Picking an Anesthesiology Program for Research

[QofQuimica]

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Hi to all,

I'm interested in a career in academic anesthesiology (i.e., as an MD/PhD). Right now, I am finishing my PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry. I'll be starting medical school next fall, and I'd like to go somewhere that has a strong anesthesiology research program. So far, I've been accepted to USF, UF, Baylor, and U. Michigan. Recently, I have been making lists of pros and cons for each school from my own perspective as a potential student. I feel that I could get an excellent education at any of these schools, and I would be happy to attend any of them. So if any of you are residents in anesthesiology at any of these schools, I would like to hear your perception about your program, and particularly if you are doing research in anesthesiology.

Thanks!

 

[militarymd]

Hi to all,

I'm interested in a career in academic anesthesiology (i.e., as an MD/PhD). Right now, I am finishing my PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry. I'll be starting medical school next fall, and I'd like to go somewhere that has a strong anesthesiology research program. So far, I've been accepted to USF, UF, Baylor, and U. Michigan. Recently, I have been making lists of pros and cons for each school from my own perspective as a potential student. I feel that I could get an excellent education at any of these schools, and I would be happy to attend any of them. So if any of you are residents in anesthesiology at any of these schools, I would like to hear your perception about your program, and particularly if you are doing research in anesthesiology.

Thanks!

If interested in research, pick the program where all the publications are coming from.

UCSF, Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, MGH, UVa etc.....That's where the opportunities will exist....attendings with interest, funding, and labs.

 

[chicamedica]

If interested in research, pick the program where all the publications are coming from.

UCSF, Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, MGH, UVa etc.....That's where the opportunities will exist....attendings with interest, funding, and labs.

Thanks QofQ for starting this thread. I too am headed for academic anesthesiology and am holding the research opportunities as a major MAJOR criterion in a residency program. I'm a little surprised about UVa being mentioned, but not some (at least what i thought to be) powerhouses of research--Penn, Hopkins, Duke. I was actually told by the chair at my home program that UVa anesthesiology is not very academically oriented at all. Was this inaccurate?

 

[QofQuimica]

If interested in research, pick the program where all the publications are coming from.

UCSF, Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, MGH, UVa etc.....That's where the opportunities will exist....attendings with interest, funding, and labs.

I will be interviewing at CCLCM and CWRU, but right now, none of these programs you mentioned is an option for me. I've only been accepted to the four schools I listed before!

Chica, that's how I feel, too. Are you applying to med school now, or are you a med student looking for a good research residency? I'd like to make sure that I'm at a school with good research opportunities in anesthesiology that I could take part in as a student, and maybe where I could even stay on for residency. I know that Baylor has a clinical pharm program, and people have said on here before that Michigan has a great anesthesiology program too, but I don't know if that's for clinical applications or for research too. Also, I'd like to hear more about UF and USF as well if anyone has any info on them.

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

I don't know too much about the research coming out of the department but UF is a very solid academic anesthesia program. They basically started the simulator (so I'm told). I would assume a fair amount of research comes out of the department. Good luck with your search.

 

[blocks]

U of Michigan has a strong anesthesia program, the chair is from Hopkins which is one of the top 2 or 3 strongest academically so my guess is the are doing good things. UF is a well rounded program. The only weak one of the bunch is USF, if that is University of South Florida, their anesthesia program has been on/off probation for years.

Doing well at U of Mich medical school will take you anywhere you want to go.

 

[jetproppilot]

Hi to all,

I'm interested in a career in academic anesthesiology (i.e., as an MD/PhD). Right now, I am finishing my PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry. I'll be starting medical school next fall, and I'd like to go somewhere that has a strong anesthesiology research program. So far, I've been accepted to USF, UF, Baylor, and U. Michigan. Recently, I have been making lists of pros and cons for each school from my own perspective as a potential student. I feel that I could get an excellent education at any of these schools, and I would be happy to attend any of them. So if any of you are residents in anesthesiology at any of these schools, I would like to hear your perception about your program, and particularly if you are doing research in anesthesiology.

Thanks!

Out of your list, UF or Baylor. And this is coming from a dude who got a BA from USF.

 

[bogatyr]

The Chair at Michigan is from UCLA. He was involved in the early development of pulse oximetry and non-blood oxygen carrying compounds. Here is the website for UofM anesthesia research:

http://www.med.umich.edu/anesresearch/

Like many schools they have a solid program "externship" for medical students to participate in sponsored research during the M1/M2 summer.

 

[bigdan]

Q-

*Full disclosure: not a resident in anesthesia as you'd requested*

First off, congrats for getting in to multiple places, and second, congrats on your PhD.

