MUSC Anesthesiology

[Ignatius J]

Just wondering in general what this program is like from people who interviewed there or even just hearsay.

I love Charleston and am strongly considering applying there next year but not being from the South I don't get to hear very much about it.

Any info is appreciated.

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[Gaseous Clay]

Just wondering in general what this program is like from people who interviewed there or even just hearsay.

I love Charleston and am strongly considering applying there next year but not being from the South I don't get to hear very much about it.

Any info is appreciated.

Sorry, may not be a terribly helpful post but I am interviewing in the south and have come across quite a few MUSC trained anesthesiologists. They have all seemed top notch.

 

[Dogdaze]

After growing up in the midwest I moved to Charleston for a job after college. Ended up being dissatisfied, quit, and applied to med school. Thus, I lived in Charleston for many years and went to med school at MUSC which is an excellent medical univ. It's reputation is equivalent to Emory, Duke, Wake, UNC.
The medical college's anesthesia dept. has CT and pain fellows, so that may influence your decision. Beware there is also an CRNA school, so may have to compete with SRNAs for cases. There was also some flux in the adminstration (new dept chair) when I was a MS3. Attendings were the usual mix of cool people eager to teach and those hoping to intimidate. Again, all this from a med student perspective. All interns did two months of anesthesia (months 1 & 12), so they had a running start on CA-1. Didactics at 3PM with a flood of CRNAs breaking out residents, in-patient pre-ops to follow. On early days, many residents would head to Folly Beach to go surfing. I believe they've added a simulator since I left.
Current PD was one year ahead of me while in MS. When I was MS4 and he was an intern he warned me that you had to know the Fick eqn. for residency interviews and be ready to answer knowledge based questions. I would bet the farm that that is how he treats interviewees. But I don't know for sure.
I LOVE Charleston as a city: beautiful, historical, beaches, excellent restaurants and nightlife, and extremely polite. The downsides are heat/humidity for 9-10 months of the year, palmetto "bugs", and public schools that are less than acceptable; and it's geting very crowded which is a strain on the infrastructure as well as driving real estate very high.
In the end chose to rank MUSC 3rd or 4th, mainly because of the public school issue. Didn't want to have to send my kids to private school.
However... we go back every spring and rent a beach house. Family still loves Charleston. Wife and I just got back from a long weekend for just the two of us. It truly is a wonderful city!

Sorry so long-winded and (perhaps) slightly tangential, but that's my overall impression.
DD

 

[Ignatius J]

After growing up in the midwest I moved to Charleston for a job after college. Ended up being dissatisfied, quit, and applied to med school. Thus, I lived in Charleston for many years and went to med school at MUSC which is an excellent medical univ. It's reputation is equivalent to Emory, Duke, Wake, UNC.
The medical college's anesthesia dept. has CT and pain fellows, so that may influence your decision. Beware there is also an CRNA school, so may have to compete with SRNAs for cases. There was also some flux in the adminstration (new dept chair) when I was a MS3. Attendings were the usual mix of cool people eager to teach and those hoping to intimidate. Again, all this from a med student perspective. All interns did two months of anesthesia (months 1 & 12), so they had a running start on CA-1. Didactics at 3PM with a flood of CRNAs breaking out residents, in-patient pre-ops to follow. On early days, many residents would head to Folly Beach to go surfing. I believe they've added a simulator since I left.
Current PD was one year ahead of me while in MS. When I was MS4 and he was an intern he warned me that you had to know the Fick eqn. for residency interviews and be ready to answer knowledge based questions. I would bet the farm that that is how he treats interviewees. But I don't know for sure.
I LOVE Charleston as a city: beautiful, historical, beaches, excellent restaurants and nightlife, and extremely polite. The downsides are heat/humidity for 9-10 months of the year, palmetto "bugs", and public schools that are less than acceptable; and it's geting very crowded which is a strain on the infrastructure as well as driving real estate very high.
In the end chose to rank MUSC 3rd or 4th, mainly because of the public school issue. Didn't want to have to send my kids to private school.
However... we go back every spring and rent a beach house. Family still loves Charleston. Wife and I just got back from a long weekend for just the two of us. It truly is a wonderful city!

