2009-2010 Peds Residency Interview Impressions Thread

[Shaka]

Hey Ladies and Gents,
I thought it was time to get the interview impression thread started. Feel free to post your impressions (or post an anonymous review for somebody else). Please post the name of the program in the title of your post for easy searching.
Thanks!
Best of luck to all on the interview circuit!
Shaka

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[Shaka]

Overall Impression: Really positive feel from the program – residents obviously work hard, but appear to be a happy, well-balanced, appreciative group.

Interview Day: Dinner night before with residents who were very positive and candid. The next morning we attended Morning Report (good participation), had a tour of the hospital (a-mazing), and then had a few interviews with a lunch break and program presentation (that you receive on a CD later that day). Interviewers were friendly and low key; opportunities to talk with residents at dinner, before morning report, and at lunch.
*tip* if you are not local or driving, you can get a roundtrip Greyline bus/shuttle ticket at the airport, and it will take you from the airport to the hotel and pick you up from the hospital (or hotel if you prefer). $16-20 round trip!

Program/Curriculum: Program designed to prepare you to go out into the community as a general pediatrician or go on to a competitive fellowship. 1st year is hospital heavy (5 months wards, 2 NICU, 1 newborn nursery), but you have clinic weekly and can choose to do an elective month to help figure out what you want to do. Interns seem very happy and not overly exhausted. They maintain social outings and a soccer and kickball team. 2nd year: 2 mos wards, 1 NICU, 1 PICU, acute care clinic, EM, adolescent medicine, 4 electives. In 2nd year you can elect to d a 2nd ½ day of clinic/week to explore a subspecialty, private practice, or even research. 3rd year is similar, you are acute clinic chief and also spend a month as the only pediatrician at Nash General where you do a lot of deliveries and EM consults, as well as teaching med students.

The Wards: Call is Q4, with you getting out early afternoons on your non-call days. General + subspecialty teams A&B each have 4 interns (+/- 2 rotating EM or other interns), 2 upper levels, and attending. The cap is 27 for the team. Admitting interns call nights ranged from 3-10 admits from what I heard. Intern provides primary care, is first on all procedures (LP, intubation, etc) unless the situation is too risky and it’s your first time. The heme-onc team has 2 interns, 2 upper levels, and is a more step-down level unit. There is a hospitalist team that has no residents and helps cover the increased volume at the hospital to keep the focus on learning rather than efficiency for residents. Another team is a 2nd/3rd year team where you get to act as a hospitalist (no group rounds) and get to follow your patients from clinic; supposed to help increase your independence (cap is 21). In general, rounds are either walking/bedside/family centered or sit down depending on the service and attending.

Clinic: Most residents have their clinic in the Children’s Hospital – seems like a nice set up. A few residents may elect to do their clinic at these newer options: a) a community clinic (~2 interns/yr ) or b) a bilingual Spanish/English clinic about 15 minutes away from the hospital. Can do “Clinic Salad” which allows you to bounce around to different clinics if you want.

Conferences: MWF morning report, Tues Grand Rounds, TueWF noon conference with lunch, M&M monthly, ICU conferences, intern core lecture series. In morning report, somebody came by and collected all of the pagers.

General: The program is very focused on educated the residents, and is very responsive to resident concerns. Opportunity for international rotation with continued pay. Simulation – mock codes, sounds like they are working to increase the use of simulation; have actors for discussing child abuse with parents. Obviously family friendly program. Community outreach with health related programs; also can help at the med student run clinic. Although there are a number of fellows, people emphasized that patient care is resident driven.

Residents: My overall impression is that they are a very positive group, supportive of eachother, and liking their experience. They had trouble thinking of what they might change about the program, and upper levels commented that the changes that they wanted for their first year were already implemented for the next class. Informally get together regularly.

Hospital: Beautiful, well thought out Children’s hospital. Call rooms are nice, often have kitchen/lounge attached. Some workrooms have nice window views. Plenty of computers. Have a stage for those famous musicians that wander through to entertain the kids. Very cool electronic medical record in which everybody writes their notes (can import labs, look up references), as well as PACS for electronic radiology viewing and Horizon/Wiz System for electronic order entry. Wonderful nurses who the residents all get along with very well. Parking is right next to the hospital. There is a gym you can get to right near the hospital too. Nobody mentioned (and I forgot to ask about) the valet service for residents to take care of things like dry cleaning/car maintenance for you during work hours – you just pay for the cost of the dry cleaning etc.

