Malignant programs

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Chrome19

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What radiology programs have reputations of being malignant? The worst thing is to be sold a nice atmosphere and then match at a place with lots of politics, bickering and resident abuse.
 
By the way, long hours and good volume does not mean malignant.
 
If by "reputation" do you mean "rumors of malignancy"? Most of the posts on forums about any specific program are highly suspect.

Honestly you're not going to be able to really tell because most places put on a great show for their applicants.
 
Really looking forward to an informational and educational discussion on this topic...😉:laugh:
 
by far, Mallinckrodt/Wash U. The most malignant program in the country. It's such a shame because the rest of the hospital is so awesome and the other residency programs are fantastic. Let me tell you what the insiders know about this program--how it developed a malignant reputation about two decades ago. It really is based on two people. Whom when fired, should return the program to its former glory.

There is no teaching and the faculty are more interested in leaving as soon as possible after the workday-they seem severely overworked. The program director is not a radiologist. The self crowned "chair of education" is an narcissistic madman who is very polarizing--white residents like him--many don't. He actively bullies and harasses residents who do not worship him.

There are so many rumors floating around the interview circuit and amongst the residents about how terrible a program director Dr. Gould she is. Many call her the worst program director in the country and people assume that's why "they" keep her away from the applicants. Every single chief resident is highly critical of her and regarding interactions with her and openly criticize her with other residents. Not a single resident or alumni has ever said she is a good PD, residents who never interact with her have heard bad things, and residents who have interacted with her have nothing good to say. She refuses to listen to the resident but pretends to get their side of the story when any issues come up on night float, etc. Honestly, she has no idea what it means to be a diagnostic radiologist. At the core, she really does not care about any of the residents, is a pathological liar, and truly, a terrible human being. She has absolutely no integrity and will throw the resident under the bus every time if it means saving a couple minutes of her day. The vast perception amongst the residents is that she is a checklist machine, nothing more. And honestly, it's impossible to be a good PD if you're operating in a vacuum while NEVER interacting with the vast majority of residents.

With regards to said chair (Bhalla) he presents himself as a grandiose professor who is the main force behind training residents at the Mallinckrodt. Dr. Bhalla presents himself as a grandiose professor who is an excellent radiologist and is the main force behind training residents at the Mallinckrodt. Yet he is a demeaning, childish sloth who rushes through studies and exams as fast as he can, and makes many, many mistakes in his reports. His reports are utter crap, and yet he demeans residents for their reports, forcing everyone to adopt his poor, sloppy style. Dr. Bhalla has nothing in his personal life, and so he takes comfort in belittling and bullying the residents who refuse to worship him. Many times, he directly compares these residents to residents who continually sing his praises, effectively telling them they should leave radiology and learn from residents below their training level. Even reports that have no issue, Dr. Bhalla makes up problems and fabricates issues for residents he does not like, and effectively prevented some residents from learning radiology so that he can prove he is right. He casually and frequently engages in criminal harassment. And he is vice chair of education. That is utterly insane. Someone this unprofessional, hateful, and demeaning *cannot* be in a position of that much power. He needs to be marginalized as much as possible and put in a position like Harvey Glazer. He will eventually have to leave the Mallinckrodt, and when he does, he will be remembered as a blight on Mallinckrodt's excellence. So many resident lives destroyed by this terrible, evil man.

If you choose MIR for residency please be very well aware that you'll have to deal with these narcissists and liars. The medical center has such fantastic pathology, and there are many wonderful people. I just wouldn't touch this place until these two clowns leave.
Wait, you said the PD is not a radiologist, but they’re a DR from Mallinckrodt and did a fellowship in IR. What did you mean by that?
 
Not to derail but I heard thru the grapevine 3 residents left UAMS in the past 3 years...
 
by far, Mallinckrodt/Wash U. The most malignant program in the country. It's such a shame because the rest of the hospital is so awesome and the other residency programs are fantastic. Let me tell you what the insiders know about this program--how it developed a malignant reputation about two decades ago. It really is based on two people. Whom when fired, should return the program to its former glory.

There is no teaching and the faculty are more interested in leaving as soon as possible after the workday-they seem severely overworked. The program director is not a radiologist. The self crowned "chair of education" is an narcissistic madman who is very polarizing--white residents like him--many don't. He actively bullies and harasses residents who do not worship him.

