Mid-West Programs

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Washington University of St. Louis
Michigan
Nebraska(you may laugh but it is a solid program)

The first two definitely don't fly under the radar but Nebraska does.
 
Thanks. Not much talk on here about Nebraska. I'll definately check it out.
 
Definitely agree on Nebraska, solid program.
 
Rush is a solid program in Chicago. Hospital is making a lot of dough. Trains you well for private practice.
 
So, you have to live in Cleveland without LeBron...but this program is high volume, non-malignant, has good teaching, and great faculty. Also we have no fellows, so all the crazy cases go to the senior residents. Three time redo AVR/MVR? Us. Liver transplants? Us, one on one with an attending. Also we have excellent moonlighting opportunities.
 
Iowa is outstanding! They do regionals like crazy there. Program is rock solid and built for resident education as #1.

I interviewed there and I have a friend in the program who is very happy. Iowa City is very small, but hell - the program is well worth it.
 
Sammich81 said:
So, you have to live in Cleveland without LeBron...but this program is high volume, non-malignant, has good teaching, and great faculty. Also we have no fellows, so all the crazy cases go to the senior residents. Three time redo AVR/MVR? Us. Liver transplants? Us, one on one with an attending. Also we have excellent moonlighting opportunities.
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👍
 
I will add that UKentucky in Lexington is phenomenal. The leadership is excellent, residents are wonderful, town is great for families and buying a home, very education-oriented program. Good luck in your search!
 
I was very impressed with both Kentucy and Iowa. Both seem to be fantastic programs with awesome residents. Michigan use to be great, but not sure as of late from some of the previous post on SDN (last year or 2).

Goodluck!

CJ
 
What does everyone know about Uchicago and northwestern? Mayo? vanderbilt?? (i know it's in the south... but not too deep.)
 
Sammich81 said:
So, you have to live in Cleveland without LeBron...but this program is high volume, non-malignant, has good teaching, and great faculty. Also we have no fellows, so all the crazy cases go to the senior residents. Three time redo AVR/MVR? Us. Liver transplants? Us, one on one with an attending. Also we have excellent moonlighting opportunities.
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100% agree.
 
Sammich81 said:
So, you have to live in Cleveland without LeBron...but this program is high volume, non-malignant, has good teaching, and great faculty. Also we have no fellows, so all the crazy cases go to the senior residents. Three time redo AVR/MVR? Us. Liver transplants? Us, one on one with an attending. Also we have excellent moonlighting opportunities.
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Why was Case UH on probation recently?
 
Don't forget to check out CCF. Definitely a program where you will work hard, but the cases here that you can learn from are great. As interns, people have done a lot peripheral nerve blocks and thoracic epidurals during the regional month. In the ICU we have a lot heart and lung transplant patients and many patients on LVAD, ECMO and IABP. Some interns will start OR as early as October. It is scary but I think it is fun.
 
While you guys are talking about it, does anyone have any thoughts/experiences with the Southwestern-ish programs? Specifically Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Mayo in AZ, New Mexico? I'm from the East Coast so I'm trying to get a better impression of those programs.

Thanks in advance.
 
Kentucky is a great program. I thought Indiana was pretty good, too, but Kentucky was more resident friendly.

Somewhere between midwest and southwest is Oklahoma. I'm a pgy1 in the program and couldn't be happier.
 
Goodplaya said:
While you guys are talking about it, does anyone have any thoughts/experiences with the Southwestern-ish programs? Specifically Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Mayo in AZ, New Mexico? I'm from the East Coast so I'm trying to get a better impression of those programs.

Thanks in advance.
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Anyone, anyone?? 😕
 
mdage said:
Don't forget to check out CCF. Definitely a program where you will work hard, but the cases here that you can learn from are great. As interns, people have done a lot peripheral nerve blocks and thoracic epidurals during the regional month. In the ICU we have a lot heart and lung transplant patients and many patients on LVAD, ECMO and IABP. Some interns will start OR as early as October. It is scary but I think it is fun.
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check out CCF, but with caution. My interview day there was brutal. Residents didn't seem to want to be there and the faculty didn't seem interested in teaching primarily.


