Albany Medical Center Residency Reviews

Hey,
If anyone has interviewed, is a reisdent or graduated from Albany, will you please post some feedback? I'm interviewing there on Monday. My flight doesn't get in until late Sunday so I won't get to visit with the residents the night b/4. I find the "meet and greet" the night b/4 extremely valuable for getting a feel for how happy I'll be for the next 3 yrs.

It's a great program.

I graduated from there last year. There have been alot of changes with the new program director who came in 3 years ago, Dr. Burton, as well as a number of new faculty. The chair, Mara McErlean, is a fantastic person and great patient advocate.

The faculty is very diverse, from many training programs and perspectives.

The pathology is great: I thought I saw alot of new and very complex cases and was very ready to start my position post-residency. Lots of procedures.

There is alot of increased responsibility as you make progress across the years of the program, always with excellent attending backup.

The Albany location is an excellent location for the northeast, that is if you like the northeast with outdoors, skiing, hiking, cycling, as well as excellent schools for kids/families.... all within a short drive or close by. Many of my classmates had children during residency.

Congratulations on getting an interview! The program has become very competitive with all the changes, location, and faculty/facilities.

You'll enjoy meeting the residents, I made alot of great friends there and cannot think of anything that I would change. No place is perfect, but I had a great experience and training.

The Albany interview is great as it's very personable, the attendings read all your materials, and Marianne - the residency coordinator, is the BEST!! They will put you up in a hotel across the street. The evening activities before the interview started the year after I matched there and have been very successful and easy, they are in the hotel where you stay across from the hospital.

Good luck! You'll have a great time!

Albany

Residents: 10 residents/yr. Laid-back residents who get along well – kidding and punching each other a lot (in a good way). Off-service residents are strong and relations with other services are good. Ortho may be too strong which makes it harder to get manipulations, but residents said it isn’t really a problem… you just have to be more pro-active. I can’t remember how evaluations are done. 3 residents have left in past with 1 moving to cali (husband took post-grad job and would have to spend 2 yrs apart), 1 resident switched to peds psych, and 1 was fired.

Faculty: Faculty are good and very approachable. All are on first name basis with one resident saying he got reprimanded for referring to attending by last name. PD is amazing and really makes program from sounds of it. I questioned if people would still choose program if PD was not there, and one resident stated that he initially would have said “no” but after a few months would say “yes” enthusiastically. PD is wicked smart and quotes articles often. PD says he will be there for a long time (per resident). Recently lost 3 faculty, 2 of which were married and needed to live by family after having 3rd and 4th kids (all <5y/o). Just hired 6 new faculty (a tox guy, peds, im/em, another US). PD will call and prides himself on getting people into tight markets (Seattle, Austin, etc). 7 of 19 or so faculty members are from program.

Ancillary Staff: Nursing staff is your standard ED nurses.

Curriculum: Three year program with standard stuff. Average amount of critical care and no ward medicine. Philosophy of program is to emphasize ED and critical care months over everything else. Large catchment area with only PICU in region. Have contracts with 6 helicopters, but no mandatory flying. Good amount of trauma with more being blunt. Rarely are things shipped out (mostly burns). Trauma is run by 2 EM2’s completely. 25% go academics with a few staying on as local faculty. Every US is QA’d by US faculty with easier ones (FAST, preg, etc) being done on spot by regular faculty. Just hired first tox guy. Can do international trips if desired, but have to pay own way. Recent trips to Latin and South America have been taken by residents. Recent alumni did international fellowship. New simulation center being built that will probably be run by ED, but currently not too much simulation going on. Peds and OB manikin already, but no high-fidelity manikin. Philosophy is that if too much simulation is being done, that means not enough is being seen by residents. Residents can moonlight third year, but most choose not to. EM gets all airways. Residents do 22, 21, 20 (respectively) overlapping 9 hour shifts with trauma shifts in second year being 12 hrs. Apparently, residents often stay late here because they don’t want to hand-off care to other resident. EM1’s do equal day/eve/night shifts, EM2’s do 2xday/2xeve/night, EM3’s do 2xday/eve/night. Graduated responsibility with third year taking the sicker pod. No restriction on elective time, but only one month of elective. With 1 mo of elective, there is also 1 mo of tox and 1 mo of admin/EMS that can be personalized to fit your interests, but can’t take all 3 mo’s internationally. Off-service months seem to be useful and high-yield, but few of them.

