NEW cush/easy transitional year list!

[wildcat07]

Spartanburg, SC program:

4 months of wards, Q5 call, cap at 6. No admissions on non-call days. On non-call days you can check-out to the on-call intern any time after rounds so this means you have at least a couple days every week where you're home before 3 PM.

4 months of electives, 1 month of ED (14 shifts), 2 month of ICU, 1 month of Peds

Weekends off on everything but wards and probably the best benefits package out there

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[JackofAll]

Any thoughts on these transitional programs?

 

[Corn Dog]

Easy:
Carney transitional
Carney prelim
Tufts Brockton transitional
Tufts Shattuck transitional

For future applicants, I just want to comment on the Tufts Brockton TY program. I applied to this program thinking that it would be one of the cush intern programs in the NE, but this appears to be far from the truth. 6.5 months of inpt med, 1 mo of inpt surg, and only 2 mo of electives. It may have a good learning environment, but this program is neither easy nor cush. Keep that in mind.

 

[DrZeke]

If you are location locked and can't find a cush TY, some medicine years are nicer than others.

Look for 4+1 type programs. They offer clinic weeks interspersed throughout your year, so every 5th week you get a nice break.

 

[MedStud!]

Does anybody know anything about the Transitional year at Columbus Regional in Columbus, GA? Apparently they do 45 minute long interviews all day and I'm not sure I can stomach it. Its associated with the Family Medicine Residency there. If its a decent program I might go... but I'm definitely not interested in another full day of interviews if I'm just going to be a scut monkey for them.

 

[RestoreSight]

Intern year sucks... choose an easy program. 98% of intern year is non-applicable to first year of ophtho residency

 

[elektroshok]

Spartanburg, SC program:

4 months of wards, Q5 call, cap at 6. No admissions on non-call days. On non-call days you can check-out to the on-call intern any time after rounds so this means you have at least a couple days every week where you're home before 3 PM.

4 months of electives, 1 month of ED (14 shifts), 2 month of ICU, 1 month of Peds

Weekends off on everything but wards and probably the best benefits package out there

I second this for sure.
I ranked this place number 2 instead of 1 purely because of location.
The free food alone is worth it if you can stand the city for a year.

 

[effjay]

Any thoughts on TYs in Michigan? I saw that there were a ton of them in the state and am curious about the rigor of some of these progs.

 

[docta9]

I would not seek out the cushiest program. I would seek out one of the following:
1. The most comprehensive program where you learn the most.
2. A decent program in a city that you really want to live in. Is it Honolulu, San Francisco, Washington, DC?
3. A famous name in a famous hospital. How about General Surgery at Johns Hopkins? You can say that "After a general surgery internship at Johns Hopkins, I did ophthalmology residency at the ABC eye clinic in Barrow, Alaska." There is some benefit to doing general surgery despite the hours. General surgery teaches you life and death and how not to use homeopathic doses of medication. It teaches time urgency when patients are really in trouble. Ideally, a transitional year should have some surgical ICU experience and some general surgery experience.

 

[OphthoApp]

I would not seek out the cushiest program. I would seek out one of the following:
1. The most comprehensive program where you learn the most.
2. A decent program in a city that you really want to live in. Is it Honolulu, San Francisco, Washington, DC?
3. A famous name in a famous hospital. How about General Surgery at Johns Hopkins? You can say that "After a general surgery internship at Johns Hopkins, I did ophthalmology residency at the ABC eye clinic in Barrow, Alaska." There is some benefit to doing general surgery despite the hours. General surgery teaches you life and death and how not to use homeopathic doses of medication. It teaches time urgency when patients are really in trouble. Ideally, a transitional year should have some surgical ICU experience and some general surgery experience.

It completely doesn't matter where you do internship. No one will ever ask you where you did internship. All that matters is where you did ophthalmology residency and fellowship. People don't even frame their intern year diploma. Pick a program that will make you happy for a year.

What you learn in internship does not have a big impact on your ophthalmology training. If you like general surgery then do it but don't do general surgery because you think it will make you a better ophthalmologist. Pick a year that will make you happy. Ophthalmology residency is hard and at many programs actually has worse hours then intern year programs (including gen surg). You are also spending the entire time learning a new body of knowledge you have never known. Don't stress yourself out intern year. There is nothing wrong with picking a cush program and I promise no one will judge you for it.

 

[airplanes]

It completely doesn't matter where you do internship. No one will ever ask you where you did internship. All that matters is where you did ophthalmology residency and fellowship. People don't even frame their intern year diploma. Pick a program that will make you happy for a year.

What you learn in internship does not have a big impact on your ophthalmology training. If you like general surgery then do it but don't do general surgery because you think it will make you a better ophthalmologist. Pick a year that will make you happy. Ophthalmology residency is hard and at many programs actually has worse hours then intern year programs (including gen surg). You are also spending the entire time learning a new body of knowledge you have never known. Don't stress yourself out intern year. There is nothing wrong with picking a cush program and I promise no one will judge you for it.

