Stanford Anesthesiology

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SleepyTime

Midwestern Univ, Phoenix.
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I've been using the search tool and found a few interesting tidbits about Stanford Anesthesia, but really not a whole lot about the residency. I am interested in this school due to its location, reputation, and quality of education (so I hear rumors).

There are no reviews of Stanford Anesthesia on Scutwork, thus I am hoping someone can answer a few questions:

1. How's the teaching?

2. Is it more clinical, didactic, or a good mix of both?

3. What's the atmosphere like?

4. What's the schedule during residency?

5. Do you have an overall "feeling" about the program (if you're in it)?

6. Lastly, REALLY, just HOW competitive is it getting into Stanford Anesthesia? (USMLE Step 1, Class Rank, Letters from whom, DO vs. MD, etc.)


Anything anybody could share would be much appreciated.

SleepyTime
AZCOM '06
 
Well, since I haven't actually started yet, I can't answer some of your questions. But I'll answer what I can... the caveat being that this is just my impression from the interview day and the interaction that I've had with them since.

To me, it seemed like a very relaxed, friendly atmosphere. The attendings I met were uniformly nice, and the residents who showed up for the lunch seemed pretty content (though the free food might've helped with that). After the Match, I contacted them about how to go about getting involved in research, met some other faculty and was basically offered a sopt in the lab of one of my original interviewers. To me, it seemed very cordial and laid-back.

I felt really good after interviewing there (mind you this was at the end of a 3 week period where I had 14 interviews in California, one after another) and ultimately that's why I put them number 1. I'm still really looking forward to starting next year.

I can't accurately comment on the teaching, clinical/didactic mix, or the schedule yet.

I'm not sure how competitive it is to get in, but since you asked, here are my stats.

Step I 252/99, Step II 249/99
Senior AOA
No research during med school, no published research from undergrad
Fair amount of leadership/volunteer stuff (health-related) in extracurricular activities
Mid-tier (?) MD school in the Midwest (UIC)
Good letters (or so I'm told) from...
- UIC Chairman (more of a departmental letter but he was my advisor too)
- Chief of Anesthesia at Westside VA (also head of research at UIC, did IM at UCSF, anesthesia at UVA, IIRC)
- Anesthesia attending at Westside VA (anesthesia at Mayo, and I think his cardiac fellowship there too)
- Medicine attending at Westside VA

None of my letter writers (with the exception of the chair) are particularly well-known, though the chief at the VA is pretty well published.

Since you've got some time before applying, talk to me in a year and maybe by then I can tell you some more about the program in particular.
 
Thanks !! I appreciate you sharing your scores and your letter information. It actually gives me somewhat of a framework for preparing my application.

I'm curious, even with that stellar Step 1 score, did you take Step 2 early enough that Stanford saw it before the Match?
 
I timed my Step 2 so that I would have the option of releasing it or keeping it quiet (took it in early December). That way, I figured if anyone asked when I was doing my January interviews, I could say that I took it, but was still waiting on my scores (not really lying, since my scores actually came in while I was on a 3 week interview trek in California and I didn't see them until February). If I did well, I could then release it via ERAS, theoretically in time for programs to download them before turning rank lists. If I didn't, then I would do my best to not mention that I had received my scores.

Of course, there was one particular program in southern California that sent out an (erroneus) email in late January/early February to people they had interviewed saying that the regents of the University of California (or some other "august" body) had mandated that residency applicants had to have Step 2 scores on file in order to be ranked. I didn't have anything to hide, so I went ahead and released my scores on ERAS. Of course a couple days later, I got an email saying that they had made a mistake. (This program had been pretty cold and unhelpful in their email correspondences throughout the interview season, so it just worsened the sour taste in my mouth)
 
when i applied there, i had a Step I 0f 250, no step II, average grades, bad ass letter, no pubs...i didn't get an interview. ended up at a harvard program. buddy of mine in my class matched UPenn but didn't get an interview either. bias against east coast? i doubt it, but maybe. maybe really good grades are important to them. or everybody on the west coast wants to go there and ucsf.
 
Hey everyone,

I'm a CA-1 (first year of anesthesia) here at Stanford. I saw the numbers in the above posts and was quite impressed. They are way better than mine were. I only scored a 226 on Step I and a 224 on Step II. I was not AOA. I did not perform phenomenally at the University of Washington in med school, but got a few Honors consistently. I did a crappy research project that got published. I did spend 5 years as an Army Ranger, however, and that's what we talked about at my interview. I think I'm the dumbest person in my class here on paper.

Stanford's program rocks. When you read the standard anesthesiology texts, you notice that so many of them are written by the docs here. If you do a Google search on Jaffe, Brock-Utne, Fischer, Saidman (former president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists), Pearl, Mihm, etc. you'll find out how famous they are. I worked with Dr. Jaffe this morning and I said, "So I was reading your book last night and,..." His book is Surgical Procedures for Anesthesiologists, a text famous around the world. I can't get over how many docs here are cited in nearly every article I read. And they're very friendly.

I will say that we get worked pretty darn hard here. An average day starts at 6:00 AM and ends anywhere from 5:30-8:00. We also work at two other hospitals--the VA which is very cush, and Santa Clara Valley where you get worked like a 6-year old boy in an offshore Nike factory. So it gets to be a grind. I sort of think that you'll learn good anesthesia wherever you go as long as you get enough cases. With that said, I encourage people to choose their residency based on WHERE THEY WILL BE HAPPIEST. Location, location, location. Operating rooms look the same at Stanford as they do in the Midwest. A ruptured appendix looks the same at Stanford as it does in the Northeast.

I will say that the weather here is awesome, and the cost of living is very overstated. I live extremely comfortable here and money is NOT an issue whatsoever. If the cost of living is a reason why you might not consider Stanford, forget it! You will have no problem making ends meet here. Also, Stanford has about the highest salary in the nation for residents. On top of that, the hospital gives you $3000 lump sum to move here (you do NOT need to provide receipts; you just get $3000 in your August check) and the department here gives you $2400 each year for cost of living. All told, you will make about $50,000 as a CA-1. Plus, the department funds all kinds of things. We did a class trip to a winery, had a night out after the Boards (we drank $2000 worth of beer and drinks, all on the department), and they got us a luxury box at an Oakland As game--all free! They also pay for a skiing retreat at Tahoe each spring. We're very comfortable here, but when it's time to work--we work hard. Oh, and we get a $250 PDA stipend and $1500 each year for books and educational stuff.

My fellow residents are really cool. No one is snobby-everyone is very friendly. People here are extremely bright, but also self-deprecating. I am amazed how intelligent these people are, but I have to pry it out of them with a crowbar.

Good luck to all of you in your residency search. I also encourage you to take a look at Stanford. I am extremely happy here. Hope this helps.

Eric Smith
CA-1, Stanford
 
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