Osteopathic Orthopedic Surgery Residency Reviews

[Buckeye(OH)]

I thought I would provide a little insight/update into the Toledo program. There has been a significant uptick in the amount of new DO attendings as of the past year or so. The fellowship trained joint guy left in 2010. However, it sounds as if that is set to change as one of the attendings from that residency that did a joint fellowship at New England Baptist is strongly considering returning. Further, a previous graduate that was in practice for 10 years has returned and it's likely he is next in the queue for the program director spot. As with many programs, it is a mixed MD and DO faculty. However, within the next 12 months or so there will be fellowship trained DOs in sports, trauma, joints, pediatrics, and a remote hand DO who will be joining Peter Stern's practice and so there is likely to be a mandatory hand rotation in Cincinnati (this is in the works).

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[OrthoPathic]

Have there been any other reviews coming in? Would love to hear some other thoughts on programs from the most recent year of Ortho matchers.

 

[flyingdartz]

There is a new program at NUMC. Anyone knows anything about it?

 

[OrthoPathic]

Yes would love to hear about the new NUMC program as well. Seems interesting as it is a level 1 trauma center.

 

[Newyorkgiants]

NUMC does not allow students to rotate other than NYCOM

 

[OrthoPathic]

Interesting, that's pretty nice for NYCOM students. Have you heard anything about the program?

 

[Newyorkgiants]

They took 2 people this year and took 3 TRI's for PGY-2 spots. Other than that I do not know much. It is very unfortunate that they do no let students rotate.

 

[IndwellingCatheter]

Anyone have a recent review of Erie's program? I've heard positive and negatives about the program, like that they lean heavily towards LECOM students, and many of their rotations are away from the base hospital. Any insight from those who matched or rotated there would be great. Thanks

The program is almost 100% not going to continue unfortunately. We'll find out by next year for sure (if not before then) whether they'll take more residents. 2015 would be the deadline for the program to accept residents without screwing them for the 2020 mandate to be dually-accredited. Think long a hard before using an elective to do an audition at the LECOM program.

 

[OrthoPathic]

Where is the LECOM program?

 

[macbook1208]

The program is almost 100% not going to continue unfortunately. We'll find out by next year for sure (if not before then) whether they'll take more residents. 2015 would be the deadline for the program to accept residents without screwing them for the 2020 mandate to be dually-accredited. Think long a hard before using an elective to do an audition at the LECOM program.

If you could expand on your reasoning for why they wouldn't be accepting residents after this year? And where you got this information, please.

 

[IndwellingCatheter]

Where is the LECOM program?

It's located in Erie, PA @ Millcreek hospital -- but it's more of a consortium. After your first year, you'll be rotating through various other hospitals.

If you could expand on your reasoning for why they wouldn't be accepting residents after this year? And where you got this information, please.

Sure. All current AOA programs need to be dual accredited by 2020 (so ACGME + AOA). This costs a lot of money for certain programs (e.g. surgery) so not all hospitals are going to be able to afford it/ want to. While the ortho program at LECOM could technically accept people up till 2020 for their 5-year ortho program, this would be a terrible idea as those accepted after 2015 would all-of-a-sudden be in an unaccredited program (this is only if they decide not to dual accredit -- which again, seems like it's not going to happen. How do I know this? People on the inside. I'm not certain and neither are they, but things look grim). So, if they aren't going for dual accreditation, this should be the last year they'll be taking residents: as 2015 + 5-year program = 2020 residency graduation date, thus avoiding having to dual accredit and still accept one more class.

Nothing for sure and there's no "official" statement. I've been getting mostly very equivocal answers (with the exception of one). The best thing to do is call the DME, Dr. Kalata, and ask him outright. No point wasting an audition if they're not going to accept residents post-2015, knawhatimeen?

Report back if you can.

 

[hblues21]

Does anybody have any information on the Chicago program? What the residents & attending are like? I grew up in Chicago and would love to rotate there, but haven't seen anything about the program. Are they heavy on board scores? What's the audition experience like, etc.?

 

[WastedTime]

so if u enter any program before 2020 and they become ACGME accredited a few years after you begin, does that mean when you finish you're residency you can still be eligible for ACGME board certification?

 

[OrthoPathic]

Anyone rotated up in Jersey City Medical Center? This is a new program that absorbed meadowlands. Seems like they're based out of a level 2 hospital and looks promising. Anyone have any information?

 

[macbook1208]

Anyone out there hearing about DO ortho interviews yet? I think it's still early but I'm not sure.

 

[NMDO]

Have not heard of anyone getting interviews this early.

Anyone know anything about Des Peres not taking residents this year? Are other programs to follow?

 

[ChiDO]

Have not heard of anyone getting interviews this early.

Anyone know anything about Des Peres not taking residents this year? Are other programs to follow?

I've heard from current students rotating through my program that this is the rumor given the ACGME merger. I would contact them directly for more information. That being said, only 2 DO programs have gone through and received pre-accreditation with the ACGME.

 

[soccerstar]

I've heard from current students rotating through my program that this is the rumor given the ACGME merger. I would contact them directly for more information. That being said, only 2 DO programs have gone through and received pre-accreditation with the ACGME.

Which 2 programs?

Anyone receive interviews yet?

 

[macbook1208]

So does anyone know about this NUMC program? Like did they only NYCOM students last year since apparently they only to permit them to rotate? Also how is the program if anyone has heard anything

 

[preptheleg]

PCOM Rotation Overview

Staff/Faculty: 10/10 for DO Programs. Will not work with bigger names than at PCOM. Dr. Deluca is Eagles team doc. Dr. Kazanjian and Dr. Lazaraus two of best shoulder/elbow guys in the country. Some Rothman guys, Lazarus, Dermingian (Best in the business at joint surgery). This is an obvious advantage as far as LOR. The disadvantage is operative experience. Also many community guys, many are program graduates. They allow residents to operate a lot more and gain some experience. Good mix of DO/MD and clinical/research heavy attendings.


Program Director: 9/10. Dr. McPhilemy is the man. He has been around for a long time and there’s not a sports surgeon in PA that doesn’t know him. He is the former 76s team doctor for many years. Has personally taken care of MJ, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, you name it. When I was in his office hours Charles Barkley came in to talk about his hip. He knows everybody and has a ton of connections. He’s also brilliant and still has it for an old sport. Only guy I’ve seen that can do intraarticular hip injections without imaging. Looks out for his residents and calls each resident on a daily basis. No bull****. If anything surprises every popped up as far as affiliations or ACGME, Dr. McPhilemy would be able to take care of it with a few phone calls. However I give him a 9 because he is on his way out in the next few years, and Dr. Rosenblaat is the head coach in waiting. He is a graduate of the program that works as a pediatric ortho at St. Christopher’s childrens hospital in Philly. He’s very down to earth and easy to hang out with. I spent a day at his club foot clinic and he’s impressive all around.


Didactics/Teaching: 9/10. PCOM’s education day was the most extensive I encountered on any rotation. But that being said, it’s a bit much. Its 6 hours once a week, all on Thursdays. Basically consists of the senior residents giving presentations from assigned book chapters and journal articles. The 3’s do a quick article review. The 2’s get 95% of the pimping and are the center of attention during conference. They read all week for it (2-300ish pages a week, plus journal articles) and then do their best to regurgitate information as the chiefs slam them with questions. The interns are completely uninvolved and hardly even read x-rays. That stood out to me compared to other programs, where the interns were often the ones receiving the majority of pimping. Overall education was extremely thorough and informative, but a bit like doing one really long keg stand. Not my favorite way to get the job done.


Operative Experience: 7/10. This is an area where I was warned by other students/residents that PCOM lacks. And at times I did notice some residents struggling with cases that would have been routine to their peers at other programs. But that comes with the territory sometimes when you're working with big names that care about their results and plan to publish their outcomes. There are plenty of opportunities to get involved and if you work your butt off you will walk out a great surgeon. If you do the minimum you will walk out a good one. All 5’s were excellent from what I saw. Most residents go on to do a fellowship at very prestigious locations (This year’s 5’s are headed to New England Baptist for Sports, Lennox Hill NYC for Joints, Shoulder Elbow at Kerlan-Jobe in Los Angeles, Sports at Beacon Ortho in Cincy)


Clinic Experience: 5/10. Weak here. I may be wrong but from what I understand no clinic after intern or pgy2 year, but that being said when you are in the clinic you're working with a legend in Dr. McPhilemy. As a student you may not think clinic is very important but realize that after you graduate residency you will spend more time out of the operating room than in it.


Research Opportunities: 8/10 Hard to assess as a student but all of the senior residents are involved in research in their field of interest. With the names around you it is much more accessible than other programs.


Residents: Very diverse. Lots of PCOM and PA guys and gals. It’s definitely difficult to be a member of the away team and land a spot but that comes with any great program. You just have to work that much harder. The vibe is a bit disconnected in that the interns are in purgatory from the rest of the program. They spent the entire intern year separated from the rest of the residents, working one on one with attendings at different hospitals for the 4 months of ortho they get. They do 2 months gen surg, 4 months IM, and some ER. To me this is the biggest downside of the program. However all the 2’s explained that the medicine they do during intern year has prepared them VERY well to manage their own patients medically. The other years are close within classes but being spread out geographically definitely alters the mood. As does the large female presence. 1/3ish of the residents are females and it just makes the setting a bit more formal and less of a locker room vibe/brogram. Nothing wrong with that but some people prefer a good ole boys club.


Lifestyle: 7/10. Overall the hours are not terrible. They don’t start in the mornings until 5:30-6ish and later in residency even later. There is lots of travel and a lot of reading required, but that is due to the high academic influence in the program. PGY2 year is pretty rough but after that it goes downhill. You get to live in the city or suburbs of philly which is an amazing town. Lots to do and see no matter what your interests are. Many residents single, married, kids, no kids, etc. Very diverse. Expect to drive about 30 minutes each morning and 30+traffic every evening. Can be frustrating when all you want to do is get home and get started on your reading but you’re sitting in traffic. When on call you cover 2-3 hospitals at once and they may be 30 minutes apart. Call is from home, but no post call days. Due to the new work hour restrictions most residencies have switched to either home call without post call days, or an assigned period of covering nights. PCOM utilizes the former.


Limitations: weak in foot & ankle, not a ton of hand. They do foot and ankle at UPenn which is a strong rotation but only 3 months. Hand comes scattered between hospitals but is not a focus point of the program. VERY SPORTS HEAVY. Arguably the best DO Ortho program for sports in the nation. Also very good with joints, shoulder/elbow. Strong peds rotation at St. Chris in the city. Trauma at Cooper in Camden. This is a huge plus to the program as Cooper is insane. More trauma/joints/oncology at Sinai baltimore. Joints, Onc, Sports at New England Baptist. This is the ****., Ranked #9 ortho hospital in US, and is an all ortho hospital only! The biggest limitation IMO is that when you work with big dog attendings you don’t get to do as much. I found that the 2’s were behind schedule operatively when compared to other programs, but all 4’s/5’s were quite good. 3’s are mostly away and don’t work with students much, so it was difficult to see how they make that transition from 2à4.


Overall: As a student, hard to stand out. They don’t expect much of you and there’s not a lot of autonomy or independent work as a student. Also not a ton of scrubbing. During rotation in the prime months you will likely be on service with 15-20 other students. But the residents were all very nice and would teach often. And don’t forget that you’re looking at the program from the perspective of a RESIDENT, not how involved the STUDENTS are. It can be frustrating and the inability to stand out can lead to gunning but just keep your head down and do your work. Read for every case and get your softball pimp questions right. PCOM is a place that definitely favors high board scores. If you are below 600 and not a PCOM student I would be wary to rotate here.

 

[preptheleg]

Program: Pinnacle Health – Harrisburg, PA


General: Widely known as one of the best if not THE BEST DO program in the nation. Has a reputation for being malignant and military-like, but I felt those comparisons were exaggerated. From what I hear it used to be much worse. It is definitely more intense than any other rotation, and as a student you are asked to know and do a lot more. Expect to work 4am to 8-9pm as a student most days. Expect to read X-rays daily and answer classifications, pimp questions daily. I would not come here early in the year unless you are planning to sacrifice the month and absorb as much info as possible to look good in later rotations. I would not recommend that plan (that’s what 3rd year is for) but many residents who matched elsewhere have done so.


Attendings: 9/10They work with a ton of attendings from two competing private practices in the area, Arlington Ortho and OIP. There’s a good mix of MD/DOs and a good mix of generalists/specialists. Many of the attendings trained either at the Pinnacle program themselves or at the MD counterpart, Penn State Hershey. The attendings get to know the residents from year 1, and display a lot of trust with them. They were very hands off compared to other programs and would let the residents get involved early on. I watched the PD scrub in and then cross his arms while the 3rd year walked the 2 through a bimal ORIF. Most attendings are really cool and approachable. Only 2-3 guys you have to watch out for. The program director Dr. Ackerman is awesome. He is a Penn State guy who trained at Pinnacle before doing a sports fellowship at Hahneman in Philly during the Eagles Super Bowl year. He pimps a lot – read Sports section of Miller’s – but 50% of his pimp questions are 80’s pop music. “What song, What artist, Who else was in the band”. Get your Pandora on while you study boys. He holds journal club once a month where all the residents and students meet usually at his practice conference room. They order a bunch of BBQ and have coolers of beer while they discuss a few articles. That basically sums of this program. Hardworking, intelligent, but normal dudes.


Residents: 10/10 Best group of residents of any program I visited. All very normal guys, very intelligent, very hardworking. This is the type of program where you study your ass off because you don’t want to let down the guy who is pimping you. They are all very close and it feels like a family or a fraternity. Only one female as of now, but she’s awesome and can take it to the boys. Interns are all awesome but definitely busy. They do 4 months of ortho service, but even when they are on other services they are expected to attend daily didactics, weekly fracture conference, journal clubs, grand rounds, clinic on Thursday mornings, and basically know what’s going on all the time. This is definitely a place where the interns are very involved from day 1. They are also very involved in teaching the medical students. The interns hold a weekly lecture for just the students before the rest of the residents arrive and it’s a good opportunity to practice your films if you’re still learning. The 2’s are swamped with work as well but are the best group of 2’s I saw anywhere. They are VERY comfortable with reductions by that point and handle most of the call. They also do dedicated night float during the week. 3’s and 4’s are in the zone by that point and are operating nonstop. 5’s basically have their pick of their daily cases. Most focus on their fields of interest (joints, sports, spine, etc).