There are so many rumors floating around the interview circuit and amongst the residents about how terrible a program director Dr. Gould she is. Many call her the worst program director in the country and people assume that's why "they" keep her away from the applicants. Every single chief resident is highly critical of her and regarding interactions with her and openly criticize her with other residents. Not a single resident or alumni has ever said she is a good PD, residents who never interact with her have heard bad things, and residents who have interacted with her have nothing good to say. She refuses to listen to the resident but pretends to get their side of the story when any issues come up on night float, etc. Honestly, she has no idea what it means to be a diagnostic radiologist. At the core, she really does not care about any of the residents, is a pathological liar, and truly, a terrible human being. She has absolutely no integrity and will throw the resident under the bus every time if it means saving a couple minutes of her day. The vast perception amongst the residents is that she is a checklist machine, nothing more. And honestly, it's impossible to be a good PD if you're operating in a vacuum while NEVER interacting with the vast majority of residents.

With regards to said chair (Bhalla) he presents himself as a grandiose professor who is the main force behind training residents at the Mallinckrodt. Dr. Bhalla presents himself as a grandiose professor who is an excellent radiologist and is the main force behind training residents at the Mallinckrodt. Yet he is a demeaning, childish sloth who rushes through studies and exams as fast as he can, and makes many, many mistakes in his reports. His reports are utter crap, and yet he demeans residents for their reports, forcing everyone to adopt his poor, sloppy style. Dr. Bhalla has nothing in his personal life, and so he takes comfort in belittling and bullying the residents who refuse to worship him. Many times, he directly compares these residents to residents who continually sing his praises, effectively telling them they should leave radiology and learn from residents below their training level. Even reports that have no issue, Dr. Bhalla makes up problems and fabricates issues for residents he does not like, and effectively prevented some residents from learning radiology so that he can prove he is right. He casually and frequently engages in criminal harassment. And he is vice chair of education. That is utterly insane. Someone this unprofessional, hateful, and demeaning *cannot* be in a position of that much power. He needs to be marginalized as much as possible and put in a position like Harvey Glazer. He will eventually have to leave the Mallinckrodt, and when he does, he will be remembered as a blight on Mallinckrodt's excellence. So many resident lives destroyed by this terrible, evil man.

If you choose MIR for residency please be very well aware that you'll have to deal with these narcissists and liars. The medical center has such fantastic pathology, and there are many wonderful people. I just wouldn't touch this place until these two clowns leave.

This person has been maligning MIR and Drs. Gould/Bhalla since 2020. Posting on SDN, posting Yelp and Google reviews, posting negative Amazon reviews on books specific MIR faculty publish. It's quite pathetic. The patterns in the complaints are always the same, so it's clearly the same person over and over again. This person should find a new hobby. As an MIR alum from several years ago who had a very positive experience in the program, here's some rebuttal to this nonsense:

1. The program director is an interventional radiologist. The vast majority of residents don't reflect this visceral hatred this poster has for her. Dr. Gould has been the PD for a while, and she personally fought with the hospital to get MIR residents NUMEROUS fantastic moonlighting options. She should be in the Hall of Fame of MIR faculty for that alone. Dr. Gould's main job is getting compliance with ACGME in order and herding residents towards graduation. She does a thankless job and some people completely miss how hard she works and how it's always in the residents' best interests.
2. "Self crowned chair of education"...this is a phrase this person uses a lot in their posts, but Sanjeev Bhalla is not self crowned, he is the literal Vice Chair of Education and was named that in 2015.
3. Sanjeev Bhalla is an incredible teacher, well loved by the vast majority of MIR residents, fellows, faculty, and alumni. He's one of the reasons people go there and stay there for fellowships, because he's such an incredible teacher and mentor. This person who posts these reviews keeps singling out Bhalla which speaks to me that this person has a personal grudge against Bhalla and they can't get over it. It's been 2 years of these reviews, give it up already.
4. Don't understand the pot shot at Harvey Glazer, one of the nicest old-school chest radiologists you'd ever meet. Makes me think this person is extremely petty.

MIR graduates are well trained and the vast majority have good experiences there. It's a place that asks you to work pretty hard, but you are rewarded with high volumes, complex cases, and excellent experience. The teaching is great. I wouldn't put much stock into this persistently negative person with obvious personal grudges against Dr. Bhalla and Dr. Gould. These posts are starting to border on slander and accusations of incompetence. Why on earth the SDN mods are letting this garbage sit around here is beyond me.
 
Single message, posted from an account that is one day old.

