Stanford or UCSF?

[Ben Hur 17]

I really liked both Stanford and UCSF. Does anybody have any say one way or the other for who to rank higher? Previously I've heard that these residents are worked hard, however during my interviews I was told the average hours at UCSF were 57hr/wk, and Stanford was 60 hr/wk. These are about the same numbers I was hearing at all the other programs. The residents did say they worked hard, but what's up with the numbers. Don't get me wrong, I'll work hard. I know they're both great, but anything to help decide is appreciated.

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[OB1🤙]

You crazy kids and your silly ranking questions.

If you really, honestly, and truly can't make the substantive decision for yourself based on the huge set of data that by the end of the interview season has been made available to you, and if the geography of one is the same to you as the other, flip a coin or something.

 

[fakin' the funk]

If you really, honestly, and truly can't make the substantive decision for yourself based on the huge set of data that by the end of the interview season has been made available to you, and if the geography of one is the same to you as the other, flip a coin or something.

We all know what happened to Harvey Dent when he started doing that...

But seriously the Stanford vs. UCSF question is an important one, since they are very similar programs very close to each other (which is usually the deciding factor). Anyone's advice would be fantastic...

 

[OB1🤙]

This one time, I was hungry, and I really wanted to get a double cheeseburger at McDonald's. I looked in my wallet, and found that I had a dollar bill and a dollar coin. I stood in line for like, 15 minutes not knowing which one to pay with. I mean, I know they're both worth a dollar, and in the end I'd get my double cheeseburger and be just as satisfied, but shoot, they looked a little different so I just couldn't decide.

So I went home and just had a Cup-O-Noodles instead.

 

[Coastie]

Stanford, hands down.

No questions, please.

I really liked both Stanford and UCSF. Does anybody have any say one way or the other for who to rank higher? Previously I've heard that these residents are worked hard, however during my interviews I was told the average hours at UCSF were 57hr/wk, and Stanford was 60 hr/wk. These are about the same numbers I was hearing at all the other programs. The residents did say they worked hard, but what's up with the numbers. Don't get me wrong, I'll work hard. I know they're both great, but anything to help decide is appreciated.

 

[huktonfonix]

Do you want to live in the city or peninsula? Different lifestyles.

 

[error404]

Go to UCSF. Too many of us want to go to Stanford for you undecided folks to be taking our spots.

Seriously, I've spent time at both programs and they both work hard, but have very different attitudes. Hard to believe that you clicked with them equally and for the same reasons.

Think about location, whether the residents you met were happy and "like you," whether the admins seemed receptive and happy to the person that you are, and make your own educated decision.

 

[AnesNavy]

This one time, I was hungry, and I really wanted to get a double cheeseburger at McDonald's. I looked in my wallet, and found that I had a dollar bill and a dollar coin. I stood in line for like, 15 minutes not knowing which one to pay with. I mean, I know they're both worth a dollar, and in the end I'd get my double cheeseburger and be just as satisfied, but shoot, they looked a little different so I just couldn't decide.

So I went home and just had a Cup-O-Noodles instead.

 

[ucsfgaspain]

I really liked both Stanford and UCSF. Does anybody have any say one way or the other for who to rank higher? Previously I've heard that these residents are worked hard, however during my interviews I was told the average hours at UCSF were 57hr/wk, and Stanford was 60 hr/wk. These are about the same numbers I was hearing at all the other programs. The residents did say they worked hard, but what's up with the numbers. Don't get me wrong, I'll work hard. I know they're both great, but anything to help decide is appreciated.

I think that I can give you a pretty unique perspective. I grew up in Palo Alto. Went to Stanford Undergrad. Then went to UCSF for med school, anesthesia residency, and then fellowship. Now I live literally a 10 minute bike ride from the stanford campus.

You won't go wrong with either choice. You've just got to decide which place gels with your life better.

