Chicago programs

[MedGeek]

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Can anyone say something about Chicago programs? My significant other think's it'd be neat to live there but I don't know anyone who has personal experiece with the programs (coming from the West). I guess I'd appreciate hearsay as well.

Northwestern University
University of Illinois at Chicago
Cook County Hospital
University of Chicago/Lutheran General Hospital
Christ Hospital (near chicago?)
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria/OSF St. Francis Medical Center (near chicago?)
Resurrection

Thanks,
MedGeek

 

[PimplePopperMD]

Here's my personal view of the programs:

first, all are really quite strong programs. there's widespread agreement in the em community here in chicago of that fact. there are positives and negatives to all of them, obviously, but all will offer a great education and experience.

Christ

Widely thought to be the strongest program. More selective to get interviews (USMLE > 230s or so), residents seem very happy, nice facility, great trauma experience (many other residents come to christ or cook for their trauma), in my mind weaker off-service rotations (ie medicine).
It's a one hospital system; you're at Christ for three years. I see this as a weakness, but others really like it. great ultrasound

UIC

Strong program, with very nice faculty and great residents. Strong off-service rotations. Three hospital system; one inner-city like community hospital which offers great experience. weaker trauma. weaker ultrasound.

U of Chicago

Very busy ER at main site; three hospital system as well, one suburban trauma center, one knife & gun inner city, and U Chciago, which is great in that it gets odd transplant patients along with the poor underserved local community. Good group of people, very strong off service rotations (except surgery), bad commuting. Good ultrasound experience. FLIGHT experience is great; 2nd years are flight docs. Also bad; that means that when the 2nd year is flying, everyone else has to clean up the messes. Quite a bit of scut, from what I found (I rotated). Pushing patients to Xray, etc. Not at the suburban location, however!

Cook

Not much firsthand knowledge. I wasn't interested because I'm not into scut, and because it's a PGY 2-4 program.. They get a great education.

Res

Very benign program. Best ultrasound in the city; they stole Christs' fellow. Lousy off-service rotations (my impression, not firsthand). Decent group of residents. Two hospital system, both are suburban, so not too much mix. A newer program, didn't fill last year. I liked it, but didn't rank it too high (not too low either!)

Northwestern

PGY 1-4. Widely thought of as the weakest Chicago program, but I see that as changing. I was impressed at my interview, but still didn't rank it highly because I don't think it's quite there yet. New PD is really great, and concerned about quality of faculty. Nice facility, great off-service, ?Ultrasound (i forget). Lots of ICU months (I think 9). Makes for a better physician, but why not get double boarded in IM/EM? they used to in this program, and that's one of the reasons for the heavy ICU time. Definite up-and-coming.

UI Peoria

Very nice place, but in Peoria, about 2 hours out of Chicago. Facility worn down, faculty very nice and friendly, residents seemed more family-oriented, very rural feel. Not for city folk.


That's my personal opinion. I think the best programs in the city are Christ, UIC, U Chicago. Res is close, and then Northwestern. Others will have vastly different opinions based on their own interests, and what they find important in an EM residency.

Suggestion: do a rotation or two in an ED where you'll apply. Get to know it.

Best of luck!

PS it really is neat to live here. Chicago is one of the best cities in the nation to live in. BUT ITS 50 DEGREES TODAY, AND IT'S JUNE!

 

[MedGeek]

Thanks for all the information. I'm really excited to apply to the programs. I'd been thinking of doing a rotation one of the schools and I think you've sold me.

The cold is the scariest thing for me, I'm sure I'd get used to it. 🙂

 

[pinbor1]

PimplepopperMD did a great job of summing the programs.

I will try to give some insight into what I know about the student rotations.

Christ- I believe they are 9 or 10 hr shifts as students. Very busy with multiple attending coverage. Great pathology, trauma 1 for the southside of Chicago. Great facilities and excellent US experience. Very strong reputation locally, not quite as well known from an academic standpoint.

