Virginia/DC/Maryland programs?

[hzma]

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Anyone know anything about the Virginia/D.C./Maryland path programs? I did a search but couldn't find much- Especially:

Howard in DC
Washington Hospital Center DC
University of Maryland
University of Virginia
Virginia Commonwealth

Does anyone know how these programs are academically, how strong they are, do residents get into good fellowships afterword?

 

[mlw03]

i'd asked a similar question in the past, so search a little and maybe you'll find some info. i too am very interested in that geographic region, so i'll look forward to responses. one thing i can say is that UMd only had one AP/CP spot this year, and it didn't fill. for me, that's a red flag that needs explaining. i plan on calling up the program in a few months to try and find out what's going on somewhat - ie, how many spots for 2008? why only one 2007 spot? their website doesn't provide much useful information.

regarding UVa i've heard mixed things - one of their residents posts so hopefully he/she will chime in. i'd heard there were issues with the ACGME, but a buddy of mine interviewed there for neuro this year and had only positive things to say about the UVa health system, and of course charlottesville is supposed to be a fantastic place to live.

 

[Gut Shot]

One of the now MIA posters on this forum, Great Pumpkin, did his residency training at Virginia Commonwealth and is now in private practice. I wouldn't be surprised if he still looked in here from time to time, so if you have any directed questions about VCU, a PM might work.

 

[djmd]

Anyone know anything about the Virginia/D.C./Maryland path programs? I did a search but couldn't find much- Especially:

Howard in DC
Washington Hospital Center DC
University of Maryland
University of Virginia
Virginia Commonwealth

Does anyone know how these programs are academically, how strong they are, do residents get into good fellowships afterword?

Without knowing a lot about some of the programs I can put them in to the following order of quality, decending...

UVA (then a significant gap)
VCUMC (oops, used the wrong letter/order)
then Howard and Washington Hospital in some order
U of Maryland.

 

[hzma]

Without knowing a lot about some of the programs I can put them in to the following order of quality, decending...

UVA (then a significant gap)
VCMU
then Howard and Washington Hospital in some order
U of Maryland.

Thanks guys for answering- so UVA is actually better than U of Maryland? I didn't know that. Maybe I'll do a search on publications and see who publishes more. That's interesting.

 

[b&ierstiefel]

Thanks guys for answering- so UVA is actually better than U of Maryland? I didn't know that. Maybe I'll do a search on publications and see who publishes more. That's interesting.

I too would put UVA at the top of the list.

 

[djmd]

Thanks guys for answering- so UVA is actually better than U of Maryland? I didn't know that. Maybe I'll do a search on publications and see who publishes more. That's interesting.

Yes, and when you do that you will see why UVA is at the top of that list by a long shot. U of Maryland? Are you getting confused between JHU and UofM? They are both in Baltimore.

 

[mlw03]

not on the OP's list, but geographically relevant, any thoughts on where the GW and georgetown programs would fall on the VA/DC/MD heirarchy?

 

[djmd]

Personally I would put everything in that area (except JHU) well below UVA. As far as above below VCUMC? It's close. For the names Georgetown and GWU (well know in other fields), their resident educations are not generally as good as the name would indicate... They aren't terrible, but you would think Georgetown would be good....

I should also add, that I am not including NIH on that list, but that is a whole other bird...

 

[LADoc00]

UVa has a few key people like Mills and Wick. Every place IMO hangs on the edge, if they lost those people, are there really a bunch of stellar young academic types coming up thru the ranks? No, no. Then you are left with what the real value of a residency is...I would say go for a name, sounds cheesy and frankly it is, but I think having JHU plastered somewhere on there *might* one day pay off.

I want to throw out something else Im slowly becoming aware of, for those people feeling bad for themselves because they have to do military stint..Im finding the "alum factor" is BY FAR the strongest with ex-military types meaning BWH or UCSF may open doors in private practice but places like AFIP are opening the most. The more I delve into the private practice medicine, the more I get convinced of this.

 

[cjw0918]

Recent GW residents have gone on to fellowships at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, MD Anderson, The New York City MEs office (don't know what University affiliation this is....maybe NYU?), GI path at U of Pittsburgh, UVA cytopathology, and U of Washington surg path.

