about 70% of the residents go on to fellowships. The chair is known to make personal phone calls for his residents applying for fellowships, although looking at the match list (see below for link) I don't see a trail of residents going to where he came from for ID. He does regularly meet with the residents throughout their training to help guide them. I know the most about the cardiology match, and apparently we had a ton of residents last year who wanted to do cards and we matched all but one who is an FMG who only applied to a few places, turned down some interviews, and was ambivalent about taking a year off to work. Faculty that I've talked to in cardiology say that they do preferentially take fellows from their own program, which is clearly reflected in their match list. Looking at the match list, at least in cardiology, I'm honestly not impressed. Over 8 years they only sent one resident to Mayo? One to UCSF? Out of 28, 12 went to the UofM which I suppose is good since it shows that the cardiology folks are comfortable with the UofM residents but I'm a bit worried that other programs are not. The dept of cardiology is also without a chair right now, although I'm not sure if that's a big deal or not. On a brighter note, we seem to have a clear trend of sending pulm/cc folks to Colorado.

Overall Impression: Solid program with 100% ABIM 3 year pass rate, good fellowhsip placement with 65% of their grads subspecializing in something or the other. 15% in the last 5 years of all their grads matched into Cardiology with most staying in the RTP area. Minimal opportunities to do research.

Logistical Info and Bad First Interview Anecdote: Interviewed last week. Day started at 730ish ended at 2ish. Programmatically, the day did not run very smoothly with the administrative staff rushingly taking us to our interviews from the main conference room. Everyone seemed to start their interviews at least 10-15 minutes late as far as I could appreciate. Everyone in my group had two interviews scheduled, both in the morning, although administrative staff told me that in some cases they just schedule one interview, depending on how large the group size is. My first interviewer was half an hour late and had not reviewed my application before I arrived for the interview, and clearly had very little experience interviewing applicants. The combination of him not knowing much about me and my nervousness (this was my first interview on the interview trail) turned into a down-right horrible experience with long awkward silences. Did not help that others seemingly had much better experiences with their interviewers. While he was trying to organize his paper-work, I glimpsed the evaluation form that interviewers were given to evaluate applicants. It was a numbered evaluation form from 4-1; 4 being outstanding, 3 being "acceptable" 2 being "unacceptable" etc. Interviewers were asked to write out 1-paragraph assessment of candidates. The PD later informed us that they evaluate and rank all their applicants at the end of the interview season in late January, so whether you interview late or ealy doesn't matter, so long as you interview. It was clear that the committee that met to evaluate applicants just added the sheets the interviewers turned in to your application portfolio; this is in contrast to what I've heard regarding these residency selection committees, where your interviewer effectively serves as your advocate to the committee during live committee meetings to discuss candidates. I am unsure how this will effect my chances, UNC was high on my list before this interview... luckily my second interview went much, much better than the first.

The PD: The residents themselves described the PD as not the most charismatic guy in the world. He is a straight shooter, relies heavily on the fairness of the match, and strongly feels as though it is not necessary to do any post-interview correspondance with any applicants. They rank their candidates, we rank our schools and the match takes care of all the rest. Any other effort to go beyond that was totally not his style. Take it or leave it... but the end result was that I liked the way he was and his fairness approach to the match. I have nothing to compare him too, but we saw remarkably little of him throughout the day, he did say that he read all the applications but didn't spend anytime schmoozing with any of the applicants during the day.

The Residents: Nice, collegial batch of folk. Friendly. I was underwhelmed, however by the morning report, which they raved was their "best teaching conference"... the resident presenting knew little about his patient and I *felt* (can't confirm of course) that he was actually making him laboratory data when the group pimped him on some values that he clearly had not written down on his prep sheet! Small things, but I thought I would point them out.

Research: This is important to me because I've spent quite some time as a med-student doing it. Very little protected time in the traditional tract to do research; They only really have two "special months" in the entire 3 years of residency where you can really do whatever your little heart desires. Very few "electives" (in the classical sense) exist in the UNC model, and this time is instead is really taken up by assigned subspecialty and consult months which you have to do. This was unusual because we were inundated with information about how many residents in the program presented at national meetings and wrote papers but it was really unclear when these people had time to do all this research to begin with! First interview so I don't really know how much time other programs take out to allow residents to do research.

Program Itself: Emphasis on training well-qualified general internists. 9 months q4 call PGY1. Easier your R2 and R3 year. Interesting ward months where there are only 2 GM services in the whole hospital and as an intern you spend more time rotating through sub-speciality services during your ward months then on these 2 GM services. For example, you spend a whole month on the renal service, then go to the cardiology services, then go to the hem/onc service, then to the ID service. Very little of your time is spent just doing general internal medicine on the wards it seems. The overall effect however is that after you have rotated through these services during your intern year you are well trained in many fields.

Final Thoughts: Good overall impression, concern about enough time to do research. Worried about the importance of the interview, given the fact that I botched my first one

Acadet, You seem very fair and unbiased, but you are being TOO TOO hard for your program not placing more people into Mayo or UCSF or high level cardiology places. I mean, its cardiology and you're looking at selective places. By that point in life people are 29-30 (at the least) and won't always be able to ship up and move from Minnesota to San Francisco. Michigan might seem like a family-friendly, good choice. Perhaps people begin to understand that Mayo is best if you want to go into academia/research and they'd rather look at patient care.....