Sorry so long-winded and (perhaps) slightly tangential, but that's my overall impression.
DD

Thanks guys. Yeah, I have been to Charleston and love the city. I just wanted to get a feel for the overall program and resident quality of life. Thank you for the information!

 

[thegasman]

My 2 cents - strong clinical program - all cases performed except lung transplants. Peds hearts are done only on call - residents do not do these during the week. CT fellows have taken over the echos, so it may be hard to get practice with the echo during the heart cases - but you do everything else. Academics have been weak but new pd is young, motivated, and very oriented towards academics so that may be improving. Dept chair is not really a resident advocate - not the worst I've heard of, but he is more interested in the department in terms of research and finances than education. Charleston is a fun place to live, but it has its negatives also as posted above. PM me with any specific questions.

 

[Ventil8]

Hey Ignatius

I'm a current CA-2 at MUSC. Read the above and it is fairly accurate. Clinical education is excellent; schedule is acceptable (55-60hrs per week). CA-3s have a lot of call (albeit home call for hearts and liver). The dept has applied to increase from 9 to 12 residents per year, which will be huge!

PD is awesome, advocate and dynamic. Chairman is reasonable and, appropriately, makes decisions based on departmental perspective, not just resident perspective. CRNAs get us out around 3 80% of the time. SRNAs not really an issue-- they do less than 20% of there clinicals at the sites where we work (more outside hospitals).

Possible downsides: no moonlighting currently. Acceleration of call with new building. Risk of sun cancer because the beach is 5 minutes from anywhere!

A few residents stayed as faculty last year, the same is likely (plus 2 as CT fellows) this year. My class has 2-4 likely to stay (or considering it at least). I think that's a good sign...


A is A,
Ventil8

 

[Ignatius J]

Hey Ignatius

I'm a current CA-2 at MUSC. Read the above and it is fairly accurate. Clinical education is excellent; schedule is acceptable (55-60hrs per week). CA-3s have a lot of call (albeit home call for hearts and liver). The dept has applied to increase from 9 to 12 residents per year, which will be huge!

PD is awesome, advocate and dynamic. Chairman is reasonable and, appropriately, makes decisions based on departmental perspective, not just resident perspective. CRNAs get us out around 3 80% of the time. SRNAs not really an issue-- they do less than 20% of there clinicals at the sites where we work (more outside hospitals).

Possible downsides: no moonlighting currently. Acceleration of call with new building. Risk of sun cancer because the beach is 5 minutes from anywhere!

A few residents stayed as faculty last year, the same is likely (plus 2 as CT fellows) this year. My class has 2-4 likely to stay (or considering it at least). I think that's a good sign...


A is A,
Ventil8

Thanks a lot Ventil8! That really helps.

I guess the questions that are most important to me are:

If you had to choose again, would you choose MUSC over somebody else?
Also, how often are you on call?

 

[Ignatius J]

My 2 cents - strong clinical program - all cases performed except lung transplants. Peds hearts are done only on call - residents do not do these during the week. CT fellows have taken over the echos, so it may be hard to get practice with the echo during the heart cases - but you do everything else. Academics have been weak but new pd is young, motivated, and very oriented towards academics so that may be improving. Dept chair is not really a resident advocate - not the worst I've heard of, but he is more interested in the department in terms of research and finances than education. Charleston is a fun place to live, but it has its negatives also as posted above. PM me with any specific questions.

I absolutely will.

Thank you.

 

[Ventil8]

For sure-- I'm very happy and getting a good education.

I'm on call 4 times per month as CA-2. Will be more as CA-3 but much is home call (3-4 in house, 1 week home call).