 

[CameronFrye]

Anyone know anything about the Virginia/D.C./Maryland path programs? I did a search but couldn't find much- Especially:

Howard in DC
Washington Hospital Center DC
University of Maryland
University of Virginia
Virginia Commonwealth

Does anyone know how these programs are academically, how strong they are, do residents get into good fellowships afterword?

I can only speak for UVA. UVA is a smaller program, taking only 5 residents per year (that number increased from 4 with my year). Although it's a smaller program, there is a high per capita of well-known senior attendings who edit textbooks and journals: Mills (surg path), Wick (surg and dermpath), Stoler (surg path and cytology), Patterson (dermpath), Cousar (hemepath), among several others. While most of the senior attendings receive consults from all over, they still sign out day to day specimens, one-on-one with residents (even us lowly first years). The program is definitely resident-driven as there are not a lot of fellows (2 derm, 2 cyto, 1 heme, 1 gyn, 1 BB). I guess that is a possible negative if you have your heart set on GI or GU (although one of our upper levels recently secured an outside GI fellowship).

Hmm, what else...

-Surg path is a 4 day cycle and is generalized signout
-1st year is AP, 2nd year is CP, 3rd year is AP, 4th year is split
-There are plenty of opportunities for translational research and basically all residents present at national meetings. However, if you are a big-time basic science researcher, this may not be the best place (although I'm sure the Chairman would love to have you).
-As for fellowships, most people stick around (or just go straight to a job), but one girl is headed out to Stanford next year for general surg path and another guy is off to NM the year after next for hemepath with Foucar.
-Charlottesville is often rated one of the best places to live in the country (and I love it), but it's probably not for everyone.
-As for the ACGME stuff, the institution was briefly placed on probation for administrative problems within the GME office. The entire GME office was fired, a new team brought in, and following a second inspection, the probation was lifted.

I guess those are the main points. Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[CameronFrye]

UVa has a few key people like Mills and Wick. Every place IMO hangs on the edge, if they lost those people, are there really a bunch of stellar young academic types coming up thru the ranks? No, no. Then you are left with what the real value of a residency is...I would say go for a name, sounds cheesy and frankly it is, but I think having JHU plastered somewhere on there *might* one day pay off.

I want to throw out something else Im slowly becoming aware of, for those people feeling bad for themselves because they have to do military stint..Im finding the "alum factor" is BY FAR the strongest with ex-military types meaning BWH or UCSF may open doors in private practice but places like AFIP are opening the most. The more I delve into the private practice medicine, the more I get convinced of this.

Turnover is certainly always a concern. That being said, I can't see Dr. Mills or Dr. Wick leaving within the next decade. Both have pretty sweet gigs, seem very happy, and are still relatively young. I wouldn't be completely surprised if one of the other senior attendings retired or bolted for a chairmanship, but even that seems unlikely. Even if someone were to leave, UVA has a pretty good record of restocking, as they have lost well-known people before (Crum to BWH, Fechner to retirement, Rubinstein passed away). All that being said, I wouldn't fault someone for going to Hopkins (I was very close to making that same decision).

 

[LADoc00]

I actually forgot Rubinstein was at UVa, he was boss in Neuro.

 

[CameronFrye]

I actually forgot Rubinstein was at UVa, he was boss in Neuro.

Yeah, John Jane (one of the gods of Neurosurgery and the chairman of nsgy at UVA for like a hundred years) wanted a dedicated Neuropath division. The path chairman called up Rubinstein and asked him who he recommended. Rubinstein called back and said that he would do it himself (I believe he was at Stanford at that time).

 

[DrBloodmoney]

I want to throw out something else Im slowly becoming aware of, for those people feeling bad for themselves because they have to do military stint..Im finding the "alum factor" is BY FAR the strongest with ex-military types meaning BWH or UCSF may open doors in private practice but places like AFIP are opening the most. The more I delve into the private practice medicine, the more I get convinced of this.

