I want to revitalize this thread now that a year has passed-- How does the overall reputation of Cornell compare with Mt Sinai? Does Cornell's ivy league reputation mean anything? Or is Sinai just as reputable? I'm interested in ID, general IM, or maybe heme/onc, but would like to hear what you guys think about the overall reputation of the institutions.
Also, a question about a completely diff program-- how does UTSW's reputation compare with the above 2? I applied there, but am not from Texas, and am wondering what others think.
Again, I ranked Cornell #1 and Sinai #2 last year and I interviewed all over the country. Either way, you're going to a great program. Let me know if you have any questions about Cornell.
If you're 100% confident you want to do GI, choose whichever you get a better feel at. Otherwise Cornell has a signficantly better reputation / fellowship match (in the competitive specialties).
Can anyone that has interviewed at Mount Sinai please post their IM fellowship match. Their program does not place this on their website (the program tends to be very secretive).
Can anyone that has interviewed at Mount Sinai please post their IM fellowship match. Their program does not place this on their website (the program tends to be very secretive).
At the risk of appearing to be an elitist, I am a bit surprised over Mt. Sinai's fellowship list as posted above by temmie, particularly in the GI matches. Certainly regionality must play into this (as in people wanting to stay in NYC so ranked local community programs over better known academic programs elsewhere), but this list is overall less impressive than I had imagined it would be based on what everyone here had been clammering about Mt. Sinai's "strength of GI matches." To be sure, there are a few high-profile matches at top academic GI programs. However, this is balanced out by several matches each year to low-tier academia/community programs as well.
It's not a bad list; certainly matching 6-10 to GI annually is something. I am just surprised that it's not quite as strong as I had initially thought.
It's the number of GI matches that you have to consider because it is such a small/restricted field. Very, very few programs, even top programs, can match 10 to GI in a year...Will they all be high level matches? No, but they won't all be high level residents either...As we all know, evaluations are subjective, relative, often dependent on who is evaluating you, etc. If you're in the lower quartile of the program, it will be noted in comments on your program director evals...I doubt you can find any program outside of the top 4-5 internal med programs in the country, that can compare to Mt. Sinai's GI match list...And then they have plenty of strong matches in cards too.
At the same time, not every IM program has 10 residents each year who are interested in GI, whereas that appears to be the case at Mt. Sinai probably because they attract GI-minded applicants. For example, amongst the IM programs with which I am more familiar, MGH, Hopkins, and Duke historically do not match large numbers into GI (this past match cycle being an exception), though they are nearly always "high quality" matches. I think it would be safe to say that this is generally due to a relative lack of housestaff interest in GI (since GI match rate approaches 100% at these institutions), not an overall inability to match high numbers of applicants.
As you mentioned, coming from a high volume place (in terms of # of applicants) like Mt. Sinai there is always the risk of being buried amongst the crowd. Many GI fellowships offer different tracks. For the research-minded your research experience/publications help differentiate you from other research-track applicants. Clinical track applicants can more easily get lost in the crowd, since there is no objective way to measure clinical acumen. LORs don't help much since they are usually very complimentary across the board. Same thing with PD letters; unless you are a terrible resident, PDs are going to be as positive as he/she can since it is in the IM program's best interest to have a 100% match rate into big name fellowships. In this situation, it's not hard to become "Applicant A from program X." I do wonder if this is what happened to some of the GI applicants from Mt. Sinai, though I have no way of confirming nor do I think it matters much either way.
I will add that in a previous thread in the GI forum, it was mentioned that several of the internal matches at Mt. Sinai's GI fellowship were chief residents who then did ANOTHER year of research. This was back in 2006 though, so I don't know if it still holds true. One also wonders if some of the higher profile GI matches at Sinai may have been chief residents as well. Anyway, I am just thinking out loud here, but may be totally off base. Here's the thread to which I am referring http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=337404&highlight=mount+sinai
As you can probably guess by now, I recently matched into GI fellowship, and the above were some of the issues/concerns I faced during the application process. Ultimately, this is a Sinai vs Cornell thread, and I do think that Mt. Sinai's GI match history is comparable/slightly better than Cornell's. However, to me this is not a clear advantage, and the OP is probably better served trusting his gut feeling and going with "fit" rather than scrutinizing over relatively small fellowship match differences from these two very good IM programs.
any thoughts? I am considering GI in the future-
Thanks for any info on program specifics/camraderie/happiness,etc-
Cornell had an amazing fellowship placement list, including in GI. But if you're gunning only for GI, I would have to go with Sinai.
Cedars Sinai, though a community program, has excellent teaching in the SoCal area. They have a renowned GI department, and the residents place very very well in GI.
If region doesn't bother you, I would go with Cedars.
If you meant Mt. Sinai, I would go with Cornell.
