hope everyone had a great thanksgiving; with all the good questions about UMass, and the limited amount of time on interview day, I thought I would put up a brief list of FAQ's in case people didn't have time to PM me or didn't have an account.
1) Where is UMASS, and what type of program is it?
UMASS Memorial Health Care and its' many hospitals/facilities are the clinical partners and affiliates of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Mass. Worcester is located about 45 minutes west of Boston in Central Massachusetts; it is the second largest city in New England. UMASS's IM program would best be described as a university-based, multi-hospital program. Residents rotate through 3 hospitals during their 3 years here; UMASS hospital (University Campus, where all the med school buildings are), Memorial Hospital (Memorial Campus), and Milford Regional (smaller hospital which does require some commuting).
2)What schools do the residents come from?
This is an issue that tends to kick UMass in the arse when it comes to their reputation. Because the current program is a merger of 2 different programs (merged back in '98 I believe), one which was university-based and took only US allopathic grads, and the other which was community-based and the majority of residents were IMG's; about 50% of current residents are IMG's. However, UMass makes a big effort to take IMG's who have done research and/or some clinical work at UMass, and tends to like grads from Trinity College (probably the best Irish school) and US citizens from SGU.
Among USMG's, UMass grads tend to have a lot of loyalty for their school and often, high hopes of matching in fellowships there, thus, they tend to be a bit overrepresented in the program. Nonetheless, categorical and M/P residents entering the program in the past five years have also come from U of New Mexico*, Albany Medical College*, BU*, Tufts*, Finch/CMS, MCG, U Mississippi, SUNY-Downstate, U Maryland, MCV/VCU, Harvard, Wayne State, Temple (guy who is a Yale anethesia program grad and anesthesiology attending for a few years!), UTSA, Tulane, UMDNJ-RWJ, Loma Linda, Oregon Health Sciences University, Northwestern, Ohio State, UNECOM*, NYCOM*, SGU*, Trinity College*, and probably a few I missed. Bottom line: where you went to med school isn't going to keep you from matching here! (places marked with * have 2 or more residents entering in last 5 years).
3)Tell me about the patient population? Are there many private patients? How is resident autonomy?
UMass Memorial is the main health care provider (this is an understatement) for Central Mass., which consists primarily of Worcester County. Worcester proper has a population of about 200 K, but Worcester County is the most populated county in Mass., with a population of close to 800,000 and growing. A growing # of patients are now coming in from Northern CT as well, as UMass has a small affiliate over the border in Putnam, CT, strangely enough.
In any case, the patient population here is suprisingly diverse, and you get to see a bit of everything! Worcester is for the most part a poor, old "industrial town", with large immigrant populations from Puerto Rico and Brazil (in particular). IVDA and EtOH abuse are big problems here, but it is nicer and safer here than in Springfield, MA to the west. A large amount of the population at both Memorial and UMASS comes from the more suburban and rural areas of Worcester County (or Northern CT), which ranges from well-off retirees to nursing home patients to young people (also a number of immigrants) who do hard, manual labor on farms and roads. Like I said, I am getting great exposure and becoming more confident in my skills every day as a result of working w/ this population!
Private patients RARELY exist at University/UMASS, and at Memorial there are some primary care attendings who house staff do not admit with; often it is because these attendings treated residents inappropriately or refused to teach at all. Most attendings LOVE having house staff coverage, treat us as colleagues and equals when discussing patient care decisions, and are more than willing to do informal teaching. Like BU and Brown, UMASS is a very resident-driven program; in fact, occasionally errs on the side of giving too much autonomy to interns. However, once you learn the ropes and who to ask for help it gets better.
4) How are the relationships among attendings, house staff, and nurses, care coordinators, etc.?
