My thoughts

[EMIMG]

First off, congrats to those that have received a ton of interviews. For those that may not have gotten as many as you may have desired....remember, it just takes one. Once you are offered an interview, look at it as though the position is yours to lose. The interview is just to see who would fit with the program's personality.

With that being said, I have had the opportunity to assist with tours and answering questions at my residency program. I pretty much state the same thing........I will not tell them that my program is the best. Likewise, anyone who tells you that their program is the best is lying to you. The only person who knows which program is best is the one that is on the interview. They call it the "Match" for a reason...it truly is. You need to match yourself with the program that is right for you in a geographic, academic, clinical, and personal manner. Only you can determine which program that is. As you are going through the interviews, ask yourself one question, "Will I be happy here?" If the answer is "NO", then, please do not rank the program....even as a "safety program" or a "fall-back program". Residency is three or four years of the hardest years of your life. You need to ensure that you will be happy with where you are at.

As for me, I applied to I think 47 programs, got 2 wait-lists, 4 interviews, many rejections (including being rejected by a program despite them not having downloaded my board scores, transcripts, letters of rec, etc. They just saw I was an FMG and rejected me), and I did not hear from about 6-12 programs. In retrospect, the 4 interviews were 3 more than I needed. With a limited number of interviews, I had less expenses in traveling, less of a decisioin come rank time, etc. I wound up matching at my top choice, and I could not imagine myself being any happier than I presently am. The program is intense, and it has typically not been mentioned as one of the "top programs"; however, that does not bother me. I will tell you that the feeling from the residents that have left my program upon completion is that they are bored wherever they go because there are few places that match it in terms of intensity, and procedures, and clinical experience.

In summary, there are many things to take into consideration when you apply, interview, and rank a program. The bottom line is that you need to ask yourself if you will be happy there for the duration of your residency. Do not "settle" on a program.

Just my 2 cents.

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[foreignmd]

Hey EMIMG, thanks for your words of encouragement! I am also a foreign graduate trying to get into EM. It seems to me even harder than I thought initially. I have good scores (258/261), 2 US clinical rotations, strong letters (2 from well-known EM faculty), research with some publications... Despite all of this, only 1 interview so far, 6 rejections (applied to only 17 programs in the Northeast, since I am geographically restricted for personal reasons). Speaking to several secretaries, I got the feeling that EM residencies are not used to deal with visa issues, and that is the main reason for their rejections.
How about you - did you need visa sponsorship? Any advice on how I could overcome this hurdle?
BTW, I also applied to some IM programs for backup, I wasn't sure how the EM application would go - I have already 12 IM invitations including some top-notch programs, the thing is that I really want to do EM...

 

[woodzy]

Thanks for the insight and advice from someone who has been through this whole process. I've seen some posts from you in the past on the emra forum and have kept in mind that "it only takes one interview". Being an fmg can be frustrating going for an emergency med. spot but I'm sure it'll work out.
As far as I remember you're at Sinai-grace right? I'll see you next wednesday when I interview there.

 

[EMIMG]

The visa issue is one that I did not have to deal with as I am a US citizen that went to the Caribbean for medical school. I will tell you that being a citizen is much easier. Also, I can say that I did not apply to NY or California programs secondary to licensure issues from the school which I attended. My experiences were that many of the programs in the Midwest are more foreign friendly for one reason or another. Before I even applied, I had heard that the Detroit Programs tend to be foreign friendly. Just look at the resident pages for the two programs for Detroit Medical Center. There are probably about 15 residents in the two programs (out of about 66). That is just a rough guesstimate. In retrospect, I have a totally different outlook for those programs that did not want to interview me based on where I went to medical school. I just hope that those programs do not judge patients based on their one complaint and do not treat disease; rather, they should be treating patients. For example, imagine I give you a scenario with three people with Chest Pain....on the surface, it looks similar, but you need to look at more information in depth to determine what the difference is between the 24 year old with Acute Chest Syndrome vs. the 44 year old with the Cocaine induced MI vs. the 65 year old with Colon Cancer that just came off of a Trans-Atlantic flight and has a PE. Remember, don't judge a book by its cover.

Whatever program you decide you think you want to rank highly, go back and do a second visit. This is the time that you will make a very important decision. During an interview, the program can surround you with the "happy residents". We can tell you what you want to hear. However, when you come back, see what the working conditions are like, what the patient population is like, and what the residents do, there is no lying there.

Please feel free to ask questions for those that are going through the process right now. It is a very big decision.

Best of luck.

 

[foreignmd]

Thanks a lot !!!

 

[sgufmg]

EMIMG, foreign md, and woodzy, what schools did you go to?

