- Joined
- Mar 19, 2003
- Messages
- 167
- Reaction score
- 3
Residents: A smart and happy bunch. Pre-interview was at an attendings house for "Rosen club" where they go over a chapter. Bulk of time was social, academic stuff wasn't broken out until all were appropriately lubed with a drink or two. Residents and faculty seemed to genuinely enjoy one anothers company. Tour of facilities and lunch were with residents, again friendly, laid back, and well spoken. Only potential negative is that there are lots of people who did med schoolin Chicago here.
Faculty: Chair lectured in AM and was present intermittently through the day. I view this as an indicator of interested leadership. Many references were made to improvements he has made fro the program during his tenure. PD and associate PD seemed strong. Both very approachable and very "human." Got the impression that resident faculty relations would be easy here. Only potential problem is general youth of faculty...not a lot of the "old dog" types who have been around the field for 20+ years.
Facilities: Northwestern Memorial downtown is a brand new 60 bed ED, annual volume around 90K. It has an enormous obs unit. Can't remember details about number of beds, but layout seemed user friendly. Level 1 trauma designation and EMS direction site. Children's Memorial in Lincoln Park for 3 ED blocks and a peds ward block. Level 1 trauma, volume quoted at 50K+ annually and has a big nat'l rep as a peds hospital. Evanston Hospital and Glenbrook serve as community style exposures, spend about 8 months between these over 4 yrs, both see integrated peds. Both around 30 minute drive from downtown. During 2nd and 4th yrs do 1 month block on trauma team at Cook County, serve as team leader as 4th yr.
Curriculum: Clearly the strength of the program. Clinical curriculum includes 31 months of ED, 8 months of ICU, exposure to good breadth of off-service, and 4.5 months of elective time. Well-defined graduated responsibility leading up to overseeing the entire dept 4th year. Didactic curriculum is "modular," ie systems based topics covered for full month at a time. Curriculum repeats every two years to ensure exposure to each topic at some point during your 4 yrs. Residents enroll in an academic college beginning 2nd yr in either research, administration, or education. Purpose is to provide mentorship, facilitate development of scholarly project, and help towrds niche development. Also workshops on professional development and sim labs throughout 4 yrs.
Patient population: Pt pop ranges from CEOs in skyscrapers to homeless under bridges at NW Memorial. Children's has standard pop plus tertiary exposure. Evanston and Glenbrook serve more suburban population. Cook is standard county pop.
Shifts: Mixture of 8-10-12 site and year dependent. I believe intern year is all 8's. ED month total hours something like 190/mo yrs 1 and 2, 180 yr 3, 165 yr 4.
City: Chicago is what it is...the booming metropolis of the midwest. Activites and resources of a NY/LA with a nice midwestern personality. Generally young an fun, still actively growing. Killer bar scene, sports, music, theater, shopping galore. Weather is crappy cold windy gray for 5-6 months a year. Lakefront is the summertime is outstanding and there are festivals nearly every weekend. Public transportation exists but is not that great. It can get you around town but stops aren't very well located, particularly in relation to hospitals. Traffic blows. Cost of living high but not as terrible as NY/Boston/Cali.
Overall: I came away very impressed and will rank it somewhere in my top 5, possibly 1st. 4th year is put to good use here and justified in my opinion. Upsides are dedication to education with thoughtful curriculum geared towards professional development, strong leadership, good resident/faculty camraderie, critical care, and multiple practice style exposures. Downsides are overall youth of faculty, preponderance of Chicago trained individuals, lack of consistently integrated peds, some question about patient pop exposure. I have the impression training here would be very comfortable. Probably not the place for people who want to be stretched to the limit or totally autonomous from day one. Trainees will likely leave best prepared for academic, administrative, or suburban community practice.
Faculty: Chair lectured in AM and was present intermittently through the day. I view this as an indicator of interested leadership. Many references were made to improvements he has made fro the program during his tenure. PD and associate PD seemed strong. Both very approachable and very "human." Got the impression that resident faculty relations would be easy here. Only potential problem is general youth of faculty...not a lot of the "old dog" types who have been around the field for 20+ years.
Facilities: Northwestern Memorial downtown is a brand new 60 bed ED, annual volume around 90K. It has an enormous obs unit. Can't remember details about number of beds, but layout seemed user friendly. Level 1 trauma designation and EMS direction site. Children's Memorial in Lincoln Park for 3 ED blocks and a peds ward block. Level 1 trauma, volume quoted at 50K+ annually and has a big nat'l rep as a peds hospital. Evanston Hospital and Glenbrook serve as community style exposures, spend about 8 months between these over 4 yrs, both see integrated peds. Both around 30 minute drive from downtown. During 2nd and 4th yrs do 1 month block on trauma team at Cook County, serve as team leader as 4th yr.
Curriculum: Clearly the strength of the program. Clinical curriculum includes 31 months of ED, 8 months of ICU, exposure to good breadth of off-service, and 4.5 months of elective time. Well-defined graduated responsibility leading up to overseeing the entire dept 4th year. Didactic curriculum is "modular," ie systems based topics covered for full month at a time. Curriculum repeats every two years to ensure exposure to each topic at some point during your 4 yrs. Residents enroll in an academic college beginning 2nd yr in either research, administration, or education. Purpose is to provide mentorship, facilitate development of scholarly project, and help towrds niche development. Also workshops on professional development and sim labs throughout 4 yrs.
Patient population: Pt pop ranges from CEOs in skyscrapers to homeless under bridges at NW Memorial. Children's has standard pop plus tertiary exposure. Evanston and Glenbrook serve more suburban population. Cook is standard county pop.
Shifts: Mixture of 8-10-12 site and year dependent. I believe intern year is all 8's. ED month total hours something like 190/mo yrs 1 and 2, 180 yr 3, 165 yr 4.
City: Chicago is what it is...the booming metropolis of the midwest. Activites and resources of a NY/LA with a nice midwestern personality. Generally young an fun, still actively growing. Killer bar scene, sports, music, theater, shopping galore. Weather is crappy cold windy gray for 5-6 months a year. Lakefront is the summertime is outstanding and there are festivals nearly every weekend. Public transportation exists but is not that great. It can get you around town but stops aren't very well located, particularly in relation to hospitals. Traffic blows. Cost of living high but not as terrible as NY/Boston/Cali.
Overall: I came away very impressed and will rank it somewhere in my top 5, possibly 1st. 4th year is put to good use here and justified in my opinion. Upsides are dedication to education with thoughtful curriculum geared towards professional development, strong leadership, good resident/faculty camraderie, critical care, and multiple practice style exposures. Downsides are overall youth of faculty, preponderance of Chicago trained individuals, lack of consistently integrated peds, some question about patient pop exposure. I have the impression training here would be very comfortable. Probably not the place for people who want to be stretched to the limit or totally autonomous from day one. Trainees will likely leave best prepared for academic, administrative, or suburban community practice.