with respect to ethnicity, Howard's residents run the rainbow, black, asian, white, hispanic, and several carrib(sp), several residents of indian descent in surgery and in the hospital in general. everyone is very nice, a big family.
pros:
the teaching there is excellent, i've visited sevral places and no place has the kind of teaching rounds howard has, very intense can be long. you will definitely learn a lot. however, i think the large amount of teaching is due to a lower case volume at the university, so there is more time to teach.
fellowship placement= this year there are chiefs going to cleveland clinic and the other to mayo clinic for fellowships (i think both minimally invasive). the others i haven't heard about yet. last year the only chief i know went to USC for colorectal.
note:
a lot of your numbers you get at other sites (1)providence (community hospital with lots of cases) 2) INOVA fairfax (excellent facility, cases ect). i think as a 4th year you go to these places and are the chief. i'm not sure where you get the majority of your numbers from or the avg graduating chief cases.
lots of bread and butter surgery , lap chole, lap hernia, (some open), lumps and bumps, good penetrating trauma, low blunt.
cons:
lower complex case volume at the university than some of the bigger institutions. (only reason i didn't rank them)
medicine residents put in their own lines, pulmonary fellows do their own thoracentisis, so no calling surgery to get a line (sucks for interns and pgy 2)
radiology if your patient isn't in the ICU will cripple you, but the department is being revamped with a 20million dollar overhaul. (when will that occur, i don't know, but to my understanding the funds have been appropriated)
there are some new "young" attendings that have come and are starting to post more cases, whipples ect..
Howard was also supposed to get a new hospital in southeast, DC, (a medically underserved population) which would send their cases through the roof. The university lost the deal for it, but i'm not sure if this is the final word or will they come back with a new plan.
hope this helps, good luck.
ps.. i interviewed at every place in DC except GW, i think washington hospital center was most impressive, huge volumes complex/simple. georgetown was smaller than i expected.
