Forum Members PMSR/RRA Residency Reviews

[that1guyfromFL]

There have been a few threads over the years with scattered feedback about residency programs, but I thought it might be more beneficial to future students if we had an organized central location to post experiences and observations.

**In order to keep this thread efficient, please only post program reviews here. If you want to discuss a specific program in more detail, please get in touch with the review author via PM or start a new thread with the program name in the title. Thank you!**

If anyone feels uncomfortable posting under their own screen name, I would be more than happy to post them anonymously just send me a PM with the information.

*** You can also email completed reviews anonymously to ResidencyReviews@gmail.com ***

Program Name:

General Program/Hospital Info:

Attendings:

Residents:

Didactics:

OR Experience:

Clinic Experience:

Research Opportunities:

Lifestyle:

Pros:

Cons:

Overall Conclusion:

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[MaxillofacialMN]

Don't we essentially have all this information centralized in the Residency Survey on the APMSA website?

 

[that1guyfromFL]

Don't we essentially have all this information centralized in the Residency Survey on the APMSA website?

No. The APMSA residency survey is completed by a current resident at a program and frankly everyone I have talked to found it to be basically worthless when trying to choose programs to visit.

Residents are, understandably, pretty hesitant in general to give completely honest public feedback about their own program even if it's supposedly "anonymous". It's natural for people and programs want to portray themselves in the best light in order to attract students.

Please feel free to ignore this thread if you already have all the information you need.

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

I'm just a first year - I don't know anything.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

Program Name: DeKalb Medical Center (Atlanta, GA)


General Program/Hospital Info:
The hospital itself isn’t huge. There is a decent cafeteria and the nursing and other physician house staff are friendly and approachable for the most part.

Attendings:
There are multiple “big name” podiatry attendings here. Ruch, Banks, Camasta, McGlamry, Kalish, etc. The PD is a soft spoken guy, which is the exception at this program. There is an element of ego when you are working with some of the attendings, but there is not a malignant attitude in the bunch. Urban legends abound about Dr. Ruch in particular, but I found him to be a willing teacher and one of the finest surgeons I worked with, bar none. If you are hard working and attentive you will not have a problem with anyone here.

Residents:
Typically 4 per year. In general they seemed smart, most are very academic. In a group of 15+ people there will be some conflict, but the residents seemed to work well together for the most part.

Didactics:
This is a big time focus of the program. There are scheduled didactics at least 2 times per week and the residents will almost always give students one of the hundreds of short 20 minute lectures they have on file if there is ever down time during the day. There is an attending on site at the hospital to do a grand rounds type review of surgical cases with all of the residents at least once per week. The residents are expected to prepare and deliver lectures at the Podiatry Institute continuing education conferences held throughout the year. There is an amazing cadaver lab setup in the Podiatry Institute where you have access to fresh frozen limbs at any time, with every instrument you might want to use on them. There is even a mini C arm there to look at fixation or k wire position.

OR Experience:
Big focus here on anatomic dissection, tissue handling and meticulous closure.
The amount of actual knife time the residents get during a case is highly dependent on the attending. Some of the attendings have no problem taking the knife away during initial dissection and usually do most of the critical parts of the case themselves. There is a heavy emphasis here on complex primary and revisional reconstruction. Acute fracture care was not very common, there were very few ankle fractures and only a handful of others during my month. There is clear delineation and hierarchy with regard to case selection, the 2nd and 3rd years were doing all of the mid and rear foot osseous procedures. There are always multiple residents scrubbed on every case, as a student you are often the 4th person scrubbed at the table, making it hard to see anything. Very hands off student experience, but you WILL be pimped constantly in the OR.

Clinic Experience:
Limited private office exposure and no resident clinic. As a student you are sent to varying locations to spend time in clinic with members of the residency committee.

Research Opportunities:
There are opportunities here, not only to publish but to author book chapters and get an early start on lecturing if that is something you are interested in. Teaching is more of the focus over publication from what I gathered.

Lifestyle:
The hours here are very,very long. There is a lot of inefficiency and overlap of coverage in the day to day mechanics of rounding, floor work and call. At times there were 3 residents rounding with 2 students to change a bandage. The days start always star before 6 and the all residents were routinely still at the hospital until after 8pm going over the inpatient census as a group or doing random paperwork.

Pros:
Access to attending surgeons who literally wrote one of the most commonly utilized foot and ankle surgery text books
Program name recognition within podiatry, you are a “PI guy” when you graduate and that does come with some benefits, especially in the surrounding Atlanta area
Solid recon and complex revision caseload

Cons:
Rigid hierarchy may not work for some personalities
Somewhat limited hands on operating experience as a resident with some attendings
Limited trauma exposure
Highly academic culture is not for everyone

Overall Conclusion:
DeKalb may no longer be the singular pinnacle of podiatric surgery as it once was (a testament to across the board residency quality improvements in the last 15 years), but if you can get past the hierarchy and don't mind the highly structured culture of the program it still offers solid training for those who are very academically driven and have interest in reconstructive, revisional and elective surgery. Because of the numerous didactics, it also offers a very good educational experience for students who rotate through the program.

 

[janV88]

Program Name:Norton Hospital (Louisville, KY)

General Program/Hospital Info:Norton Audubon Hospital is the main hospital which is ~5 miles away from the city center. Just far enough to be outside the urban sprawl. Residents only cover inpatients of this hospital. Average 10-20 inpatients at a time. Residents cover surgeries at 7 hospitals total, 2 of which are children's hospitals. It's a private hospital system so Doctors are treated very nicely. Free meals all day. Excellent staff - very courteous and helpful.

Attendings:Dr. Myrick (Director), Childress (Co-director), Ogden (Externship Director) and 10+ more DPMs. Dr. Dripchak (F&A ortho) + Ortho trauma (they changed their ortho trauma rotation recently).
Myrick trained under Dr. Ford who now heads the Jewish/St. Marys program. Childress trained elsewhere, not really sure. Ogden is a recent grad of Norton. They have around 15 DPM and 2 Ortho attendings in total. Every attending does things a little differently. Great diversity in teaching. The attendings give the residents a lot of autonomy. Usually round on inpatients solo.

Residents:2 residents per yr. All were very intelligent, great camaraderie and work very well as a team. Seems like they tend to take top 20-25% of class. 3 residents are on service at a time. 1st yr takes 14 days, 2nd yr takes 10 days, 3rd yr takes the rest. They take call at 7 hospitals total (2 children's hospitals) but only cover inpatients at 1 hospital.

Didactics:Journal club, Student presentation, Cadaver lab, Rep Presentations/Workshops. Not a focus of the program.

OR Experience:If you're not rounding then you're in the OR. If you're rounding then you still cover OR cases. They never double scrub except for July of 1st yr and if a resident is done for the day and wants to get his hands dirty. With Myrick you do 100% of the case unless you aren't comfortable then he'll take over. With Childress it's a toss up. He might do the case or might not even scrub in. Odgen works with you as a team 50/50 unless he doesn't feel like doing the case then the resident is doing it (amps, debridements, etc). The rest pretty do the case with you 50/50. 3rd years always do the majority of the case. Very hands on. They get their numbers end of 1st yr/beginning of 2nd yr. Dr. Myrick is part of an ortho group and alone brings in 100+ ankle fractures per yr. Podiatry attendings actually do trauma unlike most programs out there where you rely on ortho for your trauma numbers. I even saw 2 pediatric F&A trauma cases in podiatry in my month there. Very good mix of trauma, electives, and DM.

Clinic Experience:The main hospital has a wound care clinic and residents can go to attendings clinics anytime. Not a focus of the program but the opportunities are definitely there.

Research Opportunities:I think they require 1 research project to graduate. I don't think any of the current residents were really into research. Not a focus of the program hence why they aren't really well known.

Lifestyle:Off service rotations are very lax. This is when residents take their vacation time. On service can be pretty hectic for the on-call resident. Usually in the OR 8-5 most days. Residents go home whenever they are done with cases. When you are done, you are done.

Pros:Very chill, relaxed atmosphere. No one is breathing down your neck. Resident run. When you are done, you are done.
Lots of forefoot and rear foot elective cases, trauma including peds.
Podiatry attendings do trauma - they don't rely on ortho for their trauma numbers.
Since its a private hospital, residents get treated like attendings.

Cons:Not really into research (this can be a pro if you don't like research).
No resident run clinic.
Quite a bit of driving since they cover 7 hospitals but Louisville rarely has bumper to bumper traffic. Their version of traffic is 25-30mph on the highway...

Overall Conclusion:
Sleeper program. Excellent for the self motivated. High case volume and diversity. All the attendings work with the resident as a team. During my month I heard multiple attendings discuss the case and ask the resident what they wanted to do instead of just telling the resident where to drill, where to cut, etc. They teach you how to think and act like an attending. I highly recommend this program for self motivated students. I ranked them #1.

 

[dtrack22]

Program Name: Legacy Health/Kaiser Permanente (Portland, OR)

General Program/Hospital Info:As a student and now as a resident (they are taking 4 per year) you spend half your time at the Legacy hospitals/clinics and half of your time at Kaiser. There are also a few non-Legacy health private practice doctors you work with. Legacy Emanuel is the big level 1 trauma center with a sweet burns rotation, also where the residents do most of their off-rotations. Most of the surgical cases and the in-patient management is done at Legacy Good Samaritan. The Kaiser is a typical Kaiser and they recently opened up another Kaiser that you'll work at in Beaverton. Overall the facilities are fairly spread out over much of the greater Portland area but most of the work seems to be done at Good Samaritan, Emanuel and Kaiser Sunnyside.

Attendings:Dr. Laxson (Director), Remmers (Clerkship Director) and 10+ more DPMs. Plus the Peds Ortho attendings at Kaiser that you work with (don't interact with them as a student). Laxson has the "big" cases at Kaiser. Remmers, Mah (PI grad/private practice), and Gentile (PSL grad/private practice) were the attendings I got to work with on the Legacy side. All had very diverse case loads. That's really a theme of this program, balance. Very minimal work, if any, with F/A ortho attendings but it isn't necessary to get the cases.

Residents:4 residents per yr. I think this was the only program I went to with that many residents and I was impressed with how well they got along and how much time they spent together outside of work. The first years are off service for about 3 months at a time and when on service they were the ones rounding on in-patients at Good Samaritan and covering most of the Legacy attendings' cases. I believe first years will begin rotating through the Kaiser system now that they have 4. 2nd years did their peds ortho rotation and podiatry at Kaiser. You split between "elective" (all of the elective cases and clinic) and "on-call" (rounding, call, the cases that come with it and clinic during the time you aren't managing the inpatients and consults) while on service at Kaiser. 3rd year is pretty much all podiatry, 4 months with Laxson and the other 8 months covering the cases you want to across the program). There is also a lot of flexibility in your 3rd year. Laxson will set up rotations in any specialty/hospital system you want. ie a former resident wanted to get more experience with TARs and wanted to end up in the Kaiser system so he set up a few months down in SF with Schuberth. One thing you'll find with the "big names" on the west coast is that they are all friends and often have residents doing rotations at those programs in their 3rd year.

Didactics: Twice per week. Cadaver labs, Chapter reviews, journal club, resident and student lectures. Well balanced and always seemed pertinent.

