Cornell

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

luckylad

New Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Any current residents feel similarly or differently?

Originally Posted by giorbust
You don't want to go to Cornell either.

The program director only cares about ACGME requirements, yet refuses to fix several highly dangerous rotations for patients (mainly the CCU), while other services are supersaturated. She refuses to listen to residents and their concerns. Ultimately, the hospital will be sued for malpractice and things will change.

Internship is an extension of medical school now. The program leadership seems to think it is dangerous for interns to make ANY decisions. You will do more call as a PGY-2/PGY-3. The residents do nearly all admissions. On nightfloat, there are two residents admitting every patient to the general medicine service, while the interns are capped at 1 admission each per night (3 interns total).

Our outpatient clinic is atrocious. We have to take our own vitals, do our own EKG's, etc (there are zero ancillary services for residents) - even Bellevue has ancillary services for their residents. Patients are allowed to show up at any time no matter what time their appointment was and we are still required to see them. They cram as many patients on to your schedule as they possibly can. In nearly two years, I've learned next to nothing about outpatient medicine because I spend the majority of my time filling out paperwork (once again, because we have no staff to help us).

Cornell will hopefully get me into the fellowship that I want, but I think there are a lot of places that would accomplish the same goal.

Do yourself a favor - avoid Columbia and Cornell all together for internal medicine.

Members don't see this ad.
 
Any current residents feel similarly or differently?

Originally Posted by giorbust
You don't want to go to Cornell either.

The program director only cares about ACGME requirements, yet refuses to fix several highly dangerous rotations for patients (mainly the CCU), while other services are supersaturated. She refuses to listen to residents and their concerns. Ultimately, the hospital will be sued for malpractice and things will change.

Internship is an extension of medical school now. The program leadership seems to think it is dangerous for interns to make ANY decisions. You will do more call as a PGY-2/PGY-3. The residents do nearly all admissions. On nightfloat, there are two residents admitting every patient to the general medicine service, while the interns are capped at 1 admission each per night (3 interns total).

Our outpatient clinic is atrocious. We have to take our own vitals, do our own EKG's, etc (there are zero ancillary services for residents) - even Bellevue has ancillary services for their residents. Patients are allowed to show up at any time no matter what time their appointment was and we are still required to see them. They cram as many patients on to your schedule as they possibly can. In nearly two years, I've learned next to nothing about outpatient medicine because I spend the majority of my time filling out paperwork (once again, because we have no staff to help us).

Cornell will hopefully get me into the fellowship that I want, but I think there are a lot of places that would accomplish the same goal.

Do yourself a favor - avoid Columbia and Cornell all together for internal medicine.
This looks like a dramatic post from a tired R2 (note they have since retracted this post).

Cornell has an excellent training environement, but it is not for the faint-hearted. Contrary to popular SDN belief, I'll tell you first hand that ancillary services are lacking here, and you should expect a very busy program. The program director has been there for around 15 months, and is definitely not warm or fuzzy, but she's practcal. The faculty will work you hard, but they're nice.

If you want to be the kind of residents that quote the latest publications, don't come here. Honestly, I had time to attend grand rounds maybe six times during my entire residency. It's that busy.

If you want to be the kind of doctor that does not wet the bed when patients decompensate and the kind of doctor that can be of immediate practical assistance (rather than writing an order and having someone else do all the practical stuff), then we might be a good fit. There used to be a ton of autonomy when I was an intern (no more, but that's pretty much universal), and there is a lot of resident autonomy. I am happy with my training. Hope that helps.
 
Last edited:
third year at cornell here. i'm happy with my training. no program is perfect and medicine in nyc presents its own challenges. i ended up landing a rockstar fellowship so i can't complain. im also comfortable taking care of very sick patients
 
Last edited:
Members don't see this ad :)
Thanks guys. What are the average hours for interns and residents?
 
Sorry I meant time in in the morning and out at night. Trying to compare to a program with a commute and see how different it actually would be.
 
Sorry I meant time in in the morning and out at night. Trying to compare to a program with a commute and see how different it actually would be.
Depends on the rotation, but generally we start around 6:30am. Out (hopefully) by 6:00pm, but it's more of a goal than reality sometimes. Expect this for most residency programs. Sick patients often don't fit into our schedule.
 
This looks like a dramatic post from a tired R2 (note they have since retracted this post).

Cornell has an excellent training environement, but it is not for the faint-hearted. Contrary to popular SDN belief, I'll tell you first hand that ancillary services are lacking here, and you should expect a very busy program. The program director has been there for around 15 months, and is definitely not warm or fuzzy, but she's practcal. The faculty will work you hard, but they're nice.

If you want to be the kind of residents that quote the latest publications, don't come here. Honestly, I had time to attend grand rounds maybe six times during my entire residency. It's that busy.

If you want to be the kind of doctor that does not wet the bed when patients decompensate and the kind of doctor that can be of immediate practical assistance (rather than writing an order and having someone else do all the practical stuff), then we might be a good fit. There used to be a ton of autonomy when I was an intern (no more, but that's pretty much universal), and there is a lot of resident autonomy. I am happy with my training. Hope that helps.

I'm not going to comment on the strength of Cornell's program, which remains a highly sought after residency.

That said, the point of medicine training is to be able to take care of sick patients without "wetting the bed". Any good program should be able to do this.

Being able to understand and cite literature is an important skill. It is by no means mutually exclusive from being able to take care of critically ill patients.
 
Hi,

First of all, thank you for fielding questions.

I was on the ACGME accreditation site and saw that Cornell's IM accreditation cycle was only 2 years. The average is 5 with a maximum of 10. Are there some inherent problems with the medicine program that needed to be fixed at the last site visit? I know this number is quite important and a surrogate for the overall health of a program in the eyes of the ACGME. Short cycle lengths may correlate with future program probation and even restructuring...something you don't need as a resident and especially as a fellowship applicant.

I'm a bit worried to challenge the PD with this question but if anyone knows or could find out I would be eternally grateful as it's nearly decision time and I am between two very strong programs. Thank you so much.

Here is the website for those who want to look at accreditation cycle lengths:

http://www.acgme.org/adspublic/
 
Cornell was on probation for duty hours related stuff about 3 years ago. They passed their last site visit without -any- citations and actually with a commendation from the ACGME, whatever that means...but given the history, were only given a 2 year cycle.

The program is being reviewed again as we speak (as in site visit next week!), and anticipates doing just fine. Our new program director is pretty amazing at the organizational side of things that the ACGME evaluates, and the program has only become better and better over the past couple years. For whats its worth, they are evaluating compliance with regulations, and we really are compliant. Nobody is lying about their duty hours etc. Several years ago, that wasn't the case.

I'd bet it'll be a much longer cycle length and a non-issue for anyone ranking this year.
 
Top