Philadelphia area residency?

[Rockytop00]

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[hamstergang]

I interviewed at Temple, Drexel, Jefferson, and Cooper, but that was 2 years ago so only small bits of info have stuck in my brain. Overall, I liked Philly and the programs there, but still I ranked them all in the middle to end of my rank list. This will be mostly useless, but hopefully can get the conversation going for you. So with the caveat that all this may be inaccurate due to my memory, here's what I've got:

Temple is in a less good area than the others in Philly. They have a crazy busy psych emergency setting where you take calls. Multiple people there said they liked that as if you can handle that, you can handle anything. Personally, I have no desire to be able to handle that.

Drexel's main Friend's Hospital was a bit away from the others, but on a really nice, green campus. It's an old Quaker hospital, looks nice, and old. Everyone was friendly, but I just didn't think I fit the program's personality well. It's hard to describe, maybe you should see it.

Jefferson I remember liking but not finding anything special (good or bad) there. I liked the location.

Cooper just recently joined Rowan Medical School (a new med school). I avoided them just because I didn't want to be a part of the changes, but it may be stable now, I'm not sure. I thought it was a very nice looking hospital, especially given how terrible Camden is. At the time, they were allowing you to do a rotation in the Atlantic City site, which I thought was interesting as it would expose you to a different population, but I don't know if the two programs are still connected like that or not.

 

[shan564]

I like Philly also, but I think that Penn is the only program that I'd consider in that area. Maybe TJ, since I'm interested in sleep medicine and they have a psychiatry-based sleep fellowship. I interviewed at Drexel, which was a major disappointment. I cancelled my interview at Cooper mostly because it's in Camden, but I wasn't all that excited about it anyway.

 

[LimbicResponse]

There's really only one program in Philly if you are a decent applicant. Many programs if you are an IMG/DO/Red Flags in your application.

 

[hamstergang]

There's really only one program in Philly if you are a decent applicant. Many programs if you are an IMG/DO/Red Flags in your application.

That doesn't seem right. You can like a program for various different reasons. Not everyone has to value things as you do.

 

[Dharma]

There's really only one program in Philly if you are a decent applicant. Many programs if you are an IMG/DO/Red Flags in your application.

Nothing like a little snobbery to lift your spirits!

 

[LimbicResponse]

Nothing like a little snobbery to lift your spirits!

I do not attend a philadelphia area program although I did interview at Penn. I didn't apply to the others, so take my opinion with a grain of salt in regards to the other Philly programs, they may be über strong.

 

[JamesPhilly]

Temple is in a less good area than the others in Philly. They have a crazy busy psych emergency setting where you take calls. Multiple people there said they liked that as if you can handle that, you can handle anything. Personally, I have no desire to be able to handle that.

🙂 Fair enough, it isn't for everyone. The pace can be crazy

But, for those of you who are interested in EM and psych as I was (and like the advantage of in-house moonlighting), we're worth a look.

Nothing like a little snobbery to lift your spirits!

Medical school selects for a certain type of person...among other things, they tend to be very competitive. I think then when some of those people find they really love something that is easy to get into -- psychiatry -- they feel conflicted to be doing something that part of them feels is below them.

"I could've matched into surgery." "I was a shoe-in for rads." I've heard statements like this from psych residents at various conferences around the country. It's uncomfortable to be around them because they reek of insecurity.

The way these minority of people resolve this conflict is to say, well, I'll only go to a GOOD program, and then they proceed to make an 'objective' list of psych programs. SDN has lots of threads to this effect. I think there was even a thread that asked, if you graduated from Southshore, would your diploma say 'Harvard' on it? (!!)

Here's the fool-proof matching algorithm: Read up on programs and talk to people who interviewed there or current/past residents. That's the best place to get information. Then, go with the place that makes you the most happy.

And to the OP's original question: all of Philly has bad traffic. I would argue that there are no good programs for you that would allow you to live far out in the suburbs. Drexel might be doable with Friends being off of city ave and Hahneman (sp) being off the expressway, but the drive can be killer. Intern year is tough, you don't want a long commute. Give me a PM if you want. Good luck.

 

[shan564]

The way these minority of people resolve this conflict is to say, well, I'll only go to a GOOD program, and then they proceed to make an 'objective' list of psych programs. SDN has lots of threads to this effect. I think there was even a thread that asked, if you graduated from Southshore, would your diploma say 'Harvard' on it? (!!)

