Big update compiled from interview experiences of three applicants (all PM&R) from this past interview season. The details slowly decrease with each program which was probably indicative of how tired we got towards the end of interview season, but we all matched and are very pleased with our programs so well worth it!
UC Irvine
Details
Solid program
Lot of ultrasound peripheral blocks
2 days/week of procedures
Inpatient acute pain with no calls during the week (blind thoracic epidurals)
2 fellows only, 1 PM&R and 1 anesthesia currently, next year 2 anesthesia
Interview ~50 for 2 spots
Interview Day/Questions
Tell me about a difficult case
Tell me about yourself (every attending)
Tell me something about yourself that's NOT on your CV
What would you tell patient about fibro
RN: how do you feel being told what to do from an RN
What do you feel is a weakness of pain medicine?
Where do you see yourself doing in the future?
Where do see pain going in the future?
Talk about leadership experience (what you gained)
Tell me the last peripheral block you did
What kind of practice you want
UT San Antonio Details
6 fellows, 3 anesthesia and 3 PM&R currently
Interview ~25-30 for 6 spots
Solid laid back program
Procedure logs: 1000+
Fluoro day 1 per week. Getting DSA soon. ~7-10 blocks per day
Ultrasound day 1.5 per week. Great exposure. Everything is image guided including trigger points. Pump refills.
2 months at the VA, 9 months at pain clinic. 10 clinic patients a day about, use epic; Rotate with addiction, palliative, psychiatry/psychology, PM&R, anesthesia, Neuro (headache clinic)
Setting up new rotation at army base in very near future
Didactics every morning, spine conference once per month with neurosurgery and radiology, grand rounds Thursday
Typical day starts at 7:30 ends by 3-4
No call essentially. No inpatient acute pain coverage
Majority Medicaid patients - blah. decent pain seeking population per fellows. Good variety of referral source.
Interventional clinic. Not really opioid heavy prescribing tendencies.
Low to nill vertebral augmentation (unless seek it out with Ortho spine/radiology)
Cancer pain is growing with new relationship but very low to no pumps.
Not research heavy but can involve yourself if you want
Good ancillary staff. Chill clinic atmosphere. 1 fluoro room. 1 u/s room
$1500 educational fund
Encourage conference attendance. No day off if work till noon!!
Fellows were happy
15-20 stims per year per fellow. Scrub the case with neurosurgery to learn how to do perms
Interview Day/Questions
Why pain
No CV pimping questions
Very get to know you type interview, tell me about yourself
Why pain and not spine or sports, difficult pain patient, experience about pain, difficult dealing with staff member, leadership role experience
UC Davis
Details
6 fellows – good mix of PM&R/Anesthesia – 5 August spots, 1 January spot (outside match)
They do not necessarily favor their own…fellows said they will take the best from wherever (2 fellows trained in the same residency even)
Did not tell how many the interview, even after asking in a few different ways
Kind of an intense morning compared to other places
Extremely academic environment, big name attendings (Fishman, Mahajan, etc)
Very involved in the AAPM organization
3 fluoro suites running, ~30 procedures a day total
Clinic has 8 patients a day per attending, 4 in the AM, 4 in the PM. attending run clinic…aka they do not NEED the fellows. PM&R and anesthesia residents rotate
They do NOT Rx opioids. They are consultants who only provide recommendations.
EPIC EMR/dragon dictation software, good templates, home access
Minimal pump exposure (0-3)
SCS (~10) including trials and implantations total… also heard the program does ~2/month
Sounds like a good number of bread and butter, but hard to get an exact number
No acute pain rotations. No epidural catheter management!!!!
Call schedule is very chill. Q6 weeks. Home call. Very rarely will get called in.
Scholarly activity is required, but sounds like even a case report would work, option to write book chapters with staff
Intense lecture schedule: daily noon lectures, daily morning journal clubs
August: Pain “boot camp” lecture series daily
Typical day: 7:45am – 4:30pm
Didactics are probably the best overall, very comprehensive, fellows seemed to be annoyed a bit but happy at the end of the day
Addiction medicine rotation, no electives
Curriculum designed to make you a leader in the field of pain medicine for sure
People were nice and it’s a solid program
Interview Day/Questions
Interviewed with 5-6 other applicants
Morning starts off sitting in on a journal club w/ continental breakfast
3 formal 1 on 1 interviews x 15 min each – structured hypothetical situation questions: how to deal with a difficult patient, how to deal with a difficult co-worker, tell me a time when you demonstrated leadership, etc.
