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- Feb 17, 2006
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Radiation Oncology residency at University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio (UTHSCSA) is undergoing a wholesale overhaul at present, and as such is by far the lowest on the Texas list of rad onc residencies.
Match 2006 is the first year that UTHSCSA is participating so no interviews were offered. A large part of my information gathering was from my calling the program directly though the interview season and also from comparing notes with others on the interview trails. Well, my horrid impression of San Antonio was confirmed: they are under-funded and critically at a make-or-break crossroads whereby they could possibly lose accreditation(?) as their ACGME review approaches.
I called last month to speak with residents about their "unstable" program, and they universally declared that they are less-than-satisfied with all the fall out from their faculty leaving as well as other departmental havoc. As of late January 2006, not only did the Department Chair (Dr. Herman) leave the program, but also the Vice Chair left for another institution! Well, I thought, "Hey, they went onto advance their repective careers and are now Chairs at new places."
That is a positive, rather than a bad indication, right? I found out that my intial naive take on the matter was WRONG. To highlight the "let's-jump-ship-while-there-still-is-a-ship-left" climate, the residents informed me that about half of the faculty also left in the past few months. The residents did not straight out say it but they seemed betrayed(?) if not abandoned...though I hear they were never too pleased with their sporadic faculty lecture schedule anyway. Their board pass rate was not favorable either.
Devastating! From what I gather it is a small department to start with, so such an overhaul has got to have ripple effects of tsunami proportions, eh? The residents point out that Dr. Eng is one of the few stable things remaining in the program. Having been at UTHSCSA since 1999, he is the residency program director and now interim Chair. According to the residents, he is a VERY busy man now, especially with the many hats he must wear and fragile departmental inadequacies to gingerly juggle, including strained(?) relations with their academic affiliate UT HSC San Antonio.
On a more positive note, I must concur with the fact that Dr. Hussey was a coup for the program in San Antonio. He was RSNA President as I recall and a formidable authority in Head and Neck from his time at Iowa, etc. IMRT is another relative strength of the program, if you can look past the significant, non-trivial shortcomings.
I do disagree that "...all the other faculty are seen as young "up and comers" in research, because the research thrust is not very strong. The faculty search could be a blessing in disguise, but the reality is we are looking for not only a Chair, Vice-Chair, and several more all at once. We can only imagine how challenging it would be like to be on that search committee? So it seems that the clinics would be very under-staffed by attending for some time to come. Are the residents, therefore, forced to take the brunt of increased workload?
Whether they prefer "older" residents can be debated. From what they told me, having entered or finished internal medicine residency is not a pre-requisite. Nonetheless, the fact remains the San Antonio residents are older than at other programs.
Anyone have any news or input? San Antonio seems on the brink of extinction, if what I hear from other interviewees is true. So if your destination is the Texas for rad onc, the hands-down choice is Houston-based M.D. Anderson, which really should not be compared to San Antonio whose woes have no end in sight. I do want want to put myself in a place where my learning is so compromised by departmental lack of support and funding, etc. that I have to pick up the pieces later.
In conclusion, is San Antonio on my rank list? Emphatically, NOPE!
Match 2006 is the first year that UTHSCSA is participating so no interviews were offered. A large part of my information gathering was from my calling the program directly though the interview season and also from comparing notes with others on the interview trails. Well, my horrid impression of San Antonio was confirmed: they are under-funded and critically at a make-or-break crossroads whereby they could possibly lose accreditation(?) as their ACGME review approaches.
I called last month to speak with residents about their "unstable" program, and they universally declared that they are less-than-satisfied with all the fall out from their faculty leaving as well as other departmental havoc. As of late January 2006, not only did the Department Chair (Dr. Herman) leave the program, but also the Vice Chair left for another institution! Well, I thought, "Hey, they went onto advance their repective careers and are now Chairs at new places."
That is a positive, rather than a bad indication, right? I found out that my intial naive take on the matter was WRONG. To highlight the "let's-jump-ship-while-there-still-is-a-ship-left" climate, the residents informed me that about half of the faculty also left in the past few months. The residents did not straight out say it but they seemed betrayed(?) if not abandoned...though I hear they were never too pleased with their sporadic faculty lecture schedule anyway. Their board pass rate was not favorable either.
Devastating! From what I gather it is a small department to start with, so such an overhaul has got to have ripple effects of tsunami proportions, eh? The residents point out that Dr. Eng is one of the few stable things remaining in the program. Having been at UTHSCSA since 1999, he is the residency program director and now interim Chair. According to the residents, he is a VERY busy man now, especially with the many hats he must wear and fragile departmental inadequacies to gingerly juggle, including strained(?) relations with their academic affiliate UT HSC San Antonio.
On a more positive note, I must concur with the fact that Dr. Hussey was a coup for the program in San Antonio. He was RSNA President as I recall and a formidable authority in Head and Neck from his time at Iowa, etc. IMRT is another relative strength of the program, if you can look past the significant, non-trivial shortcomings.
I do disagree that "...all the other faculty are seen as young "up and comers" in research, because the research thrust is not very strong. The faculty search could be a blessing in disguise, but the reality is we are looking for not only a Chair, Vice-Chair, and several more all at once. We can only imagine how challenging it would be like to be on that search committee? So it seems that the clinics would be very under-staffed by attending for some time to come. Are the residents, therefore, forced to take the brunt of increased workload?
Whether they prefer "older" residents can be debated. From what they told me, having entered or finished internal medicine residency is not a pre-requisite. Nonetheless, the fact remains the San Antonio residents are older than at other programs.
Anyone have any news or input? San Antonio seems on the brink of extinction, if what I hear from other interviewees is true. So if your destination is the Texas for rad onc, the hands-down choice is Houston-based M.D. Anderson, which really should not be compared to San Antonio whose woes have no end in sight. I do want want to put myself in a place where my learning is so compromised by departmental lack of support and funding, etc. that I have to pick up the pieces later.
In conclusion, is San Antonio on my rank list? Emphatically, NOPE!
Htowngsp said:
Departmental support (even in terms of monetary support) does change your residency experience for the better or drudgery-worse.
