Cleveland Clinic Residency Help

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

jackgates1

Junior Member
7+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
20+ Year Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2003
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
I haven't seen much info on Cleveland Clinic residency in the past few years, just some small talk. I was wondering if there has been a change in how it is viewed in the past few years since it got a new PD. I am considering putting this as my #1 on the rank list but have heard bad things.

On interview day and second look it seemed like the residents had a good amount of autonomy, had a great computer system, residents seemed pretty cool, good pathology, and a great place to work. But seeing as there has been so many negative things in the past I was wondering if anyone else has any newer opinions.

(my other two top options would be Case Western and University of Rochester, but CCF seems like the best option right now).

Thanks guys

Members don't see this ad.
 
I haven't seen much info on Cleveland Clinic residency in the past few years, just some small talk. I was wondering if there has been a change in how it is viewed in the past few years since it got a new PD. I am considering putting this as my #1 on the rank list but have heard bad things.

On interview day and second look it seemed like the residents had a good amount of autonomy, had a great computer system, residents seemed pretty cool, good pathology, and a great place to work. But seeing as there has been so many negative things in the past I was wondering if anyone else has any newer opinions.

(my other two top options would be Case Western and University of Rochester, but CCF seems like the best option right now).

Thanks guys
Hi jackgates1,

I'll take a crack at this, but I'm not sure how helpful it will be as I finished at CCF almost 10 years ago now (IM 2001). I can tell you that CN was an attending when I was a resident and a very nice, approachable, smart guy. I cannot imagine him being anything but an outstanding PD for that program.
We had a nightfloat system when I was a resident, but they implemented a team call system as I left. I'm not sure how that is, but as a night floater in the old system, I can only think team call is better from an educational standpoint. Nightfloat was actually exhausting. Even with "shorter shifts" they threw off your sleep cycle, and it was only 2 nightfloaters for the month with 24 hours on the weekend, so I think team call would have been better.
I think you can find weaknesses in any program you look at, but I can definitely tell you there is nothing you won't see from a case complexity standpoint at CCF. Even if in some, sometimes many circumstances, the perception is that the institution is "geared to the fellow and not the resident", you ARE involved and there is value to the exposure. I only gained an appreciation for this years later after I left (and I was certainly a thorn in the side to the PDs at the time with my desire to improve things)....no matter....None of us had difficulty getting interviews for fellowships at top ranked places, and I think that there has been a trend for at least one or two CCF residents to get a Cards spot at CCF (if that's what you're interested in) every year for the last several years.
I am a Canadian, graduated from McGill University, and I am quite perturbed at some of the rhetoric I read on these strings about "weak program correlating with how many FMGs/IMGs there are"...pure blatant ignorance from people who are supposed to represent a "sophisticated/educated" subset of the population. I certainly hope that your view/concerns about CCF are not related to numbers of FMGs. Let me tell you that half my class was FMG, the other half US-trained. You can find brilliant residents in both camps and you can certainly find disastrous residents in both camps. I will tell you that the bulk of my FMG co-residents during my time at CCF (one was a CCF EP attending before heading back to his home country) could easily "go to the mat" with any resident from Harvard, Cornell, etc...

Let me also make one last comment in this regard around some of the "higher brow" places you've applied to (I was a pulmonary fellow at one of them). They might have a more "put together system" where the residents can come out quoting a list of 20 different differential diagnoses, but when faced with a critically ill patient, they'll panic and lose their minds. I saw this at the next institution I trained at (on your list). It is possible that that was just a weak batch of residents, but a close friend of mine who is a Cards attending in Chicago, also witnessed the same phenomenon when observing the "high brow institution" resident vs. the "low brow" one when he used to moonlight: the former always looks good, speaks well, etc...but then can't actualy take charge of the patient. The latter looks like a wreck, may not be the best communicator, but damn, he/she certainly knows how to do a thoracentesis, run a code, intubate, and can "take care of businesss" without having to have his/her hand held all the way.

