Drexel / Hahnemann Residency Reviews

[Dr. Will]

Residents: 14 residents per year in a PGY 1-3 format. This is a happy, laid back bunch of residents. Only had the chance to meet 5 or so over the course of the day since many were still on vacation. The ones I did get a chance to meet were very chill and had nothing but great things to say about the program and the faculty. There wasn’t much in the realm of negatives that they mentioned.

Faculty: I only had the opportunity to meet 3 faculty members (including the Chair/PD). All were very friendly and excited about the program. They said there is plenty of teaching going on at the bedside. Their goal is to churn out docs that go into academics and community, and it shows based on the clinical experiences available.

Facilities/Ancillary staff: The Hahnemann ED (main hospital) was recently renovated 2-3 years ago. I was surprised with how nice of an ED it was. Very modern with plenty of computers. Charting is done electronically, if I can remember correctly. We didn’t have an opportunity to check out the other ED’s. Ancillary staff varies by sight. We were told it’s inversely proportional to how easy it is to get fired. The residents said there is little scut that happens, though.

Curriculum: The curriculum has some very strong aspects to it. It is very ED and critical care focused, with no inpatient months to waste your time. You work 10’s at Hahnemann as a PGY 1 and 8’s as a PGY 3. You do not see the place as a PGY 2 (which I wasn’t too fond of). The other sites, you’re working 12’s.

Trauma: Run in the ED by PGY 3. Anesthesia runs airway during the day, and the PGY 3 at night (which I’m not too fond of either). PGY 1 picks a patient side and performs most procedures. Decent volume since it’s closer to the north side of Philly.

Critical Care: In my opinion, this is one of it’s strengths. The strength is that you get 6-7 blocks of CCU/MICU at one of their cmn sites that has a high acuity. The best part about it is that it is completely EM run. All the residents are EM residents and you get all the procedures. Patients here are very sick according to the residents. You also get 1 block of NICU.

Peds: You get 4 blocks to spend at St. Chris’ children’s, another very strong children’s hospital in Philly. You also get a chance to work in the OR dealing with peds airway, which is a valuable experience. There is no PICU month, but a NICU month is available. Fellowship available

Off-service/electives: Only OB, anesthesia really. Not much else. No real elective time set out in the curriculum, but there are elective opportunities. I need to get this issue clarified.

Didactics: Protected unless in the ICU. Various activities, including oral prep where the EM 3 provides a clinical case and the EM 1 is the examinee. Everyone feels very prepared for oral boards after this activity, with a 100% pass rate since this activity began. PGY 3 has a teaching resident component in the curriculum.

Sub-specialty exposure: Block in US (fellowship available), tox (fellowship) and EMS (although only 1 week).

Research: Highly valued here. There 1 block per year set aside for the research scholar program, which teaches you many aspects of research and is geared towards you finding a project of your choice to work on.

Location: Philly, which I’ve talked about in other reviews.

Overall: I really liked this program. The residents I met were great, but I wish I had the opportunity to talk to more of them. It’s a really solid 3 year program with some very strong aspects (above average peds exposure, and awesome ICU experience). There are a few things I’m not fond of, including being away from “home” your entire second year, and anesthesia taking airway during the day. Also, I’m not sure about the elective opportunities (but I could be wrong about that aspect). Either way, I liked the program. Not sure where it ranks compared to the other 3 year programs I’ve interviewed at. We shall see!

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[WallowaWanderer]

Disclosure: This is my home program, so I have rotated and interviewed. I rotated at an outside hospital called Misericordia, or "Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia (MHOP)," which is one of the residents favorites (along with Mercy Fitzgerald) and a real gem of this residency.

Program: Drexel University (formerly MCP Hahnemann, in the tradition of Women's Medical college, and about a million other names)

Residents: Standard easy going EM people. Mix of families and singles, although with emphasis on singles. Very active socially as a group.

Faculty: I did not rotate at the main hospital, but at an affiliate. The faculty there are a mix of community oriented docs who like to be very hands on and primary their own patients as well as more academically minded faculty who will sit down with you to discus a case or give you a pearl. Great folks to work with. They let me see a ton of patients and do my own procedures. With some of them you have to be aggressive about you plan or they will just write the orders themselves. There are a couple faculty at Hahnemann who the residents and students don't like working with but in general they are pretty laid back and great to work with. At Hahnemann they are less busy and the patients are a little less sick so these tend to be you more academically minded faculty.