20-30 minute group session with 2 staff where you discuss a case
The afternoon is “optional” where you can spend time in clinic and in the fluoro suite – good time to interact with different attending. Low stress feel.
Be sure to set aside some time for this interview day… flying in and out of Sacramento is a PITA
University of Utah
Details
- 4 fellows; all current ones are Anes but they said they matched someone from PM&R who will be starting in July. Not sure how many they’re interviewing but they only had 3 options for interview dates, 5 ppl on my day seemed to be high. They seem to take a few of their own so may not need to interview many.
- Super friendly, everyone calls each other by first name
- Fellows feel good about bread & butter (ESI, MBB, facets, RFA, SI), said only thing lacking was SCS. In follow up email with a recently graduated fellow, he said that he still didn’t feel comfortable with more complicated cases and usually asked one of his practice’s senior partners to help him out. Kinda worry about procedural volume.
- Excellent exposure to cancer pain, close association with Huntsman cancer center, lots of intrathecal pump placement and management. PD (Dr Brogan) is big with this!
- Acute pain service manages all PCAs, regional, etc
- Call is chill, lifestyle friendly program for sure
Interview Day/Questions
- Chill interview (asked about a couple things on CV, what I’m looking for in a Pain program, type of practice I see myself in in the future, more get to know you)
University of Toledo
Details
- 2 fellows: 1 Anes, 1 PM&R (internal) this year, 2 Anes next year
- 60 interviewees for 2 spots
- Tons of procedures; both fellows at > 1100 in June. Tons of SCS (20+ implants and trials/fellow), some pumps
- For 6 months, spend Wednesdays at University of Michigan. May start half days at St. Luke’s (local in Toledo). 9 months Pain clinic. 1 month each of non-primary specialty.
- Didactics 6:45AM daily on M/Tues/Thurs – videos; 7AM on FRI MCQ’s, Wed 7AM fellow presents 1x/month
- Journal club monthly, 4-5 per fellow
- Cadaver workshop twice a year
- Continuity clinic ½ day per week, 5-7 patients
- Inpatient service: 12-15 patients, only see educational cases, NP Coverage
- St. Lukes: new hospital; ½ days x 2 (may replace UMich eventually)
- Clinic numbers: patients 400/month, 120 new consults, 300 follow ups, 80 pump refills and post op implants
Interview Day/Questions
- Do you have any questions (a thousand times so have questions, no matter how irrelevant, ready to roll), Why Pain? What are your weaknesses? What’s a weakness in our program? Tell me about yourself
- Interview day kinda disorganized. Two PM&R faculty members do group interviews but don’t really interview… they just asked if we had any questions and told us stuff about the program we already knew. PD interview is in the afternoon and I get the sense he’s the guy you have to win over/impress.
University of Iowa
Details
- Previously had 4 fellows but going down to 3 (lost one due to funding); interviewing about 30-40 applicants
- In the process of hiring a new PD (?big wig)
- 2 internal anesthesia this year, however they like PM&R applicants.
- No internal anesthesia applying for 2015
- Previously involved a decent amount of Acute/Regional exposure but Chronic Pain and Acute/Regional Pain has been separated. Spend about 2-4 weeks on Acute/Regional service to meet ACGME requirement (~50 patients)
- Manage CHRONIC pain consults on inpatient but not ACUTE pain; super chill, low census
- Spend 2 weeks with Palliative Care, some other time with Neurosurgery to work on neuro exam (not really necessary for us PM&R folks) and reading imaging. Non-Anes fellows will spend maybe a month learning Anes skills, may be built into Acute/Regional experience
- Elective time, PMR for EMGs and MSK clinic
- Large majority of fellowship spent in Chronic Pain clinic; seeing patients and doing procedures mixed into work day. Rarely leave later than 5pm.
- Didactics on Monday afternoons after clinic
- Wednesday journal clubs few times a month
- Full time pain pharmacist, who manages clinic patients for opioids, etc.
