There are good and not so good parts of Richmond. There are suburbs in the "west" end that have very good housing, restaurants, businesses, malls, etc., I would contact residents about this and schools. I heard about a drive-by shooting in/near the ED in the past 1-2 year (window? of the ED shot out...)
I was not that impressed with the program. Seemed they got hit hard pretty in the 90's with the anesthesia 'crisis' and never fully recovered or is very slow to recover. I thought that the ppl that end up there end up there either because they have family/spouse from the area, not that they want to be there b/c of the training program. My impression is that the program is short-staffed and residents work hard. Case in point, they have a simulator but it's sitting in the closet for years b/c no staff to man it, etc.... and didactics/lecture got better b/c one of the senior resident (chief?) took upon self to make it better... again they have from support for the staff, but not the staff to do such a thing.... Granted staff that I met were nice. Other than that, nothing impressed me about the program. I had a chat with another applicant after the interview, and we both felt uncomfortable w/ the program somehow, the way the interviews went, etc, some intangibles, but we shared the same queezy gut feeling and it wasn't from the lunch... I do not plan to rank this program. I also interviewed at UVa also, and it was phenomenal, one of my top 3.
Intern year is tough on medicine ward months. If you're willing to work hard, it will get you far. One of the resident/chief(?) earned a fellowship to MGH.
