Brigham (BWH) and MGH malignant and resident abuse?

[entrepreneurMD]

hey guys!

I’m a radiology applicant and recently interviewed at the boston programs for diagnostic radiology and I was shocked at what I heard during my interview day by residents. I would love some comments from other applicants or current residents.

So during my interview day compared to other programs, I noticed that residents were worked much harder at these programs compared to other “top” programs in the northeast. Definetely more worked than programs on the west coast and the south. To me they had much more call and harder and longer work days than the typical resident with a lack of benefits.

For example, there was a skimpy education fund of $700 a year, very little moonlighting (just contrast oops no extra call), travel for conferences is only reimbursed after production Of a manuscript (wtf??), inflexible vacation policy (week blocks only), strict call schedules, program directors really don’t seem to know their residents, interviewers didn’t really put any effort on impressing applicants or reading their application (which is unique because all the big name programs did).

All the residents are happy to be there and get great education but agreed that they were kind of worked too hard. Did I just get a bad impression during interview day or am I not understanding something? What’s going on here? I wanted to like these programs so much but it seems I’ll be going elsewhere for residency.

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[DrfluffyMD]

This is not what I’ve heard about BWH. Beware that people sometimes say bad things about programs to get people to rank them lower. Buyers’ beware.

 

[Reduviid]

Lol @ BWH being malignant or working too hard. If anything the opposite is true. Also residents there were among the most laid back and happiest of all the big programs.

 

[qxrt]

My friend matched at BWH this past match and loved the place, the workplace culture and the friendliness, ranked it #1 over all the other top interviews he got. If you didn't like it, then don't rank it highly, and let others who would love to match there get in. It's a fit issue; nothing wrong with that.

 

[Radology]

None of these sound at all bad?

Taking your vacation in week blocks? You seriously consider that abusing residents?

 

[Cognovi]

Many things in this post seem ill-informed. You don't get a reputation as a top program without challenging residents with a reasonable volume of studies and some academic work. Some other top programs probably work residents harder (MIR). Call is front-loaded and accelerated, so R3s get time to study and R4s get an infolded fellowship. That said, residents are not worked anywhere near the levels of call at community programs. They don't have truly independent call. Maintaining some perspective, they are also not worked anywhere near the hours of residents in most other specialties. Most days are 7:30am-5pm (including at least 1.75h case conference and didactics per day) with most weekend days free. Residents lead various conferences, which takes extra time out of work to prepare for but also benefit your learning.

MGH call pools consists of ED weeknight evenings starting November of R1 for 1 year, plain film Saturdays starting December for 1 year, CT weekends starting February for 1 year, ED weekends starting March for 1 year, and senior CT/MR Sundays starting March of R2 for 1 year. There is also ED Saturday nights for a year, which starts after the ED nightfloat block (4 weeks) that happens during R2. Rotated among 11 residents in a class, these call pools sum to less than 60 shifts plus ED nightfloat, mostly concentrated in R1/R2. There is also home call for urgent procedures on peds and nucs on nights and weekends, but calls are seldom.

Extra call moonlighting is not common at most programs and is more work anyway. Contrast moonlighting is plentiful and easy. The pay is not skimpy; R1 at MGH and BWH gets $64,505 salary and paid health insurance. MGH R1s also get $700 annual education fund, $1000 one-time stuff fund, reimbursed ABR fees, $200 cafeteria gift card, a Tumi laptop bag, a jacket, a fleece, an external hard drive, StatDx, RadPrimer, eAnatomy, and a trove of electronic resources/books/exams. Travel is reimbursed for when you have an abstract to present, one freebie conference during residency, and AIRP. Vacations can be week blocks or two week blocks. Not sure what you mean by strict call schedule; I'm sure people can swap.

 

[JaneDoe1]

From what I have heard, BWH has a great culture and is very family friendly. Definitely not malignant. I think your experience may have been an anomaly. Maybe you caught them on an off-day.