OR Experience: Residents are in the OR most days when on-service. They may round before and have clinic in the afternoon but typically cover at least a few cases in between. 3rd years are primarily only covering surgical cases. Between Legacy, Kaiser, Laxson, and the few private attendings you will see everything. Kaiser "elective" cases are very bread and butter podiatry forefoot cases, AICT/Huglunds correction, etc. Legacy has more amps/I&Ds than Kaiser but you'll see everything else. Laxson has most of the recon, TARs, etc. He also has a great relationship with Ortho at Kaiser but from what I can tell you don't work with dedicated F/A orthos much, just the peds docs. The only thing I didn't see much of was trauma. It is probably the weakest area from a student's perspective but they get their numbers easily and again you can make up for anything you feel deficient in during your 3rd year. Residents rarely only assisted even as first years. A majority of cases were done by the residents. But there was more splitting the case with the attending than other programs I visited. Private practice docs obviously do more of their cases than others (I think you should expect that everywhere you go because that's just common sense), even when they had 3rd year residents with them. I don't remember any double scrubbing. Even with 4 residents per year I think there will be just too many cases that need to be covered for that to happen.

Clinic Experience: 1st years cover the Good Samaritan clinic an afternoon per week and a clinic at Emanuel once per week. As well as a free clinic twice per month (although depending on coverage/staff it does get canceled) two evenings per month. 2nd years are at the Kaiser clinic which is what you'd expect if you have any experience in the Kaiser system. The residents present to the attendings but usually got to treat the patient as they saw fit. The attendings went in to see some patients and not others. Depended on the patient and the pathology and the presentation and plan given by the resident from what I could tell.

Research Opportunities: The only thing the program doesn't really emphasize. The opportunities certainly exist but you are kept plenty busy without it and the residents only have to do the minimum required by the CPME.

Lifestyle: With academics thrown in they do have longer hours compared to many programs I'd imagine. The nice thing is that you are at the hospital or in clinic because there is work to be done. There isn't any inefficiency during your day even though you are at "work" a lot. The Portland area is a huge draw. You have the ocean an hour one direction, the mountains an hour another. Pro basketball and soccer. Great downtown and tons of food and entertainment options. Really a cool city and surrounding area to explore with the free-time you do have.

Pros: Awesome attending staff. There isn't a mean one in the group and all of the ones I interacted with genuinely wanted to teach. It never felt like residents were being used to see patients in somebodies clinic or for a free assistant in the OR. The most "well rounded" program I saw. I don't think there will be a procedure you haven't seen/done by the end of your 3rd year.

Cons:Not really into research (this can be a pro if you don't like research).
The amount of dedicated didactic time and therefore the number of hours you spend working most weeks may be a con.
3rd years did less cutting than I saw at other programs but that very well could have been my month or just the handful of cases I witnessed. One thing you'll notice as a student is that your experience in August may be very different from another student's experience in November.
The cases were primarily pre-oped and the procedure selected by the attending.

Overall Conclusion:
I'll say it again, Legacy is incredibly balanced. Your 3rd year is flexible enough and Laxson and Remmers care enough about your training that you can get experience in any area you want as a 3rd year. If you want more autonomy as a resident this program may not be your first choice, but it is certainly one of the better (and subsequently more competitive) programs in the country.

 

[dtrack22]

Program Name: John Peter Smith (Fort Worth, TX)

General Program/Hospital Info: You spend 2.5 years at John Peter Smith Hospital. County hospital and Level 1 trauma center just south of downtown Ft. Worth. 6 months in your 3rd year are spent covering the attendings private practices and their cases at other hospitals and surgery centers. They also have an Ortho residency program, but Podiatry is the Foot and Ankle Orthopedic service within the Ortho program and the hospital as a whole. That means 4th year ortho residents rotate through Podiatry (although they just cover surgical cases) to get their F/A numbers. They also cover a weekend of call every month.

Attendings:Dr. Carpenter (Director), Motley (Clerkship Director) and Dr. Garrett. Motley and Garrett are graduates of the program and all have their own practices. They are on staff at the hospital, employed through the University of North Texas (I believe). Because of this relationship the program is essentially entirely resident run. All of the patients that come through the ED and clinic are your patients. You diagnose, decide treatments and book the cases by yourself. There are a couple other private practice DPMs you work with in your 3rd year as well as Ortho Trauma surgeons at JPS that you work with.

Residents:2 residents per yr. You spend about 6 months off-service in your first year. When on other services the expectation is that you'll function like any other resident. But you really only do the minimum number of non-podiatry rotations. The residents round on their own every morning. Typically no more than 10 inpatients, but the list fluctuates. They do admit patients under their service and so the residents were very comfortable with medical management. You spend all of your time at JPS until your 3rd year when 6 months are spent outside of the hospital. You take call all 3 years with fewer call days as you go from one year to the next. 3rd years only had a couple weekdays of call per month from what I remember. They were by far the most confident group of residents I came across. No hesitation in clinic or the OR. You are responsible for teaching younger residents though as the attendings are very hands off. They were all very self motivated and I'd imagine it is because you have to be to succeed in an environment like this.

Didactics: If you want forced didactics this isn't the place for you. One journal club per month and the weekly ortho conference is led by Pod residents once a month when the topic is F/A. The residents were incredibly bright and I was pimped a lot but it was because they do the reading and case prep without the mandatory didactic meetings.

OR Experience: Trauma, trauma, trauma. Dedicated OR time on wednesday and Friday (2nd years will cover cases that have to go on clinic days). At the end of your first year you will have done 70-80 ankle fractures on your own. The residents are doing practically every case skin to skin with attendings there to talk you through things if you need it. Never saw an attending take an instrument unless a resident asked (and I don't know if I even saw that). I would say I saw a normal amount of recon and TARs, but not as high volume as I saw at PSL (both) and Swedish (TARs). Forefoot elective cases are the only thing they don't see a lot of at the hospital. Plenty of cases come through clinic but because of the patient population many never make it to the OR. It is definitely the "weakest" aspect of their surgical training. That being said, They get their forefoot numbers during their time at the hospital and then triple to quadruple them during their 3rd year outside of the hospital. Not long after you start as a first year, it is your show in the OR. As an outside observer you would have no idea that the residents aren't seasoned attendings with the way they carry themselves and work in the OR. By far the most impressive aspect of the program. Because of the resident's surgical volume and confidence I was able to do a TMA, a fib fx, and an open toe fx skin to skin with the resident assisting and talking me through it, helping when I was struggling or wanted it.

Clinic Experience: Monday and Thursday are full clinic days. And I mean full. 100+ patients for 2-3 residents. Tuesday morning is clinic as well. Much like the OR, attendings are there to help if you want it and go over the surgical cases you booked that are coming up. You see all of your post op patients in clinic and because of the patient population there is a fair amount of wound care. The recon cases come through clinic and are often neglected deformities that have progressed to the point that they've become pretty debilitating.

Research Opportunities: Much like the rest of the program it's up to you to push through projects you want to do. Most of the literature coming out of the program is trauma related but Carpenter has published plenty of literature that has nothing to do with ankle, calc, lisfranc, etc fxs. You also have resources available through the University of North Texas (ie statistical analysis). Its there but you can go through without doing much of anything.

Lifestyle: Not counting call it is pretty consistent 6am to 5pm on clinic days and a little earlier on surgery days. Definitely not the longest hours I witnessed but you are pretty much full go whenever you are at the hospital. They show up, get their work done, and leave. Dallas/Ft Worth has everything a big metro area would. No mountains and hiking and skiing though if that's important to you.

JPS is very unique and therefore what I'm going to call pros and cons could very easily be the exact opposite of how another student feels. It's why people may tell you that you either love JPS or you hate it.
Pros: Complete autonomy as a resident
More cases that the residents do skin to skin than most other residency programs
Tons of trauma and therefore nothing intimidated the residents I worked with
Because of the above the residents had great "surgical skills" regardless of the case. Dissecting, fixation, instrument handling, suturing, etc.
In the hospital you are strictly a surgical service and you are the F/A Ortho service
Benefits are great
You don't have to worry about anyone slacking off. Everyone gets their work done.

Cons: In terms of pure surgical numbers, I'd guess they aren't as high as the huge volume programs
Not as much bread and butter podiatry in the OR as most programs
Tons of trauma (I think a lot of people see it as not practical. What the residents will tell you and what I believe is that trauma requires sound AO principles and also forces you to understand structural and functional anatomy to "put things back together". If you can put a blown out calc back together or reduce and ORIF a bad lisfranc injury, you can correct a bunion. A lot of people won't agree with that and they certainly aren't wrong).
It's a boys club and the attendings are very blunt and have no problem busting your chops. I liked it but it would be easy to get your feelings hurt.

Overall Conclusion:
If you want to be thrown into the fire right away and spend 3 years with responsibilities that resemble those of an attending more so than those of the typical resident, JPS is a great program. You have to be self-motivated and want hands-on clinic and OR experience more than any other aspect of training. If you aren't already very confident and don't do well with blunt attendings, or don't believe that the case load at JPS will prepare you for the type of practice you want to have after residency then it's probably not worth visiting. As a student you will get to do a lot (plus zero note writing or busy work), so the month will most likely still be valuable even if you end up not liking the program. Occasionally they do take 6 students which may limit the amount of hands-on practice you get during your month.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

Program Name: Jewish/St. Mary’s (now KentuckyOne Health)

General Program/Hospital Info: The residents are base out of the main hospital location downtown Louisville, large shared medical campus with U of L medical center, Corsair Children’s, Norton Audubon hospitals and specialized heart and lung centers among others.

Attendings: The director, Dr Ford, brings a high volume of elective bread and butter type cases along with good amounts of recon, also runs a clinic in the U of L outpatient center. The other main attending, Dr Hicks, is a graduate and past fellow of the program and handles a lot of the charcot and diabetic infections. He runs the wound clinic as well. Dr Kovatch is the externship director and is extremely approachable and willing to teach. He has a fairly balanced case load. Good relationship with 3 main ortho attendings. Residents spend a total of 4 months on a level 1 ortho trauma service with the chief of traumatology Dr Seligson. A total of 6 months are spent on service with F&A ortho attendings Dr Hockenbury (complex revision cases, recon and TARs) and Dr Gabriel who did both pediatric ortho and F&A fellowships and has a purely pediatric F&A practice. Also work with 10+ other pods in the surrounding area, primarily at outpatient surgery centers.

Residents:
Very relaxed group, many former college athletes. Fun atmosphere. Primarily male residents, but not the total boys club I witnessed at other programs. Residents take varied jobs ager graduation: a mix of orthopedic groups, hospital systems and private practices.

Didactics: Journal club once per month, usually sponsored. The resident’s held a fracture conference/discussion group once per month with students. Not a really “academic” program but the residents know their stuff. Not much pimping of students but open to discussing anything if you bring it up. Recently introduced a cadaver lab opportunity for dissection and fixation practice at U of L.

OR Experience:
Elective outpatient cases with the main 2 attendings (Ford and Hicks) are at the U of L outpatient surgical center or Jewish. The residents also cover 6 or so other surgery centers. Acute care is usually in the U of L main OR, sometimes at Jewish main or other hopsitals where the residents cover ED call. The residents have a lot of autonomy and are given the knife very early on during the 1st year. Everyone I worked with, including the 1st years, were very confident operating on their own and making decisions in the OR. The 2nd and 3rd years did every case I scrubbed skin to skin. No double scrubbing of residents unless both legs/feet were being worked on at the same time. As a student you will get to do as much as you are capable of and comfortable with. I was expected to close the skin on 90% of the cases I scrubbed, also did some deep closures, threw some screws and k wires, TMA bone cuts etc as the month went on.

