I'm a student at St. V's right now. I've been on other services with some of the ortho interns and have met most of the residents. I'll be on Ortho in May. Everyone I talk to is really happy there. The residents are a lot of fun and work hard. It is the polar opposite of malignant. Dr. Frank Jaeblon, the PD, is pretty laid back. The residents call him Doc. He pretty much hand picks the residents so you need to rotate there and do well. It's huge if the residents like you. It was explained to me that the residency is not linked because they want to have a year to make sure you're not lazy or hard to work with. It is not a pyramid intership where they take more people than they have spots. If he knows you want to do ortho there and you get an intership spot, you've got a residency spot unless you screw it up. You won't be in the dark when the match comes around. You do a traditional rotating internship, but you do all your electives in Ortho, Ortho sports med, or trauma and a lot do their IM elective in Rheum. They've got 4 spots now (from 3) and are adding faculty to meet the demand for cases in the coming years. As a student they seem to let you do a lot. St. V's is a level 1 trauma center and gets more trauma than MCO. MCO ortho comes there too in fact. Bottom line is that it is a good program and I wouldn't be scared off by it not being linked. PM me in a few weeks if you want.
