Too many interviews scheduled. I need help narrowing down programs.

[EpiIV]

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I've been very fortunate this season and now have 16 interviews scheduled. I feel like this is too many, and given that the programs are strong, I know someone else would love to have the slot. Unfortunately, I'm finding many websites difficult to navigate to find what I want, or it's impossible to convey what I want through a website. (i.e. Do the residents enjoy their life? What is the faculty mentorship like? ) So with that in mind, these are the programs on my list that I could cancel with at least a week in advance. They're in no particular order.

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai Beth Israel
Duke
Emory
Dartmouth
UCLA
Baylor
Boston University Medical Center
MUSC

My priorities are 1. Happy residents who are very tight nit within a culture that encourages residents to be full human beings and take care of their own mental health. 2. Mentorship that builds autonomous residents who own their patients and are confident in their decision making by the time they leave. 3. Patient population that is diverse and high load. 4. Either a well established eating disorder program or a program that is flexible enough to let a resident pursue their own interests. 5. Enough addictions training that I can feel very comfortable treating my patients with addictions such as exposure to prescribing methadone or suboxone to the patients who need it.

Things I don't care about: Location. Seriously. I'm not obsessed with weather and I don't have a significant other or family to consider. I'm also not obsessed with any particular fellowship.

I'll be the first one to say this is a great problem to have, but I really need help. Even if it means narrowing down this list by one program. Also, if there are any residents who would like to PM me to let me know their experience, it would be very very appreciated.

Hell, anyone who PMs me with a verifiable personal account of their residency experience, is welcome to a hand made Christmas card. I've been cranking them out on my flights. They will be pretty.

 

[EpiIV]

I figured I would update this post, because between sleuthing on the boards, talking to my program director, and a couple of helpful PMs, I was able to make a couple of decisions.

1st: talking to my program director wasn't helpful. She told me to drop UCLA because Los Angeles was really far away from my family and it was a "dangerous city". But my parents live in a tiny rural area which makes for a day of traveling no matter where I go, so these sentiments are pointless. She also told me to drop MUSC because it wasn't as strong as the rest of the list, and gave me no reasons why. I'm glad I shot her the email, but nothing that would give me any confidence in a decision.

2nd: Running around on the SDN forums back a couple of months one finds the following sentiments. "Mount Sinai is evil but I wont tell you which of the four programs I'm talking about" of "No wait they're super warm and friendly, and every one is BFFs". I've found some luke warm attitudes about Baylor up there too, and that the residents work too hard. (Through that's not necessarily a negative. I'm ok with working hard. I just want to be a good doc when I leave.) Darthmouth gets a lot of love for rural psych, Emory, Duke, MUSC, and UCLA get lots of love too.

3rd: I got a few useful PMs which have helped me to drop Baylor off the list. The general sentiment was that when applying for fellowships, they're not considered the best in their state and are not given preference while other programs are. Also, this person had a friend who transferred out of there after PGY-1. Being the best in the state is a bigger deal than I realized? People seem to bring this up a lot. So Baylor is off. There was also expression from some that Mount Sinai was only good in name and location. However, that was a blanket statement with no specifics. Being that my Mount Sinai interviews are pretty close, and all the info I've gotten is vague I'm not going to cancel.

Another PM had mixed reviews for BMC, stating that some of the residents were unhappy about their skimpy maternity leave and vacation time and they did not have their own inpatient unit, so you had to drive, but otherwise the residents are a happy bunch and enjoy their time there. The attendings are more hands off and less into teaching (from the experience of a med student who did a rotation with them).

PMs shared extra love for the education at UCLA, MUSC, Emory, and Duke. I will be keeping them.

So over all, I'm dropping Baylor, I couldn't get any reasons specific enough to drop Mt. Sinai, and BMC only had minor negatives which weren't enough to scare me off. But My BMC interview is pretty late down the season, so if I'm truly pooped from all of this, I guess it's the next one to go.

Hopefully this was helpful to someone and not a big crap stain of #humblebrag.

 

[JohnBender]

I applaud you for taking the time to give it some thought and making decisions to cancel interviews early!