Peds: Peds ED adjoined to regular ED and run by Dept of EM. Residents do a whole month in first year and then peds is integrated into every shift as first and third year. During EM2 year, especially later in the year, there is some trading of shifts between EM2 and EM3 which lets EM2’s see some pediatrics. PICU rotation also present.

Didactics: 5 hours weekly; protected time. Tintinalli is text, but PD really encourages you to read articles instead of text because articles are more up-to-date. Self-reading text for own knowledge is encouraged. Board passage rates are above the national average.

Research: Scholarly project required with research available if interested. PD is expert on procedural sedation. Because of this, lots of procedural sedation is done.

Facilities: Fairly new ED with hard walls between most patients. Split into four areas: critical (inc trauma), non-critical, peds, and psych. There is also a Fast Track area that is run by NPs and Pas to help out. Residents see plenty of FT patients when FT is closed. No CP center.

Charting: All charts are dictated. Orders are on paper. Labs and rads all on computer, but on different programs. PD reviews dictations and corrects you on how to dictate better so as to help you later on in practice. PD’s brother is a malpractice attorney, and PD will read over all job contracts and send to brother so as to catch any snares laid down in the contract. Apparently, dictations are better than T-sheets in court at protecting someone because it walks through thought-process, whereas T-sheets are better for billing purposes.

Location: Albany, NY. Several colleges in town and the capital of NY, so lots of state money runs through it. There is tons of stuff to do outdoors (hiking, biking, rock climbing, ice climbing, skiing, kayaking, etc) with mountains nearby. Boston and NYC are ~3 hrs away if you want to go there. Food is surprisingly good with one of every ethnic restaurant you can think of, but just not more than one. Very family friendly with good cost of living. You can buy a house on the outskirts of town (15 min away) with several acres and apple trees. Good sized airport nearby. Good mixture of people who buy/rent. One person said that the town goes into hibernation once winter hits and doesn’t come out until May, but another said people do stuff all the time in the winter with the exception of the first and last parts where it is too cold but no/melted snow… I’m not sure since I’ve never lived in upstate NY. Halloween and Thanksgiving are really big here for some reason. Apparently the city is recruiting a lot of nano technology to the area.

Extras: Vacation taken in ED months with it being a week at a time, but not necessarily a calendar week. A week of vacation = 5 shift deductions. Chiefs make schedule 3 months in advance and can request off/trade without problem. Accreditation status is fine without problems. Send all EM3’s to ACEP. Tons of Lyme disease. No animal research is done by dept. Big horse culture around Albany. Summer home of phili philharmonic and boston pop’s is near.

Interview: Hour long intro by PD. Tour and three quick interviews all very conversational. Lunch. Done by 2pm.

Albany

Basics: 3 years, 10 residents per year. No floor months – off services are 2w ob/anesthesia, and unit months. CCU sounds a little floor-ish (and you, for some odd reason, cross cover a certain group of private pulm patients). Also do MICU, SICU, PICU (2nd year for that last one).

Shifts: 9 hours – 20 as intern, then 19, then 18. 2nd year about 1/4 of your year is more dedicated to trauma (but in the ED – which I think is great) and you work 12s with a shift reduction. Residents said they usually end up with fewer shifts than listed above.

Peds experience is integrated – one of the sections of the ED is dedicated to peds. They have just hired two peds EM boarded attendings, but otherwise you are precepted by EM attendings for peds. You have one dedicated month in the peds section of the ED and pick up peds patients during your shifts.

The PD is a Pitt grad who worked to build the Maine program before coming to Albany. He seems great –young, friendly, great relationship with the residents. He's very outdoorsy – rock climbs, etc. and it seems like a lot of the residents do too.



UMass

Basics: 3 years, 12 residents, no floor months. Effective use of off-service months (do your anesthesia, intro flight shifts, and u/s all in the same month).


