Review your residency program please

Started by cbrons
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Well, after looking at it, it's really not pulling much of a response in either direction. 6 reviews posted in 2016.

But, yeah... you're probably [mostly] going to get people who are avid cheerleaders for their program, or those who had a serious beef with the program. And, considering the "small numbers" of residents per year (even in "large" programs), it doesn't give the feeling of anonymity.
 
There are certainly negative reviews on scutwork but its kinda hard to draw conclusions since many reviews are old and the number is small to begin with. Lutheran General`s IM program in Chicago got some particularly vile ones from a while ago only to be countered by a bunch of people claiming the program was among the best in the nation for training and that the negative reviewers had "anger management" issues. Its entertaining to read through now if nothing else.
 
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SouthernSurgeon said:
While the system of residency as a whole seems like a large enterprise, the reality is that individual fields in medicine are very small, and individual residency programs are really analogous to small businesses.

You won't realize it fully until you're in it, but these are small fields where connections matter.

There is a reason that the fellowship specific threads get smaller and more vague/anonymous responses than the residency programs than the medical schools than the pre-med universities.

Outside of major IM and Peds programs, residents run in the single digits per year at most places. You wouldn't write a scathing online review of your current employer in any other small field either (if you expected to keep working).
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Even beyond that, I've given some warts and all assessments of the programs in my area from my experience on this site. I don't think anyone would really disagree from any of them, or particularly care. The problem with residency review as opposed to all parts of medical education below that is that anything that gets posted ends up out of date really really fast. Faculty move, rotations change, clinical sites get new directors, etc. I mentioned in the other thread that I could write a 10 page long, intensely detailed overview of my program that I graduated from last year, and it still wouldn't be all that useful to someone applying this year. The Q&A threads in the various specialty boards are a lot more helpful since people are able to put their advice into context, even if it is a lot harder to search and compare information between programs.
 
The problem is, it's fairly hard to rate your program on a scale of 1-5 stars. You will only know the one program that well, and all you know about other places is either secondhand or just bits and bobs you learned from interviews or away rotations. The only program you really have a chance to know the flaws of is your own.

The longer reviews on scutwork are interesting, but frequently out of date pretty quickly. They can be used as insight into the culture of the place at most.
 
The last review written for my residency program is from over a decade ago. This website is totally outdated to say the least.


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SouthernSurgeon said:
While the system of residency as a whole seems like a large enterprise, the reality is that individual fields in medicine are very small, and individual residency programs are really analogous to small businesses.

You won't realize it fully until you're in it, but these are small fields where connections matter.

There is a reason that the fellowship specific threads get smaller and more vague/anonymous responses than the residency programs than the medical schools than the pre-med universities.

Outside of major IM and Peds programs, residents run in the single digits per year at most places. You wouldn't write a scathing online review of your current employer in any other small field either (if you expected to keep working).
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I'm sure you are correct, but many are graduating and leaving their programs around this time.
 
MeatTornado said:
The last review written for my residency program is from over a decade ago. This website is totally outdated to say the least.


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Which is why we recently acquired it.

There are plans to change the interface and integrate with SDN. This doesn't resolve the inherent issues with residency reviews raised above, but at least will offer an updated platform.
 
rokshana said:
dude the only "reviews" you would get are happy cheerful ones...if you don't get why no one would post more realistic ones on a public forum, well...
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Many of them are actually pretty honest. You can tell which ones are written by the pd or one of their shills. There are very few programs, if any that had only happy comments from several different years.

SouthernSurgeon said:
While the system of residency as a whole seems like a large enterprise, the reality is that individual fields in medicine are very small, and individual residency programs are really analogous to small businesses.

You won't realize it fully until you're in it, but these are small fields where connections matter.

There is a reason that the fellowship specific threads get smaller and more vague/anonymous responses than the residency programs than the medical schools than the pre-med universities.

Outside of major IM and Peds programs, residents run in the single digits per year at most places. You wouldn't write a scathing online review of your current employer in any other small field either (if you expected to keep working).
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I got the sense that even mentioning a negative review at an interview tanked my app there
 
Winged Scapula said:
Which is why we recently acquired it.

There are plans to change the interface and integrate with SDN. This doesn't resolve the inherent issues with residency reviews raised above, but at least will offer an updated platform.
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I hope part of the interface change involves getting rid of these blocks of text and encouraging shorter answers to more direct questions. You essentially need to trash the current reviews because they are so unreadable and out of date. Also information on schedules and other objective data can be collected and displayed for every program so it doesn't clutter the actual reviews. Finally, reviews should not be published until there are 5 reviews for a particular program and not having the specific date of the review but just the year would make things more anonymous.


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Winged Scapula said:
Which is why we recently acquired it.

There are plans to change the interface and integrate with SDN. This doesn't resolve the inherent issues with residency reviews raised above, but at least will offer an updated platform.
Click to expand...

It'd take a lot of effort and work to redesign the system in to a more anonymous collection of questions and allow for trending. As PD/Chair/Faculty change, and as respondents in the program come and go, a birds eye view trend will be helpful.
 