But, damn, that was still an excellent post.

Went to Temple recently as my first interview, so like others, don't have much to judge against. Location wise, it's certainly not in the nicest part of town, which everyone conceded. However, they said this allowed for great pathology, and it really never interfered with safety. Most residents lived in center city or the museum district, so they didn't really consider this when picking the program. The PD was very energetic, friendly, and engaging. It was clear that she had invested herself into maintaining and improving the residency program. She was active in the didactic sessions, receptive to resident concerns, and did not shy away from issues which she perceived needed improvement. I don't think she was putting on a show either, just for the sake of recruitment. The residents seemed genuinely happy, with most commenting that they'd rank the program #1 again if they had to do it all over. They all commented on the camraderie and friendships they developed, and were convinced that was the best thing about the program. Not much negative vibes overall. The case selection seemed fairly varied, with some reputed deparments having zebras. Fellowship placement was better than expected with several people getting cards and GI. Overall impression- would never have considered the program before, but the interview day really impressed me. The PD was fantastic and the residents, though they worked hard, had enjoyed both their learning experience and friends they made. Worth a look for anyone who has received an interivew invitation there.

letusbedocs said:

Acadet, You seem very fair and unbiased, but you are being TOO TOO hard for your program not placing more people into Mayo or UCSF or high level cardiology places. I mean, its cardiology and you're looking at selective places. By that point in life people are 29-30 (at the least) and won't always be able to ship up and move from Minnesota to San Francisco. Michigan might seem like a family-friendly, good choice. Perhaps people begin to understand that Mayo is best if you want to go into academia/research and they'd rather look at patient care.....

But, damn, that was still an excellent post.

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Thanks. Yeah, good point about being too harsh. I only pick on Mayo and UCSF because those were the only "top tier" cardiology matches. I also think interview day, even though it was the first Friday interview day of the season, should have run a little more smoothly, though it didn't impact the day much so I omitted that. I guess I just have very high expectations from a program that I think is really filled with caring, talented, dedicated educators.

In some ways it's a little difficult to determine how "good" a program is based on fellowship placement alone. I can imagine that a lot of people who go to UMinn may just want to stay in the area - maybe they've got a house, family etc. etc. Unfortunately as you become older things get a bit more complicated and you can't always get up and move your family to Boston or SanFran and then live in a dingy apartment.

I'd love to go to Boston, but it's a ton of $...same w/ SanFran and SanDiego etc. I wish residents got paid more!

Great post though - Uminn should put it on their website!

Wow, I think that was the most exhaustive entry I've seen on these forums, Adcadet. I would agree that Minnesota is a great programs, but for a little more diversity of opinion here are a few more data points, which are in addition to the already stated positives of the program.

Pos:
great city, several different tracks available as a resident--but do you really have time for that??, strong education emphasis, financially solid

Negs:
new PD, medium size program that may or may not increase its size by 30% next year (they were supposedly going to do that this year by merging with Abbott), some faculty appear more committed to research than teaching

+/-:
significant %age of FMGs, three sites to rotate through, very directive PD

Roadrunner said:

Wow, I think that was the most exhaustive entry I've seen on these forums, Adcadet....

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Thanks. I agree with your assessment, but what do you mean by "directive" PD?

I realize it is still early in the season, but given the sheer volume of interview offers posted in the "Interviews" thread on SDN from this year, I'm sure folks have hit the interview trail and are just not posting their impressions. It would really be invaluable to hear of people's experiences on the interview trail.

Especially curious about Case Western since that is my most immediate one coming up. But curious about other schools as well.

Post!

JAPrufrock said:

I realize it is still early in the season, but given the sheer volume of interview offers posted in the "Interviews" thread on SDN from this year, I'm sure folks have hit the interview trail and are just not posting their impressions. It would really be invaluable to hear of people's experiences on the interview trail.

Especially curious about Case Western since that is my most immediate one coming up. But curious about other schools as well.

Post!

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people may be concerned about anonymity (pd's do visit this site). what i did last year was i waited until mid-season, then posted a bunch of reviews at once. leave out personal info (home program, exact scores) if you don't want to be id'd! not that i think anybody would really put that much time into trying to figure out who you are.

Case Western-
PD is awesome - real nice guy. The residents are real laid back and friendly. It seems as though faculty and residents have a great working relationship. Residents match well coming from this program. 2 matched at the Cleveland Clinic for cardiology. Cleveland is a real affordable city which is nice on a resident salary. I think the program would be much more competitive if it was in a "popular" city like Chicago, but overall I think the residency training is very strong.

Adcadet,

Did Dr Browne (the new PD) pay you to write this or do you have a stock at U of M?
Just kidding... I know how much you love U of M... and honestly, I do think this is a great post! Most of it is well stated, and I'll have to agree with most of it.

