I've been getting a lot of PM requests so I thought it would make sense to post basic information on the program here, with any specific questions either answered in this thread or by PM. If I get a lot of similar PM questions, I'll probably just post a response here.
Florida Hospital Radiology Residency program basics:
Duration: 4 years (no categorical option)
Residents per year: 4
Fellows: none
Location: Orlando, FL. PACS is centralized and brings in studies from the other 13 or so hospitals we cover plus multiple outpatient centers (all Florida Hospital). As residents, you are only ever stationed at the main Orlando hospital or the outpatient center across the street for mammo and certain body rotations.
Trauma: Level 2
Group dynamic: Large (>100 staff rads) hospital-contracted private practice group. Approx. 30 "core" residency faculty with whom you spend the majority of your time.
Coverage: 24/7 attending in-house
Volume: increasing, getting close to or just over 2 million studies per year
Nights/Call: No formal call/long call/pager call. 3 weeks of nights (11PM-8AM) R2 through R4 years plus 1 month ER evenings (12PM-9PM).
Food/Parking: free food and physician parking. No pork products since it's Adventist but there is free coffee and soda.
Conference time: You get 5 days to attend a conference you don't present at but you foot the bill. If you present at a conference (even just a poster) you get time for that and reimbursed.
Core prep: program pays for one prep course; we all did Huda. You will be ready for the Core.
I am a current R4, in the second graduating class. So far we have 100% Core pass rate. The program is very education-focused so you will get extensive didactics and case conferences; every day has a 45 minute lecture at 7AM (usually physics or case conference) and a 1 hour lecture at noon. I don't feel like the lack of solo call has been particularly limiting, however you need to take initiative to be a little more independent as you advance. I think there is the potential that someone could fly under the radar and never take steps towards autonomy but so far I have not seen that happen. I feel extremely comfortable taking cases, talking to techs, calling critical findings, talking to surgeons/clinicians, and performing all general radiology procedures and biopsies. At this point I try to make decisions and call results as if I am the final read and that has been working out well so far.
The majority of the attendings are great. We have a good mix of more established people with 25+ years experience and young guys who are either just out of fellowship or have been working <10 years. We tend to attract a lot of people from very strong training backgrounds. Everyone is nice, too. There are no stereotypically malignant personalities and certainly nothing to compare to the horror stories I have heard from friends at academic institutions. I would honestly say that the way people act when you interview there is true to how they actually are. This is a place pretty much all of us want to come back to after fellowship.
From a student's perspective, the most attractive thing is certainly the lack of call and weekends off. However, there is more of an expectation that you will engage in some research activity (posters to presentations to peer-reviewed papers) because you have a more protected schedule. Starting in R2, you get a dedicated research week in addition to the normal 20 days vacation. The minimum is one project for the duration of residency but pretty much everyone ends up doing a lot more than that, even if it's just posters. I've managed to get several 1st author pubs and I'm not even close to being the most productive person. It pays off in a big way come fellowship interview time. Everyone has landed great fellowships so far.
Main thing we lack is level 1 trauma, which goes to ORMC nearby. Everything else we have in spades. Personally, I think the lack of this is made up for by the lack of fellows, as you get first crack at every procedure from day 1 and there's no competition for 'good' cases.
Daytime shifts are 7AM-4PM (same schedule as your attending), except for IR, which can be longer but is usually <12 hours especially if you are not going into IR.
Moonlighting is excellent but for now is limited to contrast coverage. R1s can't moonlight. There is a structured percentage-based allotment of hours per class based on seniority (50/30/20).
I'll add more as I think of it or as questions come up. Hope this was helpful.
