Los Angeles/So CA area rsidencies

[Westardly]

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Does anyone have any ideas as to the competetiveness of the Los Angeles area anesthesia programs. As far as I know there are 6, these being:
Loma Linda
Charles Drew
UCLA med center
USC med center
UCI
Harbor UCLA

My guess would be that they are probably more competetive than most simply due to location. Any input would be appreciated.

 

[DreamLover]

Does anyone have any ideas as to the competetiveness of the Los Angeles area anesthesia programs. As far as I know there are 6, these being:
Loma Linda
Charles Drew
UCLA med center
USC med center
UCI
Harbor UCLA

My guess would be that they are probably more competetive than most simply due to location. Any input would be appreciated.

you're right...especially if you are not from the west coast...you pretty much have to be a primo candidate to get a spot out there

but I am sure there are always exceptions (a neccessary disclaimer)

 

[Westardly]

Do you mean from the west coast as in attending school on west coast? I am from LA and attend school in midwest, wanted to save some money on living costs through school. All the fam however is back west and I am looking to head back that way if possible.

 

[OB1🤙]

I'd strike King/Drew off that list since the hospital is essentially closing and patient care is being transferred to Harbor-UCLA. They're listed in ERAS still, but you definitely wouldn't even want to apply there.

 

[gallardo]

Drew/King program no longer exist.

Los Angeles area Anesthesiology programs are extremely competitive because there is only a handful of them (I wouldn't consider Loma Linda as one of them, since it is two hours away with traffic from downtown LA and there's always traffic in LA. To compare, UCSD is two hours away from LA and that's in a different city), therefore, it's only

UCLA
UCI
USC
HarborUCLA

and Harbor only takes 4 residents every year and UCI only 8. UCLA and USC are the only big programs with UCLA taking 18 last year and I believe USC took about 22?? not quite sure tho.

Harbor interviewed 215 candidates for those 4 spots. UCI and UCLA only interviewed 6-7 candidates for every spot available.

When I spoke to Loma Linda residents, they said they go out to LA maybe once every month or every other because it is such a big deal and a hassle to drive out there. Actually, their biggest complaint about the program was the location. They told me there is nothing to do around the area and everything closes early and it gets boring really fast. They really liked the program but location was such a big minus.

Addendum: as mentioned above, it's even more competitive for out-of-state candidates (those who attend med school outside of CA) because each of these programs save about half of their positions for their own students or other Cali students, and most cali students prefer to stay in california.

 

[MACguy]

I am currently a Drew resident in anesthesiology.
Let me correct one mistake here. Martin Luther King hospital will be downsized to community hospital, not closed. There will sever all the ties with Charles Drew university, meaning, no residency programs at all will be there.
So, thanks to our program director, we were able to find another base (hospital) to do our training in, and guess what? it is Cedars-Sinai Medical Center!
The program new name will be Drew-Cedars Sinai Anesthesiology program. everything is approved now from all parts (Drew, Cedars, ACGME..etc), and formal and legal. just waiting to rearrange the house from inside for other residency programs, before they change the name in ERAS and start accepting the applications.
So, if you would like to be trained in Cedars Sinai, you are welcome to join our program,and, we do offer PGY1 spots.
qs are welcome.

 

[MedicinePowder]

it's tough to get a spot. loma linda is proabably the less desired considering the location, but since it's inbred, it's almost a waste of time to interview there. harbor-ucla, again, has four spots and they interview an insane number of people. usc has the bigger class, proabably easier to match, but it's a weak program--all FMG faculty, large training site for SRNA's, so u'll do cases with SRNAs in a number of rotations, no regional blocks, minimal teaching etc. etc.

 

[Painter1]

MACguy, check your private messages. I send you a message.

 

[behindthadeuce]

well, now that everyone has severely discouraged us lowly med students from the east coast, how about a little advice on getting out to so.cal for residency??? any help appreciated 😱

 

[gallardo]

If I was an applicant, I would hold off applying to Drew/King Anesthesia program for now until an official announcement is made about this supposedly merging with Cedars. Call the program to find out or speak with somebody at Cedars Anesthesia department.

Pretty much all SoCal Anesthesia residents rotate through Cedars-Sinai for various sub-specialty months. Residents from UCLA, UCI, UCLA-Harbor and I think USC also, all rotate through Cedars. From what I understand, Cedars is already affiliated with UCLA as one of its core hospitals just as CHLA is affiliated with USC.

For Cedars to take on all of the residents from Drew due to loss of their program seems like a hard transition to make. This means Cedars has to work with five different Anesthesia programs to dramatically change their and its own curriculum. I don't think this is something that can be accomplished in couple of weeks. Because Anesthesia is not like other fields where you can just add on residents to an already existing program since Cedars have set number of ORs and you really can't have more than one resident doing a case.

For the sake of Drew residents, I hope they do find a new home at Cedar-Sinai. I guess if you are desperate about staying/ending up in socal, applying to Drew program can be viable option for less than optimal candidates. However, just remember that TANSTAAFL. Good luck to all!