Tough to say. BU was the oldest program in New England, a model SCI center, and had a 4 year re-accreditation from ACGME. To the best of my knowledge the program itself was not in financial trouble but the parent hospital Boston Medical Center was having a lot of financial difficulties.
It's a little convoluted, but here's my take. BMC treats a lot of underinsured patients. Mass used to have a central fund that all hospitals paid into but that you could also bill to for this care. BMC paid into it but got a lot more money back than they paid in. Under Romneycare that fund was reappropriated to help fund health insurance for the uninsured.
More people in Mass ended up with insurance. Less people got preferentially shipped over to BMC. BMC's census decreased over time and they closed down > 100 beds and laid off hundreds of staff. Part of the GME funding is tied to the # of active beds and around this time, BMC needed to unload dozens of residents that were basically no longer funded.
In this environment, the PM&R chair/program director decided to take an attractive job offer elsewhere. BMC could have replaced him, but that would have entailed a national search and ultimately would have been expensive to recruit someone. On top of that they needed to cut back on total residents. So they took the opportunity to close the program.
It wasn't handled very delicately. This was the end of February and the incoming PGY-2's (in the midst of our internships) found out about it as a rumor, which BU later confirmed. There was a lot of poor communication around this, probably partially because it was not planned and they were presumably trying to roll it out in a measured way, but word got out before they did. They tried to bootstrap a program together with another local program to allow the residents to complete their training, but it was denied by the ACGME.
At that point, several programs stepped up to take on the 12 displaced residents. Special kudos to Spaulding, Mt Sinai, and National who actively reached out, as well as the other programs that offered us positions. BU still pays for us wherever we go, and the ACGME allowed the programs extra positions temporarily to accommodate us. So it's a pretty good deal for everyone involved.
As for knowing the financial health of a program on the interview trail, I'm not sure. You would think the ACGME re-accreditation period would be a good indicator. I don't think the BMC PM&R Dept was losing money, but it was a small unit and probably not a big money maker either. You could investigate the financial health of the parent institution, and if it is bad, that could impact the department. If the program director plays in to your decision about a program, you might inquire about their future plans and how long they anticipate maintaining their role. If anyone else has a different take on the events, please feel free to correct me; I'm theorizing to a certain extent.