Shifts: 9 hours (?)

Residents: northeast, some from outside region. All I spoke with said it was their first choice. Seem happy – but not the most cohesive group I've met on the trail.

Cost of living – much better than Boston (some do live in Boston, though – some have SOs that matched there)

Overall amazing opportunities and dedication to training. Integrated peds in last two years (I think). Good community experience without a huge commute. Powerful dept in the hospital (as evidenced by brand new ED, dedicated space on floor below it). Good sim training. Something like 5 u/s trained (RDMS!) attendings and 8 toxicologists. Very strong U/S and tox experience. Dedicated flight shifts in 2nd and third year (bulk in third). Volume is somewhere around 80-90K and growing. Supervisory rotation as part of third year (but not the entirety of third year)

PD – dynamic, funny, very involved in recruiting next class of residents. The faculty are about ½ UMass and ½ elsewhere (impressive list from elsewhere)



Boston medical center – "county with resources"

4 years, 12 residents/year. Just converted to 1-4.

Curriculum – first year lots of off service. 2 months ward medicine (which the PD pretty much admitted to me he HAD to do in order to get his 1-4 program), 1 months floor surgery, then lots of more fun stuff (ENT, MICU). One of the stronger departments in the hospital. The ED is theirs – consultants are there at the program's invitation and all turf battles have been long since fought and won. Residents have no assigned role on ob/gyn and ortho. They said it's "You get out what you put in." Probably not an issue for ob/gyn (10 deliveries and out) but ortho seems like it could get tricky. Ortho has to see EVERY fracture in the ED so that they can f/u in clinic – so unless you are aggressive with splinting/reductions I'm guessing you could miss out on a lot of that.

Electives – lots of opportunities but funding is up to you. International opportunities abound if you can save or beg the cash.

Residents: from all over, all said it was their first choice. VERY personable, anxious to share why they LOVE BMC. Shifts are 20 12s PGY2 year (I assume this will apply to PGY1 as well), mix of 8s and 12s PGY3 (but busy – you run trauma this year), and 8s during week/12s on weekends PGY4 year (NO NIGHTS in PGY4). Some of those details could be wrong – I don't pay too much attention to shift length.

Sites – Quincy, Lahey Burlington, the old Boston City Hospital ED (HAC) is the main site, and then HNC (I think) is the old BU Medical Center ED. Volume at HAC is about 130K if I recall correctly. HAC is divided into 2 sections – acute side (chest pain, SOB, trauma) and the less acute side. PGY2s work on both sides, PGY3s run the acute side, and PGY4s run the less acute side. PGY2 you are the "procedure resident" and essentially do all the procedures AND cover your patients – seems like this would be crazy busy and fun!

PD – personable, funny, very unassuming. Seems to genuinely want everyone to find their "happy place" on the trail. Was very very very involved in interview day – which I appreciated. Interviews are 2 faculty (or residents) to 1 interviewee.

Overall: I think this is a fantastic program and I think it will only get stronger now that it's 1-4. I liked the residents.



BIDMC

Format- 3 year (optional jr attending year), 12 residents/yr

Residents: from ALL over (actually seems to be a lack of people from the Northeast), 12/year. All are personable and excited about their program, everyone I spoke with said it was their first choice.

Curriculum – 3 weeks medicine wards, otherwise pretty standard. 6w elective time – including a "teaching" week in Italy if desired. Their u/s and tox programs seem to be works in progress. Just started an EM critical care fellowship. Optional fourth year during which you work ½ time as an attending and can pursue research, further education (MPH, Kennedy school). About 1/3 of the residents take advantage of this.

Faculty – amazing names, lots of research money, faculty are mostly from outside (Hennepin, Denver). Peter Rosen (the textbook author/editor) is part time faculty. PD is Dr. Carlo Rosen. Graduate of Denver, first PD of this 9 year-old program. Seems like a good resident advocate. Residents are getting jobs in competitive job markets.



