I noticed there hasn’t been an UCLA-Olive View EM Residency update on SDN for many years, which is a shame since I love it here and it is one of the best programs in the country. As a current resident here (and a very happy one) I wanted to post a little about the program on SDN for those who are thinking about coming here.
Residents: This year, the program expanded to 13 due to increasing volumes at both UCLA Reagan and Olive View hospitals. There is a good mix of academic residents and the very active/outdoorsey residents that all add something unique to the program. The residents are a very intelligent, and very diverse group, who are also close-knit and happy. We do lots of post-shift breakfasts/mimosas/drinks, hang out on days off romping around LA, and we spend most of our days off with each other. We have a mix of married and single residents. Retreats in March are protected for the whole residency and are absolutely fantastic. Resident-faculty interaction is also wonderful with everyone being on a first name basis, often going over to some of the younger faculty member houses for drinks and hanging out on days off or after shifts.
Faculty: The faculty here are some of the best from all over the country, and some well-known names such as: Bill Mower, David Schriger, David Talan, Greg Moran, Fred Abrahamian, Pam Dyne, Lynne McCullough, and the list goes on and on and on. These are the all-stars of Emergency Medicine and they are all so approachable and so enthusiastic to teach. We have younger faculty as well as older, more seasoned faculty for a wide range of points of view. The residency also allows a lot of elective time for you to pursue whatever sparks your interest. The faculty are diverse enough that any of your research (or any outside) interests could easily be accommodated. Despite being top name people in the field the faculty are for the most part very down to earth and very approachable both on shift or outside the hospital. Formal teaching is done from attendings/senior residents each morning and the beginning of rounds and each week on Tuesdays from 8am to 1pm at either UCLA or Olive View. During the actual shifts, everyone seems like they want to teach.
Interviews: 3 interviews, all with faculty. The interviews are laid back, just looking for fit since your app has been screened for academic/clinical capabilities.
Hospitals: Great combination of the private state of the art mecca, UCLA, with a busy county hospital/ranch, Olive View. Also with frequent rotations at Antelope Valley, which is an additional chance to do procedures and see bloody traumas.
You get to experience the best of both worlds. UCLA Reagan is a relatively new hospital which has cutting edge technology, quaternary care patients, and an efficient system. It is a level 1 trauma center. Also, the medicine, surgery and specialty programs at UCLA are very competitive, well-regarded, and thus the residents and attendings on these services teach us daily about different obscure, as well as, some day-to-day things that have helped us with management of future patients; something that we don’t get as much at Olive View. UCLA also definitely has a cafeteria well above par to the usual hospital fare with allotted money each half of the year.
Patients at OV are largely Hispanic and represent a true county population. The patients are incredibly grateful, and you have more autonomy due to the volume of patients. The acuity is not as high at OV, but patients surprise you much more. Seemingly healthy young patients come in with fulminant liver failure, walk in with STEMIs, or have tooth abscesses that spread as far as to the mediastinal space. The breakfast burritos are some of the best you will find in Southern California.
Antelope Valley – pure trauma, and an incredibly busy county hospital also with high acuity. There is a little “casita” we stay at during this rotation as it is about an hour outside of LA.
Ancillary: Excellent inter-departmental relationships. Not a malignant atmosphere, we are very close to the other residents in outside specialties and have worked with them on our off-service rotations.
Curriculum: As an intern you work 4 x 12 hour shifts per week on EM. At higher levels (2-4) on EM rotations you do ~4.1 shifts per week. The 12 hour shifts are not as unbearable as I thought they would be. Here they are pretty strict 12 hour shifts with most residents leaving by 30-45 min after shift. You also have a lot of free days off instead of working six 8hr shifts/week. At Reagan, after 1st year, most shifts have scribes and so most of your core notes are done during your shifts, despite the high volume of patients we see.