Clinic Experience:
Wound care clinic is once a week, if you don’t have cases you can go. Resident clinic once a week and fellow clinic once a week, not heavily staffed by residents and only half the day for each. You are free to call any attendings office and spend time there in the PM after cases are finished if you want to. As a student you spend time in clinic with several of the main attendings.

Research Opportunities:
Many ACFAS posters are produced year to year with both the podiatry and ortho attendings, some leading to literature publication. The research director Dr. Adams is interested in ramping up the publication level coming from the program.

Lifestyle:
The surgical schedule is busy but you can do your work and go home on podiatry service. Very little wasted time on busywork on the floors. The residents enjoy their life outside of the OR and hospital. Outside rotations schedules vary, ortho trauma service is very busy, ID rotation is typical ID hours. ED rotation is at U of L and follows the ED shift work schedule.
Pros:
Good surgical diversity between elective, recon and acute trauma exposure
Early knife time as a 1st year, residents graduate with at least 4x surgical MAVs
Pretty good lifestyle compared to other higher volume residencies
Free food almost everywhere you go
Good benefits
Louisville is a cool city

Cons:
Average volume of complex flatfoot and cavus recon
Not highly academic
Some will prefer more structure in their training
Driving is required to surgery centers up to 20 minutes away

Overall Conclusion:
Jewish offers a unique blend of elective and acute surgery caseload. I visited several programs more heavily focused on one or the other, but not many offered the diversity I saw here during my month. The laid back program culture will not be to everyone’s liking, but the large volume of diverse cases and early operating experience makes the overall training environment highly desirable. As a student you won't be drilled constantly with questions so you will need to be self motivated to read, but the hands on experience can be very beneficial depending on your previous OR exposure.

 

[janV88]

Program Name: Detroit Medical Center (Detroit, MI)

General Program/Hospital Info: Main hospital is Sinai Grace on 6 mile road. Neighboring area is really rough. They also cover downtown DMC. In the AM, 1 resident covers SGH and another covers downtown. In the PM 1 resident covers both. SGH gets a mix of trauma and DM whereas downtown is pretty much all DM. Excellent off service rotations due to the multiple residency programs at DMC. Residents spend quite a bit of time on Ortho trauma where they take general ortho call (they have to handle anything that comes in such as hip fractures, etc.).

Attendings: Dr. Kissel (director), Husain (co-director) are the 2 main attendings running the program. Husain is an excellent teacher. Tons of DPM attendings. Other than Husain and 2 other attendings, I never worked with any other attending more than once during my month. I only saw this happen once during my month but multiple residents told me that some attendings who aren't well trained will sometimes schedule cases they aren't trained to perform and if there is no resident coverage then they will cancel.

Residents:
Very motivated and intelligent residents. All the residents I worked with seemed very comfortable in the OR. The autonomy of the program requires residents to be on their A game at all times.

Didactics: Grand rounds once a week in the AM. Residents present a few interesting cases in the past week and discuss them. Students are asked to read x-rays, treatment plans, different techniques, etc. Dr. Husain also has clinic once a week where he will have residents and students discuss x-rays and cases between patients.

OR Experience: At SGH and Downtown, the residents will do the entire case skin to skin. At surgery centers I noticed that 3rd yrs will do skin to skin but 1st yrs tend to retract/close. I didn't get much experience with the 2nd yrs during my month. Good amount of trauma out of SGH. Tons of DM out of SGH and Downtown. Good elective volume at surgery centers but diversity was lacking when I was there. I didn't see any flat foot recons, elective mid foot cases, or achilles cases during my month. As I mentioned previously, a few attendings will schedule cases they are not able to do and expect the residents to do them. Personally, I only saw this happen 1 time. IMO this is good experience for the resident.

Clinic Experience: Usually there's always a clinic going either at SGH or Downtown. Residents not doing anything are expected to help out. 3rd yrs do clinic for a few months at attendings private clinics to get experience in private practice.

Research Opportunities:
I'm unfamiliar with the research aspect of this program.

Lifestyle:
Very busy program. Rounding resident takes call in the AM at their respective hospital. Call is switched over to the night resident who covers both locations. Potential to have cases 8-5 then night call starting at 6 then cases again at 8-5. Otherwise you go home when you are done.

Pros:
Autonomy
Tons of DM cases
Hands on
Excellent off service rotations

Cons:
Diversity of elective cases
Lots of driving
Detroit, past 10 mile road, is really rough and thats coming from someone who's lived a few blocks from the ghetto in chicago for years.

Overall Conclusion: Great program if you are looking for autonomy. Sink or swim mentality. You will be put on the spot and expected to perform. All the senior residents were extremely confident in their skills. I thoroughly enjoyed this program. Only downside is the lack of case diversity (electives) and the detroit area.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

*Anonymously submitted*

Program Name: Swedish Medical Center (Seattle, WA)

General Program/Hospital Info:Swedish First Hill and Cherry Hill are the 2 main hospitals. Some off-rotations are done at Harbor View (only level 1 trauma center in the state of WA). You do an international month in your 3rd year and 3 months in SF doing ortho trauma at the Kaisers. Bad relationship with Ortho at Swedish. Ortho department at Harbor View is slightly more welcoming (formerly Sig Hansen’s program). They let the pod residents sit in on their x-ray conference every Monday.

Attendings: Dr. Hale (Director), Dr. Labella (Clerkship Director), Dr. Christensen and 10 or so other DPMs; No training with F/A trained orthos.

Residents: The residents seemingly know everything. They are incredibly bright and well-rounded with academic, medical, clinical and surgical knowledge. They are required to lecture to the students regularly and they have a lot of research and academic/didactic requirements. Plus they rank students based on how you perform on a largely academic interview so it makes sense that they would be a smart group before even starting. The resident personalities do not match those of the attending staff which is a good thing.

Didactics: Twice a week. Journal club, grand rounds, student presentations, x-ray conference.

OR Experience: Diverse case load. Volume was very average when I practically every case was double scrubbed. They are very particular and therefore the 2nd years help out the 1st years for a good 6 months after they start. The skills in the OR were good. Not the most impressive, but not the worst either. Scrubbing a TAR with Christensen is an experience. He doesn’t get post-op infections because he is particular and meticulous. Cases are long though because of it. Residents didn’t do much of the cases with him but my understanding (from residents and other students) is that by the time you are a 3rd year and have scrubbed a bunch of TARs with him, he does let the residents do a majority of the case so long as they don’t screw up.

Clinic Experience: Very little. One afternoon as a first year and the clinic is run by a 3rd year although depending on the attending it may or may not be truly “resident run.” Your 3rd year is very flexible though, so you can always work in the various attending clinics.

Research Opportunities:
Tons of biomechanical studies produced by residents here. Dedicated lab and lots of cadaver limbs at your disposal. Christensen is very helpful in the execution of the study as well. Yearly studies are required.

Lifestyle:
As a student you are there from 5am to 9-10pm most days. You pre-round before the residents get there and there was often an add-on case that you couldn’t get started on until 7-8pm due to OR space and staffing. You have to get over the misery to realize that this program offers excellent training. As a resident the hours aren’t a whole lot better but you are at least filling your time with work and not just sitting around. Seattle is gorgeous in the summer and gray the rest of the year, but there is lots to do.

Pros:
Research opportunities
Diverse case load and more TAR experience than any other program in the country
Very bright residents academically
Very flexible 3rd year and strong outside and off-service rotations
Very well-connected and well-known within Podiatry

Cons:
Little clinic
Lots of double scrubbing early in your residency training
Lot of time spent at the hospital
Not a relaxed atmosphere

Overall Conclusion: Excellent training. If you are interested in research and getting published then this would be an excellent choice. You have to be ok putting up with the rigidity and certain personalities. Not the most OR experience but the residents know everything about the etiology, treatment options, surgical technique, and post-op care even if they aren’t the ones planning the case or following up with the patient. Academically strong program that sounds to me a lot like Dekalb in terms of the way it is run and the various attending personalities.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

*Anonymously submitted*

Program Name: Highlands/ Presbyterian St Luke's aka PSL (Denver, CO)

General Program/Hospital Info:Presbyterian St. Luke’s is the hospital that the program is technically based out of. But only a mostly resident-run clinic, a wound care clinic day, and most didactic meetings are held there. A vast majority of your time is spent at other facilities. St. Anthony West, Parker, and Sky Ridge are very nice hospitals that you’ll end up spending more time at in your three years. Also very spread out. Then there are a handful of surgery centers that you scrub cases at.

Attendings: Dr. Stone (Director), Dr. Farrett (Clerkship Director), Dr. Ng, Dr. Jacobson + 20-30 other DPM attendings; No training with F/A trained orthos. Many of the attendings are graduates of the program (Sachs, Herzog, Kruz

Residents: Very bright group. All strong academically coming out of school. Very easy to work with group. Surprisingly laid back considering the type of resident you may assume they get.

Didactics: Journal club every Monday. ½ to a full journal covered per week. Second didactic day each week resident presentations, student presentations, x-ray conference. X-ray conference is the infamous didactic meeting where Dr. Ng and company basically put them through oral ABPS boards. Intimidating but incredibly effective and I thought beneficial.

OR Experience: Huge case volume and diversity. You are traveling all over the place to cover cases. Surgery is practically every day for all of the residents who are on service. They pick cases each week with 3rd years getting first and second pick, 2nd years getting 3rd and 4th picks, etc. Because of this Ng and Jacobson are essentially 3rd year attendings. When I was there the residents didn’t do much of any case. They did less than I expected but looking back I’m not really shocked seeing as every patient on the table is the Dr’s private patient. That being said the graduates of the programs that are now attendings are very good so they either got good quickly after residency or my month was a bit of an anomaly.

Clinic Experience: Mostly Resident run Presbyterian St. Luke’s staffed by a 2nd year, 1 morning per week. Indigent clinic where most patients are Spanish speaking with a 1st year and a 2nd year, one morning per week. Wound care clinic one morning per week that a 1st year covers. You also have a couple week rotation through one of the private offices but it is practice management, billing/coding specific.

Research Opportunities:
No dedicated facilities. All of the research seems to be write ups of cases they did with a few of the attendings. This was not a program that pumped out a lot of research, they just read a lot of research.

Lifestyle:
Lots of driving but the on-service hours aren’t bad. When you are just covering cases there are plenty of days when you’d be done by noon. But you also have evening didactics twice a week. Denver is awesome though. Especially if anything outdoors even remotely interests you. You really don’t take call, even as a first year. Only a few inpatients at a time and they are usually people that one of the attendings just doesn’t want to round on. Your only responsibility, normally, are the patient’s at Presby.

Pros:
High volume surgery
Very diverse case load
Well versed in classic and current literature
Denver

Cons:
Journal club often feels like a waste of time when half the articles you read are useless and the attendings say as much during the meetings. Feels like you are doing didactics for the sake of saying “Hey, we do a lot of didactics”
No autonomy and lots of assisting
Hospitals and surgery centers are all over the place
Barely any clinic. No continuum of care for your surgical cases (don’t see post-op results in clinic)

Overall Conclusion: Great area. Tons of cases that cover practically every area of F/A surgery you could imagine. Considered a very intimidating environment by most because of the attending staff and residents didn’t do a lot in the OR. After 3 years at this program though, you would now all of the “right” answers to any F/A related question.

 

[Gigantron]

Bookmarked for future reference! Would love to hear one about Temple's residency program.

 

[air bud]

This is a great thread. I visited almost all the programs being discussed on here and I agree with most everything written here. Keep up the good work.