Didactics: 9/10 Daily didactics every morning for about an hour. Fracture conference every Friday with 20+ attendings present. This was the best fracture conference I saw anywhere as you get to see different POV from each attending. Journal review 1-2 times a month. The residents do an excellent job preparing for OITEs and score among the highest in the nation. The current chief had the top board score in the nation last year. They do a little bit all the time which is very manageable, and as a student you can easily follow along without feeling lost. Morning conferences focus on x-rays before the lecture. Mostly on xrays that came in over the last 48 hours so constantly check the ER images. If you want to show off your knowledge sit close to the front. If you want to sit back and observe, do so from the back. But eventually if you want to have a shot at the program you will need to make your way towards the front.


Operative Experience: 10/10 I discussed this earlier under the Residents section but I will expand a little here. They work out of 3 hospitals in Harrisburg. There is Harrisburg Hospital downtown, level 2 trauma center, very busy. Community General Osteopathic Hospital in suburban Harrisburg, which is also very busy and has an on site surgery center for many of the elective and sports cases. West Shore Hospital is just over the river, brand new, looking to become a level 2 trauma center.

The OR is split up based on which service you are on (OIP vs Arlington) and from that the cases themselves are split up based on senority, with the older residents typically taking the cases in their desired field. As a 1 you are rarely in the OR but that may change later in the year (I was there in the fall). As a 2 you get a lot of spine cases, sports, and anything that comes in while you’re on call so you stay quite busy. As a 3 and 4 you start to do some away rotations. They do trauma, pediatrics, and foot and ankle at Hershey Medical Center which is only 20 minutes away and is a big level 1 center. The only true away is during 4th year in Atlanta, either 3 or 6 months (can’t remember) at Scottish Rite for Pediatrics. From the guys I talked to this is an excellent rotation. As a 5 you are basically fine tuning your skills before you start your career. You interact with the attendings as a peer rather than a resident.

Strengths of the program are JOINTS, SPINE, SPORTS. Plenty of shoulder elbow, plenty of hand, plenty of community trauma. However if your interest is being at a level 1 trauma center this may not be the place for you. As a med student trauma sounds sexy and appealing, but realize that community trauma like wrist fractures, ankle fractures, proximal humerus fxs, femoral shaft fractures are widely available at a level 2 and most can wait till the next morning to go to the OR. A level 1 will you give polytrauma, pelvic fractures, comminuted, open fractures that wake you up every time youre on call and must be operated on ASAP. Pinnacle does plenty of level 1 trauma while away at Hershey Medical Center. More than enough to get your fix and your experience. But if you’re looking for polytrauma cases on a nightly basis you’re better off at a level 1.


Clinic Experience: 8/10 All residents attend clinic weekly, on Thursdays. It is an underserved clinic with primarily uninsured, noncompliant patients, however this allows for the clinic to be completely resident run. Medical students/interns do the initial assessment prior to counseling a senior resident or chief. The attendings basically sign off on whatever the plan is. This is a good opportunity for students to show off some knowledge because you have time to look up the details of your case before presenting it to a resident. Must know your physical exam, special tests, eponyms and signs, and x ray tolerances for most community fractures. It is also a good time to make small talk with residents and get to know them a little better. Show up to clinic with your charm and your game face on.


Research: 6-7/10 Research is definitely available but not as strongly emphasized as some of the more academic programs. Many but not all residents are involved in research projects. There are plenty of attendings that are interested and more than enough resources available, but it will likely be you leading the charge of the project. The focus at Pinnacle is primarily on Operating and Didactics.


Lifestyle: 7/10 Harrisburg is the capitol of PA, so somewhat of a downtown. 1.5-2 hours from Philly, 1.5 from Baltimore, few hours of NYC and DC. Valley region with mountains nearby. Limited bars and restaurants compared to a large city but enough around to get food and drinks when you’re off. The downtown scene does get a little sketchy late at night. Lots of outdoor activities – golf, Frisbee golf, mountain biking, hiking, fishing, etc. Close drive to the Poconos mountains which have even more options for camping, skiing, etc. Definitely not the best place to live but you are going there to work not play. Residents work very hard, from very early in the morning to very late at night. Later in residency, as a 4-5 you have a decent life. But you shouldn’t be headed into orthopedics if lifestyle is your primary concern. Even a medicine residency is going to have you at the hospital by 5am. This program works VERY hard for 5 years and graduates as an excellent general orthopedist. That is the biggest takeaway from my rotation. This program will train you to be the best general orthopod of anywhere I saw. You will be more well rounded than any other program, and will have an opportunity for excellent fellowships. Their graduates have gone on to Cleveland Clinic, Hopkins, Harvard, etc.


Pros:

- Residents are AWESOME – best of anywhere. Family feel

- Operative experience – guys here graduate with 2-3x the number of cases of other programs. So much that they actually may have to stop logging all of their cases to meet ACGME accreditation standards and just record every other case they actually do.

- Didactics – daily, very strong OITE scores

- Attendings aren’t all big dogs on paper like in philly but they can operate as good as anybody. You work with the same 25 guys over 5 years so you earn their trust and respect.

- Top of the line facilities. Brand new ORs with nice equipment

- Higher pay and lower cost of living

- Pending merger with Penn State – I did not mention this yet as its not set in stone, but most agree that this program will be merging with Penn State Hershey during the ACGME accreditation process, yet remain a separate DO program under the same name. So your diploma would say Penn State. It would mean being grandfathered into a great program yet keeping the autonomy of a DO program. They believe they are the top DO program and the nation and prefer to get the best DO candidates rather than mediocre MD candidates

- Residents can moonlight at nearby high school football games starting from year 1. Get paid to watch some ball and get sideline experience. By the time you’re a senior resident you can be the team doc for some seriously big time high school programs that compete for state championships every year.



Cons:

- Lifestyle is very rough. Work a lot

- Location

- Not a level 1 trauma center

- Not the best foot and ankle experience. Get some at Hershey but most residents agree it is their weakness but few care.

- Not the most female friendly

- Most residents are married with kids, only a few are really single and like to go out

- Research is not a priority but is definitely available. Will be up to the resident to drive that train

- Small airport that is higher cost to fly in/out of. Philly and Baltimore nearby



Summary: Board scores are highly emphasized. I would not rotate here unless 600+, probably even higher. They won’t tell you it matters. It does. As a student this is an intense rotation that will teach you a lot about orthopedics. You will undoubtedly learn more in 30 days here than any other rotation. If you only rotate for 2 weeks you will need to come back and make a second look to have a shot. Even if you do a month you should attempt to come back at least once to show your interest. This rotation will have 15-20+ students on at a time so come prepared and ready to learn. September is prime month, November is too late.

 

[preptheleg]

Program: Rowan – Stratford, NJ (Formerly UMDNJ)


General: Changed names several years ago and opened a brand new medical school campus in Stratford, NJ. Very nice, new facilities. Work mainly out of three hospitals, Kennedy Health System, all in the Suburban Philly area. Washington Township location is a new facility. It is the busiest of the three and ortho is the main moneymaker of the hospital so they cater to the residents/physicians. Nice, new ORs. Stratford is another new facility, located right next door to the medical school. Not as busy as WT. Cherry Hill is the oldest facility, also not as busy at WT. Apparently they are completely rebuilding the Cherry Hill Hospital with a several million dollar makeover. While I was there I got a sneak peak of the new ORs and they are awesome. The rumor is that they are rebuilding the hospital with plans to bring even more Rothman physicians over the bridge (from Philly) to operate in suburban jersey where they can run two ORs and have their say.


Attendings: 9/10 Work with some very big names as mentioned with the Rothman Institute very nearby in Philly. As mentioned, many of the Rothman physicians drive over the bridge to operate in Jersey. Dr. Lonner is a highly regarded Joints guy who is heavily involved in research. Dr. Dermingian (brother of PCOM’s Dermingian) is also highly regarded Joints physician who is widely published. Dr. Daniel is a foot & ankle Rothman D.O. who is a complete badass. He is pretty tense in the OR but its basically an adrenaline rush to operate with him. There is a group of community guys (mostly DOs) that work together, Dr. Marcelli, Mariani, Kovacs, Cole that will let the residents do much more than the Rothman guys will. The physicians mentioned above all operate out of Washington Township and Stratford. At Cherry hill there is another community group, with Dr. Kahn, Paiste, Gleimer, Garcia. All very good. At Lourdes medical Center in Burlington, NJ there is a group of DO sports docs, Dr. Paz and Dr. Macmillan. They’re both awesome and really innovative, also involved in literature.

The program director, Dr. Mogil, was the first resident in the program and has been the PD for a very long time. He no longer operates but holds office several days a week. Interns and 2’s often go to his office on Fridays. However, Dr. Mogil is on his way out as the program director. The head coach in waiting here is Dr. Daniel, the Rothman Foot and Ankle guy I mentioned before. Dr. Daniel is all business and has big plans to bring this program back to the top tier. From what I understand they lost some funding with the opening of Cooper’s new ortho residency, and Rowan residents will no longer being doing 6 months of trauma at Cooper (Level 1 trauma center in Camden, NJ). This is still being sorted out and as of now they are still at Cooper, but the likely destination of Trauma in the future will be in Atlantic City.

Residents: 9/10 Because of the funding issues mentioned previously with Cooper, Rowan did not take any residents during the 2014 cycle. So the classes are a bit mixed up. But they have their funding back and will be taking 5 again this year. So starting in July, they will have five 5th years, five 4th years, No 3rd years, two 2nd years, and five interns. This will mean that after a year or two when the older residents graduate, the younger residents will be operating A LOT. The downside of not having a full class is that you lack the leadership and sonority that chief residents provide.

The residents at Rowan are all awesome. There are currently three females and I would guess they will be taking more as interns as one will be graduating. The guys are all very normal, down to earth, intelligent, and HUMBLE. None of the arrogance that you often see with ortho residents. They enjoy teaching medical students both in and out of the OR. Many of the older residents are married and do their own thing after work, on the weekends. Some of the younger residents seem to hang out together.

Didactics: 5/10 Weakest part of the program. Didactics are Wednesday mornings held in a conference room at the medical school, from 6-12. Usually there is a guest speaker to start the conference, and afterwards residents give powerpoint presentations. Afterwards they do a fracture conference where some pimping occurs and students are expected to read xrays, classify fractures, offer treatment options, the usual. Younger residents are often pimped as well but all in the spirit of education. Towards the end they usually do a round or two of orthobullets questions. I felt the senior residents were well read and up to date with current literature, but I did not see many journal articles discussed or text books reviewed so they must be reading on their own time. In addition, the only attending present for didactics is the program director, Dr. Mogil. Overall I felt some residents were very strong with their knowledge of current literature, but I felt others were behind. Education is not currently a priority and seems to be self driven. However Dr. Daniel (the new PD) did mention that some of the changes he is proposing will be to completely renovate the education and ramp it up to the ACGME standards. I would be optimistic about these changes.

As a student you will be expected to give a powerpoint presentation during conference on your last week. It usually covers an interesting fracture/case you were involved in. It’s pretty laid back and the residents will help you prepare for it.

Operative Experience: 6-7/10 This is a similar situation as PCOM, in that with the big name attendings they are often much more hands on. I spend a lot of time with the fourth year residents and they were doing about 50% of total knees, total hips when with the Rothman guys. Keep in mind this was very early on in their fourth year. All chief residents were pretty strong operatively. With the community physicians residents were doing much more. Interns are also able to get some OR time early on. I watched a third year walk the intern through his first cephalomedullary nail during his first month on service while the attending had his arms crossed.

Rotations are 3 months at a time and are mainly service based, meaning joints vs hand vs sports, etc. The seniors do divvy up the cases a bit but for the most part it is service based and hospital based. They work primarily out of the three Kennedy hospitals (Washington township, cherry hill, Stratford), and also out of Lourdes Medical Center in Burlington. They do ~6 months of trauma during third year at Cooper currently, but will be moving, likely to Atlantic city. They also do several months of pediatrics during fourth year at Dupont in Delaware. From what I hear this is an amazing rotation and DuPont is a world renowned childrens hospital, especially from an orthopedic standpoint.

The strengths of the program are JOINTS, HAND, FOOT & ANKLE, SHOULDER/ELBOW. Sports pretty good, not elite. Weaknesses are SPINE, TRAUMA (especially with loss of Cooper).

As a student you will be primarily assisting but some physicians will let you do some drilling, put screws in, suturing. The more the residents get to trust you the more you will do, like anywhere.


Clinic Experience: 8/10 Harder to judge as a student since your only clinic experiences come from Dr. Mogil. However residents are involved in clinic with their respective rotations. I did have an opportunity to go to sports clinic with Dr. Paz and Dr. Macmillan and they were both awesome. The majority of their patients are young, active, military guys (base nearby) who blow their knees out during training drills. If interested in sports the sports clinic was very good.

Research: 9/10 Most residents involved in research and there are more than enough resources available. Rothman physicians have research requirements and residents can certainly get involved in Joints, Foot & Ankle, Shoulder/elbow, and hand research through the Rothman attendings. Residents are also involved in sports research through Dr. Paz and Dr. MacMillan. Through Cooper they were also able to do some trauma research but I’m not sure how that will play out. Overall there are PLENTY of opportunities for research and excellent, top notch letters of rec. The residents match very good fellowships.

Lifestyle: 9/10 Residents arrive by 5:30 where they do morning report. Younger residents and medical students arrive earlier. Most days go until 6 but often 8-9 on busy OR days. Call is from home, and divided into covering two hospitals while on call. They DO get a POST CALL DAY, which is pretty rare. Interns take MEDICINE call only, no ortho call. 2’s and 3’s take majority of ortho call. After third year things really calm down. As of now the seniors don’t take much call but with the interrupted classes that may change. Senior residents currently have it pretty nice. Show up, operate, go home early and free weekends.


Pros:

- Big name attendings – Large Rothman influence and only increasing

- Joints, Foot and Ankle, Shoulder elbow, Hand with some of the best attendings in the nation, MD or DO

- Elite Letters of Rec

- Awesome residents

- Location pretty good. Can live in Philly or suburbs.

- Match good fellowships

- Good mix of general community orthos that stand back and hand you the knife

- New Program Director Dr. Daniel is going to take this program places. Will be elite again very soon

- Brand new facilities, ORs

- Smaller hospitals, can get to know staff, scrub techs very well. Some of the techs have been doing ortho cases for 25 years and can really teach you things, help you out. Especially as a student


Cons:

- Some uncertainty with rotations sites, funding etc. Likely has been resolved and I would trust Dr. Daniel to take the program through the merger. Especially given his associations with Rothman, Jefferson.