Google

Disclaimer - So, like my University of Minnesota review, I'll put in a disclaimer/warning that I'm a University of Minnesota medical student, and I actually worked around the Dept. of Medicine at HCMC for a few years before medical school. Because of my exposure to HCMC before medical school, I opted to do my medicine rotations elsewhere, so ironically I don't have much first-hand knowledge of the HCMC medicine program.

Overall I left feeling like it's a program that is really committed to their service mission and education. It's definitely resident-run. When patients are being admitted, it's always the resident who is called first. The quality of the residents seems to be about at the level of the U, perhaps slightly less depending on the year. I'm not sure if I like or dislike the single hospital system. Epic transition will likely be about over by the time we arrive I hope, although I'm not sure they have enough computers around. EIP is interesting, though it's really an experiment, but they seem to do more ambulatory and non-call months than anybody else, which I guess is a plus. I'm turned off by the idea of doing more social work than medicine, although I'm not sure that's actually true and it's hard for me to say since I've never actually done medicine at HCMC. I left thinking that it's a solid program with great camaraderie who's graduates are well prepared to take care of very sick patients, and one where you can go on to a good fellowship if motivated all while having a really good time in a very supportive environment.

The Program Director - From previous interactions with her she seems a little reserved but very nice, and the residents and students seem to like her a lot. She was in Costa Rica during my interview working with a hospital that they have a close association with. It's cool that she visits, but I was disappointed that she would not be present during an interview day, especially because I had many questions about the Educational Innovation Project that nobody seemed to know much about. She later emailed all of us explaining her absence and offering to talk to anybody. From what I can tell it's an initiative to allow solid IM programs to break from the ACGME guidelines to try to improve resident education at least partially through competency-based education. I was told that 80 IM residencies were considered candidates for the EIP and 17 programs were chosen for Phase 1 . Phase 2 is now beginning, and HCMC is part of Phase 2 as well. The 3 core areas for the HCMC EIP are "immersion" which mostly involves breaking up ambulatory/out-patient medicine from ward/inpatient months so residents can focus more on each during those blocks, "interconnection" in which residents take an active role in practice-based learning and improvement and systems change focusing on community connection, ambulatory practice quality, and hospitalized patient safety, and "refinement" which is an interactive evaluation system.

The Chair - Dr. Davies is a HCMC "lifer" of sorts, as he did his residency at HCMC. He's a pulmonary/critical care guy, and does a lot of teaching, both in the second year curriculum at the University of Minnesota, and with the residents as he actively attends frequently on the wards and in the ICU. A very nice guy who clearly cares a lot for the program and residents. The meeting with him was basically a time for each applicant to briefly say where they're from and what they want to do in life, and he then goes over the letter from the residency webpage. He did mention that it requires some work for residents anywhere to go into cardiology or GI, with the ratio of applicants to fellowship lots at about 10:1 and 5:1, respectively. He didn't come out and say it, but he seemed to be suggesting that if you're interested in one of the competitive fellowships you need to be prepared to work hard to get it.

Residents - residents at HCMC are the closest group of residents I've seen anywhere. They have a shared mission and set of values, and they seem to frequently go out together and have a good time. I can say from personal experience that if you see a slightly rowdy group at a conference, it's probably the Hennepin Crew having a good time. Hennepin grads seem to frequently continue to hang out with current and former HCMC people, and many staff members at HCMC were residents themselves including the Chair and PD. The residents mostly come from the midwest, with the largest feeder school being the University of Minnesota because, as the Chair says, they rotate through HCMC and get to experience the place and fall in love with it. Having watched UofMinn students over the years match at various places, this is definitely true. Out of~20 slots, UofMinn grads usually fill about half, a quarter are FMGs, and a quarter are from other US med schools including DO schools. In the hospital the HCMC residents aren't the most formal; men frequently are seen wearing a shirt without a tie.

Faculty - the faculty at HCMC are not there for the prestige, or the money, or for an easy life. They are there for one of two reasons: they love to serve the underserved, and/or they love to teach. Usually it's both. HCMC is a major teaching institution, from MS1-2s just practicing H&Ps, to MS3-4s doing their core and elective rotations, to transitional residents, to categorical IM residents, to fellows in almost every IM subspecialty. I've never heard of a truely bad experience with a medicine attending at HCMC. The relationship between residents and faculty is great.

Patients - HCMC is the safety net hospital for Hennepin County, including Minneapolis and many of the surrounding areas, and the patients are frequently poor and underserved, and there's a significant number of recent immigrants who are seen at HCMC. In the Twin Cities, and heck, probably in all of Minnesota, HCMC is the "roughest" hospital in terms of seeing the most poor/drug-using/under-served patients. Of all true county hospitals HCMC probably has the highest percentage of patients with some insurance, however, since we tend to have the highest percentage of insured patients, partly due to good employers and partly due to Minnesota Care. HCMC has "great pathology" because many of the patients have by choice or necessity avoided or not received medical care for way too long. Residents do admit that sometimes it is challenging working with the population, including the frequent need for translators, the lack of primary care for many patients and the reliance on the ED for most medical care, and difficult dispo issues when patients are homeless. If you're interested in working with people with diseases that tend to disproportionately affect the poor, HCMC is your place. HCMC has a great Level 1 trauma center, the first in Minnesota and a national leader in ED education; working with the ED is generally regarded as a good experience and the facilities are gorgeous and the ED EMR is great. If a critically ill patient needs lines, I've been told that the ED will happily do that for the MICU team though they won't if you would prefer to do that yourself in the MICU. As a first year you spend a month in the ED, and then you return your senior year to do a month as a "pit boss." HCMC does have a slot for an IM/EM resident each year IIRC.