 

[woodzy]

sgufmg,

I'm a student at sgu also...I'm sure we know each other, this is jeremy.

 

[foreignmd]

Since you asked... I went to Comenius University (anyone who knows where it is can have a beer on my account ).

I can tell you, being a FMG who needs visa sponsorship is not exactly the best starting point for EM residency. Still only one interview (U Conn - any comments about the program?), 6 rejections, 1 on hold.

 

[DrQuinn]

Bratislava, Slovakia.

I'll take an Amstel Light, please. Or what you think the best beer is in Slovakia. If you're out of both, give me good ol' Beast Lite.

 

[deleted6669]

I did a peds er rotation at hartford hospital, one of the training sites for the uconn em residency. the residents seemed to really know their stuff and spoke very favorably about the program. a little caveat, this was 1995.

 

[EMIMG]

I did two rotations at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford (ED and anesthesia). It is amazing that I could even do these as University of CT would not let US born foreign trained students rotate through their hospitals. They would let US residents that attend US medical schools, or Foreign born individuals who attend medical school at their country of birth rotate because they were looking for "cultural diversity" but they would not let those of us who were born in the US that went to schools outside the country and enriched our lives with other cultures (if this is not diverse, what the heck is) rotate there.

At any event, the ED at St. Francis used to have the ED residents from UConn rotate through it; however, this was apparently axed several years ago when St. Francis was having problems with their directorship in the ED as well as apparently not enough BC/BE EPs there. (So, this is a tribute to the program that they recognized a problem and did something about it). When I was there, there was a fairly new director who was excellent.

Anyway, I did speak with at least one resident who was down in the ED rotating through ortho and he stated that he was very pleased with the program.

So, that is about all the info I have.

 

[foreignmd]

Emedpa, EMIMG, thanks for your input about UConn! Maybe that's the 1 interview I need to Match...

To QuinnNSU: E-mail me to redeem the prize. I would recommend Zlaty Bazant (must be hard to get it in the US). Just curious: did you use google, or by any chance you have heard anything about my country... (getting out of topic here, sorry).

 

[Hornet871]

Foreignmd, I have tasted Zlaty Bazant (delicious, and cheap!), in your country's neighbor, Czech Republic. If only the politicians hadn't gone behind your back about ten years ago and carved up two states, it would have been your country still. How does it feel to have lost Praha (Prague to all you Americans)? But I'm sure the Czechs lost some beautiful towns and landscape from your share of the land, as well.

If Slovakian women are anything like Czech women, then they must be BEAUTIFUL. Smart, sexy, sophisticated, yet stunningly sincere girls. Love 'em. If this medicine thing doesn't work out, I'll become a modeling agent in Czechrepublikoslovakia.

 

[jashanley]

I am graduate of UConn School of Medicine, now at UIC for EM/IM.
UConn is a strong program. The residents get strong background in both Urban and suburban EM through their rotations at the Univ. of CT medical center (small suburban teritary care center (~25-30k per year volume) and Hartford hospital. It is a surgically oriented program, being that it is combined with the traumatology dept. Hartford hospital gets good trauma (blunt and penetrating), a high number of resuscitations and a large volume of patients 80-90K per year. It is a big ED with 40+ beds (6 resus/trauma rooms; a fast track; psych observation area) and brand new facilities. Every trauma is managed by an ER resident and attending in combination with a trauma team.
They was talk on instituting an Ultrasound program for the residents but at this point I'm not sure if it exists.
The resident's pediatric training is strong with rotations and shifts at CT children's hospital throughout all three years.
Also their off-service rotations through the CCU/MICU etc, are excellent. The attendings you encounter are for the most part friendly, and extremely motivated to teach. Plus the patients in the CCU aren't all heart failure which happens at many hospitals, although with the heart failure you do see the attendings are motivated to use the newest meds and techniques for heart failure treatment. The St. Francis CCU rotation gets a large number of STEMI, and as a student I saw 2 aortic dissections while I was there.
The MICU at Hartford hospital has some of the best attendings I have ever worked with, a huge variety of patients: tox cases, sepsis, liver failure, Guillan Barre etc....; and the opportunity for tons of procedures. My ED resident I rotated in the MICU with got 5-6 intubations, a chest tubes and a ton of lines.
I can't think of anything else to say right now. Overall, the residents seemed happy and well trained to run a busy ED.

 

[foreignmd]

Hey guys! Thanks to everybody for their input! I have just received my second interview invitation, people apparently started cancelling. So there is still hope

 

[tonem]

congrats and good luck!

 

[blackcat]

congrats- where are your interviews?