Anyways, enough of my tirade. I don't think you will go wrong with any of the three mentioned. I just wonder what "terrible things" you've heard about CCF. I certainly don't think things are perfect there, but they aren't anywhere, so go with your gut.
Best of luck.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
wow that justwise guy in the first post really doesn't seem to like CCF lol
 
Yeah, but isn't it impressive that someone would go to such lengths and write that much? Everything that he/she said seems like it could be credible and I don't see a reason why someone would lie about these things. Plus it was all information, not baseless personal attacks.

Most people I bumped into on the interview trail seemed to cite this forum (or the same info they got from people they know personally) as reasons why they didn't even bother to interview at CCF. Especially when I interviewed at Case UH (I felt that being at a Cleveland program I had to ask a number of the applicants there if they plan to interview at CCF, most said no).

I actually interviewed at CCF, in spite of having read this thread ahead of time, and I admit I got a really bad vibe. I don't think my impression of the place is bad enough to prefer the scramble over matching there, so I actually ranked it (albeit dead last, below several local community programs that have no national reputation. I guess I'll have to pray I don't get that far down on my ROL:xf:).
 
Yeah, but isn't it impressive that someone would go to such lengths and write that much? Everything that he/she said seems like it could be credible and I don't see a reason why someone would lie about these things. Plus it was all information, not baseless personal attacks.

Most people I bumped into on the interview trail seemed to cite this forum (or the same info they got from people they know personally) as reasons why they didn't even bother to interview at CCF. Especially when I interviewed at Case UH (I felt that being at a Cleveland program I had to ask a number of the applicants there if they plan to interview at CCF, most said no).

I actually interviewed at CCF, in spite of having read this thread ahead of time, and I admit I got a really bad vibe. I don't think my impression of the place is bad enough to prefer the scramble over matching there, so I actually ranked it (albeit dead last, below several local community programs that have no national reputation. I guess I'll have to pray I don't get that far down on my ROL:xf:).


Can you give a little more insight as to why you got a bad vibe from CCF and aren't too keen on going there? Thanks!
 
There were lots of things. Even prior to interviewing there I knew they were fellow-driven. I spoke to a few friends of mine who interviewed there for fellowship positions and they were all told by their interviewers at CCF: "as the fellow, you will run the show". They can't behave this way and then tell all the applicants for residency that the place isn't fellow-driven. Someone has to be lying (and I don't think the fellowship interviewers are the ones lying).

I asked one of my interviewers at CCF to comment on the level of resident autonomy and here is the reply I received: "Well, it depends on the resident. I usually try to size up an intern's confidence level/ability early on in the rotation and often times I need to turn that resident's rotation into an observership for the rest of that month if they fall short of my expectations". Sounds like no autonomy. This was one of the IMG attendings, mind you. That same interviewer just gave me a terrible vibe throughout the entire interview. I left that room with the overall impression that their residents are expendible and are treated as such. Then when I saw the interns rounding as we walked by on our tour of the facility, their faces told me everything (frustrated, depressed, blood-shot eyes, unhappy). The place clearly throws around money because they have lots of it, but the way they use it just seems gaudy and wrong. I think I'd have to bathe myself every hour of every day to keep from feeling dirty at a place that spends the kind of money it takes to adorn an indoor walkway the size of an airport with huge flatscreen televisions on interval every 5 feet (both ways). But hey, I guess it helps them maintain "non-profit" status if they reinvest (what a friggin' waste!). Morning report seemed to be filled with very low-level cases that seem unworthy of morning report, and on top of it the residents seemed to struggle coming up with a good ddx. Grand rounds was lead by some dinosaur on staff at CCF who seemed to enjoy degrading the residents. His lecture was dry, filled with 3rd year medical school level material, and I almost fell asleep numerous times.

There are many other things. I highly suspect that the teaching methodology at CCF is backwards, possibly due to their high density of IMG attendings, harkening back to the "learning through humiliation" ways of medicine's past (which studies have shown still runs rampant overseas). As bad as it sounds, I think I could deal with matching there if I get low enough on my ROL (though I doubt I will, and pray I won't:xf:). It's probably at least a half-inch better than scrambling anyway.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I am a recent graduate of the CCF IM residency program. Someone pointed out this posting to me, and I feel compelled to respond.