Conferences - HCMC has morning report each weekday, complete with Peace/Fair Trade Coffee. Their previous Peace Coffee was apparently too corporate, so they now deal directly with a farmer in Costa Rica. My morning report during my interview day had so-so resident participation, and the faculty ended up dominating the conversation about the DDx, although maybe this was because a visiting prof was in the audience who was later giving Grand Rounds. I'm not sure if faculty typically end up taking over morning report or if what I saw was because of the visiting professor. Dr. Davies, Chair of Medicine, attends each morning report unless he's out of town. Medicine Grand Rounds is once per week which tends to be well attended by all sort of people (not just from the Dept of Medicine), and they have core conferences 7:45-8:30 according to the website.

Sites/Facilities: the HCMC residency is almost entirely at HCMC. There are a few elective rotations at other hospitals, including subspecialty rotations at the University of Minnesota. But a major feature of this program is that it's basically a single-site program. The residents seem to really like this, as they never have to figure out where they're going this week, and they know most people in the hospital. Those going to fellowships aren't worried as they'll usually cover multiple hospitals during fellowship training. HCMC is transitioning to Epic for it's EMR, and so far it seems to be working well. As of now all notes and orders are still written in the chart, with Epic having dictations of admission H&Ps, discharge summaries, ED notes through a PDF viewer, and lab results. Soon they'll be adding CPOE. Right now they just barely seem to have enough computers, and many of them are older with not so nice CRTs. Abbott Northwestern, where I did a medicine rotation, was the first hospital in the Twin Cities to switch to Epic, and they honestly seem to have a nicer implementation - many more computers available, nice computers, great tech support, and CPOE - of course, this could all be a reflection of the increased amount of time they've had to switch, and/or the fact that their a private hospital. HCMC is a true county hospital, but from what I've been told, it's probably one of the nicer inner-city county hospital in the US. The major clinical areas were built in the 1980s IIRC, and are generally in good condition. It's not sparkling lie Abbott Northwestern or the Mayo Clinic, but it's not scary. As I said before, the ED is just plain gorgeous in my opinion. HCMC actually has 3 MICUs; one gigantic half-city block-sized 24-bed MICU, and two smaller 12-bed MICUs; there are 4 MICU teams that rotate call q4, one of which is the Emergency Medicine Team. Most patient rooms are doubles, unfortunately. I've never had to start an IV at HCMC nor have I ever heard of a a medical student or resident having to do so other than the few patients who the nurses can't start, and usually then they just get whoever is on "iv duty" (usually a CRNA). I've only had to transport a patient once, and that was an emergency surgery at 3 AM where we didn't want to wait for a person from transport to come up. Translators are available, although lately I've had to wait for them for a while. The cafeteria is decent but nothing special, but residents get a huge meal allowance. HCMC is consistently named as one of American's Best Hospitals by US News.

Location - (unchanged from my UofMinn assessment) yes, it's cold up here. If you can't stand a few days of below zero weather, this isn't the place for you. On the other hand, if you love camping, biking, skiing, rollerblading, etc this is a great state for you. Minnesota is one of the healthiest states in the US, generally well-educated, the most insured state in the US, and the most mature in terms of the managed care revolution (we went through it before anybody else, starting in the early 198os) so by now it's not a big deal. Public transportation is decent around Minneapolis, but it's really a car town. Residents live all over the Twin Cities, from some of the more posh suburbs to downtown.

Schedule - the schedules seems to be undergoing constant tweaking, partly because of the EIP. During the G1 year it looks like you rotate between two one-month blocks of ambulatory/outpatient medicine and two one-month blocks of inpatient medicine. They do this intentionally so you don't get burned out doing any more than 2 call months. According to their handout, you spend 6 months on ward/call months and 7 months on clinic/non-call months. Only the non-call months have continuity clinic, which during G1 year are ambulatory med, ER, endocrine, elective, geriatrics, behavioral, and medicine consults. The call months during G1 year are general medicine x2, MICU, renal x2, and cardiology. G2 and G3 years also have 7 call months and 6 non-call months. It looks like you get one elective month per year. Call is q4 during G1, but there is nightfloat for G2 and G3s who can leave at 9 PM. They have a hospitalist service that is growing, although it's not clear to me exactly who the hospitalist service takes but I was told it's frequently the non-teaching cases like co-management with ortho surg in addition to any spillover. The hospitalist and/or night float admits patients with the G1 from 9 PM to 8 AM, with the G1 admitting up to 5 patients by him/herself and the team gets a max of 10 overnight with any spillover going to the hospitalist service. Cardiology and Renal, the two busiest services, both have a dayfloat to help get the intern out by 1:30 pm. It should be pointed out that residents are put in one of 4 continuity clinic firms, that has the same residents (~20), 5 faculty members, 3 nurses, an NP, and various clerical staff. Patients stay in one firm which gives them a medical "home" of sorts. IIRC this idea was started within the past 10 years by a nurse manager, and patients and residents seem to love the clinic firm system.