- Education/Didactics not great. Once again I think this will be changing with the ACGME accredidation standards and a new program director that is heavily involved in publications

- Operatively there are stronger programs out there but certainly weaker ones as well. This is middle tier from an operative standpoint.

- Spine, trauma not the strongpoints of the program.

- Missing class – no 3’s next year. Will be both a pro and a con depending on the way you look at it. More experience for the younger residents to step up and operate more. However it may mean more call for younger residents. As it stands now there will be a year with no chiefs and only two fours, placing a heavy call burden on 2’s and 3’s. I was told by many residents at many different places that you learn more from your senior residents than you do from your attendings.

- Not much trauma other than designated trauma rotations. You will get plenty of community cases obviously but the ERs are relatively low volume. Less reductions, splinting, operating than a busier center.


Summary: At a student, this was a very good rotation to do early on. Residents all very friendly, eager to teach, and will not laugh at your mistakes or put you down at all. The pimping is relatively mild but enough to learn quite a bit. Will get very busy during prime months, especially with Rowan students. Many base students that will be attending conferences from early on in medical school. However, Rowan students can’t take their COMLEX II until late July so that’s a good month for away students to have some time to shine. This program was previously an elite program and I believe under the director of Dr. Daniel is will be again very soon. If you want to be a general community orthopod who doesn’t need a fellowship this may not be the best place for you. Most residents do a fellowship both for more experience and for specialization. However if you want to operate with Rothman Institute physicians and have excellent fellowship opportunities I would not hesitate one bit about training at Rowan.

 

[preptheleg]

Which 2 programs?

Anyone receive interviews yet?

PCOM has been pre-accredited.

 

[dunaa]

Program: York Hospital, York, PA


General: Great program that unfortunately does very little to draw attention to itself. Hands down my best rotation/program. Level 1 trauma center with Ortho trauma headed by PD, DiPasquale. I can’t say enough about him here. Very involved with program and residents. Arguably the best trauma program. The great thing about this program is that all the subspecialties are part of one big group; Wellspan Orthopedics.Makes things very streamlined.

· Level 1 trauma center with 4 trauma bays.

· An AOA program in an allopathic hospital with GYN/SURG/FM/IM/EM residents and students from Drexel/Jefferson

· ACGME transition in progress

· 2 facilities 1.5 miles apart.

· Ortho Trauma (OTA) and Hand fellowships (ACGME)

· Point system for ranking all interviewees by attendings and residents (as a group) on interview day.

· Rotations are divided in 4 blocks in trauma/hand/recon/F&A.

· Few students on rotation (4 is the most I’ve seen. They apparently had 6 at one time and due to a scheduling issue. So its easy to stand out.

· They screen applicants for rotations! They have an application form to be filled prior to being considered for a rotation with Board scores a major factor, therefore once you are invited to interview I’m guessing it doesn’t matter much anymore and they’ll focus on other aspects of your application. They apparently interview ~ 95% -100% of rotators. The other 5% are strongly rejected by residents and PD listens to them on some.



Attendings:

Trauma:

· DiPasquale, D.O: Perhaps the biggest D.O name in Trauma worldwide. Highly published. Excellent surgeon. Great teacher. Pelvic and acetabular surgery 2nd nature to him. Can talk your ear off if you gave him the chance. I’m sure there isn’t a name in orthopedics out there he doesn’t know or don’t know him. Has transformed trauma care in this institution. Next time you read an orthobullets trauma page, look for his name in the reference section. His name rings out for sure. Rarely scrubs a case unless residents or fellow run into a block but constantly in and out to see how its progressing.

· Richardon, M.D: Army trained trauma guy. Has done and seen a ridiculous amount. Can be the nicest guy outside the OR but inside it is a different game. Has high expectations and emphasizes early and copious operative experience over didactics.

· Muccino, D.O; Arguably the hippest amongst the lot outside the OR. Can break into a song or dance right in the middle of rounds. Very hands on in the OR. Expects perfection in the OR which makes him a little hard to work with in the OR but when he likes you and comfortable with you, he gives you room to run.

Hand:

· Trevino, M.D: Mayo trained hand guy. Insanely smart. Heavily involved in resident hand education. Sharp skills and always adopting new techniques when feasible. Up to date on the latest literature. Does a ton of elbow/wrist scopes.

· Born,M.D: Plastics guy with hand fellowship. You don’t get to do a ton with him as a student but the mainly spends time with the R1s on their plastics rotation. Nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Attends Monday hand education and cadaver labs if it involves hand. More involved with Hand fellowship

· Hand fellow: Varies depending on who is there. When I was there the fellow was away at Hopkins

Foot & Ankle

· Hall: Navy trained guy with fellowship at Harborview. Absolutely hilarious character. Fun to work with. Residents learn and do a lot on his service. Knowledgeable and stays up to date. Gives F&A lecture on alternating (or consecutive-pre OITE) Wednesdays.


Recon

· Maish, M.D: As a medical student he is hard to read but great in the OR with residents. Like every joint guy he’s nuts about sterility. Residents seem to progress stepwise on his service doing one stage of each surgery at a time until proficient and then skin to skin as a sort of test. He has transformed monthly M & M, making it more useful for resident education

· New guy: Hiring apparently ??

Sports:

· Ruder, M.D: Another army guy I think. You don’t work much with him as a student but he gives Thursday sports lectures. Works with residents on the sports service

· Deitch, M.D: Baylor trained sports guy. Also involved in Thursday education. Asks questions and likes to teach. A genuinely nice guy. Residents on sports service always speak well of him


Upper Extremity

· Rispoli, M.D: Another Mayo trained guy. Highly published. If you own a copy of Tarascon Pocket Ortho, look at the author. He isn’t involved with students much or with education (apparently to change soon). Resident experience with his service seem to vary. Seems like a fun guy.

Ortho Oncology

· Aboulafia, M.D: This is one of only two away rotations at Franklin Square/Sinai in Baltimore. As a student you don’t do this rotation. Residents always seem to rate it highly for autonomy and operative experience despite the daily 50min commute to Baltimore (No weekends).

Spine:

· This is a new rotation that has just started with the Neurosurgery department at the hospital. There are a lot of them and so far the R2 on the service is enjoying it. You’ll be the only resident on the service so tons of operative time (if spine is your thing). Spine call is yet to be clarified (Just confirmed this)

Pediatrics:

· Cincinnati Children like a lot of other programs. Residents seem to enjoy their time there

Residents: The residents get along very well. Occasionally hang out outside of work or at another’s house. 5th years are insanely good. The bromance is intense and can sometimes disrupt Friday education. Always cover for each other and step up when the schedule or list gets crazy on trauma (which can be daunting sometimes). Overall, a good band of brothers. Good operative skills and knowledge for their levels (what do I Know!) compared to other programs I’ve went to.



Didactics:

o Monday; Hand lecture/questions led by Dr. Trevino/fellow or the resident on the service. You learn a lot

o Tuesday: Fracture conference. This was not always formalized until recently. As a student or resident, they see so much trauma while working closely with the trauma attendings that it seems superfluous to have a dedicated conference. Images are reviewed every morning with attendings during trauma sign out. Currently, the format calls for each resident to present a case from their service. And then they discuss the image thoroughly. Also more pimping for students with this new format so be ready to show off.

o Wednesday: Alters between cadaver lab and F&A lecture by Dr. Hall. R1s are assigned cadaver dissections. Anatomy on one side and approaches on the other. Students are pimped here a lot. R5 tend to teach a lot during this time.

o Thurdays: Sports lecture in conjunction with sports medicine fellows Lectures presented here can be either ortho focused or sports med focused. Depending on which attending is presenting. This can suck sometimes when you have to sit through sports med lectures but some can be interesting.

o Friday: 6-9AM protected Resident led education. Some residents are assigned presentations based on JBJS review articles (I’m told the goal to be knowledgeable while staying up to date on various topics). Residents seem to put a lot of times into preparing. Students aren’t pimped much though. Gets intense pre-OITE as they review tons of questions and topics. This OITE focused trend is set to change given the use of Orthobullets PASS system for individual resident studying during the year.

o Journal Club: Every month at an attendings house or restaurant. No exceptions! Articles assigned weeks ahead of time. Several attending attend. Great learning/food/booze.




Operative Experience

· This is perhaps one of their strongest suits. On most services you are the only resident except trauma. So you get to work one on one with the attending and depending on how you’re doing they let you do a lot of most cases. Trauma can get very busy with a ton of cases; as a student I saw pretty much every ortho trauma you can imagine. They do a good number of pelvic and acetabular cases, and complex intraarticular cases in insane traumas. The only minus about trauma is the involvement of a trauma fellow. Depending on who it is it can apparently be beneficial or detrimental. The fellow sometimes gets involved in cases that are not “fellow” cases which can be frustrating for upper levels. But this seems to be getting straightened out. The fellow lets the residents (especially the lower levels) do a lot though if there isn’t a senior on the service. Seniors can do any trauma case they want if they are on general or their respective service isn’t busy. R1s do 1 month ER, Med ICU, General Trauma floors, Trauma ICU, Plastics, & Medicine (Essentially post op rehab management at the Rehab hospital. All trauma cases are done at the main hospital and most subspecialty hospitals are done at the Wellspan Surgery & Rehab Hospital (WSRH-Ortho/Neuro – 1.5miles from main hospital). This is a beautiful facility. R1s also do their medicine rotation here mainly managing post-op ortho and neuro patients. R1 then spend 2nd part of their first yr doing Ortho. As with any Ortho program, 2nd years seem to have it the worst with regards to call schedule. Their R1s are top notch.

· Lansing Michigan 4th yrs do their trauma rotations here.

Clinic Experience:

· Residents are required to attend the clinic of every service they are on so they get a ton of experience. They don’t have resident run clinics though which I don’t know what to make of.

· Calls can be busy but R2 –R5 take independent calls (can be at home but most choose in house). R1s buddy up with an R5 who usually lets them hold the pager and is present for every reduction but often lets the R1 do them with guidance.

Research:

· Lots of opportunity. It is required for all residents R1-R5. You are expected to submit IRBs by the end of November and to present during the annual resident poster sessions with other specialties. PD harps on everyone to get their projects going. Every resident has a project they are working on related to their specialty of interest (R1s are more general and can do a case report). 2 of the residents are highly published in yellow journals. They have a research coordinator dedicated to ortho and a research center (EMIG) for support with stats and publications. A good library and librarians that apparently do literature searches for you if you send them a topic. They often collaborate with the general surgery/trauma dept. for project.

Lifestyle:

· York is a really small town between a lots of great places. Low income areas and some posh areas. Crime and obesity is insane. GSW injuries are abundant (awesome for trauma) and you see a lot of these. Decent bars and restaurants. Residents hang out sometimes at local bars/breweries or someone’s house. It really depends on who you are and what you want. Most of the residents live 5-10mins from the hospital and seem to enjoy the town.




Pros:

· Small program

· Operative experience

· Very busy; especially trauma (If you’re interested in trauma this is easily the best place to go)

· Subspecialty exposure

· Attending involvement (All fellowship trained and some renowned in their field)

· Research

· Students can get involved a lot in cases when it gets busy

· You work very closely with each attending and resident so they can get to know you better.

· Fellows (can be a con)

· Very few (2) away rotations




Cons:

· Too few residents (they are apparently planning to expand with ACGME transition)

· Too subspecialty focused. Needs some generalists involvement.

· Very busy (can be daunting sometimes)

· Not a lot of medical student involvement in morning conferences.

 

[MedicalMBA]

Thanks for all the great information and reviews! This has been hugely helpful. Do you all have any information on Jersey City or Inspira?

 

[preptheleg]

Thanks for all the great information and reviews! This has been hugely helpful. Do you all have any information on Jersey City or Inspira?

Did not go to either but had friends rotate at both. From what I know about them Jersey City is a new program that used to be Meadowlands and has restarted after some funding issues. Apparently they are extremely busy, get quite a bit of trauma, and operate often. The program director is supposedly awesome. They offered me an interview but I did not attend. As for Inspira they are also a relatively new program but have grown over the last few years to becoming a good one. They have brand new facilities and a friend of mine said he thought it was the best group of residents he met anywhere. I believe they have a good amount of volume as well because they are basically the only facility in their area between Philly/South Jersey and Atlantic City.

I will reach out to the students I know and ask them to post about their experiences. Best of luck

 

[hblues21]

Any word on the St. James/Chicago program from this year's rotators? Any review would be much appreciated!

 

[TaketheCharnley]

Pinnacle Health – Harrisburg, PA



General:

Pinnacle Health is considered one of the best, if not the best DO program in the nation. This program’s reputation is preserved on a daily basis, with senior residents teaching and holding juniors and interns accountable for complex orthopedic knowledge. A repute of the program is being militant or some say having a malignant type philosophy. I found this to be false; each resident holds themselves to a high standard and does not want to let down their senior or the programs recognition. This ideology produces some of the strongest board scores out of all DO programs, and is evident by many of the residents gaining 99th percentile on OITEs and within alumni and faculty member Dr. DeLuca who gained the Bob Green, D.O. Memorial Award, which is given annually to the D.O. orthopedic surgeon who achieved the highest combined score on the written and oral board certification examination.

As a medical student you will be expected to read x-rays daily in front of peers and residents, answer common fracture pattern questions. You will round on patients that you helped care for, and show your knowledge in the resident run clinic. Also many of the program attendings will ask you questions in cases or at literature reviews. All are ample opportunities to show that you are a great candidate for orthopedics, these opportunities are lacking in other programs that I auditioned with, where the residents and attending’s do not really get to know the candidates knowledge.


Attendings: 10/10

The attendings at Pinnacle are top notch just as the residents. They care about their program deeply. This is obvious because many of the docs are alumni of the Pinnacle program. Included is Dr. Ackerman, the program director. If you do an audition at Pinnacle, you will have a full OR day with him and expect to be asked to demonstrate your orthopedic sports knowledge, read Millers Sports and most of orthobullets sports. He also loves 80s music so brush up on bands. Dr. Ackerman has his own rotator cuff repair techniques and he will teach you as a student, and his respect will drive you to become more knowledgeable. Also one of the biggest highlights to the program are Friday conferences where residents present challenging and thought provoking cases to the 20+ attendings. Throughout the conference there is teaching and some disagreeing among docs. It’s a wonderful opportunity to learn as a student and see how trainings and mentalities differ. Most attendings are approachable, very intelligent, and hardworking and they want to recruit students to continue the programs tradition.