That's just my 2 cents. I'm sure things can change and I may have caught them on a bad day, but I ranked them dead last on my rank list.
 
Mman said:
check out CCF, but with caution. My interview day there was brutal. Residents didn't seem to want to be there and the faculty didn't seem interested in teaching primarily.


That's just my 2 cents. I'm sure things can change and I may have caught them on a bad day, but I ranked them dead last on my rank list.
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Completely disagree. The big bosses of the CCF program are really trying to make it a top tier program, starting with putting a major emphasis on education. There are always unhappy residents but those are the ones that complain about everything and anything and dont want to work hard. Most of the residents I know are happy with the clinical exposure that they receive and would choose the program again. Yeah you work hard but you will have no problems finding a job once you graduate because everyone knows that if you train here, you see the sickest patients, have the latest technology, and would be comfortable with pretty much any surgical complication out there. The intern year is probably one of the most cush intern years out there. Maybe 2-3 months of call. No floor medicine months. 3 to 4 months of anesthesia.

I would definitely say consider CCF. As for location, cleveland is not too bad.

:hello:
 
Goodplaya said:
While you guys are talking about it, does anyone have any thoughts/experiences with the Southwestern-ish programs? Specifically Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Mayo in AZ, New Mexico? I'm from the East Coast so I'm trying to get a better impression of those programs.

Thanks in advance.
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I'm from AZ so I was keenly interested in these programs. I ended up elsewhere for residency.

Univ of Arizona: I thought it was an ok program when I interviewed there. I got the impression that they were deficient in chronic pain management and may be suspect with regional. Nice people. Very light weekend call. Tucson is a hole to live in.

Mayo: Great Mayo name, BUT it's not your Mayo Rochester. Mayo Scottsdale is very light on peds, very light on trauma, and very heavy on CRNAs. I did not interview there but from what I've heard I'd probably feel like case volume is too light. On the plus side, you'd get plenty of transplants. Also on the plus side, you'd get to live in the Phoenix/Scottsdale metro area.
 
5twilight5 said:
Completely disagree. The big bosses of the CCF program are really trying to make it a top tier program, starting with putting a major emphasis on education. There are always unhappy residents but those are the ones that complain about everything and anything and dont want to work hard. Most of the residents I know are happy with the clinical exposure that they receive and would choose the program again. Yeah you work hard but you will have no problems finding a job once you graduate because everyone knows that if you train here, you see the sickest patients, have the latest technology, and would be comfortable with pretty much any surgical complication out there. The intern year is probably one of the most cush intern years out there. Maybe 2-3 months of call. No floor medicine months. 3 to 4 months of anesthesia.

I would definitely say consider CCF. As for location, cleveland is not too bad.

:hello:
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You can't have 3-4 months of anesthesia during your intern year. That wouldn't meet the minimum requirements for a clinical base year. You can split your intern year over a 2 year period. It makes the pgy1 year sound better but is probably not really a great idea. You have to pay the piper sometime. Better to get it over with and focus on anesthesia with less interruption. There's too much interruption from pain, icu, research, ob, preop clinic, or pacu rotations as it is.
 
Can anyone comment on U of Missouri-Columbia program?
 
Gardner said:
I'm from AZ so I was keenly interested in these programs. I ended up elsewhere for residency.

Univ of Arizona: I thought it was an ok program when I interviewed there. I got the impression that they were deficient in chronic pain management and may be suspect with regional. Nice people. Very light weekend call. Tucson is a hole to live in.

Mayo: Great Mayo name, BUT it's not your Mayo Rochester. Mayo Scottsdale is very light on peds, very light on trauma, and very heavy on CRNAs. I did not interview there but from what I've heard I'd probably feel like case volume is too light. On the plus side, you'd get plenty of transplants. Also on the plus side, you'd get to live in the Phoenix/Scottsdale metro area.
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Thanks, I definitely appreciate the input. Disappointing to hear about Mayo, but hopefully U of A has picked up the slack in their deficient areas. Did you happen to interview anywhere else in that general area of the country?
 