Patients: Mix of Medicaid (90%) and private patients. Mostly Euro-Am, ~15 Latino, ~15 Afr-Am, and scattered other (Somali, Sudanese, Burmese, Kurdish). Patients come from all over the region, not just Nashville. You recruit patients from nursery and wards for your clinic, and inherit some from previous residents who have graduated.

Research: Wonderful opportunities for research. The electronic MR can be completely devoid of patient identifiers for IRB-free research. Also, they are working on linking DNA samples to de-identified MRs. There is also a physician-scientist program to help you fastrack to fellowship if basic science research is your thing. There seems to be research in any general area you are interested in, and you can use an elective and your 2nd ½ day of clinic a week to pursue research if you want. Going to conferences is encouraged.

Location: Nashville seems pretty nice! Music city, so obviously recording studios, lots of live music, good talent (even at the airport!). It is a growing place, but not ridiculous in size. Little traffic. Very affordable. Some residents live within walking distance of the hospital, others live in the suburbs. Apartment/house/condo is affordable. Stuff to do, especially music and outdoors activities. Professional sports teams.

Concerns: Hard to find any. Residents/PD noted that at Vanderbilt, the Children’s hospital is separated from L&D, so they have a little NICU over in the adult hospital, and a big one in the Children’s hospital. However, when you are at Nash your 3rd year you do a lot of deliveries to make up for (likely) less deliveries during your nursery time at Vanderbilt.

 

[oldbearprofessor]

As always, those who do not wish their reviews to have their username attached can PM me the review and I'll post it anonymously. Of course, if you don't want ME to know what you think, then you could send it to one of the non-pedi mods to post here, but really, I'm not on the residency selection committee and don't particularly care what you say...

Oh yes, and for those who don't look up...

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=557153

Will help

 

[WhatUpDoc!]

Overall Impression: My home school so may be a little biased, but this is a great program with strong general peds training and just enough subspecialty exposure to pursue any fellowship you choose.

Interview Day: Started around 7am with breakfast with the program recruiter/PICU attending Dr. Keegan. He gave an excellent overview of the residency application process as a whole and departed some very useful words of wisdom in regards to constructing your rank list. Grand rounds followed and included a very lively discussion about neonatal sepsis. There were 3 interviews (1 with PD and 2 with faculty) shortly after and each one was extremely laid back and conversational. After interviews was the hospital tour with the chief resident and then lunch with other residents. Day was over around 1pm and had the rest of the day to check out the items in my very cool-looking goodie box!

Facilities: TC Thompson Children's Hospital is the main training site with 118 beds, an 8 bed level I PICU, and a 56 bed Level III NICU with Neonatal Transport Team, the area's only teaching hospital. The hospital is semi-freestanding since it's connected to the adult side, but has a clearly distinct look and feel once you cross into the peds side. There is also a small ED (~25 beds I believe) staffed by peds ED attendings. Residents all said they got to do plenty of procedures (LP, casting, suturing) while in the ED. All of the subspecialty clinics are located in the same bldg. (except for development/behavioral which is less than 5 mins away) so having to travel to different parts of the city for various rotations is non-existent at this program (a major plus for someone like me who still has the "roll out of bed 10 mins before class and still get there on time" undergrad mentality!)

Call: Usually q4 with one intern and one 3rd year night float. Average # of patients admitted each night was about 4-6. Everyone really pitches in to help out in the AM so the on call intern can get out of there at a decent time.

Residents and workload: Class size is 8 so you get to know everyone well including all the upper levels. There are two teams: Team A is the intern team that covers the bread and butter cases with most patients leaving within 1-2 days of admission. Team B is the 2nd year resident team that covers the chronic/complicated kids and heme/onc'ers with longer inpatient stays. I saw most interns carrying about 5-6 patients with redistribution of patients in the morning after a tough night of call. Everyone gets along well and team camaraderie is very high. Also, attendings are super approachable (even as a med student) and make teaching a priority during rounds.

