2016-2017 PM&R Interview Experiences Thread

[blondiellie]

2016-2017 PM&R Interview Experiences Thread - Figured it was time to start!

Links from previous years for reference:

2015-2016: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/2015-2016-pm-r-interview-experiences-thread.1170403/

2014-2015: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/2014-2015-pm-r-interview-experiences-thread.1103600/

2013-2014: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/interview-trail-2013-14.1033031/

2011-12:http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=865002

2010-11:http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=771765

2009-10:http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=662186

2008-9:http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=563591

2007-8:http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=387065

2006-7:http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=332086

2005-6: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=225835

2004 and before:http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=161782

Review interview days + post useful info for other applicants. Please try to use the template so we can keep it consistent from previous years. Also reviews about the same program from multiple people are encouraged so we can give different points of view!

Template

Program:

# of Applicants:

Interview day structure:

# of interviews + w/who?:

Residents:

Programs directors:

Fellowships offered:

Call schedule:

Best Features:

Any negatives:

Anything else:

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[blondiellie]

Program: Vanderbilt

# of Applicants: 18

Interview day structure: First half of the alphabet (last name) interviews 8-10:30a. Second half of the alphabet interviews 1-3:30p. 10:30a-1p there was a presentation (supposed to be from Dr. Frontera the Chair, but he was out of town), tour of the medical complex, and lunch with presentation from the Internal Medicine chair about the PGY1 year.

# of interviews + w/who?: 4- 15min interviews, 1 w/ resident, 2 w/ faculty, 1 w/ PD

Residents: 4 categorical - Vanderbilt is a newer program so they only have 2 classes of residents thus far. The program has the ability to go up to 6 residents a year, but they want to graduate a class first before increasing their number. Residents were all extremely happy, even those in their intern year. They all hang out outside of the hospital and the PGY1s can even pop in for a PM&R didactic lecture every now and then.

Programs director: SUPER nice. Really just chatted with her about hobbies and things we love about the field during the interview. Very personable and loved to talk.

Fellowships offered: Sports Medicine, Pain

Call schedule: PGY2 1wk home call each month. I'm unsure of the upper years as I think they were still figuring things out? According to the residents they rarely were called in because the nursing staff handles everything, prior to these two years they never had residents.

Best Features: Newer program. I put this in both pros and cons because I think it's both an asset and a liability. As a new program the faculty are very responsive to any changes you suggest and the residents are able to help shape the program. Although it's newer it sounds like Vanderbilt is putting a lot of support behind this program. They developed the department as stand alone (not under neuro or ortho) and the department has been able to double or more in size every year. It also sounds like they recruited some pretty great people, many w/ prestigious training programs (i.e. Harvard). Program has a building dedicated to Integrative medicine and residents are required to rotate there and learn about acupuncture, yoga for therapy vs. traditional PT etc. Program has their own fluoro suite w/ C-arm in the rehab hospital for injection training. PGY1 year is a HUGE bonus as Vanderbilt has a great Internal Medicine program (ranked 14th on doximity) whos PD seemed very responsive to resident concerns and recommended changes. Every building is in walking distance in the medical complex (except one OP office which is 15min away) and the undergrad campus abuts the medical campus. Residents said the Vanderbilt ancillary staff was wonderful. Nashville is a pretty cool city.

*Just a heads up that the PGY1 schedule on their website might not be accurate because there were some differences between what is listed there and what the IM PD told us during our lunch presentation.

Any negatives: Newer program so possible stumbles during development. Didn't talk much about TBI or Stroke.

Overall I was very surprised and impressed by this program. It sounds like this program is primed to become one of the better PM&R programs with all of the support from Vanderbilt behind it.

 

[SpinALL]

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[Ragnar8]

Can't speak to VCU or Carolinas, but Emory is the best program in the SE without question. MSK, US, sports,and interventional opportunities are some of the best in the country.


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[PMR Blue Devil Trojan]

 

[PMR Blue Devil Trojan]

 

[PMR Blue Devil Trojan]

 

[PMR Blue Devil Trojan]

 

[Ragnar8]

Thanks for posting your interview experiences.

To everyone else...please post your interview experiences. These posts were a great resource when I interviewed several years ago, but fewer and fewer people are doing them in recent years. Not only will your interview experience posts help future applicants, but they also help programs know what they need to improve upon. Thanks in advance.



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[cameroncarter]

Program: UT Southwestern

# of Applicants: 4

Interview day structure:

Greeted in the morning by the PC, Terri, who is arguably the coolest PC I've met on the trail. They provide a small breakfast spread.
We start the day by meeting the department chairman, Dr.Bell. Dr.Bell is very well known in the field and was wonderful to meet. She chatted with us about changes she's made since coming to UTSW and her vision for the department's future. Then, the PD Dr.Barker came in to give us a presentation about Dallas and the residency program itself.

We started interviews soon after. After interviews we went on a tour of the facilities and ended with lunch. For lunch, they rented out a vip room in their physicians lounge, which is the nicest I've ever seen. I remember a whole table dedicated for only for desserts, which included creme brûlée and any other fancy dessert you could imagine.

# of interviews + w/who?:

4 interviews, 20ish minutes each, all were simple and conversational.
1 was Dr.Barker. 1 was a chief resident. Other 2 were faculty members.

Residents:

9 per class (6 categorical, 3 advanced).

Programs directors:

Dr.Barker

Fellowships offered:

BI/SCI/Pediatric rehab

Call schedule: Don't recall.

Best Features:

AMAZING hospital! Big department and residency class. 3 fellowships in-house. UTSW is a very well known name in medicine. Uptown area of Dallas was amazing. Airport (southwest hub) is 15 minutes away. Residents loved the PGY1 year, they get to spend a decent bit of ambulatory time with PM&R relevant clinics (burn, wound, ortho, etc.). Friendly resident group.

Any negatives:

You may need to drive a bit far for certain rotations in located in neighboring cities (I'm not a Texan, can't remember the names). Residency class and dept. may be too big? Far different than other programs where its a small tight knit family. Departmental research is still being established - Dr.Bell said hiring a research director was on the docket though.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: Rutgers-JFK Johnson rehab institute

# of Applicants: 8

Interview day structure:

Came in at 8:30 to a small conference room and had a Q&A session with Chief Resident .The program director, Dr. Cuccurulo, came in at about 9:30 and have a presentation about her program. She said she liked to keep the program small, and has been program director since 1996. Residents spoke very highly of her. She apparently helps residents find jobs by proofreading contracts, reaching out to people, etc.

Interview started at 10:20. There were 4 interviewers for 7 applicants, so for people not interviewing, you had to sit with the residents during their didactics. Lunch was served at this time which was some Chinese beef and rice w/ brownies and soda.

# of interviews + w/who?:

4 interviews: 1 with Dr. David Brown, EMG specialist and teacher. Dr Cuccurullo, program director. Chief resident. And Dr. Bagay, assistant program director who recently graduated from the program herself.

Residents:

4 residents per class. All residents were either from New York or New Jersey.

Programs directors:
Dr. Cuccurullo

Fellowships offered:

Pain, Spinal cord

Call schedule:

Averages out to Q7 call, 1 weekend call qmonth, mostly home call if you live within 30 minutes of the hospital.

Best Features:

Tight knit program with a well thought out curriculum. Obviously they take pride in the quality of their education. Residents seemed happy.

Program is apparently strong in procedures. Student do 300-400 EMGs. 3 month clinical elective, 1 month allowed offsite which would be good for fellowships. 2 residents matched into pain fellowships.

Any negatives:

Program touted a very "hand on" approach to resident learning, with a lot of attention from faculty for resident learning. While this may be desirable for some, I am more of an independent learner and feel I would shy away from too much attention.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: SUNY Upstate

# of Applicants: 12

Interview day structure:

Came in at 8 AM. Had breakfast which had bagels, muffins, juice, coffee. Program director, Dr. Weber came in to talk at 8:30. He said the program had a long 24 year history and the snow wasn’t so bad because of the Lake effect which makes the snow very light and fluffy and easy to blow away. 1 resident per class sat at the interview table to keep the applicants entertained while not interviewing. Lunch consisting of sandwiches/chicken salad/cookies was served. Ended the day with a tour of the 2 north facility, and the VA.

# of interviews + w/who?:

3 Interviews.

Dr. Weber + Dr. Turk dual interview:

Dr. Lebduska: Director of the VA. Asked me 2 questions. Interview ended in like 6 minutes.

Dr. Hurlong: Director of 2 north facility.

Residents:

Met 1 resident, who was a married female from Canada. Talked a lot with a resident from Philly who was super gung ho bout finding cheap places to live in. He bought a 2 Bed 2 bath condo in downtown for like 1300/month. Really sold me on how cheat cost of living was.

Programs directors:

Dr. Weber/Dr Turk

Fellowships offered:

6 slot Pain fellowship run by anesthesia. Usually takes at least 1 applicant internally from Upstate, Peds fellowship.

Call schedule:

On call for 1 week, every 5 weeks.

Best Features:

Really awesome residents. Seemed very happy to be a part of Upstate. Syracuse seemed like a quiet, practical place to live particularly if you have a family, and also seems like a reasonable place to live if you are single. Syracuse university is right on campus.

Seems really nice that there is an associated pain fellowship. 3 of the graduates matched into pain.

Associated prelim medicine program seems very strong.

Any negatives:

Syracuse is kind of a small town. Cold. Interviews were short, felt like they didn’t really get to know me. Facilities seemed ok.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: Hofstra/Northwell

# of Applicants: 10

Interview day structure:

Arrived at 7:30 AM to breakfast of very nice bagel/cream cheese spread. At 8:00, the two chairs, Dr. Shatzer and Dr. Stein gave us a talk about the program. Dr. Stein gave his talk all from memory and kind of mumbled, which made him hard to understand at times. Dr. Shatzer gave an informative talk about lots of cool research, but for whatever reason didn’t seem too enthusiastic while speaking.

From 9-1, all applicants had 2 interviews of 30 minutes each. 1 either with Dr. Shatzer or Dr. Stein, and 1 with the chief resident or another attending.

After interviews, there was journal club with the residents. All the residents read a cancer rehab effectiveness paper, and answered questions by drawing names from a folder. I thought everyone seemed very engaged and that it was an interesting paper.

Lunch was greek food, with chicken kebabs, meatballs, hummus, baba ganush, etc.

Day ended with optional tour of Glen Cove or south side hospital which were far from the interview location. I declined to uber to JFK instead.

# of interviews + w/who?:

Chief Resident

Dr. Stein, program chair

Residents:

4 per class.

Programs directors:

Fellowships offered:

Not sure

Call schedule:

Home call

Best Features:

Highest salary in the country at 70k/ year, and seems like you can have low cost of living if you live in the hospital housing. Hoftra medical school is maybe the only program in the country with a required PMR rotation, which says something about how dedicated the school is to PMR. Great research opportunities and solid training.

Any negatives:
For whatever reason, I felt like the program coordinator/director did not seem too enthusiastic about the program/interview day. Maybe cultural differences because I am from the West coast, etc.

Unclear what fellowships are offered. Hospital sites are somewhat spread out.

Anything else:

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: Rutgers/Kessler

# of Applicants: 8

Interview day structure:

Arrived at 8 AM to breakfast of very nice bagel/cream cheese spread. At 8:00, Dr. Brooks, the PD gave a talk about the program and how strong it was. I was definitely impressed by how much Kessler had to offer. Dr. Brooks is a very giggly person which may be offputting to some, but she has a great enthusiasm for PM&R and a very positive attitude. The intro lecture took place in the president’s conference room which had a very beautiful view overlooking fall color trees on rolling mountain tops. It was a bit hot in the room because the sun was shining directly on me the whole time. But I got through it.

At 8:45, the chief resident spoke with us about life in Jersey. She also seemed very enthusiastic about the program. The residents do a fantasy football/march madness league. Seemed cool.

At 9, half of the group went on a tour while the other have went on interviews. Kessler had a very nice facility, with fluoroscopy machines in house, and EMGs, and a biomechanics lab. All very cool stuff. Cafeteria was small. Apparently you only get lunch money when you’re on call. But you get 4 weeks of vacation and plenty of off time, it seems. For 6 months, you can get a half day of protected interview time/week.

At 10:30 started interviews.

# of interviews + w/who?:

4 interviews, 15 minutes each.

Dr. Nieves – SCI guy. Went to Rutgers for college, med school, and residency, and fellowship presumably.

Chief Resident - explained that the culture as Kessler was that of hard working individuals, who are also a very tight knit group. She talked about life in New Jersey, how its close to the city, but also very scenic, and close to farms.

Dr. Brooks – Laughed a lot during the interview, very conversational. I appreciated her enthusiasm for PM&R and she seemed like a very happy person.

Dr. Jasey – way more laid back guy. He talked about how he entered PM&R as TBI, then switched to SCI. He told me about a peds rock climbing program, how the kids were in harnesses, and how it helped them, which I thought was very cool.