 

[ne0ge046]

It's been a while since this topic was addressed, and I'm really considering ranking MUSC within my top 3-5 choices. During interview day I gathered that many residents went into private practice and that a few went on doing fellowships. I was wondering if that was due to personal reasons. For those that chose to do fellowships, do many primarily stay in the south? Being from the Northeast I hope to have good connections back home in case I need to be close by family in the future.

 

[Josh1]

Yeah...anyone have any new info on MUSC? I was looking at their program and it looks good. I saw that they didn't fill their class this year...anyone who has interviewed care to comment? Anyone there currently have any reviews, I know (for good or bad) it is sunny there but I just want to hear about the program, I go to the weather channel for weather info about a place.

 

[drccw]

I can't tell you much about MUSC...

but what I can tell you is that Charleston is an awesome small sized city.. great place to spend 4 yrs of your life, especially if you are single...

Awesome food, great weather beautiful women..

drccw

 

[Ventil8]

I guess I'll chime in again--

Program continues to improve. At attending level have a ton of applications for few if any positions-- adding fellowship trained people in all divisions. Will be up to 12 residents per year, perhaps part of the issue last year was the expansion was approved during the application process and they didn't increase their interview numbers early enough (grew from 9->12.

Regarding fellowships, the current CA-3s are going: pain Emory, ICU here, Peds Pitt, CT here, OB Vandy, a few into private practices of choice.

To clarify, above, we do lung transplants, just not many. Re: TEE, one of the educational goals for incoming residents is that everyone who wants to can sit for the basic TEE coming out of training (that will require attending echo rounds weekly until hitting the 100 needed for the process). Hands on exams are no problem to fill if desired.

Moonlighting does exist at a regionally competitive rate, opportunities may increase with additional resident bodies. Still just 3 in house per night, cover one ICU, and two home call residents (lung and liver txp-- 80ish per year total).


In my class (just graduated) several people wanted to stay on faculty because the culture of the department is great and the city is a draw all its own, but the chairman could only find space for a few. The guy doing pain at Harvard is negociating coming back after military time is repaid.


Come check the program out-- PD is awesome but expects residents to show up ready to learn to be great docs. With the future of our practice dependent on us showing our value to patients and hospitals, we need more programs like this one! Not malignant, but not powderpuff either, work your 50 hours but do so in tough cases on sick people with increasing autonomy!

PM with questions.

 

[docdagamecock]

MUSC is a great program, the PD is 2nd to none. He will challenge you and he really cares about the residents.

Like the previous poster said, the program just increased from 9 to 12 mid application cycle; that explains not filling.

Education: Very good clinical experience, good diversity of cases. Residents generally in at 6am, relieved around 3pm; pre-op inpatients for the next day after that. Leaves plenty of time for reading and the PD does expect for you to read. About 4-5 calls/month, Weekend call is either 24 hrs on Sat, or 24hrs Friday and Sunday (allows for more people to be off on the weekend).Entire CA-2 year is OB call, except when on subspecialty rotations. Residents cover the MSICU, lots of learning there. The Medical director for the new hospital is Dr. Clark, an Anesthesia Intensivist. She's young, sharp and is a good teacher, trained at Columbia under Dr. Sladen. She's in charge of the didatics series for CA-1s. She should be here for a while.

Research: Plenty of opportunity to do research. If you want to do research and present at a conference, the money will be there.

Moonlighting: Residents get paid for doing livers if they maintain good ITE scores and opportunities to moonlight in the ICU.

Location: Charleston is great to some, I'm personally not too big on it. The weather is great, plenty of beaches around.

PM for any further questions.

 

[2win]

I guess I'll chime in again--

Program continues to improve. At attending level have a ton of applications for few if any positions-- adding fellowship trained people in all divisions. Will be up to 12 residents per year, perhaps part of the issue last year was the expansion was approved during the application process and they didn't increase their interview numbers early enough (grew from 9->12.

Regarding fellowships, the current CA-3s are going: pain Emory, ICU here, Peds Pitt, CT here, OB Vandy, a few into private practices of choice.