 

[Pod_Guy]

Awesome information!!! If anyone has experience at Medstar or Kaiser Cleveland, it would be great to hear from you!!! 🙂

 

[that1guyfromFL]

**Anonymously Submitted**

Program Name: Aria Health (Phila,PA)

General Program/Hospital Info: Level II trauma center. Community hospital. Essentially an osteopathic hospital. All the programs here are DO programs.

Attendings: Dr. Justin Fleming and 20+ DPMs. Residents do not scrub F/A cases with Ortho. Podiatry program actually gets all F/A cases coming into the three hospitals affiliated with the program.

Residents:
Program takes three residents a year. Laid back crew. All very knowledgeable and easy to be around. I really enjoyed learning from the residents while I rotated there. It was one of my earliest clerkship months so I felt they really took me under their wings and helped me get off to a fast start for my next rotation. Majority of residents were from Temple, but the program has had residents from Barry and Samuel Merritt as well.

Didactics:
Resident lectures, Radiology conference, Journal club, extern ppt, Fleming will give lectures are pertinent topics.

OR Experience:
I was the only student during my clerkship month so I scrubbed anywhere from 2-5 cases a day. Surprisingly a lot of trauma comes into the ER that gets taken to the OR. Saw a fair amount of open ankle fractures come in during my month. Even traumatic accidents that required amputation of necrotic tissue. Exciting stuff. Residents do a lot of bread and butter procedures with the community podiatrists affiliated with the program at surgery centers. Fleming does all the really complex cases since he is a partner with a large orthopedic group in Philly. I saw Fleming do a ton of ankle fractures, SMOs, Charcot reconstructions, frames, IM nails, etc. The guy is really busy and is a well known lecturer. Hands down one of the best surgeons I've come across. He's hard to read at times and can be very quiet. When you aren't paying attention he will start asking questions out of nowhere. Orthopedics does not have a residency program at Aria therefore they use the podiatry residents quite a bit to help assist with their cases. I even had to scrub a hip replacement because the ortho attending needed an extra set of hands. This can add to their surgical experience but when you are already working pretty hard the last thing you want to do is scrub cases with ortho and be a glorified retractor.

Clinic Experience:
There isn't a resident run clinic. Residents during their first year mostly manage the inpatients at the three affiliated hospitals. Senior residents work Fleming's clinic at his ortho practice with either Fleming or the Fellow. Residents do get follow up with most of Fleming's pts since he does very complex procedures which warrant them staying in house for pain management, surgical wound management, etc.

Research Opportunities
Program does a lot of reading. Fleming expects residents to stay on top of the latest research since he lectures nationally. I believe he emails out a list of journal articles for his residents to read every so often. Residents are expected to complete to complete 1 research projects and produce a paper of publishable quality before graduation.

Lifestyle:
First year is pretty tough. I spent a lot of time with the PGY1s helping them round on patients and change bandages. Program has a lot of inpatients they manage. Lots of medical management. Long hours for the PGY1s. PGY2 and PGY3 are a little better but it appeared everyone worked pretty hard. Out of all my clerkships this was by far the most physically challenging.

Pros:
- Good diversity between doing bread and butter procedures with the community docs and the significant amount of trauma which comes to the ER. Fleming's complex cases round off the surgical training experience.
- Program has a Fellow (can be perceived as a negative). Depending on the Fellow, he/she could act as another attending to scrub cases with.
- Solid Academics
- Residents get their numbers midway through their 2nd year.
- Third year residents I knew got good job offers from large DPM groups. They have had previous residents go on to get jobs with ortho groups.
- Fleming is well known coast to coast so you will have connections.

Cons:
- Philadelphia and it's sports fans are the pits
- Fleming has an ego which is tolerable. Fleming loves it when multiple residents scrub his cases. Every Fleming case I saw had at least three residents scrubbed in. Granted they were very complex but still that's a lot of residents.
- Fleming lectures a lot so he can be gone a week here, a week there. I felt like he was more consumed with his personal career than actually focusing on his residents training.
- Didn't see Fleming hand over the knife that much to the senior residents. Never saw the Fellow do the entire case either. What's the point of a Fellow?
- The fact there is a Fellow with the program now can be viewed as a negative. One more person who is going to scrub into all the complex cases.

Overall Conclusion:
Very solid program. All programs offer similar but different experiences. The fact is that the residents are well trained in both medicine and surgery and get good job offers. For me that's the biggest selling point with any program. This program fulfills that. If you want to stay in the Philadelphia area (looking at you Temple students) then this program should be on your short list to clerk at.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

**Anonymously Submitted**

Program Name: Medstar Washington Hospital (Washington DC)

General Program/Hospital Info:
Medstar hospital system. Main hospital is Washington Hospital. Also spend quite a bit of time in Georgetown Hospital. Most cases are out of the surgery centers in the area. They are taking 6 residents starting this year.

Georgetown hospital offers a unique and amazing experience if you are into wound care. While at georgetown I learned that wound care is actually a surgical field. If you are to provide complete wound care in your practice, you must be able to take your patients into the OR.

As a student you spend 2wks at Washington Hospital (1wk rounds, 1wk surgery), 2wks at Georgetown (1wk rounds, 1 wk surgery).

Attendings:
Dr. Steinberg took over almost 2 years ago and has since been turning the program around. Dr. Attinger runs the Georgetown side but residents barely interact with them.

Ortho experience is at Georgetown with Dr. Cooper. Cooper is a fellowship trained F&A ortho surgeon. Residents spend about 2 months total with him. I never saw the experience first hand but the residents didn't have nice things to say about him and questioned his decision making/surgical skills.

Residents:
Previously they took 5 residents per yr but this year they are taking 6. In my opinion the program should not be taking 6 residents. Even 5 was too many. I overheard a 2nd year at the time contemplating on how to log a case as a rear foot case. Regardless of whether the case was a true rear foot case or not he didn't care and "needed the rear foot case". For the most part the current 2nd and 3rd years aren't impressive. I got the sense that the 2nd years were lazy and the 3rd years realized that they might have wasted the past 2 years and were scrambling to get the last bit of training into their last year. 2 of the 3rd years went on to do a fellowship. They were not comfortable with the training they received. A lot of them scrambled into the program. I've heard the current 1st years are solid though.

Didactics:
Journal club, resident lectures, student lectures, guest lectures/rep lectures.

OR Experience:
Surgery at WHC was limited when I was there. The attendings that take call at WHC only do forefoot surgery. All trauma went to Ortho. Steinberg was looking to hire a well trained attending to take over but I'm not sure what became of it.

Georgetown is run a little differently. Podiatry and Plastics work together in 1 department headed by Dr. Attinger (Plastics). There is a 1st yr Medstar resident, 2nd yr Medstar resident, and 3rd yr INOVA resident in the podiatry team. All the residents split inpatient AM rounds (~40 patients). 1st yr pod works with 1st yr plastics throughout the day to cover consults, etc. 2nd yr Medstar and 3rd yr INOVA runs 1 OR while plastics runs the other OR. Cases are DM all day every day. Pretty much back to back 8-10 cases of debridements, washouts, secondary closure, amps, etc. Very long days and a lot of monotonous cases but you have the potential to learn great debridement and amputation techniques to preserve the blood supply. Unfortunately Steinberg doesn't do any bone work (except for amputations) therefore any reconstruction (charcot, deformity correction, etc) goes to Ortho.

The majority of surgical numbers come from surgery centers. I never saw any rear foot cases. They get a decent number of forefoot cases. I was able to observe 1st and 2nd yr residents and the majority of the time they retracted.

Clinic Experience:
The two main attendings at WHC have the typical podiatry clinics with lots of nails, calluses, wounds, orthotics. As a student you spend some time with them in their clinics. I never saw the residents in their clinics.

Another clinic at WHC has different attending coverage each day of the week. Residents spent a lot of time in this clinic. A decent amount of pathology comes through the door. For the most part it is resident run.

Clinic at Georgetown is covered by either Attinger, Steinberg, or Kim. Residents and students help out when they are free. Its a wound care center.

Research Opportunities
Steinberg wants Medstar to be known for its research in the near future. Definitely a lot of opportunities. If you are interested in research, in particular wound care research, then this is the program for you.

Lifestyle:
Georgetown hours suck. The day starts at ~6am and doesn't end until 7-8pm sometimes even midnight. The on call resident barely slept. Otherwise the program is the usual 8-5. It seemed like the residents always stayed at the hospital until atleast 5pm, even if they had nothing to do. Maybe it's a rule at the program? Not sure.

Pros:
- Dr. Steinberg is a fantastic leader. He is def trying to turn the program around and he has a lot of plans for the program. I believe he is taking the program in the right direction. The connections he has is definitely helpful. I believe it is because of him that 2 of the past 3rd yrs were able to land some competitive fellowships. One of them got Saxena's program.
- Georgetown provides a great experience if you are interested in wounds.
- Research opportunities.

Cons:
- Low rear foot numbers. From hearing one of the 2nd years talk it seems like they have a difficult time getting them. I'm not sure if this has changed with the addition of a well trained attending.
- Low trauma numbers. At WHC, ortho gets the trauma not podiatry.
- Georgetown sucks if you aren't interested in wounds.

Overall Conclusion:
Up and coming program. With Steinberg in control I'm sure this program will be above average in a few years. I know they've been making changes but from what I saw when I was there, I'm not sure how they can support 1 additional resident per year. If you like wounds then this is the program for you. Also, Steinberg has a lot of connections. Otherwise there are better programs out there.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

**Update received via PM**

Program Name: Medstar Washington Hospital (Washington DC)

"They hired an attending from UPMC for rear foot cases. They do not plan on filling 6th spot this year."

 

[that1guyfromFL]

**Anonymously Submitted**

Program Name: Oakwood Annapolis Hospital (Wayne, MI)

General Program/Hospital Info: Hospital in metro Detroit area. Fairly small hospital. Program also associated with Oakwood Main in Dearborn for in patients as well as a few other surgery centers and Oakwood Heritage. Students are not allowed to scrub at surgery centers.

Attendings: Director is Dr. Fallat. He is present 3 days a week and seems to be very invested in his residents. Can be a tad hot headed but I only remember him getting frustrated with his PGY3’s in the OR. Dr. Morrison is his partner and she is also present when he is for the most part. Handful of other attendings scrub with the residents. Another associate/partner of Dr. Fallat’s office is Dr. Woody, who I only saw for surgeries and journal club.

Residents: 3 a year. Hardworking with a clear hierarchy among them. Most of them were very family oriented and probably don’t hang out too much with one another but they all seemed to get along. 2nd and 1st years were very friendly to me.

Didactics: Journal club in the hospital with Dr. Woody (mostly wound care related) once a month. Resident presentation weekly. There was one bonesaw workshop with a rep during my month.

OR Experience: Daily cases. Residents also scrub with Ortho (hips and knees too) as there are no Ortho residents at Annapolis, but students don’t scrub these cases. Fallat and Morrison tend to do cases on Thursdays and Fallat has a marathon of cases (like 5 or 6) every Friday. 3rd years are very proficient surgeons, and he expects speed from them (he’s big on short tourniquet time).

Clinic Experience: 2 afternoons a week with Dr. Fallat and Morrison. Free clinic one Saturday a month. Side note – Dr. Fallat does a lot of medical trips abroad. Not sure if residents every participate.

Research Opportunities: Mandatory. Dr. Fallat has published a lot.