Idiopathic said:
Several Vandy people around. I feel like its a very good program
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Vandy won my heart. I love that place. I did a month rotation there. They have EVERYTHING you could possibly want or need out of a program. AND their residents are some of the nicest, smartest, most fun residents to work with. I felt the same way about most of the attendings as well. The camaraderie is extraordinary....and I'm comparing all this to all the other non-anesthesia residency programs at my school (our anesthesiology is private practice at our hospital). I've never met such a happy group of residents. Ever.
 
5twilight5 said:
Completely disagree. The big bosses of the CCF program are really trying to make it a top tier program, starting with putting a major emphasis on education.
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I'm glad they are trying to change it, but it's certainly not a top tier program right now.
 
WORK HOURS:
As current resident I can tell you that we are busy but not getting killed. I would say most weeks avg 65 hrs. Obviously some less, some more but I have never hit 80 probably very rarely hit 70.

CALL:
Call schedule is a bit confusing but after a week you have it down. In short we have two overnight call residents during the week. Both leave at 7 AM, one comes in at 11 AM the other at 3 PM. Not a bad deal especially considering you get out early (earlier than normal) when pre-call. On the weekend 2, 24 Hr call residents.

CASE LOAD:
I would put the acuity of cases up with any program in the country. Couple that will the fact that we have zero fellows means we (the residents) do all the big cases. For example I'm just a couple months into CA-2 year and I've done a couple Liver transplants and 9 pedi-hearts including 2 hypoplastic left hearts < year. Just about anywhere else these cases would go to the fellows. We are also the only trauma center in So AZ, W NM and cover a chunk of N Mexico (for better or worse) so you can imagine there is no shortage of trauma-train-wrecks.

REGIONAL AND CHRONIC PAIN:
We essentially have 2 dedicated regional months and get way more the numbers needed to graduate. Add in blocks for outpatient surgery at our surgicenter or satellite hospital and you are very comfortable with a needle in hand. All blocks are U/S guided, I guess this is both good and bad. I little more nerve stim would probably be helpful.

Chronic pain is going strong. Again no fellows, this means you get all the procedures.

MOONLIGHTING:
For years our dept pushed back against moonlighting but now we can take an elective 8 hr shift on the weekend in our main OR for 50/hr. Not bad.

WEAKNESS:
I would say we are a little soft the number of intracranial aneurysm and carotids. We do tons of neuro but few these. However, most residents take an elective and go to Barrows Neurologic in PHX for a month. This place is world famous for aneurysms and other big neuro cases. It's also a nice semi-vacation month.

SUMMARY:
Basically, we work pretty hard but get big big cases almost from day one. If you want to get out by 2 or 3 PM I'd look elsewhere...(maybe a different specialty altogether) but if you want to feel like you can handle anything that rolls through your door come on down to the "Old Pueblo."
 
Just curious what anyone thinks of the program at Indiana. It seems really big and they take a lot of their own students...I don't know if that is good or bad. Anyway, I have family in Fort Wayne and think I should at least check it out. I would also be curious what the national reputation is like. I don't know that I want to spend my whole career in the Midwest.
 
Also curious about what people think of Indiana, and Michigan as well (some comments I read on this site surprised me about UMich). Based on the ACGME site data these are two of the biggest programs out there. Anyone out there train at one of these places. What was the training like, and did tou feel like you got true personal attention in these programs?
 
GameSeven said:
Also curious about what people think of Indiana, and Michigan as well (some comments I read on this site surprised me about UMich). Based on the ACGME site data these are two of the biggest programs out there. Anyone out there train at one of these places. What was the training like, and did tou feel like you got true personal attention in these programs?
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In the interview feedback section on this site people have some really good things to say about Michigan, but those are people who interviewed, not necessarily who trained there. I agree, some of the comments on Michigan in the past few years are a bit concerning, but I would assume those issues are totally resolved.

Not much on this site at all about Indiana. Still hoping someone could comment about that program.:xf:
 
randydandy said:
In the interview feedback section on this site people have some really good things to say about Michigan, but those are people who interviewed, not necessarily who trained there. I agree, some of the comments on Michigan in the past few years are a bit concerning, but I would assume those issues are totally resolved.

