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So i have been looking forward to this interview for over a year...does anyone have any info on the Keck-IM program?
Thanks for the info!
Thanks for the info!
what do you know about Keck-IM???
- Thread starter jhug
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I'm also interested in this program, and am really unsure how it fits into the rankings of int med programs. In the usnews rankings, which admittedly could be worthless, UCLA is ranked #15, and keck is not in the top 26. On Keck's website, the chair of medicine speaks strongly about the emphasis on research, and how he wants the program to move from 24th in NIH funding to a top 20 slot.
This is taken from the medicine residency website: "In July 1999, the Keck School of Medicine at USC received one of the largest gifts to a medical school of $110 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation. The Keck gift has provided intense momentum for the Keck Schools exciting and comprehensive campaign to rank among the top ten medical schools in the United States. The USC Internal Medicine Residency shares the aspirations of our parent institutions and seeks to make important contributions to this exciting period of intellectual growth and continued excellence at USC. "
I was really surprised to see Keck take 4th place in the worst location to for medical schools on SDN:
http://www.studentdoctor.net/medical-school-locations.asp
is this due to LA traffic or is Keck in the hood; not sure what i'm missing here, and would really appreciate any insight re: this??
Scutwork mentions a drawback being seriously outdated facilities, but the plan to move into the new buildings in 2007 should fix that, while probably also giving rise to moving pains.
From what I can gather, it seems to be a solid upper-middle tier program, (i.e., top 30-ish?), with an emphasis on research and new facilities in the near future.
This is taken from the medicine residency website: "In July 1999, the Keck School of Medicine at USC received one of the largest gifts to a medical school of $110 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation. The Keck gift has provided intense momentum for the Keck Schools exciting and comprehensive campaign to rank among the top ten medical schools in the United States. The USC Internal Medicine Residency shares the aspirations of our parent institutions and seeks to make important contributions to this exciting period of intellectual growth and continued excellence at USC. "
I was really surprised to see Keck take 4th place in the worst location to for medical schools on SDN:
http://www.studentdoctor.net/medical-school-locations.asp
is this due to LA traffic or is Keck in the hood; not sure what i'm missing here, and would really appreciate any insight re: this??
Scutwork mentions a drawback being seriously outdated facilities, but the plan to move into the new buildings in 2007 should fix that, while probably also giving rise to moving pains.
From what I can gather, it seems to be a solid upper-middle tier program, (i.e., top 30-ish?), with an emphasis on research and new facilities in the near future.
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Keck is located in south central LA (remember the Rodney King roits, they were there). Also from what my advisor told me there is very little resident - attending interaction. The shorta send the residents out on their own and tell them to survive. Don't know if this is true or not, just what i heard.
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the location of the program doesn't bother me as much (actually, i look forward to that aspect...crazy pathology) but the being left out on your own makes me nervous...anyone else heard this?
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On the USC internal med residency website, it shows only one resident (out of a class of 54) went into cardiology in 2005, and that person matched at Boston...Is there a general lack of interest in cardiology, or is it because people didn't match? Does anyone know what's their match rate for cardiology fellowship?
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So my impression of the internal medicine residency program was that it was highly geared toward making the residents highly independent from the Attendings. The residents basically run the hospital, the attendings review new admissions, or will go over complicated patients at the request of any of the residents. If you're looking for a "getting you hands dirty" type of residency then this is the place for you.
They employ the overnight call system which is Q4, their is no "float" system when you're on the regular medicine wards. When you are a third you do do these rotations called "med-consult", which where I come from is also called the "medicine admission resident (MAR)" where you do end up working night shifts two weeks at a time. The medicine department strictly makes sure that residents do not violate the 80 hrs work week. I have no experience in the clinics, but the population you will work with is at least 60% spanish speaking. If you plan on going there, it would benefit you greatly to know medical spanish with relative competency.
The hospital is undergoing a major transition, currently the majority of the residency is based in the 100 year old LA county Hospital building which is literally falling apart. The brand new facility looks beautiful and is nearing completion. It will be a 600ish bed hospital and will lean more outpatient and short-stay services than in the past. I spoke with some of the residents who told me that most likely, the first 6 months of our intern year will be at the 100 year old building and will be followed by a gradual albeit chaotic transition to the new facility.
