Help Me Trim My List of Residencies to Apply To

[Harrison486]

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Hey everyone. I am an MS-IV getting ready to submit my ERAS application no September 1st. I am in the process of trying to finalize the list of programs I will be applying to and was hoping that some of you may be able to offer me some advice.

Here are my stats if it matters:
Med School: Mid-range East Coast state school
Class Rank: I think anywhere from top 10% to top 25% (don't really know) - Not AOA
Clinical Grades: Honored medicine and surgery; High Passed everything else
Step 1: 250+
Research: Involved in 2 non-anesthesia projects, but no publications

I am basically applying from Boston to DC. Ideally, I am hoping to end up in NYC.

Anyway, here is my current list of programs:
Mount Sinai
Columbia
Cornell
NYU
Penn
Jefferson
Temple
Penn State
NJMS - RWJ
Beth Israel Deaconess
Brigham
MGH
Tufts
Hopkins
Maryland
GWU
Georgetown

So do any of those programs not really fit in with the others? Any you would suggest dropping? How many schools do you think I could safely cut my list down to?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

[bigdan]

Nice stats, and great list. Remember you can still apply broadly and decline interviews as you get invites from the ones you want "more".

I know you wanna trim the list, but you're fu*king nuts if you'll come as far as Penn State and not come to Pittsburgh to check out UPMC.

Best of luck!

dc

 

[cchoukal]

I wouldn't trim the list at all, and that has nothing to do with my knowledge of those programs. Applying broadly is, in the grand scheme of things, free (yes, there's a charge, and yes, you're broke, but this is a very minor consideration). If anything, I'd expand the list. Why save a couple hundred dollars and risk not matching?

 

[kazuma]

I wouldn't trim the list at all, and that has nothing to do with my knowledge of those programs. Applying broadly is, in the grand scheme of things, free (yes, there's a charge, and yes, you're broke, but this is a very minor consideration). If anything, I'd expand the list. Why save a couple hundred dollars and risk not matching?

As someone that recently went through the match, I agree with this. Don't skimp on primary apps they are relatively cheap in the grand scheme. You might be surprised at which programs offer you interviews and which ones don't. I didn't interview at UPMC but I have heard great things about it. The only program I wouldn't add to the list that is in your region isUMass.

 

[epidural man]

Hey everyone. I am an MS-IV getting ready to submit my ERAS application no September 1st. I am in the process of trying to finalize the list of programs I will be applying to and was hoping that some of you may be able to offer me some advice.

Here are my stats if it matters:
Med School: Mid-range East Coast state school
Class Rank: I think anywhere from top 10% to top 25% (don't really know) - Not AOA
Clinical Grades: Honored medicine and surgery; High Passed everything else
Step 1: 250+
Research: Involved in 2 non-anesthesia projects, but no publications

I am basically applying from Boston to DC. Ideally, I am hoping to end up in NYC.

Anyway, here is my current list of programs:
Mount Sinai
Columbia
Cornell
NYU
Penn
Jefferson
Temple
Penn State
NJMS - RWJ
Beth Israel Deaconess
Brigham
MGH
Tufts
Hopkins
Maryland
GWU
Georgetown

So do any of those programs not really fit in with the others? Any you would suggest dropping? How many schools do you think I could safely cut my list down to?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

It looks like I am going to have to keep saying this....

Pick the ones that offer free food. Also, as MTGas2B mentioned in another thread - free parking as well.

You will learn great and wonderful anesthesia things at any of those places. A lot of your learning has to do with how much you read and pay attention. Everything else probably doesn't matter much - but the little things become very big things over time, like how far do you have to drive to work.

 

[ph8]

nice stats, and great list. Remember you can still apply broadly and decline interviews as you get invites from the ones you want "more".

I know you wanna trim the list, but you're fu*king nuts if you'll come as far as penn state and not come to pittsburgh to check out upmc.

Best of luck!

Dc

+1

 

[Quirk11]

Where do you live ?

I would apply to your home program, try and live with your friends / family and pay off your debt. You will enjoy your life and it will feel more natural.

Most programs seem to be fine to me. I would try to find the friendliest programs after doing the above and aim there.

 

[Navyanesdoc]

Let me know... Im a 2010 grad- was vice chief resident at Tufts. Can give you some info/answer questions if you like.

 

[Ketafol20]

I agree with everything mentioned above. Now the important part is choosing where to attend. Things that are important to me are items that most med studs choose to avoid.