- Lots of bread and butter
- 20 stim trials per one fellow, neurosurgery does implants (don't typically scrub in with them)
- Fellows feel really comfortable with all procedures. Some wish they got more exposure to pumps and kypho but otherwise felt training, exposure, and volume were great
- Call will be q3 weeks. Home call. Rarely will need to come in.
- Use EPIC in clinic, can dictate via Dragon if you want
- 2 fluoro suites, however moving to a new clinic in Jan 2015
- Free-for-all in clinic, in terms of patient assignment, unless seen by the same fellow in the past
- Attendings seem all very laid back and friendly
- Average start time 8AM. Home by 4ish. See about 6-7 clinic patients per day.
- Clinic is mixed in with procedures. No separate procedure day. Iowa care which is the Medicaid requires no prior auth so they do a lot of injections on the initial evaluation. All read their own films.
- Good food in the 3 cafeterias
- Low cost of living
Interview Day/Questions
- Super chill interview day. Questions: What are you looking for in a program? Tell me about yourself. What are your future practice plans? Tell me about a difficult patient.
University of Chicago
- 2 anesthesia fellows, both from U Chicago starting in 2014
- Fellows do all procedures (not residents); 5 anesthesia residents in clinic at all times
- Overall very happy fellows
- Only call is 1 weekend per month, rounding on acute pain patients, 8-12
- 1500 procedures per fellow; good bread and butter; ~10 stims, ~10 pumps, ~10 kyphos
- “Chief fellow” duties 6 months of out the year. Run clinic, do schedules, etc.
- Seems to be an attending-centric run clinic. They don't NEED the fellows.
- Decent cancer pain referrals. Ketamine infusions in clinic.
- Anesthesia fellows can moonlight in-house in the OR for $50/hour
- Busy day, didactics every morning at 7AM, get done typically between 3-5pm.
- Staff patients with residents, no scut! No notes
- Not the best didactics, have to study independently
- Take pain in-service exam
- Interview ~ 30 total
Vanderbilt
Details
- Young attendings, all really nice! Jackson (PD) is, per fellows, very holistic in approach. Patil (assistant PD) is graduate of Vandy. Dittrich was awesome and trained at BIDMC; supposedly does a bunch of injections that no one else does. Recruited Huntoon from Mayo… HUGE name is Pain world!
- Beautiful facilities, nice staff and faculty, fellows really nice and chill
- No specifics on numbers for procedures but I got the impression the recently graduated fellows felt pretty comfortable with most everything. Faculty members said there’s probably enough volume to have 6 fellows but don’t have the funding to support that many.
- Most of the year is spent at main Pain Medicine clinic with short periods spent on other services thrown in throughout the year (palliative, PM&R, neurology, neurosurgery). Able to spend elective time at PP clinic, integrative health center, etc
- If you want research, you can get on board with existing projects or have the resources you need to start up your own
- Interviewed ~12-15 for 3 spots
Interview Day/Questions
Why Pain? Why Vandy? Tell me about yourself/hobbies. Tell me about this research. What type of practice do you see yourself in after fellowship? What type of research projects would you like to get involved in in the future?
University of Michigan
Details
5 anesthesia + 3 PM&R spots (2 different matches)
PD is a straight shooter… no nonsense type of guy
Large faculty, non-malignant learning environment, good relationship between PM&R and anesthesia
Fellowship is not high volume, but good variety and plenty of B&B apparently
2-3 stims/year, neurosurgery does implants, good relationship with them to scrub in, etc.
EMG rotation built in along with PM&R MSK clinic for joints
Neurosurgery, Addiction, Acute pain service 6 weeks total, VA for 3 months
High salary + $5000 bonus in Oct for all residents/fellows + $3000 educational fund (have to pay for parking)
Mandatory scholarly activity required
½ day week continuity clinic
Didactics at 6:45AM three days a week, home usually by 5-6pm
Each fellow is assigned an attending mentor x 6 months à have to answer patient calls ~3/day
Interview Day/Questions
Laid back interview, standard questions, why pain, what study would you create if you had unlimited funding, tell me about yourself, weaknesses
UPMC
Details
- New awesome young PD and new big dawg chairman (from B&W)
- About 20-25 applicants on my interview day so guessing they’ll interview about 70ish applicants for the 9 spots?
