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Does anyone have any insights into this program?
I’m currently an intern at Rush and happy to answer any questions.
I did med school at Rush and had no intentions of staying for residency, but the opportunity to help build a new program was appealing to me. The other thing that drew me in was that everywhere I went for EM aways and interviews had cool, hilarious, smart people, but Rush has a disproportionately high share of the coolest, smartest, and most hilarious ED attendings that I’ve worked with anywhere.
As an applicant I spent a lot of time thinking about the minutiae that might separate one program from another. Now that I’m on the other side of that, I can say most of the things I thought were going to matter, don’t.
At the end of the day, the people who end up filling our next class will be the adventurous types who are excited to help build a new program, and those who find themselves drawn to our faculty and current residents.
Obviously geography ends up being hard to ignore in most cases as well.
The rest of the stuff (curriculum, patient mix, benefits, etc) is pretty irrelevant if you’re afraid of new programs, don’t vibe with the people here, or don’t want to be in Chicago.
When I was making my rank list I thought a lot about 9’s, 12’s, number of shifts per month, etc. I can tell you once you’re an intern the things that actually matter for quality of life are how many hours you work per week, and how many days off you get per month.
Our ED months, we work 17 shifts, get two weekends completely off, and I average 50 hours a week.
On our weekends on, we do work 12 hour shifts which can be rough, but we made the decision as an intern class to do it that way to have two protected weekends completely off every month.
It’s something that we could collectively change (go back to 9 hour shifts on weekends, work 19 shifts, and only get one weekend off per month) if next year’s interns had a big problem with the 12’s, but I have to tell you the weekends off are glorious.
Yeah it’s a really good work-life balance here. I think I’ve only had one 60 hour work week in the ED and it was because I switched shifts around to take a trip, so the next week was like 37 hours. My duty hour log is mostly 40-50 hour weeks, with the balance 50-57 hr weeks.
Trauma, L&D, and MICU are a different story, 60-80 hr weeks. 2 of our intern off-service months (ortho and anesthesia) are super cush, 40 hours or less and no weekends. 4 weeks of vacation. No complaints from me on our schedule or work hours.
...I was really surprised by how much I liked it.
I have no doubt that this will quickly become a residency to beat in Chicago, especially if everything we were told on the interview days remains true once they are dealing with more than one class. In 5-10 years I bet Rush is at the top of everyone’s Chicago list.
The minimum size of an ACGME EM residency is 18 (6 residents x 3 years). Is this a DO residency? I thought it was MD.Only 2 interns showed up but there are only 12 residents total
12 per year, only interns so far but will be 24 then 36 total.The minimum size of an ACGME EM residency is 18 (6 residents x 3 years). Is this a DO residency? I thought it was MD.
I'm not saying Rush residents don't have a good life, but let's not get carried away. EM residents aren't suppose to have more than 60 clinical hours per week, and most work less. 60hr/week is 20 x 12 hour shifts per month. My program is 20 9s which averages to 45hr/week.wow thats great. was it like that in the ED at all places or just rush?
I'm not saying Rush residents don't have a good life, but let's not get carried away. EM residents aren't suppose to have more than 60 clinical hours per week, and most work less. 60hr/week is 20 x 12 hour shifts per month. My program is 20 9s which averages to 45hr/week.
Not at this point. But last year the number of applications we received was bordering on absurd for our committee to review, so at some point we will have to implement some sort of screening process. It’s not likely to be based solely on a hard cutoff for Step 1 score, but that may end up being a factor.Does this program have a Step 1 cut-off/screen?