Facility: Lots of hospitals. As an intern you are the junior at Hahnemann – a pretty new, modern ED with the glass doors and lots of hard wall space. Computer labs, PACS, and past medical but paper charts. MHOP is older and less modern with most everything being done on paper save PACS. I didn't see M-Fitz but I imagine it's in between Hahnemann and MHOP in terms of amenities. No pod systems at either. St. Chris for Peds. The hospitals are within about 20 minutes of each other. The Hahemann, Mercy, and St Chris faculty are separate.

Ancillary Services: Not great at Hahnemann, but not as bad as what you hear about at the hard core county places. You won't be starting IV's or wheeling patients, but you'll also notice that some of the nurses don't move too fast. Generally better at the community sites. It's hard to find good nurses in Philly and there are a lot of hospitals competing for them. At MHOP, they would do IVs, NG tubes, etc and were pretty quick about it except when the place got slammed.

Patients: At MHOP they are super super sick – some of the sickest that you'll ever meet. Tons of DKA, GI bleeders, gangsta style trauma dropoffs (although I never saw any but I'm told it does happen. MHOP is not a trauma center), HIV, Hep C, ingestions, change in mental status. That's all mixed in with your bread and butter stuff. It's an awesome mix of pathology. Hahnemann – more tertiary care population, patients with weird diseases that are difficult to pronounce, and then your homeless-BS-cold-want a sandwich patients. Hahnemann is the only trauma center in the Drexel system so that's where you get you trauma patients. MFitz – slightly more suburban but not much, didn't rotate there. St Chris – mostly bread and butter with a smattering of the more complex patients. Most of the really complex stuff is going to go to CHOP. Good peds trauma exposure in the summer. At all the hospitals – large African American population of course. Some of the patients are not particularly appreciative of the hard work you are doing for them.

Clinical Training:
The Mercy hospitals are the crown jewel of this program and you spend you entire R2 year as well as a few R3 months and 6 critical care months there. EM is relatively new at Hahnemann. MCP (Medical College of Pennsylvania) closed a few years ago and it was a real loss to the program for the following reasons: the hospital served a very sick yet diverse population, most of the other residencies were not based here, and EM had been there since 1972. EM was king at that hospital. Now, EM has been at Hahnemann for only a few years and this is where all the major university residencies such as surgery and internal medicine are based. Surgery runs all traumas as far as I could tell with EM alternating the airway day/night with anesthesia. EM also does the FAST exams and reads EKGs. There is also an internal medicine senior stationed in the ED to work up all the medicine admits before they go to their respective service so they have quite a presence in the ED as well. So Hahnemann is not where you're getting to get the "king of the hospital feel." Fortunately you will get that at the Mercy hospitals and during your critical care months so I think this balances out. The only thing lost here is experience running traumas. You get some a the Mercy hospitals due to gangster style dropoffs but you don't rotate with the trauma service or alternate running traumas with them at Hahnemann. The faculty, save 2, are great at Hahnemann and there are a few big names still there – for instance, Dr. Wagner who helped start the specialty. Most of the older, famous people don't work many shifts, however. During your senior year you are back at Hahnemann and I can't comment on whether or not they get supervisory experience there.

Didactic Training: Pretty good. Interactive. The first 90 minutes are in an oral board format where the senior has a case and the intern has to ask the senior questions about the case, then develop a ddx and plan. A lot of people really like this, but I actually prefer a critical case conference. The rest of the didactics are pretty well done and blocked out on one day.

Peds: At St Chris, which is a much smaller peds hospital than CHOP and sort of lives in it's shadow. The peds experience here is great, however – it's a busy place and you'll see lots of patients. There's a peds EM fellowship there – they take both Peds and EM trained residents. I think most of the faculty are pediatricians but don't quote me on that. You also have peds mixed in at the Mercy Hospitals. St. Chris is a peds trauma center and although the trauma volume isn't going to blow you away, it's good. There aren't as many fellows here as there are at the more high power peds academic centers, so I think you'll be doing more.

U/S: I don't really know since I didn't rotate at Hahnemann, but they do have a U/S fellowship.

Research: MCP was very productive, then things dropped as the program was dealing with the challenge of restructuring during the Allegheny debacle and loss of MCP. About half the faculty at Hahnemann have strong research interests and they do require each resident to join a research group.

