Does anyone know if there is a list of residency program rankings? Does US News and world report do one?
Thanks,
Tadeo
Thanks,
Tadeo
Residency Program Rankings
- Thread starter Tadeo
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There is no such ranking. It's totally word of mouth. You'd need a separate ranking for each specialty because they don't track together -- it's pretty common for every place to be solid in one field and horrible or malignant in another. So you wouldn't be able to say that hospital X has the best residencies and hospital Y has the next best and so on -- it would have to be one list for ortho and another totally different list for optho, and still another for path and so on. And things would change annually as chief residents change, program directors and chairmen move on/retire, etc.
The way it generally works is that late in med school, once you have picked a specialty, you find yourself a mentor in the target field and through them you get the real skinny. Everyone in the field tends to know which places are good, bad, benign, malignant, up and coming, etc.,or through a phone call to colleagues, they can find out. On top of that, you tend to want to network with alumni from your med school at various places in the field, and you tend to want to do away rotations (aka audition rotations) to meet the players and see what life there is like.
It's a lot harder than med school in some ways, because for med school there are various rankings that let you know some sense of the prestige (not that that is so important, but for some premeds it seems to weigh into their decision). But that tends to be a lot less important in residency because you really have to worry about whether places are malignant in a particular specialty, and other factors that don't really track with name. The opportunity to be abused as a resident is pretty significant, and so you wouldn't want to select a program based on a "rank" rather than really knowing what your life will be like once there.
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L2D, just give him the info he asks for. There is such a list from US news. There is really no need to tell him all that.
Agreed.
umm what? list in US news?
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i think what law2doc said is generally true, and i've seen it said by several residents/4th yrs. i didn't know it changed annually as much as law2doc suggests though. i thought that some schools were known for being strong in a particular residency specialty (e.g. UTMB well known for anesthesiology, burn care, infectious diseases).
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Are you referring to the US News rankings of best hospitals? Unfortunately, those rankings say nothing of the educational quality in their respective residency programs.
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Are you sure this list exists? It really does vary from specialty to specialty and for some specialties, there are so few residents that a list would be extremely low yield. For instance, several radonc programs have only 4 residents total (1 per year).
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As others have said, there is no such list. If you are referring to the list of "best hospitals" you are not being helpful as that isn't really a ranking of residencies, and would not be helpful to the OP. From your post I imagine you aren't opposed to being unhelpful, but the SDN community isn't supposed to be that way. FWIW, if it's not specialty specific, it's going to be garbage because it doesn't track the way people evaluate residencies. And from my experience (having gone through the residency application process already) no such list of residency rankings exists. If you know something different, please feel free to post a link. 🙄
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[Note to self: Being snarky can really backfire if you are incorrect.]
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L2D is correct. No lists exist.
Even when you start looking at good programs, many will be known for completely different things. Some will have better didactics. Others will have more prestigious faculty. Some have the fellowships you are looking to get into. Some work you harder than others.
The right combination of the many characteristics about a residency program are not the same for everyone.
Even when you start looking at good programs, many will be known for completely different things. Some will have better didactics. Others will have more prestigious faculty. Some have the fellowships you are looking to get into. Some work you harder than others.
The right combination of the many characteristics about a residency program are not the same for everyone.
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Wow, good job making yourself look like a total jackass. If you have a problem with L2D, address that problem directly, but don't go around spreading inaccurate information just to be a jerk. Many of us, myself included, find L2D's posts to be very helpful, so don't screw that up for the rest of us by driving him away.
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I didn't think there was such a list either. In any case, I doubt any sort of residency ranking would be helpful to a pre-med.
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I misread it and thought he wanted the residency director's ranking of medical school.
but even then the US news have a rank of medical school base on specialties. I don't think you should preach someone everytime they ask something, it gets really old.
just give them what they want.
but even then the US news have a rank of medical school base on specialties. I don't think you should preach someone everytime they ask something, it gets really old.
just give them what they want.
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So you don't like that we get back more in return than we ask for when L2D responds to a question on here? I personally like that I get a full explanation the first time through when L2D posts. If he were to simply "just give them what they want" as you put it, then there is a good chance he wouldn't fully answer the question anyways. If L2D's posts are getting "really old" to you, why don't you just try ignoring them, instead of screwing things up for the rest of us?
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No, USNAWR does not have a "rank of medical schools base on specialities". You are referring to either the "Best Graduate Schools" issue. Since many residencies are not at medical schools, they wouldn't be included in the rankings but that doesn't mean they're not quality (MDA and MSKCC are are couple of examples). The rankings are based on reputation; residency program directors are not the best source of information about residencies at OTHER hospitals. Rankings of medical schools has little to do with rankings of residencies.
Or perhaps you are referring to the "Best Hospitals" annual report. This is a patient oriented report and does not reference residency programs. As a matter of fact, "reputation" alone accounted for 1/3 of their rankings. We all know that reputations are not necessarily true, nor do they necessarily reflect quality in treaching.
Here is the methodology they use; note that it does not include anything about residencies except that the hospital must be a teaching hospital (which can include nursing schools). Furthermore, much of the rankings are based on diagnosis: no one does a residency in "Cancer" or "Pulmonary disease".
FWIW, I've never heard someone complain about a staff member giving too much information.😕
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This isn't a ranking list but it does have feedback on residency programs:
http://www.scutwork.com/cgi-bin/links/page.cgi?d=1
Everyone past pre-med, how accurate and helpful would you say these comments are? From briefly reading some of the feedback on the specialties I've come into contact with, they seem very thorough and do not hold back. However, some specialties are lacking in comments, such as neurosurgery, so I guess it largely depends on who wants to take the time to evaluate the program.
http://www.scutwork.com/cgi-bin/links/page.cgi?d=1
Everyone past pre-med, how accurate and helpful would you say these comments are? From briefly reading some of the feedback on the specialties I've come into contact with, they seem very thorough and do not hold back. However, some specialties are lacking in comments, such as neurosurgery, so I guess it largely depends on who wants to take the time to evaluate the program.
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I would take them with a grain of salt.
We have been told that many programs with negative reviews have leaned on the management of Scutwork to remove those reviews and they have in fear of litigation.
I've also personal experience with multiple positive reviews at a program that came after a negative one which was prompted by the PD telling the residents to post there.
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Thank you everyone for the great advice. Has anyone heard of this website? http://www.residentphysician.com/ They have a 'ranking' of residencies, is it worth anything?
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Those look like rankings of med school departments based on NIH funding (at least the surgery one did). Not sure that is helpful at all for residencies due to many of the reasons stated above.
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I'm not sure NIH funding is a great barometer for residency rank, so it's probably a fatal flaw. I mean, even if you wanted to propose that research funding translated to some advantage, there are other sources of research funding, so it doesn't even necessarily rank the research powerhouses in the right order. But that notwithstanding, it doesn't address the IMHO more important good versus malignant issue. A place can be well funded but outright malignant. A place can have lots of funding and yet mistreat their residents badly -- there is really no relation between funding and the day to day life or treatment of residents, or how well they get trained, etc. And when you are signing on someplace for 3-7 years of your life, it's the day to day stuff that matters more than something like NIH funding. So no, I sure wouldn't get too excited about this list. Again, this is something you learn word of mouth once you have selected a specialty, later in med school. You aren't going to be spoon fed a list of prestige rankings like you might for med school. And that's probably a good thing because you have no idea yet how miserable your life can be if you choose badly at this phase of your training.