My list of important residency qualities:
1) Very few fellowships at the program
2) very busy OR with at least a good amount of trauma and peds
3) past and present residents score well on ITE and a high first time pass rate
4) strong attendings with a dominant presence
5) good didactics with good attendance by residents and attendings ( ie: if nurses are used in the program they are used in the right way, they cover the crap cases like the eye room and they get residents out for lectures)
6) following #5, nurses don't do the bigger cases unless all the residents are occupied in equal or better cases
7) this could easily be #1, No crna school/training at the facility.

That should get you started. I'm sure I can come up with more.

 

[kazuma]

I agree with everything mentioned above. Now the important part is choosing where to attend. Things that are important to me are items that most med studs choose to avoid.

My list of important residency qualities:
1) Very few fellowships at the program
2) very busy OR with at least a good amount of trauma and peds
3) past and present residents score well on ITE and a high first time pass rate
4) strong attendings with a dominant presence
5) good didactics with good attendance by residents and attendings ( ie: if nurses are used in the program they are used in the right way, they cover the crap cases like the eye room and they get residents out for lectures)
6) following #5, nurses don't do the bigger cases unless all the residents are occupied in equal or better cases
7) this could easily be #1, No crna school/training at the facility.

That should get you started. I'm sure I can come up with more.

+1, especially CRNA usage and SRNA's training on site. Having SRNA's or even worse letting them do major cases/procedures was a big red flag when I was on the trail. While it would be convenient to have fellowships at your program as far as networking goes and not having to move for just a year, I do believe that it detracts from your education unless you happen to have a surplus of major cases that aren't taken by the fellows.

 

[B-Bone]

I agree with everything mentioned above. Now the important part is choosing where to attend. Things that are important to me are items that most med studs choose to avoid.

My list of important residency qualities:
1) Very few fellowships at the program
2) very busy OR with at least a good amount of trauma and peds
3) past and present residents score well on ITE and a high first time pass rate
4) strong attendings with a dominant presence
5) good didactics with good attendance by residents and attendings ( ie: if nurses are used in the program they are used in the right way, they cover the crap cases like the eye room and they get residents out for lectures)
6) following #5, nurses don't do the bigger cases unless all the residents are occupied in equal or better cases
7) this could easily be #1, No crna school/training at the facility.

That should get you started. I'm sure I can come up with more.

I disagree about the fellowship thing, although it depends on the program. Basically all the big name places have fellowships, and you shouldn't rule those out because they tend to have high case volume (to even have a fellowship), the residents tend to get well trained, and the name/networking can carry some heft. Where I did residency, we had basically all the fellowships (peds, cardiac, ICU, regional, pain, transplant, neuro), but the fellows never sat any cases; they just supervised. So they weren't taking your cases away, you just worked together like with an attending. As for procedures, any place with a regional or pain fellowship should have more than enough procedure volume to spread around, and our cardiac and ICU fellows didn't give a crap about placing lines. I don't really recall any negatives to working with the fellows in residency, and actually got a lot of teaching out of them because they weren't supervising as many cases as the attendings and spent a lot more time in the room with me. Also, I finished residency with between 5 and 10 times as many cases/procedures as were required, so even if I had lost out on a few procedures, the sheer numbers of a high volume practice would have more than made up for it.

 

[michigangirl]

I disagree about the fellowship thing, although it depends on the program. Basically all the big name places have fellowships, and you shouldn't rule those out because they tend to have high case volume (to even have a fellowship), the residents tend to get well trained, and the name/networking can carry some heft. Where I did residency, we had basically all the fellowships (peds, cardiac, ICU, regional, pain, transplant, neuro), but the fellows never sat any cases; they just supervised. So they weren't taking your cases away, you just worked together like with an attending. As for procedures, any place with a regional or pain fellowship should have more than enough procedure volume to spread around, and our cardiac and ICU fellows didn't give a crap about placing lines. I don't really recall any negatives to working with the fellows in residency, and actually got a lot of teaching out of them because they weren't supervising as many cases as the attendings and spent a lot more time in the room with me. Also, I finished residency with between 5 and 10 times as many cases/procedures as were required, so even if I had lost out on a few procedures, the sheer numbers of a high volume practice would have more than made up for it.

++++++1. Couldn't agree more. if a program has fellowships, they likely do more complex cases in those fields and have the volume to go with it. The fellows are usually supervising, not taking cases away. If you have no interest in doing rare and/or complex cases then by all means go somewhere without fellows.

 

[Ketafol20]

++++++1. Couldn't agree more. if a program has fellowships, they likely do more complex cases in those fields and have the volume to go with it. The fellows are usually supervising, not taking cases away. If you have no interest in doing rare and/or complex cases then by all means go somewhere without fellows.

