Institution: University of Florida
Time spent: 4 weeks
Services: The setup is somewhat unique in that they have two main sites, Gainesville and Jacksonville. Jacksonville houses the proton beam. I rotated through the Gainesville site. From what I remember, I think they had about 6-7 attendings. If you are trying to get an interview, this would be the site to go to as the chair and PD are based here. The rotation is pretty flexible, you are allowed to follow any attending you would like depending on the amount of students rotating at that time. As expected, they are H&N heavy. Dr. Amdur and Dr. (Mr.) Mendenhall are the bigwigs on that service. There is a breast service that offers Intrabeam intraoperative radiation (analogous to Mammosite) if youre interested in that sort of thing. Dr. Okunieff, the chair, does a lot of SBRT and is well-known for his aggressive treatment of oligometastatic lesions dating back to his time at Rochester. I think they were even talking about starting service specifically dedicated to these type of pts. I did notice that the prostate service didnt seem that busy, I imagine the proton beam in Jacksonville cannibalizes a lot of their cases. Practically all peds cases get referred there as well. Probably not a big deal for residents as they rotate there regardless, but you may not see many on your rotation.
Role of students: Basically only expected see new patient consults, 1-2 day depending on what you can handle confidently. You are expected to research the pts on the day prior and write the full H&P the day of the visit. The nurses are very helpful in helping to get all the data ready. They are extremely specific on how they like their H&Ps done (like down to the font size and type). Make sure to ask for the template. You can see OTVs as you please and contouring is optional. Pretty flexible overall. I spent most of my time making sure the H&Ps were high quality as that was one thing they definitely assessed you on.
Presentation: 30 min presentation of your choice during one of the resident education conferences. Most attendings showed up, including the chair. I would strongly advise going over the presentation with a resident and/or the PD prior to the talk.
Research: Although I did not get involved in any research, I was told by the residents that it is extremely easy to get involved in writing something up. They apparently have a very well-oiled machine in terms of publishing clinical outcomes data. They have a data manager, statistician, and copy editor that is hired by the department for the sole purpose of publishing data. They have an annual meeting where they present this data. Its apparently well-respected, recent keynote speakers were Thomas Merchant of St. Judes and Buchholz from MDACC.
Didactics for students: No specific didactics for students. Basically you just follow along resident education conferences.
Impression:
Ill try to make this section detailed as havent seen much about this program recently and there have multiple requests in thread. Moderator, this might be useful in the impressions thread as well.
For the visiting away student, I think this would be a great opportunity. The faculty and residents are friendly and easygoing. Logistically, I would try to avoid July and August as you will likely be competing with UF students who are already familiar with some of the faculty. I think the externs are treated well, and there didnt seem to be a UF bias as they appeared to have more residents from other institutions. Getting housing wasnt a big deal, lots subleases available in a college town shouldnt have to pay more than 500 or so.
Overall, I think the prevailing view of UF is that it was considered one of the pioneering institutions of Rad Onc (department was founded in the 60s) but kind of tailed off for bit. From my impressions at other interviews, most people think they are making a resurgence under the direction of Dr. Okunieff (formerly chair of Rochester and the NIH). I think I would agree. As a whole, I was very impressed by the program. Things that I thought were positives:
- Strong chair with pedigree and national presence who can bring funding and is well-connected.
- A good amount of brand name faculty (Amdur, Mendenhalls, Okunieff, etc)
- Protons. Debatable, but I think proton exposure is a definite plus, for better or worse they are here to stay and patients will want you to be informed about them.
- Research structure. Every program is going to have research, but it seems like UF makes it easier on the residents by allocating some of scut (data collection, stats, etc) to in-house professional help.
-Job placement wise, I cant really comment for sure but I think the residents told me recent grads got jobs at UNC, Jefferson, and Stanford. Private practice wise I think its pretty variable, but I did see in the rankings thread that someone from UF is part of that Princeton Radiology group and apparently he thinks pretty highly of UF (
http://cure.cancer.ufl.edu/2012/01/1...tion-oncology/ )
-A senior PD who is actively involved. I know this doesnt get talked about a lot, but I think its an important facet that gets overlooked. Lots of programs assign the PD spot to a younger attending and they are unable to protect resident interest because they may have to yield to senior faculty at certain times. They also are less likely to know about getting jobs as its probably their first academic position. Dr. Amdur struck me as someone who would go to bat for his residents and has been around the game long enough to know about job placement, playing the publishing game, etc .
-Tradition and stability. This is plus/minus, but I did note there were references to a "UF technique" or a UF way of doing things. Several attendings have been with the department for literally decades. It was not unusual to see a 30 year f/u in clinic. I would say its a plus for being exposed to 30 years of experience, but maybe a minus in that there is probably more resistance to change in a place with a well-established tradition. Although with protons and SBRT, I would say there are some novel things being pushed.
In terms of negatives, I think the obvious one is location. Gainesville is your standard college town, in line with places like Ann Arbor, Chapel Hill, etc. How much you like a place like that is going to be person dependent. Another potential negative might be case load. I dont think they have a problem meeting minimum case load, but if you are one those types who learns by volume (think MSKCC) then this probably wouldnt be the place for you. Prestige may be another factor to consider. I think within Radiation Oncology, UF is well-respected because of its history, but unlike other elite programs it does not have the backing of a major cancer center or an Ivy league endowment. Im not sure how much it actually matters in practice, but those are some issues that frequently come up on this board.
Offered an interview: Im sure it depends on your performance, but I think its generally accepted they interview the rotators (at least they did in my case). However the caveat to that would be that it didnt seem that there were many rotators my interview year and there was only one interview date, so its conceivable you may not get one.