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Anybody have any info on some of the NYC surgery residencies. Which ones are good? How competitive are they? Thanks.
NYC Surgery
- Thread starter kelsey
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I did a visiting elective in NYC. I go to school in the southeast. I went because when I started the whole process I thought I'd like to be in NYC. I wasn't impressed. Generally the operative numbers are low, and there is lots of hand-holding by the attendings, even at the chief level. I thought the skill level of the chiefs I saw was way behind the chiefs at my program.
I don't know where you are, but if you aren't in the city, realize that there are unions which ensure that ancillary services basically don't exist. Thus it falls to the intern to do most of the blood draws, start IV's, go chech that the nurses hung the IV meds that are ordered and basically make sure that everyone does their work or do it for them if it doesn't get done. If you have a pt on a monitor that needs to go to CT, the intern must go and stay with them...the nurses aren't allowed to. THe intern must even go to the blood bank to take blood to the OR for whatever cases his/her service is covering. So, even though the census on the various services are much lower than at my program (as low as 25% of what our teams carry) you are still up most of the night, but you're not spending that time managing patients, you are doing other people's work.
While I was at this place, there was a big controversy because the interns were over 80 hours per week. The hospital's solution was to pull the chiefs out of the OR, blaming the chiefs for not running the service efficiently enough. There were several big meetings, and the PD and chiefs were trying to make the point that the problem was poor ancilllary services. I don't know how it worked out, this started the last couple days I was there.
Interns aren't given much autonomy, but rather rounds are used to tell the intern exactly what to do (right down to the type and rate of IV fluid) The intern records all the things to do in a log, then busts ass during the day to get them all done. If they dont' get done, he/she gets yelled at by the chief (even if, say the pt was supposed to have a PICC line placed but interventional couldn't get to it that day, the intern still got yelled at)
While this may not be true of all programs in the city, I did find when I interviewed at other programs that generally the operative numbers were low and there isn't enough autonomy for my tastes.
I don't know where you are, but if you aren't in the city, realize that there are unions which ensure that ancillary services basically don't exist. Thus it falls to the intern to do most of the blood draws, start IV's, go chech that the nurses hung the IV meds that are ordered and basically make sure that everyone does their work or do it for them if it doesn't get done. If you have a pt on a monitor that needs to go to CT, the intern must go and stay with them...the nurses aren't allowed to. THe intern must even go to the blood bank to take blood to the OR for whatever cases his/her service is covering. So, even though the census on the various services are much lower than at my program (as low as 25% of what our teams carry) you are still up most of the night, but you're not spending that time managing patients, you are doing other people's work.
While I was at this place, there was a big controversy because the interns were over 80 hours per week. The hospital's solution was to pull the chiefs out of the OR, blaming the chiefs for not running the service efficiently enough. There were several big meetings, and the PD and chiefs were trying to make the point that the problem was poor ancilllary services. I don't know how it worked out, this started the last couple days I was there.
Interns aren't given much autonomy, but rather rounds are used to tell the intern exactly what to do (right down to the type and rate of IV fluid) The intern records all the things to do in a log, then busts ass during the day to get them all done. If they dont' get done, he/she gets yelled at by the chief (even if, say the pt was supposed to have a PICC line placed but interventional couldn't get to it that day, the intern still got yelled at)
While this may not be true of all programs in the city, I did find when I interviewed at other programs that generally the operative numbers were low and there isn't enough autonomy for my tastes.
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Uh... You mean it's not like that in other parts of the country? 😀
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Hmmm..... Sounds like Kings County.......
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Strangely enough it does sound a lot like Kings County, but there are plenty of NYC surgery programs that are like that.
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I don't know about the General Surgery programs in NYC, but for Orthopaedic surgery, NYC is the place to be....especially if you can get into HSS ((Hospital for Special Surgery/Cornell) <--ranked #1 in the country) or Hospital for Joint Diseases/NYU.
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sorry to go off topic but I couldn't help myself..... 🙂
lol.... Where is the respect these days????
lol.... Where is the respect these days????- Joined
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Speaking of NYC surgical residencies, does anyone have any scuttlebutt about Beth Israel? Looks like I'm heading there in a couple of months; in addition to the mortification of becoming an intern, I get to add the fear of being a Midwesterner in the big city.
Anyway, I'm just wondering if anyone has any information. Apartment's provided at a subsidized rate, so at least I don't have to worry about that.
Apparently, scrubs are issued through a machine, which I can't imagine to be anything but inconvenient.
Other than that, I have nothing but open ears.
Anyway, I'm just wondering if anyone has any information. Apartment's provided at a subsidized rate, so at least I don't have to worry about that.
Apparently, scrubs are issued through a machine, which I can't imagine to be anything but inconvenient.
Other than that, I have nothing but open ears.
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I heard that the subsidized housing is nearly 1300 dollars for a single. Considering your take home pay is likely to be around 2400 dollars/month (after taxes), that leaves you with about 1100 dollars a month to live on.
By contrast, the 2400 dollars that you make in NYC will have the same buying power as someone making 1370 dollars a month in Louisville, KY. Extrapolating just a bit further, you are going to be paid (42K/yr) on the same relative scale as a theoretical resident in Louisville, KY getting paid 23,975 dollars a year.
This was the main reason that kept me from interviewing at NYC programs. Though I must admit, the thought of living in NYC is intriguing... But on what they pay, I had too many doubts about my ability to afford food/rent/clothing etc....
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The pay - and one of the things I like about talking to residents and interns is that salary discussions are pretty open - is about $46,000 a year. You're right about rent.
Am I worried? Not really - I don't go to bars a lot, and I think the museums will occupy my spare time pretty effectively for the next five years.
I do need to rethink my hobby of collecting pre-Colombian art and customizing it with diamonds, though...
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So I guess if my contract @ Louisville is $47K, that's like $100,000 in NYC, right? 😀
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Talked to four residents at four different NYC residencies... All 4 got financial support from their parents because they couldn't make it on their resident's salary...even though they were in the upper range of resident salaries...
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Do you know if these four residents live in Manhattan or one of the other boroughs? I assume housing is the real issue for them?
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All of 'em live in Manhattan if I recall. Two of them took advantage of subsidized housing, and 2 did not. The 2 that did not had multiple roommates. And yeah, they cited the high cost of housing as the main financial albatross.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bagging on NYC surgery residencies. But I was really discouraged from considering them for the financial issues... I won't be getting any financial assistance from my parents during my residency. If you have other income sources though, the whole financial issue goes away and NYC looks a lot more attractive. I love that town. If I could afford it, I would have interviewed there.