Residents: 10/10

The Pinnacle residents were hands down the strongest academically and surgically I came across. At the same time you won’t meet a more down to earth set of residents either, all are open to teach. This is a program that from day one interns are involved and expected to read, read, read. The seniors want then juniors to be just as prepared as they are for OITEs which is demanding but respectful at the same time. As a student you also have more responsibilities and you shouldn’t take that lightly, you do not want to let these residents down. The interns will hold weekly lectures for students as well, which is a great time to have casual conversations and they will also let you know what the seniors expect for you. By the beginning of PGY2 all the residents are comfortable with reductions and handle most of the call. This obviously means they are extremely busy, but by the time you are 3s and 4s you are an operating machine and already have an idea of what fellowship you want to go into. By the time you are a 5 you have had enough cases that you could easily be a general orthopedic in the community, but times are now evolving in all of orthopedics and most are doing fellowships, these places include Cleveland Clinic, Harvard, Hopkins, Hedley Orthopedic Institute, and University of West Virginia Spine just to name a few.


Didactics: 10/10

There are daily didactics for an hour after the residents run the list and go over cases for the day. These daily conferences were the best I witnessed anywhere. They have a Grand Rounds 1-2 times a month. The residents do an excellent job preparing for OITEs and score among the highest in the nation. The current chief had the top board score in the nation last year. Dr. Ackerman also holds Journal Clubs at his state of the art Arlington Clinic, it’s a great time for a student to hear current literature, how to present an article, and also be included with great local food and drinks.


Operative Experience: 10/10

The residents split time at three hospitals. As an intern you will be running the floors at Community General Osteopathic Hospital or CGOH, many of the attending’s operate here and there is also a connected outpatient surgery center. Both places are pretty busy given the number of attendings. The second hospital is Harrisburg Hospital downtown, its level 2 trauma and very busy. As a 2 you will run the show there. An infamous attending and head of Pinnacle Health Orthopedics Dr. Lippe operates downtown and once a week he has marathon days in the OR doing anything from a total joint, ACDFs, and carpel tunnel releases. His volume is a reflection of how the residents wind up with so many cases. The last is West Shore Hospital, it’s brand new hospital and looking to become level 2 as well. It is an amazing hospital and more cases are now occurring there, I witnessed complex humeral nails to distal femoral replacements at the facility.

As a 1 you will run the floors and ER consults, you are the person with a lot of responsibility but also guidance from the seniors, they treat each other as family.

As a 2 they get cases in: spine, sports, joints, and any trauma that comes in over the weekends.

As a 3 and 4 you do aways at Hersey Medical Center in trauma, peds, and foot and ankle. Also you do a couple months at Scottish Rite Pediatrics in Atlanta.

As a 5 you are seen as a peer with your attending. You are just refining you skill and eating all the cases you want such as complex revision joints, spine, and sports.


Strengths of the program are joints, spine, and sports. Plenty of shoulder elbow, plenty of hand, plenty of community trauma. However if your interest is being at a level 1 trauma center this may not be the place for you. However, with long months at Hersey Medical Center, I know the 4s are easily able to tackle plateau fractures, pilons, femoral humeral and tibia nails. As a student you are not allowed to go to these rotations, but there are delegations of a Pinnacle Health and Penn State merging.


Clinic Experience: 8/10

Pinnacle has a resident run clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This was the only program I rotated with that had this valuable experience. As medical students you do the initial assessment including writing the note prior to counseling a senior resident or chief. This is yet another time for you as a student to impress and also get to know the residents outside of the OR. As far as residents being involved with attending clinics, this boils down to the busy schedule at Pinnacle, most of the residents are in the OR or running to the ER and doing consults. This leaves some time for residents to join the faculty, but most emphasis is placed on operating and didactics.


Research: 8/10

The Pinnacle Health System completes more Total Joints Arthorplasties than anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania. This is why the Allopathic Hersey Penn State residents come do a joints rotation in Harrisburg. With this large volume there are already some residents using Pinnacle databases to write papers and do research. Some of this research has been formally presented at Ground Rounds by the residence this past year. But with this said there is a large opportunity for research to be conducted but in the past like most DO programs it focuses highly on OITE prep and operating.


Lifestyle: 8/10

Pinnacle Health is a program you will work hard for 5 years, but you will be surrounded by a family of attendings and residents that demand your resect but would also do anything to help you out. Residents have a great time both while at work and also outside the hospital too. This past fall Dr. Ackerman held a golf tournament with the residents over a weekend. Dr. Ackerman and his partners are also the team docs for the professional soccer team The City Islanders, which residents can be involved in. Plus many of the residents help out with local high school football games and by the time you are a 4 or a 5 you’re considered team doc. Many of the residents have families, and seem to be happy with the community and living environments in Harrisburg. Harrisburg itself has many outdoor activities: a nice running greenbelt downtown, perfect for cycling as well. Many of the residents play golf together weekly. For those who are single, Harrisburg has a decent dating and downtown scene. Also Harrisburg has a good proxy to Philly, NYC, Baltimore, and DC. Although you’re there to work, a weekend jaunt is doable from time to time.


Pros:

-Residents make this program, no better group of residents, hardworking, intelligent, and passionate about teaching and helping their juniors


- Very strong didactics, top OITEs every year, also as a student you will learn more in 30 days here then all audition season.


-Community involvement with high school football, pro soccer, etc.


- Operating load, resident will graduate with twice as many cases as other DO programs.


-Faculty support- many of the attendings in the program are alumni’s which shows the dedication for the program.


- Higher pay and lower cost of living


-Probable merger with Penn State, still not set in stone but most believe this will occur with the ACGME merger. The two programs already spend time with one another for away rotations. There is a very large mutual respect between the programs.


Cons:


- Boards are emphasized heavily, as well as being prepared as a med student. To be a strong rotator and contender for a spot you need to have reviewed Netters, Orthobullets Trauma, Handbook, Orthobullets Sports, just read, read, read before and during this rotation.


-November is late for auditions, come early, but not too early, you need to have read before


- 4 weeks is not enough time, most competitive applicants try to come back at a later time.


- High volume of med students rotating, so need to find a way to shine, but being a GUNNER will not land you a spot here. There are so many students so they see all flavors, and those not being a team player and helping out other students make it easy to not be asked back for an interview.

 

[orthoDO16]

Program: Largo 2015/16

General: An exceptional program that produces excellent surgeons and obtain great fellowships. Looks for higher board scores +630 for sure. And from there it's a totally personality game. If they like you then you're good. Many of the rotators did not get interviews. I can on The PD is heavily involved and allows residents to perform most cases when he operates at the base hospital (Largo). He performs many cases at outside hospitals where the residents, unfortunately, do not have privileges. If/when the residents obtain the ability to operate at the outside system the program would be absolutely in the upper tier. The base hospital is relatively small but has an ok amount of basic hip fractures and minor traumas. Most of the attendings do not do much operating at the base hospital which I think limits the program at times. If the PD is not operating one week at the base hospital then the service can be pretty slow.

Attendings: Very good. Some what sports heavy, so if your interest is in sports you would do well to look at this place. They work the D1 Sports which is a operating center/PT/gym/combine prep facility. They also had a new attending who was a graduate of the program and recent Andrew's grad, came with great energy and was just an awesome resource and will continue to be a good teacher for the residents. The Hand guy went to Harvard and is an efficient genius. Extremely nice to students and runs the best clinic I've ever seen. Also operates at Morton Plant (where residents can't go) so many of his cases are excluded from the residents. Does operate at a Surgery Center that residents can go to which is a place. The residents run the PD's clinic essentially and mostly the intern will handle that. Some other attendings that would attend conference and had little role with students. Furthermore, the residents do a trauma rotation in St. Pete which is highly regarded and the residents learn a tremendous amount. Also go to Cinci for Peds, like many programs, and come back with great experience.

Residents: Excellent group of guys. Interns are both very smart and very nice, if not massive gentlemen. Don't have 5's but the Chief is a 4 and very smart/excellent in the OR. He was looking at Trauma fellowships at major University centers. Another 4th year was looking at Andrew's sports. It is a group that like's to have fun and is absolutely a frat-like bro club. If you're not into that scene or a girl I'd stay away. They'd have 4-5 students on at a time.

Didactics: Held Monday mornings. Starts with Fx conference with attendings. Students read films and answer a few questions from the chief about classifications. Know you stuff. Then the residents and attendings discuss the outcomes and usually a trauma rep will be there to talk about the stuff used. Then some presentations by the intern on service and maybe some OITE questions. Nothing too special. Journal clubs will be held at restaurants or bars. Did some labs with them and then the reps would take everyone out.

Operative Experience: Pretty solid. Not too busy at the base hospital. Most the experience will come from the trauma rotation in St. Pete. Lots of time in Surgery centers doing bread and butter sports.

Clinic Experience: Run the service at the base hospital not a big deal usually. 5-6 am rounding and then clinic at the PD and that's all you see as a student.

Research:None appreciated

Lifestyle: Excellent. Live at the beach and hours aren't terrible especially when on the sports service or Largo service. Best I saw with hours and combo of place to live. Still they do work on some the services some tough hours.

Pros:

Cons:

 

[OrthoReview123]

Program: St. Vincent Mercy in Toledo

General: This is an old school program located at a level 1 trauma center in Toledo. Also goto a few surrounding hospitals that are a little smaller that a few of their attendings operate out of. Take 3 per year. No females in the program. The program has been run by PD Dr. Jaeblon basically since it started and he has helmed an excellent program until recent years. A few years ago quite a few attendings left the program which has left the program with relatively few attendings. However, they recently just hired an associate PD Dr. Miller who is a mover and shaker and seems to be driving the program in the right direction. Dr. Miller is likely to take over from Dr. Jaeblon when he retires. This program is notorious for ranking based on board scores and still does so, they basically rank A-Z using your board scores, then residents are allowed to make adjustments, however they can't make huge changes so don't rotate unless you have at least a 600+. I know they offered a student this year who was not a very hard worker but had excellent board scores, and didn't offer someone that all the residents liked and has been around forever but didn't have great scores. They do not officially interview, Dr. J sits you down for a pretty informal interview at the end of your rotation. One of the few programs that do not care if you rotate 2 or 4 weeks (as long as you have good boards)

Attendings: One of the main weaknesses of the program is that their number of attendings is pretty low at their base hospital. Most of them are general orthopedic surgeons and they lack sufficient sub-specialty representation. Most of their residents stay at St. Vs on most days and they divide up the cases every morning. I saw many instances where some residents were hanging out in the lounge not doing much during the day. There are also MD attending at St. Vs which only take MD residents from another local residency, so there is also an issue with access to those attendings. However the attendings they do have are all very invested in resident training, and operative autonomy is good. They are also obviously very Trauma heavy being a level 1 center, and they have great trauma attendings who are capable and again very interested in teaching. Dr. Jaeblon their PD is not operating a ton anymore, and residents do all of his cases, Dr. Miller is also very hands off and lets residents do his cases.

Residents: Great group of guys who are all nice and down to earth. These guys hold eachother to a high standard and are very motivated to learn. Residents all seem to hang out with eachother and are supportive both in and out of the hospital. There is no malignant personality here and residents take the time to teach students about Orthopedics.

Didactics: Strongest part of the program. There is an attending led lecture every morning. This program consistently scores in the high 90s percentile on their OITEs. When a resident is not in a case they are usually reading or studying in the lounge. Dr. Jaeblon is very knowledgeable and has many very interesting lectures almost daily. Fracture conference once a week which is led by their trauma attendings and there is great attending turn out.

Operative Experience: Autonomy is great, case volume could be an issue. Dr. Miller seems to be motivated to hire more attendings to be involved, but as it stands there is a feeling that there is not enough cases to allow all the residents to be operating on a daily basis. Trauma is their biggest strong suit as they are a Trauma center. Most attendings are pretty hands off and let the residents do a lot. You will graduate from here as a capable surgeon.

Clinic Experience: Resident run clinic once a week. The residents see the patients, make clinical decisions and run it by Dr. Miller and Dr. J. This is a great experience as whenever the residents book a case, they will always be the one that does the case, no matter the year. One of the better clinic experiences I've seen.

Research: Not super emphasized but present, 3 of the residents all had active projects running while I was there.

Lifestyle: OK. Residents aren't super busy, they round at around 6am and usually are done by 3-5pm. Intern year does seem to be pretty rough though because they pre-round everyday. Toledo is pretty meh as a city, the surrounding area of St. Vs is pretty ghetto. There are things to do however like a revitalizing downtown, minor league baseball and some good bars around. Housing is cheap.

Pros: Level 1, excellent didactics, cool residents, good operative autonomy.

Cons: Relatively low case load, few subspecialists, too board heavy perhaps, Toledo Meh.

 

[OrthoReview123]

Program: Doctors Hospital in Columbus Ohio

General: This program is frequently cited as one of the best programs in the country and there is certainly reason behind that reputation. This program is one of the oldest programs and is very well established. They operate out of Doctors Hospital, Grant Medical Center and Nationwide Childrens hospital. They also goto Riverside medical center for Joints, as well as a few other hospitals/surgery centers that their attendings go to. Also has a great Onc rotation at OSU as well. This program is very well respected in the city of Columbus, consistently places very prestigious fellowships (think duke, yale etc.), and operates out of very quality institutions. They take 5 a year, numerous female residents. They like boards, but as long as you're high 500s and above you will be considered, that being said though if you have ridiculous scores you will have a very good chance of matching here. They have a crazy interview day, but it is more fun than it is intimidating. Do note that they participate in VSAS, so you will have to schedule your rotations that way. Interviews are in early November usually the first week, so rotate before then. This program is also the most ready residency to pass the ACGME merger in the country. THey are set up exactly like an MD residency, has a ton of research, attendings, and recently hired a multi million dollar consultancy to make sure all of their residencies pass the merger on the first attempt.

Attendings: Strong suit of this program, they have 40+ attendings working with their residency in the city of Columbus. All subspecialties are represented in the city. They have fantastic trauma attendings at Grant Medical Center, which is the busiest trauma center in Ohio, and they do crazy procedures without batting an eye. Definitely saw the craziest traumas at this medical center. Dr. Ben Taylor their trauma fellowship director is very invovled with Orthobullets and is very well respected. Rumor has it he might take over the residency if the current PD retires, which would be pretty great for the program. Dr. Baker the PD lets the residents do all of his cases. They also have excellent Sports, UE, hand attendings. Their Peds rotation is one of the best I've seen, with attendings that give a lot of autonomy to the residents at a nationally recognized pediatric hospital.

