Christiana Care vs Metrohealth and other weird comparisons

[punkmd]

I am absolutely going fcking crazy trying to rank my top 2 programs: Christiana Care and Metrohealth. I'll give you the full low down on my situation and then I ask of you, no, beg of you to help me make up my mind. After all is said and done, I will probably ignore the group conscience and my wife's opinion effectively setting myself up for misery and a painful divorce.

Metrohealth has the perfect population setup - county hospital with shift work in a tertiary care center (CCF). The academics are pretty solid and doing procedures instead of reading about them is the reality. The commaraderie is fairly nice also. 2nd busiest flight program in country. Nice Ultrasound program. Published and well known faculty. You work much harder --> 20 shifts as intern, 19 as 2nd year, and 18 as third year. Cleveland does not rock, it sucks. It is close to my family though. It snows alot and I hate the snow. Suburbs in Cleveland are family friendly and the two little monkeys I have at home could be close to their grandparents whom they have come to love very much. Oh yeah I forgot, Metrohealth doesn't pay that well - a struggle for a family of 4.

ChristianaCare has some of the best didcatic series I have seen. 10 hours, not just 5 hours a week of training. Comaraderie is phenomenal. Shift schedules rock - great for a family man (lol!) like myself. I believe you work only 18-20 shifts a month with alternate months of only 13 shifts. Ultrasound program is nice also. Faculty, I'm not so sure of. I just don't see how there could be that much teaching in a community hospital - but apparently the residents say it is phenomenal. Pt. population not as "inner city" (which I actually prefer over snotty suburbanites like myself). Newark sucks **** and has a higher cost of living, but it happens to be close to NYC, Philly, D.C. which might be nice getaways for my wife and I as a revival to our rocky marriage. Delaware beaches rock and my kids love sand. Both of our families would be far away. They pay very well and take care of their residents, with resident well-being as an actual priority of the program.

So, as you can see they both have their pros and cons and are very different programs. At this point my main concern is which program will most prepare me to be an EM physician - to me this means marketability and transferability in future job positions, efficiency and fund of knowledge, and the ability to avoid the legal system as much as possible. Yeah, yeah I know the RRC's stringent requirements balance out all EM programs, but in this hour of darkness I don't believe that crap at all. Please help!!!

Oh yeah, and here is another "FUN!" poll of my programs for you pollsters to help confuse me even more.

Much love to all of you and I hope everyone gets their number ones (unless they happen to be anywhere on my list of 14 programs). Please feel to post your own random and obnoxious comparisons like Beaumont vs. Bellvue or Jacksonville vs. Mayo.

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[shanaa]

I am absolutely going fcking crazy trying to rank my top 2 programs: Christiana Care and Metrohealth. I'll give you the full low down on my situation and then I ask of you, no, beg of you to help me make up my mind. After all is said and done, I will probably ignore the group conscience and my wife's opinion effectively setting myself up for misery and a painful divorce.

Metrohealth has the perfect population setup - county hospital with shift work in a tertiary care center (CCF). The academics are pretty solid and doing procedures instead of reading about them is a reality. The commraderie is farily nice also. 2nd busiest flight program in country. Nice Ultrasound program. Published and well known faculty. You work much harder 20 shifts as intern, 19 as 2nd year, and 18 as third year. Cleveland does not rock, it sucks. It is close to my family though. It snows alot and I hate the snow. Suburbs are pretty family friendly and with the two little monkeys I have at home they could be close to their grandparents whom they have come to love very much. Oh yeah I forgot, Metrohealth doesn't pay that well - a struggle for a family of 4.

ChristianaCare has some of the best didcatic series I have seen. 10 hours, not just 5 hours a week of training. Comaraderie is phenomenal. Shift schedules rock - great for a family man (lol!) like myself. I believe you work only 18-20 shifts a month with alternate months of only 13 shifts. Ultrasound program is nice also. Faculty, I'm not sure of. I just don't see how there could be that much teaching in a community hospital - but apparently the residents say it is phenomenal. Pt. population not as "inner city" (which I actually prefer to the snotty suburbanites like myself). Newark sucks **** and has a higher cost of living but it happens to be close to NYC, Philly, D.C. which might be nice getaways for my wife and I as a revival to our rocky marriage. Delaware beaches rock and my kids love sand. Both our families would be far away. They pay very well and take care of their residents, with resident well-being actually a priority of the program.

So, as you can see they have their pros and cons. At this point my main concern is which program will most prepare me to be an EM physician - to me this means marketability and transferability in future job positions, efficiency and fund of knowledge, and the ability to avoid the legal system as much as possible. Yeah, yeah I know the RRC's stringent requirements balance out all EM programs, but in this hour of darkness I don't believe that at all. Please help!!!