Other Curriculum Stuff: They've got fellowships in tox, U/S, and Peds. The critical care experience is a gem and is probably better than 90% of programs out there. You get 6 months, and you are the only residents in the general critical care unit at MHOP which is staffed by a private group. Residents say they get a ton of intubations, chest tubes, etc. Residents are very proud of this part of the program.

Location: It's Philadelphia. Pros are very sick patients, affordable city living compared to NYC or Boston, awesome BYOB restaurants, awesome bars, the city is small and easy to navigate, the beach is 1 hour away, the Poconos are within reach for mediocre hiking and skiing. Cons are that Philly is a gritty city, people pride themselves on being a little rough, the traffic on I-76 (nice PA suburbs) is horrible due to the fact that it is the main artery from the city to the burbs yet has only 2 lanes each direction.

Strengths: critical care, super sick patients at Mercy affiliates, laid back group of residents that are more single and more socially active than many, huge variety of hospitals and therefore variety of patients from bread and butter to super sick to tertiary care.

Weaknesses: EM is still gaining a foothold at Hahnemann. Research – while the faculty have a lot of interests, this is a part of the program that they are rebuilding.

Rotation Specifics: My Rotation at MHOP was spectacular for being exposed to EM in charge and very sick patients. However, some of the attendings were more community oriented and not so interested in teaching so didn't push me to develop a plan. On the other hand, others would sit down with me and give me personal mini-lectures. I got to really push myself, see lots of patients, and have a lot of responsibility. I missed getting to know the faculty at Hahnemann, who are the real movers and shakers within the residency.

Overall: Solid program with great critical care experience and good variety of training sites.

 

[RxnMan]

This review is by an applicant who interviewed at this program and wishes to remain anonymous.

Drexel Review

Pre-Interview Social: The pre-interview dinner was at Paddy Whacks, a sports bar, with your typical fried appetizer kind of food. Lots of people came, and the residents seemed like a social and fun group. They went around the table to talk to all of the applicants so that they could meet us all and no one would be excluded from the conversation, which was really nice.

Interview Day: I was in the early group. We started at 8 AM with breakfast, and the PD did a David Letterman-style Top 10 Reasons to Come to DUCOM. Some of the reasons were that Drexel is the second oldest EM residency after Cinci (we’d be in the 41st class), and they have no floor months and few off-service rotations. Then the residents gave a presentation about the program and Philly, followed by interviews, lunch, and a tour.

There were four interviews with the PD, the assistant PD, and two other faculty. The interviews were 30 minutes each, plus two scheduled 30 minute breaks. All of the interviews were pretty relaxed. I was asked why EM, why Drexel, why Philly, where do you see yourself in 5-10 years, where in the U.S. are you hoping to end up. Everyone also asked me what questions I had, so make sure you’re prepared to ask questions!

Curriculum: Drexel is a three year program. The hospitals are Hahnemann (academic hospital), Mercy Philadelphia and Mercy Fitzgerald (urban/suburban community sites), Abington (community site), and St. Christopher’s (peds hospital). Shifts are scheduled in blocks with two mornings, two afternoons, two nights, and then two days off, although at Mercy they have six 12s in a row followed by four days off. At Hahnemann the PGY1/2s do 10s and the PGY3s do 8s, and everyone does 8s at St. Chris. There aren’t any official integrated peds shifts, but they do 4-8 weeks of peds EM at St. Chris every year, and they also see peds cases at the three community hospitals. There are 23 total months of EM, including four months of peds EM at St. Chris and ten months at the three community sites. (The month at Abington is fast-track.)

There is no orientation block at Drexel. They do ACLS training around June 20 and then start their first rotation around June 23. Some people even start with an ICU month three days after they get there, which sounds pretty intense. But there is a summer core curriculum in July/August for interns to get them up to speed (lectures and workshops). Dr. Roberts (author of the procedure textbook) runs a procedures workshop. There are also cadaver labs.

Drexel’s curriculum has a ton of ICU exposure (7 months!). Their CCU (at Mercy Philadelphia) is run entirely by EM residents, so they only work with their fellow EM residents. There are also not very many off-service months and no floor months. For some reason, none of the rotations are listed on the website, so here they are. PGY1 has five months EM at Hahnemann, one month peds EM, one month ultrasound, one month OB, one month anesthesia, four months CCU, one month EMS/sports med, and one month scholarly project. PGY2: six months of EM at the two Mercy hospitals, 2 months peds EM, one month tox, two months CCU, one month scholarly project, one month EKG/jeopardy resident, one month vacation, and one month fast-track at Abington. PGY3: Four months EM at Hahnemann, four months EM at the two Mercy hospitals, one month scholarly project, one month teaching/nightfloat, one month CCU, one month peds EM, and one month administration.