Location: Most residents live within a 10-20 minute drive of the hospital and some within walking distance. Chattanooga is a beautiful city with a newly designed recreational park just down the street from the hospital. The park has a long and winding running trail that will overjoy all you nature lovers out there. Also, Signal Mountain and Ruby Falls will satisfy the most ardent of hikers and even has a pretty sweet hang-gliding population. Cost of living is very affordable with an equal mix of owning or renting among residents.

Cons: As I mentioned in another thread, one of my major requirements for a residency program is a fully electronic medical record system which this program does not have, although electronic order entry should be up and running sometime next year. Can't think of any other negatives though (of course no EMRs may not be a negative to some!)

Feel free to PM me if you want more info as I have done quite a few rotations here and have a good inside scoop on other things I did not mention above (i.e. curriculum, advocacy/research, conference, clinics)

Good luck on the trail everyone

 

[Shaka]

Overall Impression: High volume program, see everything from bread and butter to rare of the rare. Residents are happy and balance work and outside life. Interns work very hard, then life gets easier.

Interview Day: Dinner night before with residents (a large group!). Mixed interview group of general peds, peds neuro, and triple board (psych, peds psych, peds). Day starts and ends early. It is very laid back with a few introductions (welcome by the PDs), didactic (ie morning report), a presentation about the city and the program by the chief residents, then 2 interviews + 1 “chat” with a PD. The interviews were very conversational. After the interviews we had lunch with the residents, a hospital tour, and then a final opportunity for questions with the PDs and a goodbye.
*tip* $2.60 1 hour bus ride on the 28x to/from airport-oakland (Pittsburgh) if you are flying. Check out which hotel has free parking if you are driving!!

Residents: Very friendly bunch, who are eager to share their experiences and views on the residency program and city (both very positive). Met mostly 2nd years, but a few interns (who were also happy).

Curriculum: Usual mix of didactics, which residents say are protected teaching time, and “definitely” worth attending. Morning report is only seniors 1-2 days a week, but the interns seem to like having a little extra time to catch up on Monday mornings! Chairman’s rounds was reportedly great. Opportunity for CORE curriculum within the residency program for people interested in advocacy/public health/underserved populations. CORE includes regular talks/meetings, clinic in an underserved population, and 2 weeks to spend on an advocacy project (among other things). Everybody is required to complete a senior project that can range from a case report to a presentation to a quality assurance project to a full-fledged research project. Great patient exposure from all walks of life and with all sorts of pathology, from the common to the rare. Patient population includes Amish, Mennonites, and all others in the huge area around Pittsburgh. 2nd years spend 2 weeks on a teaching rotation where you are responsible for giving talks to med students and looking up articles to send to the residency program.

Wards, Call, Etc. Intern year is a mix of Q4 and night float (about half and half) which people seem to like, but there is no guarantee what the mix will be next year. The program is very responsive to resident input. There is no call on your electives, and as a 2nd year, you only take long call (overnight) on weekends. May do an international elective, but that is not too common. Unsure about financial support for it. Bigger program makes covering for people who get sick etc easier and less taxing. Volume is very large and there are no caps. Inpatient hospitalist service is very focused on education and per residents, fantastic. Residents said attendings are very approachable (on a first name basis). Clinic can be in the general GAP clinic, a private community clinic, or an underserved community clinic.

Hospital: Beautiful, HUGE, brand-spanking new Children’s hospital in Lawrenceville (a neighborhood). The floors (inpatient) were quiet (but full), with roomy rooms for the patients and families, and plenty of computers and workspace for the staff. Completely electronic MR, with electronic notes, orders, labs, rads, etc. Call rooms are private with private bathroom, computer, and tv. Fun touches around the hospital, including an enormous screen for movies/sports games, a healing garden, and multiple playrooms (including one for patients’ siblings). Good relationship with nurses. Free shuttle between Children’s and Oakland (the neighborhood where the universities and some of the other hospitals are). Also spend time in the well-baby nursery and NICU at Magee women’s hospital (there is also a NICU at Children’s but it is not attached to laboring women…). New gym attached to hospital ($40/mo) in the same building as the new Ronald McDonald house. Also, have attached parking in a garage (also $40/mo).

