UC Irvine and California programs

[struthers]

Hi . I am new to this forum. I am a medical student set on doing PM&R. I was wondering about California PMR programs, esp. UCI. Is it a good program? What do the residents do when they graduate? Job and fellowships prospects for recent graduates? How hard is it to get in? Thanks.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[SCIronMike]

I'm a PGY3 resident in PM&R at UCI. My opinion is that all the CA programs are more or less second tier, but solid programs. At UCI, we have 5 per class. In the time that I've been involved with this program, the graduates have mostly ended up at Kaiser, private group practices, or pain management fellowship (1 per year for the past 3 years). I think our program is moderately competitive (there are always plenty of people who want to be in SoCal). My understanding is that we rank no more than 40 per year and we fill pretty early on our list. We take more heavily from students who have rotated through the program, and the quality of the students is quite good.

I think the strengths of the program are a good balance between the inpatient and outpatient experience (basically 50/50), great accessibility to attendings, good facilities (we have a brand new rehab inpatient unit at UCI that just opened a few months ago), teaching locations are all fairly close, friendly residents, location, and at home call. The weaknesses are lack of residents doing research (there are opportunities), residents need to be motivated to keep up on their reading, the VA has its share of typical frustrations.... there are probably other things, but I'm pretty biased and I love this program! 🙂

Let me know if you have any questions. I don't think you can go wrong with any of the CA programs.

 

[struthers]

Thanks IronMike!

 

[RuNnR]

I hate to disagree but I have to......I wouldn't say "you can't go wrong" w/ any of the CA programs. You can go very wrong - ex) UCDavis and stanford are VERY VERY different programs and very different people go to each.

all i can say is DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!

 

[drusso]

I hate to disagree but I have to......I wouldn't say "you can't go wrong" w/ any of the CA programs. You can go very wrong - ex) UCDavis and stanford are VERY VERY different programs and very different people go to each.

all i can say is DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!

I'm curious what you mean. Can you elaborate. I'm from CA, but trained in the midwest. I think physiatry is stronger in the midwest compared to the west coast. I thought Davis was a strong program and the most "midwestern" of all the CA programs...

 

[melancholy]

I'm not trying to put words into RuNnR's mouth, but my interpretation of that statement "You can go very wrong - ex) UCDavis and stanford are VERY VERY different programs and very different people go to each." is that applicants should take a discriminating eye when applying to and ranking California programs because each of them is very different in what they offer and their specific "feel".

I would actually say that of most residency programs that are located in a specific geographical region. I have relatively limited exposure to most of the programs in the mid-west and east coast, but I probably wouldn't venture to say "you can't go wrong with any of the NY or Chicago programs".

As far as the feel for UC-Davis, I think the UCD house staff generally seem to be relatively laid-back, easy to get along with, and humble. As I did my internship at an outside facility, I spent some time early in my inpatient rehab month getting to know the various services, but found that overall, everyone is generally pretty friendly and helpful. I have had pretty good learning experiences working with consult services whether I am asking a resident or attending for their opinion on something.