I actually was missing the fact that the number of programs on the directory isn't even the reflecting the number of reviews. (Saw that med genetics has 49 in the directory but hardly any reviews).

As there are already maintained lists of programs, it might be helpful to either purge the ones without reviews, or have some sort of systematic pull from FREIDA. I haven't even looked to see if there are programs with reviews that aren't even in existence any more.

Are PD's the only folks privy to aggregate data from the residency questionnaires? (I'm blanking on their name).
 
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the holy grail would be public access to the resident survey data--which, like the holy grail, is a fantasy
 
Shikima said:
I believe it's more than this. Getting a way to collect anonymous data which allows for current people to offer an opinion on the work environment and watch it through trending will be illuminating.
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Good luck
Medicine attracts the spineless and you really think ppl are gonna spill their guts out for no benefit and all the potential risks? No survey is ever truly anonymous
 
Is it really that much of a career risk to bash your program if you've already completed residency and established yourself in private practice or another hospital somewhere? How can they touch you at that point? Not trying to ask a troll question. I'm genuinely curious.
 
ordersol7 said:
Is it really that much of a career risk to bash your program if you've already completed residency and established yourself in private practice or another hospital somewhere? How can they touch you at that point? Not trying to ask a troll question. I'm genuinely curious.
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They really can't as it would be anonymous. But Doctors are spineless....
 
WingedOx said:
Though honestly, are people really THAT unsatisfied with their training programs that they need to unload on them? What difference do you think that's going to make?
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It's for others, not the training program. It's good to get a general feel across the board from all peoples. Interviewing is like speed dating - never really get a good chance to evaluate the environment to see if it would be a good fit.
 
Shikima said:
It's for others, not the training program. It's good to get a general feel across the board from all peoples. Interviewing is like speed dating - never really get a good chance to evaluate the environment to see if it would be a good fit.
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That's what pre-interview dinners + alcohol are for... for both the applicant and the program.
 
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WingedOx said:
That's what pre-interview dinners + alcohol are for... for both the applicant and the program.
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Still is first date. You have enough intellect to fake it until you make it and you generally won't see faculty plied with enough spirits to see who they really are. That is even if that program has a dinner with them.
 
ordersol7 said:
Is it really that much of a career risk to bash your program if you've already completed residency and established yourself in private practice or another hospital somewhere? How can they touch you at that point? Not trying to ask a troll question. I'm genuinely curious.
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Your residency PD still has to fill out paperwork every time you get a new job (or maybe license? I forget), even if the PD has changed, even if you graduated 20 years ago. And, of course, if you go around saying x program is bad and you graduated there, it makes people hesitate to take people from that program, or makes you look like a bad egg out of that program. And, people change jobs all the time--who's to say you won't end back up in that area looking for a job. Medicine is a remarkably small field, and it gets smaller the more specialized you go.
 
Just an observation - got an email today that reminded me of this exchange. I guess Doximity is trying to accumulate residency reviews from alumni. I don't use it much, nor have I decided if I'm going to fill out a review. But, if people are still interested in options to have some publicly available evaluation data.
 
cbrons said:
Why is it asking for trouble? Scutwork.com is owned by CRG, the same folks who own and run SDN.
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Trouble that individual posters here are going to identify their programs and give you the nitty gritty.

It's well and good if you want to encourage resident participation in anonymous review resources.
 
mvenus929 said:
Your residency PD still has to fill out paperwork every time you get a new job (or maybe license? I forget), even if the PD has changed, even if you graduated 20 years ago. And, of course, if you go around saying x program is bad and you graduated there, it makes people hesitate to take people from that program, or makes you look like a bad egg out of that program. And, people change jobs all the time--who's to say you won't end back up in that area looking for a job. Medicine is a remarkably small field, and it gets smaller the more specialized you go.
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This.

It is a kiss of death to thrash your program publicly...
 
Wow I've never seen this website before, but yikes is the layout archaic or what? I have difficulty finding currently reviews from within the past 3 years. Looking around at several programs in my area looks like there was a dedicated effort by some to have senior residents in 2009-2010 to write positive things to address negativity... it's odd.
 
Scutwork always reminded me of "ratemyprofessor". Most of the negative comments came from students who couldn't hack the subject matter.
 
said:
Scutwork always reminded me of "ratemyprofessor". Most of the negative comments came from students who couldn't hack the subject matter.
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Not sure I totally agree with this. Kind of strikes me as the same mentality as dismissing any negative evaluations you get from attendings/residents as them being malignant rather than acknowledging the possibility you could have done better. A single nasty review about a residency program doesn't really mean anything but a program that gets a bunch of them would definitely make me more hesitant about training there. And there are definitely some programs that are notorious enough that they warrant multiple pages on them both on scutwork and this site.
 
Agree 100% that we should all contribute more to something like this, by spreading the information we can all only help each other. As applicants will hypothetically shy away from "bad" programs, it will put pressure on those programs to shape up and in theory could slowly change the landscape to benefit all residents/fellows. No program wants to have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill their spots so they might actually react to the bad press and make positive changes.