I was kind of confused about the scholarly project rotation setup, but basically these are like elective months. You use them to do your required scholarly project, and once you have that done, you can use the rest of the time to do electives. So even though there aren’t any official elective months, you can still do electives. Also, the faculty are organized into research groups, which are just people with interests in a particular area, and they will mentor you.

Didactics: They have your standard five hours per week of didactics, although one hour per week is spent doing the Med Challenger modules and questions. Drexel buys Med Challenger for every resident, and the residents are assigned modules to do during all three years. For the other four hours, they spend two hours each week doing case conferences (practice oral boards), and the rest are M&Ms, Grand Rounds, journal clubs, etc. I’m not sure how strong the didactics are, mainly because we didn’t hear too much about them.

Benefits: Drexel’s benefits are pretty good. Hahnemann is owned by Tenet HealthSystem, so the residents are Tenet employees. Health insurance is subsidized by the program. There are 3-4 weeks of vacation per year. They pay for all life support certifications, and you can get free ATLS instructor training in return for teaching four classes. (If you teach more than four classes, they pay you for teaching.) Tenet matches 401k contributions up to 1.5%. The educational stipend is $400 per year. Parking is free and meals are provided when you’re on call.

Administration: The PD and assistant PD seemed nice and concerned for their residents. There are several big names in EM here (Wagner, Roberts, Greenberg), and they seem to be pretty involved with teaching residents.

Philadelphia: Philly is the fifth largest city in the U.S. and seems like a pretty good place to live. There are a lot of fun things to do in the area, and we were told that the food is especially good because most restaurants have no liquor license. (That’s why most places are BYOB!) Cost of living is fairly reasonable for an east coast city, especially compared to places like Boston or NYC. Since the residents are rotating at so many hospitals all over the city, you will need to have a car in this program.

Summary: Drexel’s program has a ton of great features, especially if you’re interested in critical care. (And even if you’re not, it’s still great training to work in an EM-run CCU!) As far as I know, this is the only program that has an EM-run CCU. They rotate through five hospitals, so you get a lot of patient variety. Plus, the curriculum seems to be designed with a lot of thought toward customizing it for a good EM experience. There are no floor months and not very many off-service months. Along with heavy ICU exposure, they have more EM months compared to other three year (and even four year) programs. They get to do fire school and car extrication during their EMS week, which is cool. They participate in the city-wide Philly program joint conferences. (Apparently there are four per year.) Even though they don’t officially have elective time, they have more elective time than most other three year programs if you consider the three scholarly project months as elective time. Their benefits are pretty good compared to a lot of other programs. The residents, faculty and administration all seem really nice.

For cons, I’m not thrilled about the idea of maybe starting an ICU rotation three days into my internship. The more programs I visit, the more I feel like I want to have an orientation month. Also, even though rotating through so many hospitals provides a lot of variety of patients, it also means a lot of time driving around a traffic-choked city. I’m not sure how strong the didactics are, but it kind of concerns me that we didn’t hear too much about them. I’m also not sure how I feel about one hour of didactics being done online (MD Challenger). A lot of programs offer online programs like MD Challenger as an adjunct, but this is the only program I’ve seen so far that actually requires it as part of the weekly didactics. In spite of the three scholarly project months, the program doesn’t seem very academic to me. So if that’s what you’re looking for, Drexel might not be the best fit.

Overall, this program is very EM-focused and has really nice people, but I think there are other programs that would be a better fit for me.

 

[quicknss]

I had a very "funny" feeling about this place when I was there interviewing. First of all it is the only For-Profit institution that I interviewed at so going here for residency would have prevented me from qualifying for the federal loan forgiveness program (but this is another story)

Only 2 residents came out on a Thursday social night and those two guys even though they were in the same class seemed to barely know each other. I also only saw a few residents during the day and they all seemed very awkward around each other.

They talk a lot about their ICU experience (6 months I believe) but I was able to speak to a third year privately about this a he said that their ICU is a good place to learn procedures but it is really in their curriculum because they do not get a lot of complex critically ill patients in their ED. And when they do, the ICU comes downstairs to take over if they are waiting for a bed so they never learn venting and stuff in the ED.

