What's on your factor spreadsheet/checklist?

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grb137

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Preparing for interviews and rank, I'm doing probably what a lot of my peers are doing to help me compare programs: I'm putting together a checklist/spreadsheet of various factors that I hope will help me decide between different programs.

Mine has:
-faculty to resident ratio
-organization/structure of the curriculum (specific goals for teaching, etc)
-hours of protected didactics
-location and potential commute
-cost of living
-salary
-health insurance benefits for me and my wife
-educational stipend
-research opportunities
-offservice rotations (ie. whether there is a general surg month, more than 1 trauma month, etc)
-who runs trauma
-# and length of shifts in the department


And also has things that I'll get a feel for when I get there:
-overall resident happiness
-spouse happiness
-faculty/resident relationships
-facilities (modern? computer vs. paper charting?)
-usefulness of off-service rotations

Maybe if others posted their factors, we could collectively come up with a nice list that can be used by all. Current residents and attendings could really help by reminding us of things we MS4s might be ignorant of: "make sure you find out if _______ because I found that really makes a difference"
 
My advisor said NOT to ask about salary.
If you can't find it on the program's website, I would ask the residents at the informal dinner.

But maybe someone who's not still a med student should answer that, instead of me. 🙂.
 
Yeah I think we all did the same in your shoes. Ultimately, I think for most it comes down to a gut reaction and feel you get for each of the programs. I'll say a couple things about your list so far though:

1) Salary will be bad no matter where you go. Sorry😳
2) Educational stipend may be misleading. Many programs may not advertise a stipend, but will pay your way to meetings for any research or committee work you do.
3) Trauma never seems to be as important once you're a resident as it did when you were an interviewing MS-4. It would be nearly impossible to graduate from a EM residency and not be comfortable with trauma.
4) Off-service rotations are an important factor that often get overlooked. You'll spend almost half of your time off-service, so I think it's very important to know you'll be getting something out of those months.
5) One of the other residents at my program mentioned asking how many intubations a resident usually gets in a month in the ED. I think that's a good question to ask because it helps to gauge how many really sick patients you're seeing.
 
grb137 said:
Preparing for interviews and rank, I'm doing probably what a lot of my peers are doing to help me compare programs: I'm putting together a checklist/spreadsheet of various factors that I hope will help me decide between different programs.

Mine has:
-faculty to resident ratio
-organization/structure of the curriculum (specific goals for teaching, etc)
-hours of protected didactics
-location and potential commute
-cost of living
-salary
-health insurance benefits for me and my wife
-educational stipend
-research opportunities
-offservice rotations (ie. whether there is a general surg month, more than 1 trauma month, etc)
-who runs trauma
-# and length of shifts in the department


And also has things that I'll get a feel for when I get there:
-overall resident happiness
-spouse happiness
-faculty/resident relationships
-facilities (modern? computer vs. paper charting?)
-usefulness of off-service rotations

Maybe if others posted their factors, we could collectively come up with a nice list that can be used by all. Current residents and attendings could really help by reminding us of things we MS4s might be ignorant of: "make sure you find out if _______ because I found that really makes a difference"
Click to expand...



Some of these things will vary from resident to resident. However, the one thing people always underestimate in terms of importance is: location and gut. These are quite possibly the two most important issues there are in your rank list. You must pick a place you will like living in. And you must pick a place that your gut tells you that you will like.

CME/educational stipends can help and are nice. (our program gives 750/year for CME plus pays for any conference you present ate) but again, won't make up for a program you hate.

Ultrasound exposure is definately important and is rapidly going to become the standard of care. You want a good chunk of the faculty to be credentialed so that you really learn how to do this.

Utility of off service rotations is definately a plus. Really, you have to ask yourself if a month on rotation x is a month better spent in the ED.

Most importantly is resident happiness index. This is how happy the residents are. Most most important.👍
 
Although I only have one interview done, at a place I rotated at btw, the way I think I'm going to approach this is just to write out the things I really liked vs. the things I didn't like, straight up. Once I have that done for all the interviews I attend, I'll compare them and see which program looks better on paper for me. I know by that time, I'll know enough to add in the "gut" and "location" factor.

I hope this works!
 
someone inherited this document and passed it on to me.
it's a little less than iserson's crazy criteria and calculations but more than the "gut" criteria.
 

Attachments

Hercules said:
1) Salary will be bad no matter where you go.
2) Educational stipend may be misleading. Many programs may not advertise a stipend, but will pay your way to meetings for any research or committee work you do.
3) Trauma never seems to be as important once you're a resident as it did when you were an interviewing MS-4. It would be nearly impossible to graduate from a EM residency and not be comfortable with trauma.
4) Off-service rotations are an important factor that often get overlooked. You'll spend almost half of your time off-service, so I think it's very important to know you'll be getting something out of those months.
5) One of the other residents at my program mentioned asking how many intubations a resident usually gets in a month in the ED. I think that's a good question to ask because it helps to gauge how many really sick patients you're seeing.
Click to expand...
I'm going to second most of Hercules' comments.
1) All are within a few thousand of each other(I've seen from $39K-$44K), but cost of living is dramatically different from Augusta, GA to NYC (They use that reasoning during residency fairs, only fair that I attribute it to them).
2)Absolutely true
3)Pretty much
4)Absolute number of off service rotations is important as well. Some 3 year programs spend as few as 18-19 of 36 months in the ED. Others give as many as 24. Plus, what those off service rotations are is important as well. An offservice inpatient medicine month will blow. Goats. Others might not be as bad.
5)Gauging sickness of programs is hard, but most programs will try to tell you how sick they are by percent admits, or percent ICU admits, or something. Beware the school that doesn't mention this, and you have to ask.

And a few more
How many residents do you get to meet? How many free meals do you get(don't ask the attendings this)? What about vacation time (don't ask this either)?
 
how do you assess this?

one view point i've heard is that places with awful non-EM depts is better for EM residents since we get to do more.

but if the non-EM depts are bad, then don't we not learn from the experts in their fields?
 
southerndoc said:
Our interns will more than likely be starting at $49k next year. So, it's not all that bad.
Click to expand...

NICE. That's the second program I've heard of interns starting that high... the one I know of being at a university whose unofficial yet highly entertaining band just officially lost official school support (why say it when I can make it a trivia question?)...
 
dlung said:
NICE. That's the second program I've heard of interns starting that high... the one I know of being at a university whose unofficial yet highly entertaining band just officially lost official school support (why say it when I can make it a trivia question?)...
Click to expand...



according to their website, St-Luke interns make $48K. That's a huge difference from the $37K county interns make around me. And the cost of living is somewhat comparable.
 
southerndoc said:
Our interns will more than likely be starting at $49k next year. So, it's not all that bad.
Click to expand...

I wasn't saying we all starve to death. I think we start around 42K, which is nice considering how low cost of living is in Birmingham, AL. I was just saying I wouldn't make salary a determining factor since they're not all that different. The difference between 40-45K comes out to a grand total of about $250/month after taxes.
 
As for "gut" - two problems: 1) obvious programs put on their best face because they want to sell the program to you. 2) More importantly, there are too many programs to visit, so some programs have to be evaluated "in the dark" to determine whether or not I want to visit there

In my case, I've applied to 20 programs and hope to interview at 8-10 programs. If I get invites to 12 programs, I'm gonna reject 2 programs...and it would be nice to be able to do so intelligently.

But thanks for everyone's responses, good insights.
 
Another thing I notice is the interaction with the PD during the interview. Whether they seem genuinely interested in you and what you are saying and how they seem to approach the whole interview process. Something about the feel of it either seems right or not. Intuition I guess.
 
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