In a word..."balance." A good program should provide rigorous inpatient training in all the bread and butter rehab stuff: Stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury, ortho and general rehab, trauma, amputation, etc. It should also provide fundamental training in musculoekeletal, sports, spine, and pain medicine. EMG training should be plentiful (does every resident get over 200 EMG's?) and high quality and complexity (150 carpal tunnels and 50 radiculopathies does not make an electrodiagnostician). Good programs have both PM&R trained and neurology trained electromyographers teaching the residents. You should get to work with both. Finally procedures: You should *AT LEAST* get some rudimentary training in basic injection techniques in the axial spine and major joints (hip/knee/shoulder/elbow). If this is not available, then the program better provide enough CME funds to pay for a couple of courses DURING residency.
How are the didactics? There should be structured, faculty lead didactics covering the core areas of rehab: Musculoskeletal anatomy and physiology (the better programs incorporate dissection too), modalities, orthotics/prosthetics/assistive technology, neurology (central and peripheral including speech, vision and audiology), rheumatology, pain, occ med, sports and ortho.
How do the residents do on inservice and national board exams? Where or what do the residents do after their program (if 3 out of 5 residents have gone for musculoskeletal fellowships the last 5 years then this **could** indicate a relative weakness in the curriculum).
How are the relationships with other departments? Can you do some electives in ortho or neurology or rheum if you want? Will you be welcomed by those departments? Does the program even HAVE electives?
Then there are the regular programatic questions: Call schedule, research opps/reqs, department culture, "happiness", etc.
