What are some good surg residencies on the east coast that are NOT the top 10?

[confused99]

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I am an MS3 and looking into surg as a career path. I dont know where to start. You hear of the really big names but there must be some good programs that are not super competitive. HELP!

 

[chael]

I am an MS3 and looking into surg as a career path. I dont know where to start. You hear of the really big names but there must be some good programs that are not super competitive. HELP!

Yale

 

[toxic-megacolon]

It depends on what you mean by "good." On the east coast, most academic surgery programs are going to be pretty competitive, especially nowadays. Different programs are also competitive in different ways, for example MGH and Hopkins are extremely competitive, but there are many top applicants that have no interest in applying there because they don't want to extend their residency by playing with rats for 2-3 years. The first step is to decide if you want to embark on an academic surgical career.

 

[Lloyd Christmas]

Take a look at Brown. Great training, lots of OR time, good name, good didactics, good people. Optional research, but if you commit to research then you do 2 years. Providence is somewhat of a drawback, but it is not that bad (at least it did not seem that bad on my interview days). Good luck.

 

[asianmd]

I am an MS3 and looking into surg as a career path. I dont know where to start. You hear of the really big names but there must be some good programs that are not super competitive. HELP!

When you start applying to residency programs, you'll begin to realize that the "good" program you had in mind may not necessarily be the "best" program for you. It's funny how people have ranked programs...look at the 2006 rank list thread. That may give you an idea of how varied people's preferences tend to be.

Having said that, I take after a comment the chairman of the surgery department at my med school made to me. He said a "good" program is one that is, or is affliliated with, an academic program but one that also does not have a fellowship. There aren't too many "good" but not super competitive academic programs in the east coast that I've looked at that doesn't have fellowship. Univ. of Vermont is one of them. Excellent academic surgical program. No fellowships. Structured didactics and plenty of OR time during your training. Excellent faculty. There is some healthy hierarchy, but it is totally non-malignant and no attending mistreats residents. Ancillary service is very good, with some surgical departments employing PAs as additional ancillary support for surgical teams. All the chiefs in the past 2 years have matched at prestigous fellowships. Drawbacks: it's 6 years, meaning 1 year of mandatory research. It's located in Burlington, which is small enough that you can drive from one of the city to the other end in 5 minutes. But I couldn't seem to find anything lacking in that little city.

But what really defines a good surgery program? Besides what the chairman told me above, he also mentioned these things:
1) Stability of the program, starting with the leadership (chairman, program director). Look at the history of each program and see if there are changes in the leadership in the recent years. Find out why they happened. If there's been a new chairman for a program every 2-3 years for the past decade, then you know that something about the program's been ruffling the chairman's feathers.
2) Financial stability of the hospital. Gotta make sure that the hospital in which you will be working is financially sound.

 

[Winged Scapula]

thread closed as it is a duplicate of another already in existence.