Hello SDN. I'm currently a 4th year at AECOM. I've met a few of you, I'm sure, as you guys have been on campus interviewing over the last several months. I just wanted to give an inside scoop on what Einstein is really like. I know that you've probably heard good things about the school from the people you interviewed with and the 1st and 2nd year medical students. Oftentimes, you can get a very skewed view of a school by relying on their viewpoints.
Here's some factual information that I wish I knew before I committed to Einstein. Like a lot of people, I was attracted to Einstein because it seemed like the students are happy, and it's in NYC.
The Good
I really liked a lot of my fellow classmates. Especially during first and second year, there's a lot of comraderie and helping each other out. Being P/F really helps build class spirit, IMO.
There's a real diversity in terms of the clinical experience. You rotate through Jacobi, a city hospital which serves an indigent population, Montefiore, which is a growing private hospital with a good reputation, BI in Manhattan, and LIJ in the suburbs. It's a broad clinical experience.
The Bad
The Bronx is not Manhattan. While you might have heard it advertised as "30 minutes away from Midtown," the express bus costs $5 (and the fare is only going to increase now that the economy in NY has crashed), comes as infrequently as once per hour, and stops running around midnight. Not good if you want to hang out with friends in the city.
The new building not withstanding, the rest of the campus is dilapidated and falling apart. The main building has had 2 major electrical fires which has been attributed to aging and poorly maintained infrastructure. There are frequent power outages. A few months ago, all of the water on campus mysteriously turned brown for half a week.
While having multiple hospitals in multiple areas is nice, you also have to travel extensively. Plaza Taxi is contracted by the school to bring you from site to site. It isn't the most reliable, friendly, or safe service. I'll just leave it at that.
The school has a strong primary care interest. In my opinion, it does this to the detriment of other specialties in medicine.
The Ugly
While the Einstein administration was advertised as "student friendly" when I was interviewing, it is anything but. Just one example, and the one that prompted me to write this post, is dealing with residency interviews while on 4th year rotations. First off, you're 4th year mandatory rotation schedule is predetermined by lottery. You can only change it if you can find someone willing to switch with you. As a 4th year applying to the match, you usually try to avoid doing mandatory rotations during the months between November and January... as will all 185 of your classmates. That means that many of us are stuck with busy rotations during interview season. The kicker is that there are attendance limits during these rotations, and absolutely no leeway. For instance, if you're doing neurology, you can only miss 2 days out of a month. If you're doing your sub-I, you might not be allowed to miss any. We've been told from faculty that we either have to cancel interviews, or fail the rotation.
Think about that one for a second. We're being told that our residency choices should be limited so that we can spend, say, half a day in clinic during our ambulatory care rotation, which has limited learning potential. If you're in a competitive specialty, you usually only get 1 or 2 choices of interview dates per program. Thus, you might not get to interview at a program you're interested in, because Einstein isn't letting you.
This doesn't sound so "student friendly," does it?
My word of advice is this-- don't listen to the 1st and 2nd years when they say that "everyone is happy" and that they "love it here." Listen to the 3rd and 4th years to find out how things really work. I feel like Einstein is one of those Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde places. The first 1.5 to 2 years, most people were at least content with their choice. The last two years, we've sort of resigned ourselves to that fact that dysfunction is "the Einstein way."
Now, on the positive side, there have been recent changes in the administration, which can only make things better. But do you really want to sacrifice $200k+ and 4 years of your life, as well as your future career, on promises of change?
Here's some factual information that I wish I knew before I committed to Einstein. Like a lot of people, I was attracted to Einstein because it seemed like the students are happy, and it's in NYC.
The Good
I really liked a lot of my fellow classmates. Especially during first and second year, there's a lot of comraderie and helping each other out. Being P/F really helps build class spirit, IMO.
There's a real diversity in terms of the clinical experience. You rotate through Jacobi, a city hospital which serves an indigent population, Montefiore, which is a growing private hospital with a good reputation, BI in Manhattan, and LIJ in the suburbs. It's a broad clinical experience.
The Bad
The Bronx is not Manhattan. While you might have heard it advertised as "30 minutes away from Midtown," the express bus costs $5 (and the fare is only going to increase now that the economy in NY has crashed), comes as infrequently as once per hour, and stops running around midnight. Not good if you want to hang out with friends in the city.
The new building not withstanding, the rest of the campus is dilapidated and falling apart. The main building has had 2 major electrical fires which has been attributed to aging and poorly maintained infrastructure. There are frequent power outages. A few months ago, all of the water on campus mysteriously turned brown for half a week.
While having multiple hospitals in multiple areas is nice, you also have to travel extensively. Plaza Taxi is contracted by the school to bring you from site to site. It isn't the most reliable, friendly, or safe service. I'll just leave it at that.
The school has a strong primary care interest. In my opinion, it does this to the detriment of other specialties in medicine.
The Ugly
While the Einstein administration was advertised as "student friendly" when I was interviewing, it is anything but. Just one example, and the one that prompted me to write this post, is dealing with residency interviews while on 4th year rotations. First off, you're 4th year mandatory rotation schedule is predetermined by lottery. You can only change it if you can find someone willing to switch with you. As a 4th year applying to the match, you usually try to avoid doing mandatory rotations during the months between November and January... as will all 185 of your classmates. That means that many of us are stuck with busy rotations during interview season. The kicker is that there are attendance limits during these rotations, and absolutely no leeway. For instance, if you're doing neurology, you can only miss 2 days out of a month. If you're doing your sub-I, you might not be allowed to miss any. We've been told from faculty that we either have to cancel interviews, or fail the rotation.
Think about that one for a second. We're being told that our residency choices should be limited so that we can spend, say, half a day in clinic during our ambulatory care rotation, which has limited learning potential. If you're in a competitive specialty, you usually only get 1 or 2 choices of interview dates per program. Thus, you might not get to interview at a program you're interested in, because Einstein isn't letting you.
This doesn't sound so "student friendly," does it?
My word of advice is this-- don't listen to the 1st and 2nd years when they say that "everyone is happy" and that they "love it here." Listen to the 3rd and 4th years to find out how things really work. I feel like Einstein is one of those Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde places. The first 1.5 to 2 years, most people were at least content with their choice. The last two years, we've sort of resigned ourselves to that fact that dysfunction is "the Einstein way."
Now, on the positive side, there have been recent changes in the administration, which can only make things better. But do you really want to sacrifice $200k+ and 4 years of your life, as well as your future career, on promises of change?