I don't know how much it'll help (or even if the link will work), but
http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/award/rank/anesthesiology03.htm gives you the FY 2003 NIH funding to anesthesia departments in the USA...maybe it'll serve as a starting point for you?

From my memory, U of Rochester was pretty aggressive with everything they did in trying to get students into research, and I *think* they had a fairly active anesthesia research department. Not sure if you're interviewing there or if they're on your radar at all.

It may also be worth your time to see if the school's individual anesthesia department has a prof or two that are doing research work that you're particularly interested in; that may be more important than going to the place with the "best" research that you're not at all interested in.

You may wanna seek out UT Southwestern on this forum if you don't see him post here before long; he was recently at a great training program (bet you can guess where) and he's now an attending in TX...anyways, he's got good advice about the ivory towers, from my experience with him.

Finally, and obviously, make sure that everything else about the school you choose fits you too.

Good luck with things.

dc

 

[pmichaelmd]

I would go with U. Mich, Baylor, UF in that order. I would in no way consider USF. Search for it in previous threads and you'll see why. I know that UMich and UF are big programs and have a large number of residents per class. I guess it all depends on what you want. You'll want to find a program that has one or more "well-known" academic anesthesiologists, preferrably with NIH grants and a lab.

Cheers,
PMMD

Hi to all,

I'm interested in a career in academic anesthesiology (i.e., as an MD/PhD). Right now, I am finishing my PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry. I'll be starting medical school next fall, and I'd like to go somewhere that has a strong anesthesiology research program. So far, I've been accepted to USF, UF, Baylor, and U. Michigan. Recently, I have been making lists of pros and cons for each school from my own perspective as a potential student. I feel that I could get an excellent education at any of these schools, and I would be happy to attend any of them. So if any of you are residents in anesthesiology at any of these schools, I would like to hear your perception about your program, and particularly if you are doing research in anesthesiology.

Thanks!

 

[jetproppilot]

I would go with U. Mich, Baylor, UF in that order. I would in no way consider USF. Search for it in previous threads and you'll see why. I know that UMich and UF are big programs and have a large number of residents per class. I guess it all depends on what you want. You'll want to find a program that has one or more "well-known" academic anesthesiologists, preferrably with NIH grants and a lab.

Cheers,
PMMD

I dont know if you guys know or not, but it gets really COLD up there. Lock yourself out of your house in December and you may die!

 

[chicamedica]

I will be interviewing at CCLCM and CWRU, but right now, none of these programs you mentioned is an option for me. I've only been accepted to the four schools I listed before!

Chica, that's how I feel, too. Are you applying to med school now, or are you a med student looking for a good research residency? I'd like to make sure that I'm at a school with good research opportunities in anesthesiology that I could take part in as a student, and maybe where I could even stay on for residency. I know that Baylor has a clinical pharm program, and people have said on here before that Michigan has a great anesthesiology program too, but I don't know if that's for clinical applications or for research too. Also, I'd like to hear more about UF and USF as well if anyone has any info on them.

I'm actually a 4th year med student applying for anesthesiology residency. For med school, it's probably not as crucial to find a place that's heavily invested in research, just cause you probably wont have time to do much research while taking med school classes and rotations. However, if you take a year off to focus on research, being at a research powerhouse can allow you to find a cool project to work on right at your home school. Dont know if you'd be up for an extra year of med school, considering that you've already gotten your Ph.D. However, you have some great choices, like UMich, Baylor, and UF, so why not? At the very least, you'd familiarize yourself with their residency programs ahead of time and get a better idea of how much research the residents actually are able to do.

 

[pmichaelmd]

It is pretty frickin' cold up there. Even though Florida is my home now I grew up in the Ohio Valley and was lucky enough to experience blizzards (1978) and the sub-zero windchills. I kinda miss the snow, but that may just be because I don't have to experience it each year anymore. Shoulda seen the look on my son's face when I took him up there for Xmas for the first time....he LOVED the snow!

Environment not withstanding, UMich is always regarded by many as a top-tier program (if that truly means anything).

PMMD

I dont know if you guys know or not, but it gets really COLD up there. Lock yourself out of your house in December and you may die!

 

[aredoubleyou]

I'd say make your decsion based purely on geography, nothing else as far as UF, Baylor, and Mich goes. They are all good med schools, they all have good anesthesiology programs with research....as said before stay away from USF just b/c its department is on probabtion - I'm sure its a fine med school though. Also, if you are a Fl resident, than I would definitely go with state tuition - cause the bills add up quickly. Also, alot of MD/PhDs at my school go into a field thats not really related to their reseach (cardiac physiology phd and urology residency for example) so I'd also say make your decision based more on how much you like the med school and not the anesthesiology department. Good luck!

