Penn, Columbia, Cornell, or Sinai

[anbuitachi]

I was little shell shocked when I read this recent post. I did my sub-I at Mt Sinai recently and had a completely different impression than whats being expressed now so thought maybe I'd get my two cents, hopefully it'll help some people out.

I did think that Mt Sinai had harder hours than other places I had rotated. But I definitely felt like the hard-work you put in yielded a lot more in reward. I had some great cases and attendings that really cared about teaching me and the residents. I spent an entire day with the department chair who pimped/taught me solidly for an hour straight! Most department chairs don't even show up to the operating rooms let alone take the time to teach the medical student. I learned more in that one month than I did on all my anesthesia rotations combined. Yes I think that the residents worked hard. But I never thought that Mt Sinai had a cushy reputation to begin with and I think if thats what you're looking for another residency might be better suited. Personally I think cushier programs suffer for it in terms of education. I definitely thought the mount sinai residents were very competent.

I think sometimes cushy is confused with relaxed. The program is very relaxed and laid back but I come from a school that is very similar in that regards so for me I felt at home and liked that aspect. All depends on your perspective and preference I think. And yes, I do believe that the PD probably picks personalities that he thinks might fit with the residency the best but don't all PDs do that?? At my school I know they do. My sister's on her residency program committee and they won't even consider someone that doesn't jell with them. They want to "match" ..lame pun definitely intended. I think residency is gonna be hard and suck a little bit no matter what. Everyone is going to have a different personality and different priorities. You gotta know yours and then find a residency you think lines up the best. I think if you're looking to work hard and get an awesome education in a relaxed environment you'll love it as much as I did.

Now I know I obviously did not have the hours that residents did, nor do I think that I worked as hard as they do. But I thought maybe an impression from a naive medical student might help some people out there as well. I'm sure everyone here had several residents and attendings tell them not to go into the medical field!! and to switch into finance immediately!! when we were all lowly pre-meds. Everything with a grain of salt! Good luck to everyone and their rank lists. Pretty sure its too late to switch into finance...

It does or at least used to have the cush rep compared to Cornell/columbia. Cush is only relative, they still work hard.

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[Steege305]

wow things aren't looking well at sinai if they are resulting in posts like those

I second F is for Foghorn. Sinai is a large residency program, and unfortunately you're just hearing from a few people, one of whom still doesn't understand how to post on forums on the interwebs...

It does or at least used to have the cush rep compared to Cornell/columbia. Cush is only relative, they still work hard.

I agree with the earlier posts. I don't think Sinai was ever "cush" but it was and is much more laid back.

 

[hrmm]

Penn >>> the rest.

I'll tell you why. Penn has the biggest reputation and the biggest names. Residency is only a few years. Once you have the Penn name, you're set. Columbia is similar but it's much more miserable. Cornell is 2nd tier. Sinai is 3rd tier but the residents are very happy.

If you can go to one of the big ivies (Harvard/MGH, Penn, Columbia), DO IT!. You will never regret being an ivy leaguer. It will open doors that you didn't even know were there.

 

[anbuitachi]

Penn >>> the rest.

I'll tell you why. Penn has the biggest reputation and the biggest names. Residency is only a few years. Once you have the Penn name, you're set. Columbia is similar but it's much more miserable. Cornell is 2nd tier. Sinai is 3rd tier but the residents are very happy.

If you can go to one of the big ivies (Harvard/MGH, Penn, Columbia), DO IT!. You will never regret being an ivy leaguer. It will open doors that you didn't even know were there.

Cornell second tier? Cornell is the biggest ivy! Sinai 3rd tier? How many tiers are we counting anyway

 

[Steege305]

Penn >>> the rest.

I'll tell you why. Penn has the biggest reputation and the biggest names. Residency is only a few years. Once you have the Penn name, you're set. Columbia is similar but it's much more miserable. Cornell is 2nd tier. Sinai is 3rd tier but the residents are very happy.

If you can go to one of the big ivies (Harvard/MGH, Penn, Columbia), DO IT!. You will never regret being an ivy leaguer. It will open doors that you didn't even know were there.

This post is pure and unadulterated bull****. I honestly only started posting on here to see if there were some facets of certain programs that I hadn't been able to pick up on during my interviews, but this is ridiculous.

 

[lunaire]

omg Sinai people, stahp. Just stop posting and let this thread die.

 

[anesthesiasux]

l

 

[afob100]

Any one have any thoughts on Cornell vs Columbia with regard to interest in pain? It seemed like Columbia's residents got into great pain fellowships (11/11, prestigious places) but it seems like the pain/regional training as a resident was much stronger at Cornell...plus Cornell has (arguably) the best pain fellowship in the city.

Having a difficult time figuring out which to rank higher. Any thoughts?

 

[secants]

I've seen more columbia residents match at cornells pain program than their home one so that leaves me to believe cornells might be a tad stronger

 

[wrkrB]

Meshugganah

i.e. This place is...

FFP wish you hadn't redacted your posts.

 

[anonz123]

..