The floors are still paper floors, but the new hospital will be paperless, though I don't have much love for the EMR system that they are using now. While its a huge program, they do pretty good with fellowship placement. I forgot the exact numbers, but I'm interested in Nephrology and 3/4 residents last year placed at USC with one going to Univ. Rochester.
I did ICU there too, I can give more details about that if you want. Goodluck to everyone. Its definitely at the top of my list in terms of rankings. I know that everyone raves about the other SoCal programs in the area, and to each his own. But I think that this is a solid program, I made a lot of good friends among the interns and staff as well and I have a lot of attachments to the local area. I'm pretty sold on going there if they choose to rank me high enough.
They employ the overnight call system which is Q4, their is no "float" system when you're on the regular medicine wards. When you are a third you do do these rotations called "med-consult", which where I come from is also called the "medicine admission resident (MAR)" where you do end up working night shifts two weeks at a time. The medicine department strictly makes sure that residents do not violate the 80 hrs work week. I have no experience in the clinics, but the population you will work with is at least 60% spanish speaking. If you plan on going there, it would benefit you greatly to know medical spanish with relative competency.
The hospital is undergoing a major transition, currently the majority of the residency is based in the 100 year old LA county Hospital building which is literally falling apart. The brand new facility looks beautiful and is nearing completion. It will be a 600ish bed hospital and will lean more outpatient and short-stay services than in the past. I spoke with some of the residents who told me that most likely, the first 6 months of our intern year will be at the 100 year old building and will be followed by a gradual albeit chaotic transition to the new facility.
The floors are still paper floors, but the new hospital will be paperless, though I don't have much love for the EMR system that they are using now. While its a huge program, they do pretty good with fellowship placement. I forgot the exact numbers, but I'm interested in Nephrology and 3/4 residents last year placed at USC with one going to Univ. Rochester.
I did ICU there too, I can give more details about that if you want. Goodluck to everyone. Its definitely at the top of my list in terms of rankings. I know that everyone raves about the other SoCal programs in the area, and to each his own. But I think that this is a solid program, I made a lot of good friends among the interns and staff as well and I have a lot of attachments to the local area. I'm pretty sold on going there if they choose to rank me high enough.
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thanks for the post NNguy, very helpful. my god, with that many spanish-speaking patients, not knowing spanish would mean everything would take 3X longer. but i imagine being mildly competent in the beginning would create a possibility to become fluent fairly quickly. i'm about to do a month of medical spanish immersion in costa rica, w/ the hope that i'll be mildly competent
sounds like you also don't have negative impressions of south central LA, as others on SDN seem to.
sounds like you also don't have negative impressions of south central LA, as others on SDN seem to.
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Just for the record, Keck is not in south central (maybe thinking of Drew) but rather east LA, about a mile and a half from downtown. It's a mostly Hispanic part of town. Still pretty ghetto (don't walk alone at night) but it is much closer than south central to areas like Pasadena or Alhambra which are more livable, so it does make a difference.
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the last post is right. we are not in south central, but it is also not a great area of town. no one lives near campus though, and i live in south pasadena which is a 10min drive from campus even during rush hour and it is a very nice residential area. i do have friends who live in cooler areas of town (hollywood, dowtown, santa monica) but the drive is worse. the IM program is tough. its a lot of call and a lot of spanish and a lot of scut. it also doesnt have the prestige of a place like UCLA. the new building will help, but it will still be the county. the best thing is that we serve anyone, no questions asked and from the first day you make the decisions, for good or bad. good luck
R1 at The County
R1 at The County
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07Match...
what part of Costa Rica?
I spent a quarter in Santa Ana (about 45 mins from San Jose). It is a BEAUTIFUL country and one of the few places i never once felt unsafe in (i can't even say that about phoenix!)
So south pasadena is nice...what about claremont? What would a commute be like from that area?
Nyugen...i would love to hear about the ICU (i just finished a month and LOVED it!) It was very procedure focused and i got to do some amazing things!
what part of Costa Rica?
I spent a quarter in Santa Ana (about 45 mins from San Jose). It is a BEAUTIFUL country and one of the few places i never once felt unsafe in (i can't even say that about phoenix!)