They also talk about how they have a tox and u/s fellowship but there was no one enrolled for the last 2 years in the U/S fellowship and they do not have a tox fellow this year so I do not think they are very strong in either of those sub specialties. They also only have 1 board certified ultrasonographer on staff (Dr. Handly I believe) and he is going to be leaving per rumors among the residents.

Reputation: They talk about a connection to the original east coast training program of MCP but I don't know if "Drexel" is really carrying on the name.

Interviews: Faculty were all really nice and the Program Director is goofy in a good way but I had very awkward and somewhat argumentative conversation from the assistant program director (Saks).

The graduates seem to mostly get community jobs in and around the Philadelphia area so if you just want to get a decent job locally after graduating I think it would be a fine program that teaches you how to be a good doctor. However, if you have any aspirations that are a little loftier I think it is a program that is somewhat struggling and also has a limited reputation in the advancing field of EM.

Bottom Line: It just didn't excite me

 

[GoGetEM]

Interviews: Faculty were all really nice and the Program Director is goofy in a good way but I had very awkward and somewhat argumentative conversation from the assistant program director (Saks).

I had a very similar experience with the aPD. It had a significant impact on how I ranked the program.

 

[EMdoc10]

Any more recent reviews from interviewees/current residents?

 

[deleted547339]

Posted anonymously for another user.

DREXEL
Shift schedule:10h shifts at Hahnemann, 12hshifts at Mes and Fitz (2 ICU sites)
Vaca: 3wks PGY1, 4wks PGY2/3
Sites: Hahnemann University Hospital, St. Chris (Peds ED), St. Joe's (community), ICU sites (Mercy and Mercy Fitzgerald)
Fellowships:Sports medicine, Tox, Medical simulation
Some pros:Superior ICU exposure (at Mercy and Fitz, EM residents are on their own with attendings and learn a LOT), one of the oldest EM programs
Some cons: "for-profit" hospital, tough PGY1 year (specially at HUH during PGY1, but residents go to Mes and Fitz PGY2 for ICU and return back to HUH as rockstars)

 

[DrexelEMResident]

Current Drexel Resident here. I'm a 3rd year, about to graduate. Someone mentioned SDN to me the other day, so I figured I'd take a look at what people were saying about us. I thought that some of it was accurate, but a lot of it was fairly inaccurate. So I figured I'd give you my take.

I guess the first thing to get out of the way is it seems that a few people had awkward interviews with Dr. Saks. He recently left Drexel to take a program director job starting a new residency. Hence, that no longer applies to us. Having said that, if he does get this new residency up and running, I wouldn't be afraid to check it out. He might not make good first impressions, but he's actually a pretty nice guy and will make a great program director.

Anyways, the big picture about our program is that we're very heavy on ED and ICU. There's not a single floor month during the entire residency. We primarily spend all of intern year doing ED shifts at Hahnemann Hospital, which is a large academic, downtown ED. It's a somewhat strange mix of patients. The convention center is right next door so we'll randomly get heart attacks that happened at the international librarian convention or whatever else happens to be in town. There are several homeless shelters within a couple blocks, so you get a lot of patients with substance abuse, HIV, untreated chronic disease. There are also lots of complicated surgical and other subspecialized patients given that it's a university medical center. Additionally, it's also right on the off-ramp for 676, so we get a good amount of blunt trauma from car crashes. Regarding penetrating trauma, we get a moderate amount. If penetrating trauma is your thing, admittedly Temple is probably a better bet for you, as they seem to get the most in town.

2nd year is all in the Mercy System (Mercy Fitzgerald and Mercy Philadelphia). These hospitals are community hospitals. A good chunk of the attendings are Drexel grads. There isn't as much consultant support. The population is generally very poor and very sick. You tend to be very busy there and have to learn to be pretty independent. Throughout the day, there are generally 2-3 attendings and 2 residents on at a time. Overnight from about 2am-6am, it's just you and an attending. It can be slow sometimes and others you'll be working your butt off. Being a new second year, I recall it being very much a challenge. Overall, I'd say Mercy is busy, fairly stressful and tiring, but you learn a great deal and come to master resuscitation and sick patients. Also, the attendings tend to be younger (30s-40s), so the work atmosphere is a bit more informal, so there's very much a collegial atmosphere.

