Current resident at Riverside county(Former DO program), I can sympathize with wanting to come back to California but it is not worth it if this program is your only choice. This program has been run into the ground by the PD and APD. We have heard some of the lies they have told candidates during the interview process from which we were excluded and we want our future colleagues knowing what they are getting into at Riverside County.
Starting with last year, the program knew in November that a new team of attendings would be coming in and the old ones that candidates grew to know and were recruited by would be leaving (Old group lost the contract). None of the potential candidates were told before or after match- just when they arrived to find a program with two groups fighting for power using the residents as their scapegoats (old group members vs new group members).
The education out of the OR is terrible, the attending led lectures are literally regurgitation from Miller's or a similar text given at a medical student level. The "High yield board review" is based on questions that are 20+ years old that the attending refuses to update ( unsurprisingly we are having trouble with passing boards and have very poor ITE scores).
In the OR, the attendings are barely present as it is all indirect supervision (including when we had INTERNS in rooms by themselves last year). The attendings spend their time gossiping in the fish bowel about how poor the residents are, shopping online, or sleeping (literally have an attending who brags about just coming into work to sleep). It is all self taught from day one which the program used to get away with because we had high volume and put in long OR hours but...
CRNAs are now manning the ORs taking procedure and good cases from residents which the APD is allowing.
The residents are all miserable because it is such a toxic culture to work in. The attendings routinely blame residents for complications despite their lack of supervision. If a resident speaks up, they can expect retaliation from the department.
If you think this is just one person who had a bad experience, take into account the acgme came for an unscheduled site visit due to the bad resident feedback on the annual survey as well as poor board pass rate. The APD labeled the residents as complainers to the acgme and the "changes" they implemented due to the survey were only on paper-nothing changed within the residency. For example, they told the acgme they would improve clinical didactics with teaching rounds. This consists of the attending handing out a random question with a written explanation to the residents in the OR- no further teaching points by the attending doing the "rounds"( with one exception). This has even proved to be too much for them at times, about half the time the attendings don't even hand out a question.
The repeat acgme survey will be given in the next month and the responses are going to be extremely poor again. Without significant change (removal of PD and/or APD), this program needs to just close so the residents can transfer to anesthesia programs where we will be appropriately trained. If you do rank the program high, be aware you could be coming into a program that will be put on probation after the acgme comes back with a decision.