So south pasadena is nice...what about claremont? What would a commute be like from that area?
Nyugen...i would love to hear about the ICU (i just finished a month and LOVED it!) It was very procedure focused and i got to do some amazing things!
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My pleasure jhug
Working the patients in the ICU at LAC is very team oriented. Every new admission involved splitting up the work, one person does the history, another gets the orders, another does gets ready to do the lines, etc. I liked my experience a lot, but I wasn't I initially wasn't used to that team dynamic at first. I had just finised my medicine sub-i at that same hospital, and preferred doing most eveything on the initial evaluation myself, I also hated not being able to take history from the patients because the senior resident and the intern beat me to the punch, and by then the patients were already sedated or intubated. It took some adjustment but eventually it worked out for the best and things went a lot more smoothly onward. I was pretty lucky too, I had a really efficient team with a great senior and junior resident. We had a census of patients that turnover within reasonable time, unlike other teams who had a lot of long term patients who never left their list.
I did it in August, and unfortunately I didn't really get in any procedures. With good reason, the residents and fellows all had first dibs because they needed to get signed off on all of the different lines. Though I heard some students on other teams did get to do a lot more procedures, so it depends.
The ICU has a separate computer system from the main hospital, and though its old it is by far the best, most user friend EMR I have ever seen. It literally became my best friend. Lots of HIV/AIDs patients on the ICU floor if thats what you're looking for, lots of sepsis, they get a good mix of complicated and straight forward cases.
The way the teams are set up, there are two ICU main teams on the floor, and those teams are broken up into groups of four (one senior resident one intern), only 2 med students in the entire ICU when I was there and we were on the same main team but with different residents (the other team got jealous). Each main team has a pulmonary/critical care fellow who oversees everything, ours was on his first month straight out of residency but god damn he was good. All of the pulmonary fellows I met were all very nice and very good at what they did actually. Call is Q4, call room is in notoriously bad shape I never bothered staying over night because there was no place for students to sleep. You get your day off every 8 days, which do not necessarily fall on weekends all the time. Ancillary service on the ICU is excellent, and the ICU nurses are by far the best in the hospital.
There is also a step down unit on the floor above, ICU teams manage patients up there as well. The nurses on the floor can manage ventilators and drips, and its for patients who are expected to be transfered to the medicine ward relatively soon or who don't need 1-2 or 1-1 nursing care, but some of them are long termers. One group on our team literally had 75% of the patients on that floor at one point. Lots of lines go down in the ICU, our fellow was new to the hospital so he did about 90% of the lines in the month I was there. The senior residents are all competent on fem-lines and art-lines, high-lines are exclusively done by the fellows, very few residents are signed-off for IJs or subclavians.
Its a good rotation, it seemed to be quite popular among the residents I worked with. But it is quite busy, and I will confess I was quite drained by the end of it, then again I felt pretty burnt out near the begining of it as well. But I enjoyed it a lot, it gave me a good impression of the critical care services at the hospital.
Working the patients in the ICU at LAC is very team oriented. Every new admission involved splitting up the work, one person does the history, another gets the orders, another does gets ready to do the lines, etc. I liked my experience a lot, but I wasn't I initially wasn't used to that team dynamic at first. I had just finised my medicine sub-i at that same hospital, and preferred doing most eveything on the initial evaluation myself, I also hated not being able to take history from the patients because the senior resident and the intern beat me to the punch, and by then the patients were already sedated or intubated. It took some adjustment but eventually it worked out for the best and things went a lot more smoothly onward. I was pretty lucky too, I had a really efficient team with a great senior and junior resident. We had a census of patients that turnover within reasonable time, unlike other teams who had a lot of long term patients who never left their list.
I did it in August, and unfortunately I didn't really get in any procedures. With good reason, the residents and fellows all had first dibs because they needed to get signed off on all of the different lines. Though I heard some students on other teams did get to do a lot more procedures, so it depends.
The ICU has a separate computer system from the main hospital, and though its old it is by far the best, most user friend EMR I have ever seen. It literally became my best friend. Lots of HIV/AIDs patients on the ICU floor if thats what you're looking for, lots of sepsis, they get a good mix of complicated and straight forward cases.
