NYC EM Residency / NYC 4th Year Away rotations

[mosquitoman]

Hi,

I'm interested in doing my EM residency in NYC.

I have searched the web (and these forums) for recommendations of places - but it seems that all of the reviews are fairly outdated (2005 or so).

I was wondering if anyone can recommend both residency site and 4th year elective site.

Ideally I want to do the away at my choice of residency, but if one site is preferred for students - more autonomy, more procedures, etc I would probably like to do that one.

What are everyone's thoughts on 3 yr vs 4 yr programs?

I was looking at Jacobi/monefiore and the program seemed nice, but I am undecided on 3 vs 4 year.

Thanks so much for your help

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[mosquitoman]

bump? Any help would be much appreciated

 

[cpap]

Well, you really need to decide on whether or not you want to do a 3/4 year program. You're likely to find a split on here as far as the 3v4 debate. In general, 4 year programs are more academic with more elective time and probably more off-service time. 3 year programs can certainly be academic but I don't believe the NYC 3 year programs are. That said, you can do research at any accredited program if you want.

As far as where to do an away. I did mine at SLR, a 3 year program. Depends what you mean by autonomy but you don't write your own orders here as you would in a Sub-I. You rotate at 2 different hospital sites with different patient populations. The residents and faculty are really nice and fun to be around. 14 10-hour shifts + 1 EMS ride-along.

Can't speak for any other aways in NYC.

Off the top of my head based purely on reputation
4 yr - NYU, Sinai, Monte, Downstate have good reps
3 yr - SLR, BIMC, Maimo
Others
4 yr - Presby, Lincoln, Brooklyn Hospital
3 yr - Methodist

Leaving out a few because they aren't at the tip of my tongue and I don't feel like looking it up.

 

[Lmack1817]

I can tell you that at NYU this past year as 4th years we had a ridiculous amount of autonomy. I was writing all the orders, putting in orders for imaging, getting my own labs, pretty much doing anyting I wanted within reason and just running the plan by my attendings. They now have a new EMR system down in the ED though so I think there might be less autonomy because students can't write offical notes anymore like they used to. And ordering is different. It used to be that you could put in an order under a resident's signed in account and everyone was OK with that. Its a good place to do an away. Also, so many people rotate through that they write very standardized SLORs, which I was told count for a lot assuming you did a good job there. Especially at the NYC programs since everyone knows everyone else in the area. Its a good place to go if you like to impress people with your ability to take charge of your own patients. At NYU, it is a Sub I that is an optional elective, not a required 4th yr rotation so that is probably why there is so much autonomy. (plus the fact that it is a public hospital)

 

[Chakrabs]

I rotated at NYU, they don't have nearly as much autonomy as my own home institution of SUNY Downstate. When it comes to EM, I think its hard to do better than Downstate - lots of academics, very busy county hospital, and brand spanking new facilities. Lots of autonomy, if you want to do it, go jump right in is the philosophy of many attendings and residents.

 

[mosquitoman]

I've heard that doing EM in a big name hospital may actually work against you (specialists in every field take away a lot of experience) example: neuro gets called right away for cva/tia, cards for mi etc?

Some programs seem to use 2 hospitals (Sinai -> elmhurst in queens + sinai), jacobi/montefiore... any pros/cons to this?


My school allows 3 electives in EM, so my plan was Home rotation, then 2 away EM rotations right after

I have 2 vacation blocks and was considering doing 1 of those as an EM away as well (the only exception to the above rule)

Also any advice on other useful electives - cards/anesth/etc?

Thanks again

 

[jbar]

I rotated at NYU, they don't have nearly as much autonomy as my own home institution of SUNY Downstate. When it comes to EM, I think its hard to do better than Downstate - lots of academics, very busy county hospital, and brand spanking new facilities. Lots of autonomy, if you want to do it, go jump right in is the philosophy of many attendings and residents.

I'd say if you are going to rotate at Downstate try to not do it during a peak month. I did one in August last year, the people were great but we had like 24 people on the rotation that month, lots of days had like 4 med students in the ER at the same time, so they really didn't want us to see too many patients because the attendings had to write all our charts. There were days that I only had 3 patients of my own.

If you are interested in Kings I wish I had done the 2 week ER critical care rotation. It's just in the trauma/critical care area of the ER. Lots of of good stuff, super high yield.

 

[J U I C Y]

Any info on the Mt. Sinai and Maimonides 4th yr electives?

Also, @jbar would you say that it was harder to get a good letter from Downstate since it was so crowded? I've applied there as well.

