Phoenix Children's Medical Center/Maricopa County Hospital
Interview Day:
- Provided a hotel, dinner night before was at a resident's house.
- Very open to second look days.
Faculty:
- The PD was super friendly and welcoming, and the staff at Maricopa were also very nice and welcoming.
Housestaff:
- 32 residents/year, plus Peds Genetics, plus Med/Peds residents.
Program:
- Second continuity clinic offered during second and third year
- Formal teaching curriculum seems well established
Facilities:
- Stand alone Children's hospital, with lots of room for expansion (something like the top 3 floors are currently unoccupied).
- County hospital at Maricopa (more medicaid and Spanish speaking)
- Several satellite clinics for continuity clinic
- Two additional sites for NICU: St. Joseph's and Banner
Misc:
- As of my interview day, they still had paper charts in the primary clinic, Epic at Maricopa, and a custom-built EMR at Phoenix Children's.
- Limited fellowships (EM and Heme/Onc were the only two stated).
- Lots of outdoor opportunities nearby, but also a lot of shopping, theater, performing arts, etc. COL seems reasonable, and people live all over.
- Separated surgical vs. medical PICU teams, and unclear whether peds residents rotate on the surgical team.
In sum:
Pros: Second continuity clinic, stand alone children's hospital, seems to be a lot of autonomy in the ED and at Maricopa,
Cons: Limited fellowship opportunities, Phoenix summers
University of New Mexico
Interview Day:
- Did not provide a hotel room, but I think they provided discounts to local hotels. Dinner was at a diner with residents--there was some awkwardness with my residents at dinner. There was also a lot of overlap between the residents who went to dinner and the ones that came to lunch.
- Interview day consists of morning report, talk with the PD and coordinator, interviews, lunch, and a tour. I think I was done around 2 or 3.
- Of note, the residents supposedly have a lot of say in the rank list, so you really need to be on your best behavior all the time.
Faculty:
- Not a whole lot of interaction with them, but the ones we did meet were very nice.
Housestaff:
- 17 residents/year
Program:
- Huge advocacy program. Every resident writes up a CATCH grant, and many are submitted and implemented
- Large emphasis on rural medicine, with at least one rural rotation during residency
- The way they do morning report is kinda cool: they make it a competition between the med students and each year of residents, and each month, the group with the highest number of points gets a prize.
- PICU rotation during first year. All PICU rotations are shifts, rather than 24 hour call.
- Global health also emphasized, with just about every resident doing a global health rotation.
- Individualized curriculum is a track system, with Primary Care, Fellowship, and Categorical being the tracks.
Facilities:
- Children's pavilion--not entirely stand-alone, but the top two floors are dedicated to peds, and the floor right below is Mother/Baby.
- Several satellite sites available for continuity clinic. Some are in neighborhoods with an interesting immigrant patient mix.
Misc:
- Again, limited fellowship opportunities.
- Patient population is largely Hispanic and Native American. Catchment area is all of New Mexico, some parts of Mexico, and some parts of Texas. Population of New Mexico is about 2 million, with 1 million being in ABQ itself.
In sum:
Pros: Good global health and advocacy program
Cons: Limited fellowship opportunities, not a great individualized curriculum, limited patient population
Colorado Children's/Denver Health
Interview Day:
- Did not provide a hotel, but provided discount codes. Interviews are only on Thursdays and Fridays, so they have a happy hour at one of the bars downtown on Thursday night to catch all the applicants. There are a ton of residents who make it out to this.
- Interview day consisted of a presentation, interviews, and a tour of Children's, followed by a bus ride to Denver Health and a tour and talk with the chief resident there. Day ended around 2:30.
- Some of the interviewers are third year residents.
Faculty:
- The faculty I interacted with were all nice.
Housestaff:
- 29 residents/year (this number may not be right), plus Med/Peds
- First and third years know each other well, second years are more isolated due to electives experiences.
Program:
- Starting an academic half day, a total of twice per month (once with just your class, once with the whole program), in lieu of doing noon conference every day.
- Individualized curriculum is huge, they give you 3 months during third year to schedule basically whatever you want, down to the half-day of scheduling.
- PICU rotation during first year (at Denver Health)
- Second continuity clinic available.
Facilities:
- Stand alone Children's hospital
- Denver Health, which is a county hospital with a primarily Spanish speaking/Medicaid population
- Various opportunities for continuity clinic, from Denver Health to the Children's Hospital to private practice clinics.
Misc:
- Children's acts as a referral center for 6 states
- Opportunity to do a rural rotation or a transport rotation to learn how to manage kids away from Children's.
In sum:
Pros: Lots of opportunities for highly complex cases, as well as the bread-and-butter cases. Second continuity clinic and longitudinal experience during third year.
Cons: Bit isolated in the children's hospital. Lots and lots of fellows, so very little in the way of procedures/autonomy (clearly I can't make up my mind on this point
). No cap on patients, so can get overwhelming at times, but everyone seems willing to help out.
