Hi, I was wondering if anyone could help me out by providing any of the following information. For some reason I must have been in la-la land
during this interview b/c I don't remember any information. Need to be refreshed about call schedule (all overnight vs. some short/back up), didactic set up, facilities, if the residents were happy and complexity of cases. I know this is alot but would appreciate any info from those familiar with the school or who may have interviewed there. Thanks in advanced and good luck to all in the "match"!
Right now im a CA-1 at temple.
Call is 6 times a month, with less weight on weekends because we have some full time crna's that actually like to work weekends, probably in part because weekends are lighter. from a residents stand point though, most would take a week day call anytime over a weekend. When you are on call, expect to work hard, with plenty of floor incubations, traumas, and emergent surgeries to keep the entire team busy. Though its very rare that you wont get at least a few of hours of sleep, since we have a pretty good size call team and usually there is only enough nursing to run 2 OR's at anyone time.
a few weeks of the year we work "late call" which means you come in at 11am and are the last resident to leave except for the call team. most days you are out by 6 or 7pm, so its actually a light week in terms of hours, but your constantly doing breaks and taking over cases half way through.
Overall though, we work a little harder than most residencies because the vast majority of your patients are going to be sick as hell- ASA 1's are rare and ASA's 3's and 4's the norm. Difficult airways are also above average in number due in part a large number of morbidly obese folks along with typical scenarios including such things as patients not showing up to remove that mass on their neck until it is clearly obstructing their airway. Right now i'm doing my OB rotation, and am just blown away by the number of pre-eclamptic patients i've already seen. Clinical training in talking to attendings who trained at other programs is way above average.
Our relationship with attendings is great. They're all down to earth, probably in part due to the large number of complex cases, which is sure to keep anyone humble. As a CA-1 i've already been in many nerve racking situations with many of the attendings.
If trauma is your thing, we get the vast majority of penetrating trauma in Philadelphia, which is considerable if you think about the fact that there were over 400 homicides last year in Philadelphia.
We also do pretty much all transplants except liver.
Didactics at temple include a 2 hour conference every wednesday morning and a then each year's class has a 1 hour topic orientated lecture on a separate day. These class specific lectures are generally question and answer sessions based on questions distributed ahead of time typically from readings in big miller. I personally am a fan of this method because it helps me stay on top of reading and personally i get more out of this kind of format that i would out of daily lectures. However, if you don't plan on reading and are hoping to have everything spoon fed to you in daily lectures, temple is not the place for you.
All the residents at temple are happy here and have no regrets about coming here. With that being said, we all came to temple full knowing we were not walking into a country club program and were going to work hard for all the reasons listed above. I had read some comments about some third years being unhappy, but this could not be any further from the truth. I hang out with these guys and girls all the time ( we are a pretty close group overall, with upper years always looking out for us and teaching us stuff) and know for a fact that they are happy here. There was one resident in the third year class who for another field altogether. From what i understand, he used to complain a lot and may account for the comments i have read.
Hope this helps
