Regarding residencies: Is there much of a relationship between competitiveness of program and training quality?

[RespectTheChemistry]

Hi,

With DO, sometimes I worry about specialties that are mostly DO-friendly, but not DO-friendly at super competitive programs (i.e. IM & Peds). For example, especially as a DO, it would be easier to match at a community or less-competitive IM or Peds program than it would be to match at a very well known, very competitive university program.

Are those super competitive university programs more likely to offer better training on the basis of seeing a larger range of pathology? Does that really make a difference? Is the teaching quality better or something? Do people just like the name recognition for when they go to apply for fellowships if they choose to do so?

Granted, more well-known programs being much more competitive is an issue for our USMD friends too, but I know sometimes these hyper-competitive programs are less inclined to rank DOs quite as high. (Or so I've collected from SDN.)

Can you get nearly just as good of training at a community program that is more likely to be DO-friendly?

I don't want to start a fire if this is considered to be an MD vs. DO thing. That's the last thing I want. I'm just curious.

Thank you!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[FutureDoctor5000]

Yes university programs are better(but there are “community “ that are just as good such as Cleveland clinic, ocshner, Houston Methodist etc) but matching at a decent university program in peds or IM doesn’t require you to be a superstar by any means and can be done even from newest DO schools.. now upper mid and top tier university will require research and 230-240+ steps etc.. if you want like top 10-15 IM programs then you better go MD because that is very hard, but one doesn’t need to be in a top 10-15 program to get good training and match at fellowships. For peds top 10-15 is attainable because there are DO’s at most top peds programs.

 

[RespectTheChemistry]

Yes university programs are better(but there are “community “ that are just as good such as Cleveland clinic, ocshner, Houston Methodist etc) but matching at a decent university program in peds or IM doesn’t require you to be a superstar by any means and can be done even from newest DO schools.. now upper mid and top tier university will require research and 230-240+ steps etc.. if you want like top 10-15 IM programs then you better go MD because that is very hard, but one doesn’t need to be in a top 10-15 program to get good training and match at fellowships. For peds top 10-15 is attainable because there are DO’s at most top peds programs.

Thank you!

 

[nofliesonme]

Yes university programs are better(but there are “community “ that are just as good such as Cleveland clinic, ocshner, Houston Methodist etc) but matching at a decent university program in peds or IM doesn’t require you to be a superstar by any means and can be done even from newest DO schools.. now upper mid and top tier university will require research and 230-240+ steps etc.. if you want like top 10-15 IM programs then you better go MD because that is very hard, but one doesn’t need to be in a top 10-15 program to get good training and match at fellowships. For peds top 10-15 is attainable because there are DO’s at most top peds programs.

Your definition of community hospital is out of touch with reality. The Cleveland Clinic has its own zip code, over 2,000 residents and fellows, over 8 million patient visits, over 8 billion dollars in revenue, over 67,000 employees, is the home of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, 76 operating rooms on its main campus, 11 affiliated hospitals and 19 community health centers in Ohio, and hospitals in Nevada, Florida, Abu Dhabi, Toronto and London.

 

[FutureDoctor5000]

Your definition of community hospital is out of touch with reality. The Cleveland Clinic has its own zip code, over 2,000 residents and fellows, over 8 million patient visits, over 8 billion dollars in revenue, over 67,000 employees, is the home of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, 76 operating rooms on its main campus, 11 affiliated hospitals and 19 community health centers in Ohio, and hospitals in Nevada, Florida, Abu Dhabi, Toronto and London.

Yet it’s purely a community hospital, hence my point. The Lerner college of medicine is actually a joint program with case western… no clue what you mean by “out of touch” there are plenty of large community hospital health systems with residencies… ie kaiser, they are still not university based academic centers and will never be classified as such and the number of residents they have or operating rooms they doesn’t change that fact…

 

[deleted1100659]

The quality of training isn’t dependent on how well the name is known; it’s dependent on the faculty/their level of involvement with residents, the residents themselves and the resources/training sites. Among other thing.

sometimes places are competitive because the name is well known, but sometimes these places have a high degree of burnout or other issues.

when you go through the Match, you realize it’s all a complete mystery because every program will tell you how amazing they are and you never know the quality until you start. But the “name” of the program had no influence on my decision, when I went through the match I tried to look for the experiences people had at a variety of programs and gauge if there were certain issues consistently reported at a specific program

 

[RespectTheChemistry]

The quality of training isn’t dependent on how well the name is known; it’s dependent on the faculty/their level of involvement with residents, the residents themselves and the resources/training sites. Among other thing.

sometimes places are competitive because the name is well known, but sometimes these places have a high degree of burnout or other issues.

when you go through the Match, you realize it’s all a complete mystery because every program will tell you how amazing they are and you never know the quality until you start. But the “name” of the program had no influence on my decision, when I went through the match I tried to look for the experiences people had at a variety of programs and gauge if there were certain issues consistently reported at a specific program

Thank you very much for your detailed response! It is greatly appreciated and was very helpful!

To close the loop on this conversation, are DO-friendly programs more likely to experience the issues you describe?

 

[deleted1100659]

Thank you very much for your detailed response! It is greatly appreciated and was very helpful!

To close the loop on this conversation, are DO-friendly programs more likely to experience the issues you describe?

that part im not sure; everyone try’s to predict if a place is malignant or great but the reality is it is kind of a crapshoot, and a lot of what you go on is what others tell you, as far as the match

you can bet during the interview at a place, they all go Into used car salesman mode and they can make 24 hour calls sound like trips to Disney world

 

[RespectTheChemistry]

that part im not sure; everyone try’s to predict if a place is malignant or great but the reality is it is kind of a crapshoot, and a lot of what you go on is what others tell you, as far as the match

you can bet during the interview at a place, they all go Into used car salesman mode and they can make 24 hour calls sound like trips to Disney world

That makes sense. Thank you again for your help.

 

[DOVinciRobot]

It’s very specialty and program dependent honestly.