what was your top 3 or 4 on the ROL? anyone?

[beautiful_Mind]

I'll start here,

1-IMAGE, OK
2-Christ, OH
3-South Nassau, Oceanside, NY
4-WSU, DMC

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[UptownDoc]

i'll bite...what the hell!

ranked 3 programs.....
1)Crozer
2)Penn
3)Jeff

Woohoooooooooooooo!

 

[Angry Mouse]

1. Mayo
2. Wisconsin
3. Case
4. New Mexico
5. UVA

 

[DRealDrZ]

1. Mayo
2. Phoenix, AZ
3. Scottsdale, AZ
4. Montana
5. New Mexico

 

[chemist199]

1. Tallahasee, Fl
2. Riverside, VA
3. William Beaumont, MI
4. Wisconsin

 

[lowbudget]

1. Memorial Southwest, TX
2. Contra Costa County, CA
3. John Peter Smith, TX
4. Halifax, FL
5. Northridge, CA

 

[DOtobe]

Good luck guys!

These are DO programs, but here's what my list was just for the hell of it...
1. UPMC St. Margaret, Pittsburgh (matched )
2. West Penn, Pittsburgh
3. Mercy, Pittsburgh
4. Conemaugh, Johnstown, PA (beautiful hospital in a crappy town)

 

[UptownDoc]

Good luck guys!

These are DO programs, but here's what my list was just for the hell of it...
1. UPMC St. Margaret, Pittsburgh (matched )
2. West Penn, Pittsburgh
3. Mercy, Pittsburgh
4. Conemaugh, Johnstown, PA (beautiful hospital in a crappy town)

Congrats DOtobe! At this point you must be chillin hard!

 

[DOtobe]

Congrats DOtobe! At this point you must be chillin hard!

You've got that right!

 

[IdahoDO]

1. Univ. of Wash - Boise
2. Univ. of Wash - Spokane
3. Idaho State Univ. - Pocatello


Hoping for the best!
AZCOM 2005

 

[gwyn779]

Oh, why not... Here's the whole thing:

1. Univ. of MI - Ann Arbor
2. UNC - Chapel Hill
3. MAHEC - Asheville
4. Wake Forest - Winston-Salem
5. Univ. of CO, Swedish Medical Center - Denver
6. Univ. of WI, Fox Valley - Appleton
7. North Colorado - Greeley
8. Mayo - Rochester

One week from today!

 

[PACtoDOC]

Oh, why not... Here's the whole thing:

1. Univ. of MI - Ann Arbor
2. UNC - Chapel Hill
3. MAHEC - Asheville
4. Wake Forest - Winston-Salem
5. Univ. of CO, Swedish Medical Center - Denver
6. Univ. of WI, Fox Valley - Appleton
7. North Colorado - Greeley
8. Mayo - Rochester

One week from today!

Curious on your take of the Appleton program. Any info?

 

[PACtoDOC]

1. Memorial Southwest, TX
2. Contra Costa County, CA
3. John Peter Smith, TX
4. Halifax, FL
5. Northridge, CA

My lord, I cannot imagine why you would rank Houston over the absolute best program in the country in Martinez, Ca!!! You must be from SW Houston or something, or they paid you some serious signing bonus!!

 

[gasmanwannabe]

Well, I only ranked 3 programs
1. Phoenix AZ
2. URoch
3. UMass

to the person below who ranked south nassau...i'm curious....why? I only ask in a completely curious manner. I have heard some not so nice things about the program - enough to scare me away from ranking them, esp after such a nice interview

regards
el conejo

 

[beautiful_Mind]

could you please share with me what you heard about So. Nassau that scared you??

A strong reason why I ranked them is the geographical location.

thanks

 

[gwyn779]

Curious on your take of the Appleton program. Any info?

I just happened to click really well with the residents and faculty, which is why they ended up on the list. They also have pretty good OB numbers. And my husband and I both felt very comfortable in Appleton itself. The program overall is smaller than I really want, but I decided I would rather go there than not match (which was my criteria for who got on the list). The top 4, though, are the ones I really want.

But I'll find out tomorrow!

 

[lowbudget]

My lord, I cannot imagine why you would rank Houston over the absolute best program in the country in Martinez, Ca!!! You must be from SW Houston or something, or they paid you some serious signing bonus!!

Well now that I've matched, I can defend my rank list without feeling bad about it. After doing interviews and externships, I wholeheartedly believe that there is no such thing as the absolute best FP program in the country. And I think believing so would be short-sighted. Now I know there's hype on SDN as to what program is the best but FM is regional and community-driven. The reputation of a program is relative to the confines of the community. In Texas, no one has heard of Contra Costa, Ventura, and Salinas but instead talk about Waco, Tyler, JPS, maybe Memorial. FM programs are designed to respond to the needs of the community it serves. So every FM program is different and has its strengths and weaknesses.

Specifically, I ranked Memorial up top because yes, I am from SW Houston. I don't think it's the "best" program that I interviewed at, but I will say that it's rigorous enough and has ample of opportunity available for me to tailor my training to my strengths and weaknesses. I was really impressed with Contra Costa though. I liked how you work one-on-one with the attending in the registrar system and how you can be primary surgeon on C-sections on day one. I like their in-house moonlighting system and was impressed with how cool their residents were. I don't like the cost of living in CA as compared to TX, and the towns of Martinez, Concord, and Richmond seemed too boring for a single guy. And while SF, Oakland, and Berkeley are only a few minutes/hours out, Contra Costa seems like such a rigorous program that I probably wouldn't have the time/energy to venture out there to make meaningful friends/relationships and carry on with my life like a normal human being. I didn't like how few electives time they had, although the curriculum covers some of the electives I would have taken anyways. Their admitting system is fair, but can be tiring as well. Every "team" admits every day but they admit in order. So that means you have to stick around the hospital until night float comes in in the event you have to admit. Programs that admit q4 may get slammed on one day, but at least they get to go home early if the work gets done the 3 other days. Lastly, on Contra Costa's admission, they say their outpatient experience/teaching is weak compared to their inpatient. While I want an all-around FM experience, I do believe that FM's staple is outpatient medicine in the community. On the other hand, I didn't do an externship at Contra Costa, so i can't objectively say if their self-reported weakness is truly a weakness. I highly recommend this program however.

