UPMC vs. Mayo Jacksonville (FL)

[bbfthegirl]

I am having a hard time deciding between the 2. I really loved the weather in Jacksonville and Mayo has a categorical spot. However I got the best vibe in Pittsburgh, it's a bigger program and the residents were alot more friendly. Also the research at UPMC seemed alot more interesting and they have better moonlighting. But Jacksonville has awesome beaches and the cost of living is pretty awesome. P.S: My spouse really loves Florida but is willing to compromise.

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[050914]

Yea Mayo-Jax was pretty sweet. But no trauma, peds gives me pause.

 

[cbtk18]

Happy wife = happy life


Edit: It appears you are in fact the wife. But you get the idea.

 

[bbfthegirl]

Yeah that's how I feel. I LOVE UPMC but like Pittsburgh. I LOVE Jacksonville but like Mayo. Pittsburgh was a little difficult to digest at first so my husband and I stayed a an extra couple of days and visited the neighborhoods. We found out it was really a liveable city with tons of cool things to do that are affordable.

 

[MossPoh]

Jacksonville is massive when it comes to the city limits so you could live in the boonies and still be in Jax. The beaches there aren't awful but not stellar either. It also gets cold enough that you wouldn't want to go all the time. I think of jax as Georgia more than Florida.

Pittsburgh is a very friendly small city with fairly unwise topography. It is a much more academic city. The housing is fairly reasonable there and I had no trouble finding nice houses when looking online. PGH is more concentrated and had has more off beat cafés, restaurants and bars.

If you are on the more conservative side of politics, Jacksonville is a great fit. PGH is more moderate with the academic institutions.

As far as the programs, UPMC felt clearly stronger to me with all the opportunities you could imagine and more. Mayo-jax was more of a community feel. Nice hospital. Collegial atmosphere. Strong msk and a lot of cancer stuff. I'm in Florida now (and have been for a while) and we rarely refer stuff to mayo. The bulk of our stuff goes to Gainesville, Tampa, Birmingham or Atlanta. We are referring to Atlanta over Mayo despite Jacksonville being the shorter drive. I don't know whether that is more political or cultural versus anything else, but just something to consider

The PD and all the people at mayo were very nice. It def felt like a married person program.

In the end, it is a gut feeling decision.

 

[shark2000]

It depends on which program you liked more and where you want to live in the future.

If you want to stay in Pittsburgh in the future, UPMC works better. If you want to stay in Southeast in the future, Mayo is better. If none of above, choose the city you'd like to live in during your residency.

Agree with above that UPMC is stronger than Mayo Jacksonville. However, going to UPMC instead of Mayo Jax is not going to be a deal maker if you seek a job in non-local places like San Francisco or Chicago (for example). If it were MGH versus Mayo Jax, the story was different. However, there is not a huge difference among these programs for your future job or the quality of education.

 

[babybackribs]

It depends on which program you liked more and where you want to live in the future.

If you want to stay in Pittsburgh in the future, UPMC works better. If you want to stay in Southeast in the future, Mayo is better. If none of above, choose the city you'd like to live in during your residency.

Agree with above that UPMC is stronger than Mayo Jacksonville. However, going to UPMC instead of Mayo Jax is not going to be a deal maker if you seek a job in non-local places like San Francisco or Chicago (for example). If it were MGH versus Mayo Jax, the story was different. However, there is not a huge difference among these programs for your future job or the quality of education.

Sorry to hijack/change the topic, but on the heels of what you've mentioned, at what gap in programs would the quality of program matter, for example,

how about harbor-UCLA vs UTSW/UPMC/Emory

 

[shark2000]

Sorry to hijack/change the topic, but on the heels of what you've mentioned, at what gap in programs would the quality of program matter, for example,

how about harbor-UCLA vs UTSW/UPMC/Emory

This is my rule of thumb. It is obvious that there are exceptions.

1- I put the so called Top 5-6 programs at first. My only exception is MIR because of its location. For example, I choose MGH over UTSW or UPMC. Now among these top 5, not a difference. I choose location.
2- Then any big or midsize university program is my second level. So UTSW, UPMC, UCLA, U Maryland, Emory, UW Seattle, .... Among these programs, I rank them based on the location I want to go. So if you want to live in Maryland in the future, I choose U of MD over Emory or I choose U of Chicago over UCLA if I want to stay in Chicago.
3- Then community programs (Cleveland clinic and Mayo-clinic Rochester are in the category 2 and not this category).


This is how I rank. Always 1>2>3. A Top category 2 can be ranked higher than some of category 1 programs. For example, totally fine to put UCLA or Stanford over MIR or UPenn. Especially some of Category 2 programs have some of the best fellowships. For example, MSK at UCSD is better than UCSF. So choosing UCSD over UPenn is fine.

Harbor-UCLA is a category 3 and even in Category 3 is mid to low in ranking. Definitely I will not choose it over Emory or UTSW or UPMC.

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion. It may be wrong, may have biased or ... People may tell you to rank Harbor-UCLA over Emory if you want to stay in sunny South California. You may find some people who say that they did it and worked for them well.

 

[MossPoh]

It depends on which program you liked more and where you want to live in the future.

If you want to stay in Pittsburgh in the future, UPMC works better. If you want to stay in Southeast in the future, Mayo is better. If none of above, choose the city you'd like to live in during your residency.

Agree with above that UPMC is stronger than Mayo Jacksonville. However, going to UPMC instead of Mayo Jax is not going to be a deal maker if you seek a job in non-local places like San Francisco or Chicago (for example). If it were MGH versus Mayo Jax, the story was different. However, there is not a huge difference among these programs for your future job or the quality of education.

Yea, of course the Southeast is also one of the easier locales to get a job and it is only 4 residents per class (at least last year) and many of them were planning on leaving the area when I was there, so they probably don't have quite the saturation and networking that many programs do. If one was dead set on Florida for practice, I think that the new Florida Hospital program would be great. PD trained at Miami and did fellowship/worked at mayo-jax for a while, assistant PD was the Miami program director for a while, bunch of UF grads work with the group...and the group itself is simply massive. They do something like 1.3 million studies a year.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I just think that Mayo-jax isn't as big of a difference as other places when it comes to regional networking. I could be entirely wrong but so far, out of all the radiologists in all of the areas of Florida I've talked to, I've met one person that did their training at Mayo-jax (outside of the hospital itself). Lots of UF, lots of emory, lots of miami, fair amount of USF, occasional UAB...and that is probably more of a numbers game more than anything.