First of all, CCF has an outstanding IM residency program. The clinical volume and patient complexity are high, which makes you feel equipped to handle even the most challenging cases once you graduate. The attendings are friendly and committed to resident education. The fellowship match is phenomenal (it is a very rare occurrence for anyone in our program to have any difficulty in obtaining a great fellowship spot). If I had to go through residency again, I would definitely choose to train at CCF.

Some of the negative attention that the residency program gets is related to what is perceived as a high number of IMGs. This criticism is completely absurd. The CCF residency program has a diverse mix of US MDs, DO’s, and IMG’s. The DO’s and IMG’s at CCF are absolute superstars and add to the diversity of the program. I do not think that taking DO’s and IMG’s reflects poorly on a program. CCF seems to prefer the superstar DO’s and IMG’s over average US MD’s. If CCF wanted to fill up with only US MD’s (as other programs do), I’m sure it easily could.

Another urban legend that is propagated about CCF is that it is a fellow run program. That is absolutely not true. The clinical volume at CCF is sufficiently high to support resident teams and non-resident teams. On the resident teams, the residents run the show. On the non-resident services (which often have PAs and NPs), the fellows do “run the show” as another poster alluded, but there are no residents on these services. So, both the residency program and the fellowship program can claim that their trainees run the show, and both statements are true.

Bottom-line, I enjoyed my training at CCF and I would highly recommend the program.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I am a recent graduate of the CCF IM residency program. Someone pointed out this posting to me, and I feel compelled to respond.

First of all, CCF has an outstanding IM residency program. The clinical volume and patient complexity are high, which makes you feel equipped to handle even the most challenging cases once you graduate. The attendings are friendly and committed to resident education. The fellowship match is phenomenal (it is a very rare occurrence for anyone in our program to have any difficulty in obtaining a great fellowship spot). If I had to go through residency again, I would definitely choose to train at CCF.

Some of the negative attention that the residency program gets is related to what is perceived as a high number of IMGs. This criticism is completely absurd. The CCF residency program has a diverse mix of US MDs, DO’s, and IMG’s. The DO’s and IMG’s at CCF are absolute superstars and add to the diversity of the program. I do not think that taking DO’s and IMG’s reflects poorly on a program. CCF seems to prefer the superstar DO’s and IMG’s over average US MD’s. If CCF wanted to fill up with only US MD’s (as other programs do), I’m sure it easily could.

Another urban legend that is propagated about CCF is that it is a fellow run program. That is absolutely not true. The clinical volume at CCF is sufficiently high to support resident teams and non-resident teams. On the resident teams, the residents run the show. On the non-resident services (which often have PAs and NPs), the fellows do “run the show” as another poster alluded, but there are no residents on these services. So, both the residency program and the fellowship program can claim that their trainees run the show, and both statements are true.

Bottom-line, I enjoyed my training at CCF and I would highly recommend the program.


Would you recommend doing an away elective at CCF? Or is better to shy way since it is easier to hurt your chances rather than bolster them?
 
Thank you very much zzmedicine for another reply from someone who actually trained as CCF. Great to hear that you enjoyed the training and that the rumors are not true.
 
I am a recent graduate of the CCF IM residency program. Someone pointed out this posting to me, and I feel compelled to respond.

First of all, CCF has an outstanding IM residency program. The clinical volume and patient complexity are high, which makes you feel equipped to handle even the most challenging cases once you graduate. The attendings are friendly and committed to resident education. The fellowship match is phenomenal (it is a very rare occurrence for anyone in our program to have any difficulty in obtaining a great fellowship spot). If I had to go through residency again, I would definitely choose to train at CCF.

Some of the negative attention that the residency program gets is related to what is perceived as a high number of IMGs. This criticism is completely absurd. The CCF residency program has a diverse mix of US MDs, DO’s, and IMG’s. The DO’s and IMG’s at CCF are absolute superstars and add to the diversity of the program. I do not think that taking DO’s and IMG’s reflects poorly on a program. CCF seems to prefer the superstar DO’s and IMG’s over average US MD’s. If CCF wanted to fill up with only US MD’s (as other programs do), I’m sure it easily could.

Another urban legend that is propagated about CCF is that it is a fellow run program. That is absolutely not true. The clinical volume at CCF is sufficiently high to support resident teams and non-resident teams. On the resident teams, the residents run the show. On the non-resident services (which often have PAs and NPs), the fellows do “run the show” as another poster alluded, but there are no residents on these services. So, both the residency program and the fellowship program can claim that their trainees run the show, and both statements are true.