SF- city life is great if you are young and single. Just pick carefully where you want to live in the city. There are HUGE differences in weather on one side of the city compared to the other. It literally can be 80 degrees and sunny on one side of the city and 55 and foggy on the other during the summer. However, remember that you are a poor resident. So being able to take advantage of a lot of what the city offers requires $$$. Living in the Marina or SOMA is going to cost you.

Palo Alto- suburbia...definitely not the singles scene of the city. But some of the best venues for outdoors activity in the world. You get to work out in D1 quality gyms, olympic size swimming pools, and world class biking in the area. I settled down in this area b/c I literally roll out of bed and can trail run or hit the bike all year round. Then again, I'm in my late 30's so my priorities are very different then someone in there 20's.

PM me if you want more info. Peace.

 

[Shoe Strings]

Don't mind Haw Bruin...He's just jealous you picked UCSF/Stanford over UCLA!

 

[Ben Hur 17]

I think that I can give you a pretty unique perspective. I grew up in Palo Alto. Went to Stanford Undergrad. Then went to UCSF for med school, anesthesia residency, and then fellowship. Now I live literally a 10 minute bike ride from the stanford campus.

You won't go wrong with either choice. You've just got to decide which place gels with your life better.

SF- city life is great if you are young and single. Just pick carefully where you want to live in the city. There are HUGE differences in weather on one side of the city compared to the other. It literally can be 80 degrees and sunny on one side of the city and 55 and foggy on the other during the summer. However, remember that you are a poor resident. So being able to take advantage of a lot of what the city offers requires $$$. Living in the Marina or SOMA is going to cost you.

Palo Alto- suburbia...definitely not the singles scene of the city. But some of the best venues for outdoors activity in the world. You get to work out in D1 quality gyms, olympic size swimming pools, and world class biking in the area. I settled down in this area b/c I literally roll out of bed and can trail run or hit the bike all year round. Then again, I'm in my late 30's so my priorities are very different then someone in there 20's.

PM me if you want more info. Peace.

Thanks for the great beta on these two progarms. We'll see what happens with the match.

 

[cchoukal]

Not sure if it matters, but Ron Miller announced his retirment scheduled for June 2009. They are presently advertising for the position. One insider (a general surgeon who left UCSF to come to my program) and I talked about this and his opinion was that the hospital and other departments were motivated to find a weak chair for the program. The reasons are obvious: everyone wants to do more cases cuz it brings in more money. One way to do this is to walk over anesthesia and push them to provide more clinical coverage, since we're techs and not doctors or equals, so that's easier to do if the chair is a wuss.

I don't know how well that opinion fits the reality, but it raises the question whether UCSF will a) remain a powerhouse; will all that research still get done if the chair gets pushed into providing more clinical coverage? or b) be stable through the transition (hard to know)?

Anyway, I'm still going there for my fellowship (critical care), and, to be honest, I knew the retirement was coming and it didn't really weigh into my decision, but since no one mentioned it, I thought it was worth adding to the discussion.

 

[fakin' the funk]

Anyway, I'm still going there for my fellowship (critical care), and, to be honest, I knew the retirement was coming and it didn't really weigh into my decision, but since no one mentioned it, I thought it was worth adding to the discussion.

From the people I've asked, the going wisdom is "Many departments would be destabilized by changing chairs, but not UCSF." I'm not sure if that's true or if that's just smoke being blown up our _sses.

Regardless, it seems to me like it would be tough to expand clinical operations at UCSF...unless they started running all their OR's 24/7...there is not a crapload of real estate readily available to build new OR's or accomodate more inpatients.

On second thought, they do have Mission Bay now.

 

[xjohns1]

Not sure if it matters, but Ron Miller announced his retirment scheduled for June 2009. They are presently advertising for the position. One insider (a general surgeon who left UCSF to come to my program) and I talked about this and his opinion was that the hospital and other departments were motivated to find a weak chair for the program. The reasons are obvious: everyone wants to do more cases cuz it brings in more money. One way to do this is to walk over anesthesia and push them to provide more clinical coverage, since we're techs and not doctors or equals, so that's easier to do if the chair is a wuss.