 

[QofQuimica]

Thanks to everyone who responded. I'm originally from MI, so I know how cold it gets up there; that's why my parents moved us down to FL. 😛 I really like U. Mich, and it's a fabulous school, but it's outrageously expensive for OOS: $40k per year for tuition alone. They will not even let me become a MI resident after the first year. So, I have a hard time justifying spending that kind of money when I could go to USF or UF for $20k per year and Baylor for $7k per year (I'd become a TX resident after MSI and be eligible for in-state tuition from that point on.)

chica, UF and Baylor both do have five year research tracks. I'm considering doing one, because I don't have much clinical research background. I've been basically doing benchwork. Baylor has the added advantage of starting clinical rotations during Jan. of MSII, so they have six months of extra time for electives, including research, during the regular four year program. All four schools encourage students to conduct research during the summer after MSI, so I would at least do some research wherever I end up. So even though I'm several years out from residency, it's still important to me to pick a school with a strong anesthesiology program. Ideally, I would like to buy a condo or townhouse wherever I go, and remain there for my residency afterward. I'm definitely ready to stop picking up and moving every few years. 😛 Where are you considering going for your residency, chica?

 

[Crash cart]

Look at Colorado University...big up and comming research school.

 

[chicamedica]

Thanks to everyone who responded. I'm originally from MI, so I know how cold it gets up there; that's why my parents moved us down to FL. 😛 I really like U. Mich, and it's a fabulous school, but it's outrageously expensive for OOS: $40k per year for tuition alone. They will not even let me become a MI resident after the first year. So, I have a hard time justifying spending that kind of money when I could go to USF or UF for $20k per year and Baylor for $7k per year (I'd become a TX resident after MSI and be eligible for in-state tuition from that point on.)

chica, UF and Baylor both do have five year research tracks. I'm considering doing one, because I don't have much clinical research background. I've been basically doing benchwork. Baylor has the added advantage of starting clinical rotations during Jan. of MSII, so they have six months of extra time for electives, including research, during the regular four year program. All four schools encourage students to conduct research during the summer after MSI, so I would at least do some research wherever I end up. So even though I'm several years out from residency, it's still important to me to pick a school with a strong anesthesiology program. Ideally, I would like to buy a condo or townhouse wherever I go, and remain there for my residency afterward. I'm definitely ready to stop picking up and moving every few years. 😛 Where are you considering going for your residency, chica?

I only applied to the programs that my advisors seem to have more or less a consensus on as being strong anesthesia programs that are academically and research-focused, and where i would enjoy training. Right now, I'm basically leaving it up to the programs to decide whether they want to interview me, and i'll decide from those. I really would love to be at any of the places I applied to. So, so far the progs i have interviews at (also listed in the interview thread) are Penn, Hopkins, Mayo-Roch, Wash U, Columbia, Pitt, Rochester (NY), and NYU. Not totally sure how academic NYU is, but the others are very geared that way (my advisors had less of a consensus on Wash U for some reason--maybe less well known?). Duke, the harvard progs, UTSW, and UCSF are obviously academic, but i got no love from them yet 🙁

 

[adleyinga]

Q of Q

Where you go to med school won't make a real difference when you apply to residency. You can do some research- but as someone said- you don't have alot of time in med school.
Doing a 5th year is generally for someone without research background.
So if you get great grades and great USMLE scores you can go to a high prestige research institution for anesthesia and continue reearch

Let mne ask you a question- if you want to do bench research why are you going to medical school? Did you burn out on lab work as a post doc?
Do you now want clinical research? Do you just want more oney as MD?
The more high powered the instituion and the more researxh time you have the less the salary.

I guess you need to answer many questions before deciding on which med school.

I would pesonally go with the cheapest and prove yourself there. All med schools have some research

 

[QofQuimica]

Q of Q

Where you go to med school won't make a real difference when you apply to residency. You can do some research- but as someone said- you don't have alot of time in med school.
Doing a 5th year is generally for someone without research background.
So if you get great grades and great USMLE scores you can go to a high prestige research institution for anesthesia and continue reearch

Let mne ask you a question- if you want to do bench research why are you going to medical school? Did you burn out on lab work as a post doc?
Do you now want clinical research? Do you just want more oney as MD?
The more high powered the instituion and the more researxh time you have the less the salary.

I guess you need to answer many questions before deciding on which med school.

I would pesonally go with the cheapest and prove yourself there. All med schools have some research

No, I want to do clinical research, not bench. That's why I want to go to med school. I know I am not going to make a ton of money, which is why cost is going to be a major factor for me in picking a school.