I'm a resident at Valley, so take that into account in my answer. I did a Sub-I both places (went to UW), and have a friend at GH but haven't talked to her in a long time.
Don't worry about the Seattle/Renton thing--these programs are so different and only 20 minutes apart you should base the difference on what training you want and live wherever you want. Most of the Valley residents live in seattle area. I live in North seattle (we had a house there). I wouldn't recomment living that far from residency, but I was happy to be able to keep my house & other resients live in the same are.
The programs are very different, and to chose between them I would recommend considering where you want to practice and what you want to do--both of these hospitals use the residency program to attract quality physicians to the clinics associated with their hospital.
GH is an HMO, they have a fantastic EMR that they created, wonderful internet access to labs/etc for their patients. They have a nice OB area, but when I was there residents were not doing very many deliveries. They have very little call compared to some of the other local programs. The precepting seemed of good quality and evidence based; I like saving money and that aspect appealed to me but was everpresent. When I applied there was some previous drama (I have no idea what it was) and they matched poorly the previous year. Since then they have matched well x 2 years so you would have good senior residents. If you are considering the program I would recommend finding out where graduates practice.
Valley is a community hospital. We have a fantastic patient population. Our patients are african americans, asians, pacific islanders, caucasians, somalis, russians, and since we do state OB a lot of hispanic patients. We have a healthy (large) pediatric population. We see poorly insured (state & medicaid), and well insured (boeing, hospital employees, other), and occasionally self-pay uninsured. Lots of high/need patients. If you speak some spanish & want to be conversant by end of resdiency you can do that here. We have spanish interpreter in clinic almost all the time.
Our clinic setup (daily, shorter clinics) result in 65% continuity for FIRST YEAR residents, sometimes better for second and third years, that means 65% of the time when my patient returns for follow up, I see that patient. Most of the time when they can't see me, they see one of another five resdients on in my clinic sub-group, which is also really nice. We have the same MA for most of our clinics, and mine rock.
Inpatient medicine is a weird setup. Because clinic is spread out over a number of days, inpatient days are shorter (with less patients) and so we have six months first year, three second year and 6w third year. Also it is spread out over more months because inpatient we combine pediatrics, ICU, and inpatient medicine, for a total of 3-6 patients at a time. One of our graduates last year is currently working as a hospitalist, so we must be doing something right.
OB here is fantastic if you want to do OB. Our graduates deliver approx 75 (for people who don't want to do OB) to 120 babies over residency and we have no problems meeting our continuity deliveries. We follow those kids in clinic, and OMG it is just so fun. R1s first assist from day 1 on OB, R2s occasionally do highly supervised primary sections if they are very excited about OB & active in patient care.
Our graduates last year went into: 1) rural medicine possibly with colonoscopy priveledges 3)Internal Medicine Hospitalist 4)Working in clinic network 5/6)Working in north seattle clinic 7)Teaching at university hospital east coast (Pensylvania?) 8)Acute care. I believe they made 150-185,000, but my guess is this years numbers will be lower with bad economy. Previous years put practicioners in valley clinics, rural with OB including c-section priveledges but I hear we went back for a fellowship., rural, and one person got colonoscopy training, but that was tough.
Two graduates this year are accepted into fellowships in OB and Rural medicine (with OB) and one will be working in north seattle for swedish clinic. Graduates often precept for the program for a year or two.
Our benefits rock, parking is free, you get almost 2 grand first year or food, but it goes into you paycheck. You can make up your own electives, but you don't really get much elective time until 3rd year.
The main drawback is that there is a TON of call, and its all overnight call and its a small program so if your class looses a resident, I can tell you from experience it really really sucks. A lot. Maybe you get some compensation for extra call, but I'm still waiting for mine....
IF YOU HATE CALL I cannot recommend this program to you, but you might really like group health, just remember my info is old for that program.
Hope this helps. Remember, look at what graduates do and focus on what you want to do when you graduate.
