- Joined
- Jun 8, 2005
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I interviewed a couple of weeks ago at S&W, actually on my first day of a visiting elective there. There are a lot of great things about S&W that are easily overlooked if you are not from Texas, so I urge you to consider these things in your decision. First, from the PC to the PD, and the residents in between, the people are just Texans through and through. What this means is that they are some of the nicest folks you will ever run across in your life. The patients are the same way. Coming from a county hospital where I trained as a med student, its odd to have attendings and patients alike happy to see you! This is really a busy place as well. Of some 14 shifts now I have seen no downtime at all. There is always a patient to see it seems. The hospital is in the final stages of renovation although it was a state of the art hospital for this region to begin with. This place is like the Mayo of the south in that it has a catchment area of some trillion someodd miles. When you sit in the parking lot at S&W and look out across the horizon in all directions, you understand this. Their new ED is supposed to be incredible although I think their current one is not too bad. They use IBEX which is a bad a$$ computer system that requires no writing!! This program and the Texas Tech program in Texas are the two best programs if you want to practice real emergency medicine and not be in a huge city that sucks. Houston and Dallas both stink, and I wouldn't make my family live in either. And this comes from a Houstonian, so don't bother telling me I don't know what I am talking about. Temple is very small on the scale of EM cities. The combination of Belton, Temple, and Killeen without counting the Army guys on Fort Hood probably totals less than 90K. Thats just a guess. It feel closer to a 20K town when you are in any one of them.
You can absolutely live like an attending at S&W though...no kidding. There is Belton Lake which is less than 10 miles away, and you can get a new house in many different price ranges over that direction ranging from 110K to 225K. 225k will get you a freaking house you would pay 3 million for in northern Cali. And this lake is gorgeous!!!! Its got a limestone base which makes is crystal clear, and the hill country starts there and heads south and west. In my short stay there, they have made me feel more like a human being than any place I have visited on rotations. They daily ask me if there are any questions about the program and the city and they don't attempt to conceal anything at all. They work 12 hour shifts which I think I could get used to in order to have literally half the month off by 3rd year. They work 17/15/14 shifts in the ED a month as R1/R2/R3. Conference is pretty good as well but I have only been there during formal inservice review. The hospital system and the program both are very DO friendly...you will not be looked down upon for those initials here. One of their oldest and wisest attendings is a DO.
S&W will make you a great EM physician no doubt. You just have to decide if living in a small place is right for you. I have kids so it is actually attractive. I am in the middle of my ROL now and S&W started in my top quartile of programs just because I felt it was a good fit for me. It has only moved up since I have crunched the numbers and done the spreadsheet of pros and cons. Please check this place out, because it will surprise you a great deal.
You can absolutely live like an attending at S&W though...no kidding. There is Belton Lake which is less than 10 miles away, and you can get a new house in many different price ranges over that direction ranging from 110K to 225K. 225k will get you a freaking house you would pay 3 million for in northern Cali. And this lake is gorgeous!!!! Its got a limestone base which makes is crystal clear, and the hill country starts there and heads south and west. In my short stay there, they have made me feel more like a human being than any place I have visited on rotations. They daily ask me if there are any questions about the program and the city and they don't attempt to conceal anything at all. They work 12 hour shifts which I think I could get used to in order to have literally half the month off by 3rd year. They work 17/15/14 shifts in the ED a month as R1/R2/R3. Conference is pretty good as well but I have only been there during formal inservice review. The hospital system and the program both are very DO friendly...you will not be looked down upon for those initials here. One of their oldest and wisest attendings is a DO.
S&W will make you a great EM physician no doubt. You just have to decide if living in a small place is right for you. I have kids so it is actually attractive. I am in the middle of my ROL now and S&W started in my top quartile of programs just because I felt it was a good fit for me. It has only moved up since I have crunched the numbers and done the spreadsheet of pros and cons. Please check this place out, because it will surprise you a great deal.