Lifestyle: Residents are busy but don’t look miserable. Call schedule is I think 7 days a month for 1st years (usually Thursday-Sunday), 3 days a month for 2nd years (Monday-Wednesday) and 1 day a month for 3rd years. You WILL get called in the middle of the night for trauma. But if you’re not on call the only really long days are Fridays.

Pros:
-No ortho residents, so even if you don’t like hips and knees you get more experience using AO technique in the OR
-ALL foot and ankle trauma in the ED goes to podiatry. This is a level 2 trauma center close to the airport.
-Not too much inpatient. There were 3-4 patients while I was there. There's usually not much at Oakwood Main, either.

Cons:
-lacking wound care
-Dr. Fallat makes all his residents show up to his Friday cases. He loves participation and even if unnecessary there will be multiple residents scrubbed for each case. This can obviously get irritating after a while when you’re not the 1st assist.
-not a lot of diversity of attendings

Overall Conclusion: Great training. Good mix of trauma from the Detroit area as well as elective cases.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

**Anonymously Submitted**

Program Name: West Penn Hospital (Pittsburgh, PA)

General Program/Hospital Info:
There are 2 main hospitals the residents cover, they are about 25 minutes apart.

Attendings:
Dr. Catanzariti (Director) and Dr. Saltrick (Externship Director) are the 2 main program attendings. The residents also work with other outside attendings from the surround community, but students don’t go to those cases.

Residents:
3 residents per year. Friendliest group of residents I worked with. Very smart and interested in teaching. Often got together outside of the hospital just to hang out, seemed like genuine friends and not just co-workers. Uppers were very comfortable working up patients for surgery and procedure selection.

Didactics:
Weekly event of some kind, journal club, conference, etc. There is a wet lab at the hospital with power tools including arthroscopic equipment available at all times. As a student you will give a presentation at the end of the month on an assigned topic. Scott Alter lecture series brings in some big names.

OR Experience:
Dr. Catanzariti (and Dr Saltrick to a lesser degree) is a very vocal teacher in the OR. The environment was almost like being in a surgical skills workshop at times. I learned more in the OR here than I did anywhere else because of their teaching approach. With only 1 attending operating on any given day, there were often 3-5 residents in the OR. Double and even triple scrubbing by residents was pretty common, but given the constant instruction they didn’t seem to mind. The overall surical volume here is lower than most programs I visited and they follow a strict PGY hierarchy for case assignment. That being said, the volume of flatfoot and cavus reconstruction cases here was immense and Dr. Catanzariti often saw patients who referred to him from other surrounding states because of his expertise in difficult deformity correction. You don’t do much in the OR as a student, many times you are just standing and watching. Opportunities to get hands on in the clinic are more common.

Clinic Experience:
Busy resident clinic at the main campus several days per week. As a student, you will also travel to a few other clinic locations to spend time with Dr Catanzariti and Saltrick.

Research Opportunities:
Lots of projects underway at any given time. Teaching and research are two areas of heavy emphasis, residents are required to publish while they are at the program.

Lifestyle:
Typical hours. Rounding with an attending every morning before 6am. Not a large amount of busywork, residents seemed happy with their schedule.

Pros:
Well known program, residents get great job offers and go on to fellowships
Heavy recon emphasis
You get to learn from attendings who love to teach
Great resident culture
Impressive alumni group
Strong support system for research and publication

Cons:
Lower overall surgical numbers
Residents were often standing and watching with students in the OR
Only 2 main attendings (this will be a matter of preference)
Very limited trauma exposure, essentially only on ortho trauma month

Overall Conclusion:
For a solid decade West Penn graduated the cream of the crop in podiatry. Take a look at their alumni list and you will see the names of many of the current prominent lecturers and leaders in our profession. The program attitude has changed a bit from what I have been told, but the quality of the training has not. Residents who graduate from West Penn are offered great jobs and go on to complete high quality fellowships every single year. As a student, you won’t do much but will have a great time in Pittsburgh and get exposure to some very complex and rare deformity correction.

 

[dtrack22]

Program Name: Franciscan Health System (Federal Way, WA)

General Program/Hospital Info:
St. Francis is the main hospital in Federal way. The clinic you cover as a 3rd year, all of Hutchinson’s cases, and weekly academic meetings are here. Otherwise, you cover all of the Franciscan hospitals in the greater Tacoma area.

Attendings:
Dr. Hutchinson (Director) is the big draw to the program. He has the largest amount of complex cases due to his status and the referrals he gets. Dr. Bock and Dr. Clifford also do plenty of recon and some trauma. There are about 6-7 other attendings that all have a healthy mix of surgical cases. Attendings are very laid back, definitely a different dynamic/atmosphere compared to Swedish.

Residents:
2 residents per year. They don’t pimp but will teach and explain what they are doing in the OR. Residents are only primary call in their 1st year. 1 month on, 1 month off for a year. When you are on call you manage the inpatients as well. They will admit people on to their service so medical management was required and they were very comfortable with it. Some very different personalities but they all got along which is consistent with the “feel” of the program as a whole.

Didactics:
1 day per week. Journal club, x-ray conference, board prep. You don’t do a student presentation.

OR Experience:
This is all you do as a student, scrub cases. You aren’t allowed to see patients on the floor, you don’t get computer access, you don’t spend time in clinic. You and the other student are with Hutch 2 days a week and those are typically your only 8 hours days. I probably worked 30 hours a week my month there. Hutch has the largest number of recon cases. Bock also puts in TARs and Clifford had some trauma when I was there. The residents do a majority of most cases. 3rd years work with Hutch in clinic and the OR and depending on the case they will often times “tag team” the case with the person who has the best view or angle making the cut, placing the screw, etc. He is very comfortable letting his residents do the case. The residents were confident and had good surgical skills. The procedure was already planned by the attending and the out-patient cases typically weren’t followed up by the resident.

Clinic Experience:
You don’t see the clinic as a student but this definitely doesn’t feel like a very big focus of the program.

Research Opportunities:
Not a major emphasis but the current residents did have a few publications.

Lifestyle:
No life when you are on-service as a first year. After that your hours are actually a little lighter than a lot of programs because you are for the most part just covering cases. It is tough to get a real good idea of their typical work day because you are only seeing their OR schedule as a student.

Pros:
Hutchinson = complex recon cases
The rest of the attending staff are really enjoyable to work with
Large surgical volume
Residents doing most of every procedure they scrub, good surgical skills
You will get a pretty large amount of ex-fix experience
No wound care other than surgical management and reconstruction

Cons:
Really low clinic volume
Residents don’t have complete autonomy in the sense that they aren’t planning procedures or determining follow up care. Show up and cut.
Gray skies 8 months out of the year (not as much rain as everyone thinks though)


Overall Conclusion:
Hutchinson loves to teach and the rest of the attendings are equally laid back and great to work with. You couldn’t ask for a better atmosphere and work environment. High surgical volume that is pretty bread and butter outside of Hutch, but overall very well-rounded. Every student who comes through here will love it because you only show up to scrub cases and therefore your hours are awesome during your externship. The 1st year residents were run pretty ragged though. You really have to ask questions and pay attention to everything else that goes on in the residents’ day because you aren’t exposed to it as a student. I wasn’t a huge fan of showing up to cases and just doing whatever the attending had booked based on a work up you never saw or performed. But that’s the way 90% of programs work so it’s not a negative so much as a personal preference. This is the type of program that ends up high on all of the interviewees’ lists.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

**Anonymously Submitted**

Program Name: Mt. Auburn Hospital (Cambridge, MA)

General Program/Hospital Info: Program has affiliations with Mount Auburn Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Vanguard medical associates and Tufts Medical center.

Attendings: Dr. Emily Cook (director), Dr. Jeremy Cook (director of research) and Dr. Philip Basile are the three main attendings of the program. Program is affiliated with about 15 other DPMs in which the residents scrub cases with on a consistent basis. Dr. Emily & Jeremy Cook and Dr. Philip Basile make a pretty formidable team. All are very well trained, well read, and very into teaching. They are all well published in the literature and all lecture nationally.

Residents:
Program takes two residents a year. Pretty serious group. Very knowledgeable and personable. Willing to teach you. I learned a great deal on this rotation from the residents and got along with everyone pretty well. I'll be honest I liked the PGY3s a lot better than the PGY2s & PGY1s. In terms of potential residents the program looks for students with GPAs of 3.5 or higher. Their program description on the CASPR/CRIP websites states no previous research knowledge is needed but it most certainly wouldn't hurt being that all three of the main attendings lecture nationally.

Didactics:
Resident lectures, Radiology conference, Morbidity and Mortality conference, Journal club, extern ppt, Drs Emily, Jeremy Cook or Dr. Philip Basile will lecture on various topics, bone saw workshops, cadaver workshops, etc.

OR Experience:
When I clerked the program was still in transition. MA is one of those "grey states" where ankle privileges can be hard to come by. When I clerked there the hospital politics did not allow the podiatry department to do ankle fractures, etc. It was mostly foot procedures. Ortho was a major player in this drama. Since my clerkship I learned the podiatry program worked out a deal with ortho, giving them first dibs to all the F/A trauma that came to the Mt. Auburn ER and in exchange podiatry could do whatever procedure in the foot and ankle they wanted. Podiatry has some political pull themselves as the program has become the leading revenue generator in the surgery department. There are more surgical cases going off from podiatry then in any other surgical specialty. More surgery = more money. Money talks and ortho's bull**** walks.
Getting back to the OR experience. I wasn't impressed at all. The Cooks are great teachers but they are control freaks in the OR. They don't hand over the knife that often and Dr. Emily Cook is super type A personality. To the point I got frustrated listening to her giving relentless instructions to the resident. Dr. Basile is another very large ego in the OR. The guy is a brilliant surgeon and does everything from toes to TARs and he is a specialist in Charcot recon. The only knock against him is that he is extremely extremely moody. When he is in one of moods the guy pouts about almost everything. As a student observer I perpetually was rolling my eyes during these fiascos. Putting up with that, as a resident, for three years would be exhausting. The residents didn't look confident in the OR, not as much as I saw at other programs. When I finished my clerkship month I knew deep down this would not be my top choice based on the OR experience I observed.

Clinic Experience:
Residents split clinic time between the Cooks and Dr. Basile's private clinic and the resident run clinic at Mt. Auburn hospital. They see everything from bread and butter podiatry cases to all their post-ops. The thing I really liked about the resident run clinic is that it truly is run by the residents. One of the attendings will be there for assistance but the residents are making the decisions on what to do for treatment. If the pt is a surgical candidate then the resident is responsible for booking the case with the hospital and learning how to bill as well. These are some of the main objectives the Cooks explained to me they wanted to stress with the resident run clinic. Up to that point in my clerkship experiences this was the first program that stressed these things.

Research Opportunities
This program is a research juggernaut. The Cooks and Basile publish multiple papers annually. Both Cooks have MPH degrees from Harvard. All three lecture nationally. They are firm believers of producing high quality research. Residents are expected to complete at least 1 research project and publish 1 paper. The program has various studies going on at one time. They do research on a wide variety of topics.