The City: Pittsburgh is a “big city with shoulder room.” A manageable urban environment with unique neighborhoods (from hipster to family central), large university presence (U Pitt and Carnegie Mellon), minimal traffic for a city, with hills and lots of trees. If you are interested in an art scene, it’s thriving. Interested in the great outdoors, museum, cycling, dancing? Got that too. Also has seasons, including cold (depending on where you are coming from, 30F) winters! Highly affordable.

Research: Possible to do research in “anything,” and met with somebody who does research, and mentored a resident in research. Is very self driven (ie get a mentor and go from there) but very possible. Unclear what kind of research community there is at Pitt.

Will do my best to get a few more posted in the next week or two!

 

[PedsBroseph]

Briefly- I'd appreciate hearing other people's impressions of these programs.

CHOC: High volume, hard work, but residents were cool and happy. CHOC is known and respected in Cali. PD used to be PD at UCLA, very smart, very into teaching and education. Location is a downer for me, but since you'd be commuting against traffic/at ungodly hours you could easily live in downtown LA or in one of the beach towns and get to work in 20-30 minutes without much trouble.

Harbor: Nothing awful, nothing great. Residents were happy and chill, hospital is a POS, PD and faculty were friendly and seemed to like to teach, location would make it real easy to be a beach bum, volume and pathology both great.

USC: Direct quote from multiple people, including the PD, on day of interview- "If you want to be a REAL doctor, come to residency here. Otherwise, you can go to one of those OTHER programs across town."
Jerks, lots of ego. Felt like a surgery program. New hospital looks like it was built 20 years ago (which I suppose is an improvement- as the old one looked like it was built almost a century ago).
Felt like they were trying to scare us into coming there, threatening that we wouldn't get quality training at other programs. NEXT.

Kaiser LA: Shockingly strong. This was a second round pick for me, was def a safety. Now it's battling for a spot in the top two.
Residents were smart, were happy. Faculty and PD were ideal- very strong backgrounds from huge names in the field, very friendly with the residents (first name basis). Some of the residents I met had matched into very strong fellowships (Heme-onc at Stanford for the resident who interviewed me), and said at Kaiser it's almost impossible to NOT develop strong working relationships 1 on 1 with attendings. Hospital is beautiful, def high volume enough (anyone who lives in SoCal and has Kaiser who needs tertiary care of any kind comes to this facility), has surprisingly large PICU and NICU. We stopped by the wards and got a look at the list- full of one or two asthmas/gastro cases, but most of it was pretty high level heme-onc and ID stuff.

UCLA- Don't interview here until the 5th, but did a PICU rotation and had a pretty good experience. Residents were totally cool and all said they were very happy with their program. There are a lot of fellows here, and I def did get the sense that, at least in the PICU, things can become very fellow-driven. That said, you rotate through a huge variety of locations, so only a portion of it is fellow-driven.

 

[pedy]

Overall Impression: Positive. I was impressed more than I thought I would be. Program seemed extremely flexible, resident friendly.

Interview Day: Program pays for you to stay in Brown Hotel, really nice. Went out to dinner before. Only about 5 residents were there, it was really hard to talk to them as there were about 12 or so applicants. only 1 intern was there. Free shuttle to hospital, with breakfast. Morning report was given by med student so it was hard to judge. Met with program director, chairman, executive of hospital. Had 2 very low key interviews. Had lunch with 4 or so residents. No interns around. For a program that has 70ish residents, I began to wonder where they all were? Tour of facilities but not of clinic.

Program/Curriculum: Program seemed to be very balanced. Intern non-wards/elective time is protected from call. i.e. you are not picking up call on the weekend or for nightfloat, etc. Seemed to have any even proportion of people pursuing fellowships vs. generalists. Have some fellows in hospital, but doesn't seem to compete with resident procedures, etc.

The Wards: Rounds are family centered. They talked about getting new discharge planners/np's for each ward team to minimize scut. There are four ward teams, call is q4. On your call night you stop admitting at 11p and start at 1p. From there the night float team takes over. After post call day you have one early call day where you pick up patients from 7a to 1p. The day before call you pick up no patients. There is also one hospitalist team that picks up bread and butter cases, overflow. There is no cap on ward teams.