I don't know how well that opinion fits the reality, but it raises the question whether UCSF will a) remain a powerhouse; will all that research still get done if the chair gets pushed into providing more clinical coverage? or b) be stable through the transition (hard to know)?

Anyway, I'm still going there for my fellowship (critical care), and, to be honest, I knew the retirement was coming and it didn't really weigh into my decision, but since no one mentioned it, I thought it was worth adding to the discussion.

i'm a ca-3 at ucsf and will be a critical care fellow here in july. just to nip this rumor in the bud regarding the replacement of dr. miller: i think that any surgeon who thinks that a weak chairman of our department will suddenly open up the or schedule for more cases is laughably naive. in any case, we will continue to be a strong department with a major presence in the medical school and medical center. our department is much stronger than just one chairman. the search committee is co-chaired by the chief of pediatric surgery, who is married to a senior pediatric anesthesiologist in our department and who, unlike the blockhead of a surgeon who made that original comment, can see beyond the pettiness of or availability and our department's limited role in regulating the same and recognize the major contributions the department makes both in and out of the or. there are other senior faculty from other departments, including michael matthay, on the committee (not to mention the faculty from our own department) who recognize the importance of the department to ucsf and the field of perioperative medicine. further, the medical school itself, the academic unit to which the department belongs (we are _not_ a unit of the medical center) and the dean of which who will make the final chairman appointment, has a vested interest in a superb academic department of anesthesia and really no particular interest in expanding revenue for the _medical center_ through increased or throughput. it is simply inconceivable that the culmination of 50 years of our department's existence, its status as one of the largest and most influential departments of anesthesia and perioperative medicine in the world, will go up in smoke with the appointment of a weak chair. for their own sake in making a rational decision, i hope residency applicants don't spend even 1 second thinking this is a valid concern. if there are other questions or concerns about ucsf and ranking decisions, i'm happy to address those here or privately.

 

[Ag4Life]

Anybody have any more thoughts about these two programs? I'm interested to here. My 1-4 right now is UCSF, UCLA, Stanford, and UCSD. But I am having a lot of trouble to rank which of the Bay Area programs higher. Thanks for any information.

 

[Uegis]

I would love to hear people's opinions on these two programs too as the 25th approaches.

 

[cchoukal]

You can't go wrong with any of them. Subjectively, I'd say the reputation, whatever that means, is probably bigger at UCSF and Stanford. Between those 2, it's probably a tossup, although UCSF puts out more research. Really, though, between these 4, it's probably a matter of where you want to live and where you felt "right."

 

[fakin' the funk]

Bumping this thread as ROLs are in.

I'd like to hear people's thoughts on why they put the 2 in whichever order they did on their ROLs.

I put Stanford ahead mostly for personal and location reasons - I'd rather live in a burb near a monster university than in, say, the Mission. I also felt the clinical training itself was a tad stronger at Stanford, and that I fit in better with the residents. The chair search at UCSF played a minor role, but it was there.

It was a very tough decision that may not even matter.

 

[Uegis]

I felt both programs were pretty much even in terms of clinical training, reputation, etc. In the end, it was location that was the deciding factor for me. I would be equally happy with either one as the training would be awesome and both in awesome areas with tons to do.

 

[morpheus md]

I really liked both Stanford and UCSF. Does anybody have any say one way or the other for who to rank higher? Previously I've heard that these residents are worked hard, however during my interviews I was told the average hours at UCSF were 57hr/wk, and Stanford was 60 hr/wk. These are about the same numbers I was hearing at all the other programs. The residents did say they worked hard, but what's up with the numbers. Don't get me wrong, I'll work hard. I know they're both great, but anything to help decide is appreciated.

UCLA, hands down.

 

[Ben Hur 17]

I felt both programs were pretty much even in terms of clinical training, reputation, etc. In the end, it was location that was the deciding factor for me. I would be equally happy with either one as the training would be awesome and both in awesome areas with tons to do.

I'll second that...in the end it came down to Stanford's location. I liked the burbs a little more and the outdoor access helped. They're both top-notch programs, which is why it was difficult to choose.