Tracks: The folks at HCMC don't really believe in tracks. They do, however, participate in a Global Health program through in conjunction with the University of Minnesota and the CDC that allows residents to study abroad, take some global health seminars, and sit for the tropical medicine/travel health certification boards. So far it doesn't seem like many HCMC residents are participating as none that I talked to knew much about it.

Research - research is not a major focus for HCMC, although there are opportunities to do research if so inclined. HCMC has an in-house research arm called the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation , which is the third largest nonprofit medical research organization in Minnesota, and the US Renal Data System is housed at HCMC and brings in many fellows from the UofMinn and School of Public Health. Studies both at HCMC and MMRF range from basic science to clinical research. In 2005-6 there were 8 posters/presentations at national meetings from residents. It is unclear to me how the schedule makes research possible or makes it difficult.

Fellowships - about half the residents go on to do fellowships. The other half is pretty evenly split between entering practice in Minnesota and elsewhere. I know lately many of the HCMC grads have been hired by Abbott Northwestern's hospitalist practice. In 2007 HCMC had 8/20 go on to fellowships - 1 endocrine, 2 neph, 1 pulm/cc, 1 GI, 2 cards, and 1 ID. Between 2002 and 2007 they actually had some pretty nice matches, including Cardiology at Dartmouth, Cardiology at the UofMinn x4, GI at Yale, Onc at Mayo, Heme-Onc at Mayo, Toxicology at UCSF, Allergy at Colorado, Neph at WashU, Neph at Brigham and Women's. The most popular place for fellowships is the UofMinn, probably since HCMC is a major site for most fellowships. HCMC does have two free-standing fellowships; one 2-year fellowship in critical care, and one fellowship in geriatrics (unsure of length).

WOW,
Thats a really long assessment/ post. I wish I was that dedicated to jot down my thoughts. It will definitely make it easy come rank list time. Having done a rotation at HCMC, I know the dept a little.

Agree with most of your post, adcadet. Here is what I disagree on (just my view point)...

PD is definitely not reserved... I know more about her, than any of the other PD.

The EIP project is fabulous ..esp with the clinic stuff. Most/ all residents love it.

Most residents I talked to didn't care about research. They may present a clinical case occasionally, but thats pretty much it, unless there is an occasional dedicated person who does research to get into GI? cards... usually done outside HCMC.

There is some social medicine, but not much. Infact, it appears there is less than at the Univ of MN

Morning report is typically resident run. Must have been unusual case if Dr Davies had to chip in that much.

The remaining is pretty fair assessment. Great job.
Google.

Overall Impression: Solid, top of middle tier program. Advantages include ample elective time (6 months over 3 years) to pursue any elective or design your own elective. Flexibility inherent in schedule. Disadvantages include lack of county/underserved patient load; Hosiptal (not necessarily residency program) overshadowed by CCF.

Logistical details: Interview day very well organized with the program subsidizing cost of hotel room (large spacious suite with 2, count 'em 2 flat screen TVs). No need to rent a car because hotel shuttle takes you from the hotel to the interview site and back. Did find the cost of taxi to be a little pricey (35 to 40 dollars, one way) from airport to hotel. Pre-interview dinner well attended with house-staff that were talkative after being liquored up with free drinks. Interview day with two interviews with faculty and/or chief resident. Also, "exit interview" with the PD or one of two associate PDs. I did feel like I was interviewed three times, although I was told that the exit interview was really supposed to be relaxed, but did feel like this interview really was the most important since they were the PDs I was talking to after all. Other two interviews pretty benign.

Program itself: 6-7 months of call as an intern! Real cush compared to UNC (see post about UNC above). Also 1 month elective time as intern, also nice. 2 month elective time as an R2; 3 months elective as an R3. This is real, darn nice if you ask me, especially since you have flexibility in desinging your own elective, if you so desire. Can be reading time, can be international time, can be research in Cleveland or wherever your heart desires. Impressed with the flexibility of the program and receptiveness of the PD. PD is a charismatic, funny guy who was around the entire day and was schmoozing with many of the applicants throughout the day. PD is the president-elect of some National association of internal medicine PDs??? Haven't heard anything about this but I think this makes him especially sensitive too and responsive to residents and an all around good guy. The residents just raved about him and liked him. Compare this to UNC which is posted above. Well-established international program that has sites in Uganda, India, and Laos through a well-reputed ID department. Jen Furin, Associate Director of the BWH Global Health Equity Residency, was an ID fellow at UH; seems as though ID is a pretty strong department and does a lot of MDR TB/HIV related work.