One of my favorite aspects of working here is that this is one of the most non-malignant places an intern could work. So far, my teaching attendings have been great; my first one in particular saved my butt by doing walk rounds with us when my resident was on delayed start on a long call day or on his day off. With a few exceptions, you will have the same teaching attending for an entire month per UMass policy. If an attending is not willing to be on the teaching service for one continous month, he/she will not receive teaching priveleges for that month. I have really enjoyed the residents I've worked with so far, they were all very bright and gave good feedback. Comraderie development got off to a slow start during intern year when we were all scared and overworked, but is going well now. A number of interns have gotten really on top of getting people together and we all get along great. Nurses and care coordinators here know the residents by name (yes, even at big UMASS hospital) and are uniformly friendly, helpful, and competent. Wonderful change from where I went to med school!
5)
How are fellowship matches? I want to go into (fill in the blank), can I do that at UMASS?
Although spots in competitive specialties like Cards and GI are never guarenteed, UMASS residency grads tend to do well in these areas, and have a bit of a leg up in getting spots in UMASS's cards and GI fellowships. However, Cards and GI fellowships at UMASS, in spite of the fact that the IM program is DO friendly, very, very rarely take DO's or IMG's. However, Cardiology and GI training at UMass is excellent, and matches of note in the past 5 years include: Cards: UMass (duh), U Chicago, BU, Baystate, Dartmouth, U Cincinatti, UIC, Cornell, CHF @ Yale-New Haven GI:UMASS, BWH, Mayo Clinic (MN), UC Davis, Cornell.
Other fellowship matches of note include: Endocrine: MGH, UCLA; Rheum: UTSW, JHU; Heme/Onc: Duke, Vanderbilt, JHU.
UMASS Medical School is ranked #4 in the nation for primary care, so careers in primary care or gen med or hospitalist medicine are always encouraged. However, whatever you want to do here, you can do; with 2 months of elective time and 1 very cush geriatrics month during intern year, there is always time to explore your options.
6)
"perks" at UMASS?
$150 PDA allowance, $250 book credit, free critical care textbook during intern year, lunch @ 2-3 noon conferences/week, free laundry service for white coats; meal tickets on call.
NO overnight call on wards, except for q4 o/n call and cross-coverage during your annual month at Milford. During your ICU month, q3 o/n, regardless of where you're assigned. Long call and short call are q5 at Memorial Campus
7)
What are your favorite aspects of the program?
As mentioned, 1)patient diversity and amazingly broad spectrum of clinical experience, 2)cooperative, friendly atmosphere for working and learning, 3)non-malignant with no real scutwork, you do draw your own ABG's however, 4)proximity to Boston and family there.
8)
8)Was this your first choice? No, please see my old posts. BUT, if I had to do it again, I would rank UMass #2 just behind Brown, both very similar programs and I would have been happy at either. I did match in my top 3.
9)Negative aspects of the program? : 1)Location-I don't like Worcester as much as Boston or Providence, who does? But as mentioned previously, Woosta has its' merits.. 2)Night Float issues: Interns do one month of Night Float each month on a rotating system, and although we don't admit, it can get really overwhelming and we were not given orientation this year. I brought this to the CR's attention, and he was very receptive to changes and apologetic for the trouble caused to interns. Still a lonely PITA month though. Night Float residents at Memorial Hospital start admitting after 8:30 p.m. (or when long call caps), and ER attendings at Memorial have an unfortunate tendency to admit every person that comes through the door to house staff. There have also been some ER staff at Memorial who have mismanaged patients horribly and/or behaved abusely toward multiple residents to the point where several residents had to file complaints. Fortunately, only a third of your R2 NF month is @ Mem. Hosp.
10)Details on the social events, please?
Informal cocktail/appetizer reception for residents/applicants/sig. others/interested students at Funky Murphy's bar/restaurant in Worcester starting @ 6 pm every Monday for the next month (except X-mas week). For January dates, I'm not sure, please PM me and I'll look it up for you. Dress is casual, no RSVP necessary, and you can come on whatever date (s) you like!
Hopefully this will answer some ?'s, I really have no life and need to get to bed before I start a Part II FAQ
Good luck!!!
Hope you come back this year!