Residents:

8 per class. Talked with a PGY2 from Texas who seemed enthused to be at Kessler.

Programs directors:

Dr. Kirshblum might be taking over?

Fellowships offered:

Pain, TBI, SCI, Peds, everything

Call schedule: 4 times/month during PGY2. In house call.

Home call

Best Features:

Excellent research. Excellent training.

Any negatives:

Kessler is a standalone rehab center, so not sure if I will be able to consult/learn medicine stuff while training there. Didn’t get a chance to interact much with the residents, and overall not sure if I get along with them. Paper charts, but transitioning to epic soon.

Anything else:
Kessler is part of the Big Four, and it was evident to me that their level of training/research was a step above other places I interviewed at. I left the interview feeling that I could enter the program wanting to do anything, decide after getting exposure at Kessler, and still receive excellent training in whatever field I ended up wanting to specialize in.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: Johns Hopkins

# of Applicants: 25

Interview day structure:

Day started at 8 AM with breakfast of fruit and bagels/pastries. Program director gave a brief overview of the PM&R program. Dr. Celnik, program chair, also talked a little bit about the history of Johns Hopkins, how it was the first medical school with women. Then we went on interviews.

After interviews was a tour of the building which was very new and nice. After the interview was lunch which was sandwiches and deviled eggs, with time to mingle with faculty/residents.

# of interviews + w/who?:

3 interviews, 30 minutes each:

2 with faculty, and 1 with either an OT/PT.

Residents:

Talked to PGY2 from Torrance, CA who was chill. Also talked to a more intense PGY3 guy from Washington, who did prelim surgery at UW and recommended I check it out.

Programs directors:

Dr. Celnik

Fellowships offered:

Pain, Peds, TBI

Call schedule:

Q4 week home call though not entirely sure

Best Features:

Excellent academic institution, with great research and clinical training. Best peds rehab program in the country, 4 months of peds rotations. Good name. Residents are very diverse.

Any negatives:

Baltimore is a dangerous/non-glamorous city. Patients are “medically complex,” not sure if you learn a lot by working with them, or if they are just annoying to deal with.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: University of Miami

# of Applicants: 10

Interview day structure:

Arrived to the interview at 7 AM. Breakfast of bagels and pastries, orange juice. Coretha Davis, program coordinator, gave us a 30 minute spiel on the program, rotation schedules, etc. Dr. Sherman, program director, followed with a very persuasive talk about how there were 400 applicants and they are interviewing 50 for 6 positions. It made me feel very special for having been selected for an interview position.

2 Groups were formed, one went on interviews, the others went on a tour. I went on the tour first. It was a super long tour with about 3-4 miles of walking in the Miami heat. We saw the VA, UM rehab, some parts of Jackson, and the resident lounge with a balcony which was pretty cool I guess. But the resident lounge is not going to be there anymore once the new rehab building gets built.

Then we had interviews. 4 interviews, 20 minutes each, with 1 20 minute break station. Following interviews was lunch while the residents gave a talk about the program. Lunch was sandwhiches from Get Naked. I ate a super good chicken breast sandwhich with cheese.

# of interviews + w/who?: 4 interviews.

Dr. Alvarez, Assistant PD, in TBI.

Dr. Dalal, Assistant PD in SCI. Did the SCI fellowship at Miami and stayed on faculty.

Faculty member – went to NY for residency, then did a fellowship in Miami and decided to stay. She shared with me that she has seen Miami continue to thrive and grow.

Dr. Sherman, PD from New York, at Miami for 15 or so years.

Residents:

PGY3 married female from Columbia, moved to America 4 years ago. Another male married PGY3 who grew up in Miami. Also talked to a married male PGY2, who was DO student who did one intern year before wanting to do PM&R. I think all the residents I met were married

Programs directors:
Dr. Sherman

Fellowships offered:

SCI, Pain run by anesthesia. Spasticity, sports upcoming.

Call schedule:

Home call. PGY2 has 30 calls, PGY3 has 20 calls, PGY4 has 10 calls.

Best Features:

Really awesome city, with a lot of glitz and glam. Close to the beach, lots of stuff to do. Party city. Miami is part of a strong academic institution with a lot of cool research going on, including the Miami project to cure paralysis, the integrative stem cell research institute. Lots of construction going on, Miami is clearly growing.

Any negatives:

I am a little uneasy that everything is changing at Miami. New chair is going to come, everything will be moving into the new rehab building. I am worried that there will be a lot of kinks to figure out and that it will affect the seamlessness of my training. Many Miami natives speak only a certain dialect of Spanish.

Anything else:
I think UM will be a really excellent program, maybe in 5 years when all the dust has settled. As of now, it is a great program in my eyes.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: UCLA VA//GLAHS

# of Applicants: 4 AM session, 3 PM session

Interview day structure:

Went in at 8 AM to breakfast of muffins and fruit. Started with 1 hour long meet and greet with residents. Overall was kind of a serious discussion about life at the VA. Had my first interview with Dr. Aragaki. Then 30 minute break. Then had meeting with Dr. Pham. Then 30 minute break. At 11 Dr. Aragaki gave a presentation about the program. At noon had lunch + tour with residents. Left at 1 pm.

# of interviews + w/who?: 2 interviews 30 mins

Dr. Aragaki (PD): Very conversational interview. Dr. Aragaki said she puts a lot of work into the program and really works towards the resident experience, which I believe. She said she could pretty much run the program from another country.

Dr. Pham (Assistant PD): Another very nice, conversational interview

Residents:

Talked to PGY2 from UCLA med, who lived in riverside and brought some fruits (persimmons, small oranges) from her dads trees.

Talked to another PGY2 from USC who lived in Little Tokyo.

Programs directors:

Fellowships offered:

Pain, I think Sports/interventional spine is already there or in the works.

Call schedule:

All home call.

Best Features:

"Chill" program, mostly outpatient. Residents are very cool, easy to get along with. Dr. Aragaki was very nice, as was Dr. Pham. Overall everyone seemed very happy and easy to get along with.

One of the best pain fellowships in the country. Early pain exposure throughout PGY2. Very strong in procedures like injections and stuff.

Next year, the California Rehab Institute (CRI) will be opening, and UCLA/West LA VA residents will get to rotate there. This institute is modeled after Kessler, and will be run for 6 months out of the year by the same guy who runs Kessler.

It's LA, which is definitely a cool city to live in.

Any negatives:

Weak in SCI/TBI exposure as far as I know, but it might change in a couple years once the new CRI gets up and running. One of the lowest resident salaries in the country when accounting for cost of living.

Anything else:
As of now, this program would be excellent for people looking to do outpatient. I would hope that the CRI will fill in some exposure to inpatient settings as well.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: Vanderbilt

# of Applicants: 17

Interview day structure:

Day started at 8 AM. Walked into a conference room where there was the standard breakfast of bagels and fruit. There were 8 interviewees in the morning session. All 8 of us did our interviews very first thing in the morning. Then, the afternoon group came for the talk by Dr. Fronterra, the PM&R chair. After the Fronterra talk, we went on an hour long tour which was a lot of walking. Ate lunch which was BBQ from Vandy’s deli. There was pulled pork and chopped pork which were absolutely delicious. Also ate some corn bread, baked beans, and salad. Over lunch, had a talk by the Medicine director to talk to us about the preliminary year experience, which seemed excellent. We each got a Vanderbilt tote bag, with a Vanderbilt mug and hat. Pretty cool I guess but unfortunately did not fit into my carry on.

# of interviews + w/who?:

4 interviews:

Talked with a PGY2 during 1 interview, which was interesting.

Dr Stark, PD: Conversational interview, joked a lot.

Dr. Yang, Associate PD: Young attending who seemed very excited to have spent the last 2 years working at Vanderbilt in Nashville. He took a lot of pride being a proceduralist pain PM&R doc at Vanderbilt. He bought a house in Nashville which he said showed a strong investment into the city of Nashville.

Dr. Jain, head of Research

Residents:

Talked with PGY2 male from Canada. Talked with another PGY2 male who did orthopedic residency in China, regenerative medicine PhD in Canada, now doing his residency at Vandy. Doing a 7000 patient GWAS study about genetics involved in rotator cuff tears.

Programs directors:

Fellowships offered:

Pain, Sports Medicine

Call schedule:

Once a month, residents determine their own call schedule

Best Features:

Vanderbilt has an excellent name. Receives lots of transfers from hospitals all across the south. Lots of flexibility to do research, the program director helps you collaborate with whomever will help you with your research project. Nashville is definitely a cool city.

Any negatives:

New program, so probably will have its bumps.

Anything else:
Overall during interviews, I got this weird vibe that people were trying to gauge my willingness to move to Nashville. A couple of my interviewers directly asked me questions like "What are your barriers to moving here?" or "So you'll move to Nashville with no hesitation?" These questions were uncomfortable for me to answer.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: University of Colorado

# of Applicants: 12

Interview day structure: 11 AM arrived into a conference room where we were given a lunch of fancy sandwhiches. Short talk by the program chair, Dr. Mathews, also met the chair of research, Lisa Brenner. Then was a very strong presentation by Dr. Akuthota about the history of the Colorado program. After that, there was a tour led by 4 residents. Saw the main hospital and the children’s hospital, with a 20 minute talk by a kinesiologist in the gait lab. At 2 interviews started.

# of interviews + w/who?: 6, 15 minute long interviews

3 faculty, 1 program director, 2 chief resident interviews

Residents:

Talked to PGY2 male from Detroit. Talked to the male chief resident going into sports medicine, and female chief resident going into pain medicine fellowship at Colorado.

Programs directors:

Dr. Akuthota, laid back, amiable guy

Fellowships offered:

Pain, SCI

Call schedule: Home call. Not a lot of call.

Best Features:

Residents are very cool. Very strong clinical training in broad fields of PM&R. Denver is obviously a cool city to live in. Research is independently driven, which may be hard but will probably result in the best learning.

Any negatives:

Research department is still being built up.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: Schwab

# of Applicants: 6

Interview day structure: At 8 AM arrived into resident work room with breakfast of bagels. Chief resident gave a talk about the features of the program, was going into peds rehab. At 9, went to rounds with one of the attendings. Then interviews started, 20 minutes each with 2 20 minute breaks. Then, lunch of tacos. There was supposed to be a "lunch and learn" talk but I guess we didn’t do it. Then the standard tour. Schwab itself seemed pretty small, but I heard most rotations are done off site after 2nd year.


# of interviews + w/who?: 4, 20 minutes each

2 faculty, 1 chief resident, 1 PD

Dr. Gittler, PD: She was very nice and the whole interview was very conversational. .

Residents:

Chief, Going to peds rehab. PGY4 going into pain fellowship at loma linda. PGY2 who went to Hofstra med school, Northwestern undergrad.

Programs directors: Dr Gittler

Fellowships offered: None

Call schedule: 32 calls for PGY2, 20 for PGy3, 16 for PGY4 or something like that

Best Features: Excellent clinical training. I got along really well with the residents and felt very comfortable with Dr. Gittler. Dr Gittler works very hard to help get jobs for her residents. Get to work in an underserved population. Chicago is an amazing city.

Any negatives: No real research opportunity. No in-house fellowships.

Anything else:
Schwab is a top ten program according to Doximity.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: Loma Linda

# of Applicants: 12

Interview day structure: At 7:15 AM arrived at Loma Linda where we were seated at a central table thing in the hallway with other applicants. Moved to a conference room at 7:30 and Mary Kim, Program director gave a talk about the LLU program. From 8-10 interviews, 10-12 tour. At noon lunch was Mexican food with residents.

# of interviews + w/who?: 4, 20 minutes each.

Mary Kim, PD. 2 dual interviews, with 2 faculty members each. 1 dual interview with 2 chief residents.

Residents:

All laid back and friendly.

Programs directors:

Fellowships offered: Pain

Call schedule: q4 weeks

Best Features:

Good clinical training, broad. People are very nice, being mostly 7th day Adventists, but still a good mix of atheists/other faiths. In SoCal, but decent cost of living. Close to hiking, and close to Palm Springs.

Any negatives: Loma Linda itself is not the most exciting city. No caffeine sold on campus.

Anything else:
I would say the interview questions were the most difficult I experienced on the interview trail. At the same time however, I appreciated the difficulty, as I felt I got to know the interviewers well, and the interviewers got to know me.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: Marianjoy

# of Applicants: 5

Interview day structure: At 8:30 arrived into the main lobby. Went with the group onto the 3rd floor conference room which was really big. Chief resident gave presentation about the program. Breakfast of donuts and coffee. From 9-11:30 there were didactics. One was by the future program director, Dr. Sayyad, who had a bubbly personality. 2 applicants were taken out at a time for interviews.

From 11:30-1:30 we had a tour of the hospital and lunch from the cafeteria. Had a chance to speak with the other residents who all seemed really happy, Most seemed to be going into private practice.