I'll give you guys the fellowship argument as long as it is truly like you describe. So I would like to tweak my rec's.

If the program you are applying to has fellowships in many areas or areas you are interested in. Be sure that the fellows are supervising and not actually performing all the cases. But if the attendings only work 2-3days a week then someone needs to supervise, right? I disagree that if they don't have fellowships then they don't do the cases at that facility. My training program does it all except livers there are very few fellowships. Don't ask me what program it is, because I won't divulge that information. Not now.

 

[B-Bone]

Also remember that every program is required to "do it all" in order to have a residency program and get residents their ABA numbers to graduate. There is, however, a difference between doing your 20 pump cases or total of 40 peripheral nerve blocks and doing 200 sick hearts or 500 blocks over the course of your residency. I would definitely talk to people/programs and ask about specific case numbers for each specific category the ABA requires, as well as the things you are most interested in. All this stuff is logged electronically and so each program should have very accurate, recent numbers for these things. Any place that's even close to the minimum required numbers for any type of case or procedure should raise a red flag. It doesn't matter if you did 5,000 cases in residency if they were mostly lap choles and butt scopes. Most jobs expect you to be able to do any kind of case they throw at you without any help from day one. You don't want to be the guy that's "not comfortable with that" or "can't do that block" at your new job. believe me.

 

[edelweiss]

Very similar list to mine when I applied, but your applicant stats are somewhat better. The number of programs on your list is not bad for an initial application but when it comes to interviews these are the ones I would skip (assuming you get invited to all the other ones):

In Manhattan, I would get rid of NYU (I was disappointed in the interview day and the other three are plenty to choose from -- I favored Columbia and Sinai, just personal impression).

Unless you really want to be in PA, get rid of Jefferson, Temple, Penn State. (I felt Penn was the only program worth applying to and was impressed on the interview date, ranked it highly though didn't land there.)

Get rid of Tufts. The three Harvard programs are plenty for Boston and for the strong applicant no other program is worth applying for.

I don't know enough about RWJ, Maryland, GWU or Georgetown to comment on them.

 

[Ketafol20]

Also remember that every program is required to "do it all" in order to have a residency program and get residents their ABA numbers to graduate. There is, however, a difference between doing your 20 pump cases or total of 40 peripheral nerve blocks and doing 200 sick hearts or 500 blocks over the course of your residency. I would definitely talk to people/programs and ask about specific case numbers for each specific category the ABA requires, as well as the things you are most interested in. All this stuff is logged electronically and so each program should have very accurate, recent numbers for these things. Any place that's even close to the minimum required numbers for any type of case or procedure should raise a red flag. It doesn't matter if you did 5,000 cases in residency if they were mostly lap choles and butt scopes. Most jobs expect you to be able to do any kind of case they throw at you without any help from day one. You don't want to be the guy that's "not comfortable with that" or "can't do that block" at your new job. believe me.

👍
Your program should be able to get past the ABA rec's easily. Your CA3 year should be a year of picking up big cases and concentrating on some of your interests. Not on trying to cover your ABA rec's.

 

[Ketafol20]

8). No "Mommy Track" attendings.

 

[michigangirl]

Sigh. so pathetic. Good luck on your quest to become a "Rokkstar"

8). No "Mommy Track" attendings.

 

[Ketafol20]

I apologize if I offended you. That was not my intent and my post was uncalled for.

 

[Ketafol20]

I assume you feel that there are some advantages to having these attendings, would you care to share those advantages with us?

 

[lushmd]

Obviously, your goal for selecting a residency program should be to find a place that will provide excellent clinical training, ideally in a location that you like. I'm of the opinion that this is most likely to be found in a large university based program where you'll routinely care for sick patients undergoing complicated surgeries (yes, this occurs at smaller community programs too but there's a reason why such patients are often sent to the big referral center in a given area). Such programs tend to have fellowships which, as pointed out above, indicate a reasonable surgical volume in those fields. Also, there is something to be said for "brand name" recognition when applying for a fellowship/job.

You've got excellent stats (particularly the step 1 score) so you can be more selective than the average applicant in choosing where to apply. As bigdan indicated however, at this stage it really doesn't hurt to apply to more places and then be selective about where you interview/rank. I'd trim your original list down to:

Mount Sinai
Columbia
NYU
Penn
Beth Israel Deaconess
Brigham
MGH
Hopkins

These are all excellent programs that would give you great training. I'd add some to your list though (in no particular order): Duke, Vanderbilt, UPMC, WashU, OHSU, UCSF, Stanford, etc... Also, toss in some programs that are also good but perhaps less competitive than the above (i.e. safety programs). Good luck!