Residents: Diverse group of residents, seem to all get along well and expect a lot out of eachother. However, with such a big group of residents (25) you can tell that not everyone has that close knit relationship as some of the smaller residencies. No malignant personalities here, however they did have one intern that was apparently a little harsh on medical students, though this was through word of mouth and not personal experience. Hard to meet everyone as everyone is all over columbus so you'll likely not get to meet everyone even during a month long rotation.

Didactics: 1 day a week for about 5 hours at Grant medical center. They have the best fracture conference I've ever seen hands down. They show a huge variety of fractures and have some very famous trauma attendings going over the cases A-Z for the residents benefit. These attendings are not afraid to call eachother out and constructive disagreements are great teaching points for residents. Pretty entertatining as well as the interns read the X-rays and kind of get wrecked by the attendings, but hey, that's how you learn. The rest of the 5 hours are spent on OITE questions, resident lectures and student lectures. I believe they are on the newly created Ortho365 schedule from Orthobullets. To be honest outside of their fracture conference the didactics are only okay, but this apparently is changing as they are getting more attending involvement.

Operative Experience: Probably the weakest part of the program. Double scrubbing is the norm here and triple scrubbing is also very common. Though they have tons of attendings, there seems to be a lot of crowding around the table in most cases. At Doctors hospital I had cases where a 5, 4, 2, and 1 and a student were all scrubbed in addition to the attending. This means that the seniors are doing most of the operating and the lower levels are just watching and manning the pager. Also, at Grant they have a trauma fellowship that have 1-3 fellows a year. This means for the first half of every year the residents typically don't get the truama cases at Grant as the fellows need to get their case numbers up. I believe the "see much, do little" review earlier in this thread is pretty reflective of their operative experience. The seniors graduate as capable surgeons, however they were not at the same level as some of the other seniors I've seen on the trail. That being said, they do place into amazing fellowships, so give and take I guess.

Clinic Experience: Once a week at doctors, did not go as a student but heard it was busy and offers a lot of autonomy to residents .

Research: Every resident here has a project, and these guys consistently publish papers in various areas of Ortho. This is super focused on in the residency and I believe is one of the reasons they land such great fellowships. Moving forward it is no longer viable for DO residencies and applicants to ignore research as this is a large component of the ACGME requirement, so it is prudent to goto a residency that has a lot of research in place. Definitely the best research opportunities I saw on the audition trail.

Lifestyle: Great. They have a night float system so when you're done you go home at 5-6pm. When you're on subspecialty service you live attending hours so that's great. The only exception being their Trauma rotation at Grant, which can be pretty freaking busy and crazy. Columbus is an awesome city, probably one of the best in the midwest. It's big enough to feel very urban but not too big to feel too crowded. OSU being around means a lot of young people who are active and love to have fun. Football season is awesome around here, and the housing is cheap and affordable. It's a great city for families and young people a like, and combined with the great hours, one of the best I've seen.

Pros: Well established, well respected, amazing fellowship matches. Great lifestyle, all subspecialties in house. One of the best programs I rotated through. extremely balanced and ready for the ACGME merger

Cons: Operative experience. A little too much watching in the early years of residency.

 

[OrthoReview123]

Program: Largo 2015/16

General: An exceptional program that produces excellent surgeons and obtain great fellowships. Looks for higher board scores +630 for sure. And from there it's a totally personality game. If they like you then you're good. Many of the rotators did not get interviews. I can on The PD is heavily involved and allows residents to perform most cases when he operates at the base hospital (Largo). He performs many cases at outside hospitals where the residents, unfortunately, do not have privileges. If/when the residents obtain the ability to operate at the outside system the program would be absolutely in the upper tier. The base hospital is relatively small but has an ok amount of basic hip fractures and minor traumas. Most of the attendings do not do much operating at the base hospital which I think limits the program at times. If the PD is not operating one week at the base hospital then the service can be pretty slow.

Attendings: Very good. Some what sports heavy, so if your interest is in sports you would do well to look at this place. They work the D1 Sports which is a operating center/PT/gym/combine prep facility. They also had a new attending who was a graduate of the program and recent Andrew's grad, came with great energy and was just an awesome resource and will continue to be a good teacher for the residents. The Hand guy went to Harvard and is an efficient genius. Extremely nice to students and runs the best clinic I've ever seen. Also operates at Morton Plant (where residents can't go) so many of his cases are excluded from the residents. Does operate at a Surgery Center that residents can go to which is a place. The residents run the PD's clinic essentially and mostly the intern will handle that. Some other attendings that would attend conference and had little role with students. Furthermore, the residents do a trauma rotation in St. Pete which is highly regarded and the residents learn a tremendous amount. Also go to Cinci for Peds, like many programs, and come back with great experience.

Residents: Excellent group of guys. Interns are both very smart and very nice, if not massive gentlemen. Don't have 5's but the Chief is a 4 and very smart/excellent in the OR. He was looking at Trauma fellowships at major University centers. Another 4th year was looking at Andrew's sports. It is a group that like's to have fun and is absolutely a frat-like bro club. If you're not into that scene or a girl I'd stay away. They'd have 4-5 students on at a time.

Didactics: Held Monday mornings. Starts with Fx conference with attendings. Students read films and answer a few questions from the chief about classifications. Know you stuff. Then the residents and attendings discuss the outcomes and usually a trauma rep will be there to talk about the stuff used. Then some presentations by the intern on service and maybe some OITE questions. Nothing too special. Journal clubs will be held at restaurants or bars. Did some labs with them and then the reps would take everyone out.

Operative Experience: Pretty solid. Not too busy at the base hospital. Most the experience will come from the trauma rotation in St. Pete. Lots of time in Surgery centers doing bread and butter sports.

Clinic Experience: Run the service at the base hospital not a big deal usually. 5-6 am rounding and then clinic at the PD and that's all you see as a student.

Research:None appreciated

Lifestyle: Excellent. Live at the beach and hours aren't terrible especially when on the sports service or Largo service. Best I saw with hours and combo of place to live. Still they do work on some the services some tough hours.

Pros:

Cons:

Just wanted to say this review is spot on for Largo. One of the main issues with the program is their inability to operate out of a few of the hospitals their attendings goto. The residents here are awesome, some of the coolest group of guys I've met. I had the most fun everyday going to my rotation during my month here. These guys get great operative autonomy and graduate as excellent surgeons, as can be seen in their chiefs. Another one of their weaknesses is their didactics, its once a week and it can be a little too laid back after the fracture conference, where a lot of the time is spent joking around between residents. Word is during the interview that they are working to hire more attendings at the base hospital, so hopefully their volume will go up there. Currently however their volume is too dependent on their PD, who only operates out of Largo on certain weeks.

Want to add that they take 2 a year, no females, and they interview in mid december, so you can rotate late at this program. Do love boards, but above 600s it really is dependent on personality.

 

[OrthoReview123]

Program: St. Joe's in Warren, Ohio

General: This program is a small program based out of St. Joes, a small community hospital in Warren and St. Elizabeth, which is a level 1 trauma center in downtown Youngstown about 25 minutes away. Takes 2 a year, no girls in the program, interview in early November (usually the day before the Doctors interview). This is a program that does not give a flying crap about your board scores. One of the first things they tell you is that board scores is the last thing they look at, and their decision is based solely on the students rotation. All specialties are in town and they have all subspecialties represented except for Tumor. This program prides itself on early operative experience and this is true. Starting intern year the residents are in the OR, and this trend continues until they graduate. However, this program has issues with the honesty with which they handle the audition process. The reputation this program has had is that they frequently schedule their interview the day before Doctors and other programs interviews, then tell the students they want that they have a spot, but they must cancel the other interviews in order to retain their spot. Also, this year one of the 2 spots went to the previous PD's daughter, who is still an attending at the program. Due to the previous positive reviews on this site, this program also has way wayyyyyy too many students rotating through each month. When I was there, and the months following there were consistently 11-15+ students on service, and many times it felt there were too many students and they didn't really know what to do with us. If you do the math, you're talking about 60+ students rotating through essentially 1 spot this year.

Attendings: This program has excellent attendings that are all very hands off in the OR. They have all subspecialties in house with attendings that trained at prestigious institutions. Dr. J their PD will frequently run 4 rooms at once and the only surgeons in the room will be residents with him coming in intermittently. Every attending is nice and interested in resident teaching, definitely one of the plusses of the program.

Residents: 10 residents with pretty similar personalities. Most are nice and fairly laid back, however a few definitely are pretty stand offish in some instances. The residents all fit a pretty similar mold, and if you don't fit into that mold you definitely feel a little out of place there (as I did). One positive is that the residents are all very interested in student teaching, and will take time to make sure you improve your ortho understanding during your month here.

Didactics: They have a fracture conference once a week at St. Elizabeth that is attended by many attendings. One of the better fracture conferences I've seen outside of doctors. A lot of great debates between their attendings and is a great learning experience for residents and students. They also have a dedicated 4 hour period every friday for didactics, but these are essentially a waste of time, poor resident lectures and sometimes the residents get together, shoot the crap and then just decide to leave hours early. On some months they will have dedicated student Fracture conferences where the students read all the fractures and are pimped by the residents. This is a great learning experience for the students and I definitely feel like my Ortho knowledge improved 10 fold after this month.

Operative Experience: Excellent, with great operative autonomy. However sometimes it feels like there is too much autonomy, as in instances where the 4s and 3s are doing complex surgeries without the attending even present. I guess this could be just that they are very confident but with the attending running 4 other ORs it begs the question of safety and how much you are learning from your attendings. That being said, definitely one of the best Op experiences I saw on the trail. Tons of cases.

Clinic Experience: Apparently this is restarting, but didn't see it on my month.

Research: Not talked about, not emphasized.

Lifestyle: Lifestyle is pretty bad up until 3rd year. The 2nd years and interns get absolutely crushed. They take call and cover both St. Es (a level 1) and St. Joes and it means they have to run back and forth between the hospitals which are 25 minutes apart. This residency goes way over work hours and they admit it will be an issue with the merger. Warren and Youngstown are pretty terrible, very run down and not very safe. Location wise definitely one of the worse ones out there. But it is only an hour or so from Pittsburg and Cleveland. If location is not important then its obviously not a big deal.

Pros: Excellent operative experience, great autonomy, all subspecialties represented, not boards heavy at all.

Cons: Very fratty, must "fit" to get in here, above work ethic and boards, location is terrible, didactics outside of Fx conference is pretty much non-existent. Sketchy recruiting tactics. Lifestyle can be terrible.

 

[preptheleg]

Just wanted to say this review is spot on for Largo. One of the main issues with the program is their inability to operate out of a few of the hospitals their attendings goto. The residents here are awesome, some of the coolest group of guys I've met. I had the most fun everyday going to my rotation during my month here. These guys get great operative autonomy and graduate as excellent surgeons, as can be seen in their chiefs. Another one of their weaknesses is their didactics, its once a week and it can be a little too laid back after the fracture conference, where a lot of the time is spent joking around between residents. Word is during the interview that they are working to hire more attendings at the base hospital, so hopefully their volume will go up there. Currently however their volume is too dependent on their PD, who only operates out of Largo on certain weeks.

Want to add that they take 2 a year, no females, and they interview in mid december, so you can rotate late at this program. Do love boards, but above 600s it really is dependent on personality.

Agree with both above posts. Largo is overall very fratty brogram with early OR experience, resident camaraderie, family friendly lifestyle and beach living, and small-hospital feel where the other residents and staff all know each other. However their volume is lacking at the base hospital and their strongest rotations are done during aways, i.e. Bayfront Trauma, D1 sports, joints at the VA, etc. Didactics are also weak, although the residents are pretty well-read so they must just do so on their own time. Research minimal, up to resident to seek out attendings looking for a paper. These factors are increasingly important with the pending ACGME merger and Largo will need to ramp up the academic aspects of the program if they want to make the cut.

 

[orthoDO16]

Program: Larkin 2016 (South Miami)

General: This is a new program in South Miami. Takes 4 a year. First and foremost this program is extremely board and research heavy. I'm not sure about this match, but in previous they would interview almost exclusively based on board scores (highest 40 get interviews) and then research. There is very little emphasis put on rotating through and auditions by the PD. Most people at the interview had not rotated through, even for 2 weeks like myself. There was an issue with rotations and they only had 10-ish students come through the service. It is also very joints heavy as the PD (Lavernia) is a big name in joints literature. As a resident you spend 3 months, I believe, on his service which is exclusively a joints service. There is also a fellow, usually from a latin america country doing some time with Lavernia then heading back to his country to practice. Also, better learn spanish because 90% of the patients speak spanish and the hospital/office staff. The base hospital is very small and very old. There is absolutely no trauma that comes through the base hospital. The entire ortho service at Larkin is the PDs/asst PDs joints service and a small contract with the local prisons which amounts to not much.

Attendings: Dr. Lavernia is a huge name. He will likely result in decent fellowship placements eventually because of his ability to make phone calls. He operates 1 day a week mostly, and doesn't do non-elective cases. Exclusively joints all the time. He cares about the residents but is also very busy. Interested in teaching but is so far along that it seems he's a bit out of touch with non-advanced arthroplasty stuff which is critical for interns/young residents to know. Puts a great emphasis on OITE. The largest emphasis I saw anywhere. The assistant PD is a recent fellowship grad from HSS and is a Lavernia disciple. He's more or less the person that handles the residents. He's young and knowledgable and knows what to teach the residents. Does a few joints per week but his practice is still growing though it may be difficult for it to flourish in the shadow of Lavernias. The other attendings are big in Hand, and one general guy. Don't really see them as students but the residents liked them all.

Residents: A good group. 4 interns are all very smart and know their stuff. They do spend a lot of time doing orthobullets and reading yellow journal so it's expected. They are all very nice and welcoming to the students and will answer any questions. The 2s were mostly out at different away rotations but are all pretty solid. A few of them enjoy the Miami night life when they can.

Didactics: Weak. There is no real fracture conference (probably because there aren't any fractures). The PD will have a lecture maybe once a week at different times and it seems to always be on biomechanics/biomaterials stuff. Every monday AM is a journal club which is well run, they go over yellow journal articles (3-4) and discuss with an attending. They lack any kind of schedule with didactics so you never know what's coming. The residents do most of their work on their own (which they have time for due to low volume). As a student you sit in the back quietly. Read the journal club articles which are generally pretty good material to know as a student anyways. Never discussed a fracture. Not once. Also will do a presentation at the end of the rotation for the residents and PD on a topic of your choosing (think joints). Also, go to grand rounds at the University of Miami every week. Generally pretty boring.