Bottom-line, I enjoyed my training at CCF and I would highly recommend the program.


Yes, the same fluff I hear from everyone who regurgitates CCF's praises. I've been around long enough to tell you with confidence that I could copy these statements from all these different treads on SDN and paste them into a word document file and do a text comparison and I'd find very similar wording and writing styles (if you get what I mean).

Bottom line is there is nothing unique you will see at CCF that you won't also see at the vast majority of other big institutions, but you should worry about all the baggage CCF carries with it (hence the rumors, that really don't seem to be rumors at all).

Maybe CCF knows something that all the top instututions in the US don't regarding why they should be taking top IMG's and DO's over top US MD graduates. My guess is that CCF can't recruit any of the top US MD graduates, and they'd much rather fill their spots with average MD graduates, top DO's, and top IMG's over below-average US MD graduates. That seems reasonable. Just take a look at the "Official Rank List Help" thread to see where all the top US MD grads want to go. If CCF is so great then why is it so rarely on applicants' lists at all (much less on top)?

The thing about fellows and residents running completely different teams sounds completely absurd to me. For one thing, the fellows would need to run services that are specific to their area of expertise. In order to get adequate fellowship training they would need to get the best cases pertaining to that subspecialty of medicine. If what you are saying is true (which I don't think it is) then you are admitting that the residents aren't getting exposure to these "top cases". Well, I guess you must then be blowing smoke regarding CCF's "high acuity and complexity" rating if the fellows get all the best cases and the residents just settle for the "left-overs". If this is true then this is a terrible admission on your part that applicants on this forum should pay real close attention to. The alternative (which seems more likely) is that the subspecialty teams are fellow-run and the residents on those teams play the role of "scut monkey". At most large academic healthcare institutions there are services staffed by attendings, PA's and NP's, but they are the non-teaching services (without residents or fellows) that take cases that aren't deemed worthy of a teaching service (i.e. very straightforward cases like uncomplicated cellulitis) and exist to keep business for the hospital. If these are the services at CCF that are staffed by residents or fellows then that is a real eye opener indeed. Either way, though I don't think it's healthy for a fellow to completely run a service staffed by residents, I also don't think it's healthy for residents to not be exposed to fellows at all (the fellows should serve as the expert consultants, which will be their role as attendings in most cases anyway).

But, alas, if attendings are so apt to turn an intern's experience into nothing more than an observership (my interviewer admitted that this practice happens at CCF), it really doesn't matter anyway because if this happens to you then you won't be doing anything as an intern regardless of the acuity or complexity of the cases. I love how zzmedicine did nothing to refute or deny this practice.
 
I was posting to provide information about the program and not trying to address any individual poster. In any case, let me clarify some things. The general medicine service has teaching teams and non teaching teams. The teaching teams are resident run and get good teaching cases assigned to them by a triage officer who is in house 24/7. The non teaching teams have staff and NPs and PAs where the cases with less teaching value like social admits etc go.

As far as the subspecialty teams are concerned, I meant it when I said there is sufficient clinical volume to support two types of teams. By nature of being a large tertiary care referral centre there are plenty of complicated patients to go around, for the education of both fellows and residents. I did not imply that you never interact with fellows, you work side by side with them on consult rotations and also in some specialized situations like hem-onc where you need the fellows help for chemotherapy decisions and MICU for help with vent management. But as the fellows have had their time to run the show on services not staffed by residents, they are not inclined to interfere with your day to day patient management issues and just answer the questions that you would ask your staff on other services.

Regarding the issue of turning interns rotations into observerships. That is completely absurd and not even possible so I did not feel the need to address that. You must have misunderstood what the interviewer was saying.

It is hard to evaluate the educational opportunities (morning report, grand rounds etc) and clinical training at a program in half a day. I was in the same position a few years ago. So I want to offer the perspective of someone who has actually trained here and not just visiting for a short time with what appears to be pre conceived notions about the Cleveland Clinic (and worries about the number of TVs). I will say this again, I enjoyed my time here and if I had to do things over I would not change a thing.
 