Morning Report: Poor attendance with only residents (can't be too sure about this) no interns. Not that impressed with pedagogical design of the report with the chief doing most of the work. Chair of the department comes to most morning reports! The was a pleasant surprise and very different from my home program.

Residents: Mostly from the midwest. Poor representation from NE, South, or West Coast. Maybe it was just a consequence of the residents that I talked to but saw a lot of white male residents?? Somebody should confirm or deny this... didn't see a lot of female residents... again may be just because of the cohort that I was exposed too. Everyone who matches is from the mid-west though.

Fellowship Placement: Solid placement with 6/7 matching into cards last year. Chief residents go to Cleveland clinic, apparently.

Weaknesses: Felt as though the absence of having a county hospital experience hurts this program some. Feel like they should incorporate metrohealth into their program to get the whole private-county-VA axis that you find at programs like UTSW, Emory, and Colorado. Chiefs and residents and faculty insisted that they get the county feeling from UH. I don't know how much I believe them because UH is a really really swanky hospital and very cush with flat screen TVs (what was the deal with these fancy TVs!) in the resident lounge, foosball table and air-hockey table, and treadmill. Floors are really nice with fancy paintings of the walls, nice carpeting. I'm not use to such nice amenities at my home program; in fact, our clerkship director makes fun of such niceties at other programs. Thought it was a little funny that one of the main old-school entrances to UH has the academic seals of Ivy league colleges (including Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth). I was going to ask about their connection to UH but held back. Residents at UH insisted that they have the best reputation in Cleveland out of all the three or four IM programs. They seconded the opinion that has been posted on SDN and other boards that although CCF is an excellent place to train for fellowship, the residency program there is particularly weak and not as good as a the fellowships. While riding back in the taxi, I asked the taxi driver where he would go to get medical care if he fell really sick in cleveland. He told me that to be completely honest, CCF is where he would take himself. UH was "ok" he said but no CCF. I think name recognition is a problem for this program. People know and trust the name Case Western. But UH plays second fiddle to CCF in terms of providing awesome patient care to the residents of Cleveland and surrounding areas. As one of the residents told us, Metrohealth is the county hospital that does all the indigent care; CCF is the awesome referral center with the loaded foreigners that come from all over the world; and UH is somewhere in the middle and sees both types of patients. Although a case can be made that the IM resideny program is the best in the city, more than likely the best hospital in the city as far as patients are concerned is CCF. This can be a problem at cocktail parties in your future life when you off-handedly remark that you trained "in Cleveland" only for people to assume that you were at CCF and not at Case-UH!!

Overall: Great program! Cards Department totally redone with some big-wig from BWH coming to head it up who brought along 3-4 of his BWH buddies. Flexible, approaching PD; nice schedule, good opportunities for research; strong international track. I will rank it highly.

I would still encourage everyone to post their impressions of programs early in the interview cycle because it allows people to read up about the program and gain some insight before going on the interview. It's fine and dandy to post in the middle of the interview season, but not as helpful as posting right now. You can keep out all personal identifiers if you are paranoid about PDs identifying you. That's my two cents... although I see o2s's POV as well. Prufrock

The problem is it you post a negative experience/inside knowledge and it is early in the season, it could bite you in the butt. For example, if I said X school had an interviewer who was a complete butthead, then it is possible someone from that school may be on line and take it to their PD. The PD may then attempt to reprimand the interviewer and if it is a committee style meeting where that person acts as your advocate if they connect it to your name, it may hurt you. Or the PD may just screw you over himself/herself.

Personally, I am using this topic as a way to rank, so if people place all of their comments in the middle of the season, it would help me. Also, you can search last year's responses to this type of thread. I still think the best thing is talk to a bunch of residents. (And you can ask for phone numbers to call. Call it paranoia, but I would never email someone negative information myself and I think the residents feel the same way!) The advantage of posting in the middle of the season is presumably it would be harder to identify you. Bottom line, is no one is going to hurt themselves to help anyone. Well, I won't, but some will. And these forums are not as anonymous as you may think. I can tell you, two years ago, an applicant (on another residency forum -- not studentdoctor) posted some inside knowledge on a forum before ranking was due and it bit her in the butt. She was talented and did not rank at all because potentially the information she leaked would have caused other people to rank that place poorly and she spoke against a powerful person who had buddies everywhere (it was a small field). (And her comments were not mean spirited at all -- just some information that really all applicants deserved to know.)

JAPrufrock said:

I would still encourage everyone to post their impressions of programs early in the interview cycle because it allows people to read up about the program and gain some insight before going on the interview. It's fine and dandy to post in the middle of the interview season, but not as helpful as posting right now. You can keep out all personal identifiers if you are paranoid about PDs identifying you. That's my two cents... although I see o2s's POV as well. Prufrock

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Rush IM

I had an interview at Rush today, and I would agree with the above poster that Rush has the happiest residents I have seen. Their schedule is flexible, and their Chairman is a true character who seems very friendly. The residents seem to match well for fellowships, and the location in Chicago is also a huge plus.