Operative Experience: Limited. At the base hospital (Larkin) it is next to nothing. The only thing going on is joints which the residents assist on. Unfortunately, there are consistently, 5-7 people scrubbed for the cases including a latin American fellow (very nice guys btw) and a PA or 2, and the asst PD. So as the resident there is not much space for you and they seemed to end up standing at the end of the table watching. As a student you almost never scrub. They do out rotations for Trauma at University of Virginia starting as a 2 where they seem to get most of their operative experience. They go back every year for 3 months. Also do Peds at Cinci for 3 months every year. This is really the only way they can get enough cases. And it would seem likely that at times they will take the backseat to UVa residents and all the other residents in Cinci because they are so new. I can't speak for the other out rotations within Miami itself but the residents seem to indicate that they have little autonomy.

Clinic Experience: Frequent. They run the PDs clinic (although in Spanish, so practice up) 4 days a week which is exhausting. They also do clinic for the other attendings in the Miami area. There is a bug PA presence (3 of them) and because they are fluent in spanish it seems they take priority in clinic over the residents. If you love not understanding what your patients are saying in clinic then here you go. Also, the PAs seem to dictate the resident's schedule which is awkward at times.

Research: Huge. Every resident does a project every year. This is a real strength of the program. They have a huge database of information to draw off of for arthroplasty-related research. The residents will get published and probably in some nice journals. No question the biggest strength of the program.

Lifestyle: Excellent. Miami is a fun place to be if you're single, probably not with a family. Expensive to live down there though and the resident make very little oddly. Lots of down time due to low volume. Also, spend 6 months every year doing aways at UVa and Cinci so if you have a family that could be an issue. There was always talk of getting this place or that place for trauma or Peds but nothing materialized in the short time I was there (certainly could have by now though).

Pros: Research in joints and lifestyle. A solid group of residents that are unfortunately, lacking in operative skills. Hopefully for the residents there is improvement in the local rotations. They need to be able to take real ortho call at some decent sized hospitals (Level II maybe).

Cons: Operative experience. They operated the least of any place I saw. They also take 4 residents a year which is baffling, feels like a program that could maybe handle 2 a year. Their best assets are the aways at UVa and Cinci which obviously as a student you don't see. I'm not sure how this new program will fare with merger.

Boards & research--if you don't have a 650+ and some publications do not bother. Also, if you do meet those criteria then don't rotate. They'll interview you regardless and put no emphasis on the fact that you didn't rotate. This is a program run by MDs that will likely only take MDs in future post-merger matches. They operate very little early on and love research more than any place I saw.

 

[Duotone]

Program: St. Joe's in Warren, Ohio

General: This program is a small program based out of St. Joes, a small community hospital in Warren and St. Elizabeth, which is a level 1 trauma center in downtown Youngstown about 25 minutes away. Takes 2 a year, no girls in the program, interview in early November (usually the day before the Doctors interview). This is a program that does not give a flying crap about your board scores. One of the first things they tell you is that board scores is the last thing they look at, and their decision is based solely on the students rotation. All specialties are in town and they have all subspecialties represented except for Tumor. This program prides itself on early operative experience and this is true. Starting intern year the residents are in the OR, and this trend continues until they graduate. However, this program has issues with the honesty with which they handle the audition process. The reputation this program has had is that they frequently schedule their interview the day before Doctors and other programs interviews, then tell the students they want that they have a spot, but they must cancel the other interviews in order to retain their spot. Also, this year one of the 2 spots went to the previous PD's daughter, who is still an attending at the program. Due to the previous positive reviews on this site, this program also has way wayyyyyy too many students rotating through each month. When I was there, and the months following there were consistently 11-15+ students on service, and many times it felt there were too many students and they didn't really know what to do with us. If you do the math, you're talking about 60+ students rotating through essentially 1 spot this year.

Attendings: This program has excellent attendings that are all very hands off in the OR. They have all subspecialties in house with attendings that trained at prestigious institutions. Dr. J their PD will frequently run 4 rooms at once and the only surgeons in the room will be residents with him coming in intermittently. Every attending is nice and interested in resident teaching, definitely one of the plusses of the program.

Residents: 10 residents with pretty similar personalities. Most are nice and fairly laid back, however a few definitely are pretty stand offish in some instances. The residents all fit a pretty similar mold, and if you don't fit into that mold you definitely feel a little out of place there (as I did). One positive is that the residents are all very interested in student teaching, and will take time to make sure you improve your ortho understanding during your month here.

Didactics: They have a fracture conference once a week at St. Elizabeth that is attended by many attendings. One of the better fracture conferences I've seen outside of doctors. A lot of great debates between their attendings and is a great learning experience for residents and students. They also have a dedicated 4 hour period every friday for didactics, but these are essentially a waste of time, poor resident lectures and sometimes the residents get together, shoot the crap and then just decide to leave hours early. On some months they will have dedicated student Fracture conferences where the students read all the fractures and are pimped by the residents. This is a great learning experience for the students and I definitely feel like my Ortho knowledge improved 10 fold after this month.

Operative Experience: Excellent, with great operative autonomy. However sometimes it feels like there is too much autonomy, as in instances where the 4s and 3s are doing complex surgeries without the attending even present. I guess this could be just that they are very confident but with the attending running 4 other ORs it begs the question of safety and how much you are learning from your attendings. That being said, definitely one of the best Op experiences I saw on the trail. Tons of cases.

Clinic Experience: Apparently this is restarting, but didn't see it on my month.

Research: Not talked about, not emphasized.

Lifestyle: Lifestyle is pretty bad up until 3rd year. The 2nd years and interns get absolutely crushed. They take call and cover both St. Es (a level 1) and St. Joes and it means they have to run back and forth between the hospitals which are 25 minutes apart. This residency goes way over work hours and they admit it will be an issue with the merger. Warren and Youngstown are pretty terrible, very run down and not very safe. Location wise definitely one of the worse ones out there. But it is only an hour or so from Pittsburg and Cleveland. If location is not important then its obviously not a big deal.

Pros: Excellent operative experience, great autonomy, all subspecialties represented, not boards heavy at all.

Cons: Very fratty, must "fit" to get in here, above work ethic and boards, location is terrible, didactics outside of Fx conference is pretty much non-existent. Sketchy recruiting tactics. Lifestyle can be terrible.

This is a spot-on analysis of St Joe's by OrthoReview 123.

As for the number of students on rotation this cycle, it was a fallout from the program over-reacting and throwing their doors open after the previous year's experience when they had a comparative dearth of students on audition rotation. So they threw the doors open this cycle and got swarmed.
The strongest feature in this program is EARLY O.R. EXPOSURE and OPERATING AUTONOMY.
It's not unheard of for their residents to run through an anterior hip with absolutely no supervision except for Dr J dropping in every half hour to check the clock. The 3s here can run through a TKA with a 5 supervising and a 4 retracting.
A freshly-minted PGY5 in this program is groomed ready to hit the ground running with less than a year to go. The two residents they produced last year are top-cut prime in their game and would stand shoulder to shoulder with any ortho resident from any program in the country. They exude immense confidence in their operating ability yet with a very humble demeanor.
The program is very "bro-ish" and they emphasize fit more than any other feature. It will be fun to see how their first female resident will blend into that atmosphere.
The residents and attendings each get an equal vote in who gets in; so it pays to really get to know and work with all of them during your rotation.

 

[OrthoReview123]

Program: Franciscan St. James in Olympia Fields, IL

General: This is the "Chicago program", a community program based out of Franciscan St. James in Olympia Fields and Chicago heights, but it really is more of a consortium program where residents spend the vast majority of their time rotating through large academic institutions in the greater Chicago area. The residents in this program spend about a total of 1 out of their five years rotating through their base hospital, the rest of the time is spent rotating through Advocate Christ Medical Center (Level 1), Cook County (Level 1), and Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center (level 1). They also do Joints rotations at University of Chicago, Hand rotation at Northwestern, their Peds at Shriners hospital for children in Chicago and finally more subspecialty rotations at Ingalls medical center. Some of these rotations are exclusive to the St. James residency, many of them are together with other residencies in the city including University of Illinois Chicago, University of Chicago and Northwestern residents. All subspecialties is represented within Chicago. The program takes 4 a year, and there are numerous females within the program. Their focus now is becoming more academic, so the PD is really focusing in on board scores, however rotations are still essential to match here. There is also a pretty heavy CCOM bias, I heard they took 3 CCOM students this year out of their 4 spots. And in previous years there is usually at least 1 CCOM student that matches. Their seniors match into great fellowships, one chief going to Andrews for sports, and another to University of Chicago for joints. Franciscan St. James is undergoing a reorganization, and they are spending 100+ million dollars to renovate their base hospital. This program was nearly impossible to find information on, and that's too bad, because in my experience this program has the best balance of operating experience, research opportunities, didactics, and location I saw on the trail, despite having some issues, I think this program is one of the top programs in the country.

Attendings: It is difficult to assess this program even if you rotate, as a student you only goto Chicago heights and Olympia Fields, and this is by far their weakest rotation as they only have 2 attendings here, their PD Dr. Payne who is a spine trained, and Dr. Mehl who is a joints/general guy. Dr. Payne basically scrubs in and shoots the crap with everyone while the residents do his cases (ACDFs, Joints and everything in between) and Dr. Mehl is also very hands off and lets the residents do his cases, although he loves to yell and make fun of the students and residents during his cases. The rest of the 90% of the residency is spent in the aforementioned medical centers in Chicago, where they work closely with over 40+ attendings, unfortunately as a student you do not get to see this side of the residency. However, in speaking with a friend in one of the MD ortho residencies in town that works with St. James residents, there is a lot of mutual respect between the residencies, and there is always one on one attending to resident ratio in their cases with tons of autonomy for the residents. It was pretty impressive to see the attendings that showed up at St. James on their interview day, including the chief of Orthopedics at Cook county and and the chief of orthopedics at Advocate Christ Medical Center. Both seemed very invested in their resident training, and really took time to get to know me as an applicant and to sell me on the residency. But again, some of this is not first hand experience, though if it is even half of what they describe, than this place works with top notch attendings.

Residents: Hard to assess cause you only get to meet about 3 during your rotation, while all the other ones are spread out all over Chicago. The 2 chiefs I met were very nice, and their skills in the OR were second to none that I saw on the trail. They were extremely competent and confident, and it was impressive to see the Chief confidently run through ACDFs, joints, compelx shoulder scopes and other cases with Dr. Payne standing on the side just chatting with the students. The 3rd year on Dr. Mehl's service was also very nice, and was laid back and made sure not to waste students time when there's nothing going on. I also saw him confidently run through joints, scopes, retrograde nails with minimal assistance from the attending. These guys know how to operate, and the operating experience they say they get on all of their rotations shows in the OR. The other residents seemed nice during interview day, but you did get the sense that they don't have the sense of camaraderie because they are always spread out and it is a pretty large residency.

Didactics: The St. James residents all get together once a week for 4-5 hours downtown where they usually have an attending lecture, fracture conference, a resident lecture, and run through Orthobullets questions. This program is also on the Ortho 365 program through orthobullets, just like Doctors in columbus and big MD programs like harvard. This program had the most structured Didactics I saw, where each of the 4 sessions I went to there were always attendings there giving inputs to the topic being discussed that day. In addition, the residents also attend didactics at the separate hospitals they rotate through, including fracture conference and specialty specific lectures. The unfortunate part about their didactics is that it is pretty central, and depending on where you live (suburbs) it can be a bit of a drive.

Operative Experience: Top notch, however at their base institution they only have 2 attendings, and although case volume is high for those 2, it seems they can only really have 3 residents there at one time to ensure there is no double scrubbing. The residents all told me that St. James was their weakest rotation in terms of operative autonomy, which is pretty amazing considering the attendings basically let the residents run the show at St. James. These residents know how to operate, and it shows in their confidence in the OR, the chiefs were heads and shoulders above some of the others at other programs. The residents boast about their rotations, and I'm inclined to believe them seeing how skillful they are in the OR, but again, you don't get to see their other rotations first hand.

Clinic Experience: No true resident clinic, you basically attend clinic with the attending you're with that block. The residents get autonomy in this setting and seem to get good clinical training, however clinic is clinic.

Research: Seemed to be pretty emphasized, their PD is an MD and cares about research. All 3 residents on service had projects going, and one of them was doing research with the University of Illinois Chicago residents and attendings they work with. They have a lot of resources due to the big name attendings they work with at University of Chicago, Northwestern, and Cook County among others.

Lifestyle: Hard to gauge, at their home institution it seemed pretty laid back as they can take home call, they rounded at about 6 and usually left between 4-6pm. But apparently they can get pretty busy because they spend most of their time at the three level 1 trauma centers. Also the commute can get pretty brutal, if you're like most of the residents, you're commuting from the loop in downtown, which depending on your rotation, can range from walking distance to over an hour in rush hour traffic. Though nothing is over 35 minutes when there is no traffic in the mornings. The nice thing is that for each block rotation, you're at one hospital for 3 months, so you don't have to run between hospitals every day, but again, the commute, especially in chicago traffic plus in snow can probably get pretty tedious.

Pros: Excellent rotations through some of the busiest and biggest medical centers in Chicago. Tons of big name attendings that seem invested in the residency and resident education. Good research, great didactics, one of the best Op experiences I saw anywhere on the trail. Also place in great fellowships. Get to live in chicago which is a pretty sweet city.

Cons: Get to see too little as a student on auditions, too many students as well (8+ on any given month). chicago is nice but commute can get tedious and weather can be pretty crappy. Perhaps too dependent on out rotations, but out rotations all seem very invested in the residency. CCOM bias. Boards heavy.

 

[OrthoReview123]

Community Memorial Health System in Ventura, CA (Did not Rotate but Interviewed)
This is a new program based out of a small community hospital in Ventura. Their oldest residents are PGY-3 currently, have been taking 2 a year but will be taking 3-4/year moving forward, no females in the program as of yet. Being a new program it obviously still is undergoing some growing pains but from all indications this seems to be a great program. There is a solid group of core attendings at CMHS that are all very invested in resident training and seem to give residents a lot of autonomy in the OR, which I confirmed through speaking with the residents and other students who rotated through the program. They have Dr. Small, a UCLA trained spine surgeon, Dr. Horvath the PD and a generalist, Dr. Golden, also a general orthopedist who is also very invested in the program, and 2 sports trained guys from HSS and Kerlan Jobe. One of the big issues with this program that people were concerned about was their Trauma exposure, but starting last year they have started working with the traumatologists at the Ventura County hospital trauma center down the street. The Trauma attendings were at the interview and seemed to LOVE the residents from CMHS, and it was pretty amazing to hear how much they let the residents do and how little scutwork they give the residents. One of them felt bad that she made the residents do the post-op orders!