I just wanted to add some input as I am a current resident at CC.
Bottom line is there is nothing unique you will see at CCF that you won't also see at the vast majority of other big institutions, but you should worry about all the baggage CCF carries with it (hence the rumors, that really don't seem to be rumors at all).
This is probably true. I think at most of the biggest institutions you will get a broad spectrum of disease with some skew towards the type of urban population close to your center.

Maybe CCF knows something that all the top instututions in the US don't regarding why they should be taking top IMG's and DO's over top US MD graduates. My guess is that CCF can't recruit any of the top US MD graduates, and they'd much rather fill their spots with average MD graduates, top DO's, and top IMG's over below-average US MD graduates. That seems reasonable. Just take a look at the "Official Rank List Help" thread to see where all the top US MD grads want to go. If CCF is so great then why is it so rarely on applicants' lists at all (much less on top)?
I am not sure why top US medical school graduates are not attracted to CC. If I had to guess it probably has to do with previous perceptions about the program (fellow run, malignant etc). I can attest that this must have changed significantly as in my years at CC I have not seen any of the for-mentioned issues on almost all internal medicine services.

The thing about fellows and residents running completely different teams sounds completely absurd to me. For one thing, the fellows would need to run services that are specific to their area of expertise. In order to get adequate fellowship training they would need to get the best cases pertaining to that subspecialty of medicine.
I will just give specific examples.
Cardiology Teaching (internal medicine): has no fellow on the inpatient team. Teaching cases have wide variety of clinical pathology (no clear triaging to a particular service).
Cardiology Fellow run services (no medicine residents) include the imaging service (post-intervention etc), the heart failure service (heart transplant etc), and probably a few others. Ridiculed actually by cardiology fellows for the sheer amount of "intern/resident" work they are doing, including regularly writing 10-15 progress notes per day.
CICU: mix between medicine, anesthesia, and cardiology fellows. This is a fellow run unit (the exact opposite of our MICU) and most of the procedures (swans, pacer wires) are completed by the fellows. Residents write H&Ps and progress notes, presents cases to staff, and take call with fellows. In my opinion, one of our weaker rotations, you would probably have to do 1/block in 3/yrs.
Cardiology Consults: Fellows and Residents. All consults triaged out by cardiology fellow. Residents workup the patients up, present directly to the staff, and call the fellow if they are unsure about some part of the management or unstable/critical patients.

Gastroenterology
Green Team (inpatient GI): mix of fellow/residents. Residents admit, workup, and complete all evaluation of patients. Present to staff/fellow during rounds and then may have further input from the staff/fellow after they have evaluated the patients.
GI Consults: similar to cardiology consults
Hepatology consult: similar to cards/GI consults

Renal:
Gifford (inpatient renal): no fellow, all resident run teams (such as above)
Renal consults: like GI/Cards consults

Pulm/CC
MICU: fellow on each team (3 teams) in 44/bed ICU. Senior resident is the primary team leader with fellow available for help and input. All lines, evaluations, management are initiated by the resident teams and presented to staff.
Pulmonary Consults: like GI/Cards consults
Advanced lung disease: no resident, lung transplant patients, again ridiculed by fellows by the 10-15 notes that they are writing daily.

Hem-Onc
Inpatient (Hem/Onc): fellows on the team with role related primarily to chemotherapy and BMBx etc. Residents workup and evaluated all of the patients. May be more fellow input on the hematology service.
Hem and Onc consults (seperate services): like GI/Cards

Endo: consult service

Well, I guess you must then be blowing smoke regarding CCF's "high acuity and complexity" rating if the fellows get all the best cases and the residents just settle for the "left-overs".
Discussing with different staff (including the MICU director and Hospitalist director) the acuity on the floor at CC based on Medicare data (I will try to get more details) is similar to other hospital ICU levels (probably does not include the largest medical centers). The CC MICU has one of the highest acuity ratings in the country.