# of interviews + w/who?: 2, 30 minutes each

Dr. Rao, PD: Talked about how Marianjoy was a hidden jewel in terms of PM&R training. He told me that Chicago has a higher murder rate than LA and NY combined, but Wheaton is a very safe place to live. Overall, I thought Dr. Rao was a very kind, wise man but he is stepping down soon. Marianjoy will be called Northwestern PM&R next year.

Chief resident: Basically just there to answer my questions in a casual setting. We talked about how he wants to go into sports and spine, and wants to do a blend of inpatient and outpatient medicine working in a large group of physatrists in the future. He mentioned that a good number of Marianjoy graduates go into non-accredited fellowships.

Residents:

Talked to one PGY4 who was accepted into UCLA spine fellowship, and Stanford interventional spine. But his wife got accepted into a NICU fellowship so he is moving to Texas and taking a job in private practice. He gave me a lot of good advice, saying how billing is an important skill to have. You can choose to work with an MBA who does billing for you, but they take 60% of your salary. If you do billing wrong, you can lose 20% of your profits. Also if you work in a group of Orthopods, you have to fight to make sure that you are not getting the scraps of reimbursement.

Overall I thought I got a lot of good advice from the Marianjoy residents. They seemed to know the more about life after residency than other residents I talked to on the trail.

Programs directors:

Dr. Rao, been program director for 30 years. Stepping down in 2016 but still gong to work doing EMGs 2 days/week.

Dr. Sayyad – new program director.

Fellowships offered:

None

Call schedule:

4 calls/month 1st year, 3 calls/month 2nd, 1 call/month 3rd

Best Features:

I’m convinced that I will get great clinical training there. New facility with lots of great technology. Will merge with Northwestern Health next year so there will be a name brand attached to it. Close to Chicago but not in Chicago. Residents seemed happy.

Any negatives:

Not strong in research.

Anything else:

Dark horse for me, was quite impressed by Marianjoy.

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: SUNY Downstate

# of Applicants: 10

Interview day structure:

At 12:30 showed up to the Downstate hospital lobby. Met some of the morning applicants there. PGY3 took us down to the basement to one of the conference rooms where there was lunch of wraps and cookies and stuff. Presentation by Dr. Stickevers, PD of the program, who worked at a VA hospital for a long time.

Half of the group went on a tour, half of the group had interviews. Day ended for me at 3:30.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3, 20 minutes each

1 Faculty interview.

Dr. Stickevers, PD

Dr. Pipia, Program chair

Residents:

Talked to a PGY3 from Brooklyn

Programs directors:

Dr. Stickevers, Dr. Pipia

Fellowships offered:

Sports medicine fellowship supposedly coming next year. Pain fellowship incoming.

Call schedule:
I got the impression that Downstate had a lot of call. I think it has the most call out of any program, and it is in-house, overnight call. Something like 6 calls/month PGY2, 4 calls/month PGY3, 3 calls PGY4.

Best Features:

Brooklyn is a sweet city with a lot of culture. Dr. Stickevers and Dr. Pipia were extremely pleasant to get along with, and I believe they are working hard to make Downstate an excellent program.

Any negatives:

Didn’t really get a happy vibe from the residents. Brooklyn is a huge city, maybe too huge. Residents weren’t too into research. Overall, walked away unsure of the strength/breadth of clinical training at Downstate.

Anything else:

Brooklyn pizza > Chicago pizza

 

[Lego Batman]

Program: Stanford

# of Applicants: 21

Interview day structure: Went in at 8 AM into a conference room at the Spinal cord center at the Palo Alto VA. Had an hour long talk by the Stanford Program Director, DJ Kennedy.. He was a good speaker and really made me believe that Stanford was one of the best programs in the country, and made sure to let us know that we were all great applicants if we got interviews at Stanford.

# of interviews + w/who?:

4 interviews, 20 minutes each.

3 faculty interviews, 1 PD.

Residents:

1 Male chief resident who was really into research, published a few papers and got a grant while in residency. Another PGY4 who was doing a sports/spine/regenerative medicine non-accredited fellowship. 1 female chief resident who was pregnant, planning to go into private practice.

Programs directors:

Fellowships offered:
Pain, sports, spine

Call schedule:
Unsure

Best Features:
Excellent research opportunity in stem cells/neuroprosthetics. Great clinical training with leaders in the fields of SCI, TBI, sports, pain, spine, etc. Get to work with Stanford athletes if you are gung-ho about it.

Any negatives:
Insanely high costs of living, bad commute times. Hospital sites are spread out. Stanford does offer a housing stipend and a decent 60k salary which somewhat offsets this, however.

Anything else:
Palo alto is a beautiful location with a unique entrepreneurial spirit. Basically you aren't an important person in Palo Alto unless you have your own startup.

 

[cameroncarter]

Program: UT Southwestern

# of Applicants: 4

Interview day structure:

Greeted in the morning by the PC, Terri, who is arguably the coolest PC I've met on the trail. They provide a small breakfast spread.
We start the day by meeting the department chairman, Dr.Bell. Dr.Bell is very well known in the field and was wonderful to meet. She chatted with us about changes she's made since coming to UTSW and her vision for the department's future. Then, Dr.Barker came in to give us a presentation about Dallas and the residency program itself.

We started interviews soon after

# of interviews + w/who?:

4 interviews, 20ish minutes each, all were simple and conversational.
1 was Dr.Barker. 1 was a chief resident. Other 2 were faculty members.

Residents:

9 per class (6 categorical, 3 advanced).

Programs directors:

Dr.Barker

Fellowships offered:

BI/SCI/Pediatric rehab

Call schedule: Don't recall.

Best Features:

AMAZING hospital! Big department and residency class. 3 fellowships in-house. UTSW is a very well known name in medicine. Uptown area of Dallas was amazing. Airport (southwest hub) is 15 minutes away. Residents loved the PGY1 year, they get to spend a decent bit of ambulatory time with PM&R relevant clinics (burn, wound, ortho, etc.). Friendly resident group.

Any negatives:

You may need to drive a bit far for certain rotations in located in neighboring cities (I'm not a Texan, can't remember the names). Residency class and dept. may be too big? Far different than other programs where its a small tight knit family. Departmental research is still being established - Dr.Bell said hiring of research director was on the docket though.

 

[ukfan323]

About me: Midwest school, MD, 230s Step 1, 240s Step 2, 1st pass CS. 3rd? 4th quintile of class? cant remember but not near top. Mostly pass/high pass on 3rd year clerkships. Did 2 PM&R rotations, 1 home and 1 away at Mayo. Letters were 1 away PM&R, 1 home PM&R, 1 Psych, 1 Medicine

Applied to 35 programs, 19 invites, went on 12 interviews. ranked 11
Applied to lots of prelims/TYs, went on 8 interviews, ranked all of them

I was really looking for a program that had down to earth, pleasant residents and faculty that I could really see myself getting along with. I'm not a very high stress, "gunner" type person so I didn't have much interest in the programs where I got the sense everyone was focused on prestige and personal interests. Am interested in sports, peds, and msk. Not particularly needing to stay in the midwest but applied mainly to midwest programs with a few outsiders as I would like to be driving distance from hometown.

Rank order: Mayo, Wisconsin, IU, Louisville, Ohio State, Vanderbilt, MCW, Carolinas, MetroHealth, Cincinnati, Minnesota. Mayo was just all around the best IMO and I really felt like I fit in and it would set me up for anything I wanted to pursue for fellowship. Also helped that I had spent a month there and really enjoyed it. Wisconsin was clear #2 based on the people and awesome gut feeling. Rest of my top 5 were programs close to home that honestly all felt about the same. Bottom half were either farther away than I wanted or just not that exciting to me as the others. Aside from the place I didn’t rank, I really would be happy at any of these places and none of them are places I would discourage people from applying to. I think it’s important to know applicant info and rank list when reading these reviews to put things into perspective.

Invites received but did not attend: North Carolina, Baylor (Houston), UK, Kansas, Emory, Mary Free Bed, UPenn,
Interview but didn't rank: William Beaumont (see review for why)

A few notes about the overall process:
-My opinion of the pre-interview dinner was definitely influenced by how well the other applicants interacted and got along
-Don’t worry about over applying..you can always turn down invites but you can’t go back and try to get more if you don’t have enough
-Try to schedule your top choices in the middle of the season. You will definitely start to get burnt out by the end and they will all run together.
-Keep notes as you go and try to make your rank list as each interview ends. Compare 1 to 2, then the first three, etc..that way you are in a way only comparing 1-1 each time rather than looking back and trying to sort 10+
-Take your SO if you can. If you see they are excited or unhappy spending the day in the city, it is good to see that and can/should influence your decisions.
-Ask about EMGs..every program will tell you they get 200+, but at some places that might mean only placing 1 needle counts as a full EMG. Also at quite a few places, EMGs are taught by the seniors to the juniors, so if you don’t learn well from the senior, might be more challenging.
-Asking about education vs service balance is a good way of asking how much the residents are a workforce and how stressed or overworked they might be on inpatient services.
-Get contact info for at least 1 resident you connected with so you can ask them questions later on when it's time to rank and you forgot everything about the program

I'll split these up to separate posts later if someone wants. Happy to answer any questions here or PM! Here we go..

Mayo Clinic
# of Applicants: 8-10 I think
# Spots: 2 cat, 6 adv
Interview day structure: HOTEL PROVIDED. Dinner the night before at local restaurant, good environment for talking. Quite a few residents there, they all seemed happy and got along well. Were all very happy to be at Mayo. Light breakfast interview day, presentation by PD about the program, brief presentation about medicine intern year and diversity at Mayo. Half went on tour..really long so wear comfy shoes..then half interviewed and switch. Lunch was with more of the residents.
# of interviews + w/who?: 4. PD, assistant PD, 2 faculty. Very laid back and casual. Were easy going since I already knew the faculty from my rotation there. Still got a lot of the standard interview questions.
Residents: Really professional but still easy to get along with and talk to. They all get along well and enjoyed being there. For being a “top 6” program, I was afraid the people would be more intense and stressed but it was the exact opposite. Handful are married, some have kids, diverse group.
Programs directors: Very personable, easy to talk to, great advocate for the residents. They all had great things to say about him. Assistant PD was also great..they rotate every set number of years so it was cool to see who the new leadership will be and see the continuity with what the program is trying to do.
Fellowships offered: peds, sports, pain (anesthesia saves a spot for PM&R)
Call schedule: Home call. PGY2s take call on weekends and seniors take weeknights. Rarely have to come in, residents thought call schedule was good.
Best Features: MSK/sports/ultrasound, Mayo name and reputation, everything is close. Great faculty who really love to teach, enthusiastic and hardworking residents that get along and aren’t competitive towards each other.
Any negatives: Rochester…I mean, yea the winters can be pretty miserable I’ve heard, although the residents say you get used to it and its fine, not much to do if you’re single but great town for raising a family. Also not much industry around for SO if they aren’t in medicine. Curriculum wise they don’t get as many spinal cord injuries as you might in a big metro area. If you don’t want to do sports/msk that might get overwhelming. You do have to wear a suit if that is a big deal to you.
Anything else: moonlighting allowed, can do 3 electives down in Florida or Arizona. Variety of patient population was different. Lots of patients are very wealthy and travel from other countries for their care, while others are just local folks there for there medical care. So you might go from treating the back pain of a business executive from Russia to taking care of a farmer from rural Minnesota.
Overall: It’s all been said before, but to reinforce, possibly the best place to go for msk/sports. Great reputation, residents get great fellowships and jobs. If you think people at Mayo will be arrogant, they aren’t. Very humble consultants. They love to teach and everyone on the team really is an equal. If you absolutely hate the cold, you might be miserable, but if you can tolerate it and don’t mid the location, IMO there might not be a better place and setting to train if you want to do MSK/sports.

University of Wisconsin
# of Applicants: 6
# Spots: 3 adv
Interview day structure: Dinner the night before at a local brewery. Was awesome. Faculty were there and it wasn’t strange at all. They were genuinely interested in the applicants and already knew stuff about us. It was really cool to see faculty and residents interact and get along so well. Interview day started with light breakfast. Didactics took place during the interview time so we sat in on that while waiting for our interviews. Was cool to observe didactics and see the interactions. Then we had lunch. ALL of the residents were there and ALL of them made it a point to meet all of us and chat. Really impressive. Then we toured the main hospital and drove about 15 minutes to the new free standing rehab hospital for a tour.
# of interviews + w/who?: 4, 20 minutes each. PD, chair, 2 faculty
Residents: It’s been said before and it was true again..hands down the most down to earth, easy going, fun group of residents I met on the trail. They were passionate about rehab and their program but they had lots of other interests and understood the value of being well rounded outside of work. They are very selective about who they interview and you can see it reflected in the consistent personalities through the classes.
Programs directors: Not as energetic as some of the others I met, but still great. Residents say she is really supportive and they like working with her.
Fellowships offered: pain (anesthesia I think)
Call schedule: 1 week/month home call
Best Features: residents and supportive faculty, “family feel”, outpatient MSK, pain, unique peds exposure
Any negatives: inpatient rehab is probably “weaker” than others. They don’t have specific brain/spine/stroke/etc services, its just all together. Residents said you still learn a ton and you see everything you need to see, you just might not see lots of them. Rehab facility is out away from rest of campus, so there is a bit of a drive depending on where you live
Anything else: Central Wisconsin Center is one of the few remaining live in facilities for people with disabilities. You can moonlight there on weekends but you also rotate at the acute care side that has a lot of kids as patients. I remember it being explained as a setting where patients (mostly kids) come in for a week or two stay to get a sort of ‘tune up’ every now and then for their disability. The residents really liked the chance to work there and said it was a big strength of the program.
Overall: Probably the best fit/gut feeling for me on the trail. I thought the people here were fantastic and were really dedicated to teaching.