Lifestyle:
Residents are certainly busy. But their hours were not anything to write home about. When they were done with clinic or their surgical cases, they went home. They barely have inpatients since the majority of their cases are elective and they obviously do not manage any trauma pts due to ortho having a firm grasp on those experiences at Mt. Auburn hospital.
Pros:
- Good diversity of cases. Bread and butter to the complex
- The Cooks and Dr. Basile are a powerful three headed monster of attendings. There is a big drop off after them.
- Amazing connections within podiatry because of the above named attendings.
- Residents are well read and very knowledgeable. Reminds me of the type of resident at PSL/Highlands that some previous posters had described.
- Affiliated with Harvard Medical School and all it's resources. Residents are appointed "fellows of surgery" and will receive a separate degree from Harvard medical school upon graduation from the resident program. That will look nice on your wall.
- Mt Auburn hospital is very nice
- OR staff is great
- Boston is awesome but very expensive

Cons:
- Personalities of Emily Cook and Dr. Basile can be tough to deal with. They are not intimidating or mean but they can be annoying.
- There is drop off in the quality of attendings after the Cooks and Dr. Basile
- Not impressed with the surgical skill of the residents.
- No trauma
- MA is a "grey state". Podiatry may have ankle privileges now but that can always change.

Overall Conclusion:
They want to be the best. They have that attitude. They will beat the fact they are affiliated with Harvard Medical School into you by the time you leave. You should know, though, that a dozen other hospitals in Boston also have affiliations with Harvard. They will re-emphasize their affiliation with Harvard again during their presentation at CRIP. It's a big selling point for them. The Cooks are good salesmen and they are likeable. They do a great job selling their program since their powerpoint presentations are top notch. On paper this place is a powerhouse and in some aspects it is (research). I was not blown away by the surgical training since the attendings rarely turned over the knife. For me that's a big "no no". I know there is a process in learning but sooner or later the knife has to be turned over if the resident is demonstrating competence. The residents are competent but yet they didn't get the knife as much as they should have. I have no doubt graduates from this program will have the connections to land very good jobs or even pursue fellowships. Connections make the world go round and the Cooks and Basile know everyone in podiatry. If you want well rounded training in medicine and surgery and to just KNOW A LOT then this place is for you. If you want high level surgical training you won't get it here. From what I observed the residents will see everything there is to offer in F/A surgery but you wont be doing any of the really complex cases skin to skin.

 

[jehjr]

This is weird reading this, because I have been to the majority of these programs. I would pretty much agree with everything that has been said so far. Great job guys.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

**Anonymously Submitted**

Program Name: St Joseph Reg Med Ctr - IN

General Program/Hospital Info: Based out of a nice newer hospital near Notre Dame University. The rumor is that they will be including an additional hospital in nearby Elkhart with additional podiatrists and at least one F/A orthopod who are eager to teach.

Attendings: Michael Salcedo (Director), a bunch of area podiatrists, Orthopods at South Bend Orthopedics

Residents: 2/year. Recently upped from 1/year. 2015 expected to be first year with a full set of 6 residents.

Didactics: Weekly meeting for journal club, etc. Monthly M&M. Occasional rep dinners/workshops

OR Experience: Plenty of cases. Mostly bread and butter stuff. The two most productive attendings work at the local ortho group, which has an exceptionally efficient surgicenter (any day there you can expect to have at least 4 cases done before lunch). Unfortunately those two don't allow residents to do much more than close. Other attendings are a mixed bag in terms of how much you are allowed to do. Residents pretty much do all of Salcedo and Dieter's cases skin to skin. A fair amount of elective rearfoot cases, some trauma. Orthopods are receptive to having residents scrub their cases, but I don't know how much residents are allowed to do in those cases.

Clinic Experience: Resident run clinic two afternoons per week. Honestly, one of the better resident clinics I have seen. They keep a full schedule of patients with a good varierty of pathology. Probably 4 inpatients on average at any given time.

Research Opportunities: Self directed.

Lifestyle: Pretty excellent. Surgical scheduling is efficient. Call schedule evenly split at one week every 5/6 weeks. On non-clinic days, you go home when you are done with cases. Never drive more than 20 minutes to get to cases, and traffic is a non-issue. The hospital also offers several thousand dollars per year toward education, which many of the residents use on courses at Notre Dame. The area is quiet and affordable. Would be great for families. Oh, the hospital has great food, and the residents always eat free.

Pros: Efficient Scheduling
Very agreeable call/ inpatient schedule
Great clinic
Very respectable surgical training
Short commutes
Low cost of living

Cons: You probably wont see anything too crazy here.
Probably half of all cases are assist-only
Many of the attendings trained at this program

Overall Conclusion: Palatial hospital. Attendings and residents are very nice. A relatively drama-free place with great benefits. Geared towards preparing for private practice, and I think it succeeds. I certainly wouldn't call it "elite", but I would call it very good and be happy to go there.

 

[josebiwasabi]

this is a fantastic thread. thank you to all who have contributed!

 

[that1guyfromFL]

**Anonymously Submitted**


Program Name: Scripps Mercy Kaiser (San Diego, CA)

General Program/Hospital Info: First two years are based out of Scripps Mercy Hospital with surgeries and rotations at surround Scripps hospitals and Kaiser hospitals. One third year resident will spend the third year in San Diego, splitting time between Kaiser San Diego and Scripps Mercy. Two residents will spend their third year at Kaiser Program in Sacramento. One 3rd yr resident will spend their third year at Kaiser Program in Fontana/Ontario. (Riverside Co in Sothern California). San Diego is amazing but also super expensive to live in. Residents told me they were living pay check to pay check renting studio apartments.

Attendings: Donald Green (Director), Ryan Lee (Externship Director).

Residents: Four per year starting 2014. Three different tracks which is laid out in the Gen Program Info. Responsibilities and time commitment at this program are the opposite from most other programs. 3rd years are the busiest and 1st years are the least. All the residents are very book smart but their surgical skills are less than impressive.

Didactics: Very academic. Multiple weekly meetings. Radiology conference every friday where cases are presented by residents. The residents/students are pimped by the attendings. Come prepared by knowing the answers and the reasoning behind your answers. Biomechanics is a focus and is totally different from what you learned at school.

OR Experience: 1st years work mostly with the Green brothers and Lee. Mostly retract and may do a toe amp here and there. They lacked confidence and had trouble with simple amputations even though they were towards the end of their 1st year - attributable to the lack of hands on experience. Ortho will randomly page Podiatry residents for an extra hand in hips, knees, etc. to do b*** work like distracting or retracting. The F&A orthopod at Scripps Mercy takes 5hrs to do a flatfoot and has residents retract the entire case.

2nd years mostly work out of surgery centers. Great case diversity especially at Kaiser. The amount they do is hit and miss. Some attendings do everything while others let them be more active. I never saw them do a skin to skin, not even once. They had a lot more confidence than the 1st years despite not doing any cases skin to skin.

I never had any experience with the 3rd year. From what the residents told me the 2 residents that go to Sacramento take call every other day or every 3 days, I forget exactly. Tons of trauma, rear foot, etc.

Clinic Experience: Clinic a couple days a week at Scripps mercy. Usually covered by Lee or a FM attending. Residents write notes.

Research Opportunities: Research is a focus of the program but I don't remember the specifics.

Lifestyle: San Diego is an expensive city to live in. $52k doesn't go a long way. Residents stayed at the hospital until at least 5pm despite how busy or not busy they were. Residents have a spacious resident room with their own chairs and computers. Seems like 3rd years are super busy. Moving (depending on the track you match into) is probably a pain in the a$$.

Pros: Great area. San Diego is a beautiful place to live.
Great off service rotations due to multiple MD residency programs.
Donald Green brings a lot of experience and training to the program from the PI (Dekalb).
Ryan Lee brings a lot to the table from Swedish.
Affiliation with Kaiser Hospitals brings great surgical diversity.

Cons: Expensive city to live in.
Very little hands on experience 1st year. 2nd year is a toss up.
Poor relationship with Ortho.
Lack of autonomy. The attendings always round with residents and tell them what to do instead of relying on the residents judgement.

Overall Conclusion: Consistently attract top students from all the schools. All the residents are very bright and book smart. The academics keeps residents on their toes and up to date with reading. The huge negative at this program is the lack of hands on surgical experience in 1st year. 2nd years never did a skin to skin case while I was there. The program has a lot of potential. May not be the program for those that are looking for autonomy.

 

[janV88]

Program Name: INOVA Fairfax (Falls Church, VA)

General Program/Hospital Info: INOVA Fairfax hospital is a 800+ bed teaching hospital with multiple residency programs. Located in Falls Church, VA. 5 residents per year. Surrounding area is very nice. Cost of living might be quite high. They recently added a 1 month rotation at the Indian Health Services in Arizona with an alumni. From what I've heard they get a ton of crazy recon cases there. Great off-service rotations.

Attendings: Dr. Stern (Director) - you spend some time in his clinic as a student and 1st yr resident. His surgical case volume is quite low now a days. Dr. Derner - one of the power house attendings. He gets a ton of referrals for complex cases. In the OR 2 half days a week at INOVA Fairfax. He is one of the best and quickest surgeons I have ever seen. He will do a dwyer/evans flatfoot recon in 60 min skin to skin. Only 3rd years scrub his cases (2.5 month rotation). When I was there he didn't let the 3rd year do much though. Multiple other attendings also consistently bring diverse cases. Their elective case diversity is hard to beat.

Residents: 5 residents per year. One 3rd yr is always with Derner. Another 3rd yr is chief over at Georgetown. 1st yrs cover inpatients. Personalities were a mixed. This may be due to how they pick residents - point system. All were very intelligent. Very little discussion between the resident and the attendings during cases. This may have been due to the personalities of the residents not wanting to question/offer suggestions or may be the culture of the program.

Didactics: Very academic. 1 mini presentation and 1 large presentation for the students to do when I was there. 1st year residents did 1 presentation as well. Radiology conference once a month where students/residents are put on the spot. During my month, one of the 2nd years on-service would post a weekly topic with questions for the students to answer.

OR Experience: Students scrub cases at the hospital. During my month Derner didn't let the 3rd year do much other than retract, close, and maybe do a bone cut or put in a screw. I heard that the 3rd yr in the previous month got to do a lot. I'm not sure why theres a discrepancy in how much they were able to do. Derner is tough in the OR. He expects everything to go perfectly. He reminds me of the attendings during my Gen Surg month. As for the other attendings, ~2 attendings would rarely pass the knife, ~2 would assist while residents did the entire case, while the rest (4-5) did about 70% and residents did 30%. Case volume wasn't as high as some of the other programs I was at. There were times when residents would sit in the resident room waiting for 5pm to roll around without cases to do.

2.5 month trauma rotation which, I believe, is the extent of their trauma exposure. Podiatry attendings do not do trauma.

Clinic Experience: Stern always had a resident with him. 1 resident would go to wound care clinic with high volume and great diversity. Not a focus of the program.

Research Opportunities: It didn't seem like research was much of a focus.

Lifestyle: On service residents were at the hospital 8-5. 1st years covered inpatients and were there earlier. Call coverage was strange. 1st year took call during the day then passed the pager to another resident until 10 or midnight then would pass the pager over again to the night call resident.

Pros: Great electives. Great diversity. I saw quite a few mid foot procedures which I didn't see at other programs.
Northern Virginia is very nice and safe place to live.
Derner is a great attending to learn from and brings a lot of interesting cases.

Cons: High cost of living.
Derner may only let you retract and close. Seems hit and miss with the amount he lets residents do.
Podiatry does not take trauma so you are relying on Ortho for your experience.
No set personality among the residents. They didn't seem like a cohesive team because of this.
Mediocre case volume.

Overall Conclusion: INOVA provides great elective case diversity. The diversity they offer was one of the best I have seen. Volume isn't as high as I was expecting. Overall a very good program. This is not the program for those looking to do a lot of trauma.