 

[473528]

Thank You.
This information is very useful.

 

[John146]

Any info on the Mt. Sinai and Maimonides 4th yr electives?

I rotated at Maimo... Overall, it was a very organized rotation and I found the attending's to be some of the best that I've worked with. I'm not sure how the program rates against others in NYC but my gut feeling is that it's above-average.

As far as the rotation goes... it was pretty grueling as you work 12 12's (+2 optional shifts which everyone does and you NEVER get out anywhere near the 12 hour mark), plus 2 days of 5 hour lectures, plus a presentation and written exam at the end (which you definitely need to spend a significant amount of time studying for). Final grade is based on shift evaluations (1/3), presentation (1/3), and written exam (1/3). Do not rotate in July as you will have to cram all that into 3 weeks because they don't want med students to report until July 7th-ish.

 

[J U I C Y]

I rotated at Maimo... Overall, it was a very organized rotation and I found the attending's to be some of the best that I've worked with. I'm not sure how the program rates against others in NYC but my gut feeling is that it's above-average.

As far as the rotation goes... it was pretty grueling as you work 12 12's (+2 optional shifts which everyone does and you NEVER get out anywhere near the 12 hour mark), plus 2 days of 5 hour lectures, plus a presentation and written exam at the end (which you definitely need to spend a significant amount of time studying for). Final grade is based on shift evaluations (1/3), presentation (1/3), and written exam (1/3). Do not rotate in July as you will have to cram all that into 3 weeks because they don't want med students to report until July 7th-ish.

Thanks! Do you feel like you were able to get a good letter out of it? How did you fare with getting NYC interviews? I'm just concerned b/c I'm applying from out of state (from the midwest) and I'm getting the sense there's some regional bias with the NYC programs....

 

[John146]

Thanks! Do you feel like you were able to get a good letter out of it? How did you fare with getting NYC interviews? I'm just concerned b/c I'm applying from out of state (from the midwest) and I'm getting the sense there's some regional bias with the NYC programs....

The program director (Rose) is a super cool guy and wrote me a great letter (from what I was told on interviews). Pretty sure that he writes everyone a good letter because I rotated in July, had never done an ED rotation, and probably sucked hard.

I'm a DO from California and got like 2/5 interviews in NYC. I only applied to the 3 year programs and my other interview was at Methodist.

I don't know if there's a regional bias but I didn't get a single interview in California Just pan-apply to all the NYC programs and don't even worry about the potential bias since you can't do anything about it anyways.

 

[Hypomanics]

Just pan-apply to all the NYC programs and don't even worry about the potential bias since you can't do anything about it anyways.

Agreed. There's definitely a bias, but there are so many factors that go in to the decision that it may not matter. Just apply to all the places you're interested in. This is no time to hold back for money reasons, in my opinion.

I'm from Texas and rotated in Brooklyn, and everyone acted like it was unbelievable that I wanted to come to the east coast or NYC. In these situations I always think to myself: if I wasn't interested, I wouldn't have applied and flown all the way here for an interview!

 

[Hypomanics]

Btw, juicy, I rotated at downstate and felt like I got a great letter (or so interviewers said). However, I only had something like 6-7 4th years on when I rotated as opposed to in the busier months.

 

[jbar]

Any info on the Mt. Sinai and Maimonides 4th yr electives?

Also, @jbar would you say that it was harder to get a good letter from Downstate since it was so crowded? I've applied there as well.

I haven't seen my letter, so hard to know. But they were pretty good about making sure that each of us had at least 3 shifts with one of the assistant program directors, who knew ahead of time that we wanted a letter. So they got to know us a bit and were paying attention because they knew they were going to have to write about us.

It was more of an issue of if the attending has 3 med students and a resident or two at the same time, they only wanted us to have a patient or two at once. So it's hard to shine when you are only seeing 3 patients a day. But I think it went well.

But like I said (I think in this thread), I would have signed up for that EM critical care rotation at Downstate, I think it would have been a great 2 weeks.

 

[nycqqe]

It's a good idea to do a rotation at Maimonides if you're really interested in that place. It's got an unique enviornment in terms of physical space, patient population, acuity, and especially ED personalities. The attendings there are serious but fun, and at times borderlining inappropriate because they are very comfortable and enjoy each other's company and the residents are like that also. So the program cares a lot about the "fit" of the residents probably more so than most programs. They match like 40% of its class every year from their medical students. So it helps for them to get to know you if you're interested in matching there and it also helps because you could realize that the enviornment there is not a fit for you.