Indiana University
# of Applicants: 6 (?)
# Spots: 4 adv
Interview day structure: No dinner. Breakfast when we arrived while we had a presentation on Indianapolis and the program by the PD. Very enthusiastic about Indianapolis, overall presentation was pretty underwhelming as there wasn’t much info about specifics of the curriculum and that sort of stuff. Then went on a tour. The main rehab hospital is off site about 15-20 minutes from the department headquarters down town. Really cool gait lab. Interviews next, then we out for a fancy lunch with the residents.
# of interviews + w/who?: 3 I think, 12 minutes each. Felt really rushed and chaotic. 1 with PD and 2 with senior residents. They were laid back, but the time constraints made it hard to get good feeling for things.
Residents: great residents, seem really close, happy at IU, a few have families and really like being in a Midwest city like Indianapolis. Most of them go straight to practice after residency, 1 resident a couple years ago got a pain fellowship at RIC. Overall the type of people I would enjoy being around and were low key and didn’t seem stressed.
Programs directors: VERY laid back and chill..almost maybe too much so for me.But very nice, really supportive of the program and the residents. Easy to talk to and personable. Overall I saw him as a positive to the program.
Fellowships offered: none
Call schedule: IN HOUSE CALL (with a post call day!). You only cover the main rehab facility, it is off site. Don’t remember frequency but residents seemed to like it and didn’t complain.
Best Features: Lots of procedure experience. Residents feel really comfortable with variety of procs when graduating. Great teaching faculty, good facilities.
Any negatives: If you want lots of research, I got the sense it isn’t as strong here. They have some cool TBI research and are getting gait lab set up. Peds has been weak in past but they recently hired 2 new peds physiatrists so it is improving (great children’s hospital in town so that helps too). The off site rehab hospital might be an issue for some people, but I believe you can dial in for didactics if you are off site so you don’t have to drive a bunch.
Anything else:
Overall: Solid Midwest program that will give you what you need, but didn’t really stand out in one particular area over another. Great faculty that seem really fun to be around and the residents are pleasant, down to earth people. IMO after you get below the “top 6” there isn’t too much difference in a lot of the programs in terms of what they offer unless you lot at specific details. I would put IU in this class below the top 6, it has everything you need to get great training and is in a really enjoyable town to live in.

Louisville
# of Applicants:
# Spots: 3 advanced
Interview day structure: Dinner the night before at local place. Good conversation, residents already knew a bit about our app so they could start some conversation. Interview day was typical..breakfast, PD gave program overview, talked about their research on spinal cord injury, toured rehab building, interviews, lunch and home.
# of interviews + w/who?: 5, PD, senior resident, 3 faculty. Mostly benign, some silly “what is your favorite number/superhero/etc” type of questions from one interview. Overall I thought they went well and were chill.
Residents: Really diverse group of personalities. Within 1 class of 3 residents there was a broad spectrum of how talkative/energetic they were. They were all nice and happy to be there, but some of the personalities really dominated the room and made for a strong contrast. In a small program this seems to stand out more. It was hard to get a sense of what type of person they attract with this variety. Nonetheless, they enjoyed the program and were really happy and proud to be there.
Programs directors: Awesome, he is the incoming chair of the ABPMR so you know he is connected and really dedicated to making his program one of the best out there. Got along really well with him. He is aware of the weakness in the program (at the time it was sports) but they had already found a sports PMR doc that was coming in. Good to see someone so dedicated and proactive leading the program. Huge plus in my book
Fellowships offered: don’t remember
Call schedule: home call, 1 week straight at a time. If you have a bad week, this is miserable, but if not then it was nice and they liked being free the other weeks.
Best Features: the PD was maybe the best feature for me, curriculum wise, great rehab facility with awesome research going on. Lots of access to procedures and 1 on 1 teaching given low class size.
Any negatives:
Anything else: They are part of the neurosurgery department and get along really well. Interesting setup in that they each get a cubicle on the top floor of the rehab building. Residents loved having their own quiet space to go to for notes and studying. The rehab facility is one of the nicest I saw and has big time spinal cord research going on which attracts lots of talent.
Overall: Really enjoyed it here, biggest plus for me was the PD and how much of an impact he could have on the program. They have a dedicated sports PM&R doc which wasn’t the case everywhere. I was a little unsure about the wide range of personality differences in the residents and how I might fit in with that, but overall it’s close to home and I thought it would prepare me really well for any fellowship I might want to do.

Ohio State
# of Applicants: 8
# Spots: 3 adv, 4 cat
Interview day structure: Dinner the night before with quite a few current residents. Really nice, they residents were very personable and happy, got along well with each other and were happy to be at OSU. Interview day started with PD giving a short talk about the program. Was very enthusiastic and impressive. Then we split up and half toured Dodd rehab hospital and rest of OSU medical campus while others interviewed. Had lunch with more residents and a resident led presentation about schedule and program stuff.
# of interviews + w/who?: 4, 20 minutes each. PD knows your app in and out, has lots of stuff highlighted and spends a good portion of the interviewing reviewing all of the things he likes about your app. By far knew the most about my app than any other PDs. 1 interview with a chief resident, then 2 faculty
Residents: Really nice, got along well, happy to be at OSU and enjoyed Columbus. Some of the 2s seemed a little exhausted and worn out..made sense after learning how intense the time on inpatient is at Dodd.
Programs directors: Knew your app extremely well, very dedicated to the program and huge advocate for residents. Was very impressed.
Fellowships offered: don’t remember
Call schedule: Home call, 1x/week while rotating at Dodd and 1 weekend/month while at Dodd.
Best Features: Very well rounded, great reputation. I think you would leave here prepared to do anything and would be very competitive for fellowships. They have a dedicated sports PM&R doc who is very big with ultrasound if that is important to you.
Any negatives: Extremely tough PGY2 year while at Dodd (inpatient rehab). They have very sick patients here and you are very busy. Residents said they definitely function at a high stress level when rotating here and it can make for some very long days.
Anything else: Didactics are every morning from 7:30-8:30. This means you always start your day at 730 and then preround and such after. Residents really liked this consistency.
Overall: Very solid program IMO, especially if you want to focus on inpatient rehab or have no clue what you want to do and are looking for a very well rounded program. If you don’t see yourself anxious to do inpatient, this might be a bit much and some unnecessary stress if the other stuff doesn’t outweigh it.

Medical College Wisconsin
# of Applicants: 10 maybe?
# Spots: don’t remember..they are all advanced but there are a handful of TY/prelims in Milwaukee.
Interview day structure: Meet and greet type of thing the night before, faculty attended. I wasn’t able to make it so can’t comment on how it went. Interview day started with presentation from PD and then we had a tour, interviews, drove to the VA, had lunch, then went on a way too long van tour of Milwaukee.
# of interviews + w/who?: 4, PD and 3 faculty. Very laid back, per usual. A lot of the faculty trained there and so a good amount of my conversation was geared towards why they came back and how a common theme has remained in the program. They are very much about “family feel” and being supportive of each other. Didn’t seem like it was an act all, talking with the residents and the faculty. They get along and they enjoy being around each other and working together.
Residents: Wasn’t at the pre interview event and only talked with a couple residents. Seemed happy, got along. Neutral in my book, didn’t sway my rank either way.
Programs directors: Very supportive, young and energetic about program. Residents had good things to say, overall I saw him as a positive for the program and enjoyed talking with him. He really understood one of the strengths of the program is the family atmosphere and he works to keep that consistent with faculty and residents.
Fellowships offered: SCI..i think maybe TBI and Sports
Call schedule: Home call, don’t remember the schedule but residents were fine with it
Best Features: Great atmosphere and family feel to the program. Really supportive faculty. Great VA setup, really cool adaptive sports programs.
Any negatives: Not allowed to moonlight
Anything else: hard to remember details from this interview. It was the day after a previous one so I had along drive and this was towards the end of my season..
Overall: Had I been more jazzed about the location it probably would have been much higher on my list, to be honest. Thought it was a great program and after my interviews in the morning I was really excited about it. By the end of the day I was exhausted and tired of sitting in a van driving all over Milwaukee so I was kind of anxious to leave. But if you enjoy the area, or don’t mind location, the program is definitely worth checking out if you’re looking for solid all around exposure and a great family feel to a program.

Carolinas Medical Center
# of Applicants: 7
# Spots: ? but at least 1 categorical position
Interview day structure: *Hotel provided. Dinner the night before, residents were pretty varied. Some really talkative and pleasant but others were quiet and didn’t seem too thrilled. Some of the applicants were very quiet too though, so it made conversation tough in general. Interview day was really nice. Breakfast, presentations by PD on the faculty and the program overview. Interviews next, then tour, then lunch with residents, then research presentation, then home.
# of interviews + w/who?: 3, 20 minutes each. PD, faculty, faculty. PD interview was one of the more intense I had on the trail. Very focused on my academics and almost made me feel like I wasn’t’ deserving of coming there. Talk about how to be “excellent” and the importance of being a national leader in the field. For a person like me thinking I just want to be a good humble doc for my patients, this wasn’t my thing. But for some it is, I’m sure.
Residents: Pretty varied. Didn’t seem as personable as others on the trail. A lot of them came in during lunch and just said hello, got food, and walked out. Didn’t seem interested in meeting us. They also seemed pretty tired and worn out. Even mix of married/single
Programs directors: Pretty intense. Thought very highly of the program and sees it as equal to the top in the country. Very much wants people there who will be leaders in the field and made it a point to tell us about the past residents who were leaders on committees. Wasn’t as personable as I hoped but was definitely a strong PD who will support the residents and overall I saw as a positive.
Fellowships offered: TBI
Call schedule: Home call. Don’t remember frequency but you can cover a tonnn of patients (200+). But residents said it wasn’t bad and you rarely go in.
Best Features: GREAT MOONLIGHTING options. You can do extra admissions for $$, residents can make upwards of 15k extra a year if really wanted. Strong inpatient program, great academics, great faculty leaders. Charlotte seemed like a nice city. Really cool adaptive sports program.
Any negatives: Can be a lot of driving between sites
Anything else: Faculty led didactics
Overall: Very solid program, especially if you are looking for strong inpatient and academics/research. Moreso if you want to be in the southeast. For me it was further down my list primarily for location and partly because it just didn’t feel like the best fit for me. But Id say any resident here would get great training and do really well.

Case Western/Metro Health (Cleveland, OH)
# of Applicants: 6 interviewees, they interview a total of ~60-70 I believe
# Spots: 3 adv, 3 cat
Interview day structure: Dinner the night before at a local brewery. There were 3 residents there and they got along really well. Very personable and down to earth. Interview day started with light breakfast and a brief presentation by the PC. Was a little underwhelming looking back after attending all of my interviews. Half the group went on a tour of the facility while the others interviewed. Had a light lunch afterwards and met a few more of the residents.
# of interviews + w/who?: 3 interviews, 30 minutes each. With Department chair, PD, and a faculty member
Residents: Very personable, all seemed to get along with each other. They were a good fit for me. Supported each other, happy with their program and city.
Programs director: Kind of average compared to all the others I met. Didn't seem all that excited or enthusiastic, but also wasn't bad in any way. Just average I'd say, nothing too memorable
Fellowships offered: Spine, working on getting TBI and sports
Call schedule: IN HOUSE CALL..PGY2: 4/month (3 weekday 1 weekend), PGY3: 2/month (1 weekday, 1 weekend), PGY4 no call
Best Features: Great research opportunities, nice new facilities, I would say their inpatient exposure is their strong side and they are weaker on peds/sports. Huge support for research.
Any negatives: Peds/sports/msk
Anything else: Didactics are 1x week for 4 hours, 18 month cycle, faculty led. No cadaver lab. Inpatient services are run by PGY2s. Some rotations are done at Clveland Clinic and the Clinic residents come to MetroHealth for didactics. Seems to be a good relationship there.
Overall Impression: Personally I didn't care much for Cleveland and the area the hospital is in is pretty rough. The program was a little too inpatient and research focused for me. I got the impression that research was more valued than education. But if you're looking for a strong inpatient program that will give you great opportunities for research, this could be for you.