Oh yeah, and here is another "FUN!" poll of my programs for you pollsters to help confuse me even more.

Much love to all of you and I hope everyone gets their number ones (unless they happen to be anywhere on my list of 14 programs). Please feel to post your own random and obnoxious comparisons like Beaumont vs. Bellvue or Jacksonville vs. Mayo.

BTW, I am the wife of punkmd and happen to be the most important consideration.

 

[roja]

Sounds to me like you are really settled on Deleware and the only thing holding you back is the nearness of family.

Your family will be miserable if you aren't happy with the choice regardless of how close you are to grandparents..

Close your eyes, take a deep breath and say: all things being equal where do I see myself?

You will have an awnser.

Trust me. We all do (did) and then we just try and rationalize not picking it...

 

[Pelivar]

ChristianaCare has some of the best didcatic series I have seen. 10 hours, not just 5 hours a week of training. Comaraderie is phenomenal. Shift schedules rock - great for a family man (lol!) like myself. I believe you work only 18-20 shifts a month with alternate months of only 13 shifts. Ultrasound program is nice also. Faculty, I'm not so sure of. I just don't see how there could be that much teaching in a community hospital - but apparently the residents say it is phenomenal. Pt. population not as "inner city" (which I actually prefer over snotty suburbanites like myself). Newark sucks **** and has a higher cost of living, but it happens to be close to NYC, Philly, D.C. which might be nice getaways for my wife and I as a revival to our rocky marriage. Delaware beaches rock and my kids love sand. Both of our families would be far away. They pay very well and take care of their residents, with resident well-being as an actual priority of the program.

Punky,
I'm a resident at Christiana and I agree with Roja. Much of what will make you happy in residency is making your family happy. Some of your info on Christiana is a little off, but I appreciate the love.

We do have great didactics, great comraderie, and have a good schedule. We average 17-20 (8 and 9 hour mostly) shifts per month. The lighter months are around 15-17. The ultrasound program is one of the best in the county. The teaching is very good. The hospital is community but the program is very academic. We do more research than most programs. The population at our main hospital (100,000 pts/yr) is more suburban but our other hospital (50,000) is very urban. Wilmington has the 9th highest per capita violent crime rate of any city in the US. I've never felt unsafe, but it does give us our penatrating truama and indigent pts. Newark is not the hottest place but you can always take the 30 minute drive into philly. As far as cost of living, Deleware is better than just about anywhere else on the east coast near major cities. Almost every resident owns a home.

You should go where you and your family will be the happiest, but I am sure you would be happy at Christiana. Good luck in the match!

Pelivar

 

[punkmd]

Sounds to me like you are really settled on Deleware and the only thing holding you back is the nearness of family.

Your family will be miserable if you aren't happy with the choice regardless of how close you are to grandparents..

Close your eyes, take a deep breath and say: all things being equal where do I see myself?

You will have an awnser.

Trust me. We all do (did) and then we just try and rationalize not picking it...

Roja and Pelivar - thank you for your advice. Now if I can keep my wife away from the computer I'll be set. Just kidding.

 

[punkmd]

Sounds to me like you are really settled on Deleware and the only thing holding you back is the nearness of family.

Your family will be miserable if you aren't happy with the choice regardless of how close you are to grandparents..

Close your eyes, take a deep breath and say: all things being equal where do I see myself?

You will have an awnser.

Trust me. We all do (did) and then we just try and rationalize not picking it...

It is pretty funny that the poll so far shows Christiana and Metro neck and neck. Actually, it epitomizes my own decision making capability. Scary

 

[mikecwru]

It is pretty funny that the poll so far shows Christiana and Metro neck and neck. Actually, it epitomizes my own decision making capability. Scary

I'll repeat my speech: You should go 1. the location you can stand for 3-4 years 2. more importantly, where your spouse can stand 3. where you really like the people. Everything else will fall into place. Good luck.

mike

 

[peksi]

Ok,
So I'm at Christiana, so I might be biased.

Our group has been established since 1969!
(http://www.dfes.com)

One very unique aspect to our training is that as a private group we do ALL our own billing, coding etc (we control it, not the hospital). I find it hard to believe that many programs residents have the administrative exposure as ours as we truely "eat what we kill (so to speak)", and we have been doing that in an academic enviroment longer than anyone. I think our publication record speaks for itself and is easily accessable. From the ultrasound standpoint, I think we have that well covered. The reality is as everyone states, respective to "fit", program fit for each applicant, weighed with family and social fit as well.

Being born and raised in South Philly I actually really like the area. As a state of drug companies, banking and corporations there are plenty of good and excellent restuarants with the bonus of easy access into philly without the property or wage taxes.

So best of luck, and I'm pulling for those of you highly interested in CCHS, and feel free to PM me

My experience is that the magical match usually works out for the best.

Paul