 

[janV88]

Program Name: Jewish St Marys (Louisville, KY)

General Program/Hospital Info: Based out of Jewish Hospital downtown but they also work at UofL which are in the same medical campus. 3 residents/yr. 1 fellow/yr. Surrounding area is downtown louisville and the hospital is right off of the highway just south of the bridge between Indiana and Lousville. ~20 min of driving to surrounding surgery centers. Great off service rotations.

Attendings: Dr. Ford (Director) is a great director. Very energetic and cares about the residents education. Dr. Hicks is another attending you work a lot with. He helps out with the wound care clinic at UofL and was the first graduate of the fellowship program. Dr. Seligson runs the ortho trauma service which has 1 podiatry resident on the team at all times. Dr. Hockenbury is a F&A fellowship trained orthopod trained under Sammarco. One of the best surgeons I have ever worked with.

Residents: 3 residents per year. The residents like to party a lot. Work hard, play hard mentality.

Didactics: Not academic. Weekly meetings for rep dinners, journal club/rep dinner, more rep dinners. Fellow presentation. Student presentation.

OR Experience: Lots of DM cases at UofL. Electives at surgery centers. Trauma is mainly with Seligson. Hockenbury brings in quite a diverse case load from hammertoes to recon.

At UofL and anytime with Dr. Hicks, the residents do the entire case skin to skin. Dr. Ford has the residents do the majority of the case as well. However, at the surgery centers, I noticed that residents mostly assisted and retracted, even 3rd yrs.

Clinic Experience: UofL resident clinic, Wound care clinic with Dr. Hicks, Dr. Ford clinic at UofL - sprains, strains, fractures, post op, Dr. Ford private practice.

Research Opportunities: The residents didn't seem all that interested in research. Dr. Hicks is big on research and works closely with the Fellow on some projects. Opportunities are present if you are interested.

Lifestyle: When residents are done with surgery they go home. Call while I was there wasn't bad at all. Podiatry doesn't take trauma so call is pretty much DM.

Pros: Dr. Hockenbury is a great asset to the program. One of the best surgeons I've met.
Being integrated with Seligson and the trauma team is pretty sweet.
Moderately high to high surgical volume. Numbers are done by beginning to mid 2nd year.
Low cost of living.
Solid off-service rotations.

Cons: Hands on experience is lacking in surgery centers.
Academics is not a focus (may be good if you aren't into academics and read on your own).
Decent amount of driving to surrounding surgery centers.

Overall Conclusion: Good case diversity. Lots of hands on experience at UofL although its a bit lacking at the surgery centers. Work hard, play hard mentality.

 

[that1guyfromFL]

.

 

[I post PRN]

Program Name: St. Rita's Medical Center, Lima Ohio

General Program/Hospital Info: Very small town hospital in NW ohio. Population about 40,000 with LOTS of surrounding rural areas that seek medical care there. 1 resident per year. PMSR/RRA program. about 1.5 hours from Cleveland and 2 hours north of Cincinnatti. Not a thriving metropolous of a town, but a decent place.

Attendings: Dr. Miller(director), Dr. Ward, Dr. Haycock, Dr. Little, a few others you don't work with as much.

Residents: 3 total, 1 per year.

Didactics: Weekly Mcglamry review, journal club, and student presentations, all depends on the resident in charge of academics at the time, but there are academics, not heavy, but enough.

OR Experience: TONS of OR time. Practically everyday you are in 2-3 cases, not just hammertoes and bunions. This program is HEAVY on flatfoot recon and exfix. I saw probably 3-4 recons a week, and I wasnt even scrubbing every case. For a small community hospital with primarily 3 attendings that do 90% of the surgery, they get volume and diversity. Numbers easily achieved by end of first year or beginning of 2nd year. Residents will graduate with 2000 cases each. Attendings are very hands off, and "what do you want to do doctor?" mentality for the residents. If you want to be very well trained surgically, check this place out.

Clinic Experience: There is no resident run clinic, the only clinics covered are the attendings private practices. Its nice because you get to see how a private practice works, but often times the patients want the attending to do procedures, etc because they know it is not a resident run clinic. This program has one of the best wound care clinics I have ever seen, 8-9 rooms each with their own wound care nurse. Nurses take down dressing, re-dress, etc. Basically the students/residents/attendings come in the room, make a decision for treatment, do it, then walk out, nurses handle everything else.

Research Opportunities: Research is not heavily emphasized.

Lifestyle: First year call can be pretty hectic, but nothing extreme, there is a pretty heavy orthopedics presence in the community, so they don't see ankle fractures, etc in the ER, however they do see them in the attendings private practices. You take call all 3 years because there are only 3 residents, but it decreases as you get in your third year.

Pros: Huge surgical volume, the attendings are some of the nicest human beings you will ever meet. You are treated well as a resident, its very much a family environment. Attendings are very hands off, you do a lot.

Cons: You live in the middle of nowhere, literally. Its at LEAST an hour to Dayton and Toledo...the biggest cities close by, yes I know, Toledo. Its an old rust belt town, very poor, pretty high crime rate for such a small community. If you are looking for a big city life, do not come here.

Overall Conclusion: great program, I agree with ankle breakers post elsewhere about being one of the top programs in the midwest. This is a "diamond in the rough" type of program. Only 12-14 students rotate there a year. Great experience.

 

[I post PRN]

Program Name: Scott and White Hospital, Temple, Tx.

General Program/Hospital Info: PMSR/RRA Program is based in Temple texas, about 1 hour north of Austin and 1.5 hours south of DFW. Time is split between S&W hospital, the main clinic on the loop(all the attendings have clinic here, separate site from hospital), McLean Childrens hospital, Fort Hood(in Kileen 30 minutes west), clinics in kileen, and the Temple VA.

Attendings: Dr. Murdoch(director), Dr. Lynch(podiatry department head), Dr. Devall(externship director), Dr. Brust, Dr. Lane, Dr. Browning, Dr. Goad(Podopediatrician), Dr. Shibuya(VA doc), a few others.

Residents: 4 residents a year

Didactics: The best surgical rounds I ever experienced. Usually monday mornings if i remember, cases were presented from previous week of surgery, new cases discussed, using mostly radiographs, in front of all students, residents, and attendings, all docs gave input on upcoming cases and review from previous week, great experience. weekly boards review, journal clubs, student presentations last week of month. Very, very strong didactics. If you want to learn a lot academically, this is a great place for you.

OR Experience: Residents were very confident in the OR, at least the 2nd and 3rd years were. 1st years are off service a lot the first year, and usually have a 2nd or 3rd year res with them in the OR. As a first year at the VA you basically act as the scrub tech in the OR while the 2nd or 3rd year does the cases. They definitely get great surgical training, they meet their numbers easily by 2nd year. This is one of the only programs in the country I know of besides Loyoal University in Chicago, that has a podopediatrician, Dr. Goad only sees children. He treats all LE pathology, bunions, TEV, etc. Dr. Shibuya at the VA does a LOT of recon, trauma, etc. He is booked for surgery 3-4 months out. He was fellowship trained in recon and is the man.

Clinic Experience: Lots of clinic time, you cover clinic 3-4 times a week. It is the attendings clinics, but it is a resident ran clinic. Pts know and understand this and expect to be treated by residents. You are taught coding and billing a lot as well. This program is very strong as far as clinic training, but it did seem that by the 3rd year, you are very tired of working these busy clinics, could just be me though.

Research Opportunities: Research is heavily emphasized at this program. Dr. Shibuya does a LOT of research and always is looking for residents to get on board.

Lifestyle: Temple is a nice town, big enough to be considered a city. The hours can be long at this program, but its never busy work and you have an opportunity to learn a lot.

Pros: One of the most well rounded programs in terms of surgery, clinic, didactics, pediatrics, etc that I have seen. Texas has no state income tax, so more of your 50K salary will be in your pocket. The didactics really prepare you to be a future practicioner. Knowledge base was impressive with the residents. Whataburger.

Cons: There aren't a lot of cons to this program. You do some traveling, but its Texas, gas is cheap.

Overall Conclusion: Great program, one of the best in Texas. If you want to end up in Texas, I would put this program towards the top of the list.

 

[trailrunner623]

Any reviews on these programs, I haven't seen much on the forums, much appreciated

Ohio State Uiversity, Columbus
University Cincinnati Medical Center
Jewish Hospital, Cincinnati

 

[JR2011]

Very prudent thread. Nice work. I'd be careful calling out people's specific names, but good information for prospective residents.

 

[JR2011]

I'd keep it objective if you are calling people out. A student saying dr so and so only does this and only this dr does this is bad form in my opinion. Is there really a need to be listing names of attendings and talking about them based on opinion?? A podiatry student may be totally wrong talking about some attending by name at a program. Just not professional calling out names.

 

[JR2011]

Agree to disagree. You can state your opinions about a program without calling out people's names and talking about their personality and how they practice. I understand your viewpoint, I just know not everyone will appreciate the thread being that personal based on what some anonymous Extern says about them.

 

[g squared 23]

I think it's important to discuss attendings' names and their personalities/skills/teaching interests, because for many (myself included), they are the main basis for ranking programs. If the poster does not wish to personally offend anyone, they have the option of submitting their review anonymously, which is a much better option than watering down the information in their post.

 

[apollofx]

I think it's important to discuss attendings' names and their personalities/skills/teaching interests, because for many (myself included), they are the main basis for ranking programs. If the poster does not wish to personally offend anyone, they have the option of submitting their review anonymously, which is a much better option than watering down the information in their post.

I completely agree, these are opinions and the details are what make them so valuable!

 

[jellybean2020]

Have to agree. This is one of the few high-quality threads on the podiatry forums. To censor out attending names would severely devalue the thread. Bottom line: if I'm researching residencies I wanna know who's going to train me and what I can expect from him/her for 3 years. I understand the desire to be diplomatic & sensitive, but let's not get carried away here

 

[JR2011]

Have to agree. This is one of the few high-quality threads on the podiatry forums. To censor out attending names would severely devalue the thread. Bottom line: if I'm researching residencies I wanna know who's going to train me and what I can expect from him/her for 3 years. I understand the desire to be diplomatic & sensitive, but let's not get carried away here

First off not sure why you put a guy laughing at the end. All I ever said was be careful when talking about people. Nobody ever said anything about censoring out attendings. Just be careful what is said about people by their first and last name on the internet. THAT IS IT. But never mind. That message was too ill received by everyone. So have fun, say whatever you want about anyone. Sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[dtrack22]

Nobody ever said anything about censoring out attendings. Just be careful what is said about people by their first and last name on the internet. THAT IS IT.

No, that is not "all" you said. You actually suggested that everybody "censor out attendings."

Is there really a need to be listing names of attendings and talking about them based on opinion??

It starts out subtle. A rhetorical question immediately following your disapproval of statements regarding how an attending practices. It isn't direct but it can only mean one thing. It was obvious from this post what your answer to that question was. But at this point you are correct, you weren't telling anybody how they should or shouldn't write their reviews. Until you did...

You can state your opinions about a program without calling out people's names and talking about their personality and how they practice

Here is where it became clear that you thought attendings' names ought to not be included in the review. So no, "just be careful" is not it.

You are the only person in this entire thread who was unclear of what your posts actually said, which is the biggest reason they were so ill-received. Well, that and the fact that every post in this thread should have been read under the assumption that it was the experience of a single individual for 30 days. Not some all-inclusive statement of fact. Almost everybody understood the last premise...almost.

 

[pacpod]

Let's keep things inline with the original intent of the thread.