Cincinnati
# of Applicants: 4
# Spots: 2 cat
Interview day structure: Dinner night before at really nice restaurant, quiet, good conversion, great chance to meet 2 of the current residents. Interview day started with light breakfast and program overview, followed by interviews. Then we travelled off site (~15 minutes) to main rehab hospital for tour. Then back for lunch with the other residents.
# of interviews + w/who?: 4, 20 minutes each. PD, department chair, assistant PD, faculty. All were very laid back and casual
Residents: Really nice, got along with each other. Were a little cliquey at lunch and talked a lot more among themselves than with applicants (inside jokes, kept talking about things applicants had no clue about) that made lunch a little awkward but overall they seemed like good down to earth people that were happy with where they were.
Programs directors: Nothing great, nothing terrible. Supportive of residents and seemed to be a good leader of the program but didn’t stand out much from other PDs.
Fellowships offered: Peds
Call schedule: 1 week/ month, home call
Best Features: Great peds exposure, really great and supportive faculty, categorical (intern year was tough but residents appreciated the categorical). Small size allows for 1-1 faculty/resident, adjustable continuity clinic that lets you choose area of PM&R to focus on
Any negatives: Main rehab site is 15 minute drive from main hospital
Anything else: Didactics are 2 mornings a week, faculty led.
Overall: Really enjoyed the program and faculty, just didn’t’ think 2 person class size was right for me and I didn’t’ quite get that good gut feeling. Otherwise really thought it was a great program. If you want to do peds, I would say there might not be a better option out there.

University of Minnesota
# of Applicants:
# Spots: all categorical, 4 or 5 I think?
Interview day structure: Dinner the night before that was really good. Residents were really nice and had lots of good things to say about the program and they loved Minneapolis. DRESS WARM if you interview here in the winter. We were warned about this but naturally none of the guys brought hats and gloves and it was freezing. You take the metro out to the VA and so there is a good amount of time spent outside walking to the train and then if you have to wait. Interviews were in the afternoon after lunch and the tour.
# of interviews + w/who?: 4 (?) interview with PD was one of the more intense, behavior style interviews I had. Really wanted to know why you wanted to come there also. Others were pretty benign and easy.
Residents: Very diverse group. Some non traditional that had other careers or switched fields, quite a few international graduates. Despite all of the diversity they all got along really well and seemed to mesh together well. They enjoyed Minneapolis despite the cold winters.
Programs directors: More serious than others, but nothing bad to say. Residents liked him and he seemed to be a positive for the program.
Fellowships offered: Pain (?)
Call schedule: Don’t recall
Best Features: Great VA, awesome pain/botox exposure, supposedly Minneapolis is an awesome place to live
Any negatives: sites are spread out (but they have good public transport to get back and forth), sports seemed weaker
Anything else:
Overall: Based on the location, for me I would have had to be really blown away by the program to rank it highly. I don’t mind the weather but it’s far from home. I think if you’re interested in pain this place would be really good. If you want a program with a great VA this is apparently one of the nicest in the country. Diverse group of residents if you personally come from a non traditional background and think you’d fit in better in that setting.

William Beaumont
Not ranking it..needless to say was really turned off by something the PD said during my interview. Along the lines of "we want fit/healthy residents because we work you hard, and if you look at our current residents you’ll see they are in shape and active people’..So yea, instant turn off. It’s also a private practice group that runs the residency program through the hospital, so that gives it a very different feel. All of the residents I asked said the biggest strength of the program was that it teaches you to be efficient, so make of that what you will and that’s all I’ll say about it.

 

[Mr Kenobi]

Program: Washington University in St. Louis / Barnes-Jewish Hospital

# of Applicants:

4

Interview day structure:

9am Walked 1 block from hotel that was provided by the program and located on the medical campus to the administration building where the interview was held. Greeted by the program coordinator, Donna, and guided to a small conference room where a light breakfast and coffee spread awaited. Interviews took place first. Three interviews lasting 30 minutes each and one 30-minute break. Interviews were relaxed and conversational. A couple residents would pop in the conference room to chat with whoever was on break during interviews. After interviews one of the chief residents came in and gave an overview of the program guided by information that was written on the white board in the conference room. A PGY-1 and another PGY-4 joined us and we went for a tour. First toured The Rehabilitation Institute of St. Louis (TRISL) a free-standing rehab hospital that is on the medical campus. Newer facility-nice. Here we ran in to some of the other current residents and attendings who were all very pleasant. Then we walked (5min) over to Barnes-Jewish/St Louis Children’s. The whole medical campus was just massive/impressive. After the tour, we walked through a pretty cool area with restaurants and bars right across the street from the medical campus—ate at a nice little spot for lunch with the three residents who took us for the tour. After eating and chatting, the residents walked us back to the hotel and the day was over.

# of interviews + w/who?

3 --PD, Associate PD, Faculty

Residents:

4 per class. 2 categorical, 2 advanced

Programs directors:

Dr. Volshteyn has been the PD for years (since the program's inception?) but is moving full time into the Division of Neurorehabilitation Department Chief position. Dr. Metzler with WashU orthopedics is stepping in to the full-time PD position--he was the associate PD prior to this transition and co-founder of the WashU sport/spine fellowship (now ACGME sports med) that has been hailed as elite on SDN for years according to what I've read in the archives.

Fellowships offered:

PM&R Sports Medicine –sport & spine with Dr. Heidi Prather/Dr. Tang (Dr. Metzler is listed as a co-director of this fellowship as it is based through his group with WashU orthopedics)


Neurorehabilitation—the department of Neurology lists multiple fellowship opportunities (EMG, Neuromuscular, etc.) which several of are available to PM&R
due to the PM&R residency program currently being housed in the Dept. of Neuro


Anesthesia Pain—open to PM&R

Call schedule:

No call intern year for the categorical folks.


q4 on inpatient rotations-home call. 1 weekend a month, morning rounds with pager home call.

Best Features:

WashU/Barnes-Jewish name brand.

Categorical intern year with a top internal medicine department where you work 1 to 1 with the attendings (6 m0nths). The other intern year rotations are geared towards rehab related areas (rheum, neuromuscular, neuro, CVA, radiology, rehab). There is NO CALL Intern year.

PGY-4 seemed to be very flexible where residents can gear towards their interests

WashU resources are impressive and plentiful with it being a top medical institution. Lots of research going on that you can jump on to. A ton of interdepartemental/interdisciplinary cooperation (WashU also boasts one of the top PT schools in the country)

Work life balance seemed to be good at this program and the residents all seemed happy and said they would choose WashU again. The residents in c/o 2017 are going in to: ACGME Pain, Military MSK, SportsX2

Any negatives:

Isn’t considered a super 6 program by the mob.

PM&R residency program is under the division of neurorehabilitation in the department of neurology which I have heard some say they think is a negative because there is no denoted "PM&R department" per se. The incoming PD, Dr. Metzler’s group of physiatrists are part of the department of orthopedics (which is top notch at WashU). So, I guess not calling the PM&R residency part of it's own department is an issue if you really want to make it one…but I honestly fail to see a problem with it since the tradeoff is still getting to work with great physiatrist, as in any good program, and then also being associated with a world class neuro and ortho department. I know there are other PM&R programs under either Ortho or Neuro departments...Stanford comes to mind. Again, doesn't seem like a big deal to me--but I've heard more than one person harp on it, so...

St. Louis—can be a positive or negative depending on your preferences.

Smaller program—only take 4 per class. Again, depends on your preference.

Anything else:

With Dr. Metzler as the incoming PD, I got a sense that MSK/sport/spine are going to be extremely strong at this program. He discussed his plans to usher in a robust outpatient MSK experience for residents and mentioned an inclusion of extensive MSK ultrasound training. It seems that this program was already strong inpatient, especially neurorehab. Left with the impression that this program has been underrated in the past and is a hidden gem.

 

[blondiellie]

Program: Rutgers/NJMS/Kessler

# of Interviewees: 8

Pre-Interview Dinner/Social: No

Interview day structure: The day went from 8am-1pm. 45min presentation by the PD. 4 – 15min interviews or tour of Kessler and then switch. Afterwards there was a lunch with the residents.

# of interviews + w/who?: 4- 15min interviews, 1 w/ resident, 2 w/ faculty, 1 w/ PD

Residents: 8 – advanced, all very nice and talked about how they were all good friends and hung out a lot. Some were married and had kids.

Program director: Very nice, a bit “giggly”, didn’t ask me any questions just gave me the chance to ask.

Fellowships offered: Sports Medicine, Pain, TBI, SCI, Peds, CVA

Call schedule: All call is in house at Kessler, and only when you are rotating there. PGY2 4-5/month, cover weekends, PGY3 2-3/month if covering weekends only Fri or Sun, PGY4 2ish/month (correct me if I’m wrong because I can’t quite remember), always Thursday so you get a 3-day weekend. Residents stated it’s a heavier call, but you always get some sleep.

EMR: Paper charts with some electronic? Stated the company that owned Kessler and several others was trying to decide on an EMR. Sounded like it was going to be Cerner or Epic, but the PGY4 said that an EMR had been planned since before he got there and still was not implemented.

Best Features: Great support for research, everyone gets a mentor. Had a timeline for developing a project and a “speed dating”-like event to find studies or ideas that interest you. Famous Kessler board prep class included for PGY4s. PGY2s and 3s can come to beginning of the course. Residents and seemed like wonderful people who enjoyed each other’s company and faculty were very supportive. Great vacation/days off plan. Just outside NYC so plenty to do. Actually some suburban areas that people lived in and really enjoyed.

Any negatives: No EMR, still on paper charts, kind of hard to believe. Residents did talk a lot about how hard they work and how high their census can get. A few mentioned low 20s. Possibly expensive being just outside NYC, I can’t speak to the costs. 4-5 locations that were decently spread out and with north Jersey traffic it can be between 30-40 minutes to get between sites.


Program: Georgetown/Medstar National Rehab Hospital
# of Interviewees: 12

Pre-Interview Dinner/Social: No

Interview day structure: 8am-2pm. 1hr presentation by the PD. 4 – 20min intervies with a tour during one of your free periods between interviews. Then lunch with the residents and a final closing statement by the PD.

# of interviews + w/who?: 4 interviews, 1 with a resident, 1 w/ PD, 2 w/faculty

Residents: 6 per year, very nice, mostly male which I was told was an accident. Stated they all hung out a ton outside of work and many lived in the same building. A few were married with kids.

Program director: Very nice, seemed invested in resident education. Had multiple electronic tools to track resident burnout, satisfaction, education, hours etc.

Fellowships offered: TBI, SCI, Sports, Cancer

Call schedule: Short and long call. Short is 5-10pm, long is 5pm-8am. In house. Residents said they all usually got a decent amount of sleep.

EMR: Cerner? Some confusion on the EMR front.

Best Features: Didactic days are AM lectures and PM continuity clinic with no other responsibilities. No pages etc. Multiple modalities used for education: apps, quizzes, interactive sessions. 4mo. of electives. Good relationship with other departments. Every stroke gets a rehab consult. NIH associated so all of the research opportunities you could ever want. Residents talked about everyone being great friends. Census usually between 8-15 patients (depending on the service, CVA is busier). NRH has tons of natural light (for SAD prevention). DC is an awesome city.

Any negatives: Some confusion about whether there is only 1 EMR or EMR + paper charts or multiple EMRs. I think Cerner and/or Amalga? For me at least, currently there is one 1 female resident. I believe someone said the next class has 3 and multiple attendings swore that it really was a freak accident. Advanced program. No board prep. DC is expensive.

***Point for people applying in 2017, this will become (according to the PD) a ½ categorical and ½ advanced program next year. The PD was tired of losing good candidates because getting a prelim year is so difficult.


Program: UVA

# of Interviewees: 10

Pre-Interview Dinner/Social: No

Interview day structure: Presentation about the program, then a tour of the rehab hospital, then interviews, lunch with the residents, lastly a tour of the main hospital

# of interviews + w/who?: 3 interviews disbursed sort of randomly with faculty and chief residents

Residents: 4 per class, 2 categorical/2 advanced, All seemed very friendly and hung out with each other outside of work.

Program director: Very nice, gave a presentation that really tried to sell Charlottesville

Fellowships offered: Sports, Pain

Call schedule: Home call, front heavy, post call on the weekend you are responsible for seeing half of the floor patients

EMR: UVA uses Epic and HealthSouth uses Cerner

Best Features: Very strong sports med program, the residents said they get well over 270+ EMGs and are very confident in their abilities when they leave, 5mo. of elective time in PGY3 and 4 year so you are able to customize your schedule. Can also do away rotations during this time. Charlottesville seems like a lovely area to live. Half categorical and 1st year is 6mo. inpatient and 6mo. outpatient.

Any negatives: 12 mo. straight of inpatient PGY2 year which can be draining, residents enjoyed getting it over with but most didn’t want to do inpatient work. If you want senior experience on inpatient you have to use your elective time. Weaker inpatient TBI service, do not have a locked unit so they don’t get more severe TBI. No VA rotations (which may be a plus for some). Minimal involvement with med students other than on rotations.


