PS, anyone know much about Carolinas medical? I have heard it is good for several things, but haven't heard much about the IM program. Any input appreciated.
Here you go friend:
http://www.scutwork.com/cgi-bin/links/review.cgi?ID=338&d=1
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Teaching:.
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Atmosphere:.
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Research:.
Schedule
We have 10 categorical medicine residents, and 6 prelims. The cats and prelims have identical schedules, all do continuity clinic, and the year is as follows : 5 months wards medicine, 1 month ED, 1 month ICU, and 5 months electives. The prelims can substitute their ICU month for an extra wards month.
Wards Medicine: Everyone arrives at 7am. Teams are: one upper level resident, 2-3 interns, and 1-2 med students (3rd yrs or AIs from Chapel Hill or elsewhere). You pre-round on your patients, then AM Report (case-based, run by residents, or Grand Rounds on Tuesday AM) is from 8-9 am, and is generally very well attended. Then you continue to round on your patients and do your work for the day (often touching base with your R2 or R3 team leader to run the list), and around 10am you will meet for team rounds with your attending. Sometimes this is sit-rounds, and sometimes its bedside. Often, its a combination. Then you have lunch conference (with lunch provided by pharmaceutical reps) in the Med Ed Building from 12:30-1:30, also very well attended. There is actually a curriculum, and the speakers are excellent. Residents have to maintain a minimum 60% attendance at noon conference. Then you finish your work for the day, and if you are not on short or long call or clinic, you can go home early.
Call: On the ward months is q5. The 5-day cycle is as follows: Long call, Post call (out by 1pm), clinic day for Interns, short call (7am 3 pm), clinic day for upper level. Start over. Its not bad. Typical census is anywhere from 10-20 for the team.
Consult Months: Are arguably the best experience you will have here. Its most often one-on-one resident-to-attending. Some of the busier services will have 2 residents (GI, ID), and Cardiology is a big teaching service, so there are often 3-4 residents on service from all residencies (ortho, ER, family, OB, etc). You get called with the consult, go do the consult, call your attending, and they come see the patient with you and go over the orders/teaching points. There are clinics associated with many of the consult months (renal, pulm, endo, rheum, ID, etc). Seriously, these months are awesome. You dont work nights or weekends on these months so YES, interns get 5 months of non-call! (This is RARE!)
Ambulatory months: are in various outpatient clinics in the area, and you will have 2 continuity clinics at our resident clinic per week its the Myers Park clinic for the uninsured/underinsured.
ICU month: Very busy. We have a huge, new, beautiful MICU, but often have patients on other floors (NSICU and STICU). The team is made up of 3-4 upper levels, 3-4 interns, and an attending. Call for upper levels is q3 or q4, depending on the #. We are entertaining the idea of going to shiftwork schedule, but this has not happened as of now. Interns take 5 calls (you choose) in the month, and basically get 1st dibs on all procedures. Its a really fun month for interns, and a pretty stressful month for upper levels. As an R2 and R3, you will have to also do 1 month of Dickson, our Cardiac Care Unit as well tends not to be as stressful as MICU (ie: you get some sleep).
ED month: Generally accepted as the most intense month of your intern year. You are basically treated as one of the ER interns, and given the same responsibilities. About ¾ of the shifts are in the acute care center (ACC), kind-of like a fast-track. Its very high yield medicine stuff, and a great time to get lots of suturing/I&Ds done. The other ¼ of the shifts are in the main part of the ED, called major. These shifts are long and stressful, but you really feel like you have had the ER experience after these. This is a huge trauma center, and people are flown in from referral hospitals all the time and THEY.ARE.SICK. Its intense. If you really love this stuff, though, you can do extra ER time in other years too.