If this is true then this is a terrible admission on your part that applicants on this forum should pay real close attention to. The alternative (which seems more likely) is that the subspecialty teams are fellow-run and the residents on those teams play the role of "scut monkey". At most large academic healthcare institutions there are services staffed by attendings, PA's and NP's, but they are the non-teaching services (without residents or fellows) that take cases that aren't deemed worthy of a teaching service (i.e. very straightforward cases like uncomplicated cellulitis) and exist to keep business for the hospital.
I think I have answered the first part of this statement (it is not true).
We definitely are not the "scut monkey" on any of our inpatient medicine or inpatient sub-specialist months. There are some services with high turnover volume (cardiology teaching and solids-onc service) which the program is addressing by adding more residents and dedicated teaching.
We also have quite a few non-teaching hospitalist and NP/PA services. The cases that are deemed non-teaching are triaged to them (especially true for general internal medicine).

If these are the services at CCF that are staffed by residents or fellows then that is a real eye opener indeed. Either way, though I don't think it's healthy for a fellow to completely run a service staffed by residents, I also don't think it's healthy for residents to not be exposed to fellows at all (the fellows should serve as the expert consultants, which will be their role as attendings in most cases anyway).
I think that I have also answered this. We have great exposure to fellows on multiple consults and some inpatient services. Outside of the CICU, they do not run the show. As stated in the quote, they serve as junior consultants and help with management of the respective team.

But, alas, if attendings are so apt to turn an intern's experience into nothing more than an observership (my interviewer admitted that this practice happens at CCF), it really doesn't matter anyway because if this happens to you then you won't be doing anything as an intern regardless of the acuity or complexity of the cases. I love how zzmedicine did nothing to refute or deny this practice.
An intern and residents experience at CC is notable for high levels of autonomy and strong clinical training (with a wide range of highly acute pathology). I have no idea if we are seeing a wider range of pathology then any other big center in the country (probably not), but as one of the largest centers I would argue that we are seeing at least the same level of pathology.

I am not trying to start a war-of-words with RocketMan80s. Just wanted to make sure the recurrent misconceptions of our program can be addressed on sdn.
 
Last edited:
Members don't see this ad :)
Any recent updates about the perceptions regarding the Cleve Clinic? Probably the biggest lightening rod amongst programs on this thread. Has anything changed over the last couple years from the above comments?
 
Any recent updates about the perceptions regarding the Cleve Clinic? Probably the biggest lightening rod amongst programs on this thread. Has anything changed over the last couple years from the above comments?

The residents are quite variable. Some are excellent. Some are absolutely terrible. The program clearly has difficulty attracting people from top programs.

Cardiology Teaching (internal medicine): has no fellow on the inpatient team. Teaching cases have wide variety of clinical pathology (no clear triaging to a particular service).

Update: Cardiology teaching service is called the Clinical cardiology now. It still doesn't have fellows on it. There are 6 residents/interns on it and sees a variety of cases. It tends to have 15-20 patients on it. There is one resident and one intern on a "team." They tend to get patients assigned to them when that patient has a primary cardiologist who is part of the clinical cardiology department or are unsassigned (ie no imaging, heart failure or EP attending.

Cardiology Fellow run services (no medicine residents) include the imaging service (post-intervention etc), the heart failure service (heart transplant etc), and probably a few others. Ridiculed actually by cardiology fellows for the sheer amount of "intern/resident" work they are doing, including regularly writing 10-15 progress notes per day.


Update: There are multiple fellow services- imaging which tends to see advanced valve pathology, 2 heart failure services, an EP service and an interventional service. There are no residents on these services and tend to see more advanced cases than the clinical cardiology (resident) service.


CICU: mix between medicine, anesthesia, and cardiology fellows. This is a fellow run unit (the exact opposite of our MICU) and most of the procedures (swans, pacer wires) are completed by the fellows. Residents write H&Ps and progress notes, presents cases to staff, and take call with fellows. In my opinion, one of our weaker rotations, you would probably have to do 1/block in 3/yrs.

pretty accurate but there are only cardiology fellows. The residents get essentially zero autonomy. They aren't allowed to do A-lines, central lines, swans, temp wires, pericardiocentese etc. These are all done by the fellows unless the fellows don't want to do them and want to give the residents a chance to try. Cool for the residents because it is a very active unit but crappy because they are basically scut monkeys.