The way the teams are set up, there are two ICU main teams on the floor, and those teams are broken up into groups of four (one senior resident one intern), only 2 med students in the entire ICU when I was there and we were on the same main team but with different residents (the other team got jealous). Each main team has a pulmonary/critical care fellow who oversees everything, ours was on his first month straight out of residency but god damn he was good. All of the pulmonary fellows I met were all very nice and very good at what they did actually. Call is Q4, call room is in notoriously bad shape I never bothered staying over night because there was no place for students to sleep. You get your day off every 8 days, which do not necessarily fall on weekends all the time. Ancillary service on the ICU is excellent, and the ICU nurses are by far the best in the hospital.
There is also a step down unit on the floor above, ICU teams manage patients up there as well. The nurses on the floor can manage ventilators and drips, and its for patients who are expected to be transfered to the medicine ward relatively soon or who don't need 1-2 or 1-1 nursing care, but some of them are long termers. One group on our team literally had 75% of the patients on that floor at one point. Lots of lines go down in the ICU, our fellow was new to the hospital so he did about 90% of the lines in the month I was there. The senior residents are all competent on fem-lines and art-lines, high-lines are exclusively done by the fellows, very few residents are signed-off for IJs or subclavians.
Its a good rotation, it seemed to be quite popular among the residents I worked with. But it is quite busy, and I will confess I was quite drained by the end of it, then again I felt pretty burnt out near the begining of it as well. But I enjoyed it a lot, it gave me a good impression of the critical care services at the hospital.
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JHug,
I'm going to Dominical, a very small place 2/3 of the way down the pacific coast w/ population ~400
http://www.adventurespanishschool.com/dominical_campus/med-dom.html
Santa ana sounds amazing! that's incredible that you spent a quarter there. so glad to hear about other positive experiences in CR. I'm leaving in 2 days for this trip, and am honestly more excited about the surfing than anything else right now
well, also excited to be anyplace where i can't check my email 300 times a day waiting for f*cking interview invites that aren't coming
I'm going to Dominical, a very small place 2/3 of the way down the pacific coast w/ population ~400
http://www.adventurespanishschool.com/dominical_campus/med-dom.html
Santa ana sounds amazing! that's incredible that you spent a quarter there. so glad to hear about other positive experiences in CR. I'm leaving in 2 days for this trip, and am honestly more excited about the surfing than anything else right now
well, also excited to be anyplace where i can't check my email 300 times a day waiting for f*cking interview invites that aren't coming
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be careful on the pacific side...every year they keep a tally (sounds morbid) of how many people die on that side because they underestimate the currents.
Get to Arenal (volcano) if you can...you can also do canopy tours around the volcano that are amazing!!! We had howler monkeys come to within a few trees of us...and there are some hot springs nearby that are heated by the volcano that are great
Tortugero (on the pacific side) is beautiful...especially if you time it with the migration.
Have fun and enjoy a Fanta Uva for me!
Get to Arenal (volcano) if you can...you can also do canopy tours around the volcano that are amazing!!! We had howler monkeys come to within a few trees of us...and there are some hot springs nearby that are heated by the volcano that are great
Tortugero (on the pacific side) is beautiful...especially if you time it with the migration.
Have fun and enjoy a Fanta Uva for me!
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be careful on the pacific side...every year they keep a tally (sounds morbid) of how many people die on that side because they underestimate the currents.
Get to Arenal (volcano) if you can...you can also do canopy tours around the volcano that are amazing!!! We had howler monkeys come to within a few trees of us...and there are some hot springs nearby that are heated by the volcano that are great
Tortugero (on the pacific side) is beautiful...especially if you time it with the migration.
Have fun and enjoy a Fanta Uva for me!
Hey Jason, when I called to set up my USC interview they asked me if I was intersted in a fellowship and if so, what area? Did they ask you that to0?
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they asked me that too, and i said i wasn't sure what i wanted to do after residency (let alone what type of fellowship i'd pursue), and i was told that they ask so that they can pair us up with a resident with similar interests on the interview day. yale does the same with their invitation....they ask you for a list of five specialty fields of interest to you.