Clinic: There are 3 different continuity clinics, all scattered throughout city. Had different patient populations. One is 20 min away or so from hospital


General: The program director is fairly new, although the previous one was very visible on interview day. She seems very resident responsive and talked a lot about changes that had been made due to resident input.

Residents: The ones I met seemed down to earth, liked each other, new each other. They take ~20 or so/year. A few FMGs. They all seemed to love L-ville and were very enthusiastic about the program. My biggest concern was again, I did not see many of the residents so wondered where they all were...

Hospital: Very nice facility. Call rooms are private, no computers in them. Next to resident lounge. The only eating option in the Kosair's is McDonald's. You can take pedway across street to cafeteria. They provide one meal/call. Also said ~50% of conferences provided lunch, but there was free food in doctor's lounge. All patients rooms were private on wards, although in PICU it seemed kind of weird, just out in the open with curtains like most NICU's are. Maybe this is standard, and I just have not seen this yet. Free parking.

Patients: Only accepting pediatric hosp in region, so has big mix of private vs. medicaid pts. Also has large in-patient peds psych ward.

Research: There is a required senior project which seems status quo for most programs.

Location: The residents love the city. The hosp is in a rough area of town, so you can't live just down the street. Sounds like most ppl's commute was 15 min or so. Has a lot to offer with the college sports. No pro teams. Lost of broadway shows, concerts make there way to L-ville.

Concerns: It seems like they have been making a lot of changes recently in regards to curriculum for the positive. Program is not super well known in the country but a solid one in the region.

 

[Amoeba]

Is no one applying for pediatrics residency this year?

 

[beatadine]

An amoeba named Sam, and his brother
Were having a drink with each other
In the midst of their quaffing
They split their sides laughing
And each of them now is a mother.

Sorry, couldn't resist!

 

[Shaka]

Hey Folks,

I apologize for not keeping up with reviews! Between all that USMLE testing and traveling I've been slacking. Hopefully things will calm down and I promise to post more reviews before the match list is due!

Shaka

 

[oldbearprofessor]

Posted anonymously. Remember you are free to PM me your feedback as this person did and I'll post it anonymously. I am not on my program's residency selection committee.....

Cincinnati Children's

Overall impression: supportive environment with close-knit group of residents

Interview Day: Morning report at 8 am, overview with PD at 8:45, meeting with chair of peds at 09:30, 3 interviews: 1 with PD or associate director, 1 with chief resident, 1 with faculty (very conversational interviews), lunch then tour, end around 2-2:30

Program/Curriculum: pretty standard intern year with 6 months on inpatient wards being q 4, newborn nursery for 1 month at University Hospital being q4, 1 month on NICU q4-5, advocacy rotation for 2 weeks getting to learn resources for your patients around Cincinnati with no call and most weekends free, 1 month ER that is sometimes split into 2, 2-week blocks with 10 hr shifts, 2 weeks of outpatient ambulatory with no call and some weekend clinics, and 1 month of private practice (sometimes split into 2, 2 week blocks) with no call and weekends free. 1 month of vacation in 2 two week blocks. Subspecialty inpatient teams are separate from general inpatient peds teams and are worked into your schedule so that your electives are truly your own.

Wards: general inpatient teams separate from specialty inpatient teams, q4 call on ward months, do family-centered rounds, just instituted Epic when I was there so they have the computers on wheels to enter orders during rounds. I was impressed that while on call, interns will stay up and help each other out so that everybody goes to bed at the same time! Night float team takes over admissions at 11pm to 7am so you just do cross-cover after 11pm.