I loved JPS in terms of the experience. I've heard the didactics are weak, although I didn't find them to be such. Many times, residents were too busy/tired to go to didactices. JPS and Contra Costa are the same programs in terms of experience, but there is a difference in their board scores/book smarts when you look at the list published by the ABFM. Additionally, JPS is weak on Pedi compared to Contra Costa. JPS has great Pedi faculty, but their pedi experience doesn't focus enough on inpatient pedi work. The flip side is that JPS have enough elective time for you to make that up if you want and pedi is nice break from the pounding you get during Med/FP, Surg, OB, ICU, and ER so no one complains. I just wasn't sure if that was right for me. I highly recommend this program but believe that if you want this type of county/international/unserved/rural experience, you should also consider Contra Costa because the 2 are really similar with the exception of Pedi.

Halifax has a great balanced program. They have the most elective time available because all rotations are in 3 week intervals. In my opinion, they have the most do-able residency program in terms of call, busy-to-light rotation ratios, patient complexity. Daytona is a great beach town and the residency program affords you lots of free time, but despite that there's not much offered in Daytona for me and I suspect it's more ideal for married couples looking for a slower lifestyle. I highly recommend this program and believe it's one of the best, most do-able, residency program I interviewed at.

Northridge was pretty impressive. What really stood out was Pedi and how they severed their ties with the children's hospital because they were getting enough volume. All else was on par with the other 4 programs. Northridge area is very multicultural, much like Houston, but it seemed like you had to drive FOREVER AND ONE DAY to have a life. Again, CA is expensive as well. I ended up not ranking them high because I found aside from Pedi there wasn't much difference betwen Northridge and Memorial. I thought that the Pedi experience was not enough for me to pick Northridge over benefits of being in Houston and so I went with Memorial. It's a good program, and I recommend it, but I don't think I had to go all the way out to CA to get the same experience in Houston.

I ranked two other programs, Scottsdale and Austin. Scottsdale is an AWESOME place to live but culturally it seemed too homogenous. It's an impressive program with pretty cool residents, but honestly I didn't make too much of an effort to get to know this program because by the time my interviewed rolled around, I was pretty sure of my top 3. Perhaps an externship would have changed my mind, but again, the program seemed really regional and I felt better off in Houston.

Austin is Austin. Fun beautiful AWESOME mid-sized town with horrible traffic and bunch of little college kids running around. Unfortunately, that's pretty much it. It's a location and lifestyle pick, and I think their residency programs is a couple perhaps many years from being as good as the above programs. It's an opposed community program which is the worst of all worlds because your teaching is not cutting edge and your experience is limited. If the program was unopposed, it would be a VERY interesting program... but it's not, so there's not much more to talk about.

Anyways, these are just my opinions which came about from a very short window of time. Feel free to have your own opinion and disagree with me.

 

[PACtoDOC]

That was a great post LowBudget!!

Can you tell me where I might find that ABFM list of board scores for all programs? That would be a great thing to review but I have never run across it. Did you look at the Conroe program? I would love to know more about it. My family is starting to put the squeeze on me as well about coming home to big H. I probably would not but my grandparents who raised me are both very old and very good at inducing guilt. When I told them that the program I really like in Washington, Pa provides a house for 3 years, they said they would buy me a house. As nice as it may sound it was not not what I wanted to hear. Now imagine my guilt should I decide to spend their last years away and distance them from their great-grandchildren...my kids.

I am a DO student and Conroe is about to go dually accredited. Bryan is as well, but its a bit far from home if I plan to actually come to be close to family. I do NOT want to look at the Baylor or UTH programs, and might even look at UTMB Galveston before I would look there. But it sounds like I am going to have to at least make a good attempt at finding a good Houston area program. Maybe I'll come down and visit you LowBudget in your new home as a 4th year this summer and you can show me around. SW Houston is like the other side of the world from NW Houston where I am from, as you know, but it would be something to think about at least.

My true desire though would be to go to Contra Costa, or Waukesha, Wi, or Washington, Pa. Unfortunately my vote on this one may come down to family and as such the program may take a back seat to that. Hopefully the Conroe program will end up being something of a surprise though!!

 

[lowbudget]

I think you should give Conroe serious consideration. A classmate of mine both AOA and president of the FM interest group picked Conroe over all others. She loved her rotation there and felt like the residents were treated very nicely. I didn't apply there because they didn't have a pediatrician on faculty with them.

As far as the other Houston area programs, Baylor, UTH, and UTMB all filled this past year while community programs did not. There are advantages and disadvantages in going to a university program compared to community programs and so you need to soul search and figure out which one is right for you. Since you're from UNT, you should know the JPS system. My take on Memorial and St Joe's is on the other thread regarding Houston area residencies. Even then, it's based on my limited observations. All others I know nothing about.

My advice would be the following: reserve 2 months to do outside rotations. Save one for either Contra Costa, Waukesha, or Washington (whichever one you would like to go to or whichever you believe is the hardest to get into) and another rotation for Conroe. That way, you'll be able to compare the cost-benefits of your "true desire" to the cost-benefits of being close to family. I don't believe that FM programs in the Houston area are hard to get into and so I would leave the rest of the programs to interview season to assess.

 

[DOtobe]

So where did you guys match?