I would disagree with the posters who think this forum is going to hurt you. If you have a lot of negative things to say about a program, you probably don't want to rank it high anyway. Besides, this is IM, there are 3000+ applicants; PD's aren't going to sick their hound dogs on postings with pros and cons. In fact, they will probably use them as a spring board for improvement.

A few folks have referred to an "interview impressions" discussion from the last interview season. I'm new to SDN and still trying to figure out their "search" feature, and am having trouble locating this forum. Anyone care to post a link?

Thanks!

Has anyone interviewed at Hopkins yet? Just wondering what people's impression of the program is.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: Very friendly, collegiate, relaxed program

LOCATION: Central Boston, in Chinatown area, but close to everything
FACILITIES: Buildings we were shown were modern, up to date. The hospital still uses written paper orders, but is in the process of updating to computer order system.

RESIDENTS: Seem very friendly with each other, truly seem to enjoy coming work and, more importantly, hanging out together after work. One of the big selling points of this program and it shows. It's a small-medium sized program 24 per class. No prelims, so residents really get to know each other well.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR: Has been at Tufts/NEMC for over 20 years. Well known in the academic community and seems to be very helpful in fellowship placement.

FACULTY: Down to earth, very collegiate. Not stuffy or hierarchial.

FELLOWSHIPS: Good fellowship placement. Matched all 7/7 for cardiology.

INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE: Very laid-back, informal. Only one interview so it's a short day.

Anyone interview at Einstein Montefiore or Jacobi? Brown? Boston U? OHSU? Virginia Mason?

Does anyone know if MGH is still a panel interview and if so, is this as crazy as it sounds? seems stressful.

i did the panel interview last year, and it actually very, very benign. all the interviewers have gone through your file, probably more so than interviewers from other places. As the result it's a good opportunity to show case yourself in depth. Be prepared to talk about your research, the experiences you mentioned in your personal statement, etc. The people who do it were very friendly, and there was no pimping (at least for me).

[

I have my interview coming up and I would be interested to hear comments on the place.

Mount Sinai

Overall Impression This is a strong NYC program in a fairly good location with a strong committment to education and teaching. The programs states their committment to train people interetested in ACADEMIC medicine and as a result all but one of the graduating residents went on to fellowship.

Chairman The Chairman is very funny and spent the majority of morning report making the residents and applicants laugh. He also spent a lot of time giving assignments to the residents to look up different topics on each of the cases that were presented.

PD The PD reportedly is very committed to helping the residents get great fellowships. He and the chairman make a very amusing team.

Residents Of course it is always hard to get a sense of this from the interview day.... but... The residents seem very nice and down to earth. They seem to get along. They seem happy.

Teaching Conferences We observed morning report on my interview day. There appeared to be full attendance and good participation by the residents. The conference involved presenting all overnight admissions. The residents were asked to look up various questions generated by the patients that they saw on call. There was a very strong evidence based medicine focus. The environment was very supportive and no one was mad or embarressed you if you did not know an answer - you were simply asked to look up the answer.

Patient Population/ Hospitals They seem to have a broad range of diagnosis as a result of rotating through three hospitals. They rotate through Sinai hospital where they get a mix of upper east side and harlem patients. They also rotate through the bronx VA and Elmhurst (a community hospital).

Call Schedule This is not completely clear to me but I think there is overnight call every 4th night where you admit until 8PM or so but stay overnight just managing the floor patients. There is also a night float (PGY3 who does the overnight admissions).

NYU

Overal Impression This is one of the big 5 NYC programs that boasts a very strong hands-on clinical training with a great resident autonomy and extremely diverse patient populations. However, this has a much less academic feel than other NYC programs as a result of poorer quality teaching conferences and poor attendance.

Program Director Dr. Pearlman seems like a very kind and caring PD who is actively trying to improve the program. For example, she has done a lot over the past two years to improve the amount of scut work done by the residents by getting more phlebotomy and transport. It seems like the residents really like her and find that she is very responsive.

Resident Autonomy This seems to be the main selling point of the program. The residents literally stated to me at bellvue that as second years they felt that the attendings were basically there as back-up to the residents. However, at Tisch, they seem to have almost no autonomy are appear to be slaves to the private attendings (no one seems to like this much).

Patient Population By rotating through three hospitals (all within walking distance of one another), the are able to see a very broad variety of diagnosis. They reportedly get patients right off the plane from JFK airport and so see lots of international infectious diseases. The VA rotation exposes them to more chronic illnesses such as CHF, COPD, etc.

Hospitals Bellvue is a large public hospital where they do the bulk of their training. It is mostly run-down and dingy in appearance, but some floors are very nice (ex., ICU). Tisch is private hospital where all patients are private. The residents seem to HATE their experiences there. VA is reportedly like all other VA experiences.

Call Schedule Not totally clear to me... They take q4 long call where they admit from noon to 5 and must leave by 9 pm. They have short call every 4 days where they get two morning admissions. Although they say that they adhere to work hours, it does not soudn this way when talking to the interns who say they stay late most days.

Teaching Conferences I attending resident report and i was not impressed at all. It was not very interactive and the residents did not appear very confident in answering basic questions. They attendance was really poor.