- Wednesday morning didactics, lots of great topics, attendings run
- Cheap cost of living ($900 for 2 bedroom in Shadyside, cool part of city where all residents and fellows live), pay for PGY-5 next year about $62K
- All the resources you need for research, lots of opportunities for research if you want it
- Fellows seemed cool. Spread out among 6 sites.
- Call pretty reasonable, very little acute pain but you have to cover 3 hospitals and see consults if called up to 4pm. Staff on phone with the attending.
- No moonlighting allowed
- Difficult to gauge how much volume the fellows are doing; you basically work 2 months with a different attending, all have different styles. Per email follow up with one of the fellows in November, he had upwards of 400-500 procedures already
- Lots of driving to different sites in the burbs, max commute 30 minutes
- 1-3 stims/year, no kypho, no pumps
Interview Day/Questions
- Split applicants into morning and afternoon sessions; half do 7 interviews while the other half go on a tour of the city and a few of the clinics then switch
- 7 interviewers
- Why Pain? Tell me about your research. What practice setting in the future? Hobbies? How do you like to manage pain medicine patients? How would you manage difficult patient on high dose opioids? Thoughts on role of opioids in pain. What do you think PM&R brings to the field of Pain Medicine?
Medical College of Wisconsin
3 spots in match, 1 pain+ anesthesia peds outside the match
Main clinic is new. Mon/tues ~30-35 patients between 2 residents and 2 fellows, Wed/Thurs ~10-20 patients
5 months of clinic at MCW, 5 months of VA, 2 months of other requirements
Usually 2 fellows at the main MCW clinic, 1 fellow at the VA
Didactics every Thursday morning at 7
Typical day is 8-4
Home call during the week, anesthesia resident is the first one to call
Solid B&B, numbers are unknown
Work next to a very busy private practice with high volume
All attendings seemed very nice including PD.
New chair is being hired from UF (Dr. Hurley ?) supposedly big dawg
1 internal anesthesia applicant
Montefiore
- Interviewing 15-20 for 3 spots; at least 2 internal applicants
- Excellent procedural volume, very little inpatient consults/management, use of MSK US and time for occasional EMG included
- Rotate with 3-4 main faculty members throughout the year, all very personable
- Strong push for research
- Two of the fellows I met lived on Upper East Side and had about a 45 minute subway ride to Bronx
- Excellent didactic curriculum, spine conference
- Not a big name yet but struck me as excellent training!
Mayo Clinic Jacksonville
Details
- Most of the time spent in the Pain clinic with other rotations including Palliative, Behavioral/ Addiction Medicine, Neurorads (both reading imaging and lots of kypho/vertebroplasty opportunities), PM&R, EMG, Anes (for non-Anes applicants), Pain Rehab Center, inpatient consults (didn’t seem like too many and mainly managed by PAs)
- Awesome numbers, only thing low was pumps but as PM&R I couldn’t care less about pumps. But ya, really great numbers overall!
- Recent addition of PM&R-trained pain faculty member from Mayo Rochester location bringing in way more MSK US which is really cool
- Well-organized program, good didactics but not overwhelming, great research opportunities, if presenting at conferences you get up to $1700 each time, just really nice and pleasant people to train with
- Overall, probably one of the best programs I’ve seen. Only drawback is Jacksonville didn’t seem like that cool of a city but could certainly do it for a year and the winter would be awesome
Interview Day/Questions
- Meet with PD, go over program, etc then tour with fellow, lunch, then interviews with 5 faculty. Chair (Anes) just kept asking me about being a DO and then talked about how much of a benefit the Mayo name was. PD (PM&R) was very laid back, why Pain, weaknesses, tell me about yourself; super friendly. Faculty member (Neuro-trained) didn’t really ask any questions, bizarre painful conversation. Another PM&R-trained faculty member that recently made the move from the Rochester location was awesome; super laid back, talked about some research, asked some questions regarding stuff in my personal statement. Last one was with Pain Psychologist, very nice, asked about future plans.