As one of those folks who have to do a military stint, I'm actually pretty happy about it. (In terms of training and opportunity for practice... I loathe every 'military' part about being in the military... especially all of the mandatory training BS)

We have a great residency that churns out competent community pathologists, tertiary referral center, etc. We're not too strong on research, but I've never been too interested in that.

Unfortunately, the AFIP is going away very shortly, but for the folks who have been lucky enough to take advantage, they came out extremely well off. For example, one Air Force pathologist recently spent 3 years in their GI branch with Sobin, THEN got to do a dermpath fellowship at AFIP. He will retire (50K+ per year) in a couple of years and will be about 45.

But for the rest of us, the best thing about the military is that you aren't forced into a fellowship right out of residency. You can do one if you want, but the rest of us go right into a community practice setting where you sign out X number of cases for a few years while you pay back your obligation. You are usually in charge of a part of the CP or AP lab and have people under your supervision.

Most people have no problem finding outstanding jobs once they get done with the military.

 

[cjw0918]

I will second what BloodMoney is saying. The military residents are excellently trained and put the rest of us to shame sometimes. Their PGY-2s are like PGY-3s and 4s sometimes...I think this is due to the fact that they are a bright bunch of guys to begin with and they receive high quality training. I can't imagine with their skill level and connections that they would have trouble getting jobs.

 

[inspector2005]

As a PGY-2 at VCU (officially VCU but still known as MCV) I can speak for our program:

Notable faculty include WJ Frable (co-editor of Silverberg and authors foreword to Cibas' Cytology), CN Powers (director of AP and also well-known in cytology), RA McPherson (current editor of Henry's, one of the leading texts for CP). Marcella Fierro (ie the "inspiration" for Patricia Cornwell's heroine) is the chief medical examiner at the Richmond ME and director of the forensics fellowship program affliated with VCU

For AP, we get great exposure to cytology, bone/soft tissue (busy orthopedic surgeons), gyn, GI, liver (busy liver transplant program), decent hemepath (particularly bone marrows compared to lymph nodes) The areas we lack exposure include peds path and notably prostate. Some residents have spent time with Dr. Bostwick's lab (headquartered in Richmond) to gain exposure to prostate.

Hope that answers some questions

Our CP rotations for the most part are not "book at the cubicle for a month" rotations but are much busier and clinically oriented. We handle all therapeutic apheresis for the hospital which makes the blood bank rotation and CP call busy at times but at the same time instructive.
We also perform all of the inpatient and outpatient adult bone marrow biopsies, which is also unusual for a pathology department to deal with. In addition, the resident covers all of the superficial FNAs. Between all of these activities, we perform a fair number of procedures and have greater face to face interaction with clinicians and patients.

Surg path is sub-specialized signout, so you signout, gross, and preview every day for those cases on one of four services (Breast/Heart/Lung; GU/Gyn; ENT/Generals (basically bone, soft tissue and other misc); and GI/Liver)
Frozens work this way: 1st year resident cuts in the morning, 2nd year resient cuts in the afternoon, upper level resident previews frozens and presents to attending, PA covers during scheduled conference times (usually 8-9 am and 12-1 pm)
Every year, you rotate through both AP and CP rotations in 3 month blocks, such that by the end of your 2nd year, you would be exposed to all of the different disciplines (except Forensics, Dermpath, Renal/EM which are done in the 3rd and 4th years). Besides forensics and one month of hemepath at the VA, all of our rotations occur at VCU Medical Center
-4th year has 6 months of electives, plus one month can be done as an away elective anywhere (recent places have included AFIP, Cleveland Clinic, Bostwick labs)
-Research is required during residency and is usually not too difficult to fulfill (some have fulfilled this by contributing to ASCP Check Sample which is edited by Dr. McPherson, others have presented at CAP, USCAP, national meetings)
-Recent fellowships have included dermpath at UVA, surg path at GW. cytopath at VCU, forensics in NM (the program usually takes one VCU grad and one non-VCU grad)
-Recent jobs have included private and academic practice in Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, New York, Nebraska
-Richmond is a medium sized city that has enough attractions for most people but not enough for others. Most of the residents own homes in the western or southern suburbs. Charlottesville, D.C., Williamsburg, and VA Beach are between 1-1.5 hours away without traffic.