 

[Psai]

What do people think this year?

 

[projectpat]

Mt. Sinai: I really liked it. Excellent PD. Dr. Levine has been there over 20 years. It's his program and he fully supports the residents. They work hard and have great lives outside of work. They get along great with each other and were all super happy. Difficult but strong intern year (meet surgical and IM colleagues). Anesthesia dept is well respected in the hospital and has great relationships with the surgical depts, especially ENT. Subsidized housing. The moonlighting opportunities are awesome. Not "cush"

Cornell: Incredible didactics. They pride themselves on that. Fully loaded itunes U curriculum, accessible from iphones and ipads. Well organized. Their selling point is the whole tri-institutional thing (Cornell + HSH + MSK). Super nice facilities. It's obvious the dept has $$. Nice housing but expensive. Strengths in pain/regional. I understand that HSH is "ortho mecca" which creates ample regional opportunities, but during regional rotations, you do the block and sit the case.. which I feel limits the number of blocks possible per day. However the turnover is very efficient so that makes up for it. Heavy ICU experience. Excellent PD as well, Dr. Brumberger. Residents from all over the country.

Didn't interview at Columbia or Penn.

 

[Smegal]

Bump. Any thoughts on Penn/Yale this season?

 

[Quixotic2501]

I'm a year late, but I don't think much has changed in a year, so I'll give my opinion. I cancelled all of my interviews in NYC because I didn't want to even attempt to navigate that city. Plus, I probably couldn't afford to live there.

I did interview at UPenn though, and the rumors I had heard about it seemed to be true. A number of residents were late to the interview dinner as a result of being at the hospital pretty late. I interviewed with the chair who clearly cared and was definitely intense, and all of the attendings--at least the ones I interviewed with--seemed pretty personable. One of the attendings who did residency at UPenn mentioned how there was very little time for reading but suggested that some attendings were okay with you reading during cases. None of the residents seemed overtly unhappy, but they seemed overworked. When I asked one of the residents how the morale was currently, she replied, "It's always pretty low this time of year," which left me with a soured impression.

Yale's probably a very good, solid program, and the name will impress laypeople; however, I'm not sure I'd put it in my top 20. I'm sure people who did residency there or are currently there will disagree with me. My experience with the program is pretty limited though.

I'd be careful with just interviewing at/ranking a program because it is associated with an Ivy. This isn't undergrad anymore.

 

[NotFrankUnderwood]

I interviewed Penn this year and would agree with Quixotic. The residents and program leadership do not hide it - every resident I spoke to from every year essentially had the attitude of you work hard for 4 years and become an incredible anesthesiologist then, if you want, you can relax. Will echo that the PD was amazing - extremely personable and very kind. Academic Chair is a big name and had a lot of charisma during the presentation but he was actually a bit rude/disinterested during my personal interview (my personal impression of course). Anyway, I'm having some trouble placing Penn - it has a reputation, but it is undoubtedly the hardest working program I interviewed at (I'd say 65+ is the avg.). As someone who is definitely placing emphasis on work life balance I wonder if I'd be happy for those 4 years.

 

[Smegal]

I interviewed Penn this year and would agree with Quixotic. The residents and program leadership do not hide it - every resident I spoke to from every year essentially had the attitude of you work hard for 4 years and become an incredible anesthesiologist then, if you want, you can relax. Will echo that the PD was amazing - extremely personable and very kind. Academic Chair is a big name and had a lot of charisma during the presentation but he was actually a bit rude/disinterested during my personal interview (my personal impression of course). Anyway, I'm having some trouble placing Penn - it has a reputation, but it is undoubtedly the hardest working program I interviewed at (I'd say 65+ is the avg.). As someone who is definitely placing emphasis on work life balance I wonder if I'd be happy for those 4 years.

If you want to become an incredible anesthesiologist and have more doors open to you after residency it might be worth it to work super hard for 4 years and get the best training possible and then focus on the work life balance more after residency. I'm in a similar dilemma as you but I'm leaning towards the more intense training so I know I'll be as well trained as can be coming out.. On the other hand you don't want to be miserable for 4 years so its really up to what your looking to get out of a residency program

 

[nimbus]

If you want to become an incredible anesthesiologist and have more doors open to you after residency it might be worth it to work super hard for 4 years and get the best training possible and then focus on the work life balance more after residency. I'm in a similar dilemma as you but I'm leaning towards the more intense training so I know I'll be as well trained as can be coming out.. On the other hand you don't want to be miserable for 4 years so its really up to what your looking to get out of a residency program

Another thing to consider is that 90th percentile practices often work 90th percentile hours with 90th percentile intensity. So if you think that's what you want in life, might as well start early and get used to it.

Personally I love being part of a team that is happy to work hard. Given their reputation, if you match at Penn you would probably have a cohort of like minded individuals and few if any whiny b****es

 

[Kevin Durant]

I don't know why I come back to these boards since I'm "in it". But in the interest of shedding a little light I'll share some insights into the recent goings-on at Sinai from a resident's perspective. Let this serve to those of you on the trail as a caveat emptor. Of course I expect some internal backlash or a witch hunt to result from this. But if nothing else I, and some of my colleagues who may be too tired or cowed into speaking out, need to vent a little and maybe get a little perspective from those in other large "brand-name" programs.

