Hmm, I think Temple has pretty strong connect with Penn IR, lots of their faculty are penn trained. I also liked the fact that Temple and maybe even Einstein aren't splitting case volume with the cluster of hospitals in center city philly. Any thoughts about temple's general diagnostic program?
You're not seeing the whole Philly picture. The competition for the imaging pie in Philly is a brutal fight for survival. Many hospital systems merging, some have gone under, and all are forming protective alliances. Some (who know more than I do about the city's medical outlook) predict that in the medium-distant future only three systems will be left. Temple might be #4 if they max out their alliances. In a way, Temple is left alone because other health systems are not eager to move into their patient population.
There's plenty of "volume" to go around, but the case distribution is different, I won't prejudice you on this one way or the other, but if the residents at these institutions are being honest, they will tell you that different cases go to different places. Ask them what kind of studies they get good at by the end of residency. Ask them how they think their training differs from Penn and Jeff. This will give you a much better idea than thinking in terms of equal volume. If the residents can't specify more benefits in their training program than that they get the same number of cases, that's a reddish flag.
If your goal is to make it to Penn IR fellowship, you're going to be competing against their own residents. Last year about half the IR fellowship class was gone with internal candidates. Abundant internal candidates are becoming a trend at virtually every program with an IR fellowship. You will have a nanoscopic edge over other outside programs because you're from a known Philadelphia entity, but unless your Philly IR program has the capacity to get you presenting abstracts at SIR or publishing in JVIR... you will not match at Penn IR fellowship over someone from the outside who has. The "connection" is tenuous. Pennsy is a stronger "connection" because of the institutional alliance, but not enough to trump HUP residents or an outsider who's published and presented.
But you don't need to spend a year at Penn to be a good IR doc. If your goal is to be trained as an IR and stay in Pennsylvania, you have other options (such as Jeff and Penn State). You'll have other options further afield, too.
