DocEspana (or other current students), can you comment on the quality of rotations at TOUROcom? Appreciate it, thanks.
Here are the hospitals. This will get complicated, so i'll *try* to keep it simple. But because some of the spots overlap with others (and because i'd be typing forever) i'm going to simplify it a bit.
St. Johns: Small (250ish bed) teaching hospital in queens. Very popular. It has every single rotation in house, though 2/3 of the people do get shipped out to a nearby psych hospital in queens for psych. Integrates OMM into the curriculum where appropriate. This hospital has residencies in IM, Surg, ER, FM, Derm and Optho. In a inner city community, though it is close to a luxury area. People love the education, they dislike (not hate) the hospitals small size. Education is loved.
Staten Island University Hospital: Big teaching hospital (650is beds). Level I trauma center. Just over the bridge from brooklyn. Takes in about 17 or 18 students (most of our places take 30ish). Is self contained except for OBGYN and psych, which both get leased out to the nearby St Johns. *lots* of residents here, especially in FM, Surgery and IM. They have numerous fellowships including oncology, cardiology and a few other things im forgetting. This hospital is loved in pretty much every category (where I want to go). Is the hardest to get to of the hospitals though. At least from the school since SI is a pain in the ass to get to unless you have a car and are living nearby.
Trinitas: Large teaching hospital in Elizabeth NJ. I honestly didnt pay attention to the presentation it made. The students love it and there are a couple in-house residencies in IM and residents from other local hospitals staff the other departments. Ships out to "north jersey" hospitals for peds and psych.
"North Jersey": These are three hospitals under the auspice of one DME. They work as one unit as far as we are concerned. Its Palisades hospital, Holy Name, and Englewood. Palisades is a small community hospital in a immigrant area. No residents there but you get hands on experience with all the departments, including getting to be first assist in surgery and actively performing life saving procedures in ER. But... the students there say that the experience is either amazing or dull. Because there are no residents you need to follow around attendings. If you do the least you can you wont be going into the hospital often and you wont be learning much. If you go in on your days off, stay late, come early, and you'll get a treasure trove of learning done and have experiences that are usually reserved for 2nd year residents. The students all agree that this hospital is 100% what you put into it.
Holy Name hospital is the same deal but it is a 350ish bed hospital and is very technologically advanced and in a more affluent area of jersey (teaneck). Same stuff as above, just fancier equipment. You spend most of your time split between here and palisades.
Englewood actually *does* have residents there. Most students in this system do their surgery here, or do it at palisades. You can ask the DME to do more months here, but they aren't automatically assigned anything else here. He is very accomodating. This environment is, from what i gather, like having the wealth of Holy Name with the residents most other hospitals have.
Jersey City/Christ Hospital: These two hospitals work together to form one wholly contained education. They are both small-to-average sized hospitals. They both have a few residents and are sold as middle grounds between the acadmic hospitals and the 'north jersey' track. Students seem pretty happy with this school. There is a pretty heavy OMM involvement in this school as our assistant dean occasionally swings by and does rounds with you and he is OMM-crazed. Good hospitals, just not my thing. I've heard no complaints except that people feel like they won a 'bad lottery' whenever they see the assistant dean. In the same sense, there are others who love it because they went to this hospital for that opportunity since he is huge in the DO world (current AOA president).
East Orange VA: I know pretty much nothing about this place. Its brand new for us. But its a VA hospital and thats pretty cool. Other schools (UMDNJ) have given it positive reviews. Has no peds or OBGYN.
Nyack Hospital: same as east orange. I know almost nothing about it as its brand new as of two days ago. It handles the OBGYN and peds for East Orange VA.
Utica: takes 2 students. Universally loved. Free housing and food. No one 'has' to go there as its extra spots but the demand is high for it anyway
Binghamton: Takes 5-10 students. Even *more* universally loved. Tons of residencies at the place. Free food, housing, and skiing with the attendings on thursdays in winter. This and Utica are where our best results on step II have come from, and we assume this might be the most 'complete' education possible. Also they write some amazing letter of recommendation. Also 100% "extra space" yet every year more and more people want to go because the word of mouth is that good.
and then a whole ton of small offices and specialty buildings that you can opt to go to for family medicine or obgyn or psych if you so wish. They aren't given out in the lottery, but they are, from what i hear, pretty good. So people go and request them after the lottery to replace their originally scheduled FM/OBGYN/Psych/etc.
