East coast-sports med

There are plenty of programs to choose from in the East Coast in perspective of musculoskeletal medicine training including Spaulding, Kessler, Colum/Cornell, U Penn, MCV, and U Va. Although most of the times, sports medicine and mskltl med are lumped together for obvious reasons, physiatric perspective may be different from program to program. One program may focus on interventional spine while others may emphasize more traditiional primary care sports medicine. Now out of the programs where I interviewed, I felt Kessler was very good. Also although I ranked Col/Cornell low on my rank list, the availability to rotate through HSS was good. U penn, where I matched is also a great program for musculoskeletal med. U penn has a very strong MSK Med department with opportunity in interventional spine, acupuncture and intramuscular stimulation. They also have a very competitive fellowship in Spinal Therapeutics. While the other programs where I interviewed including Mt. Sinai, Temple, Thomas Jefferson, National, Johns Hopkins had good programs in rehabilitation, I felt they did not have as much exposure to MSK Med and interventional spine as the other programs which I have described above. Now the other programs I have listed including Spaulding, MCV, and U Va, are speculations of mine from reading Stinky and talking to other friends and interviewees.

 

I felt that all three programs (Temple, Jefferson, Penn) in Philly were good. Here's my take on it. Everyone seems to rave about Moss. Now currently Temple residents rotate through Moss while Jefferson owns it. I know....it doesn't make very much sense. But Jefferson's main rotations are through Magee, which I felt was a very good Rehab hospital. Both programs were very good. Jefferson residents took a lot more call. However, Jefferson residents seemed to be having a lot more fun. Magee was more esthetically pleasing and in a better area of Philly compared to Moss. So what did I think were their strengths? Temple....definitely Brain Injury. Jefferson...definitely Spinal cord Injury. Does that mean that if you go to one of these programs that one cannot do interventional spine? Absolutely not. It seemed as though both programs produced many who wanted to pursue interventional spine. Now why did I rank Penn above the two? I felt that Penn would be a better fit for my interests. I want to do some general inpatient rehab and consults with a stronger focus on outpatient sports med, MSK, interventional spine, acupuncture,OMT, EMG....etc. Penn, although does not have a free standing rehabilitation hospital, they have good inpatient rotations at Piersol Rehab at HUP. So on these rotations, one will see all the bread and butter inpatient PM&R stuff stroke, ortho, brain injury,..etc. except one will have limited experience in SCI. They did tell me though that they will be sending residents to Magee for more SCI. However, what had me sold was there Penn Spine Center. Lots of procedures and MSK med training with possibly increased chance in obtaining their fellowship. Also, I just had that gut feeling. Although I did rank RIC and Kessler higher based upon their location because I loved Chicago and Kessler's vicinity near NYC, I had the best experiences at Penn and Jefferson. I'll have to admit though that I changed my rank order many times trying to decide whether to rank Jefferson higher.
Recently someone wrote a negative review on Scutwork about U Penn and was very surprised because the residents I talked to at Penn were extremely happy about the program. So take everything with a grain of salt I guess.
So in the end, I believe all three programs will give you an excellent training with their own strengths and weaknesses.