Programs you wish you didn't interview

[DOMD]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Just curious which programs out there you wished you didn't interview at. It's easy to look back in hindsight now but if I had the money I saved on travel expenses...damn.

Mine:

U of Cali at Davis. Decent program but definitely incompatible with my personality. Lectures are too less structured. Hours are too lax. Not a bad thing but not a good fit with me.

DOMD

 

[apma77]

Harbor UCLA
IL MAsonic
RUsh

Pathetic PRograms..wouldnt recommend em to anyone unless u are desperate!

 

[painres]

1.) LSU shreveport
2.) University of new Mexico
3.) Oklahoma

 

[prominence]

is oklahoma's anesthesiology program on probation?

 

[gas-x]

1. ucla-harbor
2. boston u.
3. loyola
4. dartmouth

 

[prominence]

gas-x,

could u comment on boston u's program?

 

[R U SED 8]

i'm a little surprised so many chicago programs have popped up thus far....

apma,
would you please comment further on IL masonic and rush.

gas-x,
dartmouth....really???? 😱 also please elaborate on loyola....thanx much!

 

[apma77]

Well IL masonic is a small community program with little teaching..mainly residents are there for priv practice guys to scut..however they try to give u this schpiel how "academic:" they are during interviews.

Rush .. I would avoid like the plague cause the PD is an outright jerk..i cant see myself and most normal people workin with the guy as a resident.

I did not rank either program!

 

[frotteurism]

I really hated SUNY Brooklyn and UMDNJ-Newark

Newark spent most of the interviews pimping me on random medicine factoids. SUNY Brooklyn sent me to the wrong building, scolded me for following their directions that sent me to the wrong building, didn't let me meet any residents, and fed us these really nasty sandwiches.

 

[gas-x]

As far as Dartmouth, I simply used it as my practice interview. The program was OK. I didn't think there were enough "high risk" OB patients to go around. No trauma, other than tractor accidents and the sort. No knife and gun club patients. I have this belief that if you can handle trauma patients, you can essentially take care of anything that happens in the OR under "controlled chaos" conditions. No ethnic diversity in the patient load. Everyone was white. I wanted to go to a location that had Hispanics and Blacks also. I don't know how that might affect different approaches to anesthesia, but there are some ethnic differences to pharm agents. The location of Dartmouth was a turn-off. In the middle of nowhere. Difficult to get to. The environment was beautiful though. Oh yeah, I did see Ben Stein at the Dartmouth hotel. cool...

Boston U. was just too expensive to live near. Rent was something like $1200 for a room the size of a Motel 6. The program was probably OK. Tons of trauma, which is great. I just wanted interested because there were better programs in the same city. that's all.

Loyola was OK too. The location wasn't as great as I had hoped. I enjoyed the downtown chicago area more. loyola was stuck somewhere in the suburbs. I wasn't sure of the trauma load, but they do have a lot of cardio cases. I was told that trauma was heavy, but who knows. Great gym! That kept me interested. I just wanted a more academic center instead of a community hospital system.

 

[soon2bdoc2003]

Westchester - sweatshop, dump, no teaching, on probation, PD is very abrasive, etc.

Maimonides - 8 calls per month, pathetic salary, minimal benefits

Cook County - gas dept wears *pink* scrubs.. how am I ever gonna get laid wearing *pink* scrubs???

Boston U - impossibly low salary, interviewees tended to be 'scored' based on skirt length, breast size, etc...

Stony Brook - residents were extremely cool, interview included 15 minute foot treck in the cold to fancy ambulatory surgery center which we will never work in. Nurses in this center turned their backs on us on the way in and gave dirty looks on the way out. On the day I was there a resident got booted from a case for a crna and was then called back in to do the charting 🙄

 

[apma77]

MIami was another piece o' crap program...i ended up not ranking em!

 

[hndrx1a]

APMA, ANY CHANCE YOU DETAIL THE MIAMI INTERVIEW? I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THEY BROUGHT DUKE MD'S TO REVAMP PROGRAM...

 

[apma77]

well the facilitties are old and boggy...the residents i met were saying they worked very long hrs and the teaching was crap
the new duke guy has to work on this program for a WHILE before i would sign up to go there
MIami is a nice city but im not gonna compromise my education for a crap program.

 

[CaliGirlDO]

Wish I didn't waste my time going to Univ of Cincinatti. They interview on Saturdays only which means there aren't many residents around to talk to and the hospital isn't really in the full swing of things. It was nice to fit into the rest of my schedule since most other places don't interview on weekends, but I didn't realize until I got there how it would affect my experience.

The one resident that was there to presumably give us a tour couldn't talk to us because he was busy with cases. So I never did get to speak to any residents at all. Already a bad sign that they work too hard.

The PD gave us a presentation about their numbers and seemed a little defensive about why some numbers were so close to the bare minimum in certain areas. Another red flag to me!

The faculty I met were very nice, but the program seemed to be in a huge state of flux. The program director was quite young, but he hadn't been there long. Several of the chiefs of the surgery departments had just changed, which obviously affects anesthesia indirectly.

I didn't really enjoy the area either. Seemed like there was nothing to do, at least compared to where I'm from. All the other applicants that day were people who are from Ohio and wanted to stay.

Bottom line, too much recent change and instability in the program and wasn't interested in living in that area of the country.

 

[soon2bdoc2003]

Originally posted by hndrx1a
APMA, ANY CHANCE YOU DETAIL THE MIAMI INTERVIEW? I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THEY BROUGHT DUKE MD'S TO REVAMP PROGRAM...

I also interviewed there but I was pretty impressed with the entire interview. They did a good job of making us feel like real change was under way. Miami is a real working residency though, all of the residents told me 'you will work hard here' but none of them seemed overwhelmed. As a matter of fact the residents I met during the dinner were really laid back and all seemed to have active lives outside the hospital. The facilities are old, but they have a patient simulator and are adding a second one this year. They also have a block room which is something few hospitals are doing. As far as 'teaching' and 'academics' go, I tend to believe that anesthesiology is 50% reading and 50% clinical experience, and just about any program that gives you numbers and time to read can train a good clinical anesthesiologist. In my case I ranked miami #1 however I only ranked their advanced spots (just 6 positions) and did not match there. I wound up matching at a far superior program but I would consider spending 3 years in south florida enough of a tradeoff to justify an 'inferior' program, whatever that means.

 

[Sevo]

I think I mentioned this in another thread, but Cook County had to be the worse place I interviewed at. My granddad did his residency there as an internist, so I wanted to take a look at the hospital.

Not one of the better programs. Pink scrubs notwithstanding, the hospital was scary, the all-FMG resident staff worked like slaves (the post-residency positions they were getting weren't exactly impressive either), the chairman (Winnie) had just retired, and there was a recent mass exodus of faculty.

One of my fellow interviewees was a prelim IM resident at a Chicago area program that was looking for a job for her next year. After interviewing at County, she was pretty sure she was going to stick with medicine after all.

Allegheny General was another mistake. As I understand it, the anesthesia group that ran that hospital has since folded.