Not much on this site at all about Indiana. Still hoping someone could comment about that program.:xf:
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Thanks for mentioning the Interview Feedback section on this site. I am new to it and hadnt looked at that before, but seems like lotsa helpful info on several different places.

However, it doesnt have a review for Ohio State or Indiana. Seems like this forum has very little to say about either of those two places at all.
 
Goodplaya said:
Thanks, I definitely appreciate the input. Disappointing to hear about Mayo, but hopefully U of A has picked up the slack in their deficient areas. Did you happen to interview anywhere else in that general area of the country?
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U of A was my only interview in the West. All the others were in the Midwest and NY.
 
randydandy said:
In the interview feedback section on this site people have some really good things to say about Michigan, but those are people who interviewed, not necessarily who trained there. I agree, some of the comments on Michigan in the past few years are a bit concerning, but I would assume those issues are totally resolved.

Not much on this site at all about Indiana. Still hoping someone could comment about that program.:xf:
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Indiana

* Huge program 26/year
* The only program in Indiana

Pros
1. Huge program and huge hospital system, has everything, solid clinical training
2. pretty good work hour and life.
(Probably that is why so many IU grads go to their own program)
3. Perfect city for family, safe and cheap.
4. Great city for football fans (COLTS!)
5. No CRNAs

Cons
1. Indy has nothing for singles.
2. Not a research oriented program (if you are interested in academic career...)
3. No CRNAs (it can be cons,,,sometimes)
4. Inbreeding
 
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Why don't you put inbreeding at the top of the Cons list? That place is notorious for that... I see where they are coming from-hoping to internally recruit for faculty/jobs in the area....
 
I can comment about IU since I went to medical school there and was apart of the Anesthesia interest group there. A ton of medical students at IU went into anesthesia, probably due to us having a mandatory 3rd year rotation in anesthesia, 2 perceived lifestyle(In at 7 out at noon), and also having a large medical school roughly 300 medical students in each class. I have a few friends within the residency and most are happy. You rotate at multiple sites, Wishard for Trauma and OB as well as B+B, University for vascular, thoracic and gyn-onc, VA for vascular, Methodist for Hearts, Riley for peds. I would say IU is a very balanced residency in that you have broad exposure only weakness is Hearts. Also, way back in the day a guy named Miller went to residency there, also Stoetling is a part of the department ( I never met him or saw him in my 4 years at IU). Indiana itself is a very anti-CRNA state, I saw one CRNA in the entire program at the VA( his job was to sit the whole case didn't intubate did not do any lines). I liked IU but wanted to see a different way of administering anesthesia. I wanted to know what it would be like to work with CRNA's(lets face it we ARE going to be working with them in our practice). Most of the staff, went to IU for undegrad, IU for medical school, IU for residency, and are now staff at IU. Their is nothing wrong with their perceived in-breeding, my goal is to be a more diverse anesthesiologist.
 
Wow, interesting to hear. I've heard it's a fairly difficult program to get into since there aren't very many programs out west. I have a buddy who rotated through there and he said he liked the program, however he only spent a month there.
 
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kazuma said:
Wow, interesting to hear. I've heard it's a fairly difficult program to get into since there aren't very many programs out west. I have a buddy who rotated through there and he said he liked the program, however he only spent a month there.
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Yeah, I can't speak on the level of difficulty getting in. I am an average applicant and I got in and it was my top choice. Anyway all I can say is that the program is under new management. Whether that plays out nicely in the long run will wait to be seen. As of now, it ain't that nice anymore. The PD is trying to change things around and you know how that can go. Like I said, counting down.
 
chocomorsel said:
Yeah, I can't speak on the level of difficulty getting in. I am an average applicant and I got in and it was my top choice. Anyway all I can say is that the program is under new management. Whether that plays out nicely in the long run will wait to be seen. As of now, it ain't that nice anymore. The PD is trying to change things around and you know how that can go. Like I said, counting down.
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That's good to hear. We (current applicants) appreciate your honesty. Hang in there, I'm sure this year will be over before you know it. :xf:
 
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