Lahey Clinic vs Tufts vs BU?

[europeman]

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Sorry, I have *NO* clue about the surgery programs at these instutions. I'm trying to decide which to interview at.... I can't do all three, i'll likely only do two. My goals are academic surgery, and i don't know what fellowship i'll pursue. Which is the most competitive? which gives you the best surgery training? research? thanks!

 

[gasnewby]

i was NOT impressed with lahey clinic, and almost left halfway through the interview. this was a few years ago.

they have a lot of resident turnover. why?

the residents were miserable SOBs.

i don't think their board pass rates are great.

my first interviewer told me "you're not really into research." I thought i had misunderstood him. so he repeated it "you're not really into research." keep in mind i had 1.5 years of research before med school, and continued during med school. a condescending prick. some of the research was on RFA, and he started pimping me about liver anatomy and liver resections, which was unrelated to the research and something i didn't know too much about.

they are trying to coast on name alone. even the support staff wasn't that nice to us. one of the few places i didn't rank.

 

[surgeon2b forev]

Thanks for the info on Lahey. May I ask, where are their residents from? Are mostly foreign medical graduates? Or top medical schools?

Frankly, I didn't even know Lahey clinic was a prestigious name. I had no clue. That sucks with regard to your experience there though - thanks for being honest.

BU vs tufts then? I think i'll drop Lahey. I'm gonna try both BU and tufts... are they both equal theN? differences?

 

[gasnewby]

Thanks for the info on Lahey. May I ask, where are their residents from? Are mostly foreign medical graduates? Or top medical schools?

to be truthful, i can't imagine with their attitude, they would take a lot of fmgs. they seemed extremely conservative. i met mostly older white male attendings. the residents i met were white. (which doesn't mean they weren't fmgs, but...)

 

[gasnewby]

i wouldn't cancel an interview because of one post...it might have changed since then. but those are red flags to consider (attrition, boards, etc)

didn't apply to tufts/BU- & don't know anybody there. good luck.

 

[europeman]

well it's simply a matter of scheduling w/other schools in the country. i just can't do all three. and i honestly don't know anything about these programs. That said, how do i find out about attrition rates? is it published somewhere?

And the lahey clinic website doesn't is *VERY* uninformative. No information about where their residents are from and where they go, etc.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Agreed, the Lahey site is pretty bare bones.

The attrition rate is not published in a centralized area and most programs would not publish it on their web site, although you can often figure it out by looking at numbers (if they don't fill the spots left).

Blind faith...its all most of us had to go on.

 

[amc123]

I am a medical student at BU so can hopefully give you some input on our fine institution.

There are 5 categoricals, usually about 1-3 are female, though this year's class is 100% female (interesting result of the Match I guess). Fairly diverse group of residents. The hospital (Boston Medical Center) is very diverse as well in all respects, from other house staff to attendings to ancillary staff. There are a ton of languages spoken at this hospital, so if you are multi-lingual, that is a big help.

The residents also rotate through Quincy Med Ctr (community, gen surg), VA, and Cape Cod Hospital (community but full-service).

The patient population at BMC is that of a city hospital: poor, underserved, homeless, etc. Often foreign born, making language barriers very common and challenging. Trauma-heavy.

Training is excellent in trauma/critical care (lots of penetrating trauma), gen surg, vascular, colorectal, oncology. Much less time spent in transplant (kidney only), pedi (only one attending), and subspecialty. About 50-75% of residents do research. They will let you leave BU for research if you want to. About 75% go to fellowships.

The residents overall seem fairly happy, though I think they go over their work hours often (some rotations worse than others). The attendings are excellent, very supportive and willing to give the residents autonomy.

Boston is awesome. I don't think I really need to tout its attributes that much. Excellent restaurants, good nightlife, outdoor activities, theater and concerts, the best Fourth of July fireworks show anywhere, awesome sports teams, etc. And if that's not enough, NYC is about four hours away. BMC tends to get overshadowed by MGH and BI Deaconess, etc., but the programs are so different. While BMC is an academic program, it is not malignant or as intense as some of the bigger names in town (which is good, I think)

I don't know much about Tufts. I think they take 3 categoricals. I know that they rotate through our BU hospital (BMC) for trauma because they are a level 2 trauma center and we are level 1.

I hope that helps!