Third year is a mix of all the locations. Additionally, we do pediatric EM (a total of 4 months), at St. Christopher's hospital. St. Chris is a level 1 pediatric trauma center, so you'll get trauma experience there. The overall experience at St. Chris is fairly bread and butter pediatric EM. You'll still get kids with strange, complicated genetic issues, but certainly not as frequently as you would at say CHOP across town. I know at a lot of pediatric hospitals, they can be wary of the level of involvement residents have with small children. Personally, I haven't had that experience at St. Chris. I've intubated neonates, done sepsis workups in young babies, pretty much anything you can think of.

The other big thing everyone wants to know about is our ICU experience. We're very heavy on ICU. We do 4 blocks first year and 2 each additional. It's kind of a unique setup. Basically, we staff the ICU at Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia. The ICU is ran by board certified intensivists (the director is also EM/IM trained). Besides us, there aren't any other services there, no IM rotators, no surgical rotators, no fellows. This means we pretty much are responsible for all resuscitations and procedures. There aren't any fellows around to do them for you. Attendings are in house during the day, and available by phone in the evening/overnight. They'll come to the hospital in the middle of the night if you need assistance, but most of the time, the senior residents will be taking care of things.

Other things:
-Vacation: First year, we get 3 weeks that are all split up in week segments. 2nd and 3rd years, you get an entire month block off together. Lots of people will swap a portion of their vacation time with someone else to get a pair of 2 week blocks off, rather than one big segment.
-Research: Like every program, you're required to do some sort of research. Also, like every program, it basically is what you make of it. We generally have a few people present posters at various conferences every year. One or two people a year will get something published. If you are going to present something, there's a resident research fund that is established to cover your travel costs. We have a dedicated month in each year to work on your project. Basically, you can titrate your research blocks to the level that fits your interests. I'd say the most common research topic people get involved with is related to violent injury prevention because we have a large public health program (Healing Hurt People) that is based out of Drexel.
-Other rotations: We have dedicated anesthesia, OB, Ultrasound, EMS, sports medicine, toxicology, and an elective
-Fellowships: Toxicology, Simulation, EMS (although EMS might have changed a little after the new accreditation standards), You can sort of count Peds since St. Chris has a PEM fellowship, thought it's not technically "Drexel"
-Sim Center: We have a pretty big Sim center and dedicated faculty towards running the Sim Lab. You spend a good amount of time there.

Final thoughts:

What do I like about the program?
-You get very comfortable taking care of really sick patients.
-It's somewhat of an "old-school" program (overnight in ICU, no attending in house, overnight at Mercy, just you and attending), so you learn to be autonomous by necessity.
-You get lots of procedures, lots of rescucitations
-It's a big program (45 residents), so when you're not working, there are actually other classmates that have the day off to hang out with.
-Pretty much everyone in our class got the job they wanted. Several took very solid fellowships, some took community jobs
-If you're into public health, there's lots of opportunities here to merge emergency medicine and public health
-The program leadership is very involved in organized medicine, and there are opportunities if that's something that interests you

What don't I like?
-It's a busy 3 year program. With all ICU and ER shifts, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't exhausting.
-People weren't happy with the academic curriculum about a year ago and as a result, the curriculum got changed to more of a systems based approach. It seems to be better, but an honest assessment would say that it's still a work in progress.
-This applies at every 3 year program, but if you're looking for an academic job afterwards, you'll be limited to places that have 3 year residencies. To combat this, you either need to do a fellowship or take a 3 year job and apply to the one at the 4 year residencies position later.

Overall:
I think our program creates doctors that are really equipped to take care of very sick patients. It's hard to explain, but although we're an academic program, there tends to be a bit more of a community feel to it. If you're someone that loves critical care or perhaps wants to do a critical care fellowship, we're the perfect program for you. Having said that, if you hate critical care, we might not be for you. Overall, if I had to do my rank list again, I'd rank Drexel again.

 

[AmericaAmerica]

Bump-

Any residents from classes 2016-2018 want to chime in on curriculum, volume, acuity, moonlighting, didactics, etc?

 

[carbonizedeyesockets]

I'm not a resident there, but I know some folks there and I rotated there as a student. Things are in flux. It sounds like the program will improve a lot now that the PD was forced to step down.

 

[gman33]

I'm a recent grad of the program.
Overall the training was excellent.
There is not a lot of hand holding, more a learn by doing feel.
That may not be the best learning environment for everyone.