There is a sense of rapid expansion in this residency as there are more attendings at Ventura County Medical center and attendings with the largest private group in town Ventura Orthopedics that are waiting for the program to expand as most of them want residents, but the residency is not big enough to cover everyone. All subspecialties are available to the residents locally with the exception of Peds in Orange County about 2 hours drive away. However they provide residents with all housing and board down there so the residents don't seem to mind much. CMHS is also currently building a really nice replacement to their current building right next door, and when it is done early next year this hospital will be extremely nice and state of the art. We took a tour of the building and their ORs are going to be pretty darn amazing. Their case volume is also very high here, with the PGY3s currently having enough cases to graduate according to ACGME/AOA rules. The hospital also treats the residents extremely well, they pay for your phone bill, give you an ipad/laptop and pay the residents well also. Lifestyle currently is great, this program has one of the best locations in the country. Not being from CA it was pretty amazing to see that you can see the pacific from the hospital windows, and from what I hear the weather is always nice. Ventura seems to be a small sleepy beach town that's great for people who like the outdoors. Was not able to experience their didactics, but from what I heard from other students it was the standard resident lectures and OITE questions. Also cannot comment on fellowship placements due to the newness of the program, however they do work with 2 kerlan jobe grads from kaiser that are very involved with the residency, and the implication is that they will have the connections to get residents into this extremely prestigious sports fellowship. In fact, residents now frequently go to Kerlan Jobe down in LA with these attendings for work shops and didactics. All in all, I think this is a great program and will likely become one of the best ones on the West Coast.

 

[OrthoReview123]

Hughston Clinic in Columbus, GA/Phenix City, AL (Interviewed but no rotation).

This is also a new program based out of the prestigious Hughston Foundation, they operate out of Jack Hughston Memorial hospital, an orthopedic hospital in Phenix city, AL and Midtown Medical center in Columbus, GA. These two cities are essentially right next two eachother, separated by a river. Hughston Foundation is founded by Dr. Jack Hughston, arguably the father of American sports medicine, and his fellowship is where Dr. James Andrews received his sports training. As such this program has a lot of history behind it, as well as a lot of funding for the program. Prior to the residency there was only a Trauma Fellowship at midtown and a sports medicine fellowship here. It was pretty impressive to interview at this institution, and you easily get the sense that this program will be a top dog in the coming years. This place has its own dedicated anatomy lab, bioskills lab, it's own IRB for research, as well as their own statistician and medical illustrator that will make posters and presentations for you. In addition, it has its own dedicated orthopedics hospital, and its own trauma fellowship for trauma experience. The program was started by Dr. Robert Harris and Dr. David Macdonald. These two guys are legit. Dr. Harris has headed up both MD and DO residencies, and he most recently started another great residency in Wellmont before coming here. You can tell he has a wealth of experience to lead this residency to great things. There is a huge group of orthopedic surgeons within the Hughston Clinic that are taking residents and thus they have all subspecialties in town except for peds in Atlanta, which is about an hour drive away. These guys are heavy on boards, and Dr. Harris was not shy to admit that. Their associate PD is the head doc for Auburn sports, so there is obviously a lot of opportunities to work in high level collegiate sports.

In talking to residents and students that rotated there, they apparently have tons of cases and the attendings are all happy to let the residents do the cases if the residents are ready. There is a focus on research obviously and that will serve them well in the merger. Which by the way this program seems extremely well prepared to go through. I cannot comment on the lifestyle as I did not rotate there, however Columbus and Phenix city are smaller southern towns about an hour away from Atlanta. There is a heavy military presence in town from the nearby base. Though I may be biased cause I'm from the south, I think these towns have all the amenities you need, and its a great place to raise a family. Their didactics are apparently very lecture and attending driven, but the residents admit there are still kinks to work out. All in all you get the sense that this program will become an absolute powerhouse in the coming years, as they have all the history, leadership, motivation and funding to make this program great.

 

[orthobonk]

Community Memorial Health System in Ventura, CA (Did not Rotate but Interviewed)
This is a new program based out of a small community hospital in Ventura. Their oldest residents are PGY-3 currently, have been taking 2 a year but will be taking 3-4/year moving forward, no females in the program as of yet. Being a new program it obviously still is undergoing some growing pains but from all indications this seems to be a great program. There is a solid group of core attendings at CMHS that are all very invested in resident training and seem to give residents a lot of autonomy in the OR, which I confirmed through speaking with the residents and other students who rotated through the program. They have Dr. Small, a UCLA trained spine surgeon, Dr. Horvath the PD and a generalist, Dr. Golden, also a general orthopedist who is also very invested in the program, and 2 sports trained guys from HSS and Kerlan Jobe. One of the big issues with this program that people were concerned about was their Trauma exposure, but starting last year they have started working with the traumatologists at the Ventura County hospital trauma center down the street. The Trauma attendings were at the interview and seemed to LOVE the residents from CMHS, and it was pretty amazing to hear how much they let the residents do and how little scutwork they give the residents. One of them felt bad that she made the residents do the post-op orders!

There is a sense of rapid expansion in this residency as there are more attendings at Ventura County Medical center and attendings with the largest private group in town Ventura Orthopedics that are waiting for the program to expand as most of them want residents, but the residency is not big enough to cover everyone. All subspecialties are available to the residents locally with the exception of Peds in Orange County about 2 hours drive away. However they provide residents with all housing and board down there so the residents don't seem to mind much. CMHS is also currently building a really nice replacement to their current building right next door, and when it is done early next year this hospital will be extremely nice and state of the art. We took a tour of the building and their ORs are going to be pretty darn amazing. Their case volume is also very high here, with the PGY3s currently having enough cases to graduate according to ACGME/AOA rules. The hospital also treats the residents extremely well, they pay for your phone bill, give you an ipad/laptop and pay the residents well also. Lifestyle currently is great, this program has one of the best locations in the country. Not being from CA it was pretty amazing to see that you can see the pacific from the hospital windows, and from what I hear the weather is always nice. Ventura seems to be a small sleepy beach town that's great for people who like the outdoors. Was not able to experience their didactics, but from what I heard from other students it was the standard resident lectures and OITE questions. Also cannot comment on fellowship placements due to the newness of the program, however they do work with 2 kerlan jobe grads from kaiser that are very involved with the residency, and the implication is that they will have the connections to get residents into this extremely prestigious sports fellowship. In fact, residents now frequently go to Kerlan Jobe down in LA with these attendings for work shops and didactics. All in all, I think this is a great program and will likely become one of the best ones on the West Coast.

This review is spot on. I rotated there and was impressed. It is definitely a gem and will likely become an excellent program as it continues to expand.

The attendings are very invested in the program and give residents tons of autonomy.

The residents get excellent operative experience starting immediately during intern year. The 2's and 3's there were operating at the level of 4's and 5's at most of the other places I rotated.

One afternoon/week is devoted to didactics. They get a new cadaver each year that lasts a few months, so following lectures you go to the lab. Fracture conference is once every two weeks, and covers all the impressive trauma that comes through Ventura County Medical Center, as well a good bit of community trauma that comes through CMH. All of the attendings are present, including the traumatologists. As stated above, the concerns about trauma exposure are no longer relevant since residents are now rotating through VCMC down the street. That place gets tons of trauma, inlcuding pelvic and acetabular.

Ventura is a cool town and great for people who like the beach and the outdoors. There's a lot of nice restaurants and bars. There's good surfing in town and good hiking and other outdoorsy activities a half hour away up in the mountains. The only down side of the area is that the cost of living is very high.

The brand new hospital looks like it will be very nice, state of the art with nice views of the Pacific and Channel Islands.

They appreciate high board scores, but a solid audition rotation and being a good fit seemed to be key for this program.

 

[orthodude12345]

Program: Larkin Community Hospital

I interviewed here back in December 2015. I think it's a good program, but some improvements need to be made (read below).

PD- Dr. Lavernia is the PD at this program. Very skilled surgeon. His walls are littered with awards and honors. Not only is he an orthopedic surgeon, but he's also an engineer and uses his skills in his practice. He performs advanced orthopedic surgeries such as the makoplasty (which is unheard of at other places). Very well connected as well; getting a fellowship at a nice institution should not be a problem after graduating from this place.

Residents- Take 4 per year. Currently 4 interns, 4 PGY2s, and 1 PGY3. The residents I met were probably the nicest I have come across in my audition/interview trail.Very friendly, non-malignant and understanding. Always willing to help and answer questions. Get along very well with each other.

Rotations- The joint service is in-house. They do 3 months of trauma in Virginia years 2-5, which I have heard is an amazing experience. Hand is with the legendary Dr. Orbay who created the distal volar radius plate. Residents are trying to get oncology and possibly trauma in Miami. Peds in Cincinnati. Not sure about some of the other rotations. More rotations are yet to be set up since they don't yet have PGY4/5s.

OR/Surgical experience- This is lacking. Not many cases in the week, and residents apparently don't get to do a lot in the cases they get to scrub into. A lot of time is spent in the clinic.

Overall, if the program had more surgical exposure for the residents, it would be an awesome program.

 

[itrules]

Does anyone have some info on the Wellmont program?

 

[OrthoPathic]

Program: Franciscan St. James in Olympia Fields, IL

General: This is the "Chicago program", a community program based out of Franciscan St. James in Olympia Fields and Chicago heights, but it really is more of a consortium program where residents spend the vast majority of their time rotating through large academic institutions in the greater Chicago area. The residents in this program spend about a total of 1 out of their five years rotating through their base hospital, the rest of the time is spent rotating through Advocate Christ Medical Center (Level 1), Cook County (Level 1), and Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center (level 1). They also do Joints rotations at University of Chicago, Hand rotation at Northwestern, their Peds at Shriners hospital for children in Chicago and finally more subspecialty rotations at Ingalls medical center. Some of these rotations are exclusive to the St. James residency, many of them are together with other residencies in the city including University of Illinois Chicago, University of Chicago and Northwestern residents. All subspecialties is represented within Chicago. The program takes 4 a year, and there are numerous females within the program. Their focus now is becoming more academic, so the PD is really focusing in on board scores, however rotations are still essential to match here. There is also a pretty heavy CCOM bias, I heard they took 3 CCOM students this year out of their 4 spots. And in previous years there is usually at least 1 CCOM student that matches. Their seniors match into great fellowships, one chief going to Andrews for sports, and another to University of Chicago for joints. Franciscan St. James is undergoing a reorganization, and they are spending 100+ million dollars to renovate their base hospital. This program was nearly impossible to find information on, and that's too bad, because in my experience this program has the best balance of operating experience, research opportunities, didactics, and location I saw on the trail, despite having some issues, I think this program is one of the top programs in the country.

Attendings: It is difficult to assess this program even if you rotate, as a student you only goto Chicago heights and Olympia Fields, and this is by far their weakest rotation as they only have 2 attendings here, their PD Dr. Payne who is a spine trained, and Dr. Mehl who is a joints/general guy. Dr. Payne basically scrubs in and shoots the crap with everyone while the residents do his cases (ACDFs, Joints and everything in between) and Dr. Mehl is also very hands off and lets the residents do his cases, although he loves to yell and make fun of the students and residents during his cases. The rest of the 90% of the residency is spent in the aforementioned medical centers in Chicago, where they work closely with over 40+ attendings, unfortunately as a student you do not get to see this side of the residency. However, in speaking with a friend in one of the MD ortho residencies in town that works with St. James residents, there is a lot of mutual respect between the residencies, and there is always one on one attending to resident ratio in their cases with tons of autonomy for the residents. It was pretty impressive to see the attendings that showed up at St. James on their interview day, including the chief of Orthopedics at Cook county and and the chief of orthopedics at Advocate Christ Medical Center. Both seemed very invested in their resident training, and really took time to get to know me as an applicant and to sell me on the residency. But again, some of this is not first hand experience, though if it is even half of what they describe, than this place works with top notch attendings.

Residents: Hard to assess cause you only get to meet about 3 during your rotation, while all the other ones are spread out all over Chicago. The 2 chiefs I met were very nice, and their skills in the OR were second to none that I saw on the trail. They were extremely competent and confident, and it was impressive to see the Chief confidently run through ACDFs, joints, compelx shoulder scopes and other cases with Dr. Payne standing on the side just chatting with the students. The 3rd year on Dr. Mehl's service was also very nice, and was laid back and made sure not to waste students time when there's nothing going on. I also saw him confidently run through joints, scopes, retrograde nails with minimal assistance from the attending. These guys know how to operate, and the operating experience they say they get on all of their rotations shows in the OR. The other residents seemed nice during interview day, but you did get the sense that they don't have the sense of camaraderie because they are always spread out and it is a pretty large residency.

Didactics: The St. James residents all get together once a week for 4-5 hours downtown where they usually have an attending lecture, fracture conference, a resident lecture, and run through Orthobullets questions. This program is also on the Ortho 365 program through orthobullets, just like Doctors in columbus and big MD programs like harvard. This program had the most structured Didactics I saw, where each of the 4 sessions I went to there were always attendings there giving inputs to the topic being discussed that day. In addition, the residents also attend didactics at the separate hospitals they rotate through, including fracture conference and specialty specific lectures. The unfortunate part about their didactics is that it is pretty central, and depending on where you live (suburbs) it can be a bit of a drive.

Operative Experience: Top notch, however at their base institution they only have 2 attendings, and although case volume is high for those 2, it seems they can only really have 3 residents there at one time to ensure there is no double scrubbing. The residents all told me that St. James was their weakest rotation in terms of operative autonomy, which is pretty amazing considering the attendings basically let the residents run the show at St. James. These residents know how to operate, and it shows in their confidence in the OR, the chiefs were heads and shoulders above some of the others at other programs. The residents boast about their rotations, and I'm inclined to believe them seeing how skillful they are in the OR, but again, you don't get to see their other rotations first hand.

Clinic Experience: No true resident clinic, you basically attend clinic with the attending you're with that block. The residents get autonomy in this setting and seem to get good clinical training, however clinic is clinic.

Research: Seemed to be pretty emphasized, their PD is an MD and cares about research. All 3 residents on service had projects going, and one of them was doing research with the University of Illinois Chicago residents and attendings they work with. They have a lot of resources due to the big name attendings they work with at University of Chicago, Northwestern, and Cook County among others.

