As promised, here are my picks:
1) (1a) Northwestern/RIC Basically had all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses of anywhere I interviewed. Deep in all areas in both inpt and outpt, excellent teaching, cutting edge research, good amt of elective time, great location/city, etc. Pretty much how I would design a residency program if I could do it myself, with extra stuff thrown in there. The only thing that I could think of that was a con for me was that lunchtime didactics were not protected, and you didnt go if you were off site from what I understand. But loved the interview day, residents are madd cool, teaching is top notch. Basically how I remembered the externship. Just awesome.
2) (1b) NJMS/Kessler Oh, the KIR. I rotated here for a month in the fall and LOVED my rotation here. To steal a line from oreosandsake, you get teaching on rounds, teaching at lunch, teaching in the afternoon, and teaching when its 6pm and youre begging to sign out. Its no wonder why they have so many Elkins winners, they get residents who are already very talented and theyre taught very well. I never really learned the MSK exam until I went there, and I felt like I had the best one in the class after my rotation was done. Also deep in pretty much all areas. Only things they get less of (which is probably still tons more than quite a few other places) are peds (no inpt coverage except when on call during the rotation I believe) and spine interventions. Thats actually not why I ranked it #2 though
in my mind, its more like 1b just because its northern NJ vs. Chicago, and Im from NY. My preference is to get something a bit different than the northeast for a few years, but KIR is too good to rank lower.
3) Univ. of Washington Another very awesome program. Different than RIC and KIR in that the inpt floor is in their University hospital, and they loved that it wasnt a free standing facility. Its not something that I thought about too much, but I can see the benefits in that. Admitted that a few years ago, their outpt MSK wasnt a strong suit but has been beefed up considerably in recent years to be very strong, also getting peds stronger as well. Great city, camaraderie, education. Another program where coming from here, the PM&R world is your oyster. The main reason why its my #3? I want to get off the east coast, but I wonder if 3,000 miles off is a little extreme
4) Temple If there was some kind of official top 10 PM&R programs list, I feel like Temple would def be on it. Also a place where they are strong in pretty much everything major (inpt, outpt, didactics, research, teaching). Residents get along very well, which along the trail residents at other programs brought up how good camaraderie was here. Why #4? I made a 40 pt scale and rated progs on that. Came in very slightly below RIC and KIR, but was barely higher than UW actually. UW beat it on my gut feeling
I dont have geographic restrictions, so mostly not wanting to be in the NE. That and looking to have an academic career, things I heard on the trail led me to believe the UW name may carry me slightly farther. Slightly. However, Id imagine that as an attending 5 years from now, I would by no means cry myself to sleep at night knowing I was trained at Temple.
5) Emory - Really enjoyed this program, and Atlanta is awesome. Dr. Vova is a PD who seems to want to take a great place to train and turn it into awesomeness by making the peds exposure more robust, as well as the P&O. Otherwise, they have great inpt, nice exposure to sports/spine/MSK/emg. This is the point in my list though that I felt I wouldn't see EVERYTHING, as "cancer rehab is dead and no one does burn rehab, it's mostly for plastics to handle".
6) VCU - Diamond in the rough here! I don't know why more people don't talk about it, but it seems you get pretty solid exposure to everything in both inpt and outpt. I actually thought my education would be slightly better here than Emory, but not enough to overcome Atlanta vs Richmond. All of my classmates who interviewed here were impressed by this prog as well.
7) UVA- Even now, a small part of me REALLY wanted to rank this prog #1. Its probably because sports/MSK/EKG is SO strong here, but I remember past review that this was of disproportionate balance with inpt. This was confirmed wih someone I know who rotated there, that they felt inpt wasn't strong at all. You probably get what you need from inpt, and I don't necessarily want to be an inpt doc, however, if I ever need to do any I need to be proficient, and given the fact that I only had one day and word of mouh to go on, I unfortunately had to base my decision on that. If the inpt is stronger, then I should have ranked this prog higher. Again, their upside looked really awesome, and I kind of wish I could spend time here anyways...maybe for fellowship...
8) Columbia/Cornell - Of my three manhattan interviews, this prog felt the strongest to me. They had a lot of unique opportunities to boast like MSKCC and HSS. However, there was no scheduled elective time, and there seemed to be an excessive amount of consult months! Lots of faculty though who seemed very supportive, and it seemed like all sites were equal in education.
9) Mt. Sinai - I promise, this review is outside of all the stuff on this board about the program, it's my opinion only. The prog seems strong and like you'll be trained well, and this is the most important thing above all. However, a few things jumped at me. At lunch, sitting with a few residents, when I asked how everything was going, there was a bit of an awkward pause and an "okay". That and the residents RAVED about elmhurst, but I heard little about the other sites...? I kind of wondered what I wasn't hearing about. Also, lectures are protected...to a degree. The on call resident covers the floors during didactics. I actually really really disliked this, which I'll explain later. Otherwise Dr. Herrera was real cool and is supposed to be an awesome teacher, model systems SCI and TBI is clutch, and the residents seemed very confident in their training, nice amt of elective time (4 months?), all definite upsides. I switched here and C/C on my list several times.
10) NYU - This was basically manhattan's distant third for me. Honestly, I ranked it because I felt like it was still stronger than a program I would scramble into. For one, there used to be an EMG problem with getting the 200, but apparently now it's fixed. However, your EMG block is the only time you cannot take vacation, so reading between the lines, to me there's still a problem getting the #s. Also, like Mt Sinai, on call resident covers the floour during didactics. Here's me true opinion: I kind of feel like lecture should be not protected (RIC) or fully protected (Kessler) or fully protected and the attendings do the floor work and notes (!!! Sinai Baltimore). I don't want others putting out my fires while I'm enjoying educational time. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but this system doesn't scream "you're here to be taught!" to me. Also I only met 3 residents all day, sooooo where was the rest??? There are 41 in the program! Sure people are busy, but I met a much greater proportion of the residents everywhere else. And to add to it all, my parking wasn't validated. In manhattan. I did think having a dedicated peds floor on site was cool (only RIC has this too) and inpt did seem strong. The residents I did meet here were very cool.
11) Sinai Baltimore - rotated here and really enjoyed my month. Very chill, non-malignant, very supportive atmosphere. Esp considering that it's a community program, it's noteworthy that it's stronger than a good number of academic PM&R programs when comparing notes with other applicants. Again, it was very chill, but actually too chill for me. I can be kind of hardcore, so I don't think I felt that I fit as much. But that's not why it's so low on my list. It's because it's in Baltimore!! If someone packs this place up and moves it, it jumps up 3-4 spots without me thinking further about it.
12) Johns Hopkins - The name says it all, but I thought it was part of the problem. I felt as though on my interview day, we were told about the tradition, the prestige, rubbing elbows and learning from the best in medicine, and the almost limitless resources. I did not hear as much about what Hopkins PM&R would do for me. I Learned you would be trained to be a solid generalist from residents and faculty I've interacted with, but before the interview day. Again, it's ranked low more because of the location (I WANT OUT OF BALTIMORE) more than anything else. Keep me in mind for a job after fellowship (if I do one) though!
PS I promise that Ill post the full reviews of my interviews soon, it just takes me 45 minutes to pound one of those out and its tough to get the time to do it in one sitting
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