Clinic: one half-day of clinic a week, have your choice of PPC (clinic at Cincinnati Children's) community health center clinic, and private practice for your continuity clinic

Conferences: daily morning report and noon conference, grand rounds weekly, intern rounds bimonthly, also multiple conferences throughout the month like Farrell rounds, radiology rounds, and skills labs; very good attendance at the conferences when I was there

Hospital: large free-standing hospital that does all the pediatric admissions for the surrounding area and is a big referral center so you get a good mix of bread and butter peds and zebras

Patients: mix of private insurance patients and Medicaid/no insurance patients, main hospital for all pediatric admissions; there is also a NICU at Good Samaritan and University but otherwise Cincinnati Children's is the only show in town for peds

Research: definitely available if you are interested in research, there are residents each year that go to conferences to present posters

Location: Cincinnati, was very close to downtown, area right around the hospital seemed a little sketchy but most residents lived about 10-20 minutes away in suburbs or nice downtown area

Concerns: initially I was worried about the size, but all three years of residents combined + med peds is smaller than my med school class, they seemed very social and liked to have fun, I was very impressed. I really liked their PD. He seemed very approachable. I didn't have very many concerns

 

[oldbearprofessor]

another one

Baylor/Texas Children's:

Overall impression: work hard, but learn lots

Interview Day: Get there around 6:45am, overview with PD, 3 interviews (1 with faculty, 1 with associate PD, 1 with PD), went to grand rounds in between interviews, tour of TCH, lunch with residents, tour of Ben Taub, meeting with chairman, ended with cookies with the residents, done around 3pm

Program/Curriculum: 5 months inpatient wards with q4-5 call, 1 month wards at Ben Taub, 1-2 months clinics & ER, 1 month of developmental, 1 month newborn nursery at Ben Taub, 1 month NICU at Ben Taub, 2 weeks of pedi 101 which covers topics such as medical ethics, teaching, etc

The Wards: q4-5 call, get there around 6:30 or 7 am and leave when the work is done (2:30-3 on a good day if not on call or post call), most of their floors are arranged by specialty

Clinic: can indicate preference for continuity clinic: TCH, Ben Taub, or private clinic, one half-day a week

Conferences: don't think interns go to morning report but don't quote me, noon conference daily

Residents: 40 categorical peds spots + a few med-peds, etc

Hospital: Most of your time is at Texas Children's - a huge free-standing children's hospital...also spend time at Ben Taub, the community hospital, serves all pts esp those w/o insurance; sounds like you get more autonomy at Ben Taub and see bread and butter peds and deal with more urban, poor pt population, many spanish-speaking pts, but interpreters available; at TCH, see bread and butter and zebras, mix of private insurance and Medicaid population

Patients: large Hispanic population in Houston, will see mix of Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, plus large referral center so you will see large variety of race, cultures, socioeconomic classes, religion, etc

Research: certainly available if you are interested, faculty enjoy working with residents and are easily approachable for research opportunities

Location: most residents live within the loop in Houston, but some live further out, especially those wanting houses and large yards

Concerns: I was a little concerned about only having one senior for all of the ward floors, but was assured by interns that they are readily available and expect to hear from you especially during your first month on call as an intern. Also, worried about the size but it does allow for you to more easily switch call nights if needed and will find a group of people you connect to within the group

 

[rwilky63]

Did anyone interview at any of these programs?

University of Missouri at Kansas City Program*(childrens Mercy)
Penn State University/Milton S Hershey Medical Center Program*
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Medical Education Program*
Phoenix Children's Hospital/Maricopa Medical Center Program*
University of Arizona
Denver
University of Texas Medical Branch (Austin) Program*

 

[Shaka]

Just the highlights...

Baylor
Most of the details are under the previous, thorough review.
Awesome exposure to different types of patients, guaranteed fantastic training, VERY strong emphasis on education (on of the assistant PD's has an education degree that she uses), cool Global health possibilities (including global health-peds residency), private and community hospital experiences. Exciting opportunities available in almost anything you are interested in! Near NASA training center.
Most of your time is spent at Texas Children's, where they don't have normal, bread and butter patients. However, you get a fabulous experience in the more "normal" patients at Ben Taub. Houston is definitely a big city. Not many trees, but reportedly great malls. Speaking Spanish is a big plus. The class size is very large, which means you don't get to know everyone in you program.
The only real negatives would be personal ones, in my opinion (ie you want a smaller program, want to live elsewhere, etc.). This is a very strong program.

UCLA
Very diverse patient population, community health program (CHAT), good teaching and learning, very happy residents. What more could you want? Also nice research opportunities. New PD has been with the program for a while so there are no dramatic changes planned. Pediatric Research and Genetics tracks available.
Spend time at different sites (UCLA, Cedars, Olive View, community).
LA traffic!

