This can be said about any industry or job. But they all still have glassdoor and indeed that allow past and present employees to rate the employer. Residency programs don't for some reason which I can not quite wrap my head around. Prospective residences have to essentially pay-to-play this game of discovering which programs are good or bad with very little help from the industry professionals themselves.
Granted even I as an engineer don't put much weight into reviews I see online, but they help me when I go job hunting to see if those same conditions exist in the company I am applying to.
I have seen some suggestions on here that point to this fact like "if you don't see current residences/fellows at the pre-interview dinner, it may be a sign that they overwork the residences". This bothers me and I am not even in this industry. I am thinking this process needs to have a little transparency in it rather that what seems to be a shell game for the prospective residences.
R-E-S-I-D-E-N-T-S
Imagine if you went to a school filled with upperclassman who have recently gone through this process, that you had the opportunity to work with and ask these questions on a daily basis to fully trained attendings familiar with program reputations that could even likely put you in touch with someone from a specific program that they know personally if you really felt it necessary, that you had advisors open to steering you in the right direction if you would ask, that having these conversations in person lead to more personal recommendation letters, and that you had an entire 4th year dedicated to interviewing and ensuring you find a program to train at that matches your particular career goals.
Now if that’s not enough which it clearly isn’t for a lot of people on this site, there’s also a search button on here with countless ranking threads and yearly interview trail impressions, scutwork.com, and doximity.
The only info missing on a completely superficial level that may be interesting but is not likely necessary to make a decision is:
1. Food - is there free food? When? Daily breakfast, lunch, snacks, drinks? Subsidized cafeteria? Is the cafeteria edible? Is the cafeteria legitimately good? (some actually are) Is the cafeteria close enough to utilize during breaks? Is the line at the cafeteria passive aggressively slow? Restaurants in the hospital? What is open at night when you are on call? Meal prepping is the way to go but backup options for when you’re feeling lazy would be nice.
2. Is there a resident lounge? Is there a physician lounge? What’s in them? Who has access?
3. Do residents have cars? Is parking absurdly expensive?
4. How is the moonlighting? Is there a system set up to come in early or stay late without having to work on your days off?
5. What is close by? Mountains? Beach? Lake?Airport? Pro/college sports? Golf?
6. Do residents interact socially with other residency programs within the hospital/school?
7. What happens if someone has a kid? Where I did intern year this meant extra weekend calls for everyone. I would’ve much preferred 24 hour call and less weekends but that’s a different subject. Where I am doing residency, people generally want and volunteer for weekday calls so this usually minimally negatively effects the call schedule and means there will be an extra senior resident sticking around in July to spread out the workload.
8. Elective time and how that elective time is spent and supported. Systems in place with other programs or even countries? Paid for by the department? Research courses or months?
9. Any other benefits an interviewee might not think to ask? Cheap or free tickets anywhere? Amazing gym access (subsidized equinox? Close by university gym) or really poor gyms around where residents typically live, etc. Residents somehow manage to fill an intramural basketball or soccer team at the associated university. Department supported social events, bartabs, retreats.