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I put it off until January b/c I want ample experience interviewing at other places before going!
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All I can say is 10-11 months of call!!! Yuck!!!
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All I can say is 10-11 months of call!!! Yuck!!!
Its not quite as bad as you think. The worst calls are during the General Medicine Months and ICU. The rest of them on services like Hematology, Oncology, or Renal aren't bad at all. Most folks get to sleep through the night. But I understand people's misgiving about it, by 5pm you want to be out the door.
FYI: there will be reduced call months when we move over to the new hospital. Also, we do 9 or 10 months of call in intern year and obviously it gets better throughout the progressive years. I agree with the previous statement: when on subspecialties, you sleep most of the night and tons of free time in the day. Only medicine is the one were sleep is limited. Also, USC is very strict on work hours, you always leave on time, and your residents try to get you out early pre-call too. I also find that most days I am able to leave quite early on days I am not on call. I have leave work often by two. Most of the time when you finish work, you can go home. I never go over duty hours. Residents usually work together to help each other out. Overall, it is a good program. It is large, and it is county, so be prepared. Many pts speak spanish, but a lot of residents come in with no spanish speaking background. I woundn't let that put you off. You get to practice real medicine here. You have a lot of support when you need it from senior residents and attendings, but ultimately, you are the primary on the patient and you really learn how to manage patients.
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if it wasn't for the 11 months of call i would've had a better impression. I understand on specialty svcs residents get sleep, but still, you are sleeping at the hospital, which is never the same if you can actually sleep and relax at home instead.
Also, i was told by several PGY2's that interns although have a cap of 5 admissions, they have no census cap??!
however, i was told by residents that there weren't any scutting around (ie blood draw, transporting, blood cultures), which was contrary to the rumors i was hearing. can anyone confirm that?
Also, i was told by several PGY2's that interns although have a cap of 5 admissions, they have no census cap??!
however, i was told by residents that there weren't any scutting around (ie blood draw, transporting, blood cultures), which was contrary to the rumors i was hearing. can anyone confirm that?
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I know this for sure! Keck SOM own students never want to end up in the Keck IM program. Not a very good program in a bad area of LA.
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ABGs are the lowest and only form of scut I have witnessed.
I did more scut during a 3 week elective I did at a wildly luxurious hospital in a major city than I did in 2 months at LAC/USC.
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i think this is a great program if you want to be a strong hospitalist that can function well in a county setting and are not afraid of being q4 overnite call for your entire intern year. i can imagine the residents that come out of here are strong from all the wild and crazy cases they see and how hard they get worked.
nothing wrong with hard work and doing a lot, but fellowship placement in the big two (cardio and gi) is not impressive at all in my humble opinion, especially considering how much research money they have and the massive amount of residents they take each year. out of 50 residents only 3 cardios and 3 gi's on average in the past 3-4 years. thats all in house usually... they dont place well outside of usc. thats how much a lot of average univ programs put out each year that are half the size of sc with probably half the work. with all the research money how come people dont get more fellowships and at prestigious places? because there just isnt enough time to do research because youre working so hard. a ton of research money is one thing, but if you're not going to have time to really build a research project than what is the point?
also, the location is not the greatest part of LA by any means. but i still think its a strong program that produces strong doctors that can beat you up on the wards any day. if your goal is to be a hospitalist that can function in the craziest of settins, than this is the place to go and i'm sure you will be strong.
nothing wrong with hard work and doing a lot, but fellowship placement in the big two (cardio and gi) is not impressive at all in my humble opinion, especially considering how much research money they have and the massive amount of residents they take each year. out of 50 residents only 3 cardios and 3 gi's on average in the past 3-4 years. thats all in house usually... they dont place well outside of usc. thats how much a lot of average univ programs put out each year that are half the size of sc with probably half the work. with all the research money how come people dont get more fellowships and at prestigious places? because there just isnt enough time to do research because youre working so hard. a ton of research money is one thing, but if you're not going to have time to really build a research project than what is the point?
also, the location is not the greatest part of LA by any means. but i still think its a strong program that produces strong doctors that can beat you up on the wards any day. if your goal is to be a hospitalist that can function in the craziest of settins, than this is the place to go and i'm sure you will be strong.
