Kaiser NorCal Programs and Fellowship

[taelvin]

Good Evening, I did a search of the forums and saw that it has been a few years since there was any discussion or commentary on the Kaiser IM programs in NorCal (Santa Clara, Oakland, San Francisco). I am an applicant from a large academic medical school and while I am keeping myself open to where my career will take me I really enjoy teaching, clinical medicine, and currently want to do a fellowship in Heme/Onc after residency. It seems like the fellowship match at the Kaiser programs has done very well the last few years but many of my classmates and attending's have been directing me towards staying in academic residency programs. However, I have also heard that many of the West coast community programs are very strong and function like mid-level academic programs elsewhere (such as in the East where academic programs are more frequent in number).

I hope my question to the community makes sense, if not please let me know. Also, I would appreciate anyone with knowledge of other community programs in the West sharing their thoughts as well (such as those familiar with CPMC).

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[californiaappli1]

Cedars and Scripps Green are the powerhouse community programs that provide good access to fellowship. The Kaisers not so much ( although very possible). If it were Kaisers vs mid tier university , definitely go for the mid tier university. Especially given the increased competitiveness of heme/onc ( from what I hear).

 

[lulu09]

I interviewed at Kaiser SC, Kaiser Oakland, Kaiser SF, and CPMC last year.

I wasn't impressed by Kaiser SC, Kaiser SF and Oakland are comparable (I think Oakland slight > SF), and CPMC I really loved.

I think CPMC is stronger than a low-tier university IM program on the east coast - I still wouldn't call it mid-tier though because the program is small and fellowship matches are still limited (mostly regional matches, small sample size but still). I agonized over whether to rank CPMC higher given the fact that I believed that you can still match into a decently good fellowship as long as you work hard there, but I felt their resources were limited (to do research they generally collaborate with UCSF or Stanford given CPMC's smaller patient pool and basic science is basically nonexistent). Since there is no clear benefit or bias for matching at UCSF or Stanford for CPMC, I thought my training would be better at a larger mid-tier university on the east coast (and I can always try to come back to Cali for fellowship), and so that's where I ended up matching. It's been pretty well so far, and I'm glad I still chose academic over community. Like the above poster said, if the community in question were Cedars or Scripps Green, I would feel a bit more comfortable with their track record - CPMC is good, but it's still not great.

 

[gl0baltrader]

In general, academic program is preferred over community program because of the brand name and connection associated with it. You will also have access to much more resources that's not available from going to a community program, such as research, rare pathology, and medically complex patients.

Going to an academic program does not exclude you from matching to a fellowship of your choice, it's just much harder and you have to jump through more hoops, such as doing an additional CHIEF YEAR. Be weary about the match list they post on the website, because it doesn't tell you about how many times they applied before matching or if they completed a CHIEF year, which puts you on a different pile during the application review process. Some of them also take years off for research before applying for a fellowship.

I did interview at some of the community programs in CA, such as Kaiser and CPMC. I know that most of the residents are not interested in pursuing fellowship. I don't think they have enough resources available for a robust research opportunity, mostly chart review with affiliated academic institutions in the area.

If you know that you're doing a fellowship go to an academic institution because it will make your life easier in the long run.