Program: Temple

# of Interviewees: 10

Pre-Interview Dinner/Social: Yes

Interview day structure: Meet at Temple, drive to Moss for Grand rounds, interviews, and tour, drive back to Temple for Lunch, final interview, and tour.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3, 2 with faculty or chief residents, 1 with PD

Residents: 7,8, or 9 depending on the year. All nice, but I didn’t feel like they were quite my people. Didn’t get to spend much time with them or get the sense that they hung out outside of work.

Program director: I did not have a good interaction with the PD. First off, no one told me prior to the interview that I was meeting with the PD I had to find out afterwards by asking a resident, and then for the whole interview he was sort of cold and judgmental with a “so why should I care that you’re here?” persona. I’m a pretty friendly person so it was a bit off putting. He didn’t seem interested in talking to me at all.

Fellowships offered: TBI, unsure of others


Call schedule: Home call, PGY2 2.5x/mo. cover Fri-Mon, on weekends can sign out after rounds, PGY3 1.5x/mo Tus-Thurs, PGY4 no call. Cover 3 sits that are about 25 min apart.

EMR: Forgot to ask. I think all three sites are different.

Best Features: Moss is a TBI model system and a superstar site. Patients have all kinds of therapy available including botanical and alternative therapies. Temple is a major trauma center and rehab sees the patients within 24hrs of arrival. Burn exposure. Protected didactics Wed AM.

Any negatives: Unrelated to the normal program negatives, this interview day was the most disorganized one I have been on and I did over 20. No one had read my file, no one knew where I was supposed to be or when, no one seemed at all interested in talking to me, after all the morning confusion there were no drinks with lunch, and then at lunch they brought in a faculty member who does a lot of research and he talked very manically about how great he was all showed us all of his publications and shared how he would give us all tons of projects if we wanted. It was a very strange day. Back to the normal negatives. Temple is in North Philly which is a super bad area and no one lives there, they only mentioned male faculty during program presentation (where the women at?), call is from home for multiple sites, less interventional spine exposure (will observe but probably won’t perform). The residents just didn't seem like they clicked like other groups have.

I'll post more of mine as I get them written up.

 

[trackrunner1500]

Doing this because I think it's such an awesome resource that I definitely benefited from!

About me: Northeast MD applicant. Above average for USMLE according to the Charting the Outcomes, though nothing crazy. 2 away electives at 2 of the Super6 programs (for whatever that's worth). 2 PM&R letters, 1 Family Med, 1 Pediatric letter. 1 honors in 3rd year; 3rd quartile overall. Several publications and presentations. Dope PS (if I say so myself).

Applied to 28 programs, 14 interview invites. Applied to 15 prelim-med/TY, 8 medicine and 2 TY interviews.

I just want to mention that I'm an LGBT applicant; FWIW, I was "open" about it and never had a problem. I just want to mention this for any future LGBT applicants as I never got advice about this, but I have a partner and talked about us at nearly every interview in some form and had some volunteering related to that patient population. Just talk about what you feel comfortable talking about!

Without further ado, in order of my interview trail...

Program: UVA

# of Applicants: 9 on the interview day, everyone else from the south except me lol.

# of spots: 4, 2 categorical, 2 advanced

Interview day structure: Met with Dr. Jenkins (PD) really emphasized how sports is a big focus and how awesome Charlottesville is. Then tour of inpatient rehab (UVA-HealthSouth) with two seniors (50 beds, will be building a new rehab unit in new hospital with 75 beds in 3-4 years) as well as outpatient clinics (sports, spine, hand, general). Interviews with 3 attendings, each about 20-30 minutes. Lunch with residents. Finally bussed over to UVA’s main hospital (about 10 min drive) with a tour of the ED, neuro ICU, consult room, etc. Bussed back to the rehab hospital for closing remarks.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3 interviews, all 3 were with attendings. Fairly laid back, some difficult questions from a standardized “list”. Was kind of turned off by that.

Residents: All very cordial. Small program so it seems like they form a fairly tight-knit group. Most people seemed to be married and have/starting to have children.

Programs directors: Dr. Jenkins, very nice guy, very casual.

Fellowships offered: Sports via family med department

Call schedule: All from home. Have to live within 20 minutes of the hospital, which is very easy to do. PGY-2 seems to have the most call with several times a month including weekend (out by noon on Sundays). PGY-4 seems like its only once a month.

Best Features: Lots of exposure to sports, can cover local HS, college, and UVA athletics. Very running focused because of Dr. Wilder and the residents cover a lot of the road races (unless you are on-call). Very outpatient focused, it only really seems that PGY-2 and 3 months of PGY-3 are inpatient. Lots of elective time (can do up to 2 months away). The intern year program seems awesome with a broad selection of rotations including urology, orthopedics, EM, GI, and IM.

Any negatives: PGY-2 is all inpatient. Does not seem as well rounded as some other programs. Does not seem like much focus on research.

Anything else: Didactics are daily from 12-1. Charlottesville is a beautiful college town, several brewery’s, Trump winery is in town. Lots of running trails (likely why it is such a big running town).

_______________________________

Program: NYU

# of Applicants: 14 interviewees

# of spots: 12, all advanced

Interview day structure: Breakfast, welcome from Dr. Moroz (PD), presentation about residency structure and changes, then the interviews. Walking tour of the major hospital sites (Tisch, Bellevue, ACC, CMC, Rusk at HJD). Tour covers about 15 blocks along 1st Ave so wear good shoes!

# of interviews + w/who?: 3, one with chief, one with PD, one with an attending

Residents: Eclectic group, asked a lot about living and affordability in Manhattan and response varied depending on living with an SO or raising kids. PGY-2's experiencing the newer program schedule of less inpatient during their PGY-2 year and they remark that is a very positive change, and PGY-4's were jealous of the new schedule.

Programs directors: Dr. Moroz, very easy to talk to, has some innovative ideas for program moving forward. Seemed very close with his residents, they spoke highly of him.

Fellowships offered: Peds, TBI, Sports, Pain thru anesthesia

Call schedule: Relatively heavy, residents said “it’s tough here, but you’ll learn”. All inpatient inhouse, VA is home call. PGY-2 call 4/month, PGY-3 3/month, PGY-4 2/month.

Best Features: Change in PGY-2 schedule to have 4 months of outpatient rotations, acupuncture course available to get certified in PGY-3 for those interested, residents seem to match to their desired fellowships. Great mix of private (NYU), VA, and public (Bellevue) sites, all of which are relatively close together along 1st Ave. Review course that others pay for. Best location of any NYC program in east side of midtown. Resident housing is an option (didn't get to see these).

Any negatives: Cost of living, hours do seem longer than other programs

Anything else: 2 elective months. I know this program gets a bit of a rap on these forums but I got the sense that things are changing for the better, which is a good thing as this is a historically strong program. I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked the program and glad I applied/interviewed because I was considering not to from what I read. Definitely worth checking out contrary to past comments on here.

_______________________________

Program: Mayo

# of Applicants: 10

# of spots: 8 total. 3 categorical, 5 advanced

Interview day structure: Breakfast with video presentation for prelim medicine year, presentation from diversity office, then interviews. Lunch with some residents, solid tour showing Mayo building outpatient clinics, DAHLC (crazy nice gym, was like being in undergrad again) with the sports med clinic, St. Mary’s inpatient, Plummer building. Then done.

# of interviews + w/who?: 4 interviews, one with PD and then one with assistant PD, two with attendings

Residents: all very nice, insistent that Mayo is the place to train. Dinner the night before was very casual, answered all of our questions.

Programs directors: Dr. Wisniewski was very cheerful, relaxed, encouraged us to ask questions.

Fellowships offered: Pain, sports, forget if others

Call schedule: All from home, live w/in 20 minutes. One 6 month stint PGY-2 every other weekend. One 6 month stint PGY-4, only weekdays.

Best Features: It’s Mayo. Lots of outpatient focus, unique rotations such as hand clinic, lots of MSK ultrasound exposure, real ability to perform procedures, fluoro practice with cadavers, manageable to own a home, lots of research support (10 days a year for travel, pay for food), 3 months available to go to AZ, FL, or MC Square in the twin cities.

Any negatives: Rochester itself as one can imagine, ghost of a town. Cold winters for sure. No VA, which I think is strange because that's how the specialty kind of started...

Anything else: Didactics on Tuesday afternoons, paid for hotel the night before, overall everything was very very impressive. No white-coats, you would have to get a bunch of suits!
_______________________________

Program: Jefferson

# of Applicants: 12

# of spots: 7, all advanced

Interview day structure: breakfast with short introduction, followed by interviews, presentation from a PGY-4 about the program, tour of Magee, bus to Jefferson, tour of Jefferson, lunch. Done early afternoon.

# of interviews + w/who?: 2 longer interviews, one with one of the Chiefs, the other with an attending. 1 shorter interview with the PD

Residents: all seemed really nice. They really highlighted the strength that exists among the various sites, pride in the anatomy curriculum, and the match for fellowships.

Programs directors: Dr. Mallow was very casual, innovative in designing a new set of requirements, spoke about the excitement for the new chair coming in December.

Fellowships offered: pain thru anesthesia, not sure of others

Call schedule: PGY2 = 5 calls/mo mostly weekend, PGY3 = 3 calls/mo (weekday only) and PGY4 = 1 call/mo (weekday only). You are the only resident on call at Magee or at Jefferson.

Best Features: Model SCI system. Anatomy course, rotation with a big name radiologist for MSK/US. Rothman for pain and MSK. Purported 100% board pass rate in recent years.

Any negatives: Driving to the various sites seems like it could be an annoyance, one is in Delaware.

Anything else: Philly seems to be a cool city, Magee and Jeff are in center city which helps as far as city life goes. 2 months of elective time. Wednesday AM is protected didactic time. Research is a requirement, seems to be some solid infrastructure behind it.

_______________________________

Program: Harvard/Spaulding

# of Applicants: 12

# of spots: 8, all advanced

Interview day structure: Started day in a beautiful meeting room, Dr. Zafonte (chair) gave an inspiring intro to the program. PD gave a reasonably long presentation about the program and its offerings. Then five interviews, very casual and conversational. Tour of the facility, which is the best I saw anywhere. Then lunch, and done for the day.

# of interviews + w/who?: Five, each 15 minutes. One with PD, one with chief resident, one with a medicine attending, and two with attending physiatrists.

Residents: Great people, answered the myriad of questions that was posited to them. Spoke very highly of the institution and Partners as an organization, as well as the amount of support and encouragement that they get from the department.

Programs directors: Dr. O’Connor was very personable and entertaining in his presentation.

Fellowships offered: Sports, TBI, SCI. Newly established Peds. Pain via anesthesia I believe.

Call schedule: One of the heavier call schedules, in house at Spaulding. Seems to be q4 days as a pgy-2. Lighter as you go, especially by PGY-4.

Best Features: Inpatient facility is among nicest anywhere. Attendings seem very approachable. Dr. Zafonte seems to be forward-thinking for the direction of the department. Partners hospitals (MGH and Brigham) send amazing patients (double arm amputee, other unique stuff) that you might not see at other programs. 2 months of neurology at MGH, awesome learning experience. Boston is an top notch city, go Pats. Great fellowship match rate.

Any negatives: Call seems heavy. Boston quickly becoming among most expensive cities to live in. Decent amount of driving to outpatient locations combined with poor parking in Boston makes having a car difficult.

Anything else: 2 months elective time. Didactics tues mornings, great speakers from other fields coming from other Partners hospitals.

_______________________________

Program: Utah

# of Applicants: 10-12, I forget

# of spots: 5, all categorical

Interview day structure: earliest start of any of my interviews at 7 AM, several 15 min presentations about various aspects of the program from different attendings (general rehab service, peds, VA, research opportunities, intern year). Tour of all the sites (3 sites all within 2 miles or so) with a resident including an awesome view of the valley from a lookout point. Interivews. Lunch, then done.

# of interviews + w/who?: 2 interviews about 30 minutes each. Each interview was with 2 attendings, one had the program director. I actually thought these were the most formal of any of the interviews I experienced on the trail, but maybe it was because of the 2-on-1 format.

Residents: Mostly married, more than half seemed to have children. Very nice. Happiest of any group I met, have awesome work-life balance. Dinner the night before was enjoyable.

Programs directors: Dr. Hansen was very professional, direct, and personable.

Fellowships offered: Sports

Call schedule: All from home. Interesting approach with a system of “first call” where you are on call 4/7 nights and cover the university hospital and some other sites. “Second call” covered several sites as well and was 3/7 nights. This type of call had a frequency of 8-10 times pgy-2, and less frequent as you advance in the program.

Best Features: New standalone rehab hospital to open spring 2019, increasing to 50 + beds. Strong integration with the local VA. Attending run services, no need to worry about getting a resident to cover for you. All categorical spots, prelim year seems to have little call. Salt Lake is an awesome city.