MD Anderson
Details
- Interviewing 25 for 5 spots
- Rotate services each week: inpatient, clinic, clinic procedures, OR procedures
- Good education, resources, opportunity to get involved in research, beautiful and massive medical center
- Inpatient consists of consults, a little bit of epidural management, take home call during that week. Clinic is seeing patients. Outpatient procedures, 8-12ish/day, B&B stuff. OR is more advanced procedures (stim, pumps, kyphos). PD (former fellow at MDA) said he did like a 100 kyphos during his year.
- There’s also a crazy busy month at a private practice. PD said when he was a fellow, he knocked out something close to 350 TFESIs that month alone.
- Have good mix of anesthesia and PM&R faculty. Dr Abdi (big name in Pain) joined on as chairman a couple years ago.
Interview Day/Questions
- 4-5 interview in the morning, lunch at nice restaurant right on campus with fellow(s). No crazy questions. Toughest questions for me: What was your greatest personal victory and failure? Otherwise it was stuff about CV, research, tell me about yourself, etc
GLA VA/UCLA
Details
- Interviewing 30 for 4 spots, 1 internal applicant
- 6 months at VA: Monday procedures with Anes Pain, Friday with PM&R Pain. Wednesday afternoon injection clnic (joints, TPI, etc with US guidance typically). Half day for admin/research. Lots of B&B as well as some stuff that can only be done in VA (pulsed RF, etc). Inpatient management of PCAs and consults is actually much lighter than I originally thought… very reasonable
- 3 months at UCLA Spine Center: B&B, stims, Mondays are for EMGs, half day for admin/research
- 3 months with private practice Anes Pain Doc: anesthesia pain, cancer pain, CRPS, pumps, neuromodulation, ketamine infusions. Not as much hands on because it’s a cash practice and the patients want the attending to do procedures.
- Nice, approachable, and overall young faculty. Time allotted during week for research/admin. Procedure heavy, exposure to MSK US, EMG.
Interview Day/Questions
- Interview day was disorganized; applicants had to transport themselves back and forth from VA to UCLA site and back again. Barely got any time with one interviewer between his procedures during a procedure day. Interviews were very laid back and friendly, more get-to-know you feel.
Stroger Hospital of Cook County
Details
- Monthly rotation schedule: 1 week procedures, 1 week inpatient consults and a bunch of PCA management, 2 weeks clinic
- Gave impression they weren’t super accepting of PM&R given the amount of inpatient requirement
- Solid B&B exposure probably
Interview Day/Questions
- Disorganized interview day, straightforward questions
Cornell Tri-Institute
Details
- 3 months HSS, 3 months NYP, 3 months MSKCC, other time spent at new NYP West Side location, Palliative Care, Anes/PM&R
- 6 spots I think, approximately a 10:1 interviewee to spot ratio
- Good didactics, big names, strong exposure to all aspects of Pain
- NYP requires pre-op blocks/catheter placement most mornings before clinic
- West Side rotation helping increase procedural volume, especially B&B stuff
- Was disappointed to hear there’s not much hands on at HSS, though the fellows stated the teaching was excellent. It’s a busy private practice feel, sometimes cash-based/VIPs, don’t want fellow to do procedure. Moonlighting opportunities at HSS.
- Unsure of exact numbers but sounded like solid procedural volume overall. Bigger kypho volume (~50) than I expected!
- Beautiful facilities, good resources, great NYC location
Interview Day/Questions
- Overview to start the day then split into two groups; half interview, other half goes on tour of MSKCC then switch
- Typical interview questions, no curveballs
- As PM&R applicant, one HSS Anes attending seemed very concerned about me not getting exposed to pre-op procedures… meh!
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Details
- 7 fellows/year; current class is all Anes, next year’s will have at least two PM&R
- Great name, city, training, resources. Attendings are smart, friendly, laid back!
- Most of year spent at Pain clinic and Spine Center; other rotations include Anes, Palliative, Neuro/Psych
- Inpatient consults/call 1 of every 7 weeks split among fellows
- Daily didactics at 7am; monthly spine conference with spine surgeons and radiology; journal club. Overall, get the sense the education is excellent!
Interview Day/Questions
- Very organized interview day; program coordinator is on top of it!
- Big group of applicants; half interview while the other half is on tour then switch
- Typical questions, no curveballs; laid back, pleasant interviews
Hope this helps some of the future applicants!