NYC AEGD / GPR Opinions

[avalanche]

I'm looking at the Non-Match List for GPR's and AEGD's in NY.
Especially the NYC areas ( Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan ).
Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of the quality of Post-Doc
in the area?

Here's a list -

GPR
Brookdale Hospital - Brooklyn
Kings County Hospital - Brooklyn
Kingsbrook Jewish Med. Cntr - Brooklyn
St. Vincent Catholic Med. Cntr - Brooklyn
Brooklyn Hospital Cntr - Brooklyn
Woodhull Med & Mental Cntr - Brooklyn
Wyckoff Heights Med. Cntr - Brooklyn
Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hosp - Roosevelt Island
Harlem Hospital Cntr - Manhattan

AEGD
Lutheran Med. Cntr - Brooklyn
Columbia Univ - Manhattan
NYU Univ - Manhattan

Of course, I'll have to have a look for myself, but any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

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[jhf]

I'm currently a resident at Kings County Hospital, and I can attest that the GPR program is exceptional in many ways. The GPR residents get a great deal of experience in all phases of dentistry, and there is certainly no shortage of patients. As with any GPR, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. However, at Kings County, you will have the resources, the patients, and a staff of attendings that are both very knowledgeable and successful in private practice. Ask any graduate from the GPR program will tell you, you will finish you year confident to tackle any procedure or situation. The program takes quite a few GPR residents yearly (8 or 9), and half tend to go on and complete a specialty (OMFS, Pedo, Ortho, Endo, Perio...) and the rest tend to gravitate towards private practice. The program director, Dr. Berger, may seem quite daunting at first, however, he is exceptionally loyal to his residents, and if you are interested in specializing, he goes out of his way to give to exposure to your field of interest, and he also has a great deal of pull when it comes to applying to programs. Another perk is that, in my year, there is a great deal of comraderie amongst the residents. The only downside of the program, I would say, is it's location. Flatbush is not the most exotic location to work, and the hospital itself appears quite run down. However, the area is quite safe, and is easily accessable by subway (only about 25 minutes from downtown Manhattan, 15 minutes from Bay Ridge, 5 minutes from Park Slope).

I have a few friends who have completed or are in the midst of GPR's at Columbia, Brooklyn Hospital, Woodhull, and Lutheran. My friends at Columbia and Lutheran say that the facilites are first rate, however there is an extreme shortage of patients. Also, Columbia has a name advantage over the other programs on your list. My friends at Brooklyn Hospital and Woodhull tell me that the facilites are terrible and, again, they are dissappointed by the lack of patients, inadequate attending coverage, and paucity of clinical experence.

If you are interested in applying to Kings County, or if you have any ther questions, feel free to e-mail me.

 

[gryffindor]

Avalanche - What is the "Non-Match List" - are these programs that had spots left after Match Day (two weeks ago)?

jhf - What does having a name advantage have to do with a GPR program? I would think if you are going into private practice after the GPR, it shouldn't really matter. But if you are interested in pursuing a specialty program after the GPR, is this where the name helps? Also, I read on the internet that King's County is undergoing a $90 million renovation, any idea when is this supposed to be done?

I am very interested in doing a GPR in NYC after graduation, but I still have over a year to go before I will apply. I also can't decide if I want to specialize and I think a GPR would help me decide this for sure as well as give me some good experience. Thanks for the informative posts on this topic.

 

[jhf]

When applying to any post graduate program trough the Match (pedo, OMFS, GPR's...), applicants submit a list of programs to a central processing agency in the order of their preference, and the programs do the same with the applicants. The central processing agency "matches" applicants to positions based on their rank orders. In the beginning of Feb., the lucky applicants who matched are notified where they are going the following year. Not all applicants "match", and neither do all programs (therefore, these "unmatched" programs have vacant slots, at which time they try to fill them with unmatched applicants).

I think the main advantage to attending a big named GPR is for one's ego, other than that, there is a marginal advantage when applying to specialty programs or in private practice (you can always advertise you are "Columbia trained", I guess). The most important consideration when applying to most specialty programs are grades, experience (research/clinical), and who you know (but in reality, only a lucky few are connected enough to let this last parameter help them get into a program).

Kings County Hospital is currently undergoing a $90 million renovation; however, this doesn't affect the dental clinic much. They have built an entirely new hospital building (it's actually quite nice and well equipped), however, the dental dept. is in a different building (which is quite run down). But as I said in my last post, as long as you don't mind working in run down surroundings, the dept. spends all their resources on new equipment, you have ample pts and great attending coverage.

It's a great idea to do a GPR if you are unsure if you want to specialize (or are unsure of which specialty). You usually make very little first year out of dental school (esp. in NYC), and most private practitioners in the North East require a GPR to hire you as an associate (but not all).