Cardiology Consults: Fellows and Residents. All consults triaged out by cardiology fellow. Residents workup the patients up, present directly to the staff, and call the fellow if they are unsure about some part of the management or unstable/critical patients.

Fellow triages the patients. Most floor patients are seen by the residents. All ED, PACU and ICU consults have to be seen by the fellow.
 
Haters gonna hate, but FYI-

http://health.usnews.com/health-new.../doctors-name-americas-top-residency-programs

These are just numbers, just like Cleveland Clinic being a "Top 4" hospital is a number- meaningless in its specificity. I don't think you can say that Cleveland Clinic is better than the number 5 hospital or worse than the number 3 spot. Fact is, its a top tier hospital and a top notch residency program, and I feel bad for the folks that were foolish enough to "skip their interviews" or rank it at the "dead last, below several local community programs that have no national reputation," but glad anybody with that kind of attitude ended up at some other residency program and not at mine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Haters gonna hate, but FYI-

http://health.usnews.com/health-new.../doctors-name-americas-top-residency-programs

These are just numbers, just like Cleveland Clinic being a "Top 4" hospital is a number- meaningless in its specificity. I don't think you can say that Cleveland Clinic is better than the number 5 hospital or worse than the number 3 spot. Fact is, its a top tier hospital and a top notch residency program, and I feel bad for the folks that were foolish enough to "skip their interviews" or rank it at the "dead last, below several local community programs that have no national reputation," but glad anybody with that kind of attitude ended up at some other residency program and not at mine.
This has been discussed in great length. You should take a look: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/us-news-medicine-residency-rankings.1056219/#post-14964717. Nobody is hating anyone here. We are sharing ideas/information so that we can make more informed decisions.
 
This has been discussed in great length. You should take a look: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/us-news-medicine-residency-rankings.1056219/#post-14964717. Nobody is hating anyone here. We are sharing ideas/information so that we can make more informed decisions.


Actually I have been reading over your posts and clearly you ARE hating and attacking a fairly strong program. Not an exchange of ideas and information as you say. I am sorry not everyone can go to MGH, JH, Stanford, or some IV league university program. The only program that you are an expert on is your own program.
 
Actually I have been reading over your posts and clearly you ARE hating and attacking a fairly strong program. Not an exchange of ideas and information as you say. I am sorry not everyone can go to MGH, JH, Stanford, or some IV league university program. The only program that you are an expert on is your own program.
I have interviewed at some of the places you have mentioned. I also spent a day at CCF. My opinions are based on my experience as an applicant as well as the experience of my friends that have interviewed at CCF this year or in the past. I am not saying CCF is the worse place in the country to train at (I have no doubt there are places that are much worse). But I do think CCF is one of the most overrated IM program in the country. In other words, CCF does not belong in the same list as MGH, JH, UCSF, NW, Columbia, Vandy, Michigan, WashU, Yale, etc.

That being said, if you happen to love CCF, you should go there. I did not like what CCF has to offer and neither did any of my friends. Based on other posting on SDN, I do not think my friends and I are the only one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I have interviewed at some of the places you have mentioned. I also spent a day at CCF. My opinions are based on my experience as an applicant as well as the experience of my friends that have interviewed at CCF this year or in the past. I am not saying CCF is the worse place in the country to train at (I have no doubt there are places that are much worse). But I do think CCF is one of the most overrated IM program in the country. In other words, CCF does not belong in the same list as MGH, JH, UCSF, NW, Columbia, Vandy, Michigan, WashU, Yale, etc.

That being said, if you happen to love CCF, you should go there. I did not like what CCF has to offer and neither did any of my friends. Based on other posting on SDN, I do not think my friends and I are the only one.

Well that makes you and your friends experts on CCF!!! Considering you are the top 1% that interviewed at programs like MGH, JH, UCSF, Columbia, etc... etc... I really can't question your analytical skills or your way of thinking.

But it looks like a number of current and previous residents identified themselves and offered to answer questions about the program. I encourage applicants to make the best decisions for themselves. Unfortunately, I am already a fellow, so been there and done that.
 
off topic here but how big is the CCF cards fellowship? i believe its the biggest one right?
 
