OK, so one of my classmates has a father (not a big surprise...read on) who is the PD there. Dr. Kushins that is.
He used to be chair of Robert Wood Johnson (UMDNJ) in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He personally told me on the interview, that he left because he wantedt to move the education of the department in certain directions (regional among others). But the machinations of the institution (surgeons, other attendings) basically became tons and tons of red tape.
As a result he was offered a position at SLR and a free hand. From what I gathered from the residents who knew him back at Robert Wood he was a great resident advocate. He would make sure that the residents got out at 5 pm flat, to be relieved by attendings (out of all people). This naturally created some friction between him and the attendings.
Apparently when he left RWJ, the residents told me that their attendings yelled 'Yippee' and got the hell out of dodge at like 10am. Which left the residents pretty much in their rooms upwards of 7-8 o'clock.
He was able to recruit one of the anesthesia attendings from HSS (Hospital of Special Surgery - Cornell - #2 ranked ortho hospital in the country after Mayo) where 85% of cases were regional. As a result he was able to create regional experiences for the residents, that they would not have imagined (or so I was told). In addition he has put together a month of "Difficult Airway" rotation where residents spend isolated time in lab and going in on cases to do difficult airways (things I haven't heard of - high pressure 02 bursts into the cricothyroid...type suff). As a result I felt that this made for one of the two best programs (Sinai) in the city from the education perspective - this guy is pretty much it in anesthesia education.
Now I know people will say what about Cornell and Columbia...my experiences there were that with big names like that people didn't care so much about regional, difficult airway, or even trauma (Columbia). Again its a personal preference in terms of the "NAME" stuff, but with a highest paycheck in the city (51K - 53K - 55K Ca-1,2,3 respectively) it becomes the true diamond in the rough...nobody really knows much about. It seems to me the reputation will spread once more people go on the interview circuit.
Bottom line is when your business partners in the private same day surgery hubs want you to do Carotid Endarterectomies under regional, or you got a lady with amyloidosis and c-spine injury...chances are 1/1000, but I'm not so sure coming out of Cornell or Columbia I would be able to handle such difficult cases. Again my subjective opinion.
Now IN DEFENSE OF RWJ:
The place is not horrible from a resident standpoint. The impression I had there was that the call system that was adopted spreads the workload reasonably, and what really impressed me was the comraderie of the residents (probably the coolest, and least toolish people I've seen on my interview tour). Dept is relatively strong.
Cheers and good luck with ROLs.
P.S. 3 top gems in NYC area : Sinai, SLR and UMDNJ-NJMS all cause of great leadership, PDs and Chairs. Those programs should surge in the next few years.