Any negatives: Lots of VA time if that’s not what you’re into, only 1 month of elective time.

Anything else: Didactics thurs AM. SLC seems like an awesome spot, especially for outdoor activities and work/life balance. This program was a pleasant surprise, coming from far away I did not anticipate liking it as much as I did.
_______________________________

Program: Penn

# of Applicants: ~ 20

# of spots: 6: 4 categorical, 2 advanced.

Interview day structure: Breakfast and presentation from PD, presentation from 2 chiefs. Interivews followed by lunch with residents, finally a tour of PIRM, the inpatient rehab hospital.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3. 2 with faculty, 1 with chief.

Residents: Very approachable, got to talk to them a lot the night before with the bowling social (definitely the best pre-interview social). Seem very confident that they are getting excellent training due in part to the Penn Health system.

Programs directors: Came to the social for the first 20 min and introduced himself to everyone. Very approachable, sold Penn pretty well in his presentation—though it was based more on Penn as an organization rather than rehab specifics.

Fellowships offered: Pain through anesthesia, forget if there are others

Call schedule: In-house when at PIRM, forget about other sites.

Best Features: All the sites are condensed around center city and university city all within a few square miles. 4/6 spots are categorical. Coverage of Penn sports if so desired. Penn Health System has great hospitals including CHOP for peds.

Any negatives: Less of a “big name” in rehab comapred to the other two programs in the area, but seems like a fine program to me.

Anything else: 2 months are spent about an hour north, but housing is provided for those blocks. It was my favorite of the Philly programs.

_______________________________

Program: Temple

# of Applicants: 10-12 I think

# of spots: 9, all advanced

Interview day structure: Long day. Park at Temple, residents drive you over to Moss (~20 min). Grand rounds and didactic session for ~2 hours. Tour and then one interview at Moss. Drive back to Temple for lunch and presentation by the chair. Research presentation from a faculty member. Tour of Temple with 2 more interviews.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3. Two 30 minute interviews with a faculty member (one at Moss and one at Temple). One with PD, Dr. Maitin. Only interview where I was pimp'd on the entire trail (including prelim interviews) so that was strange...

Residents: Seemed happy, spoke at length about their strong training and how the alumni network enables them to get good fellowships and jobs after graduation.

Programs directors: Seems like a nice guy, very easy to talk to

Fellowships offered: not sure

Call schedule: Heavy in the beginning, cover Moss and Temple as well as another site (just answering calls over phone).

Best Features: Moss seems awesome; attendings on the tour approached us and spoke with us for a minute or so. Seemed very welcoming.

Any negatives: Temple is certainly in the worst location of the 3 Philly programs, the rehab hospital is out in the suburbs so with various rotations I can imagine commuting can be tough.

Anything else: Poor communication with the program, I never got any information regarding the day, left a bad taste. I had to find out the night before when to show up the morning of the interview. One of my interviews the attending had the wrong file and I had to correct him after about 30 seconds. Also left a bad taste.

_______________________________

Program: TIRR/Baylor

# of Applicants: 24

# of spots: 8, all advanced.

Interview day structure: Gather together in the morning at BCM, best breakfast (Chic-fil-A) then 3 interviews: two with faculty, one with a senior resident. Group Q&A with the PD Dr. Harrell. Lunch in another building, then bus tour of the Texas Medical Center (which is as large as a downtown of a small city) with a short tour of TIRR. Done by early afternoon.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3 15-20 min interviews: two with faculty, one with a senior resident.

Residents: Eclectic group, all seemed to really enjoy Houston, definitely proud of their program. Tried to get more information regarding the “break-up” with UT-Houston from a few years back as the PGY-4s were present for that and they addressed it and how the program has gone about hiring more faculty on the MSK side.

Programs directors: Dr. Harrell was one of my favorite PD’s. He was very personable, encouraged and answered all our questions. He also wears cowboy boots.

Fellowships offered: TBI, Peds, SCI

Call schedule: All at home except at TIRR, forget how often

Best Features: TIRR, Houston seems like a great city that is very affordable, great PD

Any negatives: Seems more neuro/inpatient heavy, which can be a positive if you’re more interested in that. Never got great answers about sports coverage/exposure. I feel like the program could take more advantage of local institutions such as MD Anderson.

Anything else:

_______________________________

Program: Hopkins

# of Applicants: 15 (I was in the PM group, we had lunch with the AM group which probably had another 15-20).

# of spots: 6, all advanced.

Interview day structure: I was in the PM interview group, which was nice because I flew in late. Started with and information session by the PD Dr. Mayer followed by lunch. Then interviews, followed by a tour of the hospital, then done; nice short “day”.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3 interview. 2 with clinical faculty, 1 with an allied health professional (mine was a nursing admin if I recall correctly).

Residents: Met them during lunch, answered all of our questions. Gave honest advice about living in Baltimore, all very confident with their training and fellowship/job prospects because of the Hopkins name.

Programs directors: Dr. Mayer, gave a strong presentation, seems approachable and innovative. Had some great ideas about the future of medical resident teaching such as at home/recorded lectures like med school

Fellowships offered: Pain, Interventional spine, Peds, SCI

Call schedule: At Hopkins itself is from home in week-long blocks several times a year, at other Hopkins hospital it is in house qweek or qbi-weekly depending on level

Best Features: Its Hopkins, new inpatient unit currently being built at the main campus, KKI for peds is great, international elective opportunity as they are helping a foreign hospital build a rehab unit, strong research infrastructure

Any negatives: Call seems a little heavier than other places, Baltimore

Anything else: Residents have a longitudinal clinic ½ a week

_______________________________

Program: NJMS/Kessler

# of Applicants: 8

# of spots: 8, all advanced.

Interview day structure: Started with an information session with one of the chiefs and the PD, Dr. Brooks. Then interviews followed by tour, ended with lunch.

# of interviews + w/who?: 4 interviews. One with PD, one with associate PD, one with clinical faculty member, and one with a chief resident.

Residents: Very nice group, seemed all very friendly and talked about how they do a lot together outside of work. Seemed very knowledgeable and sang praises of the faculty.

Programs directors: Dr. Brooks, as everyone seems to mention she laughs a lot, but very nice and easy to speak with.

Fellowships offered: everything, Peds, SCI, TBI, Pain/MSK, Stroke, research fellowships

Call schedule: At Kessler main campus in-house (3 different locations with main campus in West Orange being the largest), seems to be q weekly PGY-2 then less frequent as you go on. Also in-house for peds block. Call for VA is at home.

Best Features: It’s Kessler, though the Kessler Foundation (a separate entity) seems a lot nicer/has more money than the hospital itself. Amazing faculty including Dr. Kirshblum! PGY 3 and 4 get to pick their schedules together to prioritize interests (i.e. having early pain rotations since you have to apply so early during your PGY-4 year). Kessler Foundation has amazing research resources (fMRI, labs). Residents match very well. Review course in house that others pay for.

Any negatives: Northern Jersey, lots of commuting as living close seems less desirable with NYC so close yet so far. Hoboken/Jersey city is ~30 min away seems to be where most residents live, though a few (including attendings) live in the city.

Anything else: Somewhat let down—great name but facilities and location are less desirable compared to other top programs.

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Program: University of North Carolina

# of Applicants: 8

# of spots: 3, all categorical.

Interview day structure: Info session/breakfast followed by tour of main hospital and interviews. Lunch with residents. Shuttle tour of campus/Chapel Hill with a visit to the spine center and outpatient clinic.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3 interviews: one with associate PD, two with clinical faculty.

Residents: Met several the night before and more during lunch, seemed like a cohesive group. Seemed very happy and enjoyed living in the Triangle

Programs directors: Was not present that day, can’t speak about him.

Fellowships offered: I don’t believe there are any, could be wrong sorry…

Call schedule: None during PGY-1, week long stretches as a PGY-2 from home, then less frequent as you advance.

Best Features: Young faculty, program seems pretty low stress. Categorical with awesome prelim year at UNC (great hospital). Triangle area seems very livable.

Any negatives: This program really shows the gap between some top tier programs vs. others: lacking formal anatomy component, no real US curriculum, no formal sports coverage, feels less academic in general.

Anything else:

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Program: NY Presbyterian

# of Applicants: 12

# of spots: 8, all advanced.

Interview day structure: Longest day of any interview; though my day had Grand Rounds which was specifically stated as optional. After that breakfast, followed by orientation with the PD, brief remarks from the chair of the department, housing tour (a block or two away in 2 different buildings) followed by lunch. Then interviews, followed by tour, then wrap-up session.

# of interviews + w/who?: 5 interviews, 20 minutes each. One with PD, rest with faculty from various sites.

Residents: Met them during lunch, answered all of our questions. All were very happy about living in NYC, loved their clinical sites

Programs directors: Dr. Visco, very articulate, forward-thinking with the program. He struck me as the most impressive PD I met.

Fellowships offered: Pain with anesthesia, Sports

Call schedule: Didn’t actually write down, I know that it is in-house

Best Features: Best fellowship match I saw for a resident class, great clinical sites including HSS and MSKCC, living in Manhattan on upper East side, housing opportunity to make things more affordable, lots of research opportunity, Dr. Visco!

Any negatives: Very spread out with some sites in the suburbs north of the city (though they provide you and the co-resident a car for some of these), makes it tough to live in an optimal spot, expensive on resident salary but there is housing opportunity. No elective blocks.

Anything else:

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Program: Stanford

# of Applicants: 22

# of spots: 7, all advanced.

Interview day structure: Long afternoon that is spent mostly waiting in one room. Start with info session with the PD, Dr. Kennedy followed by interviews. When you aren’t interviewing you are just waiting.

# of interviews + w/who?: 4. 20 min with 3 different attendings, shorter interview with PD

Residents: Met them the night before. All extremely happy, stated how great the program is in terms of work/life balance.

Programs directors: Dr. Kennedy gave the best info session I had on the trail, just a great great guy. Really pitched and sold the program.

Fellowships offered: Sports, SCI, Interventional Spine

Call schedule: I didn’t write it down, it’s all from home though unless you life in San Francisco and would need to sleep in house.

Best Features: Lots of new clinical sites/definitely nicest VA I’ve ever been to. Great weather. Strong research opportunities. Happy residents.

Any negatives: Cost of living, sites seem rather spread out and I imagine traffic can be a pain.

Anything else: Some residents are involved in start-ups, all info given via flash drive which was cool

 

[Mash43]

Stony Brook

# of Applicants: 8, total 80 for 3 spots

Interview day structure: started at 8 am. Greeted by PC in the conference room at St. Charles hospital. PC was extremely nice. Had a bagel/coffee breakfast and overview presentation by PD. Then had 2 interviews each, followed by tour and then lunch where the residents came to talk to us. Ended the day where we sat in on the first part of the lecture given by the PD.

# Of interviews + w/who?: 2 total. With chief and PD. Chief Interview was extremely laid back. He was upfront about the program and seemed to answer all questions candidly.. Explained his reasoning for coming and pros/cons of the area.

Residents: 9 total I think. All seemed down to earth and extremely happy. Did not seem like they worked hard. They were able to pursue outside interests. Had good reasons to want to be in Long island. Pretty much all DOs I think with heavy emphasis from NYCOM.

Programs directors: Very personable, easy to talk to, great advocate for the residents. She is new and a recent grad of the program. She has a good vision about making this program great. St. Charles originally started as a rehab hospital so the community recognizes the rehab program. All surrounding locations respect this program and they get great cases from the area.

Fellowships offered: I think Pain

Call schedule: Pgy 2- Q6. PGY3-Q5, PGY4-q4, no wknds. When at St. Charles, do short call 5-7 and then PA's take over for overnight call. Have to do admissions even if that means staying past 7 but won’t get paged after 7. Northport VA, home call, much lighter patient load but get paged more.

Best Features: Heavy on MSK, interventional pain. Good for TBI. Super nice residents and staff. EPIC EMR. Free food! 4 weeks vacation and can take it any which way. No need to block. Kessler board review course and those 7 days don’t count towards vacation. Rehab is well known within the area. Hospital started as a rehab center.

Any negatives: Can have up to 20 patients at a time. Not a well-known program. Long Island traffic can be horrendous. No limit on admissions. Facility is mediocre.

Anything else: Can push heavy for research. 2 rotations for peds. Each rotation is 2 months.
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Program: Johns Hopkins

# of Applicants: About 50, 25 in Am and 25 PM group. Total 80-100 for 6 positions

Interview day structure: Social hour night before with lots of faculty and residents. Really laid back environment. PD and chair presentation followed by lunch, with residents and faculty, both groups. Then individual interviews

# of interviews + w/who?: 3 interviews, with chief, then with faculty, then with non-physician (OT for me).

Residents: Great residents. Most matched well for fellowships, 3 into interventional pain and one was applying for peds. PGY-2s who showed up to lunch were pretty cool.