There are some attendings who are extremely demanding.
Not always fun to work with, but they can teach you a lot if you take it in the right frame of mind.
This is probably true at most programs.

Most of the attendings are fantastic and supportive.

The ICU experience is outstanding.
Only EM residents alongside the intensivists.
No other residents or fellows.
Very demanding rotations, but you will learn a lot.
Being on call overnight with no real backup will force you to learn what you are doing.
As an applicant, I thought there was too much ICU time, as a graduate I think it was one of the strongest parts of the program.

I'm glad to answer any questions about the program.
Feel free to PM me.

 

[Jelgava]

Sharon Griswold (EM physician and director of medical simulation for Drexel) was my program director at Jeff and she was really awesome. Learned a lot of EM tricks from her.

 

[Djibouti]

QUOTE REMOVED


Recent graduate here,

To this poster, I will not argue with your opinions of the program, because everyone has right to their opinion. I will say that is completely unprofessional to list names in a public forum...how would you feel if they blasted you on job sites stating you were a lazy/incompetent resident?

With that said, while drexel, like all programs, has cons-it has completely prepared me to be an attending. ALL OUR ATTENDINGS AT HUH, no matter how unpopular they are with the residents, will teach you something valuable! Further, you learn how to run a Level 1 trauma center by yourself during your third year, that experience will become invaluable to you especially if you are like me and working in a single coverage community ER at out in the middle of nowhere.

The ICU experience is one of the best aspects of this program and I am grateful the mercy intensivists didn't baby me. Currently, I get called to the ICU overnight for any decompensating patients. You have family members watching you as you try to save their loved ones, all while an unattended ER is piling up with patients-you certainly will not be coddled by family members if things don't go right.

In regards to pediatrics, I agree the rotation isn't great-mainly because every residency in the city rotates at the same site (st. chris) and so shifts get inundated with residents. I have spoken with many residents from other programs in the area and quite frankly I do not think any of their programs have better curriculum. Also, most residents run away when you get sick pediatric patient and if you man/woman-up during these time you get in on cool cases/procedures. Since we are the only program that rotates there all three years then the pediatric attendings start to trust/call upon you.

My current attending schedule is 5 12 hour shifts (I only work 10 shifts a month) in a row and my resident schedule prepared me for that transitions. (Also, at Drexel you get 3.5 days off after your stretch).

I had a great three years, made life long friends with my co-residents and many attendings! I would do it all over again and would rank the program even higher.

In sum, if you want a program that will baby you then Drexel is not for you! If you want a program that will prepare you to be an attending in a single coverage ER with little consultant back-up on day one of attending-hood then Drexel is the place to be. The acuity and pathology is second to none!

 

[drexelres]

I am sorry to the resident who stated that they were "miserable". I am a current PGY3. I love my job and I am far from miserable. Like anywhere, some things could be better in certain areas. I know that I will graduate this year and be ready for what is to come next.

Yes, there are some issues, but where are there NO issues? You have to take the good in with the bad. We have quite a few strong teaching attendings at both Hahnemann and Mercy. Hahnemann has many challenges but I am not convinced that those challenges make Drexel EM a miserable place. I actually consider the long Mercy shifts a positive for the program. We get to work mixes of 8s, 10s, 12s throughout or time at Drexel, thus graduating having experienced all of them. When we work 12s, we get 4 days off after our six shift series, leaving us ample time to travel, see friends, family etc. There are pros and cons to all the types of schedules and we get a taste of them all. Additionally, many people drive half an hour to work, and thus I do not think that should be a factor driving anyone away from our program. Our Mercy experience is invaluable, we have outstanding attendings and a very challenging and sick patient population.

I think our ICU time is really positive. We are the only residents in the unit. We do no floor months. Yes you work hard and long hours while there, BUT IT IS RESIDENCY! It is a Critical Care Unit, thus we see a complex mix of pathology (surgical, medical, cardiac, neuro). We are the only residents there, and thus we learn procedures and medical knowledge from our EM upper years and not IM residents. In terms of the attendings there, I actually really like most of them, including the ones mentioned above. Dr. Castallano can be cynical, but he is smart and if you embrace the cynicalness right, it can make rounding more entertaining. I have learned tons from Dr. Friede. She may be difficult for some people to mesh with personality wise, but we are not here to make friends, we are here to learn and take care of patients. And she is very knowledgable, very evidence based, and takes very good care of her patients. When the attending changes, plans are going to change, that is why medicine is considered an art and not just a pure science.