Things have gotten out of hand at the hospital. There was a recent merger between this hospital and several other less financially sound facilities in the city. Seemingly this shouldn't affect resident training. But I submit that there has been a definite impact on the overall environment. Quite simply, people are just miserable. At all levels: the PACU nurses, the techs, our attendings. There are murmurs of debt, of how bad the merger is for this hospital. I think the corporate side of things has responded by cracking the whip, as it were. We are busier than ever but we are also coming apart at the seams. For a place that prides itself so much on its ranking and is so obsessed with its appearance I find myself empathizing greatly with the patients who suffer by deciding to come here for care. Waiting endlessly for surgery to start, let alone to receive some kind of communication from staff, being made to walk to an OR naked except for a flimsy gown and socks, coming into an OR where loud music is playing and everyone is talking not paying attention to you the patient, and best of all at the end of surgery being made to sit and wait in an OR because of PACU holds. A regular occurrence now is to get emails telling people to hasten discharges because beds are full. But the number of cases hasn't changed. In fact they keep going up. So what's happened? PACU is full because there are no beds to discharge patients to. And then no joke, we are acting as recovery nurses in the OR watching patients until they can get discharged to the floor. That's right when you are not on call it is not just possible but a regular occurrence to be stuck after 6 (you get a little money thrown at you but it's not worth it since I'd rather go home and either learn some anesthesia, go to the gym, or just sleep) to act as a watered-down PACU nurse. The sick thing is I'm sure the hospital is still making money off of having the patient in an OR.

Problematic in several ways, this:

1. Seemingly no oversight of inflow and outflow of patients on a global level. It just seems that production trumps everything else resulting in total disregard for patient experience. How many patients have voiced their frustration at me when I come to interview them and place an IV because they've been NPO for god knows how long because it's now 4PM and they were told that they would be having surgery at 10AM?

2. Isn't this fraud to be billing a patient's insurance for OR or anesthesia time when they are sitting in an OR not receiving any real OR care but only because the PACU is full? Wait no, the entire hospital is full.

3. Why am I still here in an OR at night when there's no educational value to me being a pseudo- recovery nurse? It seems that every senior level person in the department or the hospital seems to be OK with this arrangement.

4. Did I mention misery? The nurses are about to ready to revolt or walk out en masse. Morale is low amongst the attendings. Overall the level of teaching could be better. Some of the junior attendings are good about making an effort. But otherwise from their looks of quiet desperation it seems that there may be some more change coming. I guess what they say about mergers and changes in staffing is true.

5. Generalized misery makes it hard to come to work.

This has been long-winded but in summary the hospital is undergoing a transition. But it's one I wish I didn't have to be a part of because it's affected all things big and small. The attendings are stressed so what little attention we do get from them has been diminished. This is not the low-key, laid-back place I thought I was going to for training. Yes, our PD is still an advocate. But obviously his reach is limited or even worse maybe he's OK with everything going on, that we don't receive that much formal education, that we are being worked even if that work is not necessarily anesthesia work. I have to say that Sinai has done a thorough job of molding us into factory-line workers. I'm just glad that I'll be done soon. I think it's probably best to steer clear of this place, either as a trainee or a patient until they sort out their institutional issues.

Yikes...well it's been 3 years since the merger. Are things still this bleak?

 

[Psai]

It's an issue all big academic centers are facing. You think NYU or Presbyterian is safe from the documentation/RVUs over patient care, dumps from Mt. St. Elsewhere, factory style medicine that is overtaking the entire country?

 

[DM27]

Things are not that bleak, and like most things that was a large exaggeration around a kernel of truth.

 

[Psai]

Things are not that bleak, and like most things that was a large exaggeration around a kernel of truth.

Disagree.

 

[anbuitachi]

Yikes...well it's been 3 years since the merger. Are things still this bleak?

you got bored of basketball??

all major nyc hospitals are busy. insurance reimbursements are low, ceos and admins need to be paid, and hospital needs money to hire more admins, therefore, all major hospitals need to be operating at around 100% capacity to stay alive. otherwise you are looking to go extinct in todays market

 

[dannyboy1]

you got bored of basketball??

all major nyc hospitals are busy. insurance reimbursements are low, ceos and admins need to be paid, and hospital needs money to hire more admins, therefore, all major hospitals need to be operating at around 100% capacity to stay alive. otherwise you are looking to go extinct in todays market

Another reason to avoid working in NYC. Seriously with the high cost of living, busy hospitals, ****ty pay, unionized nurses and generally high strung/maintenance surgeons it amazes me that anyone takes a job there. Things are significantly better in north jersey and Long Island.

 

[RedPhys]

Also, for some hospitals, like Cornell in the Upper East Side, your patients are $$$, so you get less autonomy/a lot more hand-holding or someone "hovering" over you.