UCI
Electives in the 1st year, happy residents, broad education, diverse patient population, Research opportunities, 3 training sites: Miller, UCI, and CHOC. Miller is beautiful and new!
CHOC is going away, and UCI will be semi-merging residency programs. That is to say that all people who applied to and are already in CHOC will STAY in that residency and have nothing to do with UCI (anymore than they already do), but the following years, there will be more residents in the UCI program because it will expand more into CHOC. My question is how will there be enough seniors to go around? But I guess they have it figured out.
Didn't get the feeling that this was as strong of a program as say, Baylor. But still good.
Still in the LA traffic-ness...

 

[Shaka]

UCSD
Residents are very happy, diverse patient population, location, fellowships available in almost everything, big research institution, mix of call and night float. *cool thing: you get the opportunity to adjust to becoming a senior in your second year with rotations with other 2nd years where you don't have an intern. You get to become accustomed to calling the shots without somebody else there before you take on an intern. Work primarily at the Rady Children's Hospital, but also do rotations at UCSD, Scripps Mercy, and Balboa Naval Medical Center. All of the hospitals are within 10-15 minutes of eachother. Free parking.
Border city so opportunity to do work in Mexico and learn about border effects on health. 2nd and 3rd years do a 2nd half day/week of a subspecialty clinic or research (in addition to the other half day/week for continuity clinic). Doesn't have as big a reputation as other programs, but probably deserves it!
Cost of living (as with all of the CA schools).

UCSF
Very happy residents, very diverse patient population, different experiences at the 5 different hospitals you work at, no question that you will leave here well trained. Myriad of opportunities in research, community health, global health... you ask for it, and it is there! Felt very comprehensive, like Baylor, but smaller size (29 PGY1). Residents participate actively in conferences. PLUS program residents (Pediatric Leadership for the Underserved) influence the curriculum of the regular residents for the better.
Going to all of the different hospitals and learning all of the different systems seems daunting at first, but the residents take it all in stride.
Cost of living, but they do increase your salary to help with that.

 

[oldbearprofessor]

Phoenix Children's Hospital/Maricopa

Overall Impression: I was surprised by this program! Overall, very strong program with a fun group of residents!

Interview Day: Day begins at 7:30am with morning report, then interview (about 20-30 minutes), then group meeting with PD, next went to Maricopa and toured then had interview at Maricopa, lunch with residents, tour of Phoenix Children's then wrap up with chief residents; day ended around 2:45 or 3pm. The dinner the night before was held at a resident's apartment and Qdoba was catered in, one of my favorite pre-interview dinners with lots of residents & casual setting.


Curriculum: You spend time at Phoenix Children's, free-standing tertiary care children's hospital and time at Maricopa Medical Center, a community health center with pediatric floor, PICU & NICU & peds ER. First year has 4 months inpatient wards, 2 months outpatient, 2 months NICU, 1 month ER, 1 month well baby nursery, 1 month dev & behavioral peds, 1 month elective & 4 wks vacation. Have 2 1/2 days of continuity clinic a week - the 2nd day can be spent at a subspecialty clinic, I think you can also do research with this 2nd half day. Research seemed very accessible. The PD told us on the interview day that we could tell her what we were interested in as far as research and she would personally find us a mentor if needed regarding an applicant ? about research opps. Phoenix Children's is building a new children's hospital and it will be opened in stages beginning in 2010.

Residency: 24 categorical spots last year (think they are keeping this number the same); PD was very approachable and seemed invested in resident education. Wards, NICU & PICU are all q4 from what I remember.

Population: very diverse, will see Caucasian, Hispanic mostly but also Native American population

Phoenix: Phoenix was beautiful! I appreciated it even more since I interviewed in December! Lots of outdoor activities such as hiking and running along with modern shopping facilities and malls.

Fellowship: not tons of fellows at Phoenix - I remember ER fellows were there; good fellowship placement - last year had people match at DC Children's for ID & heme/onc, UCSF for critical care, U of Texas-HOuston for adolescent & NICU, & St. Jude's for Heme/onc....had people match in cardio most notably at U of Michigan