I think the OP meant Mt. Sinai. I would disagree with tarlov as Mt. Sinai does have a phenomenal GI match year in and year out. If you are aiming for GI, I would go to Sinai over Cornell. Cornell is the better known program however and has a better rep outside of the NYC area. Chances are you probably won't have a problem with GI at either place so choose whichever place makes you happy! Good luck.
I will add that in a previous thread in the GI forum, it was mentioned that several of the internal matches at Mt. Sinai's GI fellowship were chief residents who then did ANOTHER year of research. This was back in 2006 though, so I don't know if it still holds true. One also wonders if some of the higher profile GI matches at Sinai may have been chief residents as well.
Nexus, you bring up some overall valid points but like Mr/Ms Schizzles, i think MSSM is impressive, especially in the overall context of the other things such as quality of residents that makes it a very well run residency program with overall high resident satisfaction (this was surprisingly reinforced by some residents i met at other top NYC programs)
About their fellowship and chief resident point you brought up, they did mention who was a chief resident. So.... looking at my list.
In 2006- One chief went into GI and another into ID
2007- One chief went into GI and 2 other into pulm/crit
2008- 2 chiefs went into ID, one into cards and one into general medicine
2009- One went into General medicine and another into cards
So, in summary, it appears that on the contrary, only very few of the chiefs end up going into GI
I know that at least three of the current Sinai first year GI fellows were Sinai graduates and none were chiefs. There were 2 others that are first years at Hopkins, one which I definitely know wasn't a chief either.
About their fellowship and chief resident point you brought up, they did mention who was a chief resident. So.... looking at my list.
In 2006- One chief went into GI and another into ID
2007- One chief went into GI and 2 other into pulm/crit
2008- 2 chiefs went into ID, one into cards and one into general medicine
2009- One went into General medicine and another into cards
Both are excellent programs and you will do well at either one. I could only schedule one due to scheduling conflicts. My advisor mentioned the Cornell name will probably carry more weight overall and outside of NYC so I scheduled Cornell and had to decline Mt. Sinai. Just my two cents.
Digging up this thread from a couple of months ago...
Why is Cornell considered stronger for cardiology than Sinai? Seems like Sinai puts people into top 10 programs every year (Hopkins, Columbia, Penn, although no MGH/BWH recently) while Cornell doesn't (best I remember seeing is a Duke). Not that it matters for me anymore I guess, but just curious.
Sinai also sent one to Hopkins last year and another a couple of years ago. And there's 1-2 at Penn. Pretty sure those are for cardiology fellowships and not research years.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hear...9C&directory=1B2D0F30B59D39A341B0C23CB2B204D9
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hear...8E&directory=1B2D0F30B59D39A341B0C23CB2B204D9
http://www.med.upenn.edu/cvi/education_fellows.shtml
Oh and I don't think inhouse Cornell is considered better than Sinai. They're about the same from what I've heard.
No, those were definitely at the main program.
They take 1-2 IMGs every year. I'm a student at Sinai and I know for a fact those 2 were in the main program.
In that case you can't really compare anyway, the IMGs who get into programs like this usually have unbelievable stats, better than a lot of AMGs who go to the big 4 programs.
During my Sinai interview, many residents explicitly told me that the cardiology exposure as a resident was minimal relative to other programs. A non-teaching service handles things like "simple" CHF exacerbations. A couple even told me that Sinai might not be the best choice for cardiology interested individuals- of course, I was talking to a room of residents interested in a GI fellowship!
If I wanted to do GI, Sinai probably would have been at the top of my match list. Cornell is a better fit for cardiology IMHO. I'm biased because two great cardio attendings at my school trained or were faculty at Cornell recently 🙂
I guess not but Cornell takes 1-2 IMGs every year as well, so opportunities should be equal.
Something doesn't quite add up. One of the two Hopkins fellows you mentioned, she is listed on MSSM website as having gone to Montefiore to do her fellowship in cards. I wonder if perhaps she's pursuing some very specialized training at Hopkins at the time, and is in fact not in the main cardiology fellowship program there.
Not sure, but she's listed as a cardiology fellow year 3 at Hopkins.
Yea, I looked at the list of names on the list of fellows on Hopkins website. While some appear to be in the actual cards fellowship there, as well as the EP/interventional fellows, there are some names on there listed as being caridology fellows there, but which don't really appear to be cards fellows there. There is one person from UMn for example, and I don't see anyone having gone on to Hopkins on UMn's im website. So I think it may be misleading on the Hopkins website, perhaps including people who are just there essentially visiting to complete a particular aspect of their training. It isn't hard to get to places like Hopkins for superspecialized aspects of training, because most people don't want to put in the extra time. I don't really know enough about cards to comment further on what additional kind of training they may be receiving there in their 3rd years.
Weird discrepancy. I just realized the other guy isn't listed on Sinai's fellowship list either, even though I'm positive he matched at Hopkins for cardiology fellowship.
It could be for cardiac imaging or something like that too, people sometimes do a 1 year fellowship in that prior to starting their main fellowship.