write about your away rotation experience!

[snowinter]

Hi !

I'm thought it might be nice to write about our away rotation experiences. That could give many of us insight into the program & residents & area.

I'll start.

George Washington:

amazing place. TONS of OB experiences and Surgery experience (even has a virtual hysteroscopy simulator) - -great place if you are intrested in OB or focusing on lap surgeries (like I am)
You rotate at three different hospitals -- as an Intern you mainly stay at the GW hospital -- which is a bit lower volume than the other two places -- so you transition into your residency. (but don't think it can't get busy at GW at times!)

The residents: really nice diverse group of people! with so many different personalities and styles of teaching and working-- so you really get exposed to alot of different techniques. oh and there are acutally a lot of men in this program! I would say the male :female ratio is pretty high - at least 2-3/year (as opposed to some programs who have zero/year)

The attendings: there are some amazing attendings here. Dr. Macri is the biggest student advocate I have ever met. The other attendings are pretty amazing as well. They generally let the residents run the show at holy cross & fairfax -- but at GW since they are private patients - -you consult the attendings more

Location: what can I say? It's DC! on the positive note -- you walk out of the GW hospital into the heart of dc -- and can go to any fabulous place for lunch or dinner. you can drive in -- or take the metro which is literally 2 feet from the hospital entrance. (there are metro stops close to Holy Cross and Fairfax as well)

but you better be used to traffic! people are in a hurry and have no time for you to figure out where you are going or what you are doing. the slightest hesitation and you get honked at or yelled at. welcome

ok I did another away rotation -- i'll write about that one if this thing starts to get more feedback. good luck everyone and tell me ifyou have any questions. I didn't include things like numbers, etc cuz htat's all on the website.

snow

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[daisyduke]

This is a great idea.... also helpful to M3's curious about away rotations!

I spent 1 month at USC doing Gyn-Onc. My month was spent entirely at LA County Women's and Children's Hospital. WCHC is located right next to the huge General Hospital (yes, the one seen on the soap opera!). These two hospitals are the sole source of health care for about a million uninsured people in Los Angeles. I have worked at county hospitals for most of my third and fourth years of med school and this place is like the county hospital to end all county hospitals. It is high volume, understaffed, lacking resources, and full of pathology you wouldn't believe! Also, this hospital serves the latino population of LA and if you don't speak spanish, you will quickly learn. There are no translators... but the nurses and most of the residents are bilingual (most of the residents are not fluent, but functional in medical spanish). I took Spanish in HS and undergrad and thought it was great practice and personally I really enjoyed working with this population.

Hospitals: So like I said, WCHC where most of the training to done, is a county hospital-- nothing fancy about it. Residents don't even dictate b/c the county can't hire enough transcriptionists to keep up. Only op reports and radiology is dictated (but like 2 weeks after the study it done!). Get ready for hand written d/c summaries that HAVE to be done before the patient leaves the hospital!!! However, the new beautiful replacement hospital is currently being built and was getting bigger every day I was there. Set to open in 2007.... Other training sites are Hollywood Presbyterian and California Hospital (mainly for OB to boost numbers). As a PGY-3 there is the opportunity to spend 1 month at Kaiser Honolulu.

Program: Strong clinical program with major autonomy (at county anyway, less at the private hospitals but only a few months spent there). Downside is that residents do EVERYTHING!!! (i.e. do your own EKG b/c waiting for the tech would mean waiting until the next day). Residents become proficient at ultrasound (do their own) and do all their own urogyn work ups(no consulting). Didactics are during protected time on Friday mornings from 7a-10a. Strong faculty. Great record of getting residents into fellowships. Of note, they have low OB numbers due to issues with MediCal. Also, this program is under probation. The PD expects after the recent review that it will be in the clear come January and will let all applicants know of their status at that time.

Residents: 10 per year, good mix of backgrounds, not all female. Most have some sort of tie to Californina. I don't really have any connection, but by showing interest in the area and willingess to venture off to a new part of the country, the PD still seemed to take me seriously. The residents get along pretty well, a few are more difficult to work with, as is the case in any specialty at any program.

Location: This is pretty much downtown LA. Not the nicest of neighborhoods, but i really never felt unsafe. Residents park right next to the hospital. I was able to take a shuttle from the more distant student lot. Seems like residents live in Pasadena or east Hollywood. I have no idea how the residents afford to live in LA though when salary is no higher in southern cali than in other parts of the country!!! And the traffic...well that's another story all together....

Overall: This is a program for people dedicated to indigent care and who enjoy working with the Latino population and who either speak spanish or are willing to have the added challenge of learning spanish. It is not for people who want a cushy private hospital where there is ancillary staff to do every last little thing. Also, this might be better for the more gyn oriented resident rather than OB since the OB numbers are small.

Feel free to PM me with any questions!

Oh, and FYI, the PD told me they do not send out interview invites until after Nov 1 except for those who are doing SubI's there b/c they will interview them during the rotation. Also, the PD didn't seem IMG or DO friendly, but of note there is one IMG and one DO in the program....

 

[ShambhalaRed]

Thanks! This is a really helpful thread. I will be departing to do an away rotation at University of Washington in gyn-onc next monday and will try to post a bit about my experience when I'm a couple of weeks into it (although Alician did a very thorough job of describing the program).

Here is a bit of info about my home program: OHSU. We've only had one visiting student so far this summer, as space is pretty limited for away electives.
I just finished my sub-i in perinatology here last month, so I can say a bit about the OB side of things at least... First of all, it's a really nice program. The residents are all really happy to be here and have really good camaraderie. Every spring the residents have this roast they call "The Smoker" where they and the faculty all get together and laugh at each other's blunders, perform skits and of course, drink a lot. It is a cherished tradition, and a unique aspect of the program that I haven't seen anywhere else.

There seems to be a good balance of high risk and low risk obstetrics. OHSU hospital has a lot of low risk deliveries, and the residents also rotate at three of the community hospitals in town and get lots of high and low risk obstetric experience. The gyn here is also terrific - I think we have outstanding gyn faculty who are really into teaching and for the most part really nice to the residents (and medical students). If you want abortion training, this is the place to be (other than UCSF). Interns spend four wednesdays at Planned Parenthood doing first trimester terminations (they usually end up doing about 80 terminations total during that time) and in their third year the residents do second trimester D&E's at a local abortion clinic/surgicenter. I don't know much about the gyn-onc, since I did benign gyn for my third year clerkship and there's no fourth year gyn-onc elective.

Portland is overall very white, but we do have a modest hispanic population, so spanish skills, while not a must, come in very handy. Also, we have a huge problem with methamphetamines in Oregon, so you will see a lot of drug addicted moms who are either actively using or in recovery. One of the perinatologists here has a terrific high-risk clinic on Tuesday mornings that functions mainly to serve women who are either in recovery, in jail or who have psychiatric issues. It can be pretty intense, but the medical students say almost universally that it was their favorite part of the third year Ob/Gyn clerkship.

As far as hours, I get the sense that the program here has done a good job of working withing the 80 hour restrictions. They have a night float system and the residents seem happy and not overworked. The program is currently 6 residents per year. They are asking for a seventh resident for the 2007 resident class, but one of the residents told me she thinks that will not be a good change because the volume is not enough to support a seventh resident. There are two male residents in the program currently, but they are much beloved by the other residents and the staff.

Our PD just started looking at applications, and I think they want to start offering interviews before Nov 1, but don't quote me on that. It is definitely a competitive program, but I think mainly they want nice, enthusiastic residents, so don't fret too much if you don't think you're competitive.

Feel free to PM me with additional questions.