Lifestyle: Hard to gauge, at their home institution it seemed pretty laid back as they can take home call, they rounded at about 6 and usually left between 4-6pm. But apparently they can get pretty busy because they spend most of their time at the three level 1 trauma centers. Also the commute can get pretty brutal, if you're like most of the residents, you're commuting from the loop in downtown, which depending on your rotation, can range from walking distance to over an hour in rush hour traffic. Though nothing is over 35 minutes when there is no traffic in the mornings. The nice thing is that for each block rotation, you're at one hospital for 3 months, so you don't have to run between hospitals every day, but again, the commute, especially in chicago traffic plus in snow can probably get pretty tedious.

Pros: Excellent rotations through some of the busiest and biggest medical centers in Chicago. Tons of big name attendings that seem invested in the residency and resident education. Good research, great didactics, one of the best Op experiences I saw anywhere on the trail. Also place in great fellowships. Get to live in chicago which is a pretty sweet city.

Cons: Get to see too little as a student on auditions, too many students as well (8+ on any given month). chicago is nice but commute can get tedious and weather can be pretty crappy. Perhaps too dependent on out rotations, but out rotations all seem very invested in the residency. CCOM bias. Boards heavy.

Excellent break down of the chicago program. I rotated here for a month and was thoroughly impressed. In my experience as well this was the most balanced and complete program in the country. I agree that the rotation as a student is not stellar but you can just tell this is a much sought after program and it is very well structured.

 

[HgbTrotter]

Could anyone who rotated at Botsford give their thoughts on the program?

 

[Buckeye(OH)]

I thought, since Im the new peds attending, I could give a little info.

While what has said, is true, with Dr. Miller revamping everything to make us ACGME, I've not made an incision on one of my patients (sans spine) since December.

Our program is extremely operatively based. I started practice in September and found the PGY3 residents very capable of handling themselves operatively.

I could not say the same of the residents where I did my fellowship, which is arguably the best residency in the country.

Toledo may not be the best location in which to train, but you WILL walk out of here with your head held high.

 

[GlowInTheDark]

Anybody hear of any new programs for 2017?

 

[SportsOrtho13]

Anyone have information or a review on the Kingsport, TN program? Thank you!

 

[FunkyBones]

Program: UH Regional Hospitals in Richmond Heights, OH

This program is a hidden gem. Not really on the radar the last few years but is really on the rise as it is merging with an MD program (CMC).

Attending’s: They primarily work with 12 attendings with others to be added soon. As a student you will only

work with a few of them. They all seem very reasonable and were pretty laid back

with the students. The PD is very involved, especially during fracture conference as

he loves to pimp the residents and students. He loves to breakdown cases and

expound on important learning points.


Residents: The residents were great to work with and seemed like they like to teach

in a nonmalignant way. Some have families, some don’t. For the most part, they are

one on one with attendings which is good for the younger guys to get earlier knife

time. Each week day, they all split up in the morning to cover their respective

community hospital/service. The residents seem to have a big say in who gets into the

program, and are all actively involved in recruiting people. This past year, they did

not take interns because they were unsure if they could guarantee they would

graduate after the AOA/ACGME merger in 2020. Now they are in the process of joining

with the Case Medical Center program (CMC). They are expected to start taking

three a year, and there is some talk of possibly taking 2 classes this year. But I think

there are still some details that need to be ironed out.


Didactics: Didactics consist of early morning quizzes/OITE prep, weekly articles,

weekly Miller’s readings, weekly resident lectures, bimonthly tumor lectures with

the CMC PD (who does ortho onc), monthly grand rounds at CMC, monthly journal

club, quarterly sawbones and cadavear lab. They majority of their didactics

however come on Friday afternoon at fracture conference. The PD is always present

for this and leads most discussions. It usually runs for about 4 hours and is pretty

helpful in understanding different injuries and the treatment options. The residents

usually critique each other and discuss what they would have done differently.


Operative experience: Residents are mostly single scrubbed with an attending. I

noticed that even the junior residents are getting a decent amount of time operating

experience with supervision but of course this depends on the surgeon. A few

surgeons will stand to the side and watch you struggle for a while before stepping in.


Clinical experience: Per ACGME guidelines they adhere to the 2 half days blocks of

office per week. Some services are more office than others and a few don’t have any

office. But for the most part there is a little office mixed with the operative time


Research: Minimal, but the affiliation with CMC will open the door for those

interested in research as CMC is a huge research facility


Lifestyle: Overall a great lifestyle. Call is home call and is split pretty evenly

between each year. One person is on call each day and will field new consults and

ED calls to the residents at the respective hospitals. After 5pm when the normal

work day has ended, the on call resident is responsible for completing the consults

by driving to see the patient. Sometimes call is pretty light, while other times it can

get pretty busy. Weekends (Fri, Sat, Sun) are covered by a single on call resident

and back up resident who helps with rounding and cases. This means that if you are

not on call or backup, you are generally off for the weekend


Pros: Residents and attendings work as a team with very minimal scut work.

Residents get together every now and then outside of work. The addition of

rotations at CMC will take this program to the top of the list. Currently 3 months of

Peds at CMC Rainbow Babies, and 2 months of tumor at CMC during PGY2. 2 months

of spine at CMC, 4 months of trauma at level 1 center in phoenix AZ during PGY 3. 2

months of trauma at CMC (level I) and 3 months of peds in cincinatti during PGY 4.

Early operative experience. Cleveland is full of just about anything for anybody.

Call can be light and is at home.


Cons: A lot of driving. Call can be busy, which again equals a lot of driving.


Board scores: The PD is not shy about admitting he likes good board scores, but

because the residents have a strong pull in who gets interviewed and accepted,

personality and work ethic are also important.

 

[orthoDO16]

Nassau University Medical Center, East Meadow, NY

General: Interviewed at this program and spent time at the hospital as a student. This is a level 1 trauma center in the heart of Long Island. A tremendous amount of trauma rolls through this hospital. Open long bone fractures are very frequent, several per week, pelvis and acetabulum fractures are fairly common. And your standard distal radius, both bone forearm, ankle fractures and HIP FRACTURES for days. Residents are extremely proficient at reducing pretty much everything halfway through intern year. This program also covers a lot of spine and spine trauma. This program will certainly merge with ACGME. It's run by MDs and DOs alike. They are very active in their ACGME accreditation process. This program is currently a rotation site for the Plainview senior residents. They cover cases and help educate as there are only 3 classes of NUMC residents.

Attendings: PD is a high level sports guy who specializes in shoulder and knees. He's young and eager to build the program up. Two trauma attendings that do the pelvis and acetabulum work. The senior of the two trauma attendings is incredibly good. He's one of the best surgeons in the NY area and trained most the guys on long island. The junior of the sports attendings is excellent and involved in the program. The rest of the attendings are involved by also do cases else where. For the most part the attendings let the residents fly with most cases. Interns are capable of throwing nails and making approaches on most trauma cases. Residents also rotate at out hospital for elective cases like joints and scopes. Cincinnati for peds even though they seem to get a lot of supracondylar and general peds cases through the ED.

Operative Experience: Level 1 trauma center with all the associated cases that come with it. These residents operate early and often. These residents will graduate with enough trauma to comfortably handle anything they'd see with the exception of maybe acetabulum. Plateaus, pilons, long bones, proximal humerus will all be wheel house cases for these graduates.

Didactics: Seems to be solid from what we were told. I'm sure there is improvements to be made as this is a new program.

Research: The PD places an emphasis on research as this will soon be an ACGME program. All the attendings are actively involved in research and help the residents.

Lifestyle: These guys work a lot. More than most programs for sure. With all the trauma they take in house call and without a full set of residents that means lots and lots of call. Interns take solo call after a few months. Lifestyle is pretty rough on these guys.

Cons: They cover clinic everyday and lifestyle is tough on them.

Board scores: Emphasis on board scores is definitely known. They don't really have rotators so interviews are usually based on board scores.

This will likely be an upper level program in two years when they get a full set of residents. The trauma experience is next to none with a slight gap in elective cases at this point. Lots of operating makes this an upper level DO program.

 

[Johnle89]

LAS VEGAS - VALLEY HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER

Program: Las Vegas, NV


General: Elite SPORTS teams and athletes + TRAUMA, world class athletic competitions on a weekly basis. Huge Case loads with large variety of cases, Not just trauma like other institutions, HAS Sports, Arthroplasty, Upper extremity, Hand, Foot and ankle, Spine, pretty much everything you need to be a well-rounded orthopod.


LOVED the LOCATION. Las Vegas has to be one of the best cities to train in. World famous for its entertainment. Extremely easy to fly into from anywhere in the country...AND FOOD in Las Vegas is hard to beat. America’s top Seafood buffets, Asian cuisine, Steak houses, Sushi bars, Mexican taco trucks, even Restaurants by Gordon Ramsay, Bobby Flay, Bazar Meat (one of the top steak houses in the world) and multiple Michelin star winning restaurants.


Resturants: https://www.vegas.com/traveltips/top-10-gourmet-las-vegas-restaurants/.

Nightlife:Most of the clubs are free if you live here...Britney spears, Mariah Carey, cirque du soleil, blue man, jabawakis, Celine dion, DJs, hip hop artist...

https://www.thrillist.com/drink/las-vegas/best-clubs-in-vegas-las-vegas-s-best-nightclubs



Bar scene is imposible to beat: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g45963-Activities-c20-t99-Las_Vegas_Nevada.html



Outdoor activities: If you love outdoor activities, You can rent a boat, Jet Ski, and kayak on Lake Mead(20 mins), snowboard and Ski at Mt Charleston (within 1 hr drive), a short drive to Zion national park(2.5 hrs), Southern California Beaches(3.5 hrs), Los Angeles(3hrs), San Diego, Orange County(4hrs), and the Grand Canyon. You can Hike and rock climb at red rock national park ( 15 minutes away)


Also, Las Vegas has many elite athletes, sporting events and soon starting a professional hockey team. The head UFC physician is an attending at Valley Hospital, so they all go there if they get knocked out.


They only take 2 residents per year and made it clear that they only grant interviews to auditioners


Attendings: Dr. Yee is the PD and is Sports Medicine trained. One of the smartest program directors around. He knows how to run a practice and is an amazing surgeon, very detail oriented. He takes care of some of the best athletes in the world (weightlifters, boxers, NFL players, MMA fighters, wrestlers, baseball players)


Dr Bascharon is the head physician of the Internal Mixed Martial Arts Federation, so all the residents were ringside during the largest tournament of the year.


Dr. Chan did fellowships in both trauma and foot and ankle, and loves to teach. He holds all the trauma didactics for the residents personally.


Dr. McGee is sports fellowship train but does a lot of trauma, foot and ankle cases as well

Dr. Lee does HUGE spine cases and operates almost everyday

Dr. Liu does sports and trauma. He loves to teach and is loved by all his patients

Dr. Hillock is the only orthopedic oncologic in Las Vegas, loves research, loves to teach.

They follow dozens of attending when doing trauma at University Medical Center (associated with UNLV) and at Children's hospital in Orange County (associated with UC Irvine), unfortunately students don’t get to rotate here but it seems like legit places to train.

UMC Attendings are apparently very hands off and will let the residents do all of their level 1 trauma cases

CHOC - pediatric rotations attendings seem like they expect a lot from their residents but their case load and operative experience is some of the best on the west coast


Residents: The Chief residents are extremely well rounded, well read, intelligent and most importantly skilled with their hands. I see why they nailed such great fellowships positions as the first graduating class, one is going to San Diego Center for Spinal disorders and the other is going to Wake Forest University for Adult reconstruction. Also, they definitely take great care of the Jr. residents and Interns, making sure they were getting the exposure and education they need to reach the next level. The PD is obviously choosing their residents based on board scores and ability to perform superiorly on their audition rotations. They are doing a lot of cases on their own and operating everyday.


Didactics: I really loved how didactics were run here. The seniors spent a large amount of time creating lectures on every topic throughout the years. This was much better than trying to learn from just orthobullets like most other programs do. I see how the residents here are scoring so well on their OITEs. They also have their own cadaver lab since they are associated with Touro University, and they are given 3 bodies for themselves to perfect their surgical approaches and ORIF techniques. Additionally, Dr. Bascharon holds education sessions going over surgical techniques with the residents on a weekly basis.


Operative Experience: They all have a packed OR schedule 7 days a week since they follow so many attendings all over the city and especially on their trauma and pediatric rotations. They are easily reaching their required numbers early in residency especially when they are doing 15+ cases on most days. The PGY1 are mostly at Valley Hosptial where they are exposed to every specialty, as well as Night medicine, ER, and ICU. PGY 2 rotate in Hand, general ortho, Trauma, Foot and ankle and sports, PGY 3 rotate Pediatrics in Orange County, California and spend the rest of the year at Valley Hospital doing spine, and general ortho. PGY 4 focus on Trauma at the University Medical Center (only level 1 trauma center in this crazy city), foot and ankle and spine, PGY 5 operate on everything. The autonomy is based on the attending they are with, but I saw the PGY 1 and 2 do full cases, and PGY 3, 4, 5 are really great at training the Jr residents.


Clinic Experience: Dr. Yee knows how to run a practice, seeing over 75 patients a day and doing over 40 cases a week, owns a surgery center, and his own practice. I worked with him all month and don’t understand how he does it and he is extremely well liked by his patients, great sense of humor, way more laid back than any other PD, but you can tell that his attention to detail and love for his patient’s really make him one of the top orthopedic surgeons in the country.


Research: All the residents have their own project and more. One of the chief residents has his PHD, which was the first I saw in a program. So they really emphasize the importance of presenting at national conference and more importantly publishing. They look for residents that have published at least 1 or 2 papers and/or have presented a few abstracts at national conferences.


Lifestyle: They all seem pretty busy all the time, from either being in the OR, clinic, didactics, cadaver lab or conducting research but the great thing about being in Vegas was that when they did need a breather it wasn’t hard to fine. Not to mention one of the residents owns a own cross fit gym, so the residents like to go there to unwind. I know some of the other residents like to climb, do brazilian Jiu-jitsu, collect nice cars, travel, and spend time with their families.


Pros: Lots of autonomy and operative experience early on. Best Sports Orthopedic surgeons in the country working for the most elite UFC, boxing, football, wrestling, soccer teams and soon Hockey team. You arent’t getting destroyed by having your home hospital being a level 1 trauma center, but you’ll see more trauma than you’ll ever want when they do rotate through trauma as a 2 and 4.


Cons:They have to drive a lot to different surgery centers on some rotations. Vegas can be distracting because of the night lif e

ACGME Accreditation: After speaking to the program director, program coordinator, attendings and residents, it doesn’t seem like they are going to have any trouble getting approved for ACGME accreditation. They are the second oldest DO program on the west coast and have the caseload and variety to get approved.