 

[dpmgrad]

Program Name: Mt. Auburn Hospital (Cambridge, MA)

When I clerked the program was still in transition. MA is one of those "grey states" where ankle privileges can be hard to come by. When I clerked there the hospital politics did not allow the podiatry department to do ankle fractures, etc. It was mostly foot procedures. Ortho was a major player in this drama. Since my clerkship I learned the podiatry program worked out a deal with ortho, giving them first dibs to all the F/A trauma that came to the Mt. Auburn ER and in exchange podiatry could do whatever procedure in the foot and ankle they wanted. Podiatry has some political pull themselves as the program has become the leading revenue generator in the surgery department.

- MA is a "grey state". Podiatry may have ankle privileges now but that can always change.

I just wanted to clarify the statement of MA being a "grey state." It is NOT a grey state. According to CURRENT Podiatry scope of practice in MA, Podiatrists may not operate above the talus. Hence, Podiatrist are NOT allowed to perform ankle surgery. For Mt. Auburn Hospital, this is a very unique and special arrangement made between Orthopedic Surgery and Podiatry services to allow for ankle surgery to be performed by Podiatry. My assumption is that hospital bylaws were probably rewritten to permit this at Mt. Auburn Hospital.

 

[ldsrmdude]

This is from 2 years ago, but I haven't seen a review of them and their a program worth checking out, so here it goes.

Program Name: St. Mary’s Health System, Evansville, IN

General Program/Hospital Info: Residents cover cases and inpatients at a couple of different hospitals in Evansville. St. Mary’s is a Level-II trauma center and it seems they get a lot of stuff from hours away. One resident spends most afternoons on ortho trauma, but when I was there I didn’t see much foot and ankle stuff, mostly hips, arms, etc.

Attendings: Dr. Alvey (Director) and Dr. Daines (Assistant Director). A few other attendings, but Dr. Alvey and Dr. Daines are the 2 major ones. Dr. Alvey doesn’t do much rearfoot if at all. Dr. Daines is a graduate of the program and does the bigger cases. Both Alvey and Daines are in the big ortho group in town. Also work with Dr. Andrew Rader who is about an hour away. He’s published some interesting articles and given some interesting lectures. He does charcot, frames, has a busy wound care center. I’m not sure how much time residents spend with him.

Residents: All the residents that I met were laid back and fun to work with. They started taking 2 residents a year or two ago. All seemed pretty family oriented.

Didactics: I think there was a lecture every week, usually a few attendings actually showed up as well. Wasn’t a huge focus, but seemed adequate.

OR Experience: Quite a few bread and butter forefoot cases, fair amount of trauma. Good DM amount. Didn’t see much in terms of elective rearfoot or recon, but I think they get a good exposure with Dr. Rader and the other attendings in Jasper (an hour away).

Clinic Experience: Residents run their own clinic and see their own patients. I didn’t see much in terms of pathology (lots of wounds and routine care). Also spend time with Dr. Alvey and Dr. Daines seeing their patients in their office.

Research Opportunities: It didn’t seem to be a focus, but I imagine there would be the opportunity to do some research with Dr. Rader.

Lifestyle: Podiatry is the only residency at the hospital and are treated well. Free food in the doctors lounge. All the residents had families when I was there and the hours didn’t seem to be crazy. An occasional after hours case, but not bad. As a student, you pay $100 and get set up in a nice apartment with free food for the month. Life as a student here was good.

Pros:
Good amount of bread and butter cases
Nice lifestyle
Attendings seem to care about residents success
Good amount of trauma
Good connections with ortho


Cons:
Not a ton of diversity in the cases I saw (you won’t see anything too crazy)
Many attendings are graduates of the program so you won’t see as many different approaches as at other placces

Overall Conclusion: The program is a very good program for the resident who wants to feel confident in the majority of cases that come through the door. If you want to do a ton of frames, extensive charcot recon, TAR’s, this probably isn’t the program for you.

 

[memo_2014]

Program Name: DeKalb Medical Center (Atlanta, GA)


General Program/Hospital Info:
The hospital itself isn’t huge. There is a decent cafeteria and the nursing and other physician house staff are friendly and approachable for the most part.

Attendings:
There are multiple “big name” podiatry attendings here. Ruch, Banks, Camasta, McGlamry, Kalish, etc. The PD is a soft spoken guy, which is the exception at this program. There is an element of ego when you are working with some of the attendings, but there is not a malignant attitude in the bunch. Urban legends abound about Dr. Ruch in particular, but I found him to be a willing teacher and one of the finest surgeons I worked with, bar none. If you are hard working and attentive you will not have a problem with anyone here.

Residents:
Typically 4 per year. In general they seemed smart, most are very academic. In a group of 15+ people there will be some conflict, but the residents seemed to work well together for the most part.

Didactics:
This is a big time focus of the program. There are scheduled didactics at least 2 times per week and the residents will almost always give students one of the hundreds of short 20 minute lectures they have on file if there is ever down time during the day. There is an attending on site at the hospital to do a grand rounds type review of surgical cases with all of the residents at least once per week. The residents are expected to prepare and deliver lectures at the Podiatry Institute continuing education conferences held throughout the year. There is an amazing cadaver lab setup in the Podiatry Institute where you have access to fresh frozen limbs at any time, with every instrument you might want to use on them. There is even a mini C arm there to look at fixation or k wire position.

OR Experience:
Big focus here on anatomic dissection, tissue handling and meticulous closure.
The amount of actual knife time the residents get during a case is highly dependent on the attending. Some of the attendings have no problem taking the knife away during initial dissection and usually do most of the critical parts of the case themselves. There is a heavy emphasis here on complex primary and revisional reconstruction. Acute fracture care was not very common, there were very few ankle fractures and only a handful of others during my month. There is clear delineation and hierarchy with regard to case selection, the 2nd and 3rd years were doing all of the mid and rear foot osseous procedures. There are always multiple residents scrubbed on every case, as a student you are often the 4th person scrubbed at the table, making it hard to see anything. Very hands off student experience, but you WILL be pimped constantly in the OR.

Clinic Experience:
Limited private office exposure and no resident clinic. As a student you are sent to varying locations to spend time in clinic with members of the residency committee.

Research Opportunities:
There are opportunities here, not only to publish but to author book chapters and get an early start on lecturing if that is something you are interested in. Teaching is more of the focus over publication from what I gathered.

Lifestyle:
The hours here are very,very long. There is a lot of inefficiency and overlap of coverage in the day to day mechanics of rounding, floor work and call. At times there were 3 residents rounding with 2 students to change a bandage. The days start always star before 6 and the all residents were routinely still at the hospital until after 8pm going over the inpatient census as a group or doing random paperwork.

Pros:
Access to attending surgeons who literally wrote one of the most commonly utilized foot and ankle surgery text books
Program name recognition within podiatry, you are a “PI guy” when you graduate and that does come with some benefits, especially in the surrounding Atlanta area
Solid recon and complex revision caseload

Cons:
Rigid hierarchy may not work for some personalities
Somewhat limited hands on operating experience as a resident with some attendings
Limited trauma exposure
Highly academic culture is not for everyone

Overall Conclusion:
DeKalb may no longer be the singular pinnacle of podiatric surgery as it once was (a testament to across the board residency quality improvements in the last 15 years), but if you can get past the hierarchy and don't mind the highly structured culture of the program it still offers solid training for those who are very academically driven and have interest in reconstructive, revisional and elective surgery. Because of the numerous didactics, it also offers a very good educational experience for students who rotate through the program.

 

[jellybean2020]

^^ It looks like someone made a new account just to comment on a program that was reviewed, then frantically edited out his/her own comment?

 

[peds14]

Does anyone have any information on these programs...

Mt Sinai, Chicago, IL
Southeast Michigan Surgical, Warren, MI
St. Mary Mercy Livonia, MI

Thanks for the awesome thread!!!

 

[I post PRN]

Does anyone have any information on these programs...

Mt Sinai, Chicago, IL
Southeast Michigan Surgical, Warren, MI
St. Mary Mercy Livonia, MI

Thanks for the awesome thread!!!

Ankle breaker is dead on. Mt Sinai/Lovell. Not good. Half your residency will be at a VA where a metatarsal fracture excites all there. It's pretty much all C&C.

Southeast I have not heard good things about. Slow, weak surgical training...at least what I have heard from my classmates.

I spent a day at St Mary Livonia. Awesome program. Director is a stud, young guy, well trained. If your GPA is below 3.6, don't count on getting a call back interview at CRIP though. But if that's you, I'd invest my time in that program.

 

[janV88]

Mt Sinai/Lovell spend 1/6th of their time at the VA. Whats been said about the VA portion is very accurate but the rest of the program is solid. Rearfoot cases done 1st year, good diversity, trauma, etc. Without the VA, Mt Sinai would be one of the top in Chicago.

St Mary Livonia seems legit. I've heard nothing but great things about that program. From what I've heard it sounds like a mini DMC.

 

[podguy11]

any NY area reviews? There is an abundance of programs in the tri-state area, so far the only one commented on was JSUMC

 

[JR1775]

Program Name: Mount Auburn Hospital

General Program/Hospital Info: Program has affiliations with Mount Auburn Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates (allegedly) and Tufts Medical center.

Attendings: Dr. Emily Cook (director), Dr. Jeremy Cook (director of research) and Dr. Philip Basile.

Residents:
Program attempts to be rigorous with their selection of students but holds a very narrow screening, restricting applicants to those ideally above a 3.5 GPA

Didactics:
Resident Lectures, Journal Clubs, and Public Health Conferences

OR Experience:
The OR experience is limited. As previously stated in other reviews, if you are searching for a program that allows open to close experience, do not apply here. You will find the constant micromanagement of Emily Cook to become monotonous, especially in more straight forward cases.

Clinic Experience:
Billing and booking surgical cases will occur many times in clinic. The Cooks expect a streamlined, error free process, but they will make these expectations known at the beginning of the rotation. The experience in clinic was nothing to write home about.

Research Opportunities
This program is a research machine. Are the Cooks interested in the outcome, or are they trying fill an annual quota for publications? Research should only be done if it has relevant weight in altering the standard of care. Research for the sake of research alone is rather pointless.

Lifestyle:
The lifestyle is very relaxed compared to other programs that I have visited or held a clerkship with thus far. This could be attributed to the severe lack of traumatology cases available to podiatry students at Mount Auburn. If you are looking for an exiting trauma based program, this is not the one for you.

Pros:
*Boston is a beautiful, historic city

Cons:
*Dr. Emily Cook is an extremely difficult person to tolerate, she can be rude, and rather uncouth.
*The cost of living in Cambridge is very expensive.
*Is just an ordinary program masking as an extraordinary program.

Overall Conclusion:
The excessive proclamations of their affiliations with Harvard gets old very quickly. Both of my parents are Harvard graduates, you never hear my mom nor my dad state that they went to Harvard. Emily Cook manages to say the word "Harvard" in every other sentence (insecurity complex much). My father currently works for Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, I can assure you that the "affiliation" between the podiatry program, and Mount Auburn is very, very weak. The only connection that comes to mind is the Chief of Podiatry at HVMA, Jane Brady, preforms surgery at Mount Auburn. The internal medicine department at HVMA, especially the one in Somerville, holds faculty appointments at Mount Auburn, but, again, that has nothing to do with the podiatry department.
In closing, be cautious with anyone who claims to be the best. You must assess the motives of the individuals making such claims. Do they want to be the best because they want to offer the best education possible to their students or do they want to be the best because they want to be the directors over the "best" program. I vote the latter.