Who Interviewed at CCF?

[Ahh...The Life]

What is the word on CCF? What is the interview like? Any comments from those who have gone before?

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[Mman]

I interviewed last year and was not impressed. The hotel they put you up in is excellent, but that was the highlight of my trip. I'm not sure which was more of a turnoff: how they repeatedly told you not to expect somebody to hold your hand helping you with stuff during residency (i.e. you're on your own) or that the residency director opened our interview with "hi I'm dr.xxxx, what's your name?" As in he had a plethora of files splashed across his desk and didn't remember which I was. I also was not terribly impressed with the residents I met during lunch.

Very nice tour of CCF, though, which is an impressive medical campus.

 

[Ahh...The Life]

I interviewed last year and was not impressed. The hotel they put you up in is excellent, but that was the highlight of my trip. I'm not sure which was more of a turnoff: how they repeatedly told you not to expect somebody to hold your hand helping you with stuff during residency (i.e. you're on your own) or that the residency director opened our interview with "hi I'm dr.xxxx, what's your name?" As in he had a plethora of files splashed across his desk and didn't remember which I was. I also was not terribly impressed with the residents I met during lunch.

Very nice tour of CCF, though, which is an impressive medical campus.

I thought this was a high power program, big name medicine, I thought it was the place to be if you don't want to be on the East or West Coasts...

 

[Mman]

I thought this was a high power program, big name medicine, I thought it was the place to be if you don't want to be on the East or West Coasts...

I come from a med school in the midwest and our chair did not even recommend me to apply there. From a midwest perspective, I'd rank (in no particular order) Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Northwestern, Chicago, and WashU as all having bigger names in anesthesia residency and I'm probably forgetting a few others.

Probably has an excellent cardiac fellowship, but not so sure about residency. Maybe they are making changes. After the match, they sent me a series of emails asking about why I didn't rank them higher and what they could do to improve. At least sounded serious about making changes.

 

[Aykroyd]

Take what Mman has to say with a grain of salt. His view is largely based on his interview day, which sadly did not impress him.

I came from an East coast med school and when I was applying 2 two years ago, I was not considering any program in Ohio. However, after talking to my mentor who was the Dept chair and as well as a few other staff including one who did all her training at Stanford, CCf was a program they highly suggested I apply to, since I was considering going somewhere in the mid west. Interestingly there were at few programs named by Mman they did not even suggest.

When I interviewed I was impressed by what I saw and decided to rank the program first. I will say however that when I asked staff in the community how they would rank the programs I ranked, 5 of 5 gave me different rank orders as to the strengths of the programs. Came to find out all their rankings had nothing to do with what they thought of the training, rather who they personally new at the program. So I guess what I'm saying is take what everyone says with the grain of salt.

However, I'd be willing to compare the training at CCF with any program in the nation and I'm sure I would fair favorably. Your training is largely (not completely) based on the cases you see and read about. You will probably see challenging cases at a lot of programs, but I can guarantee you will see them here.

As for the residents, go my class was above the US grad average on the 2004 in-service exam (20 or better) and four interns who happen to be foreign grads (all anesthesiologist, some with US fellowship) passed the exam with flying colors.

My advice for all of those who are currently applying, go in to every interview with an open mind, you just might be surprised at what you find.

Good luck to all.

 

[Mman]

I would agree with taking anything I say with a huge grain of salt. However, my opinion is not solely based on an interview day. My department chair in med school did not think it was a good program for resident training and didn't suggest I interview there (as opposed to about 30-40 programs from coast to coast that he did recommend).

but that's just me and I encourage everybody to interview broadly.