To clarify, above, we do lung transplants, just not many. Re: TEE, one of the educational goals for incoming residents is that everyone who wants to can sit for the basic TEE coming out of training (that will require attending echo rounds weekly until hitting the 100 needed for the process). Hands on exams are no problem to fill if desired.

Moonlighting does exist at a regionally competitive rate, opportunities may increase with additional resident bodies. Still just 3 in house per night, cover one ICU, and two home call residents (lung and liver txp-- 80ish per year total).


In my class (just graduated) several people wanted to stay on faculty because the culture of the department is great and the city is a draw all its own, but the chairman could only find space for a few. The guy doing pain at Harvard is negociating coming back after military time is repaid.


Come check the program out-- PD is awesome but expects residents to show up ready to learn to be great docs. With the future of our practice dependent on us showing our value to patients and hospitals, we need more programs like this one! Not malignant, but not powderpuff either, work your 50 hours but do so in tough cases on sick people with increasing autonomy!

PM with questions.

Second that!
One of the best programs - and Charleston is THE BEST PLACE TO BE!
2win

 

[drunken_owl MD]

Can any MUSC residents/grads from Anesthesia comment on whether or not Roper St. Francis hired anyone from their residency program? Or MUSC? I'm curious whether or not it's pretty easy to find a job--in Charleston specifically--after training at MUSC.

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Second to none!! lol

 

[njslex16]

Probably my favorite interview. The residents all seemed super chill and easy to get along with. Stayed out til 2AM experiencing Charleston with a few of the residents after the interview dinner the night before!

 

[Doctor4Life1769]

Probably my favorite interview. The residents all seemed super chill and easy to get along with. Stayed out til 2AM experiencing Charleston with a few of the residents after the interview dinner the night before!

Maybe I've gotten old, but staying out til 2am the night before the interview sounds miserable.

 

[CHARLESTONMMM]

Charleston is a great place to live and experience residency.

However, there are distractions in Charleston. Alcohol and beautiful women. Beware.

 

[durdaneta2]

Hi current MS3 here who's beginning to look at different programs. I was wondering if any one could comment on the competitiveness of the residency program, specifically for out of staters (north east allopathic school). In your opinion, would an away rotation be necessary or beneficial?

Any info is greatly appreciated!

 

[zero0]

Arise thread!

Just wondering if anyone has an idea of what Step 1 score would make you competitive for MUSC? Not sure where I stand with my slightly above average numbers...

 

[ncheels19]

Since this hasn’t been updated in a while, I thought it might be helpful to get some updates on this program prior to applying for aways through VSAS soon. I’ve been following the 2019 interview spreadsheet to get a general idea and came across this review:

PROS: Very strong program in amazingly beautiful campus and city with great weather, food, culture, and beaches. New peds/women’s health hospital opening soon in 2019. MUSC is a highly ranked hospital and gets everything in South Carolina thus exposed to very diverse cases. According to residents, PD unanimously very supportive of them. Score extremely well in ITE and board exams (100% pass rate for both Basic and Advanced in last 5 years). Qualify to take TEE certification if you want. Main OR hours 6am-3pm, call AVERAGES around q7 (more or less depending on rotation). Global health opportunities in Nicaragua. Moonlighting in ICU (possibly adding main OR too) for $70/hr starting CA2 year, optional liver transplant call for extra money. Exposure to subspecialties in CA1 year. Didactics: protected time, separated by class year 1x/wk or online. Pay for 1-2 conferences per year for each resident, board exams, gym, parking, Trulearn Qbank, and iPhone. ~50/50 split of grads go into fellowship and PP/academics. Currently offers fellowships in cardiothoracic, crit care, acute pain/regional (peds fellowship coming soon with new hospital?). Large sim center. Meet a lot of residents, all seemed very happy and laid back at interview day and the dinner

CONS: Residents mentioned intern year being pretty tough with a lot of ICU. Salary on the lower end at 52k.


Any further insight from current residents or those who know the program? Would this be a good program to try to spend an away rotation at? From NC and would like to stay in the southeast if possible!