Programs directors: Dr. Mayer seemed like a really nice person. He is definitely an academic with a great deal of research behind him. Only got to hear his presentation so did not get to learn a great deal about him. Chair Dr. Celnik was charismatic and nice. Brilliant and really personable. Great presentation and seems like he can have fun with the residents. Residents and staff speak HIGHLY of him. He was very passionate about the program and had big plans for making it even better.

Fellowships offered: I think Pain, SCI, Peds

Call schedule: With the loss of Good Samaritan, new call schedule will change. Maybe it will be In-house at Bayview that has 40 beds. As of now pgy-4 is about q weekly, and pgy-3’s q bi-weekly. Call at the Rehab ICU is like 1 week home call straight at a time and 5 weeks as a PGY-3. 4 as a pgy-4? Not sure on this exactly. But residents did say that 1 week call can be great at times when the whole week goes smoothly or a nightmare and you get called in several nights in a row. Hit or miss.

Best Features: Reputation is phenomenal. Elite name in general. Lots of research opportunities. Residents kept saying it’s impossible not to get involved in research here.. People are really nice. Baltimore didn’t seem terrible as some make it out to be. Lots of cool areas. World renowned facilities so ppl come from all over the place.

Any negatives: Not sure how the loss of Good Sam will affect the residency. They are compensating by building another Rehab unit but there could be some pains with shift.

Anything else: COL in Baltimore is probably better than some of the other big cities. Close enough to NYC, Philly and DC for people to visit on the weekends. Bike friendly city. Loss of NRH and Good Sam also means that will travel only between 3 main sites so decreased commuting time. See lots of inner-city population which can be complex.
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Program: UT Houston

# of Applicants: 20 for 4 categorical spots. Total 80 for 4 spots

Interview day structure: Social hour the night before with residents with cocktails and finger foods. Really laid back residents. Morning breakfast followed by presentation by PD, then one group did tours and other had interviews and then switched.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3 interviews. Combination of faculty, chief or PD.

Residents: Residents were all impressive and happy with their decision. They kept saying they did not work too hard. Not sure if they were fighting false impressions or overcompensating. Most felt like they were being straightforward though and very personable people.

Programs directors: PD Dr. Frontera was awesome. His presentation was great and he was really funny. True pokerface so hard to read but seems like a nice guy. Very motivated and proud of his program. Has big plans to make this program even better. Big Star wars fan.

Fellowships offered: SCI and TBI

Call schedule: In house call at TIRR for 24 hrs. about 1/wk and home call at memorial Hermann about 4 days/3-4 weeks.

Best Features: Fantastic PD and neat environment. Facilities are mind blowing. TIRR is number 2 rehab hospital in country. Faculty were all phenomenal and residents also impressive. Cost of living is FANTASTIC and Houston is a cool city. PC was awesome and did a phenomenal job coordinating. Can borrow US machine that is designated for the residents and can practice with each other.

Any negatives: Weak MSK in the past but they are improving it. No elective time and cannot rotate at outside institutions unless use vacation.

Anything else: Sounds like they got the better end of the deal with the break-up with Baylor in terms of call and now only travelling to 2 or 3 sites for all their rotations. Have a sep unit for international VIP patients that smells of $$
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Program: RIC

# of Applicants: 8

Interview day structure: run by the chief resident. Different interviews at various times throughout the day while the presentation continued. If you missed something she would just catch you up or you could ask questions. My first one was at 9 15 and last at 4 ending at 4 30. We sat in on advanced lecture at 7 and then the presentation by chief and then tour at 12 with lots of waiting in middle for interviews and questions.

# of interviews + w/who?: 4 interviews. 1 with PD, and 3 other faculty members.

Residents: The residents that I met were all great. Seemed like they wanted to be at RIC and picked that number 1. Not all were super fond of Chicago and were ready to get out but appreciated its charms.

Programs directors: Dr. Sliwa was funny and great to talk to. Asked me some formal up interview questions but also ones catered to my app specifically. Has been doing it for 20 plus years so he has a tremendous amount of experience. Personable guy. Def one of the more impressive PDs on the trail for me.

Fellowships offered: Sports/spine, Pain, TBI, SCI, Peds

Call schedule: PGY2: 18-20 calls/yr plus 2-4 weekend short calls. PGY3s: 10-12 calls per year. PGY4: 2-3 calls during first 6 months and no call last 6 months. Jesse Brown VA, call is 1 week at a time. Also have covg on outpt as PGY2, when you show up at 12 for lecture and then go to clinic and then from 330-8 or so you cover admissions and stuff. Also have to round day after call when on in-patient.

Best Features: Good Sports Med/MSK curriculum. Lots of elective time for individual interests. (FYI I asked difference between selective and electives. Selective=picking out of a selection of rotations in the specialties that have in place affiliations etc. Electives=picking anything you desire). NO limits on conferences to go to as long as you are presenting, they will pay 1300 and give 1.5 days off/conference. Biggest thing is the name of northwestern and the connections. Fellowships will be easy to get. Chicago can be a huge attraction for many. “Punch your ticket for any fellowship.”

Any negatives: Chicago is frigid. Don’t think electives can be done at outside institutions, only NW affiliates. Having a car would be a headache. Cost of Living.

Anything else: Daily didactic lectures at noon for 2s. Everyone has weekly noon lecture one Wednesdays. 3s and 4s have special advanced lecture series on Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoons 4:30-6:30. New 240 bed Rehab Facility should be operational. Looked insanely awesome.
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Program: Kessler/Rutgers NJMS

# of Applicants: 8

Interview day structure: Morning breakfast, overview presentation with PD and chief was there. Followed by talk by PC who was fantastic. Then split into two groups, one toured and other interviewed and then flipped

# of interviews + w/who?: 4 total interviews 15-20 min each. 2 faculty, PD, and chief resident.

Residents: Extremely happy even though they do work hard and admit to it. A lot of jersey lifers. The environment is extremely collegial. Sing praises about the faculty and say they hang out together all the time.

Programs directors: Dr. Brooks is super nice and super giggly( you’ve heard this over and over). She did not ask any formal questions at all.

Fellowships offered: Pain, TBI, SCI, Musculoskeletal (not true sports medicine), Peds

Call schedule: as pgy-2 call about 5 times per month, 3 weekends. (on weekend call there is no rounding, only management/housekeeping issues). Pgy-3 its about 3 times per month with 2 weekends and pgy-4 is 2 times per month with no weekends. Try to give Thursdays to 4s so get 3 day weekends.. NO call at UH, in house call at Kessler and Childrens. VA call is from home but not bad.

Best Features: One of the best well rounded program. ELITE program with amazing reputation and fellowship placement. Amazing didactics. Residents all do extremely well after matching into fellowships or working. West Orange is a beautiful area of NJ. One week selective at HSS (can be taken during 1 inpatient kessler month). Dr. Malanga is coming back to see patients there. 4 weeks vacation plus 9 holidays including your birthday so cannot beat those benefits. Ultrasound like 2 weeks per block on outpatient VA. Kessler Board Review Course. Dr. Kirshblum is the new chair!!!

Any negatives: "Hard work". Weak in Sports exposure and training. NO elective time. PAPER CHARTS. Historically known as Inpatient heavy. Driving time between sites can be high and Jersey traffic is no joke.

Anything else: Do a research course. Get 6 months during pgy-3 to work on it half day per week.
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Program: Thomas Jefferson

# of Applicants: 10

Interview day structure: Meet at Magee. Light breakfast with intro by Dr. Mallow, PD. Half group with presentation and then tour while others interviewed and then flipped.

# of interviews + w/who?: 3 interviews. Combo of Chief, faculty and briefly meet Dr. Mallow

Residents: Residents are all cool. Happy. They loved Philly and all really wanted to be here. Some interesting personalities but overall they seem like they have the most fun. Definitely the coolest and most down to earth group I met along the trail and rotations.

Programs directors: Dr. Mallow is funny, young and energetic. He seems like he would be a great guy to hang out with. Had a good time talking to him and learning from him. He has been in the role for a few years so he knows what he is doing. He has a great vision for the program and is constantly looking to improve. Extremely invested in resident well-being. Residents speak highly of him.

Fellowships offered: PCSM, Interventional Pain through Anesthesia

Call schedule: 4-5/ month as pgy 2, 3 weekends. 3/mo as pgy-3, 1 weekend. 1 per month as pgy-4, no weekends.

Best Features: pride themselves on being a model SCI system but not many ppl do SCI fellowships, apparently don’t need to because of extensive training. US course that is new and a full block of it. Can even do a 1-2 months with well-known MSK radiologist and learn US. 2 electives that can be done anywhere. Research is not a strong requirement. EPIC at Jeff starting April, 2017. 8 week cadaver anatomy course and then teaching anatomy to Jeff med students. Philadelphia is a great city and those who love it, will love the perfect location Magee and Jeff are in. Rothman affiliation is a huuuge bonus.

Any negatives: Heavy call schedule. City can also be a turnoff for many. Have to travel to some far sites and that can be challenging while living in the city

Anything else: Have parts of shared curriculum with Temple and can do months at Moss.
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Program: Stanford

# of Applicants: about 20, total about 75-85 for 7 spots

Interview day structure: Pre-interview meet and greet the night before. Presentation by PD and then Chiefs followed by spread out interviews throughout the day. We all sat in one big room and people left for interviews at different times. Each interviewer had a different “topic” to avoid repeat questions (loved this)

# of interviews + w/who?: 4, with 3 faculty and short meeting PD-Dr Kennedy.

Residents: All were super nice. Wanted to be here badly. Most had ties to California. They loved their experience. Hard working people.

Programs directors: Dr Kennedy was an excellent presenter. He was easy to get along with. Sold the program extremely well. Spoke about the opportunities this place has to offer. Told us all that were amazing candidates and should all match extremely well. Most impressed with his presentation on the trail and would love to work with him.

Fellowships offered: SCI, Interventional spine, Sports

Call schedule: Pgy-2 call qwk and 1-2/block for weekend call. PGY-3s weekday call q 1-2 wks and 1/block weekend call. PGY-4 rarely weekends.

Best Features: Nicest VA in the country. LOCATION. Elite faculty and learning opportunities. Research is obviously big here. Hard not to get involved in anything. ‘Everybody does a start-up in Palo Alto.’ Match extremely well for fellowship. Very well rounded program. Excellent opportunities to work with sports medicine fellows and team. Dr. Fredericson is a big name in Sports.

Any negatives: Cost of living, even with the increased stipend is awful. Driving distance between sites. Traffic can be bad.

Anything else: PM&R is under ortho dept. 5 education days per year which only get if go to conferences. Can moonlight as Pgy-2.
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Program: Penn State

# of Applicants: 6, Total about 75 for 4 spots

Interview day structure: Hotel provided. Really nice dinner the night before where 4 residents showed up and seemed super happy. There are only PGY-2s who were the 1st matched class and PGY-3 class was recruited for the first year. Morning group. Interviewed and then tour followed by presentation by PD and then sat in on afternoon lecture

# of interviews + w/who?: 4 interviews. 3 faculty and PD. PD asked some specific questions pertaining to PM&R topics to make sure you knew what Rehab was all about.

Residents: Residents were great. Seemed really happy to be here. Spoke highly of Dr. Gater and PC and all their attendings. Don’t seem overworked. Lots want to do Sports or pain.

Programs directors: Dr Gater was fantastic. Classic interview questions. Funny guy and loves teaching. Big name in SCI and loves research.

Fellowships offered: primary care sports med

Call schedule: home call q8th night and q8th weekend.

Best Features: 2 months of elective time. Can work with local high schools and colleges for Sports Med.. Still shaping curriculum, trying to put more interventional pain in and spasticity as well. Do ultrasound guided stuff during sports med and MSK clinic. Have an AMAZING EX PHYS LAB. Dr. Gater wants to model research after programs like UPMC, Harvard. 6 week cadaver anatomy course. Switching to EPIC

Any negatives: New program with no grads in fellowships. Curriculum still being tweaked. PGY-2 is all inpatient.

Anything else: each rotation is 3 months long. Since the program is new, you can advocate for things you would like and the faculty/PD are more likely to be receptive.
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Program: Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center

# of Applicants: 4, 50-70 for 3 spots

Interview day structure: joined residents for morning report where they went over admissions from day before. Residents/students present and they do teaching. Then met with PD who did presentation with food basically on the run and then we did 3 1-1 interviews.

# of interviews + w/who?: PD first, then met with Rehab Chair Dr. Ross, and then Faculty member.

Residents: All IMGs. Down to earth. Had nothing but great things to say about their experience. Seemed like they all rotated through at one point.

Programs directors: He is new with less than a year of exposure. Was straightforward about the program’s flaws but determined to fix and had already implemented plans on improving.

Fellowships offered: None

Call schedule: 4-5 times per month

Best Features: Pay really well, free meals and parking. Lots of perks. They pay for minimum 2 conferences per year and a lot of stuff. Allow tons of research to be done and help you get where you want. See rare medically complex diseases in inner city Brooklyn.

Any negatives: Chair told me that residents struggle passing the boards.