6 weeks of pure trauma at Antelope Valley
During your ED months, you are spread between the UCLA Medical Center, and the county hospital in the San Fernando Valley, Olive View Hospital. This allows you to see a broad mix of patients, not just the highly specialized things that one might expect to see at UCLA. Shifts are all 12 hours long, but the 2-4th years also do a 9 hour fast-track shift which starts around 10am/6pm. Each shift begins with a brief round of the patients with the attendings sharing pearls with regards to the specific patients. Shifts can be VERY busy esp at the county hospital, but the nights can be a bit slower sometimes. Traumas are run by the senior (3rd/4th year) ED resident with the second year being at the head of the bed and having management of the airway and procedures. Although you do rotations at Children's Hospital in LA, you still see a good amount of peds at the main hospital sites, so there is pretty much a continuous peds exposure. Community rotations are done at the Antelope Valley hospital (room and board is in a nearby casita).
As above, teaching is emphasized. The faculty are world-renowned and give guest lectures through-out the country. They also are extremely available to help you design/practice your own presentations/research. They easily hand out home phone numbers and pagers. They have given me emotional as well as professional support in every way. The conferences are so notably fun, I don't mind the extra time on my day off to fulfill that part of the residency requirement.
You can do international medicine (established rotations in tons of places such as Chile, Bali, etc.), fly with the fire department/paramedics air rescue, radiology, rotate on the ski slopes in Telluride, anything you want. Lots of elective time to tailor your education to your individual interest.
Didactics: Conferences are a mix of didactic and lectures, and take place one 5 hour day per week (Tuesday). The didactics are often well above par with the ability to use our sim center and cadaver lab regularly. Journal club is once a month, usually at a faculty member's house...this is also amazing as often the big articles being discussed have been written by the person who's living room you're sitting in!
City: Despite being a large city most people live on the Westside and get together on a regular basis. The independent learning model of the program with a decent amount of free time and three months of elective time in the R4 year allow you to do whatever you want- travel, research, outside electives, be with family, etc. The city has something for anyone - outdoor activities (beach and hiking 10-15 min away, skiing 2 hours away), amazing food, endless concerts, people from all walks of life and all over the world (not just people from the “industry” as some imagine), amazing art. Not to mention the weather is PERFECT all year round (maybe with 1-2 days of rain). There is a reason many come here from all over the country, and never leave. Although LA is more expensive than a place like the Midwest, the residents live comfortably, and still manage to do an incredible number of activities around the city (far cheaper than SF, or NYC for example). You can find almost any type of person or activity here depending on what you are interested in.
Negatives: Traffic. Downsides...perhaps the driving between hospital sites and in LA in general. We are usually driving against traffic with one exception, our commute to Olive View for overnight shifts. We meet at a site and carpool for these shifts, which actually ends up being a lot of fun. Our program is not the knife and gun club of USC, nor is it as fast paced as that place...is that a bad thing? It depends on how you want to learn. As I progress through residency, I am more baffled by medical cases, and less interested/excited by the systematic and often straight-forward traumas (this is the case with many residents). We still do plenty of procedures.
Overall:
It is also one of the few programs I could find where you receive half training at a county hospital and half training at a private/academic center (learning to deal with private attendings and complex tertiary care cases). Trauma at UCLA certainly isn't what you find at USC (I rotated there) but it seems as though there is a lot of cook-book stuff the EMED docs do with trauma (secure the airway, start a line, insert a chest tube) then the surgeons wheel the patient away. I didn't feel I would be cheated at UCLA by any means of the imagination.
The reputation of UCLA has been built over many years by those that are still attending and are not leaving any time soon. As a graduate from UCLA you are already expected to be top-notch and as such UCLA grads bet the most sought-after jobs in LA, both academic (yes, right out of residency) and community.
The mix of patients that are seen between the two main facilities provides an excellent balance between the "bread-and-butter" emergency presentations at a county facility and the very high acuity patients at an academic center. There is far more than enough trauma at UCLA- such that you will likely get tired of it after your R2 year as you realize it is not the big deal you thought it was. Truly the strongest part of this residency is its teaching. You will not encounter a universally stronger set of attendings in the country, hands down. Every patient is presented to an attending with variable supervision based on the attending and your own comfort/ability level. This is NOT handholding, it is collegial teaching and is a tremendous asset that you will not get elsewhere. Even the "world-renowned" minds of UCLA are the most approachable, likeable people in the hospital. The relationship between residents, attendings, nurses, and ancillary staff is very close- you truly work with your friends as corny as it may sound.
I would definitely recommend this place to train, and think you will come out prepared to go into community or academic practice. Questions welcome.
