residency prestige

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rogersce

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I've heard that the med school you go to isn't nearly as important as the residency program you go to. However, I don't understand how the 'prestige' of the residency translates into advantages afterwards. If you're in residency at an average program vs. top tier ivy league residency, how will this translate into future success? Do you get a higher paying job? More vacation? Etc? Or is prestige only a factor if you want to go into academics/policy?

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Residency prestige can mean landing a job in group practice/hospital that you might not have otherwise been able to land. You have to understand that prestige in private practice means something very different in academics, a community program can have a very high prestige in a local area among employers who have had experience with residents trained at this program and know that this program is strong, and have a weak reputation among academic programs not in the area. Residency prestige is also very important for fellowship. I imagine that the further along you get in your career though, things like residency prestige will matter less then your letters of reference from your previous workplace in private practice. Nothing, not even going to Harvard, gets you anything for free. If you get more vacation time and see less patients, you will make less money irrespective of where you trained and where you work. Nothing is for free.
 
as is true in the rest of life, how "prestigious" your background is, will help you. the "stronger" your medical school, the more helpful it will be to land the better residencies. however, i do believe that residency training is more important than medical school. first of all, you have to get out of your head the notion, that all ivy league residencies are good. this may be true for undergrad but not for residencies. you'll realize as you go through your medical career, that residencies really vary from field to field. in my opinion (being an EM resident), the stronger EM programs are in larger cities (secondary to volume) and at places where medicine and surgery are not as strong (otherwise you lose out on procedures and there is a lot of territorial fighting). Training at a strong IM program, for instance, will give you a better chance at landing a fellowship, while training in IM at a small community program makes it more difficult to get a fellowship. it really depends what your plans are and what you want to do. i don't think where you train makes a difference in terms of vacation, but it may make a difference in the job you land and the ease with which you do it. programs that are more prestigious nationwide (i.e have "a name" in the field) will allow you to find a job easier wherever you go. hope this helps. if you're still a med student, i would just strive for the best so that there will be no regrets later on when you decide you want to go, for instance, into derm (or whatever)
 
Two things come to mind when it comes to prestige of a residency program.
One: it really matters mainly if you plan to stay in academia and aiming to do fellowships to get expertise in a particular area of interest.
Two: prestige usually comes from cutting edge research and publications, NIH funding, patient volume, diversity of cases, etc. These are very important components for a well rounded medical training.

When it comes to prestigious residencies, many of the top ones are not ivy leagues (Hopkins, Mayo, Cleveland, Baylor, Stanford), some of the ivy leagues are downright mediocre.
Regardless of which medical school you go to there are limitations to what you can do and learn within (more or less) two years of clinical rotations. The way I look at it, medical school will give you a MD degree and the residency will give you the needed skills and experience to be a physician/Surgeon. In addition, more prestigious the place more likely they are defining what the standard of care should be or developing new techniques/methods of treatment. As a resident you get to see and do many cases that others only read about in text books or journals.

Wow that was long winded
Later,
Chanakya
:cool:
 
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