Is university of Arizona IM residency any good ? please respond !

[kfarro]

Hi

I am writing on behalf of my wife who is a M4 student, and will be applying for residency soon. Is University of Azizona IM program in Tuscon any good.

if anybody had any experince there as a student or even higher status, would you please respond with some honest answere.

Thank you.

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[jdh71]

What do you mean by "any good"? People eat like crap and don't exercise in Tuscon, just like anywhere else.

What does she want to do when she grows up? Let's answer that question first.

 

[orientedtoself]

actually, there are fewer fatties in arizona.

http://cdc.gov/Features/dsObesity/

 

[orientedtoself]

i just realized i thought arizona was new mexico

 

[jdh71]

I see what you did there . . .

 

[orientedtoself]

geography never was never a strength of mine. i can, however, identify my own state, with the fewest fatties in the nation!

 

[jdh71]

geography never was never a strength of mine. i can, however, identify my own state, with the fewest fatties in the nation!

I imagine there are still plenty clogging up your admitting area . . . just enough to still come in clutching their chests . . .

God Bless America

 

[Roadrunner]

To answer the OP and turn down the off subject chatter -- U of A has a decent IM residency from what I've heard. A friend of mine from med school went there for IM and seems to be having a good experience. I didn't interview there so I can't give you my personal perspective. As with all programs, a visit is worth a thousand words. Good luck!

 

[dragonfly99]

I don't have any personal knowledge of that program.
I've never heard anything bad about it.
One place that may be interesting to those looking at IM residency is the
Amer Board of Int Med web site, where they have posted the board pass rates for IM programs. It's a list for all programs from each state. The overall
pass rate I think is 92%, so would think that programs with a <90% pass rate would tend to be more marginal. I checked and the pass rate for Arizona looks like was 95% in the most recent years (62/65 people passing) which looks pretty OK.

 

[fatsal]

I did a rotation there. I liked it but I can clearly see why it wasn't popular.

1. FMG's - literally nearly 50% of their residents were FMG's. Most of these FMGs were not U.S. IMG's. They prematch a lot of FMG's to assure their program fills so they basically prematch the FMG's with the best step I scores and offer them a spot on their interview. Mind you, these FMG's were stellar and had step scores above 230. I don't have a problem with FMG's but for whatever reason programs get a red flag when they have a lot of FMGs.

2. Tucson - It's a lot smaller than it seems. There are cities that have a smaller population that feel much bigger. Tucson honestly feels like 100K-150K population city. They don't have highways within the city for one thing and there is really nothing to do there aside from hiking. The entire city is pretty much the University of Arizona.

3. Overworked residents - Their U.S. trained residents generally seemed ambivalent toward the program. When I asked them if they liked their program, I was suprised by how many would say "It's okay". Usually residents rave about their program but the U of A residents were very ambivalent. During our call nights at UMC, we had a huge patient cap and there was rarely a call night in which we slept. The Tucson population is underserved and you will get loads of illegals among other patients every night. They didn't dislike or hate their program but they didn't rave about their program when asked about it and this was consistent accross the board. They all had the same complaint about the patient load and hours.

4. Fellowship: This was one of their strengths. However, if you are interested in cardiology, this is definitely not the program to go to. Of their 20 residents or so, 11 or 12 of them were applying to cardiology. Aside from Cards and GI, their residents had no problem getting the fellowship of their choice.

 

[docscience]

What a great review. Anyone else have anything else to add?
I am a bit worried about the overworked residents. But most programs seem pretty busy...unless you want to go somewhere super cush.

I did a rotation there. I liked it but I can clearly see why it wasn't popular.

1. FMG's - literally nearly 50% of their residents were FMG's. Most of these FMGs were not U.S. IMG's. They prematch a lot of FMG's to assure their program fills so they basically prematch the FMG's with the best step I scores and offer them a spot on their interview. Mind you, these FMG's were stellar and had step scores above 230. I don't have a problem with FMG's but for whatever reason programs get a red flag when they have a lot of FMGs.

2. Tucson - It's a lot smaller than it seems. There are cities that have a smaller population that feel much bigger. Tucson honestly feels like 100K-150K population city. They don't have highways within the city for one thing and there is really nothing to do there aside from hiking. The entire city is pretty much the University of Arizona.

3. Overworked residents - Their U.S. trained residents generally seemed ambivalent toward the program. When I asked them if they liked their program, I was suprised by how many would say "It's okay". Usually residents rave about their program but the U of A residents were very ambivalent. During our call nights at UMC, we had a huge patient cap and there was rarely a call night in which we slept. The Tucson population is underserved and you will get loads of illegals among other patients every night. They didn't dislike or hate their program but they didn't rave about their program when asked about it and this was consistent accross the board. They all had the same complaint about the patient load and hours.

4. Fellowship: This was one of their strengths. However, if you are interested in cardiology, this is definitely not the program to go to. Of their 20 residents or so, 11 or 12 of them were applying to cardiology. Aside from Cards and GI, their residents had no problem getting the fellowship of their choice.