Could anyone out there describe an average day for an anesthesia resident at DHMC? Hours...pace...interactions with surgery? Any info would be GREATLY appreciated. How do you survive the winters up there? Is there at least sunshine on those cold days or is it just snow snow snow all winter long? Does anyone have an opinion on whether or not it is a decent place to be a single person or could it be quite lonely?
Thanks a million
Dartmouth has many strong points & some weaknesses - no surprise there!
Strengths:
-- Superb faculty who are really into teaching &, for the most part, damned good at it. I can honestly say, after 4 years here, that there is not one single attending that I completely hate or dread to work with. Of course, there are a couple that I would rather not...but even they aren't too bad.
-- There are only 2 surgeons that are even remotely malignant & if you put them up against those in most other programs, they'd be the nice guys. The surg - anesth relationship is really pretty damned awesome.
-- Dept of Anesth is a very strong political player at Dartmouth, probably the strongest. Not much goes down here w/o anesth endorsing it.
-- Gorgeous region, esp if you are into outdoors activities.
-- Typical day - in at approx 06:00 and home 5:00~5:30, days tend to be long, esp the higher you rank
-- Call - almost embarassing: CA-1s are about 4 to 5/month & CA-2/CA-3 are 2 to 3/month: only 24hrs & you go home, no rounding or any of that other BS.
-- Didactics - VERY strong! Multiple conference series & all are of top quality.
-- You cannot throw a stick around here & not hit a current or past oral baord examiner & they are prepping you for orals from day one. Furthermore, we have a year-long CA-3 conference series that specifically focuses on oral board prep. Boards are not a problem for us.
-- Residents are, for the most, part happy being here. Of course, we have the obligatory pissing, moaning & whining about anything & everything under the sun - hey, we are residents - but overall, I think most, if not all, of us would come here again were we given that option.
-- Transplant program is expanding (could be a pro or a con, tangent uponn your perspective). When I started, we only did kidneys. Now we do pancreas, kidneys & combined kidney/panc. We are in the process of adding livers - YUCK!
-- Gorgeous hospital & we have lots of toys
Downsides:
-- Tangent upon where you are coming from, the cost of living is pretty damned high
-- Night life - there essentially is none
-- Most residents are married or about to be, great if you are one of us, but can be a bit of a drag for those who are unattached. The prime 'hunting grounds' for the single folks here are the Dartmouth & Colby-Sawyer students. A bit too young for me as I just don't know all that much to say about Barney & Thomas the Train.
-- We have a couple of sub-specialties whose volume is concerning: OB & cardiac. OB - we've an abundance of high-risk as a tertiary referral center, but we lack in the bread & butter category (only ~1200 deliveries/year). Cardiac - like everyone else, volume has hurt badly by those cardiac stenters. But, our thoracic surgical volume & complexity is rapdily growing.
-- Used to, peds was on the low side, but that is rapidly expanding & we have added in some excellent peds surgeons & some superb peds anesth attendings (Jenny O'Flaherty, Cam Clark, Andreas Taenzer, Joe Cravero, George Blike to name a few)
-- We are adding liver transplantations