Agreed. That advice was so bad it almost has to be a troll of a post.

 

[MullerCell]

It completely doesn't matter where you do internship. No one will ever ask you where you did internship. All that matters is where you did ophthalmology residency and fellowship. People don't even frame their intern year diploma. Pick a program that will make you happy for a year.

What you learn in internship does not have a big impact on your ophthalmology training. If you like general surgery then do it but don't do general surgery because you think it will make you a better ophthalmologist. Pick a year that will make you happy. Ophthalmology residency is hard and at many programs actually has worse hours then intern year programs (including gen surg). You are also spending the entire time learning a new body of knowledge you have never known. Don't stress yourself out intern year. There is nothing wrong with picking a cush program and I promise no one will judge you for it.

Completely agree. There is absolutely no reason to torture yourself during intern year. If you have some pressing desire to be on Q3 call and spend countless hours writing the same admission orders for COPD/CHF exacerbations and handling social issues, by all means do an intense medicine year or if you want to be the floor scut monkey do a surgery intern year. None of this will make you a better ophthalmology resident, and I would actually argue you will be worse off. Enjoy your intern year as much as you can so you are ready to work as hard as you can for 3 years and learn as much ophthalmology as possible. In general, the worst 1st year ophtho residents I've encountered as a resident, fellow, and attending are the ones who did a really hard intern year and expecting a break once they start ophtho.

 

[DrZeke]

Advice so bad it almost has to be a troll of a post.

Why? Some of the people I know that matched at top programs did the cushiest most BS prelims. What does it matter?

 

[airplanes]

Why? Some of the people I know that matched at top programs did the cushiest most BS prelims. What does it matter?

I was referring to the initial poster. Everyone knows (or should know) intern year is not to be taken seriously. Edited my post to better reflect that.

 

[DrZeke]

I was referring to the initial poster. Everyone knows (or should know) intern year is not to be taken seriously. Edited my post to better reflect that.

Oh. Gotcha! Ok, I was so confused

 

[docta9]

Agreed. That advice was so bad it almost has to be a troll of a post.

While in residency, I did an exenteration, which was not expected that a resident would do, but rather a fellow or even the attending with the fellow watching. The attending was amazed that I knew all the steps of harvesting skin grafts including some really slick practical tips, something learned in general surgery internship, and could actually do it well. There's other less dramatic stories of procedures learned. How about harvesting facia lata in a ptosis patient? How about doing an eye exam in a burn patient? How about seeing how plastic surgeons and ENT did things and learned either how to do it or how not to do it?

I would not say that all general surgery internships are better than all transitional years or internal medicine but that really good internship training has a fair amount of surgery and surgical (not medical) ICU experience.

 

[OphthoApp]

I actually did those as a resident as well. My plastics attending just taught me how to do it. As long as you are at a program where residents operate a lot they will teach you how to do these things.

 

[airplanes]

While in residency, I did an exenteration, which was not expected that a resident would do, but rather a fellow or even the attending with the fellow watching. The attending was amazed that I knew all the steps of harvesting skin grafts including some really slick practical tips, something learned in general surgery internship, and could actually do it well. There's other less dramatic stories of procedures learned. How about harvesting facia lata in a ptosis patient? How about doing an eye exam in a burn patient? How about seeing how plastic surgeons and ENT did things and learned either how to do it or how not to do it?

I would not say that all general surgery internships are better than all transitional years or internal medicine but that really good internship training has a fair amount of surgery and surgical (not medical) ICU experience.

I'm sure you gave your plastics attendings just TONS of pro-tips and practical advice. I'm sure they enjoyed every bit of it too.

How are you doing now? Are you a much better ophthalmologist than your peers because of your internship? Sounds like you must be.

 

[docta9]

Actually not because the plastics attending also has a lot of general surgery experience. However, there is an another attending that isn't very good.

 

[1dayatatime]

I interviewed at 3 prelims and 2 TYs. A lot of ophtho programs will offer you interviews at the TY/prelim programs in the area retrospectively if you match to their program. I was offered interviews at the 3 programs in the city I matched for ophtho even though I didn't apply to them because ophtho dept had an understanding with them. If you can provide a concrete reason for wanting to be at a particular TY (spouse/family/home/advanced program in the area/trained in the area) you have a great shot at securing a TY spot without much effort.

Does that mean you didn't have to pay for them? Trying to figure out how i can save money. Trying not to apply to more than 10 tys.

 

[doctortom]

Does that mean you didn't have to pay for them? Trying to figure out how i can save money. Trying not to apply to more than 10 tys.

No, we did not have to pay for them.