I agree that there is a standard temptation to go to a "good" program in order to compensate for the fact that we're in a less competitive specialty. But as the author of that "objective" list, I have to mention that the intent wasn't to say that one program is better than another, but rather just to analyze some data to help reassure myself that I wasn't making a mistake - that particular list wasn't intended to measure the quality of anything by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, I was trying to quantify the decisions that other people had previously made... if I made a rank list that was significantly different from how other people had ranked the same programs, I would have wanted to reassess my decision-making process just to make sure that I wasn't missing something that everybody else was seeing. Then after I made the list (for my own benefit), I figured that I might as well share it with everybody else.

I think that most of us are annoyed by the implication that somebody who goes to a "better" place is automatically "better." But I don't think there's anything wrong with making an effort to find the place that is best for you. For some people, "best" refers to proximity to family. For others, "best" refers to exposure to a particular subspecialty of interest. For some, it may refer to economics (i.e. one program pays better, or one program is located in a place where a spouse has a better chance of getting a good job). Personally, I chose to the place that I felt would give me the best chance of having a successful academic career. I recognize that the majority of doctors don't intend to stay in academia, so I think that the best place to go would be a place that is best-suited to that person's life outside of work (whether that means having easy access to a beach, or having inexpensive real estate, or being close to family, or having relaxed hours), since most places will give you the opportunity to be well-trained... the quality of training is more dependent on the trainee than the program.

Still, I think it's just as annoying when people imply that some of us choose a certain training program just to resolve our insecurities. I realize that the above quoted statement is probably just pointing out a general trend rather than trying to insinuate that all people at "brand name" programs are just there for the brand name, but it just reminded me of the common parallel insecurity, which consists of "I chose a less competitive program because (insert silly generalization here)." In reality, we're all colleagues and we will all be just as good as the amount of effort that we put into learning. The only reason why the big-name programs produce the big-name people is because they attract the type of people who are likely to be motivated to pursue that career path.

But I think that most of this is just being pedantic and trying to defend our own respective decisions. In reality, we probably both made a particular choice because we felt that it was best for us, and we were probably both right. When I said that Penn is the only program I'd consider in the Philly area, I meant that because I like big research-centric academic environments, and Penn is the only program in Philly that's known for that. I ranked Iowa pretty high on my list too, since they're also known for that, even though they don't have a big name. I ranked St. Luke's pretty low, even though they'd give me a Columbia degree (and they were pretty high on my "objective" list based on previous candidates' rank lists), because they're not known for that. I like Philly and Manhattan, but I ranked Drexel and St. Luke's way lower than I ranked Iowa or Indiana or Florida, even though Drexel is probably a more "prestigious" sounding name. Yes, the top of my list was full of institutions that traditionally attract people who like name brands, but that was just a side effect of my primary goal. I suspect that the same is true for the majority of people. Of course, you did mention that it's a "minority" of people to whom you were referring, but I just felt the need to type this extensive hyperdefensive silly pedantic pointless reply because I felt like part of your comment might have possibly been directed specifically at a thread that I started about that "objective" thing.

Anyway, my point is that the insecurity exists on both sides. Insecure people at competitive programs like to feel that the program makes them superior. Insecure people at less-competitive programs like to assume that they're superior because they're not as arrogant as the insecure people at the competitive programs. As psychiatrists, we just need to be mindful of our own insecurities (most of us have a few of them) and make sure that they don't interfere with our ability to take care of patients. For what it's worth, I have substantial respect for the other residency program in my city (which happens to be a bit less competitive for residency, but my program isn't super-competitive either), and when one of my patients has previously been seen there, I generally assume that they received appropriate care (which is not an assumption that I can usually make about any of the other hospitals in the area).


Also - I agree that it's more helpful to talk to people about specific programs, but you have to recognize the limitations of that approach. Current residents will give you a biased opinion, previous interviewees will have the same exposure as the applicant who is trying to get more information, and current attendings will have perspective that is limited by their experience with one or two previous graduates of that program. And for those of us who are coming from overseas, it's even harder to get opinions about programs based on others' experiences. That's why we try to come to SDN to get feedback that is anonymous and, as a result, less affected by personal interests. We want to hear from a wide range of experienced people who have no connection to each other.

 

[Dharma]

^ stellar response. thanks for speaking your mind! Looks like some solid pre-trail advice to me!