Rajvosa, whoever you are, you have no clue what Cornell residents can and cannot do. Not only do we run codes at MSKCC, we also run them as second years at NYH as the MICU resident on call. And we run them for the entire hospital. And I clearly recall a second year resident from NYU working nights with me at MSKCC who was petrified at the idea of holding a code-consult pager because they'd never run a code before.
Which is a totally normal reaction - we've all been there before - and I'm not here to blast another program. I think all of the NYC programs have their advantages and disadvantages. But, like phllystyl, I'm sick of reading comments on this forum about my program from people who have no idea what they're talking about, have vague opinions from friends who've done rotations at Cornell, or only have their interview day experiences to go on.
So here's my take on Cornell, as a third year at Cornell:
We work hard. Probably as hard as the other top programs in NYC. While, unlike NYU, we have nicer facilities and better ancillary services, our higher average patient census probably makes up for that. We do not have caps on the number of patients an intern can carry, but it rarely exceeds 15 patients.
We have a good mix of private and service patients - I'd say about 40/60. Certainly that's not worse than Tisch, and NYU residents who pride themselves on how much autonomy they have at Bellevue seem to forget that.
Attendings do not hold our hands all the time. In the rare case you have a super private wealthy upper east side patient to take care of, you may have to talk to their attending more than once/day.
But usually you are on your own when doing admissions - as a second year or third year resident, you do the admission with the intern, make all the critical decisions, and get attending feedback when you present on rounds 24 hours later. When you are alone at night with a crashing patient (which there are plenty of), there is no attending there to tell you what to do. As the MICU resident, you learn to handle it all: septic patients, acute MIs, respiratory failure, acute liver failure, you name it. And you are certified in lines by the time you finish your second year MICU rotation.
The attendings, are, for the most part, super friendly and accessible, especially the ones we spend a lot of time with, like the general medicine and the outpatient clinic attendings. The program director can be intimidating when you first meet him but there is no question in my mind and heart that he loves his residents - and the more time I spend in this program the more I realize how lucky we are to have him.
There are some private and cardiology attendings who I would be the first to say are less than friendly, but who cares? There are people like that everywhere. And they are not representative of the institution as a whole.
Yes, the strongest suit of this program is its residents. We are, for the most part, pretty cool laid back people who enjoy spending time with each other outside of work. The common housing and our shared experiences on the floors help build that bond.
In terms of how Cornell compares to Columbia, the residents up there do/see things that we don't, like heart/liver (though that's coming to Cornell) transplants, LVADs, etc. I think the reputation that Columbia is more "academic" is BS - plenty of research gets done at Cornell/Rockefeller/MSKCC which Cornell residents have access to if they want to participate. I have also heard first hand from Columbia residents that their maligant reputation is also BS.
Don't have much to say about Mt. Sinai - I think the Cornell academic reputation is supposed to be slightly better, but I don't really know why. I actually really liked Sinai when I interviewed there but don't know anyone there now so I can't compare.
I hope this was helpful to some of you - good luck to those of you applying. Follow your heart and your gut feeling. You will work hard no matter where you go. The tough part is picking a place that won't add to the misery