Teaching
The faculty are amazing. For the most part, they are young, bright, and energetic, and that enthusiasm really is contagious. Many are top-program trained (Duke, Hvd, Cleveland Clinic, etc), and are passionate about teaching here at CMC. We do have a significant number of grads of our own program who have done fellowships elsewhere and come back to teach. You will be humbled on rounds often, but in a good way! Fellowships/Research: We have close to 100% fellowship match rate for anyone who wants one. Most common are pulm/crit care, Heme/onc, endo, rheum. There are a few going into cardiology from this years R2 class. CMC only has a sleep fellowship, but a GI fellowship is on the books for in the near future. Crit care fellowship in the VERY distant future. About 1/3 of our residents choose to go into fellowships each year. Also dont believe that there is a lack of research here. With an in-house 850-bed patient population and a 23-hospital referral base across the Carolinas, there are always projects to be done, and plenty of clinical faculty who have projects ongoing. All of the residents who go into fellowships have NO trouble getting projects. And we traditionally beat out Duke and UNC for the case report posters at the NC ACP meeting. You won't find basic science research here, though. Inservice/Boards: We do have an inservice exam (for all residents, including interns) in the Fall of each year. We have a 98% board pass rate in the past 11 years. There is a mandatory Board Review course for R3s, but anyone can attend.
Atmosphere
No FMGs. Residents hang out often. There really aren't cliques b/c we are so small. Everyone knows everyone. About half of the residents are married, and a good handful have kids. It's a good mix. Charlotte is a very live-able town. It is full of young professionals, and is a large banking center. There is a very active nightlife uptown, and two areas for live music weekly in the summer. Many bars also have bands on weekend nights in the warmer months. Every other year Charlotte hosts a Wine Festival. Great city for traveling Broadway shows, country and pop music, as well as the opera and symphony. Great restaurants of all ethnicities as well. For the less classy, there is of course NASCAR. Sports: Hornets and Bobcats, Davidson basketball for the few, Duke vs. UNC for the many. SEC and ACC sports are a frequent topic of conversation in season. There are also smaller pockets of fun activities around town, in the more family-friendly areas. There are great schools in the Charlotte-Meck school district, you just have to do your research about where to buy a house if you have kids. Myers Park is the #13 high school in the country and has a great a nationally-recognized IB program. Lots of church-affiliated preschools are excellent as well, if your kids are younger. There are lots of parks in South Charlotte for walking the dog and jogging. Also Lake Norman is a 25 minute drive for boating and weekend activities. The closest beach is about 3 hr drive. The beautiful Blue Ridge mountains are about 1.5 hrs away. Most importantly, it's WARM and BEAUTIFUL in the south, y'all!
Conclusion
Perks: You get $1900 per year in educational money. Basically, you can spend it on anything training-related, like books, PDA applications, stethoscopes, ophthalmoscopes, etc. As an intern, this also pays for Step 3. As an upper level, you can use it for your CME trip. Prelims especially love this so they can buy materials related to their future specialty. We also all get HP iPaqs that are wirelessly connected to the CMC server, and you can sync patient data wirelessly at anytime. Its great for rounds you dont need to go find a computer. We get lunch free every day either by pharmaceutical reps or in the cafeteria in the Med Ed Bldg which is always free for med students and residents. We also get $$ on our ID badges ($150-250/month, depending) on any call month in case you are here for dinner, so you never have to pay for food. Its always more than enough money. Cafeteria is actually very good, or there is a "Healthy" cafe in the lobby with freshly made salads and panini. There is an internal medicine softball team, golf tournament in Fall and Spring, as well as Intern BBQs, holiday parties (departmental and resident-only), Halloween party (put on by the ER residents) and many other CMC events like 5ks and community service. And yes, you can go abroad for a month if you set it up. Vacation: Dont believe the ERAS publication of 2 weeks. Its actually like this: as an intern you get 2 weeks vacation plus 5 days at either Christmas or New Years (your choice). As a 2nd year, its like the intern schedule plus 5 days of CME travel days for a conference of your choice. And 3rd year its like the R2 schedule plus another week of vacation. I truly think this residency program is a hidden gem. If you want what I believe is the best training program in the south, then come spend a month with us and check it out for yourself. The residents are super-nice and super-bright, and we LOVE our jobs. Seriously. The nurses are also super-nice and willing to help you out. The program directors are caring and considerate of resident needs. The faculty are sharp, young, and focused on teaching. I have never felt intimidated, but I do feel challenged on a daily basis. Because we only have 36 residents, they are basically hand-picked for having great personalities who would fit in with the rest of the crew. I would welcome any inquiries about the program.
MORE OPINIONS PLEASE!
with it, without us! 