UIC- There are 3 hospital sights you can rotate at all have great faculty and their own distincy pt population. I would say that UIC and U of C have the strongest academic reputations in chicago. UIC seems to graduate a number of residents that go on to become PD's

UIH is the tertiary care center, here you will see a number of odd cases from transplants, genetic disorders, to run of the mill pts. I believe they are 10 hrs shifts. I here they tend to be more consult heavy given that they are a University hospital and the politics behind that.
Illinois Masonic is a trauma 1 it tends to serve the more affluent Chicagoans, but you also see a number of Puerto Rican Immigrants. Here you will work 12hr shifts and may have the oppurtunity to get some EMS experience. You'll have to ask about that.
The last but certainly not least is Mercy. This is you inner city hospital. You will see a wide range of pt's here as well. They tend to be your patients with the least follow up. They get a number of patients from Chinatown and when they come in you know they are sick. We are often their last resort for treatment. Here you will work 8hrs shifts.

Resurrection Hospital is a sight that a number of my classmates rotated at. They all seemed to love it. Great teaching and great cardiac pathology. They cover chicago's polish community and a number of nursing homes so you will get great experience taking care of sick patients.

St. Francis is Evanston associated with resurrection's program has 12hr shifts. I believe the student coordinator is the current president of ICEP. Here you will see a pretty significan spanish speaking population.

Northwestern I don't know much about, but a friend that rotated there said that things were coming around. They have faculty that are interested in teaching. Their chief and PD are doing great things with the program, but they are still a division of medicine.

Mt. Sinai is the knife and gun club, residents from U of C and I believe Northwestern rotate there. Very busy and you will get to do tons of suturing and see lots of trauma. Also a very large spanish speaking population.

Cook County, new hospital so I don't know if any of this has changed but this is what I know of the rotation.
Some great faculty there, 8hr shifts but you get worked, I had a couple of classmates that rotated here and it made them switch out of ER. They said that it was just too much scut. Regardless you will see tons of great pathology here and the scut may be reduced given that they are in a new hospital but don't count on it.

U of C and Lutheran I will not comment on, because I have talked to enough people that have rotated there.

That's my long winded 2 cents

As for the cold you'll get used to, EtOH definitely helps

 

[southerndoc]

MedGeek, are we long lost siblings?

Cheers,

Geek Medic

 

[MedGeek]

MedGeek, are we long lost siblings?

I wish I weren't sending this off-topic (because I'm grateful for the responses), but I guess I should have checked other's handles before I went and registered!

 

[jawurheemd]

Personally, I feel that all of the Chicago programs are very strong. You can't go wrong. Each program has its unique charactersitics, and you need to do a little investigation to see what fits with your own preferences.

I can speak about the University of Chicago program which has a mandatory helicopter experience (have you ever seen the U of Chicago helicopter on ER?), resuscitation research center, ultrasound at all sites, strong offservice rotations, different clinical settings with different patient populations, cool colleagues with strong social interactions, supportive faculty, millions of dollars in NIH funding, international medical transport experience, telemetry base station experience, to name a few. U of Chicago EM program also has a great legacy being one of the oldest programs in the country. Many of the programs graduates have gone onto become department chairs, residency program directors, ACEP leaders, public health leaders, and millionaires -- a pretty impressive network. Finding jobs has never been a problem for our graduates. Probably the hardest part of the job process is picking which job you want. Anyway, I'm pretty happy here.

Others can probably speak about the other programs in more detail.

James

PGY2 Emergency Medicine
University of Chicago Hospitals

 

[kickbackdude]

PimplePopper summed up the Chicago programs nicely. I just have a few things to add.

From all the people I talked to, like PP said, Christ is considered the strongest program, closely followed by UIC and UofChicago.

My experience is as follows: I interviewed at Christ and Resurrection and turned down interviews at UofChicago and UI@Peoria. Christ only interviews about 50 people, so it might not be a bad idea to rotate there if your grades and board scores are in the average range. In addition to everything PP said about Christ, they have a fantastic patient population, especially for only being a one hospital system. I believe a one hospital system can be an advantage because it allows you to focus on medicine rather than learning different systems of paperwork and politics. 2 or 3 hospitals is probably ideal in my opinion.

Resurrection gave me a better feel than I thought it would. Even though it is a multiple hospital system (I think it's more like 5 or 6 hospitals they rotate at, but I could be incorrect), the residents are very happy, the curriculum is great, staff is great and they have a nice benefits package. Also, before our interviews, they explained to us that the reason they didn't match last year was because they only ranked 40 or so candidates.