Cleveland Clinic General Surgery

[Bill_Brasky]

Hey everyone. I am canvassing this board for opinions on the general surgery program at the Cleveland Clinic. My program just recently was merged into the CC general surgery program, and I wanted to see what the opinion about it on sdn was. All comments welcome.

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[ESU_MD]

looks like you hit the lottery... at least as far as name recognition goes

 

[ArcherM2]

Seriously, where did you end up matching?

 

[Bill_Brasky]

I matched at Fairview Hospital in Cleveland. The CC just ate up that program as well as Huron less than a week ago.

 

[ArcherM2]

wow. i knew they carried the name. are fairview and huron struggling with volumes? are you guys going to completely move to the main campus? aside from the name that goes along with it, i'm not sure how their training is but i'm sure you'd have no trouble landing fellowships from there.

 

[Bill_Brasky]

when i interviewed at Fairview, the pd told me that it was actually the other way around, that the CC needed their residents to have more bread and butter cases. I remember wondering that myself when I was interviewing but they gave me a chart of case logs and the chiefs were over a thousand easily, and from what I remember didn't have any glaring deficiencies. Still who knows?

I don't know where I'll be rotating, what will happen to the contract with Fairview I signed three weeks ago, or any of the other big questions. I'm reasonably confident that things will work out though. The PD knew this was coming and told us to expect this two years from now, so its a shock to have it coming so soon.

They told me more info would be forthcoming this week so that gives them two more days. If someone put a gun to my head I would guess this is happening so the CC can cover work hours and maybe allow more people to have research years, they only had 4 per year before.

 

[Winged Scapula]

"Bread and butter" cases are often deficient at large academic hospitals. Most people don't go to the Cleveland Clinic to have their appendix out or their breast biopsy. They may very well go for their Whipple or EVAR, however.

ABS doesn't require that you do X number of specific cases. It is almost glaringly obvious that you can well over a thousand cases but very few "B&B" cases, depending on the program. So not suprising that the CC residents are having trouble getting B&B cases; you also have to wonder about fellows and their impact on case load as well.

I didn't train at a program with the name recognition of CC, but the number of complex lap cases and Whipples I did exceeded the number of open appys and breast biopsies I did in residency.

 

[LovelyRita]

I'll throw in my 0.02 since I have spent time at CCF recently.

The Fairview and Huron residents have been rotating there for years on teams like Hepatobiliary and Colorectal, to name a few. I don't know the curricula of Fairview and Huron, there might be more required rotations they have traditionally done there, I'm just not sure.

Next, and I'm saying this with risk of "flak" but I'll put it as nicely as I can--you, as a Fairview resident are getting a great deal. The CCF residents are not as happy with the deal. Understandibly, they might have or--they believe they might have--characteristics that set them apart that landed them their residency there vs a community program. Maybe not. I do not know. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Another item is they do get some bread and butter, but not as much as community programs, and yes, someone must believe they'll benefit from spending more time out there? Possible. *Edit* I think this is interesting because there seems to be a push to subspecialize and that general surgery (aka "bread and butter"?) is dying. So why would they advocate their residents--who have an emphasis on subspecialty surgery in their residency in general--go do "B/B"? Just a thought.

I wouldn't worry about it. I had a great time there on my rotations, and had to take a few general surgery calls as well, and one of my admits one time was an appy. Go figure.

Hopefully you'll get the answers you need. And welcome to C-town. Go Cavs! 😎

 

[LovelyRita]

"Bread and butter" cases are often deficient at large academic hospitals. Most people don't go to the Cleveland Clinic to have their appendix out or their breast biopsy. They may very well go for their Whipple or EVAR, however.

Funny thing last night an 18 yo dude came in with his mom and we obs'd him for r/o appy, and she asked me if she should have taken him to CCF. I smiled and said no. 🙂

 

[Winged Scapula]

Funny thing last night an 18 yo dude came in with his mom and we obs'd him for r/o appy, and she asked me if she should have taken him to CCF. I smiled and said no. 🙂

Yeah, I always used to say, during residency, that if I needed my gallbladder or appy out, I would want to see one of the community surgeons I knew rather than go to the university hospital.