Dr. Yeckel told us he firmly believes Netter provides better clinical training than many other programs, including Yale. I do believe they have a strong network, and because they utilize hospitals that aren't already consumed by Yale, in addition to the Mesh program, I think students have substantial clinical exposure early and onwards. The question is, have these clinical training partners had significant experience teaching and mentoring to the point where they provide the optimal learning experience? That's something that can only come with time in which students report their feedback to the directors as to which training sites/physicians were great and which ones were not so great. I assume this is a challenge/question for all new programs regardless if they have an established affiliated hospital or not.
Furthermore, for those who want to go into the competitive residencies, how accessible are the external research opportunities that are necessary to bolster your residency applications? What about access to widely-known recommenders?
Looking back at Netter's 2019 match list, it seems that it is now reporting only 2 matches into orthopedic surgery instead of the 3 I saw when I first examined it.
These things concern me because Netter seems like a school that provides phenomenal training, brings in very bright students, is dedicated to their success, but us students might be held back due to the lack of name recognition and extra curricular opportunities that allow us to go beyond a great step score. I'm not saying Netter is a bad option, cause I LOVED the program, the administration, and the students seemed to genuinely love the school as well. If anyone could calm my nerves, please do.