Evil is an extraordinarily strong term that I feel like is more applicable to the like of Hitler, Ed Kemper, Mao, etc. A former PD probably not unless there is strong evidence linking them to a string of gruesome murders

I’ve heard a fair share of independent criticisms about WashU leadership and training that makes it worth raising an eyebrow at, but whoever this guy is clearly has an axe to grind and is unhinged. Even people I know whose careers were legitimately vindictively destroyed don’t sound as toxic as this guy does toward WashU leadership. This is weird.

FYI, if you’re going to call yourself multiple residents, you’d do well to change up your writing style to make it a little more apparent you’re not the same poster as before.
 
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Some programs are not overall malignant, but can have malignant sections. In my residency, there were one or two sections that were known to have real jackass attendings. Unfortunately, some of them also covered evening and overnight call, so you had to be around them that much more. Some of them got out into private practice locally, and quickly established their reputation there as well.
 
The lore of one day old accounts trashing WashU continues 😀 you have to appreciate the dedication
 
The lore of one day old accounts trashing WashU continues 😀 you have to appreciate the dedication

Still. Any public criticism or aired out dirty laundry will automatically make the programs look less appealing amongst prospective applicants and risk being ranked bottom of the list, even if they're baseless or unwarranted.

It may be popcorn material, but I know I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about ranking this program high on NRMP if I read all these drama in this thread as a med student.
 
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Still. Any public criticism or aired out dirty laundry will automatically make the programs look less appealing amongst prospective applicants and risk being ranked bottom of the list, even if they're baseless or unwarranted.

It maybe popcorn material, but I know I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about ranking this program high on NRMP if I read all these drama in this thread as a med student.
We’re gonna get a new message in another half year from another one-day-old account written in the exact same style.
 
We’re gonna get a new message in another half year from another one-day-old account written in the exact same style.
you love to believe this is the work of one person. Dunno why you like MIR so much. But the majority of your colleagues hate that utter piece of **** of a chest section. Half your class boycotted the graduation. Think about it. The rest of the mallinckrodt is ok. A lot of it has completely imploded (msk-2 ppl left, out of 14, when you start to when you finish), peds (completely imploded and severely understaffed).
 
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if I can save one med student from entering this program i will have done my job.
 
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you love to believe this is the work of one person. Dunno why you like MIR so much. But the majority of your colleagues hate that utter piece of **** of a chest section. Half your class boycotted the graduation. Think about it. The rest of the mallinckrodt is ok. A lot of it has completely imploded (msk-2 ppl left, out of 14, when you start to when you finish), peds (completely imploded and severely understaffed).

Sir this is a Wendy’s.

I do not, and have never gone to MIR lol.
 
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✔️ Complaint about chest section and Sanjeev Bhalla
✔️ Complaint about former program director
✔️ Accusations of racism

Yep, same guy with same axe to grind on another new account
 
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Faculty seem pretty miserable. Esp the chest guys. Why on earth anyone wants to work there if they can get a job anywhere else.
 
Faculty seem pretty miserable. Esp the chest guys. Why on earth anyone wants to work there if they can get a job anywhere else.
They do seem very miserable. Maybe that's why they're so malignant towards residents. The rest of the Mallinckrodt is actually decent. I agree a bunch of peeps in chest are way past retirement, they're quite dangerous without residents helping them.
 
I'm a graduating 4th year and will tell you a lot of the things you read online about MIR are true. They've made some tremendous improvements to the program! Kudos to them. It seems like most of it is now ok. It's just-as people have pointed out-the chest section. Some ppl in chest just read 20 chest x-rays a day and collect their paychecks. But the problem guys are the jock wanna-be's. They're disgustingly terrible outside of very niched specific chest things (UIP bs) that no one outside of academic radiology will care about but yet they pretend they're the greatest radiologists in the world, and expect you to worship them as such. They treat their presumed "jock suck up" residents well, but treat some residents they don't like worse than animals-bullying, harassment, intimidation-going as far as to try to fire them and prevent them from getting jobs. It has nothing to do with work ethnic, skills, interest. It literally has to do with whether Bhalla likes the way you look or not, and if not, he makes it a point to make your life as miserable as possible, and tells his acolytes (Costa) to do the same. So many of my colleagues discuss on nightfloat how to deal w chest. Most ppl just keep their head down and get thru, then move on. The main problem I see is Bhalla has Mallinckrodt. period. Not even radiology. Just Mallinckrodt. Outside of that, he has nothing. So if you're unfortunate enough to end up here, please be aware and don't step on the mines. Cheers!
 
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