sorry I offended you with my post...
to clarify some of the things I said, which as you pointed out was slightly off base...
2 Months on SICU as only an intern is not a very extensive ICU experience IMHO... from my interview (which was with one of the SICU attendings) there are no Surgical Critical Care attendings, only Medical and Gas attendings. While managing your SICU patients on other services is a good point, it is different than a dedicated ICU rotation. This is personal preferrence in what you want to be focusing on in your future, but something I wasn't impressed about
I didn't say no liver, I said no Liver Transplant. I also interviewed with one of the Transplant Surgeons and she was disappointed that the residents don't get the opportunity to rotate in the Liver Transplant service, and that it is because the older attendings don't want residents. As someone personally thinking of doing transplant b/c liver, one of my things I looked for in a program was time on the transplant service, and was disappointed with this fact (even though she said they are working on correcting it). Again, if you have no interest in this, this wouldn't have even made a blip on your radar
I said little autonomy. I know there are some services better than other, which is true everywhere, but my impression was as such. Elmhurst was actually an appealing part of the program, but then again, its in Queens, and thus is not at the host hospital. And if categoricals don't do Englewood at all, then I appologize but that was not clear during the interview.
And, about the fellows on every service, I am sure this has been debated and discussed on these forums and in other forums. Programs that don't have fellows and chiefs compete (either by not having fellows or by having them on different services) always exude the value of not having a fellow to compete with the chief or cherry picking, so that all the big cases go to the chief, while programs with fellows exude the fact that they are that busy/skilled/important to be able to support a fellow, and will make the claims that it doesn't dilute the chiefs experience or there is no competition, and usually they have some manor to try to achieve this. My personal opinion on the matter, and what is guiding how I rank programs is more towards the fewer the fellows the better.
Listen, not every program is perfect for every person. I hated on the interviews that programs tried to make it seem like they were a perfect place no matter what you want to do. There is no one correct way to train for surgery, no one mold. Everything is a balance, and each place only has 60 months to fit in everything they think is vital for a resident in training. If I was at Mt. Sinai, NYU, or any of the other places I interviewed, I know I will receive an excellent training, so I needed to decide what aspects of training was more important to me. I wanted to avoid a long detailed explanation of my thought process and just listed the categories of what dinged Sinai for me.
To revise my previous post, I erroneously stated NYU was much higher regarded in US World and News Report top hospitals... I was incorrect, as both are on the honor roll, with NYU having 10pts (#17) and Sinai having 9pts (#19). Fellowship wise too, they have a mixed bag, with NYU sending 5 of their last 5 to MSK for Onc while Sinai has had MD Anderson, MSK, Fox Chase, John Wayne for SSO approved, and Sinai and University of Portland as NonSSO programs, but for Pediatrics Sinai has had CHOP, Children's National, Columbia, whereas NYU has only 1 since 06 listed to University of Montreal, and for Colorectal Sinai has an extensive list (cedars-sinai, cleveland clinic, lahey, mayo, cornell, OHSU) while NYU is again lacking, but Transplant surgery seems to favor NYU (since none are listed for Sinai)... Regardless both are impressive lists, and look great to any prospective applicant.
So again, I am sorry to DontTouchThat if my post offended you and what is either your program you are at, you are a professor for, or you dream of some day attending. I admit my opinions are only mine and my preferrences might not be aligned with every other applicant, and I don't expect them to be. There is so much that differs from one residency to another and the type and specialty of fellowships vary greatly from place to place (as my little list above shows).