Actually I have been reading over your posts and clearly you ARE hating and attacking a fairly strong program. Not an exchange of ideas and information as you say. I am sorry not everyone can go to MGH, JH, Stanford, or some IV league university program. The only program that you are an expert on is your own program.

Something tells me you're an IMG at CCF defending the program, due to your inability to differentiate the IV League and the Ivy League.
 
Last edited:
Something tells me you're an IMG at CCF defending the program, due to your inability to differentiate the IV League and the Ivy League.


haha! I also underlined ARE so I must be a vegetarian. Oh crap that was not a complete sentence I must be from Africa. idiotā me.
 
No one hates CCF. Lol. It's simply does not crack into the TOP tier by academic reputation for residency. Sorry. Thems the breaks and no amount of butthurt posting will change the fact that if you're doing a residency at CCF you are doing it at a mid-tier spot. What's a group of largely purely pragmatic AMGs supposed to do? No one cares about some list. And it only makes the CCF look more insecure when they get on here and take the piss about it.

There is also a HUGE difference between making nuanced criticisms about programs with the context of comparing to other programs and calling a program "bad". CCF is NOT bad program.

I really hope this thread (and the three others like it) stops getting bumped.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
just going to add some clarification for the CCF program

I've rotated at some terrible programs, which are being praised on this forum solely based on the "name" of the university/med school so I recommend people not take opinions too seriously on SDN. One of the major reasons why CCF gets flack is because it has more IMGs but what most people don't mention is that it's because CCF is classified as a "community program" while a similar program like Mayo is not. Even though CCF itself is very academic, very research heavy for a "community program" and has a medical school, CCF is not classified as a university program based on a technicality--they do not actually have their own degree-granting medical school like Mayo does (CCF's medical school program belongs to Case, we get MD degrees from Case--they did this to avoid having to go through the accreditation process of starting a new medical school) and UH is Case's primary teaching hospital so UH gets the university designation while CCF gets the community program designation. I've been pretty impressed with CCF IM program including the calibre of the IM residents, seemed like a very well-organized program based on my clinical rotation and AI, and they're some really smart people and many of those IMGs have >260 Step 1 scores. I'm sure the "community program" classification and the fact that it's located in Cleveland affects it's ability to attract some top US candidates, but no way would I call it a "mediocre" program, I would actually say it's one of the top community programs . It ends up getting compared with the top university programs like in this thread which is not exactly a fair comparison in my opinion.

And for those interested in cards, yes the CCF cardiovascular staff (who you will obviously interact with as an IM resident) is pretty well known in the field (Dr. Steve Nissen was named Time's Magazine Top 100 Most Influential People several years ago, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/789270).
 
Last edited:
just going to add some clarification for the CCF program

I've rotated at some terrible programs, which are being praised on this forum solely based on the "name" of the university/med school so I recommend people not take opinions too seriously on SDN. One of the major reasons why CCF gets flack is because it has more IMGs but what most people don't mention is that it's because CCF is classified as a "community program" while a similar program like Mayo is not. Even though CCF itself is very academic, very research heavy for a "community program" and has a medical school, CCF is not classified as a university program based on a technicality--they do not actually have their own degree-granting medical school like Mayo does (CCF's medical school program belongs to Case, we get MD degrees from Case--they did this to avoid having to go through the accreditation process of starting a new medical school) and UH is Case's primary teaching hospital so UH gets the university designation while CCF gets the community program designation. I've been pretty impressed with CCF IM program including the calibre of the IM residents, seemed like a very well-organized program based on my clinical rotation and AI, and they're some really smart people and many of those IMGs have >260 Step 1 scores. I'm sure the "community program" classification and the fact that it's located in Cleveland affects it's ability to attract some top US candidates, but no way would I call it a "mediocre" program, I would actually say it's one of the top community programs . It ends up getting compared with the top university programs like in this thread which is not exactly a fair comparison in my opinion.

And for those interested in cards, yes the CCF cardiovascular staff (who you will obviously interact with as an IM resident) is pretty well known in the field (Dr. Steve Nissen was named Time's Magazine Top 100 Most Influential People several years ago, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/789270).

e041c6ad_img-oh-look-this-thread-again-167.jpeg
 
A good yardstick I think would be how many CCF med students stay for CCF IM. I would think not many.
 
Top