Thanks for your help. I agree that it is a biased view, but definitely something I need to take into consideration. The negative things I've heard are that it is a "malignant" program (heard this from a resident in a different program) and that several residents have left in the past for various reasons. I guess my questions would be - if you had to do it all over again the same, would you? Is there anything you wish were different about the program? If there were problems in the past, is there anything underway to change that? Has this program ever been under probation by the ACGME?
Sure, happy to answer!
1 - I've honestly never felt it to be a malignant program. Some residents and attendings will have their issues with each other - but from what I've seen, they're very good at settling those professionally. The faculty in general are also honestly very invested in the residents - the majority of the hospitalists are actually a lot of fun to be on with overnight. They're also very supportive, and genuinely care about the residents.
2 - we have lost a few residents in the time I've been here. The majority of these have been because of one reason - distance. Hawaii is fantastic for a lot of reasons - it's also a 6 hour flight from the mainland. In considering ranking Hawaii, do NOT take that lightly. The single unifying theme amongst the residents who've left has been that, in one way or another, the distance from friends, family, etc, became a major issue. Personally, I love it out here - but the move WAS hard.
3 - Would I do it again? In a second.
4- I'm not a fan of NICU. I don't have much basis for comparison, never having actually been at any other NICU or program. It basically boils down to them not consistently having residents there (size-wise, to be a fully resident run NICU, we would need around 10 residents on the NICU at any one time). As such, the role residents are expected to play changes from team to team, and between faculty. Personally, not a fan of that. I like consistency. That being said, do I feel like I could resuscitate a crashing baby/lead a neonatal code or a delivery that went bad? For sure. We also matched someone into a NICU fellowship this year, which says something too! If the NICU were 'perfect' (whatever that means, again, because I don't have a basis of comparison), I wouldn't really have anything to post as far as 'things I wish were different!'
5/6 - As far as I know (program 'living' memory is around 5-6 years; as an intern, you work with 3rd years/chiefs, so people who started 3 years before you did - anything else is second or third hand), we've never been on probation by the ACGME. I'm also not really aware of specific problems in the past. That being said, one advantage to the program is size/ability to respond and move quickly. I remember during my intern year, one concern folks had was that there wasn't enough resident-lead research happening. Fast-forward 2 years, and every single 2nd/3rd year in the program, and a fair number of interns, have either their own project or a project they're doing with another resident, as lead/second author (when another resident is lead author).
Some of the positives about the program (since hey, I love it!) are the 100% fellowship match rate, the 100% board pass rate (again, going off people in living memory, since no-one is going to email out of the blue and say 'hey guys, guess who just failed their boards!'), the intimate/close feel of the residents (you really end up with a circle of friends as big as the program, any one of whom I'd feel comfortable meeting up with 1:1 for a beer or coffee or whatever), the attending you get to know quite well (to the point that some of the research I've gotten has come from attendings emailing me out of the blue and saying 'hey so I hear you're interested in z/y/z - lets do a project on it!), the hospitalists who I honestly look forward to being on rotation with... sorry for the run on sentence!
I really hope that helps to answer some of your concerns! Keep the questions coming, will do my best to answer/clarify.