The problem is, as others have alluded, trashing your own program has its problems. I hated and still hate my residency program with a passion, and this is after moving on to a fellowship where I'm very happy. In an odd way I am treated so much better now (in cardiac of all things!!) that its given me an entirely new perspective on just how bad my previous program actually was.

That being said, I'm still a little wary of destroying it publicly/officially for several reasons. If you nuke your program while you're there you can only lose....worst case scenario your program could get shut down leaving you without a job where it is very difficult to get another one. All of us seriously doubt a lot of these things are truly "anonymous" and I've seen "anonymous" surveys go bad in the past for some of my colleagues. History has taught us time and time again that things usually don't go well for the whistle blower. Word will get out that your program sucks and now you will get worse applicants meaning as a senior resident your juniors could be terrible, dramatically increasing your pain....which is why even at programs we all knew were malignant the residents would show up at the pre interview thing and claim all was fabulous (even when it wasn't).

If you destroy your program after the fact or on the way out, you can do some serious damage to the residents still training there many of whom are probably your friends. Even if its been awhile, how would you feel if you were an intern and some jerk who doesn't work there anymore made your life worse?

Interestingly you can point out evidence of a programs inadequacies and some still working there might even fight you on it, either because they're worried about all the above or maybe to get through the day they have to believe the place is competent....it can be very disillusioning to work as hard as we do in residency and not believe the program is ultimately setting you up for success, believe me I know. Even if you build a strong case against your program, people will just say you're bitter and angry or couldn't hack it etc. If you reveal your opinions to outsiders you just hurt your own brand.....you are for better a worse a product of that system, and if you make the case that it was awful training you're casting doubt on your own abilities. Many will still have to rely on their programs to sign off on license applications and jobs for the rest of their careers.

So what's a reasonable person to do? I willingly dish all the dirt on my previous program, but am careful to do it in a way that gives me plausible deniability.....nothing in writing. As long as the cost to the trainee remains this high no one is free to speak up about the problems with their training and no one ever will, and nothing will ever change.
 
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Psai said:
Damn now I want to know which program that is. I actually really like my program
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+1, for sure! I get annoyed at some of the intricacies about residency with difficulty scheduling doctors visits, vacations and dinner nights but overall I'm pretty happy. Some real perspective up top.

And yeah, I agree with the dangers of publicly (even anonymously) bashing your program. You are better to band together as a few residents to try to address certain issues if at all possible - strength in numbers is real. Of course the old truth still applies - residency isn't exactly a walk in the park or by any means easy. Hopefully you'll be better after the long hours and lack of sleep.
 
AdmiralChz said:
+1, for sure! I get annoyed at some of the intricacies about residency with difficulty scheduling doctors visits, vacations and dinner nights but overall I'm pretty happy. Some real perspective up top.

And yeah, I agree with the dangers of publicly (even anonymously) bashing your program. You are better to band together as a few residents to try to address certain issues if at all possible - strength in numbers is real. Of course the old truth still applies - residency isn't exactly a walk in the park or by any means easy. Hopefully you'll be better after the long hours and lack of sleep.
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Do most places have active residency advisory committees? I mean, my IM residency had about 6-8 residents who met monthly with the chiefs and the program administration for specific issues directly involving our program. My PM residency was very small, but the hospital had a monthly committee meeting of all of the program directors, and most of the bigger programs (IM, surg, neuro, peds, ortho, rads, and OB/gyn, I think) had resident representatives that sat in (and could bring up GME related issues).
 
fantasty said:
Do most places have active residency advisory committees? I mean, my IM residency had about 6-8 residents who met monthly with the chiefs and the program administration for specific issues directly involving our program. My PM residency was very small, but the hospital had a monthly committee meeting of all of the program directors, and most of the bigger programs (IM, surg, neuro, peds, ortho, rads, and OB/gyn, I think) had resident representatives that sat in (and could bring up GME related issues).
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We had/have something similar. It wasn't all super productive. Unless there were over the top GME violations, not a lot came of them. Informal discussions with the PDs and chiefs were usually a better use of our time if we had complaints. There were also plenty of things that as a chief, were beyond the control of both me and the PD.
 
thing is, part of what makes a program malignant is not having these sorts of committees that address these issues

if the program has them, then that is part of what makes them not malignant

so it's sort of a circular problem, in that it takes not being malignant to have a committee to not be malignant
 
Crayola227 said:
thing is, part of what makes a program malignant is not having these sorts of committees that address these issues

if the program has them, then that is part of what makes them not malignant
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I've sat in enough completely useless and frustrating meetings to disagree with this. We had a site was was absolutely awful. Meetings upon meetings, but the same crap over and over.
 
said:
I've sat in enough completely useless and frustrating meetings to disagree with this. We had a site was was absolutely awful. Meetings upon meetings, but the same crap over and over.
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good point, better said, to say "committees are not necessarily a good protection against/yardstick of program malignancy"
 
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