As for the peds experience, I think the average EM resident is not fond of the pediatric ER time regardless of the program. I am not sure how the "below average" was determined (which scale, or which pediatric experience our residency is being compared to) but I really enjoyed my pediatric months. We staff them 24/7 and thus develop strong relationships with their faculty. Like any peds ER, the average acuity is not level 1s across the board, however, if you are enthusiastic and hard working, there will be plenty of sick kids to take care of and learn from.

 

[diplodoc]

Yeah, have to agree with Djibouti. Another recent grad here. Look, residency isn't Disneyland, and if that's what you're looking for, you may be in the wrong profession. I actually really liked our schedule, which is a progressive block schedule. Basically, you do two days, followed by two mids, followed by two nights, all at the same site. Then you get your days off. It's 2 days first year, and mostly 4 days 2nd and 3rd year. No random sites sprinkled into a block--I could wake up and know exactly where I was going rather than having to constantly be looking at the schedule. Think about it--we got 4 days off every 10 days. Most people (residents) would kill for that schedule.

With regard to the ICU, OP doesn't really do it justice. The unit has no other specialties rotating through--only ER residents from our program. You are never scutted out to medicine fellows in the Cardiac Care Unit, or Trauma fellows in the SICU--we get all our ICU time in our own unit. It's a place where you really learn how to take care of sick patients, and see how the management decisions you make in the ER affect a patient's clinical course. It's also a place where our residency really comes together--you come to rely on your senior resident and really get to know your classmates, and some of the strongest connections in the residency are forged here. I personally wouldn't trade it for the world.

The mix of community and university hospitals is a true strength of the program. You leave here prepared for any practice setting and can sell that on job interviews. Plus you don't just learn the tertiary care way of doing things, or the community way of doing things, you get a variety of practice styles. No matter what, you leave here ready to take on a real world ER, and also know how you personally want to practice.

I'm sorry that the OP is so miserable. I don't want to let people think that this is by far the norm. The residency is hard--no joke. But it's residency. If I had a rough day, I always got a text message from my senior resident to check-in, or someone who helped pick me up. I found my fellow residents to be a huge source of strength and support from day 1, and wouldn't trade that group for anything. Having gone through a few rough patches myself, I also found that I was able to talk to both the pre-probation program staff, and the new program staff.

Finally, a word about naming names on open forums--if this is how you treat your colleagues (and like it or not, all doctors are now your colleagues, including your supervisors), you need to re-examine your values. As ER doctors we are very susceptible to unprofessional loose talk--think of all the hospitalists who rag on us, or the specialists who tell our patients that we don't know what we're talking about, or the primary care doctors who say that we don't know how to manage simple chronic diseases. They're wrong of course, but patients don't know that. If you witness unprofessional or un-ethical behavior (which you allege in your post) there are many other ways to address it.

 

[carbonizedeyesockets]

I was a Drexel student and rotated at Mercy and of course know former residents and former faculty. I also trained under many MCP grads.

One thing for sure is that people feel well trained when they leave the program. But, they don't necessarily feel good things about the program and some of its faculty. Of course, no one expects residency to be a cake walk, but it is not unreasonable to expect to be treated with respect. I remember asking an upper year about their experience at Mercy and they straight up told me "It's nice because they actually treat you with respect here." Even some former faculty members have expressed displeasure with the higher-ups in the program. The story behind Drexel landing on probation isn't a pretty one, at least from what I was told by residents who were there at the time.

With such a rich history, the program has slipped under its current leadership. EMS fellowship? Nonexistant and their involvement with EMS is minimal compared to their past. US fellowship, which they named after David Wagner? Dead. Instead of hiring US faculty, they hired US techs to teach residents. And MCP/Drexel was an early adopter of EM bedside US. Certainly McNamara left big shoes to fill, but who did they fill it with? Certainly Wags left big shoes to fill, too, but who did they fill them with? It was like they decided to not even try.

Drexel should be considered a top program. The first EM residency? Cinci. Tied for 2nd? USC and MCP(Drexel). They trained some big names in EM, but based on the present, you'd never guess that.

 

[deleted109597]

I hate to have to say it, but this needs to be kept professional. You can have issues with a program and that's fine. You can discuss items. But don't discuss people by name.