Anyway, program impression #4 is University @ Buffalo (Roswell Park Cancer Institute). I remember reading on the SDN forums that they did not gain residents in the regular Match a couple of years ago b/c their rank list was too short. IIRC, they picked up residents subsequently in the Scramble.
So when I visited I was not expecting much, but let me tell you that this place absolutely blew me away. The introduction by Dr. Kuettel (the Chair) was among the best I've seen on the trail. In brief, there are three major, relatively unique advantages to this program:
1. Intern year is integrated (Prelim IM @ UBuffalo): During this time you will fulfill all of your MedOnc/PedOnc requirements for residency PLUS take two months worth of RadOnc rotations in the department. This way, a lot of what you do during your intern year actually counts towards the 36 months of required clinical time during PGY2-4. This way you have up to 18 months to do whatever you want -- basic/clincal/physics research or even rotate through private practice clincs.
2. PAs are heavily integrated into the department: This means that residents will be free to pick and choose interesting/relevant cases (or do all of them if they so desire). However, they will be doing the new patient consults and sims primarily and will be freed up from a lot of the scutwork which the PAs will cover.
3. In-house radiologist: This guy is employed by the department so you will have an expert in imaging sitting right next to you. No more grudingly going up to the Radiology room . . .
The drawbacks of this program are (1) little name recognition at present, (2) Buffalo is cold and snowy, (3) tough intern year with a lot of q4 and ICU months.