Advocate Christ Medical Center

Advocate Christ is a medical center in Oak Lawn, IL, a suburb of Chicago. The hospital itself is a big community hospital with many subspecialties. It is a busy (90K, I think) ED. The ED itself has a very busy community feel – lots of patients, some in hallways but with everything running fairly smoothly, good ancillary staff. The program has good ultrasound and tox experience. They do a LOT of EM months for a 3 year program.

The attendings are from all over – many from ACMC (also known as "Christ). The resources at this program are phenomenal. There is lots of funding for conferences, etc. The residents have produced a HUGE number of posters at academic conferences in the last few years. The residents are paid well, many live in Chicago and reverse commute to the suburbs. They are a very happy group – well protected on off-service rotations and treated well during their EM months. Overall I felt like this program is the "hidden gem" of Chicago. Be aware, though, that it's supposed to be tough to get an interview – they only interview 80 candidates per year.



Uof Chicago

Large program (18/yr, 3 years), longstanding and very well-established with a great alum network. The well-known PD (Dr. Howes) will be handing over the reins to Dr. Tupesis (current assistant PD) in July. Howes will be the assistant PD for a year while they find a replacement. UofC Hospital is a peds level 1 trauma center, but adult level 2 due to financial concerns (when they were level 1, they were getting ALL the penetrating trauma and couldn't afford it). I had my interview at Lutheran, so didn't see U of Chicago, but from what I hear it is a busy, urban ED. Residents spend about 10 months at Lutheran General, which is out near O'Hare and is a busy, level I trauma center. They work 1 on 1 with the attendings at Lutheran (as opposed to the graduated responsibility model at U of Chicago) and really seem to like their time there. You also do trauma (I forget how many months) at Mt. Sinai (community hospital located in a knife and gun club neighborhood). UofC as a whole also just affiliated themselves with the hospital at Evaston, Illinois. This is a big, tertiary referral type hospital that used to be affiliated with Northwestern. The hospital is best known (in the EM world) for it's simulation center, so that is one aspect of EM at UofC that will grow overnight.

I did not get a good sense for what tox and ultrasound were like at UofC. Overall I did feel that they made a very good use of time by not having an OB rotation, but instead having you take OB calls to get your deliveries during your EM months intern year. They also combine your anesthesia month with NICU call – so you can get your neonatal resuscitations and procedures and your airways all at once. I think the PD mentioned that they really start preparing interns for flight shifts, so you WILL get the sickest patients early in your EM career rather than being protected from them for the first year, which is pretty status quo for programs.

Chicago has (mandatory, I believe) flight time. When you are the R2, you fly during your shifts in the department as well as see patients. They also do fixed wing transport flights, which are a moonlighting opportunity (you get about 1000). The residents at Chicago are a VERY social bunch. The department sponsors a monthly social event (they get money from the fixed wing flights as well) for residents.

The Albany PD that everyone raves about actually left in 2010 to become chair of EM at the new Virginia Carillion Med School. Albany is still a really good place, but it would be good to get a review from post-2010.

Recent reviews anyone?

Didnt interview here yet, but I did a AI here last month. I am an Albany native, so I am a bit biased. I absolutely loved my rotation. I was sort of thrown to the wolves, very much treated like an intern, and that was great to have 4th year. Definitely kicked me into "whoa I am graduating soon" mode and started building my confidence. The residents all seemed VERY happy, cohesive, and glad to have chosen AMC. The attendings were all great, and for the most part happy to teach. The month I was there, an attending hosted journal club at his lake house, which was a great time, and I am told this type of thing is the norm at AMC. The hospital is a 1000ish bed lvl 1 trauma center. Lots of blunt, and some penetrating trauma. Peds ED. Not quite sure what off svc rotations are like. PD was incredibly nice and well liked by the residents. Albany used to be sort of a crappy place to live when I was growing up, but I am pleasantly surprised now. I have watched this city grow over the last decade into a great city. Lots of night life, good restaurants, and the SUNY nanotech facility is pouring a ton of money and jobs into the region. Adirondacks.....nuff said. Largest state park in the country to my knowedge. Skiing, backpacking, MTB, hunting/fishing, all within an hour. AMC is by far my top choice. Hope this helps someone!

BUMP: can anyone comment on AMC who has recently completed or attending residency here?