Anyone interviewed at these programs yet?

how about U Mich??? Really as malignant as they say??

Michigan is hardly malignant. I think they have that reputation from several years ago. They have a fantastic PD and have made many changes over the past several years (not unlike many other programs that have been labeled as malignant). Interns take only 7 months of call as opposed to 10 in the past and their 2nd and 3rd years have only 3-4 inpatient months (and don't stay overnight!). This is a fellowship-drive program. I was extremely impressed on my interview and would be thrilled to end up there.

I know it is still relatively early on in the interview process, but does anyone have any impressions of U Chicago or NW yet?

I recently interviewed at NW and was surprised at the number of changes which have taken place at this program over the last few years. The PD is just wonderful! And some of the misconceptions I had about NW re: lack of diversity within the patient population and paucity of academic/research-minded clinicians were definitely dispelled.

Unfortunately, there are no residents at NW who trained at my med school, so I would be happy to hear anyone speak to the similarities/differences within the 2 programs.

Big Ben said:

Michigan is hardly malignant. I think they have that reputation from several years ago. They have a fantastic PD and have made many changes over the past several years (not unlike many other programs that have been labeled as malignant). Interns take only 7 months of call as opposed to 10 in the past and their 2nd and 3rd years have only 3-4 inpatient months (and don't stay overnight!). This is a fellowship-drive program. I was extremely impressed on my interview and would be thrilled to end up there.

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How's Ann Arbor and resident life outside the hospital? Were you able to get a feel for it? Fellowship matching is impressive: http://www.med.umich.edu/intmed/resident/about/career.htm

Wondering what it would be like to live there for 3 years.

Any opinions on UPENN's program? Wondering what people think of it.

Any one have any thoughts on U Rochester, Thomas Jefferson or UIC?
I hold interviews there, but debating whether or not to go there.
Thanks

U Mich is definitely less malignant compared to the past, but it seems like the intern yr is pretty bad. I'm not sure if this is the norm for all interns across the nation, as I'm early in the interview process.

I loved the PD and everything else about the program. What did others think about it?

Google.

Big Ben said:

Michigan is hardly malignant. I think they have that reputation from several years ago. They have a fantastic PD and have made many changes over the past several years (not unlike many other programs that have been labeled as malignant). Interns take only 7 months of call as opposed to 10 in the past and their 2nd and 3rd years have only 3-4 inpatient months (and don't stay overnight!). This is a fellowship-drive program. I was extremely impressed on my interview and would be thrilled to end up there.

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google said:

U Mich is definitely less malignant compared to the past, but it seems like the intern yr is pretty bad. Cap of 12 patients per intern -- is pretty high.

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Didn't somebody around here say that the cap has gone from 12->10->8 or something like that? Is it really 12 on all services? Maybe I'm confusing Michigan with another program.

UIC

Overal Impression This program is big on autonomy and having a great patient population. You rotate through 2 hospitals (UIH and Jesse Brown VA) with more time spent at UIH (a medium-sized university hospital). The residents are all great, they get along well with eachother, and seem rather content with the program. The chiefs are very welcoming and seem great. I really enjoyed my day (finished at like 1pm).

Program Director Dr. Zar seems great. Very energetic, knowledgable, and enthusiastic. Did a great morning report. He is really trying to make UIC into an academic and research/EBM oriented program. The residents all think he is great and couldnt say enough good things about him.

Resident Autonomy One of the main selling points of the program. I think they called it "guided" autonomy, in that there is support from senior residents/attendings if needed, however they give interns latitude to make decisions.

Patient Population No private patients. At UIH its something like 2/3 are on some sort of public assistance, the other 1/3 are insurance. About 1/4 hispanic. The VA has your typical vet population.

Call Schedule VA has overnight q4-q8 depending on a few factors (cross coverage, etc.). UIH is q6 overnight but your team admits q3 (you switch off overnight call with your co-intern). Otherwise there is a night float system for cross-coverage.

Fellowships about 3/4 go onto a fellowship. placement is mostly midwest insitutions with the exception of a few of the chiefs who have spots on the coasts. UIC has a tendency to take their own. they match a slew of cards and GI fellows every year, and for the most part it seems that residents typically dont have too much trouble finding a spot somewhere even for the more comptetive spots.

Caps at Michigan are 4 per call night and 8 overall for all services with no admits after midnight. Caps have been reduced from 12-->10--->8. The interns I talked to seemed pretty happy with their system.

-

12 patients is standard cap in all programs.

rajvosa said:

12 patients is standard cap in all programs.

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rajvosa--i've been to 7 different internal medicine interviews in the last two weeks, and you're absolutely wrong.

12 patients was the standard cap in 0% of the seven programs I recently visited. The standard at nearly every program I've seen is 6-8 patients, and most certainly never above 10. As I understand it, the rationale for this change is because as programs tried to adapt to the 80 hour ACGME rules, they've finally figured out that they can't have their cake and eat it too---there has to be dedicated time for education, and an intern carrying 12 patients and taking call with only 80 hours a week leaves little or no time for learning (at least adequately).

hehehe...that's what they all say until you match.