Let's cut to the Chase... Cleveland Clinic

[BubbleHead]

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Cleveland Clinic Rocks for these reasons:

PGY-1 year: 4-5 out of 13 blocks with Call, plenty of Critical Care exposure, with 1 month of floor medicine and NO MONTHS of surgery.

PGY-2,3,4 years: There are no programs that offer a greater breadth of cases, nor greater level of difficulty. If you want bread and butter lap procedures, then go to a small program, we don't do many of those (unless they are a 40 yr IDDM, s/p CABG x6, PCI x3 last week, and we're transplanting a lung during the Lap hernia repair).

Working Conditions: There are people here with EGOS: Surg, Anes, Cards, etc... We're not on a first name basis with many Attendings. But, the new Chair (Dr. Roizen) is nationally known and holds Attendings to high standards of professionalism. Biggest complaint last year was related to short calls (until 9PM)... if you pre-round starting at 9PM and come in at 6:30 to set up for your first case, then you violate the 10 hour-off rule between work days. The Program Director fielded ideas and the Chiefs instituted a new policy, which is: No more short calls. Now all calls are "24 Hours", but as the extra CA-2/3 you stay until midnight and have the next day OFF, pretty sweet.

Program Director: Not a warm and fuzzy sort of guy, very formal. Take him at his word; you can trust everything he tells you. Not a hand holder... he will tell you the minimum expectations (he wrote the National Standards for Anesthesia Resident Competencies) and then let you loose to learn at your own pace in your own fashion. There are weekly required lectures, 2 annual exams, and they'll throw ~$2000 yearly at you to buy books, take coures, etc...

Size Matters: The meek introverts may be overwhelmed by the size of this place: 30 Residents yearly, with ~45 Fellows. That means that after 30 years, there are 900++ people across the country with knowledge of prime practice opportunities opening up. Calls flood in each year from coast to coast seeking residents that are graduating... the offers are cause for pause when you consider a Fellowship.

Just like every other program not on probation: If you present at conferences, Cleveland Clinic pays for everything. Residents have all met there number requirements (and more) by the end of CA-2 year. Hours are 60-65 hours weekly, in the ORs you'll take ~6 calls/month.

Hope this helps you. Even if you don't interview here consider these points for any program!

 

[Green912]

Nice post. I was at the C.C. last week and was pretty impressed with everything you pointed out. Now I'm just trying to decide how to rank the CCF vs. UHHS.

 

[canavarim]

it is a malignant program and the PD is a big lier who doesn't give a **** about people ... don't ever be misleaded

 

[BubbleHead]

Nice post. I was at the C.C. last week and was pretty impressed with everything you pointed out. Now I'm just trying to decide how to rank the CCF vs. UHHS.

I faced the same problem, most program are more similar than they are different. In the end it will be which ever one feels more right, just steer clear of probation programs, programs that are in flux, and program where the residents tell you "residents are leaving this program for reasons...x, y, z".

As for the clown posting about "malignant" I can't take you seriously. I'm here now and I'm loving it. Are you here now? What specifically supports your claim?

Just remember to take all accounts with a grain of salt. If you've never worker 65-80 hours/wk every week, you'll realize that you are at the hospital a good bit.

As for CC vs. UHHS, you'll be among the happiest residents no matter where you go. Good luck.

 

[I Just Heard]

I just finished interviewing at CC. One of the PGY-1 took a leave of abscence, so there is an open spot in the class for anyone considering switching into Anesthesia as a CA-1 in July 2007. Good Luck

 

[DrRobert]

Let's cut to the chase: Great program where you will come out a clinical badass.

Hours per week: 75-85

Don't be misled.

 

[BubbleHead]

Let's cut to the chase: Great program where you will come out a clinical badass.

Hours per week: 75-85

Don't be misled.

Not sure where you get your info, but you're about 10 hours/week high. Hours violations are monitored and addressed by the PD. Residents here are not working that many hours, unless they're hiding it from the PD and other residents too.

 

[Stimulate]

Just FYI, CCF is having major problems with PACU holds. Occasionally residents will have to spend over an hour recovering their patients in the operating room instead of going home. This has only become a problem in the past year or so since CCF began a program of accepting any and all transfer patients from outside hospitals. Because of this policy CCF runs at close to 98% occupancy and therefore when PACU patients meet discharge criteria there are no hospital beds to take them. The whole system gets backed up from there.

When you are on-call you will see that despite the log-jam, they will never cancel elective cases, but rather just delay them so that you can stay up all night doing them. Big elective spine cases will start at 19:00 and go into the early morning hours. I am not saying that this happens everyday but it does happen.

As a CCF anesthesia resident you will not go home before 4pm unless you are pre-call. Sometimes pre-call you will go home at 7pm. If god-forbid your room finishes before 3:30pm you will receive a page asking you to relieve a 3:30pm CRNA.

Residents are used to improve the quality of life of the CRNAs. If there is a day when the OR schedule is light, the on-call residents will be told to relieve the CRNAs early even though the CRNAs are salaried and should be working their entire shift (I am not hating on CRNAs because they get stuck beyond their hours sometimes too). But in an academic residency program, the focus should be on giving the residents time to participate in research and studying, not relieving salaried clinical employees early.

Typically if you are not the pre-call residents your day will end at 18:00 (but there are nights where you will get stuck until 9pm). If you go home before 4pm it will be a fluke, i.e. the control desk lost track of you. Occasionally you will sit in the OR without lunch until 3pm with no morning break.

The program is not family-oriented. If you are female and have a child, you will get your maternity time but they will structure the rest of your curriculum so as to maximize your time in the general ORs (where they need warm bodies).

Rather than having a CA-3 year with flexibility you will have only 3 months of electives. The number of elective months has diminished over the past several years and I would expect that to continue.

As a resident you will be held to a huge standard of professionalism. You will not experience that same level of professionalism reciprocated by the program, which is evidenced by the way they staff the operating room and administer the residency program. They know they are short-staffed and have no hospital beds yet they continue to schedule too many cases and stick everyone with late lunches, rare breaks, and long evenings. They will take take take take from you and give you no appreciation or respect in return. You are a nobody to them.

What do you get for this sacrifice? You get excellent volume of big cases on complicated patients. You will graduate as a very strong clinician but you will need to augment your lack of teaching by reading on your own. I don't think this is unique to the program however.